For most of humanity the third quarter of the century was a period of unprecedented prosperity. The world's output of goods and services, expanding 4 per cent or more annually, tripled in less than a generation. Growth seemed commonplace—and was soon built into consumer aspirations, corporate earnings projections, and government revenue expectations. Few stopped to calculate that if the 4 per cent rate of economic growth remained steady, there would be a fiftyfold expansion in just a century. And even fewer considered the pressure this would put on the earth's resources.

The scientific and technical knowledge that led in 1945 to the explosion of the first atomic weapons cannot be erased; as long as our civilization survives, so will our capacity to build nuclear weapons. Awareness of this harsh fact has sparked numerous attempts to control their spread. The hope was that nuclear weapons could be confined to a relatively few, politically stable countries and then eliminated entirely.

In the Baruch Plan of 1946, the United States offered to turn over its nuclear monopoly to an international authority on the condition that other powers do the same and that the most rigorous safeguards and inspection/verification procedures be established and enforced The Soviet Union declined to go along. Thus the 1950s and early ’60s saw the spread of nuclear weapons, first to the Soviet Union (accomplished by a combination of internal research and international espionage), then to Great Britain and France, and later to the People's Republic of China (instigated by the USSR and doubtless regretted by the Soviets today)

Seven years after the fall of Saigori and three and a half after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia/Kampuchea, Southeast Asia is an area in search of equilibrium. That search provides the key to understanding the relations between and among the various states in the region.

Vietnam's foreign policy objectives have been fairly clear and in a sense straightforward, at least since 1979. It wants de jure recognition of the status quo; that is, of a unitary Vietnamese state (now widely granted) and of both the Heng Samrin government in Cambodia and the Kaysone government in Laos (far less widely granted). Vietnam says it is seeking a normalization of relations with ASEAN and China for itself and on behalf of the other two Indochinese governments.