How the '70s will reflect in the '80s
The repercussions of America's withdrawal of forces from Indochina in the 1970s will continue to vibrate into the next decade, three Kansas Univerity professors recently agreed.
Carl H. Lande and Roy Laird, professors of political science, and E.Jackson Baur, professor of sociology were asked to identify the most significant political events involving America in the '70s and to speculate on the consequences of those events in the 1980s.
Lande contends the withdrawal already has made America hesitant to intervene to protect its interests abroad, citing, for examplo, when Cuba sent armed forces into Angola in 1977.
In the '80s, he said, that posture will make it "difficult for future presidents to slow the momentum of the Soviet push towards a position as the dominant superpower, and will hasten the decline of the Western democracies with or without a third wolrd war."
Laird agreed. "I think the signs are that they (the Soviets) are going to become more opportunistic, more interventionist. I think the free nations of the world are really going to be put to the test."
Two examples in this decade foreshadow the trend, he said: military intervention by the Soviets in Afghanistan and "their behind-the-scene activity in Iran, which is only now beginning to be appreciated."
Baur cast the wothdrawal from Vietnam in American, rather than Soviet, terms, but reached the same conclusion.
He said that since the pullout, U.S. foreign policy had been more restrained.
This country, he said, "no longer attempts to play the role of the world's policeman."
Yet he said he felt the Soviets would continue to be responsive in their negotiations with the United States, "whether SALT II passes or not." "But I don't antecipate the achievement of a true detente. I'm sure the Russians will take advantage of unsettled conditions wherever they may occur. And our military strategy will have to take into account these kinds of localized conflicts."
Also significant for the '80s, the professors agreed, were the revelations of Watergate.
"It demonstrated the vulnerability of the 'imperial presidency,' the power of the press and the strength of the American democracy," said Lande.
Both he and Laird expressed hopes that a more mature and realistic American would emerge in the '80s as a result.
Said Lande, "Combined with the election of Jimmy Carter, which was a naive response to the discovery that presidents are less tha perfect men, it may in the end lead the voters to a more sober understanding that policies, rather than professions of personal rectitude, are the bases on which mature".
"I would see a kind of consolidation of the movement for constraint over executive authority. I think there will be a gowing recognition of the burdens of the president's role," says E. Jackson Baur, KU professor of sociology, analysing the significant events of the '70s and their likely impact in the '80s.
jan 1, 1980
