Summer 2000

Leadership for a Changing World:
Rice Suggests Formula for Success

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the world with only one international economy: that of the United States. And the growth of the U.S. economy in today's global market has brought America to "a more pre-eminent position in international politics than any state since perhaps the British at the start of the 19th century." But for the U.S. to continue offering leadership in a changing world, it will have to deal effectively in three major foreign policy areas: defense, relations with Russia and China, and the sharing of American ideals. This was the message of Dr. Condoleezza Rice, professor of political science and former provost of Stanford University, as she delivered the Percy C. Ratliff Lecture at Samford in April. A specialist in eastern Europe and Russia as well as international security policy, Rice was director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council and special assistant to President George Bush for National Security Affairs during 1989­91.

Foreign policy expert Condoleezza Rice visits Samford as the Percy C. Ratliff Lecturer.

Now, she is on leave from Stanford, serving as primary foreign affairs adviser to presidential candidate George W. Bush. She was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in August. If Bush is elected, Rice could receive a Cabinet-level appointment.

She lived her early years in Birmingham, where her father, John Rice, was a Presbyterian pastor and later dean of students at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

The first major challenge of American foreign policy, Rice said at Samford, is to keep the peace and avoid major world conflict. But she opposes peacekeeping in places such as Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, "where all you can do is separate warring factions," because it "does not make you ready to fight big wars."

Russia and China present the second major challenge, according to Rice.

"They are problems for different reasons-China because it is a rising power which resents America's presence in the Asian Pacific and south Asia, where it wishes to be dominant, and Russia because it is a declining power which still has tens of thousands of nuclear warheads."

Because China's growing economic potential could be turned to military purposes, the U.S. has a "tremendous stake" in the economic liberalization of the nation, Rice said. "That is one reason trade with China, which empowers entrepreneurial classes, is important to us."

Russia has tremendous mineral and other resources, and a well-educated population, she added. It could recover from "three centuries of terrible leadership" if it could get rid of corruption ("crony capitalism" by former Communist Party bosses), revise an out-of-balance tax code and keep young people from leaving Russia.

"If we get the defense challenge right and deal effectively with Russia and China as global competitors, there's one final challenge: How do we think about values in American foreign policy?" she said.

"Fortunately, the great sweep of history is moving in a direction in which the values we hold dear are the ones being invoked. And the underlying value is that individuals must be treated well if they are to be creative, innovative and entrepreneurial.

"We can promote our values by affirming them, but in a way that shows we recognize that we don't have all the answers," she said.

Rice said people in other nations must be reminded of several things about America:
Communitarian values. "This is a country in which neighbor tries to help neighbor, the most philanthropic country in the world."
America is multi-ethnic. "In a time when difference is a license to kill in most of the world, where the Serbs and Albanians are fighting about something that happened in 1389, being able to say forget and forgive and move on and become one people is really important."
Belief in upward mobility. "The core of that has always been the ability to level the playing field through education. Unless education is provided to all, and particularly public education through grade 12, that part of the dream will be lost."

Americans are a confident people, said Rice, "not because of military power or economic prowess, but because of who we are and what we mean." She added, "It is because we can all access the American dream that we are the leaders in the world that we are."