Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202010201
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOYLE McMANUS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS LENGTH: Medium
U.S. LEFT WITH PLACE OFF CENTER STAGE
Britain's John Major presided. Russia's Boris Yeltsin stole the show. And Japan's Kiichi Miyazawa gave notice that he intended to wield more of his formidable financial clout while an aide let it be known that Tokyo was looking for a permanent seat at the head table.But one voice was conspicuously muted at Friday's U.N. Security Council summit: that of President Bush. He had few concrete proposals to offer, his once-commanding presence seemed to lack the old fire, and his colleagues - who in times past formed a loyal chorus - gave him polite but merely routine attention.
Bush's noticeably back-seat performance seemed to suggest that Washington's position as the world's only superpower may turn out to be a brief moment in history.
Aides insisted Bush was low-key because he has been concentrating on Saturday's one-on-one meeting with Yeltsin and because he wanted to encourage others to step forward. "This wasn't our show," one U.S. official said.
Yet the president's performance also reflected fundamental changes in the balance of power.
As the 15 Security Council members proclaimed a rough outline for a new world order run partly through the United Nations, diplomats noted that most initiatives were coming from countries other than the United States.
Yeltsin, in his debut at a major diplomatic event, called for a joint U.S.-Russian effort on anti-missile defense systems and an international project to employ former Soviet nuclear scientists.
France's Francois Mitterrand pushed for a U.N. rapid deployment force that could intervene in conflicts around the world.
Even Germany, which is not a member of the Security Council and was not at the meeting, won agreement that the Security Council would consider sanctions against countries that tried to buy nuclear weapons technology.
By contrast, Bush spoke briefly and generally, in an almost offhand tone, hailing "this new, invigorated United Nations" but suggesting no specific actions beyond continued sanctions against Iraq and Libya.
"It's good to hear proposals from other countries, even though we may not be crazy about them, because it strengthens the communal nature of the U.N.," said one aide. "We're even willing to sacrifice some of our national interest - in the short-term sense - to make that work."
But the result is a far cry from the global political dominance the United States exercised a year ago, when Bush organized multinational resistance to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
"A Pax Americana simply won't work any more," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser to then-President Carter. "Our economic difficulties simply make it unsustainable. Somebody has to take a leadership role, and it ought to be the United States - but we aren't in any shape to do it."
Instead, the "new world order" that Bush once described as an exercise of American leadership is turning into a somewhat unwieldy, still uncertain expression of something called "collegial leadership."
That was on ample display at the United Nations, as countries from Russia and Japan to Belgium and Cape Verde hailed the idea of the Security Council as a more effective, more dynamic body that could someday send multinational troops to intervene in countries' internal conflicts.
Bush administration officials were noticeably cool to the idea of a standing military force for the United Nations - even a relatively small rapid deployment force raised by Security Council members.
A U.S. official said that the administration might be "prepared to accept that, as long as it doesn't impinge on our freedom of unilateral action." But he said that senior officials were skeptical about the idea, and noted that, unlike Yeltsin, Bush did not endorse it.
Miyazawa's spokesman told reporters that Japan expected to have a permanent seat in the Security Council - with veto power, like the United States - by 1995. Japan now holds a two-year term seat with no veto. Otherwise, he said, Japan would increasingly resent the United Nations' "taxation without representation. Some tea party may occur somewhere."