MEMORANDUM FOR: THE DIRECTOR FROM PAUL V. WALSH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000300060048-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2005
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: April 9, 1974
• Content Type: MF

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VIS,40RANDUM FO?: The Director
Attached for your review is a pre-
liminary outline for your speech to. the
JCS Defense Strate Seminar at the NWC
in June. I and i will be ready
to meet on this at your convenience next
week.
Paul V. Walsh
Acting DDT
Attachment
9 April 1974
cc: DD/OCI (DATE)
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THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND KEY
NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES CONFRONTING THE UNITED STATES
THEME: In a way almost unique in our history, the
current international environment is dominated by a
complex of bilateral relationships between the US and
other nations of the world. This does not mean that
interdependence is not developing apace; the oil-energy
problem, the race between the growth of foodgrain supplies
and the rise of effective demand for them, and the vir-'
tually insatiable thirst on the part of the Soviets and
Chinese for new technology--to cite only three of the
larger issues--clearly indicate that interdependence is
more a basic fact of our environment than ever before.
What is remarkable about this environment at the moment
is that the problems created by interdependence are being
handled bilaterally, with the US at the center of the
complex and with our attitudes and policies as the key
element in all of the most important of these problems.
And if our policies and decisions have this degree of
importance for the world, it follows that an especially
heavy burden is placed on the US intelligence community
to assist our leaders in understanding the environment
ip1 which+they must make policy and to help provide them
the information on which their decisions can be based.
Let me sketch some of the salient features of this environ-
ment, as we perceive it in. June 1974.
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I. From a politico-military standpoint, the USSR is still
the most prominent feature on our horizon.
A. "Detente" as seen from Moscow is carrying on a competition
with the US by other than military means.
B. But competition in terms of military establishments is
still at the heart of Soviet policy.
1. Thrust toward weapons development, especially toward
achieving technological equality.
2. Thrust toward "showing the world" that the USSR cafi
do anything the US can do--the Soviet navy--the
Indian Ocean.
C. Soviet air of confidence covers important anxieties.
1. China--the Great Competitor.
2. Home front--not dissidents, but failure or inability
to keep promises is what worries.
3. Dilemma: how do you keep detente from becoming a two-
way street, without reverting to neo-Stalinism at home?
4. Dilemma: How do you get new technology and develop
your resources without becoming more dependent on
foreigners instead of less?
II. China--the continuing revolution
A. From US standpoint, the central issue of the great debate
in Peking is: on what terms, to what degree, will the
US be permitted to become associated with the transformation
of Chinese society?
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1. Thirst for technology compels some kind of
association.
2. Fear and hatred of things foreign still impels rejection
of a- kind of association other than submission.
3. Tension between these attitudes not likely to be
resolved; trying to find stability in Chinese outlook
will remain very difficult.
B. This means we as well as Soviets have to keep sharp eye
on growth of Chinese military power; try to make sure that
some sudden flare does not take us by surprise.
1. Present status of Chinese weaponry.
2. Present Chinese military posture overall.
C. Current state of Sino-Soviet dispute.
III. Europe comes hard after China in terms of our interest (if
Chinese were not such relatively new feature, the new Europe
might come ahead).
A. Great Debate in and about Europe is really meaningless in
the terms press and pundits now talking.
1. Europeans have no real choice between "unity" and
special relationship with US; willy-nilly, they are
going to have both.
2. No amount of posturing by French, or threats that
US troops must be withdrawn, alters basic fact that
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Europe is dependent on the US for its military
security against the USSR.
3. No amount of haggling over institutional developments
in the European Community alters basic fact that
socially and economically Western Europeans are
already so united that the political aspects are
becoming less and less relevant; the reason Europeans
can afford to dispute so endlessly about political
unity is that it does not matter very much.
B. Real problems of Europe are in other areas:
1. Inflation and disarray over money--this impacts on
European middle class, and political effects need
close watching--e.g., Communists in Italy.
2. Dislocations from stepped-up pace of social change;
we have not heard the last of radical European youth
movements which are spawned in these circumstances.
3. Development of a new set of relationships with big
energy producers, primarily Middle East. Not really
too successful so far--rethinking on this will also impact
on European anguish over relationship with the US.
C. In sum, a difficult period is ahead in Europe's relationships
with the rest of the world, including the US, and very
likely in+its'internal arrangements as well.
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IV. Japan is entering a similar period.
A. Like Europe, years of great material expansion and great
expectations are being succeeded by doubts and seemingly
insoluble difficulties:
1. Social dislocations, and the alienation of youth.
2. Energy resource problems, including relationships
with oil producers.
B. Japan, Incorporated is not about to go into receivership,
but there is growing doubt among the Japanese people that
the established ways of doing things are adequate to meet
the problems.
C. Japan of course has the same question mark that the US
does about the future of relations with China--but it has
it in spades, and there is very serious division within
Japanese political society over how to get an answer.
D. So Japan too bears close watching for the emergence of new
political movements that might exploit both traditional
emotions and new stresses in Japan's economic and social
environment.
V.: The Western Pacific (Vietnam, Korea) is likely to become
more closely linked with Japan and China, but at the moment
these areas are still primarily in bilateral relationships
with the US. .There are two essential points to be made about
both Korea and Vietnam:
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A. In neither Korea nor Vietnam is the Communist leadership
yet willing to accept a divided country; neither would
the South Korean or South Vietnamese leaders if they saw
a serious prospect for unification on their terms.
B. Political changes in both Korea and Vietnam are less
important in themselves than for their potentially
destabilizing effect on the US relationship with Asia,
including Japan at one extreme and Australia at the other.
C. Our concern must continue, therefore, to focus on the
military security of South Korea and South Vietnam and
closely related developments. The environment for us in
this region will continue to be one of tension--hopefully
controlled--for a long time to come.
VI. The Middle East--a strange new world.
A. Like China, a great transformation of "traditional
societies" is going on here.
1. Again like China, the real issue is what kind of
association the US will have with this transformation.
2. To see the Middle East environment through the Arab-
Israeli problem, or even through the oil problem, is
to miss the point.
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B. In some ways, the problem is more complex even than
the Chinese puzzle: there is not only the thirst for
technology, but even more acute thirst for new visions
of how society should be organized.
1._ The variety of political forms in the region--
traditional tribal monarchy in Saudi Arabia; benevolent
despotism in Iran; quasi-military dictatorship in Egypt--
'is not only a product of historical circumstances but
is a testimony to the existence of a very contemporary
and very deep-going argument.
2. Even in Israel, it is questionable whether the
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long attachment to parliamentary-style politics can
survive the pressures to which the state may be subjected
from inside as well as outside.
C. The energy resources of the area are of course the great
additional complication.
1. They are not evenly distributed.
2. They make the area an object of intense competition
from outside.'
3. They bring into even sharper focus the debate about the
political and social organization, because the accidents
of geology have put the bulk of the resources in
the hands of the .most archaically organized.
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VII. Latin America--even countries as nearby to us as Cuba
and Mexico--is really on the periphery of our current
international environment, despite the genuinely revolutionary
social and economic developments that are going on all over
our two continents. The longer-range future, of course,
may well show us a different perspective, but at present
Latin America has major significance for our environment only
to the extent that its leaders contribute to the larger
problem of the psychology of those who feel "left out." This
is even more true of Africa south of the'Sahara.
VIII. This larger problem of the "left out," however, is a
significant part of the current international environment, and
is likely to become more so. It shows itself in:
A. The clear crisis that has overtaken international political
organizations--the UN is the prime example.
B. The efforts, of which we have seen only the slow beginnings
so far,.to change the balance of economic influence in
favor of the raw materials producers.
C. The gradual spread of a psychology of scarce resources,
manifest for example in the new, horibly complex problems
of the Law of the Sea.
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All of which adds up, it seems to me, to an international
environment that, like all environments that are invigorating,
is one not only of challenge but also of change, of danger--
but also of promise, if we can approach it with good intelligence,
in both the narrow and broad sense of that currently maligned word.
fin
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