Yugoslav Foreign Policy International Balancing on a High Wire

The American Universities Field INSTITUTIONALMEMBERS Staff, Inc., founded in 1951, is a non- American profit, membership corporation of University of Alabama American educational institutions. It The Asia Society Universities employs a full-time staff of foreign Aspen Institutefor Humanistic area specialists who write fr& Studies abroad and make periodic visits to Brown University Field Staff member institutions. AUFS serves Dartmouth College the public through its seminar pro- Indiana University grams, films, and wide-ranging pub- Institutefor the Study of World lications on significant develop- Politics ments in foreign societies. University of Kansas Michigan State University Ramapo College of New Jersey University of Pittsburgh University of Wisconsin AUFS Reports are a continuing Associates of the Field Staff are Reports series on international affairs and chosen for their ability to cut across major global issues of our time. the boundaries of the academic dis- Reports have for almost three ciplines in order to study societies in decades reached a group of their totality, and for their skill in col- readers-both academic and non- lecting, reporting, and evaluating academic-who find them a useful data. They combine long residence source of firsthand observation of abroad with scholarly studies relat- political, economic, and social trends ing to their geographic areas of in foreign countries. Reports in the interest. Each Field Staff Associate series are prepared by writers who returns to the United States periodi- are full-time Associates of the cally to lecture on the campuses of American Universities Field Staff the consortium's member institu- and occasionally by persons on leave tions. from the organizations and universities that are the Field Staff's spon- sors. THE AUTHOR FRED WARNER NEAL is Professor of Before going to Claremont in 1957, he lnternational Relations and Government taught at the University of Colorado and and Chairman of the lnternational Rela- the University of California at Los tions Faculty at Claremont Graduate Angeles. He has also taught at the Ecole School and University Center, Claremont, dlSciences Politiques in Paris and the California. Born in Northville, Michigan, university of the West Indies, and has on August 5, 1915, he was educated at been Visiting Distinguished Professor of the University of Michigan, Haward Political Science at Reed College. University, the Sorbonne, and Karlova University in Prague, receiving his doc- A former AUFS Associate, Professor torate from Michigan in 1955. He is Chair- Neal has written widely on American man of the Executive Committee of the foreign policy and international politics American Committee on United States- and has also specialized in Soviet and Soviet Relations. As Special Consultant Eastern European affairs. His books on lnternational Affairs to the Center for include U.S. Foreign Policy and the the Study of Democratic Institutions, he Soviet Union, Titoism in Action: the has organized and directed the Center's Reforms in Yugoslavia after 1948, Yugo- Pacem in Terris Convocations on foreign slavia and the New Communism, and policy and international affairs. War and Peace and Germany. O 1978, American Universities Field Staff, Hanover, NH - 19781No. 24 by Fred Warner Neal Yugoslav Foreign Policy Europe [FWN-1-I781 International Balancing on a High Wire Since 1950 at least, Yugoslav foreign policy has Fourth is Yugoslavia's undoubted success in its been the world's greatest exhibition of inter- foreign policy endeavors. It has squeezed advan- national balancing on a high wire. The balancing tages from both blocs, while belonging to neither, has involved three main factors: Yugoslavia's and has adroitly maneuvered between the super- unique socialist system; Yugoslav relations with powers in its own interest. In addition, it has, if the Soviet Union on the one hand and with the only by example, played an important role in West, especially the United States, on the other; stimulating other Communist Parties to move and Soviet-American relations. It has always been away from a Soviet orientation. a dramatic feat. Today the drama is heightened by uncertainties in all three factors involved. Although one risks accusations from Belgrade of "great power chauvinism" by saying so, the Looking at Yugoslav foreign policy broadly over overriding importance of Yugoslavia's inter- a 30-year period, a number of related features national positions arose out of the Cold War and is merit recalling. a product of East-West relations, particularly between the United States and the Soviet Union. First is Yugoslavia's firm commitment to inde- Both Moscow and Washington have difficulties pendence. Virtually nobody has any doubts on understanding the basic Yugoslav foreign policy this score, including such critics of Yugoslav position. That position is best described as that of foreign policy as former Ambassador ~ilberman! This Report is a revised version of a Paper pre- Second is Yugoslavia's simultaneous and some- sented at a conference on "Yugoslavia: Accom- what contradictory yen for "socialist solidarity," plishments and Problems," held at the Woodrow which leads it to take positions in harmony with Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- the Soviet Union, and its fear of Soviet influence, ington, D.C., on October 16,19 77. The conference which leads it to draw back. This has produced the was organized by Professor George W. HofSman seesaw effect so often worrisome for both Moscow of the University of Texas with assistancefrom the and Washington, to say nothing of a large number External Research Oflce of the U.S. Department of Yugoslavs. of State and the publishing house of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. It was attended by about 90 Third is Yugoslavia's marshalling of non- scholars, journalists, and government oflcials. Other papers presented were by Professor Paul S. aligned countries of the "Third World" into a sort Shoup of the University of Virginia (on the Party), of "non-bloc bloc." The nonalignment policy, Professor Laura D'Andrea Tyson of the Univer- undertaken for reasons both of ideology and self- sity of California at Berkeley (on the economy), defense, has propelled it to take positions on many and Dr. Dennison I. Rusinow, A UFS Associate issues that do not affect it directly and has given it stationed in Vienna to report on Eastern Europe a global stature wholly unrelated to its intrinsic (on domestic developments). Dr.Rusinow 's paper power. is also being published as an AUFS Report. an independent Communist country-that is, out- involve Yugoslav independence; the latter, at least side the Soviet bloc-with a yen for "socialist sometimes, does. And no matter how much the solidarity" but fearful of Soviet influence and at Yugoslavs see international problems in the same the same time a commitment to what Tito has light as their big Slav brothers, when Soviet called "active coexistence."2 policies are interpreted as infringing on Yugoslav independence, or threatening to infringe on it, What this means is that, being independent, both Yugoslav national interest and Titoist Yugoslavia seeks to follow paths that will enhance ideology have invariably led Belgrade to react its national interest and its ideological beliefs sharply and critically. The Yugoslavs have proved whether or not these paths follow or run counter to they can be counted on to draw the line, even those taken by the United States or the Soviet though its location sometimes seems dangerously Union. But being communists-i.e., sort of far eastward. Marxist-Leninists-the Yugoslavs in fact tend to see many international issues in the same light as Although nowadays they downplay it, the the U.S.S.R. Being committed to "active coex- Yugoslavs have never forgotten that it was massive istence," the Yugoslavs seek to promote peace in American economic and military assistance that the world, as they see it, by taking sides on almost enabled them to survive Soviet pressures after the all questions, regardless of how their efforts may break with Moscow. As a result, they have always be interpreted by others. kept their ties to the West-albeit sometimes tenuously. When Yugoslav foreign policy has Since Moscow tends to interpret "communist" appeared to move closer to the West, however, it as meaning support for its policies, Yugoslavia has been less from choice than because Soviet often offends when the interpretation in Belgrade policies were perceived as threatening. Once such differs from that in Moscow. The Kremlin finds it policies were abandoned, or satisfactorily ex- hard to realize that its choice is not between exist- plained, by Moscow, Yugoslavia's tilt to the East ing Yugoslav policies and Yugoslav policies more has been resumed. The tilt has never been more favorable to Moscow but between existing Yugo- than that-a tilt-even though, on occasion, a slav policies and Yugoslav policies less favorable sharp one. It is also true that with each pendulum to Moscow. Since Washington tends to interpret swing, the tilt to the East has been a little less than independent as meaning opposition to the Soviet the preceding time. But this does not mean that Union, Yugoslavia often offends the United States ultimately there won't be any tilt. by siding with the Russians. The United States finds it hard to realize that its choice is not be- This situation results primarily from two fac- tween existing Yugoslav policies and Yugoslav tors: the predilections of the Yugoslav Communist policies more favorable to the West but between leadership and changes in Soviet policy. existing Yugoslav policies and policies more favorable to Moscow. The explanation for the tilt is that Tito and, at least initially, all his upper echelon comrades, Without fully comprehending it, both super- were politically weaned in the days when the Com- powers have made partial adjustment to this munist movement was both international and dilemma. In some ways, however ironically, the monolithic and "International Communist unity" United States has adjusted to the in-between was prized above all things.

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