Real War (32 page)

With regard to less sensitive technology, we should structure our deals with the Soviets as much as possible so that we retain leverage. Modern plants that are dependent on a steady supply of spare parts or that need sophisticated maintenance create opportunities that we can exploit to our benefit. Wheat or other grain sales can be held back or canceled to induce positive behavior. We must recognize, however, that if limiting trade is to be effective as an instrument of policy, U.S. unilateral action is a very weak reed. The Russians, or other countries
whose policies we are trying to affect, can fill their needs from other industrial nations—all of whom are allies of the United States. United action on the economic front by the United States and its allies is as essential as a coordinated military policy if we are to deter aggression.

Many trade deals—turn-key plants, for example—have a crucial disadvantage in that they have no value as a bargaining chip once the deal has been made. Once a plant has been built in the Soviet Union we cannot take it back, nor can we require the return of technology already transferred.

Most favored nation status is an economic lever we can use for diplomatic purposes. MFN status is something we routinely extend to nearly all our trading partners. In essence, it provides that in such matters as tariffs and trade regulations we will treat that country as favorably as we do any other country. MFN status has the effect of reducing import duties on goods from those countries extended it; it is something the communist bloc countries want very much. As of 1979, only four communist countries had MFN status: Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary; China was given it early in 1980.

As long as the Soviets continue to be actively engaged in aggressive policies around the world, we should under no circumstances grant them this status, for that would send a signal that aggression pays. On the other hand, neither should we say they will never get it. We should hold out MFN status as an incentive to moderate their behavior in the future.

The overwhelming majority of the people of Eastern Europe, and even their communist leaders, are anti-Russian. They resent the presence of an occupying power. Eastern Europeans have had significant exposure to the ideas of freedom and democracy, something the Russians have never had. They are courageous people who have borne a tremendous burden since 1945. They face difficult years ahead and they deserve our support, both spiritually and materially.

In general, it is in our interest to expand the choices Eastern Europeans have about where they can buy their goods. The
Soviets use their economic stranglehold over their satellites in Eastern Europe to keep them in line politically. Any alternative the West can provide lessens Eastern Europe's dependence on the Soviets.

Trade lessens the Eastern Europeans' dependence on the Soviet Union; it also keeps open the bridge between East and West. The Eastern Europeans are starved for contact with the other half of Europe, so the human contact that results from trade has a more significant leavening effect on them than it does on the Russians. It is a mistake to look at East-West trade solely in bilateral U.S.-Soviet terms. In the long run the less spectacular contact between the two halves of Europe, Eastern and Western, may prove much more important.

Of course, our trade with Eastern Europe has to be limited by the fact that most of what we transfer there can become available to the Soviet Union. Especially with regard to high technology, we can expect that whatever we crate and send to Prague or Warsaw will eventually be unpacked in Moscow.

We must also be discriminating in providing favorable trade terms to Eastern European countries. Countries such as Poland or Romania that are not engaged in adventurist foreign policies should get favorable treatment from us. Those such as East Germany, which openly participate in aggression around the world, should not.

Finally, we must recognize that the peoples of Eastern Europe will not become independent of the Soviet Union overnight. Trade and contact with the West will inevitably lead to more economic independence for the satellite nations, but we must not ask or expect them to assert their political independence prematurely. The tragic experiences of the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968 showed that the Soviets will not allow themselves to be pushed too far too fast.

Soviet domination of China would be a potentially mortal blow to the free world. A weak China invites Russian aggression;
therefore it is in our interest to bolster the Chinese economy.

China may now be at an important turning point. The People's Republic is in desperate shape economically and its leaders are finally acknowledging that they could use help from the West. The internal convulsions of the period when Mao and the extreme leftists tried to run the world's largest country on revolutionary rhetoric have now ended, at least temporarily. The present Chinese leaders are trying to tackle China's greatest task—modernization—in a more sensible way. They openly acknowledge that they can learn from the West. The success or failure of their effort over the next few years to bring some measure of modernization to the Chinese people may determine whether China continues in its more moderate stance or reverts to revolutionary chaos, isolation, and belligerence. It is obviously in our interest that the Chinese remain open to Western ways. The boost that trading with the West, especially with Japan, gives to their modernization plans will be crucial to the decisions they make about their future path. That is why we are justified in giving MFN status to China and denying it to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union threatens us; China, as of now, does not.

Whether dealing with China, the Soviet Union, or Eastern Europe, we should ensure that the bottom line in our trade policy is its impact on our geopolitical objectives. We should make a deal with the Soviets only when it involves a significant diplomatic or political payoff for us. As much as possible, we should seek arrangements that allow us to withdraw advantages if the Soviets do not keep their end of the bargain. We should not put our faith in their future goodwill. We should use our economic power to give the Eastern Europeans an option and to encourage them to pursue independent and nonadventurist foreign policies. We should use our economic power to help build a less vulnerable China and—by making it in their own interest to do so—to encourage the Chinese to follow the path of moderation.

Trading with the communist countries can backfire on us if we do not use our power in a very precise, surgical manner, on a case-by-case basis. Still, we must be willing to take some risks in the hope of creating a more peaceful and prosperous world.
If we do not use the tremendous advantages our economic power gives us, or if we throw those advantages away by giving trade away, we will be squandering one of our most valuable resources in World War III.

The task of harnessing our economic strength to our foreign policy goals is quite different when we deal with allies instead of adversaries.

From 1946 to 1976 the United States provided over $180 billion in foreign aid for 137 nations around the world. Much of it was wasted, some of it did not advance our interests, but on the whole it was a massively expensive but worthwhile investment in our goal of building a peaceful and better world for ourselves and all peoples.

The most dramatic use we made of our economic power came in the wake of World War II, when we helped Europe back onto its feet with the Marshall Plan. Britain's Foreign Secretary Bevin said our aid was “like a lifeline to sinking men.” With it, we did more than prime the pump for European economic recovery. By showing the Europeans how important they were to us, we catalyzed the energies of an exhausted continent. Our generosity toward Germany, Italy, and Japan enabled them to make the transition from enemy to ally without resentment toward us. Never before had a victorious nation financed its defeated enemies back into competition with it.

We acted as trustee for all of Western civilization in those crucial years, and the dividends that have accrued for all mankind have proved the worth of our investment. Then we were helping industrial nations recover from war. Now our aid has a broader range of purposes.

First, American aid must be used to strengthen the economic base of nations, such as South Korea, to which we provide military assistance. Second, we must aid nations that face a threat from within, which need foreign aid to stabilize their economies and thus deny the revolutionaries a “cause” that will enable them to overthrow the government. Third, we must continue to be generous in providing purely humanitarian aid
to victims of natural disasters such as earthquake, famine, and flood. Disaster victims suffer regardless of the kind of government they have, so they should be helped regardless of the sort of government they have—as we recognized when we sent relief to earthquake victims in Romania in 1977. In the case of a ruthless communist regime such as that in Cambodia, however, we should ensure that our aid goes directly to the people, not to the government to keep itself in power. Fourth, two-thirds of the world is underdeveloped; we have a practical as well as a humanitarian stake in aiding its development. But this stake is shared by the other advanced nations, which should also share in the tasks of development. Those nations we helped rebuild after World War II should now help others to build. Fifth, aid can sometimes be used to great effect in achieving specific diplomatic gains, as it was in bringing about the Egyptian-Israeli accord in 1979.

When I first traveled in the Far East in 1953, some of the “old China hands” told me, “Give every Asian a bowl of rice and there will be no communism.” This was not true then and it is not true today. Poverty does not produce communism; communism produces poverty. Communists can find other issues besides poverty to exploit. But advancing countries are less vulnerable than stagnant countries, and even if communism were not a threat to the world, helping people escape the bonds of poverty would be something we should do because it is right, just as helping people preserve freedom is something we should do because it is right.

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We cannot aid all nations equally and we should not apologize for singling out for special economic assistance countries whose security is particularly important to us. The Soviets are not shy about providing aid where they think it will best advance their purposes. Outside the communist world, almost half of Soviet economic aid between the years 1954 and 1976 went to four countries: India, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Turkey. In each of these countries the Soviets had a tremendous geopolitical stake. Egypt provided the first foothold the Soviets had in the Middle East, although they have since lost influence there. Afghanistan has now fallen under their control, and Turkey is developing into a major economic battleground.

Before World War I Turkey was known as the “Sick Man
of Europe”; now it is almost a terminal case. Inflation has been running at nearly 100 percent, unemployment at 20 percent, and Turkey's foreign exchange earnings have not been enough to cover its oil bill. Yet with Turkey desperately in need of our aid, Congress, because of pressure from the Greek lobby, cut it back. There is an old saying: A Turk will burn his blanket to kill a flea. If we anger the Turks further with our spiteful behavior, they may burn their bridges to the West. The Soviets are waiting for this to happen. As we have cut back our aid to Turkey, they have stepped up theirs, providing over $1 billion in recent years. They will not hesitate to fill the vacuum in Turkey if we bow out. Cuba is costing the Soviets $3 billion a year and Ethiopia has cost them at least $2 billion already, but they are willing to bid high for countries they want.

In providing economic aid there are three rules we should follow.

First, just as a banker does a borrower no favor by making a bad loan, we do countries no favor by providing aid that only perpetuates inefficiencies. We should not insist that recipients adopt our political system. But we should tie aid to sound economic policies, insisting that it go for projects that have a good chance of success. By being firm about this, we can help developing nations learn the easy way lessons that other nations have learned the hard way about what works and what does not.

Second, we should resist the clamor to channel more of our aid through multinational agencies such as the World Bank. The charters of these organizations do not allow them to discriminate among nations on a political basis. It hardly serves the United States' interests to pay a third of the bill for the World Bank while the World Bank provides a fifty-year 1 percent loan to Vietnam in spite of Vietnam's continued aggression against its neighbors. The answer is not for us to pull out of the World Bank, but we should recognize reality and concentrate more of our available aid money in bilateral programs where we can use it effectively to advance our foreign policy purposes.

Third, we should use our aid to further our policies, and to further the cause of peace and stability in the world. It should not be simply a handout to whatever country needs it. Countries
that slap us in the face on issues of vital interest to us—by refusing to support us, for example, on an issue like Iran's seizure of American hostages in violation of every principle of international conduct—should not expect us to ignore this when they ask us for aid.

In the long run one of the greatest advantages we derive from the economic power of the West may come not through our direct use of it, but through the attraction it holds for people around the world. Although many Third World leaders are more interested in guns than in butter, some are not. President Gaafar Nimeiry of the Sudan spoke for these others recently when he said, “We say to the Soviet Union and its allies: ‘Get your hands off Africa. The continent needs tractors, not guns.' ”

In 1958, speaking in London, I said, “What must be made clear and unmistakable for all the world to see is that free peoples can compete with and surpass totalitarian nations in producing economic progress. No people in the world today should be forced to choose between bread and freedom.”