1999

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1999 Page 31

by Richard Nixon


  Neither the administration nor the Congress has paid sufficient attention to this critical situation. If the Philippines becomes another Third World battleground, American interests, those of Japan and our Western allies, and those of the Philippines’ neighbors throughout the South Pacific, including Australia, all will suffer.

  Mrs. Aquino’s election as President rejuvenated the spirit of the Filipino people. A majority still support her. But political legitimacy without economic growth and military security is fragile. And in the Philippines personal legitimacy is rare among government officials. No one questions President Aquino’s own integrity. But in view of the fact that her family is one of the two richest in the country, it is particularly important for her to make sure that the “Philippine disease,” a deadly combination of nepotism and corruption, does not infect her government.

  We should not make the mistake of treating the Filipinos as our little brown brothers. We do them no favors when we subsidize policies we know will fail. We should substantially increase our economic aid, but only if it is used to implement sound economic policies. Otherwise we waste money on building false hopes. As tens of thousands have shown after they emigrated to the United States, the Filipinos are a talented and hard-working people. All they need is government that will tap their enormous potential. If President Aquino vigorously implements a market-oriented economic policy she will be able to harness the energy and enthusiasm of her people and attract the foreign investment she needs to spur greater growth.

  The Philippines’ neighbor to the south, Indonesia, is one of the least known, most underrated nations in the world. It was the first Asian country I visited as Vice President in 1953. I saw it through the eyes of President Sukarno, one of the most charismatic leaders I have ever met. He had elaborate dreams for the future of his newly independent country. But his irresponsible policies and personal corruption turned into a nightmare for Indonesia. His successor, President Suharto, has slowly brought the nation back from the chaos of Sukarno’s last years. Indonesia could well become a giant in the twenty-first century. It is rich in natural resources. It has enormous strategic importance. It is the fifth most populous nation in the world. The Indonesians, blood brothers of the Filipinos, are a capable people with great potential. All they need is continued strong leadership to provide political stability and new economic policies that reward initiative and attract foreign investment.

  Two of Indonesia’s neighbors, New Zealand and Australia, are among the most important and promising nations of non-communist Asia and also the most frequently overlooked. One does not have to agree with its foreign policy to agree that New Zealand’s Labor government is providing a vivid example of how economic policies that rely on private enterprise are far more effective in providing progress than policies that put excessive faith in government planning. If Australia’s Labor government, whose foreign policy is much more to our liking, were to follow New Zealand’s example, this geographical giant would without question become an economic giant in the next century.

  If the malignant cancer of Vietnam can be prevented from spreading, the future of noncommunist Southeast Asia is bright. One reason is the dramatic change in China’s attitude toward its neighbors. In 1953, all the leaders I met in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia feared the communist giant to the north for its support of revolutionaries in their countries. Today China has good relations with all its neighbors except Taiwan. It is still feared, but for different reasons. As China modernizes its economy it could swamp the smaller economies, particularly in labor-intensive, mass-production industries such as textiles. That is why farsighted leaders in Malaysia and Thailand are planning moves into high-technology industries.

  Violent change drags a nation down, while peaceful change can take it to infinite heights. The legacies of both are written on the face of the Far East. Its stark contrast between freedom and tyranny should help other developing nations that face this choice make the right one.

  On the Asian subcontinent, the struggle between India and Pakistan is a tragic example of a Third World conflict that would exist even if there were no Soviet Union. India is the world’s largest democracy with close ties to the Soviets. Pakistan is a United States ally that is gradually evolving toward democracy. Since they were granted independence from Great Britain in 1947 over five million people have been killed in the slaughter that followed partition and in two wars between the two new countries. With 250,000 belligerent, heavily armed troops still facing off across the border, this conflict can only be compared with the Mideast as the major source of instability in the Third World.

  India is a country of great hope and great misery. In 1999 it will have over a billion people. One third of the world’s poor live there. In one area India has had remarkable economic progress. In the 1960s it combined wise use of technological and financial aid with free-market incentives, and the agricultural sector responded with an explosive boom. India now produces enough food to feed its 800 million people and still have some left over for export. This is one of the world’s most exciting examples of how wise government policies can unleash the energies of an able people and solve a problem many thought could not be solved.

  The rest of the Third World should learn lessons from India’s successes in the 1960s. It should also learn from India’s failures in the 1970s and 1980s. A promising industrial base grew in the 1960s, but government bureaucracy, the poison that saps the vitality of most Third World economies, grew faster. Like Chinese and Filipinos, Indians who leave home prosper in nations such as the United States that do not frustrate initiative and hard work. The average Indian emigrant to the United States has a higher income than an average American. But in India the remarkable industry of individual Indians is wasted in an economy stifled by excessive government regulation and protectionism.

  Yet to its great credit and despite incredible odds, India still has one of the Third World’s few working democracies. In 1947, when India received its independence, it had a population of over 400 million: 250 million Hindus, 90 million Muslims, 6 million Sikhs, and millions of Buddhists and Christians; 500 independent princes and maharajahs; 23 main languages with 200 dialects; and 3,000 castes with 60 million “untouchables” at the bottom of the heap. Whatever differences we may have with Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors, governing such a country with a democracy, except for a brief period of martial law under Mrs. Gandhi, is one of the most remarkable political achievements of the twentieth century. One is reminded of Dr. Johnson’s famous comment on a woman preaching, “It is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised that it is done at all.” Those who believe India is not governed well should remember how miraculous it is that it is governed at all.

  Pakistan has also suffered from political and economic strife throughout its thirty years of independence. Since 1977 it has been led by President Zia ul-Haq, an enlightened military leader who has provided the political stability essential for economic growth. But he recognizes his people’s democratic aspirations and has implemented a process of gradual democratization that, if not frustrated by political violence or Soviet pressure from Afghanistan, will lead to another round of free elections in 1990.

  Traditionally Pakistan has been an ally of the United States, while India’s foreign policy has tilted toward the Soviet Union. Pakistan today holds the front line against Soviet expansion into South Asia. It supports the Afghan freedom fighters and plays host to over three million refugees. These courageous policies have been deadly dangerous. In retribution Soviet aircraft attacked Pakistan over 600 times in 1986 alone, and the number of attacks increased in 1987. Soviet agents are attempting to destabilize Pakistan with terrorist bombings and by fueling ethnic strife.

  That a democratic nation such as India can have a pro-communist foreign policy is one of the geopolitical paradoxes of this century. It is the only major noncommunist country that has not condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and i
s one of the few nations to have full diplomatic relations with Kabul. It is the only noncommunist country to have an embassy in Phnom Penh. It has extensive military and economic relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviets deal directly with almost all levels of the Indian public and private economy and even contribute to Indian politicians. In 1985 India supported the United States at the UN 8.9 percent of the time—less than communist Mongolia.

  It is hard to understand why India fears Pakistan as an aggressor. India has a population of 800 million; Pakistan has a little over 100 million. India has twice as many combat aircraft as Pakistan and the fourth largest conventional army in the world; Pakistan has the thirteenth. India is concerned about American military assistance to its foe, yet during the past three years the Soviets have supplied India with twice as many weapons as Pakistan has received from us. India detonated a nuclear device in 1974 and is now vociferously objecting to the Pakistani nuclear program. President Zia has repeatedly proposed signing a nonproliferation treaty; India has refused to do so.

  The greatest external threat to South Asia is Soviet expansionism. The Pakistanis know this, and some Indian officials, businessmen, and correspondents have begun to express concern that India’s policy of looking to the West but leaning to the north may prove fatal. The Indians can sleep with the bear only so much longer without being mauled.

  The greatest internal threat to these two countries is economic stagnation that could undermine their political stability. Poverty feeds the ethnic discord that weakens the Indian nation. Poverty can frustrate Pakistan’s transition to democracy. For two of the poorest nations in the world to be spending $8 billion a year for arms to be used against each other is obscene. The time is long past for strong statesmen in both countries to declare peace with each other and declare war on the poverty that plagues both their countries.

  The Arab–Israeli conflict is another example of a forty-year war that wastes enormous resources desperately needed for economic development. The conflict would exist even if the Soviet Union played no role in the Mideast, but Kremlin leaders have exploited it at the expense of our interests in the region. At the same time, the Middle East is a part of the Third World in which active U.S. involvement has been indispensable to advancing the cause of stability and peace.

  None of the countries directly involved in the Arab–Israeli conflict has achieved a high standard of living for its people, and many are saddled with the twin crises of massive indebtedness and huge population growth. Yet since the partition of Palestine after World War II, the Israelis and the Arabs have fought five full-scale wars—in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982—and have been engaged in endless skirmishes and military incidents. Most countries in the world measure their military expenditures in terms of percentage of GNP; in the Arab–Israeli wars, military spending of the countries involved could be measured in terms of multiples of their GNPs.

  The United States can and should play a constructive role in helping to resolve the conflict in the Mideast. As Henry Kissinger has said, the Soviet Union can help the nations of the Mideast to wage war, while the United States is the only nation that can help them make peace. We have achieved a great deal in the last forty years in the region. Since 1948, we have guaranteed the survival of the state of Israel. We have also been the only force consistently pressing for a just resolution of the conflict. One of the greatest American diplomatic achievements of the postwar period was President Carter’s negotiation of the Camp David Accords that established peace between Israel and Egypt in 1978. But we must not rest on our record. If we fail to promote the cause of peace, we will encourage those who want to advance their causes through war.

  In the 1973 war, I ordered the massive airlift of equipment and materiel that enabled Israel to stop the two-front advance of Syria and Egypt. In her memoirs, Golda Meir, Israel’s Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur War, wrote, “The airlift was invaluable. It not only lifted our spirits, but also served to make America’s position clear to the Soviet Union, and it undoubtedly served to make our victory possible.” Our commitment to the survival of Israel runs deep. We are not formal allies, but we are bound together by something much stronger than any piece of paper: a moral commitment. It is a commitment which no President in the past has ever broken and which every future President will faithfully honor. America will never allow the sworn enemies of Israel to achieve their goal of destroying it.

  There are strong reasons, other than the moral one, for the United States’s support of Israel. It is the only democracy in the Mideast. It is the only nation whose population challenges Japan’s as the world’s best educated. With virtually no natural resources it has built an industrial economy that competes successfully in the world economy. Its armed forces are among the best in the world. Israel has impressed the world with all it has accomplished during forty years of war. It will astonish the world with what it can accomplish in forty years of peace.

  But our interests and Israel’s require more than our unquestioning political support. America needs to renew the active diplomatic role played in the Carter administration. Some observers disagree with this view. They argue that if the United States simply continues its foreign aid to Israel and gives unswerving support to Israel’s refusal to negotiate on the question of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, Israeli security will be ensured for the indefinite future.

  Their view is misguided for two reasons. First, we cannot afford the present distortion of our foreign-aid budget. Three billion people in the Third World are eligible for U.S. foreign aid. Israel, a country with a population of only two million, receives over one quarter of the entire budget. Our aid to Israel and Egypt totals over half our foreign aid. That policy cannot continue. There are many countries in which the United States has a major strategic stake and which desperately need our aid. We cannot help the Philippines or the struggling democracies of Central America build for peace if we are too strapped from subsidizing war in the Mideast.

  Second, a policy of complacency puts American and Israeli interests at risk. Many Israelis are content with a diplomatic stalemate. While it might serve their interests in the short run, it will lead to disaster in the long run. Israel has won the last five wars and will win the next one. But with each round of violence it loses more men, and the prospect of a stable peace recedes still further. Moreover, just as the Koreans and the Vietnamese learned to fight, so will the Arabs. Israel’s interests lie in negotiating peace now, when it is stronger than its adversaries, rather than waiting until their growing strength forces Israel to do so. Despite our friendship, Israel cannot survive forever as an island in a sea of hatred.

  A continued stalemate also undermines moderate Arab governments that are willing to negotiate with Israel. Many supporters of Israel believe that the peace process should stop now that Egypt has opted out of the conflict. In their view, the United States should conclude a strategic alliance with Israel and keep all other Arab states at arm’s length. That serves the interests of neither the United States nor Israel.

  We should ask ourselves some fundamental questions. How long can the moderate governments of Jordan and of Egypt, which was once described by Napoleon as the most important country in the world, survive against the twin threats of radicalism and fundamentalism in the absence of progress in the peace process? How long will these governments be willing to pursue their present pro-Western policies if pressure from pro-Israeli groups prevents the United States from using its leverage to advance the peace process and even from selling arms to a deserving state like Jordan? Israel must accept that its own interests require the United States to establish close ties with the moderate Arab states—and that those states will remain stable partners in peace only if the diplomatic process advances toward a wider peace instead of miring down in a stalemate.

  Time has never been on the side of peace in the Middle East. An Arab–Israeli war has broken out every decade in the postwar period because a political stalemate was permitted to form in
peacetime. The United States should therefore adopt a more realistic policy in the Middle East. It should seek good relations with moderate Arab states, particularly Jordan, Eygpt, and Saudi Arabia. It should also actively press forward with the peace process. Sending the Secretary of State on semiannual tours to consult with the leaders of the region will never succeed in advancing productive negotiations. Just as Kissinger did in his shuttle diplomacy in 1973–74 and President Carter did at Camp David in 1978, America must use its leverage to bring the parties together and to create incentives for settlement.

  The next step in the peace process must focus on the future of the West Bank and the riot-torn Gaza Strip. An observation made by David Ben-Gurion should guide our policy. He said that the “extremists,” who advocated the absorption of Arab lands, would deprive Israel of its mission: “If they succeed, Israel will be neither Jewish nor democratic. The Arabs will outnumber us, and undemocratic, repressive measures will be needed to keep them under control.” Israel’s interests require a peace settlement for the land occupied in 1967. If Israel annexes these lands, it will become a binational garrison state, with disenfranchised Arabs composing about half its population. Moreover, given the high birth rates of the Palestinian people, Jewish people will soon be a minority in the Jewish state. If it continues its military occupation and gradual colonization of these territories, it will eventually bring about a united Arab world hostile to Israel, with greater opportunities for Moscow to enter the region than ever before.

  President Eisenhower kept the Soviet Union out of the Mideast in 1956 and 1958. I did so in 1973. But now that the United States no longer has nuclear superiority it will be virtually impossible to keep the Soviets out if there is another Mideast war.

 

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