James Schlesinger
Essay
Special
1992
American foreign policy is in danger of responding to a capricious sequence of events, rather than to defined guideposts and a clear sense of priorities. In view at the start of a new administration is a vast array of worthy objectives, as if all could be pursued simultaneously and successfully. In fact, many goals are in conflict and all require difficult trade-offs. Support for democracy and for human rights are unsteady guides to policy; economic pressures or attempts to stifle the flow of armaments conflict with other interests. America's limited political capital must be husbanded, to be expended only when the society's fundamental interests are at stake.
Essay
Special
1986
Asks whether the Reykjavik summit and Irangate have shaken the USA's self-confidence and standing in the world. Reykjavik threatened the credibility of the West's flexible response strategy, while Irangate undermined the authority of the President, made a nonsense of his anti-terrorism campaign, and embarrassed and angered his Middle Eastern allies. On the other hand, the USSR is no longer in a position to gain from these blunders.
Essay
Summer
1985
The linkup of American and Soviet forces at Torgau on the Elbe in April 1945 may be taken as the event symbolizing a new era in international relations--one largely dominated by the central relationship between two great powers, later known as the superpowers. The meeting at Torgau meant the splitting of Germany, the preeminent European power for three-quarters of a century. Germany's division was to be both a fixture of the postwar era and, additionally, a continuing source of unease. Also, the event dramatically initiated what was to become die Wacht an der Elbe, an American protection against the power of the East of what was to become a democratic Germany--and behind Germany an abiding American commitment to the security of Western Europe. Despite the misjudgments in the immediate aftermath of the war, the lessons of two world wars had been insinuated into American foreign policy. Finally, in the way of symbolism, perhaps the brief exchange of fire between Soviet and American forces on the Elbe provided an early harbinger of the tensions that were ultimately to emerge.
