Former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake began a speech he gave yesterday afternoon with a bang. Or more precisely, with a description of the sound he heard when a Dartmouth student smashed headlong into a bass drum during a Harvard-Dartmouth football game.
The sound, he said, sickened him, much as he is sickened by the current state of U.S. attitudes toward foreign policy.
Lake compared the present foreign relations situation to an in-box, where "the immediate comes to the top, and the important sinks to the bottom." After sorting through "the immediate" -- the crisis in Bosnia and Haiti -- Lake said it was time for the United States to turn its attention to the "important."
These important impending problems, Lake said, fall into two categories. In the first of these categories, "classic problems" involving territorial disputes, Lake said the most pressing conflict was the tension between North and South Korea, which he said constitutes an "organic crisis."
This pressure will result in a confrontation when the North Korean economic system collapses in the near future, Lake said. He predicted "another Albania," referring to the anarchy and civil war that erupted in that country.
Lake spoke about other global conflicts as well, including the tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the fledgling Russian democracy and the recurring problems in Iran and Iraq.
In an interview with The Dartmouth before his speech, Lake described the current United Nations investigation into Iraqi arsenals and said even though thousands of warheads had been found and destroyed, "large quantities of biological and chemical weapons remain."
He also criticized the U.S. policy of dual-containment regarding Iran and Iraq, and said, "It's not a good idea to get into bed with either [country]."
He was, however, optimistic about the future of Iran, which he said "showed signs of evolution," but still has a way to go in its terrorism policy.
In addition to these countries, Lake focused on what he saw as an emerging new threat, exemplified by Timothy McVeigh -- individuals who "simply lash out at an entire society."
Globalization, the instantaneous transmission of information across the world, is responsible for many of these problems, he said.
Lake said, however, that globalization can neither be classified as good or bad.
"It's like the weather," he said. "We don't really understand it, but we all know it's there."
Another effect of globalization is the growing problem of cybercrime, Lake said, citing incidents in which teenagers hacked into classified U.S. Government files. Lake said only 17 percent of businesses report cybercrime.
Throughout the interview and his speech, Lake reiterated his belief in the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which he said has helped countries like Russia and has encouraged peace between countries. This effect has been most prevalent in Central Eastern Europe, an area which was once "a cockpit of conflict," he said.
His recommended the initiation and training of a local police force to replace U.S. and UN troops and to uphold the tenuous peace existing in places like Bosnia.
"The U.S. doesn't have the right to shape the future of countries -- the people must do that," Lake said, adding that this lesson had been painfully learned in Bosnia and Haiti.
When asked what he thought would transpire in the future of U.S. foreign policy, Lake responded with a quote from Yogi Berra, saying "Only an idiot would make predictions -- especially about the future."
