60. Editorial Note
On December 20, 1977, President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Zbigniew Brzezinski held a press briefing at the White House from 10:35 to 11:10 a.m. Brzezinski devoted the briefing to placing President Jimmy Carter’s upcoming trip to Poland (December 29–31), Iran (December 31–January 1), India (January 1–3), Saudi Arabia (January 3–4), Egypt (January 4), France (January 4–5), and Belgium (January 6) within the broader context of the administration’s foreign policy. He explained that the administration understood this trip, and another trip scheduled for the spring of 1978, as “reflecting a recognition of the need for the United States to pursue a wider foreign policy more identified with global change and more responsive to global diversity.” Continuing, he indicated that the President’s May 22 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame (see Document 40) foreshadowed the need for this type of policy, adding:
“Our point of departure is the view that we are living in a time in which the world is experiencing the most extensive and the most intensive transformation in its entire history. There are obviously many ways of defining the nature of that transformation. But I think it is doubtlessly true that one of its very key aspects is the phenomenon of global political awakening.
“In other words, a world that was politically and socially passive is now becoming truly activist. The consequence of this is a rising crescendo of political and social demands worldwide. It thus represents an altogether new reality in the totality of our common experience. It is on the implication of this that I would like to focus my remarks.”
then referenced three substantial phenomena of what he termed this “global political awakening.” These included the collapse of Western colonialism, the primacy of the nation-state as a form of political organization, and an increase in world population. He then identified four additional aspects related to changes in the international system: the division of the world into key clusters, the dispersal of [Page 279] world power, the “fading of single ideological or revolutionary models,” and the division of labor in the world economy.
Returning to the concept of a political “awakening,” Brzezinski concluded his remarks by sketching out the potential impact on U.S. policy:
“What are the broad policy implications of this? Let me suggest four basic implications. The first is that the relevance of the West to the politically awakening world has to be largely on the level of creative innovation. That innovation has to operate both on the material as well as on the spiritual level.
“On the material level, if the world—if the Western world—is willing to accept the reality of interdependence and channel it into constructive directions, it will have a very important role to play and especially so if it accepts the notion of a certain humanistic responsibility for changes which are not only profound, but potentially positive. We are dealing with changes which involve for the first time the emergence of a community in which there is greater responsiveness to the demands and needs of other societies than our own. Thus, a great deal depends on the West’s collective ability to deal with the problems of the South, particularly in the North-South context and on the level of the material response. Creative interdependence means reforming the existing institutions, adjustment and acceptance of certain new realities. On the spiritual level, this means acknowledgment of the reality of human rights defined very broadly, not only in terms of liberty, but also in social terms.
“Secondly, and closely connected with it, is the need for a wider economic system. For many years to come I think we will be preoccupied with the very difficult process of how to widen the existing political and economic international system. Here again I think it is useful to reflect on our own domestic experience.
“The last 100 years or so of American social and political experience involved the widening of participation for political groups, for social groups in the American system as a whole. Ultimately, and most recently this process involved blacks and women, but earlier the whole struggle of the trade union movement was a struggle over participation and the right to organize.
“On the global scale, we need to widen the scope of the international system beyond the purely Atlanticist connection, to reform the international system that was designed after 1945 for a reality which has profoundly altered.
“Thirdly, we will have to anticipate the consequences of regional conflicts and try to deal with them before they escalate. If regional conflicts become simultaneously North-South and East-West conflicts, they will be very difficult to control. We see the potential for such con [Page 280] junction or intersection between East-West and North-South issues in Southern Africa, or in the Middle East, or even potentially in Central America if the Panama Canal [Treaty] is rejected.
“Finally, we have to respond to the new issues that are truly for the first time global in character, global in character in terms of such issues as nuclear proliferation, arms transfers and, last but not least, human rights.
“All of that is part of a process of responding to altogether new circumstances in which the very character of the international system is changing. The President’s trip is part of our effort to respond to that. It is designed to show that we recognize this change, that we want to be associated with it, and that we want to give it positive direction.
“This is why he is visiting some advanced industrial democracies, notably France and Belgium; a relatively more open communist country involved in East-West relations—Poland; richer but still developing countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia; and a developing democracy, India.
“Similarly, Brazil, Venezuela, Nigeria fit these categories.
“In effect, we want to demonstrate that the time has come for a wider American foreign policy in its scope, a foreign policy which recognizes ideological pluralism and which is willing to work towards a broader political and economic international system.” (Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Schecter/Friendly (Press) File, Subject File, Box 1, Brzezinski Briefings and Backgrounders (Press and Public): 10/77–1/78)