The world is important to the United States in myriad ways. Although the threat of nuclear annihilation has receded with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the world remains a dangerous place. Regional, civil, and ethnic conflicts, as well as terrorist threats, present daily challenges for American foreign policy. The advent of the global economy calls into question the very meaning of time-honored concepts such as "U.S. company" and "made in America." Exports account for a greater percentage of GNP than ever before.

Today, people, goods, and information move across the globe at an unprecedented pace. The United States is more impacted by immigration than it has been for a century. Regardless of where we stand on environmental legislation before Congress, none of us can deny the increasing impact of worldwide actions affecting the environment on Americans' well-being. The travel and communications revolutions have brought quantum leaps in the number and frequency of international contacts by Americans; it is now as easy to communicate with virtually any spot on the globe as it was for the generation in which we grew up to call down the street. In this "global community," where international travel has become routine, communicable diseases have also been internationalized, giving Americans a stake in public health standards worldwide.

These are only a few of the reasons that the need for Americans to be educated about the world - to be globally literate citizens - has never been greater. After World War II, the federal government recognized the importance of international education to prepare Americans for the cold war. We set up the Fulbright exchange program, funded international research centers at our universities, promoted foreign language study, and in other ways took responsibility for promoting the international education of Americans.

No such proactive federal policy exists today. Now, in the global age, we believe it is again time for the federal government to recognize and act on the national interest in international education. That is why we introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for a U.S. international education policy to enhance national security and further U.S. foreign policy and global competitiveness. Our resolution says that such a policy should strive to achieve the following:

Ensure that each college graduate has knowledge of a second language and of a foreign area. Invigorate citizen and professional exchange programs and promote the international exchange of scholars. Increase the recruitment of international students to study in the United States, and streamline government regulations that currently pose barriers to their entry. Significantly increase participation in study abroad by American students in all of the locations, languages, and subjects necessary to ensure that the United States maintains an adequate international knowledge base. Ensure that our universities have the support necessary to produce the international expertise necessary for U.S. world leadership.

Our colleagues Jim Kolbe and Jim Oberstar have introduced a similar resolution in the House.

We are not seeking increased federal involvement in higher education. Curricular and program decisions should and will remain with the institutions and the states. And we do not seek replication of the large, federally funded programs of the 1960s and earlier. What is necessary at the federal level is leadership. We ask President Bush to articulate the national interest in international education, set goals for our nation, and call us together--federal officials, governors, educators, exchange professionals, business leaders, and foundations--to discuss these goals and to commit ourselves to do our part to achieve them.

Last year, President Clinton issued an executive memorandum on international education. The memorandum instructed federal agencies to work together on a coherent approach to international education. One of the fruits of that memorandum was the nation's first-ever "international education week." For a week last fall, schools across the country engaged in special international education activities. Foreign ambassadors visited schools to talk about their

countries, and U.S. ambassadors abroad visited schools to talk about the United States.

President Bush should again proclaim international education week this year, and work to make it bigger and better. But much more remains to be done. President Bush should pick up where President Clinton left off and instruct his administration to elaborate and implement an international education policy appropriate for these times, and he should place a high-level White House official in charge.

Senators and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle recognize the importance of international education. This is one issue on which the president--if he leads--can achieve the bipartisan support that he seeks from Congress. We look forward to working with him.

Senators John F. Kerry (D-MA) and Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.