Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy

106. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter¹

Washington, December 28, 1978

SUBJECT

• NSC Weekly Report #83 (U)

1. Opinion

One of the major concerns of the other leaders present at Guadeloupe will be to obtain from you a sense of your strategic direction.² In part, this is due to some anxiety that this Administration does not have any overall scheme, and that the United States is no longer prepared to use its power to protect its interests or to impose its will on the flow of history. (S)

It is, therefore, quite critical that you use the meeting in order to share with your colleagues your thinking, especially on the level of high strategy, in addition to much more specific discussion of such issues as SALT, China, the Middle East, Iran, Africa, etc. (S)

I believe that as we enter 1979, you, quite literally, have a historic chance to start shaping a new global system, with the United States as its predominant coordinator if no longer the paramount power. The fulfillment of that opportunity depends critically on how you play the China/Soviet Union issues, and also on how you respond to the deteriorating situation along the Indian Ocean. (S)

The key issue is how you perceive and handle the U.S.-Soviet relationship, and how you fit your handling of that relationship into your wider strategy. There are different views of handling U.S.-Soviet relations, and important consequences flow from these differences. Your policy, as it has evolved through your speeches and actions, is quite distinctive and—I believe—historically more relevant. It is not: (S)

1. Confrontation, or renewed Cold War (e.g., Reagan): A bitter, hostile, head-on confrontation advocated almost as an end in itself. The key weakness of this approach is that the United States would eventually find itself alone in taking on the Russians, for this is too simplistic an image for the increasingly complex world. (S)

2. Condominium, based on a balance of power to preserve the status quo (e.g., Nixon/Kissinger): This approach is based on the essentially pessimistic view that the West is in decline and that the best we can do is to prevent change in the central areas, while letting the Soviets win in the less important peripheries. The key weakness of this approach is that the world is too dynamic to sustain an essentially reactionary balance-of-power policy, while the “condominium” would be bitterly resented by everyone else, and thus would backfire strongly against our own alliance relationships. (S)

3. Simply a Partnership as the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy (e.g., McGovern): According to this view, a U.S.-Soviet partnership on a broad front, starting with SALT, will be the basis for world peace, and hence it ought to be the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. The key weakness of this approach, much as of the one above, is that it frightens our friends and allies, be they the West Europeans, Japanese, and lately the Chinese, and it can be easily translated into appeasement. Indeed, typical of this approach is its concomitant unwillingness even to criticize the Soviets either for their militant intrusion into Africa or for their excessive strategic build-up; as well as its willingness to give gratis assurances on the Chinese, asking nothing in return. In effect, alternatives 2 and 3 elevate the USSR into a global partner of the United States, while giving the Soviets a hunting license to exploit global turbulence to their advantage. (S)

Your policy, if I understand it correctly, seeks: (S)

4. Reciprocal Accommodation, which means (1) containment, (2) resistance to indirect expansion, (3) ideological competition, and, most important and above all, (4) creation of a framework within which the Soviet Union can accommodate with us, or face the prospect of isolating itself globally. This offers the best hope for the United States and for our values, and it avoids the risks inherent in the three other approaches mentioned above because it seeks to fit the U.S.-Soviet relationship into a cooperative context of U.S.-European-Japanese, and now also Chinese, relations. (S)

What does the fourth approach mean in practice? (S)

1. It means keeping open the option to the Soviets for genuine global cooperation with the United States, but doing so in a patient fashion. I think that we have made a mistake in putting so many deadlines on SALT and on Brezhnev’s visit here; that simply conveys over-anxiousness, the Soviets can exploit that against us, and we hurt ourselves domestically. We should stress to the Soviets that we are prepared to be patient, that there is a constructive place for them in a wider framework of international cooperation, that there are many global issues on which we could cooperate, and that we are prepared to seek detente and cooperation on the basis of genuine reciprocity, as indicated in your Annapolis speech.³ And, if that reciprocity is missing, as it has been on Africa, Cuba, and the Persian Gulf, we are prepared to assert our interests. (S)

2. It means cooperating with Europe and Japan in drawing China into a more genuine involvement in global cooperation, pointing toward a world of diversity. You should explain to Teng, and also to the “Gang of Guadeloupe,” that diversity is the same thing as non-hegemony; i.e., pluralism. In that sense we have genuinely compatible strategic objectives with the Europeans, Japanese, and the Chinese. This compatibility has to be cultivated cautiously but consistently. Moreover, if the Chinese were to sense that we are timid, or that we are using them only to obtain a better bargain for a bilateral accommodation with the Soviets, they could swing quickly to the other extreme. (S)

3. It means facing up to the danger that the Soviet military build-up is likely to intersect with regional instability. In fact, it has already started doing so, first in Africa, and now, and potentially much more dangerously, in the Persian Gulf. (S)

The required response involves not giving the Soviets gratis guarantees on China. Whenever the Soviets ask for assurances regarding China, we should be responsive by saying that we do not intend to exploit China against the Soviet Union, but couple that with a pointed request for the withdrawal of Cubans from Africa and for a halt to Soviet activities in the Persian Gulf. (S)

In any case, we should not allow ourselves to be drawn into sponsoring a blockade of China from defensive West European arms, since a strong and secure China is an essential contribution to global stability, and the Chinese are entitled to acquire defensive arms from the West. (In the past, the Soviets were not shy about arming the Chinese against us.) (S)

4. It requires a U.S. military posture which is adequate to balance the Soviet Union through essential equivalence and adequate collective conventional forces. In brief, it means carrying out PD–18,⁴ with or without SALT. (S)

5. It means affirming our position on human rights, which greatly increases the moral appeal of the United States and provides an effective response to Soviet ideology. (S)

There is no doubt the global yearning for human rights is ready to be tapped, and you have started tapping it in a genuinely important fashion. I notice that the new Pope is beginning to join you in it. (S)

6. With regard to the arc of instability along the Indian Ocean, we need to respond collectively, and that is a fitting subject for a special discussion in Guadeloupe. In the meantime, we may have to take some steps to convince the Soviets that we will back our friends in Iran, come what may. The disintegration of Iran, with Iran repeating the experience of Afghanistan, would be the most massive American defeat since the beginning of the Cold War, overshadowing in its real consequences the setback in Vietnam. (S)

7. It means, finally, making a basic decision on whether we will seek a breakthrough to peace in the Middle East sometime in the first half of 1979. The West Europeans can help us, if you choose to push hard, and we should make an early decision on this matter. I fear that without such an effort, the Middle East will become increasingly radicalized as it accommodates itself to the reality of U.S. inability to obtain a wider settlement and perhaps also to provide protection to the region from the Soviets. There is a subtle interaction between the problem of Iran, Turkey, and the Middle East, and a United States lead on these issues is quite necessary. You have been pointing in the right direction, and we should now mobilize our allies for more overt support on behalf of our efforts. These efforts, moreover, should be fitted into the larger framework which I have sketched out above. (S)

If you agree, some comments to that effect at Guadeloupe might provide your colleagues with the needed feeling that the United States has historical direction. If you do not agree, some alternative statement would still be desirable, for in either case the yearning for American leadership must somehow be met. (S)

2. Facts

Trends in World Opinion Toward the U.S. and USSR

Newly analyzed evidence on foreign opinion toward the U.S. and the USSR indicates that adverse trends, dating back nearly two decades, have been reversed in the last several years. From the early 1960s until the mid 1970s, sympathy for America was eroded by Vietnam and Watergate, while distrust of the Soviet Union was eroded by detente. As a result, the earlier favorable gap between Soviet and American standing in the eyes of European and Japanese publics narrowed dramatically. More recently, however, scattered but quite consistent polling results suggest that U.S. standing is beginning to recover, though it remains below the highs of the early 1960s, while Soviet standing by contrast has plummeted to depths unequalled in nearly two decades. (U)

The changes now apparently underway in Europe and Japan suggest that the U.S. is recapturing the political-ideological initiative that had slipped to the Soviets during the 1960s. In a parallel development, the Department of State has recently reported that the American public’s willingness to defend our principal allies has risen steadily since 1974. Taken together with the changes in foreign opinion, this evidence suggests that—whatever the ups and downs of day-to-day alliance affairs—the psychological underpinnings of our central alliances are in improving shape. (U)

[Omitted here is information unrelated to foreign policy opinions.]

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Brzezinski Office File, Subject Chron File, Box 126, Weekly National Security Report: 6–12/78. Secret; Nodis. The President initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum.
2. Reference is to the January 4–9, 1979, summit meeting in Guadeloupe, which the President, Callaghan, Giscard d’Estaing, and Schmidt were scheduled to attend. Documentation on the Guadeloupe summit is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. XXVII, Western Europe.
3. See Document 87.
4. PD/NSC–18, “U.S. National Strategy,” issued August 24, 1977, is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. IV, National Security Policy.