CHAPTER THREE
IN John Le Carre's novel The Secret Pilgrim, his erstwhile hero, spymaster George Smiley, is one evening lecturing some young spies-in-training after dinner over a brandy. One of these young spies asks Mr Smiley: "Sir, what was the purpose of your life?" Mr Smiley responds, "The purpose of my life was to end the time I live in." Unlike Mr Smiley, we in the West didn't fail. We won the Cold War. Not that the victory matters a damn -- maybe we didn't win, maybe they just lost. Maybe, free from the bonds of ideological conflict which restrained us, our problems are only now beginning.
President Bush put it a little differently. In his view the Cold War was artificially imposed on regional, ethic, economic and national rivalries. What we have now after the Cold War is not Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" but, rather, the resumption of history. It is my view that -- free from fears of nuclear Armageddon, and from the riveting focus of superpower confrontation -- regional tensions may very well come to the boil at a lower temperature than that required within the kettle of United States-Soviet confrontation. The Economist of London put it best when it said that the billing and cooing of the superpowers didn't necessarily mean the world would be run by pigeons.
Let us be frank about what has been going on in the United States, over the last four years, regarding Asia. It is not exactly a state secret that the United States was somewhat exhausted at the end of the Cold War. They were somewhat dazzled by the tearing-down of the Berlin Wall. They were amazingly interested in the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. And finally -- when it looked as if they might be getting back to business in Asia -- they had Operation Just Cause in Panama, and Desert Storm in Iraq. As a result, American policy towards Asia has drifted to some extent in recent years. God knows there are plenty of things to think about in the region.
The first is this: we are going to have a new player in the Pacific, and that player is called the Russian Federation. Previously Eastern Europe was the door for Russia in Europe; right now Eastern Europe is a barrier to the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation's resources are in the Far East, and I believe that population growth will follow these resources. Furthermore, the attempt by Kim Il-Sung to do what is theoretically impossible -- that is, either to perpetrate or to perpetuate the first Marxist monarchy -- is fraught with peril for us all, certainly for the Republic of Korea.
How the United States and Japan manage their relationship is also highly significant, as Japan takes a fuller role in the international community: a role that will include, perhaps, peace-keeping forces. If they manage this well, we will all benefit; if it is not handled well on either side of the Pacific, it will redound to the disadvantage of all of us.
The gerontocracy that has ruled China for the last 40-odd years will one day pass from the scene, and then what happens? This question concerning the future direction of mainland China is given added point by the recent procurement of high-performance aircraft and the rumoured procurement of a Ukrainian aircraft-carrier. These are matters which can't escape our attention.
American policy-makers are often accused of only spending time thinking about North-East Asia and the North-West Pacific. The unfortunate events of 1992 in Thailand, however, had a way of directing our attention back to South-East Asia: back to the realisation that democracies, particularly new democracies, are extraordinarily fragile. They need to be tended, to be paid rigorous attention.
As we look at the Philippines, we see President Ramos now trying simultaneously to control an insurgency and to develop some concept of nationhood for a country which has heretofore lacked a common identity, a real understanding of who it is. The Philippines remains an area of high concern. So do the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands, where -- if one assumes that great resources exist in the nearby waters, oil in particular -- there could well be competing claimants for control.
But there is another matter of regional interest, particularly to Australians. It has to do with South Asia. We have the spectacle of Pakistan and India shouting, glaring and shooting at one another over the disputed land territory of Kashmir. One might ask, "What's new about two Third World countries shouting, glaring and occasionally shooting over disputed land?" What's new is that these two Third World nations may indeed have nuclear weapons. The outcome of this struggle has enormous consequences for us all. Fortunately there is comfort in the fact that over recent times, America has been enjoying about the best relationship which it has ever had with India. Nevertheless there are still serious questions. Given her great size and enormous population, one doesn't necessarily begrudge India a robust military capability; yet when India has thus far been unable to articulate the foreign and defence policy into which that robust capability fits, then queries become unavoidable.
But other security problems in the region aren't necessarily related to actual territory. Weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of IRBMs, concern us all. During the Gulf War we were all mesmerised by the spectacle of Israel and Saudi Arabia under attack by Scud missiles. The fact of the matter is that such technology lies within the grasp of every nation except the dirt-poorest or the most enlightened. And the irony of the IRBM technology is that in military terms it isn't a very useful weapon. It can't hit anything, it's very inaccurate. This very inaccuracy brings about the horror. Because IRBMs are inaccurate (and expensive), their owner will opt for area weapons, fuel-air explosives, chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear warheads: to make it all more worth his while, and to get more bang for his buck.
About 20 years ago, Marvin Gaye had a popular song called Mercy, Mercy Me: one of whose verses went "Where have all the blue skies gone?/Oh, this overcrowded land,/How much more abuse from man can it stand?" It has been man's abuse of "this overcrowded land" that in the past has led to conflict. The 1967 Six-Day War was as much a war over water as a war over anything else. In 1985 Israelis and Jordanians were having what almost became a military dispute over water. As populations grow, competition for resources increases. Environmental threats and environmental problems are going to come more and more to the fore of every national consciousness.
The same Marvin Gaye album which contained Mercy, Mercy Me had another song whose words have always meant a lot to me: "Father, father, we don't need to escalate;/War is not the answer, only love can conquer hate." As a parent, this is a concept which I embrace and which I will share with my children. As a theoretical and religious point, I certainly endorse it. But as a practical matter, it seems to me that nothing has slaked man's appetite for adventure at the expense of his fellow man; nothing has eliminated the search for economic advantage; nothing has dulled the nationalistic rivalries. If there is one lesson that the United States has learnt, it is that the ending of the Cold War has not ended the necessity for military clout. Our two recent endeavours, both in Panama and in Iraq, give added emphasis to this truth.
The great irony these days is that at the very moment of the free world's victory over the forces of totalitarianism, voices are raised in America urging the United States to come home and pay attention to domestic issues. That such voices are raised is inevitable. Scepticism about the intentions of outsiders, about the wisdom of being involved with them, has long been a staple of American thought. It is quite obvious that the problem of providing for the general public good in America is intimidatingly vast. But at this moment, to heed those voices of isolationism and unilateralism would be to spoil the victory, and to squander the sacrifice that made it all possible. And as far as I am concerned it does very little to resolve the problems which sap American's vital strength. Isolationism is not cost-free. Unilateralism is not risk-free. The United States can either use its powers wisely and well, or use them foolishly and badly. To set them aside is to choose the latter. If they decide to disengage, to walk off the playing field, it is every bit as irresponsible as a reckless intervention when America's vital interests are not at stake. In fact, unilateralism and isolationism are completely compatible with adventurism and interventionism. Both reflect a lack of patience, a lack of knowledge, a lack of constancy and a lack of vision. They represent a uniquely parochial view of America as the centre of the universe; and they consider that universe to be itself negative, or irrelevant, or perhaps both. This negative view envisages the United States reacting only at the eleventh hour of a crisis: rather than acting steadily, resolutely, throughout in order to prevent a crisis.
I take the view that after 50 years' struggle -- first against the forces of Fascism and latterly against the forces of Communism -- America has come home. This home is not bounded by the constitutional limits of American law, nor are they bounded by the continental limits imposed by our two great oceans. This home is in the family of nations, at the head of a mighty and peaceful coalition. The architects of that home are well-known to Americans -- Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton -- and the master-builders of that home are well-known to all of us: Lincoln, Wilson, the two Roosevelts. Every single post-war president has shared the vision of a world made safer and more humane by an America fully engaged in defence of human freedoms and human rights across the world.
A siren-song of isolationism has always been perceptible in American history. It is something that has to be resisted every day, and I hope that this responsibility of the world's greatest nation will not be avoided.
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