The One Percent Solution: Shirking the Cost of World Leadership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AMBASSADOR RICHARD N. GARDNER WILL EXPLORE THE RAMIFICATIONS OF INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

On Thursday, November 16, 2000 at 12:00 noon at the Harry S Truman Building, US Department of State, Ambassador Richard N. Gardner will discuss his article entitled, "The One Percent Solution: Shirking the Cost of World Leadership" (Foreign Affairs, July/August 2000).

EXCERPTS

"A dangerous game is being played in Washington with America's national security. Call it the 'one percent solution'--the fallacy that successful U.S. foreign policy can be carried out with barely one percent of the federal budget. Unless the next president moves urgently to end this charade, he will find himself in a financial straitjacket that frustrates his ability to promote American national interests and values in an increasingly uncertain world..."

"...A continuation of present trends means we can expect more abject poverty in the world, more harm to the environment, more epidemic disease, more political instability, more crime and drug trafficking, more ethnic violence...[and]probably more terrorism--this is not the kind of world Americans want their children to inherit."

This program is presented by the Secretary's Open Forum, US Department of State. For more information, please contact: Mr. Alan Lang, Chairperson, Secretary's Open Forum, at (202) 647-0532 or A.Lang@state.gov