The Politics of Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON — Remember foreign policy? It used to be the supreme, life-and-death issue. Foreign policy, not the economy, dominated most presidential elections from the 1940s through the 1980s. It was a serious matter involving dire threats to U.S. national security--first fascism, then communism. So serious that a bipartisan consensus prevailed on foreign policy from World War II to Vietnam. Foreign policy was literally above politics.

And now? Foreign policy is back. But it ain’t what it used to be. The debate over the U.S. role in the world is no longer about important places like Berlin, Moscow and Tokyo. It’s about places nobody ever heard of, like Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.

The top issues for 2000? Charges that Vice President Al Gore failed to exercise oversight of billions of dollars in loan funds to Russia. Charges that the policy of “engagement” with China ignores human rights for the sake of economic interests. Charges that Texas Gov. George W. Bush doesn’t know anything about world affairs. Like, for instance, the difference between Slovenians and Slovakians. (How many voters know the difference?)

With the end of the Cold War, the unthinkable has finally happened. Foreign policy has been reduced to politics. Petty politics, as in the politics of personal destruction, rather than high politics, as in the debate over the Vietnam War and detente with Russia and China. President Bill Clinton likes to say the United States has become “the world’s indispensable nation.” A fine-sounding phrase, but what does it mean? It sounds like a call to intervention: Unless the U.S. acts, nothing happens. That certainly was the case in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo and now East Timor.

Does being “indispensable” make it easier for the U.S. to intervene? Not on your life. It’s become harder. With the Cold War over, it’s difficult to make the case that U.S. national interests are at stake in places like the Balkans or Southeast Asia. There’s no communist threat. Nowadays, the principal reason for intervention is moral outrage.

That was President George Bush’s main argument for the Gulf War. When he rallied the U.S. to stand up to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1990, Bush said our purpose was to “defend civilized values around the world.” He spoke of “a new world order struggling to be born, . . . where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle.”

Moral outrage was the Clinton administration’s main argument for U.S. intervention in Kosovo. As Gore put it, “Do we want the 21st century to be defined by men wearing black ski masks who knock on doors in the middle of the night and herd innocent women and children on the railroad cars while they kill the men?”

Every now and then, a candidate stands up and says, “Wait a minute. Does the U.S. have any real interests at stake?” You can usually count on Patrick J. Buchanan to ask that question, as he did about Kosovo. “It is not a just war to attack and destroy Serbia if the objective has become . . . to save the credibility of NATO,” Buchanan said. “That is not a legitimate cause to send 100,000 ground troops to Kosovo.”

But the U.S. didn’t end up sending ground troops to Kosovo. There seems to be a new rule of U.S. intervention. As a former Reagan-Bush administration official put it, “Even a relatively small number of casualties is unacceptable to the American people when there is no national interest involved.” Or, in the words of a leading academic expert, “Casualties require vital interests. As long as no American gets hurt, the U.S. military can do what it wants in the world.” Hence, Kosovo. An engagement in which the U.S. didn’t risk much, didn’t gain much and which had absolutely no political impact. Kosovo was, in fact, shoved off the political radar screen by the tragedy in Littleton, Colo., where Americans did get killed.

If Americans suffer casualties in one intervention, the next intervention becomes difficult. Because of Somalia, the U.S. stayed out of Rwanda. On the other hand, if the military mission succeeds without loss of life, the next intervention becomes easier. Because of Kosovo, the U.S. is now involved in East Timor. How could we save Europeans from brutal mistreatment by their government and ignore Asians?

The U.S. may be “indispensable,” but it will intervene only if the risk of U.S. casualties is kept to a minimum. As a result, almost every candidate agrees on two points. One, the U.S. must be a world leader. Two, the U.S. must not become policeman to the world. “You’ve got a situation today where there is no strong American leadership,” Dan Quayle complained. A few days later, Quayle had a different complaint. “The United States should not act as a global 911 operator,” the former vice president said. “There is a tendency . . . to allow the international community to look to the United States for military support. We should not make this mistake again.”

Clinton agrees. “The United States cannot--indeed, we should not--be the world’s policeman,” Clinton said in March. This, from the president who took military action in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq.

How do you lead without risking casualties? You go in after the fighting is over, as the U.S. is doing now in East Timor. And did before, in Bosnia.

You rely on technology, as the U.S. did in the Gulf War and Kosovo, even if that means you don’t finish the job. Hussein and Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic are still in power because it would have risked too many U.S. casualties to get them out.

And you let others take the risks in dangerous places like East Timor. “What should have been done in advance was to have the Australians be ready to go in when it was clear this was going to be a violent situation,” Steve Forbes maintained. That’s become “the line” on East Timor: Let somebody else do it. Bill Bradley said, “I don’t think we will need to send our troops there because others are willing to take that responsibility.”

And what do we hear from the son of the Gulf War president? Here’s George W. Bush on East Timor: “I don’t believe we ought to have U.S. troops on the ground . . . . What we ought to do is support our friend and ally Australia with limited logistical support.” Bush even applies this rule, retroactively, to Kosovo.

The U.S. may be the world’s indispensable nation, but one thing is more indispensable politically: protecting American lives.

Clinton may have put American lives at risk a little too often. He lucked out in places like Haiti and Kosovo, but it still makes voters nervous. Too much wagging the dog. That may be one reason why only 46% of the public believe Gore would do a good job handling foreign affairs, while 61% say the same about Bush. According to the Gallup poll, that’s the issue on which Bush has the biggest advantage over Gore.

Foreign affairs? Now wait a minute. What has the governor of Texas ever done to earn high ratings in foreign affairs? Just this: his choice of father. Remember the Gulf War? Thanks, Dad.

Want to see how foreign policy turns into the politics of personal destruction? Or in this case, self-destruction? Look at what happened to Buchanan last week. Buchanan’s intemperate statements about World War II--”the last good war,” to most Americans--have undermined his credibility. In his new book, “A Republic, Not an Empire,” Buchanan suggests that since Adolf Hitler offered “no physical threat to the United States,” it was unwise and unnecessary for the U.S. to go to war against him--calling into question the sacrifice of the most admired generation of Americans in this century.

For weeks now, leading Republicans have been pleading with Buchanan not to abandon the GOP and run for the Reform Party nomination. Last week, Sen. John McCain had had enough. McCain called on Republicans to “stand on principle” and say, “There is no room for that kind of rhetoric in our party.” He called Buchanan’s views “so far outside of the philosophy of what America is all about that it’s unacceptable.”

In other words, “Good riddance, Pat.” A view undoubtedly shared by many Republicans.

Do leaders of the Reform Party feel the same way? Ross Perot? Jesse Ventura? We’re waiting to hear from you. *