Suchergebnisse

When nonalignment (NA) began to attract global attention during the 1950's, the initial reaction of US policy makers was one of anxiety & skepticism, as well as outright hostility. For several yrs US officials demanded that nonaligned nations choose the side they really supported in the Cold War. Legislative & public reactions to NA were highly critical. Gradually executive policy makers began to modify their assessments, & moved from an early stage of apprehension to a stage of limited cooperation with neutralist countries to achieve common goals. By the early 1960's they went on to endorse the basic idea of diplomatic NA & to hold it out as the ultimate goal of countries like South Vietnam. This change did not signify official approval of all policies & activities of neutralist countries. The overall transition in US policy occurred for a number of reasons, not the least of which was realization in Washington that NA had become an influential & growing movement, attracting the vast majority of new states in the AfroAsian world. Several nations once closely allied diplomatically with the West also showed signs of assuming a de facto position of neutralism. Executive officials realized that opposition to NA, & noncollaboration with its exponents, could not serve as the basis of effective nat'l policy in a global setting characterized by growing 'polycentricity' & a gradual erosion of rigid diplomatic postures on both sides of the Iron Curtain. HA.