THERE'S A 'REAGAN DOCTRINE' AWAITING ONLY HIS IMPRIMATUR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310013-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: September 20, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310013-9
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
WALL STREET JOURNAL
20 September 1984
There's a'Reagan Doctrine' Awaiting Only
His Imprimatur
Running ahead of Walter Mondale by 20
points or more, and with the Soviet Union
suddenly willing to talk to him, President
Reagan doesn't need any political advice
from me, but I have some anyway.
If Mr. Reagan is trying just to win this
election, perhaps he is going about it in the
right way-playing safe, waving the flag
and saying nothing more interesting and
challenging than that the sunshine is very
merry.
However, if he intends to try for a man-
date-the kind of substantial victory that
Viewpoint
by Morton M. Kondracke
means something programmatically and
carries in a Congress that will support
him-then the president has got to start
talking about what he intends to do during
the next four years.
This article is mainly about what he
might say on foreign policy, but the presi-
dent also ought to come out with an outline
of the budget and the tax-reform plan he
intends to submit next year if reelected.
If he wants a line-item veto, he ought to
tell us which budget lines he wants to use
it on. If he wants a balanced-budget
amendment to the Constitution, he ought to
say first how he'd get the budget bal-
anced.
Republicans have been merrily bashing
at Walter Mondale for wanting to raise
taxes, but at least we know where Mr.
Mondale coming from. Where is Mr.
Reagan f ng?
As to oreign policy, what we need,
frankly, i a Reagan Doctrine-a definition
of what i is administration hopes to ac-
complish n the world, and how.
Mr. Ri agan says he wants arms reduc-
tions. Lei him tell us how he proposes to
get then And he says he does not intend
to use U S. troops in Central America, but
.we need to know how it's possible to stop
the spre d of communism without them..
For advice on a Reagan Doctrine
speech, the president might well consult
his United Nations ambassador, Jeane
Kirkpatrick, who has been thinking about
the subject. She says she might write a
book about it when she goes back to acade-
mia, but the nation would be better off if
the president appropriated her ideas
first.
The essence of this proposed doctrine is
that the U.S. should be willing to use all its
power short of direct U.S. military inter-
vention in order to make such interven-
tions unnecessary.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick would not publicly
rule out the use of force-she believes in
the deterrent value of never saying
"never." But she wants Americans and
people in other countries to stop expect-
ing-some fearing, others hoping-that the
U.S. will take responsibility for solving ev-
eryone's security problems.
In an interview the other day, she said
she thinks it is misleading for people to
think that this is a bipolar world divided
between two symmetrical "superpowers."
"This conception," she said, "encour-
ages other countries to imagine that if they
are the target of insurgent forces spon-
sored by the Soviet Union, it's our respon-
sibility to respond, as opposed to they
themselves.
"The concept can lead other countries
to escapist thinking about their own prob-
lems."
The proper way to think about the So-
viets, she says, is as an empire that de-
votes all the resources of itself and its sub-
ject peoples to the task of expanding the
empire. In a recent speech, she said: "We
have seen this process so often, watched
its success so often, that anyone who is
interested can understand their methods if
they choose: cultivation of insurgency,
provocation of repression, denial of com-
plicity, suggestion always that their own
violence is purely internal in its origin,
merciless criticism of the victim, a con-
certed attack on anyone who seeks to aid
the victim, Soviet weapons, Libyan planes,
Cuban advisers, Palestinian international
terrorists, dead civilians, disrupted econo-
mies, disinformation and intimidation."
The U.S. is "not an empire locked in a
death struggle with them. We are not two
scorpions in a bottle," she said in the inter-
view. The key difference is that the U.S.
has allies that decide voluntarily whether
they want us to cooperate with them.
Some of these allies, and also some
American officials, she said, believe it's
America's responsibility to dominate the
alliances and friendship pacts of which
we're a part.
"That's out of date and inappropriate,"
she said. "Strategic cooperation should
mean just that-that we're willing to help,
but not dominate.
"Anytime we seem to dominate the re-
sponse to aggression in any region, we de-
moralize our allies and confuse the situa-
tion. It's their freedom and independence
that's at stake. It's their problem and we
should not make it our problem in the ulti-
mate sense."
She said that not only may American
allies become overly dependent on the
U.S., but some adversaries already think
they see an opportunity to take advantage
of a U.S. strategy of global intervention-
ism.
She cited the example of Libya's
Muammar Qadhafi, who declared in a
speech March 2 marking the seventh anni-
versary of his revolution: "We must force
America to fight on 100 fronts all over the
earth ... in Lebanon, in Chad, in Sudan,
in El Salvador.... We must wage a peo-
ple's war of liberation which America can-
not face up to, and thus make the United
States realize that it is proceeding along a
road harmful to America itself so that rea-
son will return to its maniac power."
According to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, "it's
perfectly correct for Qadhafi to believe it
would lead to our destruction if we tried to
fight on 100 fronts. It would. That's not a
practical strategy for us. it's not desirable
or thinkable."
So, she said, the U.S. should help coun-
tries that are targets of Soviet Bloc ag
gression-with political support, economic
and trade assistance, military aid, sales
and training, and covert action.
"There's a misconception in this coun-
try about the nature of power," she said.
"There's a tendency to confuse power with
force, which is only one form of power.
"It's the widespread liberal view that if
we dare to use power, we'll end up in war,
that it's a slippery slope.
"I'm bothered by the fact that the Dem-
ocrats in Congress who are most alarmist
about Ronald Reagan leading the nation to
war are also against adequate economic
assistance to Central America."
She said that because of its proximity to
the U.S., Central America "is the one area
where if we permit the Soviets to establish
military bases, we would be most likely to
become involved in conflict. But that will
happen only if we don't do the things we
should do.
"But the things we should do are not to
commit American combat troops. I don't
think that's necessary or desirable."
Mrs. Kirkpatrick says that all of this is
not any "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," but is in
fact Reagan administration policy. If so, it
would reassure a lot of people to have Mr.
Reagan articulate it.
Mr. Kondracke is executive editor of
LThe New Republic.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310013-9