Must Use Force to Defend World Democracy--Shultz

Secretary of State George P. Shultz declared Wednesday that the United States must be prepared to use “direct military action when necessary” to defend democracy around the world.

In a speech crafted to set the ideological dimensions of U.S. foreign policy, Shultz said the nation must not only oppose Soviet-style communism but must also be prepared to support democratic change in countries such as South Africa, the Philippines and South Korea, where authoritarian governments pursue pro-Western policies.

The United States should use diplomatic means, he emphasized, to encourage friendly but undemocratic governments to loosen their grip on their citizens. But he said armed force may be the only way to deal with Communist governments or Communist-backed insurgencies.

“We cannot send American troops to every region of the world threatened by Soviet-backed Communist insurgents, though there may be times when that is the right choice and the only choice, as in Grenada,” he said in a speech to the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

“The wide range of challenges we face requires that we choose from an equally wide range of responses, from economic and security assistance to aid for freedom fighters to direct military action when necessary,” he said.

Shultz sought to establish a middle course between President John F. Kennedy’s pledge that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship” to stop communism and spread liberty and President Jimmy Carter’s warning against an “inordinate” fear of communism.

He called Kennedy’s commitment “too broad” and dismissed Carter’s policy as “a counsel of despair, a sign that we had lost faith in ourselves and our values.”

“Somewhere between these two poles lies the natural and sensible scope of American foreign policy,” he said. “Our ideals must be a source of strength--not paralysis--in our struggle against aggression, international lawlessness and terrorism.”

Except for his reference to the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, Shultz did not spell out the occasions on which he believes military force must be applied. But he was unstinting in his attack on Nicaragua, whose regime he called “a moral disaster.”

“We oppose the efforts of the Communist leaders in Nicaragua to consolidate a totalitarian regime on the mainland of Central America on both moral and strategic grounds,” he said.

“We must oppose the Nicaraguan dictators not simply because they are Communists, but because they are Communists who serve the interests of the Soviet Union and its Cuban client. . . ,” he said. “Had they not become instruments of Soviet global strategy, the United States would have had a less clear strategic interest in opposing them.”

Rejecting the suggestion that the Reagan Administration is simply anti-Communist, Shultz said, “Our relations with China and Yugoslavia show that we are prepared for constructive relations with Communist countries.” He added that the United States must continue to oppose Soviet-inspired Communist expansionism, however, “not because we are crusaders . . . but because our strategic interests, by any cool and rational analysis, require us to do so.”

Shultz drew a clear distinction between dictators in the Soviet orbit and all others. Nevertheless, he pulled away from an earlier Reagan Administration formulation that seemed to endorse pro-Western “authoritarian” governments as unpleasant but necessary counterweights to communism.

‘Side of Freedom’

“Our national interests require us to be on the side of freedom and democratic change everywhere and no less in such areas of strategic importance to us as Central America, South Africa, the Philippines and South Korea,” he said.

“The best defense against the threat of Communist takeover is the strengthening of freedom and democracy,” he said.

Nevertheless, Shultz noted the limits of U.S. influence in fostering democracy where there are no democratic traditions.

“If we use our power to push our non-democratic allies too far and too fast,” he said, “we may, in fact, destroy the hope for greater freedom; and we may also find that the regimes we inadvertently help bring into power are the worst of both worlds: They may be both hostile to our interests and more repressive and dictatorial than those we sought to change.”

For instance, he said, the United States will try to encourage South Africa to end its apartheid policy of racial separation before events produce a bloody change that will leave the black majority in the hands of other oppressors.

“The present system is doomed and the only alternative to a radical, violent outcome is a political accommodation now, before it is too late,” he said. “It is not our job to cheer on, from the sidelines, a race war in southern Africa, or to accelerate trends that will inexorably produce the same result.”