1317 



in the Middle East, famine and tribal strife in Africa, are only recent 

 illustrations of the problems that have been shaking the foundations 

 of this volatile, troubled Third World. Economic development, it is 

 argued, offers perhaps the best prospects for peace and stability. Thus 

 the increasingly compelling requirements of political interdependence 

 bind all nations, advanced and underdeveloped, in a common search 

 for peace through economic development. 



American dependence on mineral resources largely under the con- 

 trol of the LDCs, as development specialists are quick to indicate, 

 points to a new vulnerability for the United States. Awareness of this 

 problem comes at the height of the current energy crisis and suggests 

 what may be a scenario for things to come with Rowing cartelization 

 of world mineral resources and growing consciousness of increased 

 leverage among the LDCs to be used against the advanced industrial 

 nations. Reasons of self-interest appear to warrant a reappraisal of 

 the Nation's posture towards the LDCs and the affirmation of a policy 

 of interdependence. 



Counterforces hinder solutions to brain drain through economic de- 

 velopment. A mood of withdrawal from extended — possibly over- 

 extended — foreign policy commitments seems to have enveloped the 

 Nation in the post-Vietnam era. Reinforced by other powerful forces, 

 termed isolationist by some observers, this mood has had the effect of 

 restricting foreign policy initiatives and inducing a cautious attitude 

 among lawmakers toward reaffirming traditional but far-reaching 

 foreign policy commitments. Apathy and indifference toward eco- 

 nomic development (and also immigration) is reflected in the attitude 

 and posture of the administration; and thus far in the 1970's the 

 Congress, preoccupied with other pressing matters such as the energy 

 and constitutional crises, has seemed unaware that a problem exists. 



Persisting difficulties, dilemmas, and paradoxes, make unlikely a 

 long-term, much less a short-term, "solution" of brain drain. The 

 LDCs must cope with severe economic deficiencies, now worsened by 

 the petroleum pricing policies of the Mid-East — yet to do so is the 

 first requirement of development. They are faced with seemingly in- 

 soluble problems in institution-building and in modernizing their tra- 

 ditional societies. They cannot avoid the perplexing dilemma posed by 

 adherence to democratic principles of human rights, while taking 

 measures to check emigration ; nor can they avoid the dilemma inher- 

 ent in the natural inequalities of opportunity among peoples and 

 nation-states. 



On its part the United States is thrust into the position of coping 

 with declining interest among the American people in international 

 development and with what the present study has found to be a vir- 

 tually nonexistent present concern for brain drain as a foreign policy 

 issue. It is faced with the dilemma posed by restricting immigration 

 selectively, while seeking the right balance of adherence to the demo- 

 cratic principle of free movement of people. It seems to have no other 

 course than to come to terms with the paradox presented by potential 

 loss through brain drain in educating the untrained in the nation- 

 building process, and also with the further paradox inherent in the 

 "permanent draw" of the disadvantaged to an advanced scientific- 

 technological civilization. 



