1730 



Among the hazards of U.S. initiatives are the personal and political 

 resistance to external meddling with the population function, and the 

 prospect of destabilizing a society's political structure by food produc- 

 tion programs that involve changes in the distribution of incomes. As 

 the author, Dr. Allan Nanes, puts it: 



The job of U.S. diplomacy generally speaking is to advance and illuminate the 

 goals of U.S. foreign policy. With regard, especially, to a problem as complex and 

 delicate as that of achieving a food/population balance, it must do so without 

 offending the sensibilities of the countries concerned. As noted earlier the United 

 States seeks to promote the Green Revolution and concomitant economic develop- 

 ment. It is evident from what has been said already that this U.S. posture creates 

 or exacerbates some difficult diplomatic problems. 



U.S. diplomats are faced with the job of urging technological change on the 

 leaders of the LDCs, even though such changes may have unsettling social and 

 political consequences. Indeed, it is even possible that the very leaders who take 

 U.S. advice may find themselves deposed as a consequence of the social instability 

 introduced by technological innovation. It seems paradoxical for the United 

 States to encourage the LDCs to adopt the new agricultural technology knowing 

 that there is a high risk of social turmoil, if a principal aim of U.S. development 

 assistance is to help bring about stability in those countries. However, it is the 

 U.S. hope that any destabilizing effects of the Green Revolution can be confined 

 to the short run, and that eventually the position of the United States vis-a-vis 

 the LDCs will be stronger, as the role of the Green Revolution in overall economic 

 development becomes clearer, and its benefits more manifest.^" 



An important lesson of Dr. Nine's study is the interconnectedness 

 of the food/population dilemma with the whole fabric of concerned 

 nations. Careful study is necessary to lay the groundwork for initia- 

 tives, and resort to multilateral mechanisms to implement them seems 

 the most reasonable course. But while progress, however, slow, toward 

 the resolution of the dilemma is a national and a global goal, urgent 

 attention to desperate emergencies cannot be neglected. Both 

 long-range and short-range action have their complications. Writes 

 Dr. Nanes: 



The one conclusion to which the evidence points most insistently is that the 

 food/people dilemma cannot be considered in isolation. It is, rather, an integral 

 part of the total development process, and be3^ond that a feature of a maturing 

 world. Even if the Green Revolution is successful in feeding a vastly increased 

 population, development will not go forward and living standards will only decline 

 if population growth is not effectively checked. For population is even more 

 intractable a problem than food supply. All phases of development are retarded 

 as long as expanding population eats into economic growth. Investment is held 

 back or channeled into unproductive areas. Job opportunities are not created, 

 and unemployment or underemployment spreads. Social misery continues un- 

 checked, and populations — rural and urban — become increasingly susceptible 

 to appeals to violence.^*^ 



The food/population problem will be solved globally in some com- 

 bination of two ways — by assuring an adequacy of food or by the 

 limiting of population, whether by design or by starvation. As the 

 study observes: "There is a regrettable tendency on the part of 

 mankind to respond eagerly to rewarding opportunities but to ignore 

 the prospect of misfortune and delay action to avert it until convinced 

 of its reality by its actual onset." ^"'^ As the primary exporter of 

 food, the United States has both the opportunity and the necessity 

 to exercise moral and technical leadership in achieving a global food/ 

 population balance. Here initiative is greatly preferable to the reaction 

 to endless crises of foreign food shortages. IJnless this country devises 



3*<-' Ihid., pp. 820-821. 

 w md., p. 864. 

 348 Ibid., p. 861. 



