Presidential contender’s foreign policy views

Press, 2 July 1986, Page 46

Presidential contender’s foreign policy views

NZPA staff correspondent Washington America’s alliances should be based on equality rather than dependency, according to Senator Gary Hart, a leading Democrat contender for the United States presidency. In a series of public lectures Senator Hart, who has announced he is leaving the Senate next year and is virtually certain to seek his party’s presidential nomination in 1988, staked out a foreign policy programme that he can use in his bid for the White House. His lectures and a book on military strategy and Pentagon management he published recently called, “America Can Win,” have been praised for their "intellectual coherence,” while Mr Hart himself has been applauded for trying to start a debate on

foreign policy within the Democrat Party. Senator Hart in his foreign policy lectures argued for what he terms "enlightened engagement,” a policy which, he says, has to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the great diffusion of military, political and economic power in the last 40 years. “Our framework must help the United States reach our foreign policy goals in a world where other nations are maturing politically and economically at a rapid pace — where Soviet expansionism continues to be a threat, but where exclusive concern with the Soviets is both insufficient and dangerous — where we still have tremendous military, economic, political and moral power, but where, increasingly, we can only exercise that

power by engaging other nations — not commanding them,” he says. “Enlightened engagement means allying with historic tides and channelling tpem toward our ideals rather than attempting to block those tides by standing in their path.” Senator Hart in one section, showing a marked difference from President Reagan’s foreign policy, says the United States should sign a nuclear test ban with the Soviet Union and agree to curb development of the proposed space-based missile defence system in return for Soviet concessions on arms control. But of more direct relevance to New Zealand are his general comments on America’s system of worldwide alliances, of whjdh the A.N.Z.U.S. defence pact, signed by the

United States, Australia and New Zealand in September, 1951, is one. Hn his thesis Senator Hart argues that the framework of present American foreign policy emerged in the late 1940 s and 1950 s but that global changes in the 19605, 1970 s and 1980 s means it is now outdated. The strictly bi-polar world of that era is gone. “Our values and goals are constant, but the world in which we pursue them continues to change — dramatically. Because we have resisted those changes, too many of our actions in the world are irrelevant, ineffective, or even counter-productive.” On alliances, Senator Hart says the post-war military and economic pacts, N.A.T.O. in particular, “rank among the greatV achievements -Uf human history.” i