 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL
ARTICLE EXTRACTS: JFK’s Strategy of Peace On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy delivered what many believe was the finest speech of his presidency. Its title was “The Strategy of Peace,” the occasion commencement day at American University, a venue carefully chosen: the university is known for its dedication to public service, for the global reach of its student body, and for its focus on international affairs, including a program on conflict resolution—in short, a very American university. Kennedy’s address prompted a range of responses. In Britain, the Manchester Guardian called it “one of the great state papers of American history.” In a move without precedent, the Soviet leadership permitted its publication and broadcast in Russian, almost in full. At home, by contrast, critics dismissed it as advocating “a soft line that will accomplish nothing…a dreadful mistake.” Yet in retrospect, President Kennedy’s central points seem as important, relevant, and realistic today as they proved to be in the decades following his address. It was my privilege to be among the listeners that June day at Reeves Athletic Field in northwest Washington, having come directly from Air Force One, which returned that morning from Hawaii. Only the day before, in Honolulu, the president was urging the National Conference of Mayors to help calm the civil rights crisis that flared during that historic, hectic summer. Back in Washington, I sat there, tired, somewhat unwashed. The president, being the president, had stopped at the White House to shave. But, otherwise, it was a nonstop marathon. At American University, Kennedy called, as no predecessor ever had, for a reexamination of America’s attitude toward the Soviet Union, toward the Cold War, toward peace itself. “What kind of peace do we seek?” he asked. “Not a Pax Americana, forced on the world by American weapons of war….” His appeal for sanity and restraint clearly stemmed from the events of the previous October—human history’s most dangerous 13 days—when the sudden secret emplacement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought the world to the brink of incineration. President Kennedy had been able to secure the removal of those missiles without firing a shot and without violating international law. *Theodore C. Sorensen is of counsel at the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He was commencement speaker at American University on May 11, 2003, and the essay that follows is adapted from his address. Quixotic America
The pretensions of the Bush administration go far beyond any efforts to transform Iraq into a liberal democracy. The ultimate goal of the administration is to do away with a multipolar world, leaving the United States as the predominant world power while other nations are to be content to play supporting roles. We don’t want allies. We want satraps. Countries that challenge our imperial role—notably France and Germany, Russia and China—are to be stripped of this ambition when they are confronted by American military and economic prowess. Make no mistake about it: the Bush administration is not interested in internationalizing policy in the Middle East. But the other great and near-great powers want to be in a position to affect the political situation in Iraq, and indeed in the Middle East writ large. Contrary to American policy, the goal of these “lesser” powers is to create a multipolar world in which the United States does not predominate. Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, made this American aim clear at a speech she delivered in London this past June. Europe, she said, must repudiate the “multipolarity” that in the past “was a necessary evil that sustained the absence of war” but “did not promote the triumph of peace.” “Multipolarity,” she added “is a theory of rivalry, of competing interests—and at its worst—competing values. We have tried this before. It led to the Great War.” Her message was clear: Give up the quest for a multipolar world. Embrace a unipolar world in which nations band together under American direction to “make common cause against freedom’s enemies.” As it happens, Rice’s version of history is badly skewed. It was not multipolarity, which for most of the nineteenth century produced the semblance of a balance of power, that led to the First World War; conflict came about because Germany tried to overturn the balance that existed at the turn of the century. In short, it was the breakdown, not the existence, of a balance of power that caused the Great War. *James Chace, editor of this magazine from 1993 to 2000, teaches international relations at Bard College. He is also the director of the Bard/NYC Program on Globalization and International Affairs. His new book, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs: The Election That Changed the Country will be published in May 2004. Transatlantic Folly: NATO vs. the EU Recent months have seen an explosion of commentary about the transatlantic relationship. Much of its content is familiar. Indeed, the same basic issues run through five decades of discourse about Western interdependence: Is the transatlantic relationship properly balanced? Are the West European allies treated as genuine partners? Do they carry their proper share? Do European and American basic interests diverge? Who, in fact, is exploiting whom? Significantly, throughout the Cold War there was no lack of loud complaints about transatlantic imbalance from the Americans. From one postwar decade to the next, successive administrations accused their European allies of free riding on American military power. The complaints were not merely financial—about relative military spending—but also diplomatic and political. The real American grievance was not so much that Europeans were militarily dependent. In many ways, American policy struggled to preserve that dependency—through the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example. More often, the grievance was that America’s Western allies, despite their military dependency, remained remarkably independent politically and diplomatically. They disagreed with successive American administrations not only over such matters as the appropriate level of military contributions, or how to organize nuclear and conventional deterrence, but also over how to deal with the Russians, or manage the dollar’s international role and the global economy in general. America’s allies, moreover, were often able to impose their views—or at least to force the United States into compromises that its various administrations would have preferred to avoid. Such complaints suggested that, despite Europe’s dependency, the nato alliance was remarkably balanced during the Cold War. For better or worse, it was a real alliance, rather more a Western concert than an American-run empire. If contentious disagreements were normal throughout the Cold War, why do so many analysts believe the present quarrels indicate a genuine break with the past? Why is the alliance now widely thought to be in an existential crisis? The most obvious answer is that today’s U.S. government is much less willing to defer to its Western allies. But what has made preserving the Western alliance so much lower a priority for the United States? It is not self-evident why Europe should weigh less than formerly. Europe, after all, is richer and more integrated than in 1970 or 1980, and now has the euro. To be sure, Europe’s hard military power is not equal to that of the United States. But this has been the case since the end of World War II. Why now, when the common enemy has disappeared, should Europe’s relative military weakness be so important? *David P. Calleo is University Professor, The Johns Hopkins University, and the Dean Acheson Professor and Director of European Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C. Reengineering the Volatility Machine: In October 1997, shortly after the economic collapse of Thailand and Indonesia, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission in Korea produced an optimistic evaluation of South Korea’s near-term future. “The situation in South Korea,” the fund noted, “is quite different to that in Southeast Asia, and our assessment is that the weaknesses in the financial sector are manageable if dealt with promptly. While there are obvious risks, macroeconomic fundamentals remain strong and the current account deficit is narrowing towards a more comfortable range.” The report went on to forecast a 6–7 percent growth rate for South Korea in 1998. Within weeks, the South Korean currency broke down and the country’s financial system collapsed. Instead of rejoicing in the strong macroeconomic fundamentals identified by the IMF economists, investors fixated on the short-term dollar obligations owed by Korean institutions, which totaled well over $100 billion. Against this debt, South Korea’s central bank had less than $30 billion in reserves. As the currency dropped, investors refused to renew maturing loans and fled the country, causing further weakness in the currency. Korean companies with dollar debt saw it grow sharply relative to their assets, which were denominated in the falling Korean won. With rising debt levels comes the risk of default, and as corporate default risk escalated, the collapsing debt structure quickly undermined the real economy. In 1998, amid a 10 percent decline in real wages and skyrocketing unemployment, the South Korean economy contracted by 6 percent. Not surprisingly, the IMF shelved its October 1997 report. One of the most common failings of development economists and policymakers has been their inability to distinguish between a country’s underlying economy and the condition of its balance sheet—that is, the ratio and structure of its assets (i.e., tax revenues, international reserves, the credibility of its central bank) and its liabilities (what it owes to domestic and foreign lenders, its guarantees to bank depositors, etc.). The IMF economists were embarrassingly wrong about South Korea’s susceptibility to crisis, as were, to be fair, most economists working at other financial institutions, but it was not the quality of their economic analysis that was at fault. They were probably correct in their evaluation of macroeconomic conditions, but they failed to understand how South Korea’s highly unstable debt structure would undermine its economic fundamentals. They were like auto mechanics who, having found that the engine parts were in working order, pronounced the car to be in good shape, all the while failing to notice that the wheels were about to fall off. *Michael Pettis is a professor of international finance at Tsinghua University (Beijing), a former investment banker, and the author of The Volatility Machine: Emerging Economies and the Threat of Financial Collapse (Oxford University Press, 2001). “In the Lord’s Hands” Examples of apocalyptic violence are everywhere in the world, though not always recognized as such when they come from our part of it. *Robert Jay Lifton is a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author, among other works, of Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New Global Terrorism and Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. RECONSIDERATIONS Remembering Ralph Bunche
Diplomats, even those renowned in their lifetimes, are destined, it seems, to be forgotten by fickle publics. So it has proved with Ralph Bunche. In 1950, the year he won the Nobel Peace Prize, New York City gave him a ticker tape parade on Broadway. Today, he has faded from the memory of most. This unjustly forgotten Nobel Laureate deserves recognition more than anyone else for formulating the U.N. principles of peacekeeping. He also helped shape the United Nations Charter and negotiated the Israeli-Arab armistice lines that endured from 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967. His biographer and longtime U.N. colleague, Brian Urquhart, called Bunche (who died in 1971) the most remarkable public servant he had known. He left his mark at home as well as abroad. An African American, born a century ago in Detroit, Bunche was an early campaigner for civil rights and a principal collaborator with the eminent Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal in preparing the landmark study, The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944). It was this writer’s good fortune to have worked under Dr. Bunche when, as a civil servant in the State Department and the U.N. Secretariat, he was helping to plan the United Nations and then bringing it to life. Perhaps his most significant characteristic was his drive to excel. It was there from childhood, and he drove himself harder than anyone else. This seemingly inherent instinct was reinforced by the conviction that he could help his race by showing that a black man could be an achiever in a white society. His stamina was phenomenal. His recollection of the first round of armistice negotiations between Israel and Egypt on the island of Rhodes illustrates the point. He told friends that conditions were primitive. The facilities of the Hotel des Roses were limited. The cuisine was execrable. At the final stage of negotiations, the participants were stretched to the limit. All suffered from dysentery, including himself. But, as he remarked, “I was the strongest. I outlasted them.” He exercised his prerogative in chairing the meeting to keep all parties negotiating nonstop until they could no longer resist agreement. Thus, according to its recipient, was the Nobel Prize won. *Lawrence S. Finkelstein is retired from a career in government, U.N. and nongovernmental service, and academia. He is a founding member of the Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee. REFLECTIONS Post-9/11: A Brazilian View The events of September 11, 2001, have been commonly described as a turning point in international relations, creating a new world order that to a large extent is dominated by the United States. Nevertheless, it is worth asking whether September 11 did in fact constitute a watershed in world politics. My answer would be a qualified “no,” in the sense that although these events marked an important change in the international agenda, they did not, per se, transform the global system of international relations. An analysis of the issues raised by September 11 suggests that, as with any other major phenomenon, they contain elements of both disruption and continuity. The post-9/11 world order has changed not so much as a result of the specific acts of terrorists, but rather due to the demonstration of power by the United States. This did not begin with September 11. It was implicit in the campaign speeches of George W. Bush and was evident from the beginning of his administration. To an extent, Osama bin Laden’s terrorists simply made more visible what was already developing before 9/11. The terrorist attacks occurred at a moment when the United States, having prevailed in the Cold War and buoyed by ten years of economic boom, had reached a level of strength so dominant that it could only be compared to Imperial Rome. In Império, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe the nature and reach of U.S. power today, contending that the United States views itself as the ultimate authority in promoting globalization and a new world order. By “empire,” they mean a global economic system, which should not be confused with the threadbare concept of “imperialism.” This “empire” does not have defined territorial boundaries, since it is in itself a process of “deterritorialization” that is gradually incorporating the entire world within its open borders. The power exercised by this “empire” has no limits since it is not born out of conquest, but rather represents the only plausible route to growth and prosperity today. The United States, in the words of the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye “the most powerful country since Rome,” forms the dynamic central nervous system of the new economic order. Being a privileged actor, it is the United States that “imposes order” and “rules” the empire, extracting from it the greatest dividends. It is therefore natural that the United States, as the sole superpower, has achieved a position of incomparable superiority in all areas: economic, technological, cultural, and military. Political dominion, which is the exercise of this superiority, is a direct and natural result of this situation—and something the United States will strive to maintain by any and all means. *Rubens A. Barbosa is the ambassador of Brazil to the United States. This essay was drawn from a paper originally presented at the National Forum in Rio de Janiero in May 2002. BOOKS World Law with a Human Face
As anybody teaching international relations knows, one can never ignore what magazine editors call the “MEGO factor,” MEGO being the acronym for My Eyes Glaze Over. A quintessential MEGO topic is “The Future of Foreign Aid,” with “Understanding World Law” and “How Diplomats Negotiate” trailing only a little behind. It is thus a token of the literary skill and stamina of these three writers that their books readably address the densest of international relations subjects: the making of treaties and the enforcement of global covenants meant to deter humanity’s otherwise incorrigible addiction to violence. Each volume employs the same essential strategy of using individual lives as the armature on which to build a narrative. Margaret Macmillan not only brings to the fore the giants who shaped the imperfect peace signed at Versailles, but also such forgotten secondary figures as the seductive Queen Marie of Romania and Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos, “the greatest Greek statesman since Pericles.” For her part, Samantha Power rescues from obscurity, among others, the indefatigable Polish-born lawyer, Raphael Lemkin. Before dying penniless in 1960, Lemkin coined the word “genocide” and against all probabilities secured global recognition for what had been a crime without a name. The Genocide Convention he promoted was in turn finally ratified by a reluctant U.S. Senate, thanks in part to 3,211 speeches by another half-forgotten hero, Wisconsin’s William Proxmire, who delivered a shaming prod every day the Senate sat during a 19-year period. (Senator Proxmire, it should be noted, was the Democrat elected in 1957 to fill the seat vacated by the death of the too-well-known Joseph R. McCarthy, and served four terms before retiring.) And finally, in a tour de force, Dorothy V. Jones exhumes from musty annals such totally forgotten figures in the quest for international justice as Sarah Wambaugh, a ladylike alumna of Radcliffe College who became the world’s reigning expert on organizing plebiscites, which she did in South America during the 1920s and a decade later in the Saar Basin, squeezed between Germany and France. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book with so much new, curious, and important detail. *Karl E. Meyer is the editor of this magazine and the author, most recently, of The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (PublicAffairs, 2003).
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