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An American Posture for the 1990s
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14406 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1988 |
3,915 Words |
| Author
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Jerry Hough
Jerry Hough is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
and professor of political science at Duke University. |
Nothing is more difficult than to prescribe an intelligent foreign policy for the future. Any simple-minded policy--whether "hard-line" or "soft-line"--is simply counterproductive, while words like "détente" are so vague that they have little concrete content. Similarly, to call for a combination of "cooperation and competition" is to use another meaningless cliché. Even the early Reagan administration still cooperated with the Soviet Union in such traditional areas as the allocation of broadcasting frequencies, the definition of fishing rights, and the establishment of safety rules at sea.
The crucial concrete question is: when and how should we cooperate? when and how should we compete? It is not easy to be specific beforehand, for the answer varies with the situation and with the stage in negotiations. We must begin with a clear sense of what we want to achieve or, rather, what we want to achieve that we can achieve. The Reagan administration has been right in insisting that its hard-line approach sometimes induces more meaningful concessions from the Soviet Union and even increases its incentive to reach an agreement. But then the president has usually failed to sign an agreement that would bank the concessions. He simply kept the pressure on and ended up achieving nothing.
Paradoxically, American liberals and moderates have come to a similar point by a different route. They have made such a fetish out of dialogue, negotiations, and agreements that they have given little thought to what they want to obtain out of them. It is not, as the conservatives charge, that the moderates and liberals give away the store in their desire for agreement. Rather they have agreed so quickly to vacuous treaties that little has been
... (1988 of 23677 Characters)
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