Seize the Moment (23 page)

Gorbachev played a skillful diplomatic game in Asia. While enhancing Soviet relations with South Korea—moving from no ties to full diplomatic relations in only three years—he continued to back North Korea, though slapping its leader on the wrist for its nuclear program. While Soviet trade with South Korea will rise from $85 million in 1985 to an estimated $1 billion in 1995, Moscow continued to provide $1 billion in aid to North Korea and to equip the 1.1 million troops in its armed forces with Soviet weapons.

Gorbachev's strategy was to use his military, political, and economic policies to supplant the United States as the principal
power along the Pacific rim. We should seek to make the new noncommunist leadership in the Russian republic a partner in resolving the issues on which Gorbachev would accept only a partial accommodation. Unburdened by the totalitarian baggage of the past, the new noncommunist leaders should be more willing to demilitarize the Sino-Soviet border, to phase down Soviet naval deployments in the Pacific, to accept a political settlement in Afghanistan based on elections, to cut off the Communist regimes in Vietnam and North Korea from military and economic aid, and to return the Northern Territories to Japan.

With modernist, democratic leaders instead of insular, Communist despots, Russia can begin to make a constructive contribution to Pacific security. But the United States cannot assume that this process will occur in a fortnight. The nations of the Pacific triangle harbor deep national suspicions of each other. Unlike Americans, the Russians have traditionally had great difficulties relating to China and Japan, not only because of their political differences, but also because of their clashing cultures and centuries of geopolitical antagonism. A closed and parochial society for much of this century, Russia has a strong streak of xenophobia that will influence its Pacific policies even in the postcommunist period. Because the new leaders in Moscow have ceased being Communists does not mean that they have ceased being Russians.

China, Japan, and the smaller countries in the region want a continuing, strong U.S. military presence in the Pacific. Current U.S. ten-year defense plans—which foresee a 12 percent cut in Pacific troop deployments in the first phase alone—must not reduce our forces to the point at which we would lack the forward-based infrastructure needed for a major intervention into the region. The 16 percent of U.S. forces
stationed in the Pacific are stretched thin already. Cuts proportional to those made in our European forces would seriously weaken our ability to deter countries that might harbor ambitions of dominating the region through military coercion or intimidation.

Compared to Europe, our deployments in the Pacific are not great. But they make an enormous contribution to regional stability. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations spend a total of over $50 billion a year on defense, a figure that will rise to $120 billion by the year 2000. To cap this growth, the United States should maintain a high profile in the region, keeping both its naval forces in the South Pacific and its ground forces in South Korea and Japan. In addition, it should work with friendly countries, such as Singapore, that will allow an increased U.S. presence through short-term rotation of aircraft at their air bases and ship maintenance at their naval yards. While these measures might pack little military punch, their symbolic value is vital to keeping potential escalations of arms spending in check.

Our military presence must be sufficient to prevent a security vacuum from developing in the Pacific. Over the last forty-five years, U.S. security guarantees have enabled the countries of East Asia to develop politically and economically, and our own standard of living has benefited significantly as a result. Other countries might be able to match our economic, political, or military power. But unlike the three members of the Pacific triangle, the United States has no history of hegemonic aspirations. We may think of China's, Japan's, and even Russia's imperialism as ancient history, but in the region they are as fresh as the morning's news.

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Although we must avoid pretensions of acting as the prime mover in the geopolitics of the Pacific rim, we have a unique role to play. Only the United States has the credibility to maintain the balance of power in the region, an essential precondition for Pacific prosperity.

The conflicts between the powers of the Pacific triangle did not begin with the cold war and will not end with the end of the cold war. As a nation, Americans have difficulty grasping the depth of historical antagonisms between other nations. But these intractable conflicts have dominated the politics of the Pacific triangle for decades. The record of the rivalry between Japan and Russia reaches back far beyond the postwar period. The centuries-old, visceral antipathy between Russia and China and between Japan and China cannot be overcome by a cleverly worded communiqué. Though a more democratic and less aggressive Russia should be able to tamp down the most acute conflicts, it would be foolhardy to assume that all the great rivalries between Pacific nations that predated the Communist era will remain dormant.

Japan, a democratic ally and a technological power capable of building nuclear weapons, must remain our intimate geopolitical partner, regardless of our commercial disputes. The new governments in the Kremlin and the Russian republic have created the possibility of closer economic and political relations with Tokyo, once the Northern Territories are returned to Japan, but these would be short-lived in the absence of an active U.S engagement in the Pacific. Without a security link to the United States, Tokyo might temporarily strike a security deal with Moscow but would inevitably develop its own nuclear weapons, thereby rekindling its historical antagonisms with Russia and China.

Just as Japan is a political ally but an economic competitor, China is a potential strategic partner despite its totally unacceptable violations of human rights. A stable and modernizing China is vital to Pacific security. We cannot ignore China's internal repression, but it should not be ostracized or endlessly harangued. Besides the United States, no great power—neither Japan, Russia, nor any country in Europe—can foster peaceful change in China. While we may have to work with repugnant hard-line leaders in the short term, a continuing engagement with China will serve our interests and those of the Chinese people in the long term.

Most important, as a result of the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union, a window of opportunity has opened to explore the possibility of what Gorbachev might have called a “common transpacific home.” We should recognize that Russia, like the United States, has a proper role to play and legitimate interests to protect in Pacific affairs. But before we can welcome even the new Russian leaders as constructive geopolitical partners, they must first check their guns at the door.

A continued U.S. presence in Europe is important, but a continued U.S. role in the Pacific is indispensable. Without the United States, the Pacific triangle will be like a three-legged stool: unstable and potentially dangerous. The competition among Japan, China, and Russia would be unbridled, with each driven to seek preeminence in the region. The United States must serve as a stabilizer—the fourth leg of the stool—in order to advance the interests of all East Asian nations. Whether or not East-West relations continue to improve, America's role as regional balancer, honest broker, and security guarantor in the Pacific will only increase in importance.

M
ANY
A
MERICANS TEND TO STEREOTYPE
Muslims as uncivilized, unwashed, barbaric, and irrational people who command our attention only because some of their leaders have the good fortune to rule territory containing over
two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves. They remember the three wars waged by the Arab states to try to exterminate Israel, the seizure of American hostages by the fanatical Ayatollah Khomeini, the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics by the Palestinian commandos from the Black September organization, the endless and senseless slaughter by rival Muslim militias in Lebanon, the bombing of civilian airliners by Syria and Libya, and the attempted annexation of Kuwait by a Hitler-like Saddam Hussein. No nations, not even Communist China, have a more negative image in the American consciousness than those of the Muslim world.

Some observers warn that Islam will become a monolithic and fanatical geopolitical force, that its growing population and significant financial power will pose a major challenge, and that the West will be forced to form a new alliance with Moscow to confront a hostile and aggressive Muslim world. This view holds that Islam and the West are antithetical and that Muslims view the world as two irreconcilable camps of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb—the house of Islam and the house of war where the forces of Islam have yet to prevail. It foresees the forces of resurgent Muslim fundamentalism orchestrating a region-wide revolution from Iran and other states and prompting the need for a comprehensive Western and Soviet policy of containment.

This nightmare scenario will never materialize. The Muslim world is too large and too diverse to march to the beat of a single drummer. Many mistakenly assume that the Muslim world is equivalent to the Middle East. But more than 850 million people—one-sixth of humanity—live in the thirty-seven countries of the Muslim world. These nations have 190 ethnic groups who speak hundreds of distinct languages and dialects and who belong to three main religious sects—the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Sufis—and dozens of
minor ones. They cover a 10,000-mile-long swath of territory extending from Morocco to Yugoslavia, from Turkey to Pakistan, from the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union to the tropics of Indonesia. More Muslims live in China than on the Arabian peninsula, and more live in Indonesia than in the entire Middle East. The former Soviet Union, with over 50 million Muslims, has more than any Middle Eastern country except Turkey. At current birth rates, there will be more Muslims than Russians in the former Soviet Union in the next century.

Only two common elements exist in the Muslim world: the faith of Islam and the problems of political turbulence. Islam is not only a religion but also the foundation of a major civilization. We speak of the “Muslim world” as a single entity not because of any Islamic politburo guiding its policies but because individual nations share common political and cultural currents with the entire Muslim civilization. The same political rhythms are played throughout the Muslim world, regardless of the differences between the individual countries. Just as all Western countries have parties that advocate the free market, the welfare state, and socialism, the Islamic countries have groups that subscribe to the main political currents of the Muslim world—fundamentalism, radicalism, and modernism. This commonalty of faith and politics breeds a loose but real solidarity: when a major event occurs in one part of the Muslim world, it inevitably reverberates in the others.

The rivalries in the Muslim world have made it a caldron of conflict. The short list of these conflicts includes Morocco versus Algeria; Libya versus Algeria; Libya versus Chad; the Arab world against Israel; Jordan versus Saudi Arabia; Syria versus Jordan; Syria versus Lebanon; Saudi Arabia versus the small Gulf states; Saudi Arabia versus Yemen; Iraq versus
Syria; Iraq versus Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; Iraq versus Iran; the Arab Gulf states versus Iran; Pakistan versus Afghanistan; India versus Pakistan and Bangladesh; and Indonesia versus Malaysia and New Guinea. Since many countries are artificial composites of several nations or ethnic groups, potential internal strife pervades the region. Many states in the Muslim world are future Lebanons waiting to happen.

Demographic, economic, and political trends make conflict increasingly inevitable. The global population explosion centers in the Muslim world. The population of the Middle East alone will double by the year 2010. At the same time, the economies of the region will not grow sufficiently to prevent a drop in living standards, thereby undercutting the meager ability of governments to buy off threats to stability and peace. In many areas, basic resources—such as water—will become ever more scarce, prompting disputes or even wars over their control. National borders, many of which are artificial creations of the European colonial powers, have increasingly been challenged, both between countries and from minorities within countries. Brittle political regimes, mostly authoritarian dictatorships or traditional monarchies, depend on their monopoly of force rather than support of their people to stay in power. Political liberalization has led more often to fragmentation than to democracy.