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April 1970
Vol 48, Number 3 << Previous: January 1970 | Next: July 1970 >> FIND FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON A NEWSSTAND NEAR YOU  |  |
To Prevent a World Wasteland
George F. Kennan
Not even the most casual reader of the public prints of recent months and
years could be unaware of the growing chorus of warnings from qualified
scientists as to what industrial man is now doing-by overpopulation, by
plundering of the earth's resources, and by a precipitate mechanization of
many of life's processes-to the intactness of the natural environment on
which his survival depends. "For the first time in the history of mankind,"
U.N. Secretary-General U Thant wrote, "there is arising a crisis of
worldwide proportions involving developed and developing countries alike-
the crisis of human environment. ... It is becoming apparent that if
current trends continue, the future of life on earth could be endangered."
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Youth and Foreign Policy
Steven J. Kelman
Protest against the war in Vietnam became, along with marijuana and long
hair, the symbol of the Revolt of Youth in America of the sixties. To be
sure, the Revolt of Youth was far from a universal phenomenon among young
people. Many millions continued going about the business of studying,
staking out a life's work for themselves, launching a family-or fighting in
the Vietnamese jungles. To a large extent, this was a revolt of the best
educated, the most articulate, the most self-confident and self-conscious.
In short, it was a revolt of the élite among youth. The rebels gained
influence far beyond their numbers precisely because "The Establishment"
was more interested in the escapades of élite youth than in the activities
of, say, the blue-collar young. Youthful dissenters and revolutionaries
benefited in this way from precisely the élite status they claimed to be
rejecting.
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A Nuclear China and U. S. Arms Policy
A. Doak Barnett
China's emergence as a nuclear power poses new and important issues for
U.S. strategic and arms-control policy. How one assesses the "China
problem," and the alternative means to cope with it, has a direct bearing
on what the American position should be on key questions in the U.S.-Soviet
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) during the months and years ahead.
It will certainly influence-directly or indirectly-major decisions of the
United States and the Soviet Union on whether to build or forgo new weapons
systems.
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The Future of Israel
Nahum Goldmann
After more than 50 years of Zionist activities-among them many decades over
the international diplomatic front-and on looking back on the experiences
gained in the 20 years of the existence of the state of Israel, I am
beginning to have doubts as to whether the establishment of the state of
Israel as it is today, a state like all other states in structure and form,
was the fullest accomplishment of the Zionist idea and its twofold aim: to
save Jews suffering from discrimination and persecution by giving them the
opportunity for a decent and meaningful life in their own homeland; second,
to ensure the survival of the Jewish people against the threat of
disintegration and disappearance in those parts of the world where they
enjoy full equality of rights. In expressing and explaining these thoughts,
I want to make it clear that I have no doubt as to the historical
justification and moral validity of Zionism. The concentration of a large
part of the Jewish people in their own national home, where they are
masters of their destiny, seems to me to be the only way to solve what has
been called for centuries "the Jewish problem."
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Lenin: His Legacy
Adam B. Ulam
Official anniversaries are for the Soviets not merely occasions to
celebrate and eulogize a famous man or event. They are also-if not mainly-
occasions for that self-congratulation of which the Soviet régime has made
such a rite, and against which the most uninhibited patriotic oratory on a
similar occasion in the United States would appear a pallid understatement.
In fact, the U.S.S.R. celebrates its thanksgiving several times a year. In
speeches and editorials the pretext for the celebration is usually disposed
of in the first few sentences and perhaps reverted to again at the very
end. In between (and it is usually at length) the listener or reader is
treated to production figures then and now, to assurances about the
invincible might of the Soviet Union, and yet of its peaceful intentions,
of the startling achievements of Soviet science. . . .
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Lenin: A Contemporary Portrait
Victor Chernov
Editor's Note: This article by Victor Chernov, Lenin's fellow revolutionary
and political rival, appeared in Foreign Affairs March 15, 1924, following
Lenin's death on January 21 of that year. It is reprinted here on the 100th
anniversary of Lenin's birth.
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Our Involvement in Laos
Robert Shaplen
The debate over Laos, almost as intense if not as bitter as the Vietnam
debate, has done more than clarify the nature of the American involvement
in that patchwork kingdom which has played a secondary but significant role
in the Vietnam war while also engaging in its own struggle to survive as a
unitary nation. The Senate's dual actions in prohibiting the use of ground
combat troops in both Laos and Thailand, and in curbing the right of the
President to make a "national commitment" to any country without prior
Congressional approval, have temporarily satisfied the common determination
to avoid "another Vietnam." But the fundamental problem of how American
policy should be made and conducted in Southeast Asia has only begun to be
reëxamined.
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Alliance Rhetoric versus Latin American Reality
Abraham F. Lowenthal
More than ten years have passed since Fidel Castro entered Havana in
triumph. It is almost as long since the Alliance for Progress was
proclaimed. A great deal has changed in this period, both in Latin America
and in the United States. Much has happened in the hemisphere; more has
failed to happen.
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Stalin's Successors
Robert Conquest
It is common ground that something roughly describable as "re-
Stalinization" has been taking place in the Soviet Union over the past five
years. More precisely, the present leaders are re-Stalinizing in the sense
that they are consolidating the Stalinist institutions (a little shaken by
Khrushchev's various reorganizations); preserving the rule of Stalin's
chosen personnel ; restoring the rigor of his doctrines; putting a stop to
the exposure of any more indecent facts of Soviet history; and tightening
up the ideological and political disciplines required by his system. They
are not reinstituting (and are occasionally and mildly deploring) those
elements of Stalin's technique which were directed to terrorizing the party
apparatus itself. Nor are they practicing indiscriminate repression against
the population. Stalin, to atomize society and build his new system on its
ruins, relied on creating total insecurity among friend and foe alike. The
present rulers have neither the need, nor the will, to do this: only their
critics have anything to fear from them. Stalin revolutionized a society;
the present-day "Stalinists" wish to consolidate the new one. The aim is
different: but above all the mood is different-a timid (though sometimes
panicky) mediocrity has replaced a raging will.
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Nonalignment and the Great Powers
Leo Mates
Nonalignment emerged and developed in the years of the dominant bipolar
pattern of great-power relations. It was a product of the rising tensions
of the cold war and a reaction against the alignments formed at the end of
the Second World War, when the split between East and West converted allies
into rivals and then into enemies. It was the result of the desire to stay
out of the developing conflict and have no part in the new alliances which
later formalized the postwar division of the world. This desire was
prompted not only by lack of affinity for the causes of the split, but also
by the determination to preserve as much freedom of behavior in
international relations as possible.
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Rumblings Along the Red Sea: The Eritrean Question
John Franklin Campbell
Twelve hundred miles south of Suez a struggle to control the farther
entrance to the Red Sea is well underway. Though naturally overshadowed by
the Arab-Israeli conflict to which it is not unrelated, the contest to the
south involves substantial issues for great and small powers alike, who
look to the future of the African Horn and the Red Sea basin. More than
this, the problem of Eritrea, together with the related question of French
Djibouti's future, is an intriguing one which, for all its complexities,
recorded in past United Nations resolutions and every kind of East-West,
North-South compromise, still may prove soluble short of major war. For the
armed struggle along the Red Sea's southern rim is thus far a conflict of
subdued violence and muted, if bizarre, ramifications.
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A World of Preferences
W. Michael Elumenthal
Virtually last among the world's major industrial nations-but by no means
least-the United States has now agreed to offer some form of tariff
preferences to imports from developing countries. President Nixon's Latin
American policy address last October, followed by his statement on November
10, signaled what amounts to a major shift in U.S. policy by calling for a
broad system of generalized preferences, with the proviso that if this
cannot be achieved, the United States may extend regional preferences to
Latin America alone.
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