Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 27, 1993 TAG: 9401140035
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD N. HAASS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bill Clinton is no exception. After nearly a year, it is increasingly obvious who has affected him most and who he most wants to emulate.
The intellectual inspiration of the Clinton administration is Paul Kennedy, the Yale professor who several years ago wrote a book arguing that the cost of being a great power - what he called a policy of ``imperial overstretch'' - would undermine the U.S. economy, in the end making impossible both an assertive foreign policy and a healthy nation. It doesn't matter whether Clinton has actually read ``The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers;'' Kennedy's image of America in relative decline (with foreign involvement as the culprit) is part of the mindset - the intellectual mother's milk - of many of those Clinton has around him.
The political totem is Lyndon B. Johnson. The Clinton domestic agenda is the most ambitious since the Great Society. With its bias for new federal programs, from national service to health care, the current administration's effort is in effect the ``Greater Society.''
But emulation is not the only thing motivating the Clinton administration when it comes to LBJ. The desire to avoid his mistakes is just as powerful. LBJ's Great Society and LBJ himself were victims of Vietnam. The lesson is obvious: Expensive, lasting and, abnve all, controversial foreign entanglements must not happen.
The intellectual message of Professor Kennedy and the historical image of President Johnson mesh perfectly. What they add up to is a domestic first (and second and third) bias. Foreign policy is seen as a distraction that demands resources - funds, time, political capital - better spent at home.
The signs of downgrading foreign policy are everywhere: a president who is too busy to attend regular meetings on foreign policy, who speaks out passionately on the budget, health care and crime but not on his plans for the post-Cold War world, who cuts defense spending and loads up his defense bill with all sorts of nondefense items, who travels to the United Nations to give a speech outlining the limits of what the United States is prepared to support in the world.
Some would argue that there are two exceptions to Clinton's hands-off relationship with the world. One is humanitarian intervention. But that flirtation did not last long. Strong rhetoric never led to action in Bosnia; one tactical setback led to a hasty retreat from Somalia; a mob on a dock was all that it took to stay out of Haiti. Quagmire - the ``Q word'' - was to be avoided at all costs.
The second possible exception to downgrading foreign policy is NAFTA. The administration fought hard, but only after it became clear that Bill Clinton's authority and not just the accord was on the line. So even this fight resulted from the administration's domestic-first bias.
In short, there are no real exceptions to the downgrading of foreign policy. NAFTA does point out another trend, however: the confusion of foreign policy and economic policy.
Trade competition has now replaced political and military cooperation with traditional friends and allies. It may or may not make for more exports, but it will certainly weaken us in our ability to deal with problems in the former Soviet Union or North Korea.
In short, too little foreign policy is bad foreign policy. The world remains much too dangerous a place; neglect will turn out to be malign if alliances atrophy, arms proliferate, and old rivalries emerge. Neither the United Nations nor anyone else will be able to preserve either order or justice if the United States abdicates.
Running from foreign policy also makes for bad domestic policy. Of the problems of America's cities - health care, crime, illegitimacy - none will be solved by our doing less abroad. Any dollar savings will likely prove illusory. Resources not claimed by expanding entitlements will soon be needed to contend with a world at war with itself. Such a world will also lead to the disruption of the trade so essential to our economic health.
What is needed is a serious foreign policy, one that gets the commitment - defense spending, foreign aid, presidential time and effort - it deserves and requires. Bill Clinton became president because his predecessor was viewed by many to be too focused on foreign policy, detached from matters here at home. A president perceived to be the mirror image, engaged domestically but detached from the world around him, is likely to fare no better.
Richard N. Haass, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior official on George Bush's National Security Council, wrote this for Newsday.
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
by CNB