Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 4, 1994 TAG: 9402250341
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To be sure, Clinton has responded to events overseas. Bosnia, Somalia, Russia, Haiti, North Korea and other places have caught his attention. Yet he still mostly follows inherited approaches, or reacts to new challenges inconsistently or evasively. His administration has yet to shape an active and coherent foreign policy.
No ready-made policy seems as good a fit certainly for today's messy, diverse crises as were nuclear deterrence and containment of communism for the bipolar postwar world. Yet the very lack of a new world order cries out at least for guiding principles, for a road map.
Clinton, to his credit, has succeed in avoiding the disastrous errors of judgment that some other new presidents have bungled into: Kennedy's Bay of Pigs, Johnson's Vietnam. And his record so far isn't entirely lacking in achievements - his commitment to aid Russia and support Boris Yeltsin at a crucial moment, for instance, and his victory on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yet, elsewhere, Clinton has equivocated and shifted ground so much that allies worry about America's nerve and steadiness.
Clinton promised during his presidential campaign to focus on domestic matters, and the polls confirm strong public sentiment bordering on isolationism. But the world won't wait for the United States to get its house in order. And economic and national security are ever less distinguishable.
To come up with a credible post-Cold War foreign policy, the Clinton administration needs first to define America's interests more precisely, then determine better ways to secure them.
In this newspaper's view, America's most compelling interests - beyond the immediate security of the nation itself - are the spread of democracy, a global economy nourished by free trade, a stable Russia, and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Other interests are harder to work out, particularly given the growing humanitarian impulse in foreign policy and the resurgence of ethnic and tribal conflicts in much of the world.
In some cases, America and its allies may decide simply to let Third World conflicts burn themselves out. But this should be a considered decision, not something that happens by default. We need to think hard about when it's appropriate to send soldiers into harm's way. We need to avoid changing our minds constantly.
As for the means to secure America's interests, a choice presents itself. (1) We can retreat from international engagement. (2) We can try to be the world's policeman. Either is a sure route to disaster. Or, (3) we can exercise leadership, and imagination, to help build effective, multilateral instruments of collective security. These would include regional organizations, such as NATO, but also, pre-eminently, the United Nations.
America's military needs to be updated - away from massive land-war scenarios, toward an ability to respond quickly and flexibly in regional conflicts, and, even more important, to perform in nontraditional roles as part of cooperative, international endeavors: for example, monitoring cease-fires, providing relief supplies, and mediating conflicts before they erupt into violence. Even so, diplomacy and early intervention must ultimately take precedence over military action.
The world will always present unpleasant surprises, whether ethnic cleansers in Bosnia or intransigent warlords in Somalia or resurgent fascists in Russia. Policies that engage the globe's peoples in collective security, that are endowed with resources and will sufficient to defend civilized values, and that seek opportunities to prevent nasty developments from spinning out of control, have to be an international undertaking. But, as the world's failure (once again!) to stop genocide in Europe reminds, such policies and cooperative arrangements won't emerge without U.S. leadership.
The need for leadership underscores again the continuity between domestic and foreign policy, because America's moral strength must undergird its policies abroad.
A nation's interests reflect its values. If Americans won't sacrifice for their own future, they certainly won't do so for others. If standards of ethics and decency decline at home, we'll be ill-equipped to respond to starvation and mass murder in other countries. If civic activism and a sense of community fall apart here, our country will be less of a force for spreading democracy and building a global community of nations.
These are principles Clinton ought to be talking about, and acting on, in the coming year.
by CNB