To the Editor:
I would like to clear up a few of Kenji Hosokawa's errors and misconceptions ("Clinton's Foreign Policy Blunders," The Dartmouth, Feb. 16). First, I caution Hosokawa against using Boris Yeltsin's reference to World War III as a scare tactic to illustrate Russian animosity toward US policy. Yeltsin has a history of making such ill-considered remarks, and they have been consistently over-ridden and downplayed by his own spokespeople and the Russian foreign policy establishment. Second, Hosokawa speaks of "the recent expansion of NATO" as if it were a done deal. Not quite. The U.S. Senate and most of the other member-state legislatures have yet to ratify the invitation extended to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. NATO operates on the basis of consensus, and so unanimous approval among its members is needed. Turkey may well refuse to ratify expansion in retaliation for its recent snub by the European Union. Even in the United States, best estimates suggest that the Clinton Administration has only 55 or 60 of the 67-senator "supermajority" needed for ratification. Finally, I am troubled by Hosokawa's flippant assertions that "thousands of innocent people may have to die in the interest of peace" and "that blood must often accompany great deeds." The U.S. Marine Corps (hardly a haven for tree-hugging doves) has a quasi-official motto which merits consideration: "Superior thinking has always overwhelmed superior force." The greatest foreign policy initiatives of the twentieth century, such as the Marshall Plan and the peaceful reunification of Germany, have been triumphs of the spirit and not of the sword.
