Philip W. Quigg
Essay
Apr
1969
We had best take note of Micronesia. It is, with Samoa and Okinawa, the one area of the world where "American colonialism" is an incontrovertible presence, where our responsibilities are not a matter of policy preference but of law. Except for Papua-New Guinea, which is officially headed for independence, it is the only remaining U.N. Trust Territory, and a unique one at that. No one knows where this splattering of Pacific islands is headed politically and perhaps only the Defense Department really cares. But having completed 21 years under American authority, the Micronesians are expected to vote soon on whether they will freely associate with the United States or strike out on their own.
Essay
Jan
1966
An American traveling in Japan is likely to feel that he has passed through the looking glass. For millions of Japanese-conceivably a majority-the United States' presence in their islands is not a protection, but a provocation. China is seen not as a menace, but as a growling giant caught in a web of problems. The aggressive speeches of Lin Piao and Chen Yi do not mean what they say, but are merely traditional Chinese exaggeration and bluster. The American effort in Viet Nam may be in the national interest of the United States, the Japanese say, but of no one else.
Essay
Apr
1964
In dealing with nearly one hundred countries that in varying degree look upon the United States as their deus ex machina, surely one of the most difficult problems is to achieve a set of foreign policies sufficiently coherent to be comprehensible to ourselves and to our friends and at the same time sufficiently responsive to the enormous differences even among those nations which for convenience we group together. The maker of policy must always, in some measure, strike a compromise between consistency in our relations among many countries and flexibility in shaping our relations to the peculiarities of each one. At the highest levels of government, however, the pressures are inevitably toward generalization and simplification as a means of making administration manageable and of attracting political support for policy decisions.
