Today, there is no Stalin to give orders. If a nation is isolated from the international community now, it is either because the country is simply too weak to meet international standards or because its leaders have chosen willfully to disregard those standards.

Last week in the Netherlands, President Clinton said that no democratic nation in Europe would be left out of the transatlantic community.

Today I say that no nation in the world need be left out of the global system we are constructing. And every nation that seeks to participate and is willing to do all it can to help itself will have America's help in finding the right path.

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The Cold War's shadow no longer darkens Europe. But one specter from the past does remain. History teaches us that there is no natural geographic or political endpoint to conflict in the Balkans, where World War I began and where the worst European violence of the past half-century occurred in this decade. That is why the peaceful integration of Europe will not be complete until the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia are fulfilled.

When defending the boldness of the Marshall Plan 50 years ago, Senator Arthur Vandenberg observed that it does little good to extend a 15-foot rope to a man drowning 20 feet away. Similarly, we cannot achieve our objectives in Bosnia by doing just enough to avoid immediate war. We must do all we can to help the people of Bosnia to achieve permanent peace.

In recent days, President Clinton has approved steps to make the peace process irreversible, and give each party a clear stake in its success.

This past weekend, I went to the region to deliver in person the message that if the parties want international acceptance or our aid, they must meet their commitments--including full cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal.

That tribunal represents a choice not only for Bosnia and Rwanda, but for the world. We can accept atrocities as inevitable, or we can strive for a higher standard. We can presume to forget what only God and the victims have standing to forgive, or we can heed the most searing lesson of this century which is that evil, when unopposed, will spawn more evil.

The majority of Bosnia killings occurred not in battle, but in markets, streets and playgrounds, where men and women like you and me, and boys and girls like those we know, were abused or murdered--not because of anything they had done, but simply for who they were.

We all have a stake in establishing a precedent that will deter future atrocities, in helping the tribunal make a lasting peace easier by separating the innocent from the guilty; in holding accountable the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing; and in seeing that those who consider rape just another tactic of war answer for their crimes. Since George Marshall's time, the United States has played the leading role within the international system--not as sole arbiter of right and wrong, for that is a responsibility widely shared, but as pathfinder--as the nation able to show the way when others cannot.

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But America cannot do the job alone. We can point the way and find the path, but others must be willing to come along and take responsibility for their own affairs. Others must be willing to act within the bounds of their own resources and capabilities to join in building a world in which shared economic growth is possible, violent conflicts are constrained and those who abide by the law are progressively more secure.

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As this great university has recognized, in the foreign students it has attracted the research it conducts, the courses it offers and the sensibility it conveys, those of you who have graduated today will live global lives. You will compete in a world marketplace; travel further and more often than any previous generation; share ideas, tastes and experiences with counterparts from every culture; and recognize that to have a full and rewarding future, you will have to look outwards.