FOREIGN P
...--
University or
Minnesota LIBRARY
J431'72
* Mأ¤lls
The United States
and North Africa
INTRODUCTION
Recently in the Congress of
the United States, a crucial de
bate has been raging. That debate
is concerned with some of the
fundamentals of our foreign pol
icy over the last three decades,
including the question of foreign
aid.
In this debate, three charges
have been leveled against the
foreign aid program and our pol
icies in the developing world:
—that we have looked at the
world solely in Cold War terms;
—that we have sought to sup
port only certain kinds of re
gimes; and
—that we have not kept up
with changing world circum
StanceS.
U.S. POLICY IN AREA
The purpose of this paper is to
demonstrate, using North Africa
This pamphlet is based on a speech
by Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs David D. Newsom at
Princeton University, November 18,
1971.
as an example, that these asser
tions are not substantiated.
North Africa
is,
inmany ways,
a
microcosm of the developing
world. Among the four nations
of this area—Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, and Libya—we find char
acteristics, problems, reactions
and issues common to most of
the “Third World.”
The history of our relationship
to this area over the past two
decades demonstrates that our
policies have moved and are
moving with the changing tides.
They are policies which accept
change and accept nations
as
they are.
These states have many char
acteristics
in
common: a
strong
sense of national pride, an under
lying belief that the West has
obligations to make up for earlier
exploitation, and a
keen sensitiv
ity
to
outside interference. At
the same time, they are diverse
in
their national characteristics,
their forms of government, and
their resources.
Let us go back 20 years—to
1951. Only Libya was moving
toward independence, but its
prospects for viability were poor.
|