THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407120517
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY J.R. BULLINGTON
LENGTH: Long : 203 lines
IF WE DATE THE END of the Cold War from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, we are now five years into the post-Cold War era. This provides some perspective with which to outline the new international order that is evolving, assess America's place in it and suggest some themes from the post-Cold War foreign policy we need to develop.
The dominant characteristic of the new order that has the most immediate impact on the daily lives of most people is the global economy. Its growth has been driven partly by technology and partly by the worldwide triumph of free market economic principles during the past decade. It is evidenced, for example, by the growth of international trade from 9 percent of the total U.S. economy in 1960 to 22 percent today; and by the fact that three-quarters of the goods produced in the United States now face foreign competition, compared with less than 10 percent in 1960. For the first time in the history of mankind, the market system embraces practically the entire planet; and it profoundly affects our jobs, our incomes, our lifestyles.
The second dominant characteristic of the new order, the proliferation of local and regional conflicts, gets the most attention on the evening news and has the most dire consequences for those directly involved. Earlier this year, a leading British defense publication counted 27 ongoing military conflicts in the world, along with 12 ``flashpoints'' and 31 ``areas of tension.'' As some of these problems abate, others erupt, as in Rwanda and Yemen; and such conflicts are likely to be typical of the world order - or should it be world disorder? - for the forseeable future.
The third dominant characteristic of the new order is a global political system in which the U.S. holds the most power, but where the traditional instruments of power - military force and economic might - are not as effective as they once were in dealing with international problems. For many important issues they have become almost irrelevant. U.S. NOT IN DECLINE
Contrary to the fashionable theories of some academics, such as Paul Kennedy of Yale, the United States is not in decline as a world power. While it's true that if you take as a baseline the period immediately after World War II, when the U.S. economy was nearly 40 percent of the world economy, we control less of the world's product than we did 50 years ago. But if you take 1975 as a baseline, the U.S. share of the world economy has remained fairly constant for the past 19 years, at about 23 percent. That's the same as its share in the period immediately prior to World War II.
Therefore, it's more accurate to view the war and its aftermath as an exceptional economic period from which we have now returned to normalcy. The United States also retains by far the world's most powerful military establishment; and while there are multiple regional military threats to our interests, there is no longer a global military threat. This situation too is likely to persist for the forseeable future.
And in terms of our political, ideological and cultural influence, the United States has no serious rival. LIMITS TO POWER
This does not mean, however, that we can shape the world in our image or even use our power effectively to solve its problems in most cases - as we have discovered in Somalia, in our trade relations with Japan, and in a host of other situations.
Militarily, we must always confront the question of ``What then?'' For example, it would have been no more difficult to occupy Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein than it was to expel him from Kuwait. But what then? Would we not have become involved in an interminable and costly occupation in a region fraught with danger to our forces? Similar constraints exist today with regard to Haiti. Overthrowing its military government would be simple; but what then? Would we not then assume political and moral responsibility for the country's governance and welfare, entailing long-term occupation, massive expenditure and high risk of ultimate failure and rejection by the Haitian people?
Even though our economy is the world's strongest, global interdependency means that we have only limited control over such economic fundamentals as the level of our interest rates and the value of our currency. Our prosperity is deeply entwined with that of Europe and Asia, and we cannot dictate the terms of world trade.
And finally, military and economic power have little relevance to many of the most pressing problems on today's global agenda. Mighty armies and strong central banks can do little, for example, to control international terrorism, halt deforestation in the Amazon or curb international narcotics trafficking. NEW ERA FOREIGN POLICY
What, then, should be our foreign policy for the post-Cold War era and the new global order that is evolving?
First we need to end the draft, indecisiveness and pandering to domestic pressure groups that have been characteristic of the current administration's approach to international affairs. Foreign policy must flow from the top down; it must have a unifying vision; it must show constancy of purpose; and it must be based on strength. In the post-Cold War world order, we are clearly the world's strongest power, So lack of strength is not our problem. However, the president seems to remain largely disengaged from foreign affairs until events force his attention; and he has no Henry Kissinger or John Foster Dulles to provide foreign policy leadership. Moreover, no unifying vision had emerged to replace the Cold War paradigm of Communism. And finally, there have been too many threats that could not - and in most cases should not - be carried out, thus confusing friends and emboldening foes. FOREIGN POLICY THEMES
I would like to suggest five themes that should characterize our post-Cold War foreign policy.
Maintain military security. This should be the bedrock of any foreign policy. The challenge, however, is in deciding how much defense is enough in an era when security threats are smaller but more numerous, still real but less defined. The 1995 budget calls for defense spending 35 percent below 1985 in real terms, and further cuts are planned in succeeding years. While, as noted above, there are very serious limitations on using military force in most situations, it is virtually certain that there will be some situations in which military force must be used (or at least credibly threatened) to protect vital U.S. interests (as in the Persian Gulf in 1991). If we are to maintain that capability, defense cuts should be slowed and soon halted.
Also, we need to assure that all of the reduced defense funding is spent wisely. That means resisting political pressures from special interest groups and local communities - including Hampton Roads communities - to lower-priority military programs and facilities. Closure decisions should be based an military needs, not economic impact or political clout; and economic consequences of closures should be alleviated where necessary through other programs, not by impairing military effectiveness.
Avoid military involvement in local and regional conflicts unless vital to U.S. interests are threatened. Now more than ever, we cannot and should not be the world's police. We simply have no interests in the Balkans that warrant military intervention in Bosnia, for example, nor do we have any interests in Haiti that would justify taking on the burdens of long-term governance and occupation which military intervention would entail. The situation in Rwanda surely cries out for military intervention on purely humanitarian grounds; yet neither we nor any external force can solve this centuries-old problem short of imposing colonial rule, which no one wants.
In all these situations in which our emotions are engaged but not our national interests, we should try to mediate politically and provide humanitarian relief where we can, but refrain from sending troops except for very limited and well-defined humanitarian and peace-keeping (not peace-imposing) operations.
Promote an open global economy and increased trade. International trade is not a zero-sum game in which one party wins only what the other loses. It has been amply demonstrated that trade creates wealth, benefiting the economies of both trading partners. It has also been amply demonstrated that the surest way to bring on economic decline is to use government power to protect varied interests. Therefore, if we wish to maintain economic health, we must continue to beat back the ever-resurgent domestic forces of protectionism; and we must focus foreign policy on the need to further open world markets.
Specifically, the administration should heed the lesson of its near-loss of the NAFTA agreement through failure to engage the protectionist forces until it was almost too late.
Foster diplomatic, political and cultural engagement on a global basis. While we should avoid military entanglements, we need to nourish diplomatic, political and cultural relationships with all countries. We have an enormously wide range of global interests - commercial, scientific, humanitarian, environmental and the like - which fall short of vital interests to be protected by military means if necessary, but are nonetheless important to our national well-being. These interests should be promoted by a skillful, activist diplomacy in service of a foreign policy that fosters international engagement on all fronts.
An example is restoration of diplomatic relations with Vietnam. I advocate this not because I have any liking for the Communist government of that country, whose takeover of South Vietnam I spent most of the first half of my career working to prevent. But because of this experience I have absolute confidence in the brutality of the Vietnamese Communists; and consequently I'm certain that they do not hold any live American prisoners. If some were kept behind in 1973, they would have long since become liabilities for the Vietnamese government, not assets; therefore, they would have been killed. Thus, withholding diplomatic relations as a means of pressuring the Vietnamese to release nonexistent American prisoners just doesn't make sense. A policy of active engagement - diplomatic, political, economic and cultural - would both benefit us and have the best chance of promoting positive change in Vietnam.
Seek domestic spiritual renewal. In today's global village with its global economy, foreign policy and domestic policy cannot be kept in separate boxes; they merge in a seamless web. And today, the biggest threat to American security and prosperity is not foreign, nor is it military or economic in nature. It is domestic social and moral decay. Because of this decay, the world no longer holds us with the same oral respect it once did; and for the favorable global position we enjoy as a result of our Cold War victory may not be sustainable.
As Bill Bennett pointed out in his ``Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,'' since 1960 the U.S. population has grown by 41 percent; the gross domestic product had tripled; and social spending by government had quintupled. Yet in the same period, there had been a 560 percent increase in illegitimate births; a quadrupling of divorces; a tripling of the teenage suicide rate; and a drop of 75 points in the average SAT scores of high school students. And even though we have a higher percentage of our population behind bars than any other country, we still have one of the world's highest crime rates. Under these circumstances, its hard to understand how our president and much of our press and intellectual leadership can have the moral arrogance to lecture Singapore about its criminal justice system!
Professor Ernest May of Harvard has written, ``History does not repeat itself; at most it sometimes rhymes.'' Surely one of those historical rhymes is that great nations most often fail from within, not because of foreign forces. Therefore, our most important foreign policy theme for the post-Cold War era may well be the need for a moral and spiritual renewal of our own society. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.R. Bullington is director of the Center for Global Business and
Executive Education at Old Dominion University. He was formerly U.S.
ambassador to Burundi and a career diplomat for 26 years. This
article is based on a speech he gave to The Virginia Club of
Norfolk.
by CNB