American Foreign Policy in the 1990s: An Overview

AMERICAN FOREIGN. POLICY IN THE 1990s: AN OVERVIEW Paul H. Nitze .he preceding thirteen essays were commissioned to respond to two questions: Which one current international development (political, strategic , economic, technological, or environmental) holds the greatest significance for U. S. national interests in the 1990s? How should the United States react to this development? Each of the issues covered is important and should be addressed in the formulation of a U.S. foreign policy for the nineties. Rather than choose the particular issue which justifies categorization as the most important of the thirteen to U.S. national security interests, it would perhaps be useful to suggest how an integrated approach might apply to the group as a whole, while noting what facets necessary to a fuller understanding do not appear in the group of issues covered, or may have been inadequately covered. Richard Benedick and Peter Thacher deal with the dangers to the environment caused by an enormous and growing world population improvidently consuming or poisoning the basic natural resources of the planet. This is undoubtedly the most basic threat facing not only the United States but the world as a whole. Melvin Conant is right to point out that energy shortages are among the most important resource problems facing the United States and merit priority attention. Yet, the more general environmental problems should be put first. Ambassador Paul H. Nitze is diplomat-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Ambassador Nitze retired from the State Department in 1989, after five decades of dedicated public service. 53 54 SAIS REVIEW It is unthinkable that the problems of the environment will not have a central place in any U.S. foreign policy program for the nineties. The problem has many facets. These include: the processes leading to a growing hole in the high-altitude Antarctic ozone layer; global warming from excessive release and inadequate absorption of hydro-carbons into the atmosphere; and the excessive release ofsulphur and nitric oxides, which produce acid rain and ground-based ozone and which together are killing our streams, lakes, and even coastal waters and threatening the world's forests. Paramount environmental concerns also include the diminishing varieties of plants and animals in the world, the decreasing fertility of agricultural lands, and over-fishing of the oceans. The environmental process on which I personally have put most attention is that of cutting in half, within the next ten years, the release into the atmosphere of nitrogen oxides, and doing so at an affordable cost. Other papers deal with problems which the authors believe merit higher attention than current U.S. policy appears to attach to them. Gerard Smith singles out non-proliferation. Past work on the issue has constrained proliferation more than was thought possible twenty years ago, as he observes, but today new risks are arising. The spread of nuclear technology undoubtedly presents large dangers. But it does not follow that we should cease all nuclear testing now. Reduction in underground testing should parallel the progressive elimination of the need to rely upon nuclear weapons for the bottom line of our defense. Charles Ferguson is concerned that, as we enter the information age, the United States is in danger of losing its leadership in important segments of the relevant technology. William Cline emphasizes the enormous threat to world trade and to the economic future of the United States of persisting and perhaps worsening trade imbalances, while Richard Feinberg stresses the problems facing the IMF in its task ofmaintaining reasonably steady and effective exchange rates. These are all important problems, but each has a place below a more general heading covering economic stability. Other contributors stress the importance of refocusing U.S. foreign policy. Senator Kassebaum suggests that "just as it was incumbent upon us in the late 1940s to take a leadership role in containing communism, it is now incumbent upon us to play a leadership role in nurturing and assuring the growth of democracy." She goes on to argue, "While we can and should feel confident that this era of transition toward democracy is a tribute to our values and ideals, our response to this development...