obvious reason that our past history and common basic culture makes Europe more understandable to the average American than is Asia. To put it in other words, our policies in Asia have diverged a great deal more from what would have been advised by those who know Asia best than our policies in Europe have diverged from the consensus of expert opinion on Europe.
This situation naturally makes Asia a much more probable area of disaster for the United States than either domestic problems or our relations with Europe. Indeed, it has shown this tendency toward disaster for us on more than one occasion in the past. I would not deny that the weakness of our position in Asia derives in part from the inadequacy of our so-called expert knowledge, but this inadequacy is compounded by the still lower levels of general knowledge about Asia in this country. This is an extremely dangerous situation and one that obviously needs correction.
Some people might be inclined to tackle the problem by attempting to persuade the average citizen to accept without question the judgment of the experts in Asian matters, but this would be a hopeless undertaking. Nor do I believe that it would be a wise step in the long run, even if it were possible. On the whole, it is much safer to have the average man skeptical about expert opinion than to have him blindly accept whatever the supposed authorities on a subject may say.
A much more practical approach to the problem is to attempt to raise general standards of knowledge about Asia. This will be a slow and tedious process, but it is vital for our future as a nation. In fact, general American understanding of the problems of Asia forms one of the most important frontiers of knowledge, or at least of education, in the whole world today. In this sense the greatest foreign policy frontier this country faces does not lie in Europe or even in Asia but right here, on the campuses of our colleges, in primary and secondary school rooms, and in the forums of public debate.
Why is this so? For the following reasons: Asia is sure to have a large role in determining the nature of human society in the future; and the United States, because of its vast power, will have a large part in determining, either through its stupidity or its wisdom, either through action or inaction, the role that Asia plays; and finally, the way in which the United States exercises its great influence in Asia depends not only on the development of better expert knowledge about Asia but still more on the understanding of the problems of Asia by the American public as a whole. In other words, the degree of general understanding of Asia in this country basically controls our Asian policies; these in turn have a large influence on the eventual outcome in Asia; and the future of Asia will undoubtedly
