Preparing American Policy For The 21st Century. - Review - book reviews

PREPARING AMERICAN POLICY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY EDITED BY DAVID L. BOREN AND EDWARD d. PERKINS UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS 1999, 432 PAGES, $24.95

First, it was "the economy, stupid." Now, it is "foreign policy, stupid." Quagmires seem to have been the U.S.'s stock in trade during the 20th century. One has only to name Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. As America enters the 21st century, Washington finds itself having to practice both restraint and noblesse oblige. That is proving costly.

NATO, originally pieced together for purposes of defense, now is undertaking projects dictated more by moral demands, as seen in Yugoslavia. The alliance seems to be exponents of its own kind of jihad.

On the eve of the millennium, the U.S. is faced with new challenges in a rapidly changing world. This book attempts to essay those challenges and to suggest what directions must be taken to carry America forward. The overarching demand is that Washington think always in global terms as, more than ever, Americans realize they live in a world that will make it together or not at all.

David L. Boren, a former senator and now president of the University of Oklahoma, and Edward J. Perkins, a former U.S. ambassador and presently a professor there, put together a conference addressing forthcoming foreign policy problems and invited some of the outstanding experts to present papers, give commentary, and hold discussions. The result is about the best primer one could have in the field. The big names are there, each representing their areas of expertise, including Clayton K. Yeutter for trade relations; David R. Gergen for the media; and Henry A. Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick for foreign policy.

Li Daoyu, a former Chinese ambassador, argues the need for a good relationship between China, the largest developing nation, and the U.S., the world's largest developed nation. Indeed, all of Asia occupies a--if not the--most prominent priority in American foreign policy.

Kissinger opines that, in the Middle East, his concern is not so much Israeli-Arab relations and their ups and downs over the past 50 years, but the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in politically unstable areas. It already can be seen eating away at Turkey, Iraq, India, and Algeria. That and the dangers of nuclear proliferation are the bad news. The good news is that people around the world share a global consciousness. Cooperation, communication, and mutual concern must be the guides for the future, not just of individual nations, but for the world itself. Policy wonks must think long term, rather than cave in to the public's demand for short-term solutions.

Its various sections need not be read in sequence. A good overview from which one can peruse the rest of the volume is given in the first section, "The State of the World as We Enter the Twenty-first Century."

COPYRIGHT 1999 Society for the Advancement of Education
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