The development principles and policies espoused by industrialized countries have seldom promised so much, whether through the Earth Summit or the World Bank's "sustained assault on world poverty". Such promises only serve to highlight the widening gap between principles and practice. Despite declared concern for some new world order, the financial policies of industrialized countries continue to increase the gap between the richer and poorer countries, deepening the already abject poverty and environmental degradation in which more than a billion people live.
The main theme of American foreign policy since the time of President Truman has been that if aggression is allowed to stand, the practice would spread until it threatens the general peace; and, therefore, that the world community must enforce the rule even against relatively small violations. How can this sit with America's passivity in the face of Serbian aggression? Is it just that a wider Balkan war does not threaten America's oil supply, as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait did?