The temptation to describe the report as a Austinian policy cannot be resisted, but essentially it is motivated by self-interest.

``A GOOD government'', wrote Victor Hugo, ``consists of knowing how much future to introduce in the present''. A significant step towards this useful guidepost is the US State Department's first annual ``Report on the Environment and Foreign Policy''.

Published on April 23, 1997, the white paper reflects the US' new interest in bringing environmental concerns into its global policies for a secure world future. It also convincingly paves the way for a `New Age Environmentalism' and vindicates the reasonability of the environmental lobbies in the US.

With this report and after much diplomatic tiptoeing and shadow boxing on environmental issues, the US as an indispensable world leader has finally, though considerably late, initiated a more direct policy process by giving priority to precautionary principle. The temptation to describe the report as an Augustinian policy cannot be resisted, but essentially it is motivated by self-interest. There is a difference, however: the sheer synergic nature of environmental issues impinges the self-interest of one state to be governed by the self-interest of others.

This consciously green foreign policy is a far cry from the Cold War period during which the standard practice of the US was to give precedence to political-military ties. All other issues were either ignored or completely overlooked. While on the one hand the US participated in the Palme Commission (1982) which argued that the abolition or large reduction in weapons of mass destruction and conventional disarmament are necessary to provide a new momentum to economic and social development and environmental conservation, yet on the other, when the situation demanded to initiate action as in the case of Iceland in 1986, it failed.

When Iceland, a traditional whaling state and a NATO member playing host to a large US military base at Keflavik, refused to abide by the whaling moratorium, the legislation required that US ban import of fish from that country. But sensing Iceland's hostile posture vis-a-vis the military base, the Reagan administration backed down. A situation of this kind occurred with Japan in 1988. In the post-Cold War 90's, when the vital interest of nations extend to the basic system of the earth itself, a new concept of national and international security is fast emerging that challenges the traditional definition of security based on competition in political-military power.

Linking environment to foreign policy is in a way a precursor to a greater thrust-oriented `environmental security', which means adhering to sustainable development. It also means capping the trends which are enhancing climate change. Crucially, it means modifying conventional political `realism' from the linear, selective, narrow interest to an interdependent, collective responsibility of state sectors.

The US-based Worldwatch Institute, a leading policy-pressure body, claims that environmental factors are the real cause of many of the 30 odd civil wars raging across the world and will be behind most conflicts in the future. According to the report, ``Security in the 1990's has less to do with how many tanks ad soldiers a country has and more with reducing pressures over basic resources''.

Taking this into consideration, the US should further enhance its green policy by taking a leading role in diverting a substantial proportion of military spending the world over to address the more immediate environmental and related social problems that cause conflicts.

The world still spends $ 1,000 billion a year or six per cent of global GNP on arms and military activities. It is suggested that $ 200 bill is needed for corrective actions on managing forest, water and soil resources and redistributing land.

Such wrong-headed priorities, one assumes, will be elbowed out through an international diplomatic response that reflects global consensus.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.