ACCESSION NUMBER:231946
FILE ID:EU-439
DATE:06/18/92
TITLE:U.S. SEEKS WAYS TO DEAL WITH GLOBAL ETHNIC CONFLICTS (06/18/92)
TEXT:*92061839.EUR
*EUR439   06/18/92 *

U.S. SEEKS WAYS TO DEAL WITH GLOBAL ETHNIC CONFLICTS
(Ridgway on post Cold War foreign policy)   (380)
Cheri J. Mullin
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- The road to the next century will require an examination of
the U.S. role in relationship to Europe, Rozanne Ridgway, president of the
Atlantic Council and former assistant secretary of state for European and
Canadian affairs, said in an address to the Woman's National Democratic
Club, June 18.

This examination should be "not only of our old friends in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Community, but with
the host of institutions that dot the post Cold War landscape," Ridgway
said.

"It will require continued attention to East and Central Europe, a
continuing search for an effective means to deal with ethnic conflicts --
to deal not just with instability, but also with irrationality," she said.

She noted that an "urgent international agenda has emerged.  It is an agenda
of cross-boundaries and issues that confound us.

"The confounding issue is ethnic conflict.  It is not new, but it is
something we in America do not understand.  We saw the tragedy in
Yugoslavia of Croats, Bosnians and Muslims dying for reasons most experts
tell us go all the way back to 1589.  This leaves us with a sense of anger
and a sense of futility.  We worry as well about the break-up of
Czechoslovakia," she said.

The United States must find effective ways to deal with these conflicts.
"We want to make sure the world external to the United States is stable and
favorable to the U.S.," she said.

The future is a landscape of change, instability and uncertainty, Ridgway
said.  "We're moving from still life to a kaleidoscope," she added.

Ridgway sees two lanes on the foreign policy road to the next century:  "The
politics between states and the politics of interrelated, equally urgent,
cross-border issues.

"Prosperity, security and freedom is the purpose of our foreign policy," she
said.  "There is a world beyond our borders and it goes on with or without
us," she said.  "It's in our interest to take the lead."

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