Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 4, 1993                   TAG: 9307040080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

`POLICEMAN' OF WORLD FAVORS MORE U.N. HELP

An Associated Press poll finds that when it comes to intervening with crumbling states like Bosnia and Somalia, Americans approve a role for the United Nations, but not for the United States alone.

Americans are split almost evenly in evaluating the way their country is responding to world problems, with 45 percent satisfied, 46 percent dissatisfied, the rest not sure.

Beneath those figures, several conflicts are tugging at American public opinion: uncertainty about the proper role of the dominant superpower in a post-Cold War world, domestic and foreign interests clamoring for President Clinton's attention, and a gender gap.

Fifty-two percent of men are satisfied with the current U.S. response to world problems, but 52 percent of women are dissatisfied, according to the poll. The dissatisfied men and women are much more likely to doubt U.S. ability to play "world policeman" and discount a U.S. responsibility in the former Yugoslavia.

The telephone poll of 1,008 adults was taken June 25-29 by ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa., part of AUS Consultants. Results have an overall margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points, plus or minus.

Most of those polled, 59 percent, said the United States has no responsibility to do something about the fighting between Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, which has left 138,000 people dead or missing.

An even higher 76 percent said the United States has no right to determine who holds power in another country even if that country has problems as grave as those in Bosnia.

Only 17 percent said the United States, which has called the Serb leaders of the former Yugoslavia war criminals, has a right to intervene in that country's ethnic, religious and nationalistic power struggles.

As an experiment, the name Somalia was substituted for Bosnia in half the poll interviews. In that African country where anarchy wrought a cruel famine eased only by a U.S.-led multinational intervention, 69 percent said the United States has no right to determine who holds power. Just 24 percent supported a U.S. right to play kingmaker in Somalia.

Of course, U.S. military muscle has been flexed in Somalia under the insignia of the United Nations, which also has handled the bulk of the "peacekeeping" in Bosnia. The American people seem enthusiastic about this growing U.N. involvement.

By 61 percent to 31 percent, those polled said the United Nations has the right to apportion power in Bosnia. Support for that type of U.N. role in Somalia was an even higher 69 percent, to 25 percent opposed.

"Clearly the public sees the U.N. as having global legitimacy and authority to intervene where the U.S. lacks a legal basis to do so," said Ed Luck of the United Nations Association of the USA, a private support group.

But since the United Nations relies heavily on U.S. firepower to make its demands stick, the debate tends to shift back to questions about whether the United States should serve as "world policeman" or even has the ability to.

Half those polled - a majority of the men but not of the women - said the United States can fight violations of international law and aggression wherever they occur. But a substantial 46 percent said the United States does not have that ability.

That split has been found in polls before. But it highlights a tension in Washington that became apparent recently when a senior State Department official suggested that the nation's limited resources could diminish the U.S. role abroad. Secretary of State Warren Christopher quickly disavowed the comment.