TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

After a relentless weapons race, the US and the USSR came to the conclusion that, in attempting to destroy the ‘enemy’, they had brought their own countries to the very brink of annihilation. Change of Heart We do not have to go far to find the reason for this dramatic change in the superpowers’ policy. It is simply that in their attempt to gain the upper hand in all that has to do with arms supremacy, they had— wittingly or unwittingly—allowed the progress of their respective countries to come to a standstill. After a relentless weapons race, which a fear-ridden, blame-oriented psychology had prolonged for half a century, they came to the conclusion, when all is said and done, that the continued adoption of such a course could produce only negative results. It finally dawned on them that, in attempting to destroy the ‘enemy’, they had brought their own countries to the very brink of annihilation. A Reversal of Policy It is ironic that the USA’s insistence on arms superiority caused it to fall behind its old, conquered enemy, Japan, in the economic field. In 1988, the US was the world’s largest debtor with a net foreign debt of $400 billion, while Japan was the world’s largest creditor, with a net foreign investment of $240 billion. That year, Japan had budgeted for $10 billion as foreign aid, displacing the US as the world’s most generous donor. The American dollar, which once reigned supreme in the economic world no longer enjoyed that position. Economists began asking, “Can America maintain its superpower status?” In an interview (Times of India, August 9, 1988) Mr Henry Kissinger observed that “the fundamental new fact will be the emergence of new power centres. China and India will become more powerful. Japan is daily growing stronger.... so the United States will have to adjust to having other countries that in the past it had a tendency to ignore, pursue more active policies.” The 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party, held in the last week of June, 1988, in Moscow, was attended by 5000 delegates from all over the Soviet Union. On this occasion, the Soviet Prime Minister, Mikhail Gorbachev made a three and a half hour speech, which has been ably summarized by Mr Quentin Peel, a journalist who not only heard the speeches of the Soviet leaders, but also had meetings with them. Peel says, “The message seemed plain enough, the party would