Even though it has been ten years since the Berlin Wall came down, we still have no better name for the period in which we live than "the post-Cold War era." True, many have aspired to play the role of the next George Kennan--defining American strategy for this new era that does not yet have a name--but so far none has succeeded. Moreover, given the rate at which many politicians and commentators have been revising their recollections of their own stances during the period 1946-91, it may not be too long before someone disputes Kennan's authorship of the original containment strategy. For it seems that now, safely after the event, we have all become cold warriors.

In his maiden speech on foreign policy, presidential candidate Bill Bradley declared that, "For 50 years after the end of World War II and until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, we were sure about one thing: We knew where we stood on foreign policy." The former senator from New Jersey went on to rue the fact that today we face a more difficult challenge:

"when it comes to foreign affairs, things are not so clear. The world's a more complicated place and it's no longer divided like it once was into good and evil, clear enemies, obvious friends. The choices are no longer so stark, and stark choices are always the easy ones."

This nostalgia for the supposedly easier choices of the Cold War is not confined to Bradley. President Clinton, too, routinely echoes the lament about the lost clarity and clear choices of the recent past.

It is astonishing to hear the Cold War era so described. For in reality it was a time when the country was deeply divided over issues of foreign policy--most bitterly over the war in Vietnam, but also over the commitment of U.S. troops to Europe and Korea, the Strategic Defense Initiative and arms control, Central America and nuclear weapons, and over almost every year's budget request from the Defense Department.

Descriptions of the long conflict as being clear-cut and simple are particularly astounding coming from leaders of the party of George McGovern. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Democratic Party ceased to be the party of Harry Truman or "Scoop" Jackson and became instead the party that supported the Mansfield Amendment to remove U.S. troops from Europe; that reflexively opposed many of the weapons systems that were critical in the American competition with the Soviet Union; and that advocated a "nuclear freeze" at a time when the Reagan administration was trying to convince NATO to proceed with the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear forces. Far from believing that the Cold War was a clear struggle between good and evil, the leaders of the Democratic Party attacked President Reagan as a war-mongering ideologue when he declared that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire."

Then, too, rarely were the country's leaders so sharply divided as they were in 1991 over the decision to evict Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. Voting on largely partisan lines, it was only by slender majorities that both houses of Congress granted President Bush the authority to use force. Although Senator Bradley has lately discovered that "Iraq, 1991" exemplifies one of those times and places when "the national interest is clear", at the time he joined the majority of congressional Democrats in voting against the President. And for Governor Clinton the issue was not so clear either. In a characteristically hedged statement he said: "I guess I would have voted for the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made.''

All of this forgetfulness might merely be a matter for amusement were it not for the fact that much of what is being forgotten is crucially relevant to our immediate future.

Reflections on Consensus

In 1992 a draft memo prepared by my office at the Pentagon, which proposed a post-Cold War defense strategy, leaked to the press and sparked a major controversy. The draft suggested that a "dominant consideration" in U.S. defense strategy should be "to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power." Those regions were specified as Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and Southwest Asia.

The New York Times, having published the leak, editorialized violently against the document, as did some prominent members of Congress. Senator Edward Kennedy said that the Pentagon plans "appear to be aimed primarily at finding new ways to justify Cold War levels of military spending." Senator Robert Byrd commented that, "We love being the sole remaining superpower in the world and we want so much to remain that way that we are willing to put at risk the basic health of our economy and well-being of our people to do so." Senator Joseph Biden ridiculed the proposed strategy as "literally a Pax Americana. . . . It won't work."

Just seven years later, many of these same critics seem quite comfortable with the idea of a Pax Americana. They have supported or urged American military intervention in places like Haiti and Rwanda and East Timor, places never envisaged in my 1992 memorandum. Moreover, they seem very comfortable that all of this can be accomplished, and our commitments to our European and Asian allies maintained, with a greatly reduced defense burden and without risking the "basic health of our economy." Today the criticism of Pax Americana comes mainly from the isolationist right, from Patrick Buchanan, who complains that "containment, a defensive strategy, had given way to a breathtakingly ambitious offensive strategy--to 'establish and protect a new order.'"

One would like to think that this new consensus--Buchanan apart--reflects a recognition that the United States cannot afford to allow a hostile power to dominate Europe or Asia or the Persian Gulf; that the safest, and in the long run the cheapest, way to prevent this is to preserve the U.S.-led alliances that have been so successful--to paraphrase Lord Ismay in more diplomatic language--at keeping Americans engaged, allies reassured, and aggressors deterred. But in reality today's consensus is facile and complacent, reflecting a lack of concern about the possibility of another major war, let alone agreement about how to prevent one.

Still, one should not look a gift horse in the mouth. There is today a remarkable degree of agreement on a number of central points of foreign policy. No one is lobbying to withdraw troops from Korea, as was the case as recently as the late 1980s. No one is arguing that we should withdraw from Europe. American forces under President Clinton's command have been bombing Iraq with some regularity for months now, without a whimper of opposition in the Congress and barely a mention in the press. Even on ballistic missile defense there is today an emerging consensus that something needs to be done--although no agreement on precisely what.

Partly, this consensus is the result of a seemingly benign international environment. Thus, we have been told that the really important problem is "the economy, stupid", or the environment, or, as the vice president most recently announced, aids in Africa. What is wrong with these claims is not that aids in Africa and the environment are not serious problems; rather, it is the implication that conventional security is no longer something we need to worry much about.

Perhaps, indeed, we have seen the last of the Napoleons and the Kaisers and Hitlers and Stalins and Tojos. In a world where American primacy seems so overwhelming, it is hard to imagine how threats of that magnitude could come about. But if we contemplate the last century we find abundant evidence that even a decade can bring about enormous transformations in world affairs. (Consider the changes from 1905 to 1915, or from 1929 to 1939, or from 1981 to 1991.) And if that was true in earlier decades, how much truer is it today when the tempo of change has increased so dramatically? Further, even if the chances of another assault on world peace are remote, what is at stake is too great to permit complacency or neglect of America's responsibility as the world's dominant power.

Wars in Faraway Places

Ultimately, we are placing bets on the shape of an uncertain future--a task which will prove that much more difficult if we cannot get the past right. The experience of Munich has provided a cautionary lesson for the second half of the last century--even if a somewhat overused one--and it should not be forgotten in this one. Addressing the British people by radio two days before his departure for Munich in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made the case for appeasement in stark terms:

"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. . . . I am myself a man of peace to the very depths of my soul. . . . But if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted; . . . but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible."

As it turned out, it was precisely "the great issues" that were at stake. Chamberlain's failure to come to the aid of those faraway Czechs meant that Britain would shortly face a much more terrible war and on much more disadvantageous terms.

As a result, this "lesson" was seared into the consciousness of the Western democracies and their leaders. It contributed to the resolve of President Truman to resist communist aggression in such "faraway" places as Korea, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Berlin, and of President Kennedy to resist Soviet pressure in Berlin and Cuba. But let us remember that it was also with Munich in mind that British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and French Prime Minister Guy Mollet took the unfortunate decision to oppose with force Nasser's takeover of the Suez Canal in 1956, and that a few years later, with even worse consequences, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson decided that Vietnam was a similar case of aggression that had to be opposed.

With the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies and partners are again confronted with a series of wars in faraway places, and many repeat Chamber-lain's counsel that we have no business intervening in conflicts among people we do not understand, where, in the current idiom, "we have no dog in the fight." Of course, the fact that the arguments have a similar ring to them does not mean that those who echo Chamberlain today are necessarily wrong, any more than those who argue for intervening in messy civil wars or ethnic conflicts for moral purposes are necessarily repeating the mistakes of Vietnam. History does not tell us what to do, but it does offer us some options to ponder.

Imagine, counterfactually, that England and its allies had successfully resisted Hitler in the Rhineland in 1936 or at Munich in 1938. Germany would then have been "contained." In that case we would certainly have been treated--would we not?--to learned discourses about how the resulting "cold war" with Germany was the unnecessary product of unwarranted Western suspicion and hostility toward a country that--chafing under unjustified Western impositions--had only been seeking its rightful "place in the sun." Or, to take a more recent example, we will never know what might have happened if SaddamHussein's occupation of Kuwait had not been reversed: would he have, as seems entirely probable, brought the governments of the Arabian Peninsula under his control and, with the wealth that provided, built up his arsenal of conventional and nuclear weapons in preparation for a much bigger war with Iran or with Israel? If so, then what President Bush achieved was much more than just the liberation of Kuwait; but that achievement will never be as clear as Chamberlain's failure.

Even actions that seem like mistakes at the time may be rescued by the twists and turns of history. The failure to do more to deter Saddam Hussein from attacking Kuwait in 1990 seemed like a mistake at the time and is still treated as such in most discussions of that crisis. But consider: we shall never know what might have happened if Saddam Hussein had been deterred at that point--only to confront the world with a crisis several years later, but now armed with nuclear weapons.

When the consequences of alternative courses of action are so uncertain, even in hindsight, who in their right mind would defy Yogi Berra's famous advice that "it's a mistake to try to make predictions, especially about the future"?

Lessons of the Cold War

The refusal to remember the deep divisions and sharp debates over policy that took place during the Cold War is in some cases part of an effort to deny that there are any lessons to be learned from that long struggle, to put it all behind us. On the other side, some seem to believe that, since the policies that won the Cold War clearly worked, every effort should be made to keep them in place indefinitely. In the face of such advice we would do well to remember Lord Salisbury's advice that "The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead politics." What is true, I believe, is that while policies must change as circumstances change, there are still valid lessons to be learned from the Cold War. Here are some of them:

* Democracy Matters

At the beginning of the Reagan administration, when Congress refused to confirm the administration's first nominee as assistant secretary of state for Human Rights, some saw this as an opportunity to do away entirely with the State Department's Office of Human Rights. Fortunately, and due in large measure to the intervention of Reagan's personal friend and then-Deputy Secretary of State William Clark, the office was preserved and human rights and the promotion of democracy became enshrined as major features of the Reagan administration's foreign policy. There can be little doubt that this contributed in an important way to the triumph of democracy in the Cold War. Perhaps more surprising to Reagan's numerous critics, his administration also witnessed and supported an enormous advance of democracy in countries on "our" side of the Cold War, not only in Latin America but in some surprising places in Asia such as South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Nothing could be less realistic than the version of the "realist" view of foreign policy that dismisses human rights as an important tool of American foreign policy. There are no doubt examples of human rights policies that can damage other U.S. interests, but often these are policies that are bad for human rights and democracy as well--for example, the notion that undermining the Shah's regime would have
been a great advance for the Iranian people, or the belief that weakening South Korea's ability to defend itself from the North was necessary in order to advance human rights. What is more impressive is how often promoting democracy has actually advanced American interests.

Democratic change not only weakened our enemies, but helped strengthen our friends. This became clear to me when I was involved in drafting U.S. policy toward the Philippines in the mid-1980s, during the last years of the Marcos regime. As the United States put pressure on Marcos to reform, we were asked whether doing so would simply pave the way for a regime that would in retrospect make Marcos look good, as the Ayatollahs in Iran had done for the Shah. In fact, it was Marcos who was in the process of paving the way to victory for a particularly vicious communist insurgency, and there was available a true democratic alternative in the Philippines. Political change did indeed jeopardize American bases in the Philippines, but it seemed more important to have a healthy ally without American bases than a sick ally with them.

History has amply vindicated that judgment. Similarly, the transition to democracy in South Korea has not only been good for the Korean people but has significantly strengthened U.S.-Korean relations. As one contemplates the enormous problems of Indonesia today, one can only wish that the transition to a more representative government there had begun ten years earlier.

Promoting democracy requires attention to specific circumstances and to the limitations of U.S. leverage. Both because of what the United States is, and because of what is possible, we cannot engage either in promoting democracy or in nation-building simply by an exercise of will. We must proceed by interaction and indirection, not imposition. In this respect, the post-World War II examples of Germany and Japan offer misleading guides for the present. What proved feasible following total victory and prolonged occupation--in societies that were economically advanced but, at the same time, had profoundly lost faith in their own institutions--does not offer a model that applies in other circumstances.

One of the important lessons of the Cold War is that some regimes are more open to change than others, that there is indeed a difference between authoritarian and totalitarian governments. The Soviet Union itself was not ready for change until it became clear that it was losing the Cold War. Our ally South Korea was a very different matter, even though severe criticisms could be leveled at the Chun Doo Hwan regime of the 1980s. Reagan's willingness to receive Chun as his first foreign visitor at the White House was criticized by human rights groups, but it secured the reprieve of Kim Dae Jung's death sentence and his release from prison. Reagan's own visit to Korea two years later was also criticized, but it secured Chun's pledge to honor the Korean constitution and step down at the end of his term of office.

Harking back to Marcos again, it is important to recall that he only proved willing to heed advice that he step down when his own people had made his position completely untenable. Thus, another lesson that we should remember from our Cold War successes in promoting democracy is that such efforts require indigenous support to be effective. The chances of success without such support--say, in North Korea today--are small. It is the difference between pushing on a locked door and pushing on a balanced scale.

In the former cases, as in Afghanistan, our strongest weapon may be the oppressed people themselves. But we have an obligation to deliver the support we promise them. Kennedy's failure to make good on his pledges to the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, like Clinton's abandonment of the Iraqi opposition in 1996, was a moral failure that was also costly to American power and credibility. Even when the promises are vague, or only implicit--as with Eisenhower encouraging the Hungarians in 1956 or Bush the Iraqis in 1991--we must remember that our reputation will be determined by what people believe we promised rather than what we intended. This is a reason to promise carefully and deliver on the promises we make--but it should not become an excuse for refusing our help to those who need it, like the Iraqi opposition today.

* Deterrence Works

It is surprising, after not only the Cold War experience but the earlier history of the twentieth century, that we still hear echoes of "Why die for Berlin?" or "Why die for Danzig?"

The purpose of extending security guarantees, such as the ones recently extended to NATO's newest members, is not to have to fight wars on behalf of others, but precisely to avoid having to do so. It is impressive how often American clarity during the Cold War worked, and how often ambiguity led to trouble. This is not to say that showing resolve will always suffice to ensure peace. But we should not entertain the illusion that a refusal to extend guarantees will enable us to avoid war. Chamberlain not only sacrificed Czechoslovakia at Munich, but brought on the wider war that he was trying to avoid. When Acheson implied that Korea was outside our defense perimeter he not only invited a North Korean attack but could not then keep the United States out of war when it came.

Here there seems to be a persistent difference between democracies, which look constantly for pragmatic solutions to resolve concrete problems in isolation, and those more ruthless and avaricious leaders who see every such effort as a sign of weakness and whose real goal is to change power relationships in a fundamental way. Henry Kissinger has observed that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's "exploration" of pragmatic concessions to resolve the Berlin crisis in 1959 was seen by Khrushchev "as another confirmation of a favorable tilt in the balance of forces and the augury of even better things to come", as were subsequent American efforts. It was only with the frustration of Khrushchev's final attempt to raise the ante--by placing missiles in Cuba--that he was finally forced to stop testing the West on Berlin.

* America's Alliance Vocation

Perhaps no Cold War lesson is more important than what can be learned from the remarkable record of the United States in building successful coalitions. This includes lessons about the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will live to regret having done so. It includes lessons about the difference between coalitions that are united by a common purpose, and collections of countries that are searching for the least common denominator and for easy ways out of a problem. And it includes important lessons that the "enemy of our friend" does not always have to be our enemy as well--whether dealing with Egypt and Israel, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Greece and Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, or China and Taiwan, the United States has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to work both sides of the street.

* The Importance of Principle

There is much else to be learned from the experience of the Cold War: conflicts breed arms races, and not the other way around; it is far better to equip others to fight for their country than to send Americans to fight for them; conversely, refusing to arm our friends, whether in Bosnia, or Cambodia or elsewhere, is a strategic as well as a moral mistake; and force, when used, should be used decisively--bluffing or "signaling" with military power should not be done without a careful calculation of what comes next.

As important as any other lesson, however, is that in international relations, as in other human activities, principles count. This is a practical as well as a moral point, because principle is a powerful force in politics, particularly in democratic politics. It cannot be an absolute because it must be applied to specific cases, requiring judgments about the facts and the stakes of each one. Even in the case of Munich, Churchill acknowledged that,

"No case of this kind can be judged apart from its circumstances. The facts may be unknown at the time, and estimates of them must be largely guesswork, coloured by the general feeling and aims of whoever is trying to pronounce. Those who are . . . ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign Power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally but from a practical standpoint."

There is, however, Churchill continued,

"one helpful guide, namely, for a nation to keep its word and to act in accordance with its treaty obligations to allies. . . . An exaggerated code of honour leading to the performance of utterly vain and unreasonable deeds could not be defended, however fine it might look. [At Munich], however, the moment came when honour pointed the path of duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates."

China, Past and Future

There is no issue facing us today in which the past weighs more heavily on the present and on future prospects than that of our relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC). China is an emerging major power, but it has not yet become one. Persuading an emerging power that the status quo should be changed only peacefully has always been a challenge historically, and the failure to do so with Germany and Japan in the last century had catastrophic consequences. That failure serves as a reminder of the stakes involved, but does not constitute a reason to be pessimistic about the outcome in the case of China.

Almost surely, China will not become an ideological threat like the old Soviet Union or try to conduct ideological crusades and campaigns of subversion as it did in the 1950s and 1960s. Not only is the ideological fervor gone in China, but also the ideology has no appeal internationally. However, China does have deep historical grievances, much more legitimate than those voiced a century ago by Germany or Japan. It remains to be seen whether China will come to accept that a peaceful status quo in the Western Pacific--albeit one in which the principal countries around the Pacific Rim are America's allies or friends--best serves its own interests.

Clearly China's growing strength will pose challenges to the United States, its allies and its friends, but on balance it is probably better to face the challenges of a strong China than a weak one. Certainly it would be a mistake to treat China like the Soviet Union, restricting its trade in order deliberately to weaken it or to use human rights as leverage. A weaker China might take longer to become a military competitor, but what we would gain in time we would lose in enmity. Moreover, a collapsed China would not be in our interest, quite apart from the fact that it would involve enormous human suffering.

The most important reason, however, for treating China differently from the old Soviet Union is because an evolution is taking place in the People's Republic, one that bears some resemblance to the earlier development of the Asian "tigers." Today's China is no longer a completely closed society in which the party and government dominate everything. There is a substantial private sector whose scope and sphere are growing. It is in the U.S. interest--and in that of Taiwan and Hong Kong and the region as a whole--to encourage such growth, which is heavily dependent on trade with the West. That is the most fundamental and important reason for continuing normal trade relations with China and encouraging Chinese membership of the WTO.

The U.S. interest in supporting democratic trends in China is more than "international social work." Although our capacity to influence the process is limited, the United States has a fundamental strategic interest in encouraging greater openness. Even though democracies are not as irenic as the extreme proponents of "democratic peace" like to argue, a China that governs its own peoples by force is more likely to try to impose its will on its neighbors. And in turn, China's neighbors and the United States will be more likely to trust it and accept its growing influence if it becomes a democracy. A government whose legitimacy rests on valid claims to be representative has less need to make dangerous appeals to nationalism. Finally, and not insignificantly, a democratic China would have a far better chance of coming to terms with Taiwan peacefully. I have even been told by a Chinese Communist Party member that what "terrifies those old men in Beijing" is the demonstration by Taiwan that Chinese can manage
democracy successfully.

Is Taiwan an obstacle in U.S.-China relations or might it actually be an opportunity? For the last twenty-five years, U.S.-China differences over the issue have been successfully managed within a framework that has two essential premises: first, these differences must be addressed peacefully; second, they must be resolved by agreement of both parties, without a unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan. This is called the "One China" policy, although the policy rests on a fundamental ambiguity concerning its very name: both sides have different views of what "One China" means and the United States has never advanced a view of its own (although President Clinton's adoption of the PRC's "Three No's" formulation during his visit to Shanghai in 1998 was interpreted as a substantial tilt toward the PRC's view). "One China" is supposed to be open to any interpretation the two sides can agree on.

Although today's circumstances are vastly different from those that prevailed when the Shanghai Communiqué was signed in 1972, the "One China" policy remains the best available framework for handling a difficult and sensitive issue. It is a framework that preserves freedom, democracy and prosperity in Taiwan, even as it denies the island the formal independence that many of its citizens desire. At the same time, by avoiding a direct affront to mainland China's sovereignty, it helps to avoid military conflict. Yet it will be more difficult to sustain this framework in the post-Cold War period, because of the enormous changes that have occurred on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The most important of these changes has been the establishment of genuine democracy in Taiwan. As recently as twenty years ago--another example of the rapidity of change--the island was still ruled by a brutal dictatorship. As welcome as it is, democratization complicates Taiwan's dealings with the mainland. The government in Taiwan must now answer to its people, the great majority of whom are native Taiwanese with little attachment to China. In the post-Cold War period, when flimsy mini-states such as Macedonia, the Kyrgyz Republic and East Timor have acquired independence, it is difficult to explain why a prosperous democracy of more than twenty million people is not so entitled.

From the PRC side, fear that proindependence sentiment might lead to a de jure assertion of independence by Taiwan has apparently strengthened the view in some quarters that the aim of reunification must be pressed more rapidly. It may also be that Jiang Zemin, like some other world leaders, has an eye toward his personal legacy and believes that, following on Hong Kong and Macau, he can somehow complete reunification in his lifetime. Nor can one discount the possible influence of the kind of strategic thinking found in Chinese military circles that Taiwan is the "crucial point in the first chain of islands", the key to realizing Admiral Liu Huaqing's assertion that "the Chinese navy should exert effective control of the seas within the first island chain", defined as comprising the Aleutians, the Kuriles, Japan (including the Ryukyus), Taiwan, the Philippines and most of Indonesia.

The stiffening of the PRC's approach to Taiwan also reflects the changed geopolitical situation since the end of the Cold War. China no longer needs the United States to balance a threatening neighbor and may instead revel in the prospect of its own growing power. Not that the United States ever used its leverage very well in any case. All the talk about China as a "card" to be played in U.S.-Soviet relations obviously increased China's own sense of its bargaining power with the United States. George Shultz--who described his own attitude as "a marked departure from the so-called China-card policy"--observed at the time he became secretary of state that,

When the geostrategic importance of China became the conceptual prism through which Sino-American relations were viewed, it was almost inevitable that American policymakers became overly solicitous of Chinese interests, concerns, and sensitivities.... On the basis of my own experience, I knew it would be a mistake to place too much emphasis on a relationship for its own sake. A good relationship should emerge from the ability to solve substantive problems of interest to both countries.

"You owe us a debt", Deng Xiaoping said to Kissinger in one negotiating session in 1974, referring to the American use of the "China card" in its dealings with Moscow. Yet in this case, as in so many others, China managed to convince the United States--or to help Americans convince themselves--that we needed the relationship more than they did, when the situation was more nearly the reverse. It is a mystery why the United States needed China's help to reach two Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties that conceded large advantages to the Soviet Union--the second of which, indeed, was so deeply flawed that it never gained Senate ratification. It is much more obvious what China gained from the relationship during a period when the Soviet Union was threatening preventive war against China.

Most amazingly of all, it was we Americans who sought a hasty conclusion of the normalization negotiations in late 1978. If any side urgently needed normalization then it was China, which was preparing to invade Vietnam, a country that had just signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. But again, the United States acted as though the U.S.-China relationship was more important to us than to China. The result was easy to predict: an opportunity to achieve clarity on the crucial issue of arms sales to Taiwan was lost. Instead, the United States agreed to a moratorium on arms sales during the first year after normalization, mumbling an explanation that afterwards "the sale of selected, defensive arms... would continue in a way that did not endanger the prospects for peace in the region", while taking "note of China's continuing opposition to arms sales." This led directly to the crisis that culminated in the August 1982 communiqué on arms sales, an ambiguous resolution of the issue that rests on conflicting interpretations by the two sides.

Clarity is not always a virtue, and often ambiguity is a practical way to achieve an agreement with which both sides can live. The very term "One China" is ambiguous and the United States should leave any attempts at clarification to the parties themselves. By adopting the PRC's "Three No's" when he was in Shanghai in 1998, President Clinton foreclosed some possible avenues of agreement. More dangerously, he undermined the confidence of the Taiwanese in earlier U.S. assurances. Taiwanese anxiety was further heightened by the justifiable impression that the United States was surrendering to PRC pressure, as reflected in Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth's talk about an agreement on "interim measures", or China specialist Kenneth Lieberthal's proposal, shortly before joining the NSC, for a fifty-year interim agreement.

The more we seem to be pressing Taiwan to negotiate with China, the more fearful Taiwan becomes and the more we encourage the PRC to intensify its pressure. The United States needs to encourage maximum patience on this issue. For the status quo is quite satisfactory, and serious movement can only come if the PRC offers inducements to Taiwan, not pressure. Indeed, the record strongly suggests that the PRC and Taiwan--not unlike the Arab states and Israel--deal best with one another when they have to take responsibility for their own negotiating positions, with U.S. encouragement but without U.S. pressure. Under these conditions they negotiated joint membership of the Asian Development Bank in 1985 and of APEC in 1991.

The record further suggests that Taiwan-PRC relations improve when Taiwan--like so many others who have been dependent on the United States--feels secure in its reliance on America. Despite repeated warnings from various experts that strong U.S. demonstrations of support for Taiwan--the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Reagan's 1982 refusal to terminate arms sales, the Indigenous Defense Fighter project in 1985, the sale of F-16s in 1992--would disrupt the relationship between Beijing and Taipei, a period of convivial relations followed each of these events. When trouble has arisen, it has been the product of mixed signals, as with the administration's shifting positions on the question of a visa for Lee Teng-hui in 1995, which indicated to both sides that U.S. policy might very well bend under pressure.

While ambiguity on the definition of "One China" is desirable and on the subject of arms sales is probably necessary, there are two areas involving American intentions where ambiguity serves no purpose. The first concerns the U.S. attitude toward the use of force to resolve the Taiwan issue, the second our attitude toward Taiwanese independence.

A senior Clinton defense official reportedly told the Chinese that America's response to the use of force against Taiwan would "depend on the circumstances." At the same time, many in Taiwan believe that U.S. support remains unconditional. We have indulged misleading impressions on both sides. It would be a strategic as well as a moral mistake for the United States to let China have its way with Taiwan. No matter how much other countries in the region might criticize Taiwan for having contributed to the crisis, and no matter how much they might try to distance themselves from the United States, they would also view the U.S. response as a test of America's strategic will. At the same time, while making it clear to Taiwan that the United States will not abandon it or force it to negotiate under pressure, we should also convey that we expect reasonable behavior in return--which would include avoiding a unilateral declaration of independence.

There are some who wish that the Chinese civil war had ended with a more complete communist victory, so that we would not have to deal with the Taiwan "obstacle." One of my predecessors as assistant secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific region is reported once to have wished in jest that a tidal wave might literally wash the problem away. But this view is as unrealistic as it is morally blind. Once we accept the hand we have been dealt, obstacles can be turned into opportunities. We will not have peace in the Taiwan Strait if this promising democracy is made to disappear. We will only have peace when it is accepted as a fact of life. Only then will the friends of Taiwan be able to see why it is genuinely better for Taiwan to be joined with China, pointing the way to the kind of government that the great Chinese people deserve.

WHILE far from perfect, the only means available to us of anticipating what may lie ahead is to reflect as best we can on what has gone before. China is just one example of where reflecting on our Cold War experiences provides us a road map for the future. It is to be hoped that the next century will be one of great opportunity for the improvement of life on this planet and the expansion of human creativity, not one scarred by the deep tragedies that marked much of the last century. But we will have a far better chance of achieving that aim if we remember how we got to where we are today, rather than burying the divisions of the past in a warm and fuzzy nostalgia.

Paul Wolfowitz, former assistant secretary of state for East Asia, is dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.