capacity to mount program that would undermine Soviet ability to infiltrate and capture tho e countrie in behalf of the Soviet bloc. An important aspect of containment, however, was a more proactive effort to gain the adherence of uch countrie to the foreign and international security policy goal of the United State. In orne re pects, the e programs assumed characteristic imilar to tho e focu ing on the adversary, emphasizing in-depth and interdi ciplinary program that would generate y temic understanding of ocietie . In other re pect , however, they rather quickly diverged. Typically, acce to field research was much more exten ive, opportunitie for engagement with cholars in the region were greater, and the numbers of tudents from the region who came to American universities were dramatically higher. Far more nuanced approache to conte ted countrie developed as American cholars became increasingly able to reflect the world from the perspectives of such ocietie . Thi capacity and predi po ition was enhanced by the growing numbers of cholars from such ocietie who became integral to American cholarship. It was al 0 trengthened by the perception and writing of cholars who tudied conte ted countries and aw that American policy toward tho e countrie , when directed at undermining Soviet influence, frequently treated such countrie as pawn in a larger battle, often producing re ults that had very negative con equence for tho e ocietie . American policy not only upported dome tically repre ive regime that were friendly in the U.S.Soviet context, but al 0 pursued or abetted, in conte ted countrie , devastating wars that were prosecuted a a mean of containing Soviet expanion. 3. A central feature of the cold war wa the battle of idea and information. Both the Soviet Union and the United State inve ted large sum and mobilized exten ive bureaucracie to influence perception and attitude in their own ocietie , in the ocieties of their adversarie , and e pecially in the conte ted world. Much of that inve tment took the form of direct appeal through radio programming and exchange , but much wa inve ted a well in strengthening and influencing the cholarly and media re ource of the conte ted countrie . 4. Foreign tudents were important targets of thi battle and haped major training program in the Soviet Union a well a American exchange proJu ElSEPTEMBER 1994
grams. A primary purpo e of the American program was to promote an understanding of American ociety and culture among the scholarly communitie of conte ted and-when po ible-adversary countries. 5. American tudents and cholar operating internationally were inevitably caught up in the vortex of thi verbal and pictorial war. It challenged them to po ition them elve not only with respect to the foreign policy of ho t countrie , but also with re pect to the trength and inadequacie of their own ociety and the values it e pou ed. Some were predi po ed to upport government po ition and to defend the virtue of the United State ; others to di tance them elve to a greater or Ie er extent from government po ition and from defenders of American culture, ociety, and repre entative government; and still other to withdraw from engagement on contentiou topic. The point, however, i that alrno t all were forced to develop an adaptive trategy for coping with this battle. Such adaptive strategies, and the conflicts among tho e who cho e different trategie , die hard. They haped, and in orne measure continue to hape, tudent and cholarly di cour e on the conte ted world among tho e who were abroad and within our dome tic area tudie program a well. 6. Becau e in-depth knowledge of adver ary and conte ted area was central to programs of cholarhip haped by the needs of the cold war, funders were generally quite supportive of cholars who were beneficiaries of their resource but carried out re earch and teaching that had no identifiable relation hip to cold war concern . Univer ity in i tenee on academic freedom and a 100 ening of the end -means link between the promotion of in-depth international cholarship and cold war goal meant that much basic area tudie work came increa ingly to be conducted in an atmo phere that was not only remote from, but sometimes quite ho tile to, the u e of cholarly pur uits in behalf of national goal .
B. The Post-Cold War World, Emerging Funder Priorities, and Some Potential Implications for American International Scholarship The collap e of the Soviet bloc in 1989 and of the Soviet Union two years later effectively ended the cold war. Tho e coUap e left the United State and its allie a the preeminent voice in intellectual, ITEMs/35