[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 18 (Thursday, February 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S761-S774]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, it is an honor to be here today with my
distinguished colleague from Kansas, Senator Pat Roberts. We want to
institute a process by which this body can increasingly come to grips
with some of the challenges that persist in our foreign policy and
continue to be, in terms of our defense, a challenge to us and to the
young men and women of America.
It is an opportunity for us to continue our dialog which we started
in the Armed Services Committee over the last 3 years as we have
encountered difficulties in the Middle East, southwest Asia, and as we
see problems around the world. He and I have more and more come to an
understanding that we have more in common than we do in disagreement.
One of the things we have in common is that we asked some very
important pertinent questions about our foreign policy and our defense
as we go into the 21st century. We are delighted today to kick off, not
so much a debate on American foreign policy but a dialog which we hope
will develop a consensus of some basic first principles by which we
ought to engage the world.
We have the post-cold-war world, as it is called. I was with
Madeleine Albright today, our distinguished Secretary of State, and she
said it is probably not the post anything; it is just a new era. We
have gone through the cold war and the terrors of that period, but we
are certainly in a new era, and it does not even really have a name.
We hope to provide for our colleagues in the Senate--and we hope they
will join us--over the course of this year, an understanding of key
national security issues and begin building the building blocks of a
bipartisan consensus on the most appropriate priorities and approaches
for our country in today's international environment.
In launching this endeavor, I am very mindful of both the enormity of
the undertaking and of my own limitations in addressing such a subject.
Having been only 3 years, beginning my fourth year in the Senate, I
certainly do not claim to have a solution to these problems about which
we are going to talk, but I hope to ask some pertinent questions.
American foreign policy is challenged because of the end of the cold
war, and Senator Roberts and I approach these questions on the road to
the future with great humility and certainly with far more questions of
our own than answers. Yet I believe this dialog is one the Senate must
have. We owe it to the other nations of the world, including those that
look to America for leadership, as well as those that make themselves
our competitors, and certainly we owe it to those that make us their
adversaries. Even more, we owe it to those who serve our country in the
Armed Forces and in the Foreign Service, whose careers and sometimes
very lives can be at stake. Perhaps most of all, we owe it to our
children and our grandchildren.
I was with Senator Nunn last night at the State Department. He was
being honored by the State Department. I always learn something from
him whenever I am with him. We were talking about a particular country,
a particular challenge in American foreign policy. He said: Yes, what
happens there will affect our children and our grandchildren.
It is astounding that the consequences of the decisions we make today
will, indeed, affect future generations, so we must make these
decisions wisely.
Uncertainty, disunity, partisanship, and overstatesmanship will not
serve this country well. We need to seriously consider what our global
role in the 21st century is and what it should be. That decision will
affect future generations more than we can possibly understand.
One more point: I do believe a meaningful, bipartisan dialog on the
U.S. role, which many believe is vital to our national interest, is
also imminently doable even in this election year. While the subject
matter is very important to our country and our future, it is not an
issue of great use on the campaign trail. This great body is the place
to discuss these great and momentous issues where we can lay it all out
and talk about it in a way that does not impinge on anybody's
particular partisan views. Simply put, neither the Presidential race
nor the elections for the Congress will be determined by who has the
partisan upper hand on foreign policy.
Over the course of the year, Senator Roberts and I--and we hope a
number of other Senators--will be engaging in a series of floor dialogs
relating to the general direction of U.S. foreign policy and national
security policy in the 21st century.
We have actually chosen to sit together. We are on different sides of
the aisle, but we chose to come from our back-bench positions to show
that we stand actually shoulder to shoulder in this regard. We are all
Americans, and we hope we can do something good for our country.
Our current game plan is to begin today by considering frameworks for
the U.S. global role with respect to priorities and approaches. In the
weeks to come, this will be followed by sessions on U.S. national
interests. Of course, the first question about American engagement in
the world should be: Is it in our vital strategic national interest?
That is question No. 1. The next session will be on U.S. national
interests, what are they.
Another phase of our discussion will be the use of our military
forces. Quite frankly, this should be question No. 2 because if we do
not have a military objective following America's strategic vital
interests, why commit the military?
Next is we want to engage the question of our relationship with
multilateral organizations. We realize the United States is the world's
foremost military and economic power, but that does not necessarily
mean we can go it on our own everywhere. The issue of multilateral
organizations and our relationship to them is an important one.
After multilateral organizations is the foreign policy roles of the
executive and legislative branches. One of the first things that came
to my attention when I came to the Senate 3 years ago was something
called the U.S. Constitution. Senator Byrd was kind enough to give me
an autographed copy of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence, which I proudly carry with me. Quite frankly, if you read
the Constitution carefully, it gives the Congress the power to declare
war, to raise and support armies, and to provide and maintain a navy.
That is a responsibility we have, along with a unique role in the
Senate of advising and consenting, particularly on treaties into which
the executive branch may enter.
The executive and legislative branches have to work together for
foreign policy and defense policy in this country to actually work.
Next is economics and trade. One can hardly separate economics from
defense issues anymore. Economics and
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trade are absolutely mixed up with our foreign policy and defense
issues. Arms control is certainly an issue we need to confront.
Then there will be a final wrapup at the end of the year, probably in
September.
However, this is just a preliminary outline, and we want these
discussions to be flexible enough to go wherever the dialog takes us--
that is the beauty of the Senate--and to include a wide array of
viewpoints and illustrative subjects.
We encourage all our colleagues, of whatever mind on the topics under
consideration, to join in so we can have a real debate in this
Chamber, one in which we, indeed, ask each other hard questions, not in
order to score partisan points and not in a particularly prearranged
set of choreographed responses between like-minded individuals but to
seek a better understanding of each other's thoughts.
That is exactly what we are after. We have determined that we will
not tie this dialog, this debate, to any particular administration, any
particular issue, any particular commitment, any particular budget
item, any particular legislative proposal. We hope for a freewheeling
dialog that we think can benefit the country.
What we are hoping for is not to find final answers, for surely that
would probably be too ambitious an objective, but, rather, to bring
this body, which has a key constitutional role in the conduct of
American foreign and national security policy, to the same kind of
serious examination of our foreign policy goals and assumptions as is
now underway among many of our leading foreign policy experts.
I was thinking about this dialog today. I was thinking, how does this
dialog differ from what might be termed, shall we say, an ``academic
undertaking''? There are many seminars. There are thousands of courses
on American foreign policy. There are numerous reviews of our defense
strategy going on in this country and around the world.
What makes this different? I think what makes this dialog different
is that we are the ones who ultimately have to make the decision. This
is not an academic exercise. I can remember voting for NATO expansion.
It was an incredible experience for me to know that by the raising of
my hand I could extend the security of NATO to three nations on the
face of the globe that did not have that security before. That was an
incredible experience for me.
So we do not participate just in some academic exercise here. We are
the leaders. We are the ones who have to ultimately bite the bullet and
make the decisions. Therefore, we need to think these things through.
That is the point.
One of my favorite lines from Clausewitz, the great German
theoretician on war, is: The leader must know the last step he is going
to take before he takes the first step. That is the spirit of these
discussions. At some point, and in some fashion, a bipartisan consensus
on America's global role must emerge because our national interest
demands it. It may not be as pure as in World War II when Senator
Vandenberg said: Politics stops at the water's edge, but certainly at
some point statecraft should overtake politics.
If these dialogs can assist that effort, in even a small way, they
will be time well spent. We hope our discussions will not be tinged
with particularly partisan or highly personalized considerations
because the subject matter clearly transcends the policies and views of
any one individual or certainly any one administration. The challenges
will be the same, no matter which party controls the White House next
year or which party controls the Congress.
With that, I yield to my good and distinguished friend and colleague,
the Senator from Kansas. Let me say, in the time I have been in the
Senate, I have found him to be a great source of reason and thoughtful
pronouncements on national security matters. He has a marvelous sense
of humor, which will come out whether we want it to or not in the
dialogs. It is my pleasure to turn the discussion over to my
distinguished friend and colleague, the great Senator from Kansas, Mr.
Pat Roberts.
Mr. ROBERTS. First, Mr. President, I thank my good friend, the
distinguished Senator from Georgia, for the opportunity to join
together in what we both hope will be a successful endeavor.
As Senator Cleland stated, our objective is to try to achieve greater
attention, focus, and mutual understanding in this body on America's
global role and our vital national security interests and, if possible,
begin a process of building a bipartisan consensus on what America's
role should be in today's ever-changing, unsafe, and very unpredictable
world.
At the outset, I share Senator Cleland's sense of personal limitation
in addressing this topic. As he has said, even the finest minds and
most expert American foreign policymakers have had considerable
difficulty in defining both what role the United States should play in
the so-called ``New World Disorder'' or reaching a consensus on what
criteria to use in defining our vital national interests.
Now having said that, I do not know of another Senator better suited
to this effort than Max Cleland. He brings to this exchange of ideas an
outstanding record of public service, of personal sacrifice, and of
courage and commitment. On the Senate Armed Services Committee, he has
demonstrated expertise and a whole lot of common sense in addressing
the quality of life issues so important to our men and women in uniform
and, in turn, to our national security.
As members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, we both share a
keen interest in foreign policy and national security. In my own case,
I was privileged to serve as a member of the 1996 Commission on
America's National Interests. It was chaired by Ambassador Robert
Ellsworth, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, and Rita Hauser, and was sponsored
by the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, the
Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, and the RAND Corporation. The
Commission was composed of 15 members, including Senators John McCain,
Bob Graham, and Sam Nunn. In brief, our Commission focused on one core
issue: What are U.S. national interests in today's world?
The conclusion in 1996, 4 years ago--and the Senator, I think, will
see some real similarities to some of our concerns as of today--in the
wake of the cold war, the American public's interest in foreign policy
declined sharply, and our political leaders have focused on domestic
concerns. America's foreign policy was adrift.
The defining feature of American engagement in the world since the
cold war has been confusion, leading to missed opportunities and
emerging threats.
The Commission went on to say there must be a regrounding of American
foreign policy on the foundation of solid national interests. They went
on to conclude that there must be greater clarity regarding the
hierarchy of American national interests and, with limited resources, a
better understanding of what national interests are and, just as
important, are not.
Then the Commission prioritized what we felt represented vital
national interests. It is interesting to note that the conflicts such
as Bosnia and Kosovo did not make the priority cut at that time. That
was 4 years ago.
However, the real genesis for this forum that Senator Cleland and I
have tried to initiate resulted from frustrations over continued and
increasing U.S. military involvement and intervention both in the
Balkans, the Persian Gulf and all around the world. Absent was what we
consider to be clear policy goals, not only from the executive, but
also from the Congress.
We found ourselves on the floor of the Senate, and in committee,
coming to the same conclusion reached by the esteemed and beloved
longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator
Richard Russell of Georgia, who said this, following the war in
Vietnam:
I shall never again knowingly support a policy of sending
American men in uniform overseas to fight in a war where
military victory has been ruled out and when they do not have
the full support of the American people.
Yet we continue to see our military becoming involved and taking part
in peacekeeping missions, and other missions, where incremental
escalation has led to wars of gradualism, where our vital national
interests are questionable, and where the unintended effects of our
involvement have been counterproductive to national security.
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We met in Senator Cleland's office and discussed at length the proper
role of the Senate in regard to the use of American troops. We talked
about the War Powers Act. We talked about the future of NATO. We talked
about our policy in the Persian Gulf. We noted, with considerable
frustration, that Senators seemed to be faced with votes, but votes
that were already foregone conclusions.
Few were willing to oppose funding for U.S. troops--not many in the
Senate or the House will do that--yet many Senators had strong
reservations and questions about U.S. policy, our military tactics, and
the lack of what some called the end game.
We instructed our staffs to research the War Powers Act and any other
possible alternatives that would provide an outlet for future policy
decisions.
Senator Cleland persevered, and along with Senator Snowe of Maine,
authored and won passage of an amendment mandating that the
administration report to the Congress on any operation involving 500 or
more troops, and that report would include clear and distinct
objectives, as well as the end point of the operation.
In my own case, I authored and won approval of an amendment stating
no funds could be used for deployment of troops in the Balkans until
the President reported to Congress detailing the reasons for the
deployment, number of military troops to be used, the mission and
objectives of the forces, the schedule and exit strategy, and the
estimated costs involved. Again, these amendments were after the fact,
but they at least represented a bipartisan effort on the part of
Senators who realized then and realize now that we simply must do a
better job of working with the executive and searching for greater
mutual understanding in the Senate in regard to foreign policy and our
national security interests.
In saying this, let me stress that this body and our country are
fortunate to have the benefit of Senators with both expertise and
experience with regard to foreign relations and national security. That
certainly doesn't reside only with the two Senators here involved. When
they speak, we listen. But the problem is, they do not speak enough,
and when they do, many do not listen.
The unfortunate conclusion I have reached is that too many Americans
are not only uninterested in world events but uninformed as well. More
and more today in the Congress, it seems to me that foreign policy,
trade, and national security issues are driven by ideology, insular and
parochial interests, protectionism, and isolationist views. Both the
administration and the Congress seem to be lacking a foreign policy
focus, purpose, and constructive agenda.
The one notable exception has been the hearings held by the
distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner,
who has held extensive hearings on ``Lessons Learned'' with regard to
Kosovo. It is a paradox of enormous irony that the vision of knitting a
multiethnic society and democracy out of century-old hatreds in Kosovo
is in deep trouble. The danger of Kosovo is the fact that it may become
another Somalia. These hearings have attracted little more than a blip
on the public radar screen and little, if any, commentary or debate in
the Senate.
So as Senator Cleland has pointed out, over the course of the coming
year he and I will engage in a series of floor dialogues relating to
the general direction of U.S. foreign and national security policy in
the 21st century. We begin today by discussing the framework for the
U.S. global role. In the following months, as the Senator has said, we
will discuss the defining national interests, deployment of U.S.
forces, the role of multilateral organizations, the role of the
Executive, Congress and the public, and the role of trade, economics,
and arms control. As Senator Cleland has stressed, this is just an
outline.
We invite all Senators to engage in this series. The concept is one
of a forum, a dialogue, that will and should include a wide variety of
viewpoints. For instance, given the flashpoint situation today in
Kosovo, with about 5,000 to 6,000 American troops at risk--and we may
be calling in the Marines. I believe that topic certainly demands
attention and discussion, however, in a different and separate forum.
There should be some discussion and consideration in the Senate in that
regard.
As Senator Cleland has pointed out, we all know that foreign policy
and national security are legitimate concerns that should be addressed
in the Presidential and congressional campaigns; at least I hope they
are addressed. But beyond this election year, the Senate will again be
faced with our constitutional responsibilities in shaping this Nation's
role in global affairs, national security, international stability, and
peace. Simply put: Our national interest depends on reaching a
bipartisan consensus. My colleague and I both hope this forum will
contribute to achieving that goal and, in doing so, also contribute to
greater public support and understanding.
I thank the Senator for yielding and understand he has some
additional remarks, as I do following his remarks.
Mr. CLELAND. I thank the Senator. We appreciate working with him on
this quite challenging and daunting task, but it is worth doing. It is
an honor to be with him today and work with him. One of my key staff
people, Mr. Bill Johnston, has done a momentous job of research for the
speeches, the addresses, the facts, the figures, and the quotes I will
be using in this dialog. I want to make sure he gets proper credit at
this time.
Mr. President, I will now set the stage for today's discussion by
sketching a brief outline of the evolution of the main currents of U.S.
foreign policy and, then, by providing a short look at what some
leading voices are currently proposing for how America should make its
way in the post-cold-war world.
As in any transition period, we are feeling our way for the
appropriate strategy and policies with which to maintain and enhance
our national security interests in this period of a ``new world
disorder.'' As the debates on NATO enlargement, Kosovo and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty revealed, those leading voices on
American foreign policy currently offer divided counsel on this issue.
It is obvious that no clear consensus has yet formed as to America's
post-cold-war strategy, and that, or course, is what we are looking to
address in these discussions.
Until the 20th century, it would be fair to sum up our general
philosophy on foreign policy as an attempt to continue to follow
President Washington's recommended approach contained in his Farewell
Address of September 17, 1796:
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations.
Cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . The Nation which
indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its
animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient
to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. . . . Steer
clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign
world. . . . There can be no greater error than to expect or
calculate upon real flavors from nation to nation.
Then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams further elaborated on this
approach when he proclaimed in 1821 that:
Whenever the standard of freedom and independence has been
or shall be unfurled, there will her [America's] heart, her
benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in
search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the
freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and
vindicator only of her own.
As Henry Kissinger, a modern day commentator, has put it, this
policy, augmented by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 which sought to
prevent European interference in the Western Hemisphere, made imminent
good sense until early in the 1900s:
In the early years of the Republic, American foreign policy
was in fact a sophisticated reflection of the American
national interest, which was, simply, to fortify the new
nation's independence. . . . Until the turn of the twentieth
century, American foreign policy was basically quite simple:
to fulfill the country's manifest destiny, and to remain free
of entanglements overseas. America favored democratic
governments whenever possible, but abjured action to
vindicate its preferences. . . . Until early this century,
the isolationist tendency prevailed in American foreign
policy. Then two factors projected America into world
affairs: its rapidly expanding power and the gradual collapse
of the international system centered on Europe.
Woodrow Wilson took this increased American power and the shattered
European order, added to it the traditional American view of our
exceptional role in the world and developed
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what has become the dominant approach of modern American foreign
policy-making. As he said in 1915:
We insist upon security in prosecuting our self-chosen
lines of national development. We do more than that. We
demand it also for others. We do not confine our enthusiasm
for individual liberty and free national development to the
incidents and movements of affairs which affect only
ourselves. We feel it wherever there is a people that tries
to walk in these difficult paths of independence and right.
Thus, for the first time in American history, the notion that it was
our right and our duty to . . . wherever they might arise was
established. While the details have changed from time to time, with
some variation in the degree of enthusiasm for foreign interventions,
this is still today the foundation in defining our role in the world.
It was elaborated somewhat in the famous 1947 Foreign Affairs article
penned by ``X''--later disclosed to be George Kennan--which guided our
ultimately successful conduct of the cold war by urging, ``a policy of
firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable
counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon
the interests of a peaceful and stable world.''
To be sure, there has rarely been a time in American history when all
voices have been united behind the dominant approach to the U.S. global
role. Many in this body, including myself, participated in one way or
another in the national turmoil over the application of the containment
policy in Southeast Asia, in a place called Vietnam. But, while there
was vigorous debate on the advisability of specific implementations of
Wilsonian ``idealism'' there has never been a serious challenge since
the Second World War to what might be called an ``internationalist
interventionist'' model for the United States in its national security
policies.
Yet, as we begin the year 2000, the world has changed in significant
ways from the one we have known since World War II. The Soviet Union is
no more. The Communists did not, in the end, bury us, but with a few
notable exceptions who currently survive in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and
North Korea, it is they who have been buried by historical
inevitability. Again, to quote, Dr. Kissinger:
The end of the Cold War produced an even greater temptation
to recast the international environment in America's image.
Wilson had been constrained by isolationism at home, and
Truman had come up against Stalinist expansionism. In the
post-Cold War world, the United States is the only remaining
superpower with the capacity to intervene in every part of
the globe. Yet power has become more diffuse and the issues
to which military force is relevant have diminished. Victory
in the Cold War has propelled America into a world which
bears many similarities to the European state system of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to practices which
American statesmen and thinkers have consistently questioned.
The absence of both an overriding ideological or strategic
threat frees nations to pursue foreign policies based
increasingly on their immediate national interest.
Just as the very different international environment facing America
at the start of the 20th century--with growing American strength
accompanying a collapse of the European order--occasioned the need for
a fundamental reassessment of the U.S. place in the world, so the end
of the 20th century--with an end to the bipolar cold war and the
emergence of multiple, if not yet super at least major, powers--
necessitates another thoroughgoing review and evaluation of where we
are and where we should be headed.
And if one has been reading the foreign policy journals and white
papers during the last few years, one finds a vigorous and thoughtful
debate underway on just such questions. I'd like to take just a few
minutes to provide the Senate with a small bit of the flavor of this
dialog among American foreign policy commentators.
In a 1995 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Richard Haass of the
Brookings Institute provided I think a useful starting point for our
consideration by separating the debate on America's global role into
two parts: the priorities or ends of American policy, and the
approaches or means currently available to achieve those ends. As
possible priorities, he lists Wilsonian idealism with its emphasis on
promotion of democratic values, economism which--as the name suggests--
gives primacy to economic considerations, realism which is often
associated with the traditional diplomatic concepts of balance of power
and international equilibrium, humanitarianism which focuses more on
alleviating the plight of individuals, and minimalism which could be
thought of as ``neo-isolationism'' but accepts the need for selected
and limited U.S. engagement in global affairs. On the side of means,
Haass lists unilateralism which provides the dominant country--the
United States--with largely unfettered freedom of action in pursuit of
its goals, neo-internationalism or ``assertive multilateralism'' which
relies on multilateral organizations and approaches to international
problem-solving, and regionalism which he defines as U.S. leadership
within alliances and coalitions.
Writing in the Spring 1996 issue of Strategic Review, Naval
Postgraduate School Professor of National Security Affairs Edward A.
Olsen presented a view which might be termed as minimalism when he
advocated a return to our pre-World War II approach which he
characterized as one of ``abstention, benign neglect, and non-
interventionism within a policy of highly selective engagement.''
Professor Olsen distinguished his proposed policy of disengagement and
non-intervention--which would be marked by less military intervention,
less foreign aid, and fewer international entanglements--from
isolationism because his approach would allow the U.S. ``strategic
independence'' to determine for itself, independent of other countries
or multilateral organizations, when and how to engage abroad.
In almost direct opposition to the Olsen prescription, with goals
akin to Wilsonian idealism and employing a largely unilateralist
approach, William Kristol and Robert Kagan used a summer 1996 edition
of Foreign Affairs to argue for a U.S. role of benevolent global
hegemony in the belief that, ``American principles around the world can
be sustained only by the continuing exertion of American influence,''
including foreign aid, diplomacy, and when necessary military
intervention.
In his 1994 book, entitled Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger, provides a
contemporary, updated version of the realist balance of power view:
America's dominant task is to strike a balance between the
twin temptations inherent in its exceptionalism: the notion
that America must remedy every wrong and stabilize every
dislocation, and the latent instinct to withdraw into itself.
. . . A country with America's idealistic tradition cannot
base its policy on the balance of power as the sole criterion
for a new world order. But is must learn that equilibrium is
a fundamental precondition for the pursuit of its historic
goals.
A quote that comes to mind for me is when President Kennedy said,
``There is not necessarily an American solution for every problem in
the world.''
I think that is the real issue. Former Congressman Stephen Solarz
espoused the humaniarianism goal in the Winter 2000 edition of
Blueprint Magazine:
Some, of course, will object to humanitarian intervention
as a violation of the principle of sovereignty, which
precludes military interference in the internal affairs of
other nations. . . . Yet it is clear today that the non-
interference doctrine no longer trumps all other
considerations. This was obvious when the United Nations
sanctioned interventions during the 1990s in Northern Iraq,
Somalia, and Haiti. Where crimes against humanity or genocide
are involved, the doctrine of humanitarian intervention is
increasingly accepted as a justification for violating the
otherwise inviolable borders of sovereign states.
A particular variant of the regionalism approach is contained within
Samuel P. Huntington's 1996 work, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking
of World Order.
I know that is a favorite of the good Senator from Kansas.
In the aftermath of the cold war the United States became
consumed with massive debates over the proper course of
American foreign policy. In this era, however, the United
States can neither dominate nor escape the world. Neither
internationalism nor isolationism, neither multilateralism
nor unilateralism, will best serve its interests. Those will
best be advanced by eschewing these opposing extremes and
instead adopting an Atlanticist policy of close cooperation
with its European partners to protect and advance the
interests and values of the unique civilization they share.
These are just a very few of the many ``think pieces'' which have
been coming
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out of the American foreign policy community since the end of the cold
war. Even this brief glimpse reveals a wide divergence in expert
opinions on the preferred priorities and approaches for post-cold-war
U.S. global engagement. To further evaluate the current debate among
individuals with strongly held views on where we should be headed I
asked the outstanding Congressional Research Service to provide me with
a ``review of the literature'' on U.S. global role options.
I ask unanimous consent that this CRS document be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
A Review of Literature on U.S. Global Role Options
1. Abshire, David M. ``U.S. Global Policy: Toward an Agile
Strategy.'' Washington Quarterly, v. 19, spring 1996: 41-61.
Since the end of the Cold War, which was marked by the U.S.
promotion of a policy of containment, the U.S. and other
powers have entered a strategic interregnum (44) in which
foreign policy strategies have not been fully defined.
Abshire states that the U.S. should strive toward a policy of
agility: ``an agile strategy for the use of power and the
achievement of peace'' (41) which is characterized by
flexibility in action and long-range goals and is guided by
vital national interests. This strategy is proactive rather
than reactive and aims to ``return to classical formulations
of the proper uses of power to influence the behavior of U.S.
opponents, and indeed allies'' (46). Realism (49) forms the
foundation of a strategy of agility, acknowledging that
military conflict and economic competition are features of
world affairs. At the same time, this strategy recognizes the
importance of idealism (50) and the role U.S. democratic
ideals should play in international relations. Specifically,
this strategy represents a balance between short-term realism
and long-term idealism (48): In the short run, the U.S.
should defend its interests from immediate threats; in the
long run the U.S. should strive to promote U.S. ideals such
as democracy and free trade. This policy is opposed to
isolationism (51), but expects U.S. leaders to set clear
boundaries in U.S. foreign policy.
2. Albright, Madeleine K. ``The Testing of American Foreign
Policy.'' Foreign Affairs, v. 77, Nov.-Dec. 1998: 50-64.
Albright describes a four-part strategy for U.S. foreign
policy. The U.S. should encourage continuing relations with
other leading nations (51), aid transitional states in
playing a larger role in the international system (52), help
weaker states that are trying to overcome economic and
political problems (52), and ward off threats that affect
world security (51-53). This strategy is driven by vision and
pragmatism: U.S. foreign policy should incorporate a vision
of future policy concerns and should be shaped by pragmatic
approaches to foreign policy issues (54-59). The will and
resources to carry out policy are essential to implementing
this strategy (59-62). In the final analysis, U.S. foreign
policy is tested by ``how well our actions measure up to our
ideals . . . we want our foreign policy to reflect our status
as the globe's leading champion of freedom'' (63).
3. Arbatov, Georgi. ``Eurasia Letter: A New Cold War?''
Foreign Policy, no. 95, summer 1994: 90-103.
The institutions of the West have supported Russian plans
for reform despite the plans' shortcomings and disastrous
results. Russia has not made progress toward building
democracy, and the West is partly responsible for Russia's
current woes. The West's role in supporting economic policies
unsuitable for Russia has spurred new distrust of the West
and notions of a Western conspiracy to introduce policies
that will harm the Russian economy (91-96). The West should
take part in stopping human rights violations against ethnic
Russians living in former Soviet republics (98). The U.S.
must recognize that Russia should play an important role in
international affairs (102). Both countries are responsible
for Russia's future and should seek cooperation (103).
4. Blumenthal, Sidney. ``The Return of the Repressed Anti-
Internationalism and the American Right.'' World Policy
Journal, v. 12, fall 1995: 1-13.
Isolationism has been revived in a new form as an
``inchoate anti-internationalism'' (2) on the part of the
Republican Right. This new anti-internationalism is marked by
vigorous opposition to the role of the United Nations and is
closely related to growing anti-government and xenophobic
sentiments. Although isolationist views were espoused by
members of both the Right and the Left in pre-World War II
America, by the end of the war, isolationism had become
strictly a cause of the Right and was combined with its
anticommunist movement (4-5). Advocates of this policy viewed
containment as a poor compromise and advocated a unilateral
military approach to Cold War threats. Unilateralism (6)
remained an important cornerstone of this policy up to
Reagan's terms in office, although Reagan eventually
disillusioned supporters with his policy of engagement with
Gorbachev. George Bush was criticized for his emphasis on
foreign affairs. As Clinton's first term in office
progressed, he paid more heed to anti-internationlism and
initiated policies to limit the U.S. role in multilateral
peacekeeping (9). The Republican platform, Contract with
America, advanced several anti-international principles, and
``[f]or the first time since the inception of the Cold War,
tenets of anti-internationalism have become official dogma of
the Republican Party'' (10). Republicans who oppose anti-
internationalism have not challenged this position within
their party. Idealist and realist approaches (11) to foreign
policy will be affected by this anti-internationalism if it
continues to flourish. Blumenthal identifies several versions
of realism. Augmented realism, or realism plus, (11) sees
conviction as a driving force in obtaining a leadership role.
Washington realism (11) focuses on international affairs at
the expense of domestic ones. Republican realism fails ``to
explain how internationalism can coexist with a social policy
that radically widens class, racial, and gender divisions . .
.'' (11).
5. Calleo, David P. ``A New Era of Overstretch? American
Policy in Europe and Asia.'' World Policy Journal, v. 15,
spring 1998: 11-29.
Clinton downplayed foreign policy when elected in 1992 and
in his first term ``quietly'' took on ``a sort of
devolutionist foreign policy'' (12-13). Clinton encouraged
the Europeanization of NATO and seemed to promote a foreign
policy in which the U.S. would serve as a balancing power in
a multipolar arena and would not aspire to Bush's vision of
the U.S. as the only superpower in a unipolar world (13).
Muted elements of Wilsonianism could be detected in some
Clinton policies to ``[prod] the world toward universal
democracy'' (13). Clinton began to take a more active role in
foreign policy in his second term and initiated efforts to
reassert American hegemony in NATO (14). U.S. interests in
NATO expansion suggest that the U.S. is adopting a maximalist
stance (16) and is ready to take a hegemonic role in Europe.
The U.S. has continued its long-standing role as a strong
presence in Asia. Calleo describes three proposed models for
a future security structure in Asia--``China the regional
hegemon, America the region's hegemonic balancer, and a
multipolar regional balance made up of China, India, Japan,
Russia, and the United States'' (19).
6. DeSantis, Hugh. ``Mutualism: An American Strategy for
the Next Century.'' World Policy Journal, v. 15, winter 1998-
99: 41-52.
DeSantis describes the views of various foreign affairs
professionals: Liberal-internationalists, or neo-Wilsonians,
expect the value systems of various countries to move toward
each other; realists promote persuading other powers to
support U.S. policies; American nationalists, or neo-
Reaganites, promote a unilateral policy in which the U.S.
strives to promote an ``enlightened empire;'' neo-
isolationsists, including America Firsters, libertarians,
and pacifists, oppose U.S. involvement abroad (41).
DeSantis says that these seemingly different views are all
versions of American exceptionalism, the myth that the
U.S. is the natural model for other countries and should
be the leader of an unpredictable world (41-42). He
promotes as an alternative a ``non-American centered
framework'' called mutualism: ``an interest-based rather
than value-driven concept of international relations''
(44) that avoids hegemony. Economies will be
interdependent and national and regional communities will
be emphasized in order to curb violent frustrations of
peoples ``marginalized by the process of globalization''
(47). A cornerstone of mutualism is cultural tolerance and
the recognition that the American way is not the only way
to a free and harmonious society (48). Security operations
must be shared in order to avoid dependence on the U.S.,
and Americans must ``abandon their triumphalism'' and
recognize the need for cooperation with other peoples
(51).
7. Diamond, Larry. ``Why the United States Must Remain
Engaged: Beyond the Unipolar Movement.'' Orbis, v. 40, summer
1996: 405-413.
The end of the Cold War has forced the U.S. to reexamine
its role in the world, and a new trend in favor of
isolationism has emerged. This neo-isolationism takes many
forms. Some of its supporters advocate free trade and foreign
aid while others reject any type of foreign involvement.
Other neo-isolationists want the U.S. to become ``a normal
nation in normal times'' (406). Despite variations on this
theme, all neo-isolationists call for the end of America's
role as a superpower. Scholar Eric Nordlinger, in his book
Isolationism Reconfigured: American Foreign Policy for a New
Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) has
articulated a new type of neo-isolationism that calls for
varying degrees of U.S. involvement in foreign affairs and
recognizes the usefulness of multilateral cooperation.
Nordlinger's ``liberal isolationism'' provides a thoughtful
approach to foreign policy but is problematic. He mistakenly
believes that the U.S. is insulated from outside threats;
that U.S. allies could compensate militarily for the loss of
a U.S. military presence abroad; that it is better to deal
with conflicts as they arise rather than try to predict
future conflicts; and that the U.S. would be able to defend
itself in the unlikely scenario of a threat to U.S.
interests. In fact, spillover from faraway conflicts prevents
true insulation; our allies would have difficulties meeting
military challenges without U.S. aid and might be forced into
bad compromises due to lack of power; the benefits of
predicting and deterring conflict can exceed the cost; and,
were the U.S. to become as isolationist as Nordlinger
proposes, it is unlikely it would be prepared to meet true
[[Page S766]]
threats to security (407-411). The best strategy for the next
century is liberal internationalism (413).
8. Gilman, Benjamin A. ``A Pacific Charter: A Blueprint for
U.S. policy in the Pacific in the 21st Century.'' Washington
Heritage Foundation, 1997 (Heritage Lecture no. 579).
Asia will be the most important region to the U.S. in the
future, and the U.S. has the greatest power to influence
Asian affairs. As in the past, U.S. interests in Asia are:
``regional stability; access to markets; and freedom of the
seas,'' (3) and, more specifically, ``the promotion of
democracy and the rule of law; human and religious rights;
market economies; and regional security for all'' (11).
Although the U.S. is ``responsible for the peace and much of
the prosperity'' (3) of post-WWII Asia, the U.S. role in Asia
is being challenged. The Clinton administration, through base
closings, has sent an ambiguous message to Asia, and most
Asian nations, which desire a strong U.S. presence in the
region, fear the U.S. will retreat to isolationism. The U.S.
must maintain a strong role in Asia and thwart the emergence
of a regional hegemon that could threaten Asian security. The
Clinton administration does not have a good policy to meet
these needs. Gilman proposes a ``Pacific Charter'' (7) to
outline the U.S. role in Asia. The U.S. must maintain strong
relations with Japan, increase relations with India, and curb
threats from China.
9. Haass, Richard N. ``Paradigm Lost.'' Foreign Affairs, v.
74, Jan.-Feb. 1995: 43-58.
The post-Cold War world is in a period of ``international
deregulation,'' marked by ``new players, new capabilities,
and new alignments'' but lacking ``new rules'' (43). Clinton
has advocated a new foreign policy centered around
international reregulation (44) and characterized by the
expansion of market democracies, but this strategy serves
more as an ideal than as pragmatic policy. In fact, no one
doctrine can encompass every aspect of foreign policy, but
the U.S. should strive toward a foreign policy ``that is
clear about ends--America's purposes and priorities--as well
as about means--America's relationship with and approach to
the world'' (45). Haass critiques five approaches to foreign
policy that are evident in the current administration.
Wilsonian promotion of democratic values is a ``luxury'' that
should not take precedence over other interests, such as
promoting security in the Middle East, even with non-
democratic allies (46). Economism places undue emphasis on
the primacy of economics and can be similar to
neomercantilism (47). Realism correctly acknowledges threats
to the U.S. but neglects the ``internal evolution of
societies'' (48). Humanitarianism, which is almost ``post-
ideological'' downplays immediate concerns and threats (49).
Minimalism ignores factors that affect U.S. security and
could lead to long-term problems that greatly threaten U.S.
interests (49). Haass describes three types of means to U.S.
foreign policy. Unilateralism allows the dominant country
freedom of action, but can be imitated and abused by other
powers and can break down international order (50). Neo-
internationalism, also known as ``assertive
multilateralism,'' distributes power and responsibility, but
this power may clash with U.S. foreign policy interests (51).
U.S. leadership would position the U.S. as the leader of
alliances and coalitions, but could lead to problematic
compromises (52). Clinton has incorporated each mean and end
in some form, resulting in an inconsistent foreign policy.
Haass promotes ``augmented realism,'' or ``realism plus,''
which would concentrate on threats to security but would be
broader than traditional realism. Haass states that U.S.
leadership is the most viable means to meet this form of
realism (55-56).
10. Haass, Richard N. ``What to do with American Primacy.''
Foreign Affairs, v. 78, Sept.-Oct. 1999: 37-49.
U.S. foreign policy should promote multipolarity,
``characterized by cooperation and concert rather than
competition and conflict'' (38). Post-Cold War society will
have four cornerstones: ``using less military force to
resolve disputes between states, reducing the number of
weapons of mass destruction and the number of states and
other groups possessing such weapons, accepting a limited
doctrine of humanitarian intervention based on a recognition
that people--and not just states--enjoy rights, and economic
openness'' (39). The U.S. should maintain its role as the
only superpower and should model itself after nineteenth-
century Great Britain (41). The U.S. should persuade other
powers through consultations rather than negotiations (42-
43). Regionalism, which involves regional cooperation, would
serve as a good balance between the extremes of perfect
internationalism and unilateralism (44), but is
problematic because many regions do not agree on the
definition of regional order. An American world system
involves external influences, but the U.S. must play an
active and discriminating role in deciding when
humanitarian intervention is necessary. Finally, America
must overcome its indifference to foreign affairs (49).
11. Hillen, John. ``Superpowers Don't Do Windows.'' Orbis,
v. 41, spring 1997: 241-257.
The U.S. should encourage a new security system which
recognizes the differing interests and military capabilities
of different countries and is founded on the principle that
the U.S., as the superpower, does not do the little jobs that
distract it from its larger role. Because U.S. resources are
limited, the U.S. should concentrate on broad security issues
and leave regional problems to its allies who will serve the
roles of ``local doctor and cop'' (243). The downsizing of
the U.S. military places strains on the U.S. military when it
acts in regional disputes, such as the Bosnia conflict, and
few post-Cold War conflicts have truly required heavy U.S.
involvement. The U.S. role in Europe, East Asia, the Middle
East, the Persian Gulf, and South America is one of
collective defense, which focuses on cooperative efforts to
``defend against threats to the balance of power in a
region,'' rather than one of collective security, which
responds to a broad range of issues not limited to immediate
threats (251). In alliances with European countries, the U.S.
must preserve its role as a leader and needs to readjust the
division of labor in organizations such as NATO. The U.S.
should, however, be cautious in increasing Japan's
responsibilities in Asia. Within the Middle East, ``de facto
alliances'' serve the U.S. better than ``de jure alliances''
that exist with European countries (255). No other regions
demand a U.S. presence.
12. Huntington, Samuel P. ``The Erosion of American
National Interests.'' Foreign Affairs, v. 76, Sept.-Oct.
1997: 28-49.
American identity has been defined by culture and creed,
ideals such as liberty, constitutionalism, limited
government, and private enterprise. This identity has been
constructed vis-a-vis a foreign ``other,'' which for much of
this century has been communism. The end of the Cold War will
affect American identity and has led the U.S. ``not to find
the power to serve American purposes but rather to find
purposes for the use of American power'' (35). Ethnic and
commercial interests now overshadow national interests in
shaping foreign policy. ``Commercial diplomacy'' (37) has
become a cornerstone of Clinton's foreign policy. Ethnic
groups now play a major role in shaping U.S. international
involvement; the drive for multiculturalism and an increase
in new immigrant groups who have resisted assimilation have
influenced the actions of the U.S. government toward
immigrants' native countries. The combined influence of
commercial and ethnic interests has led to a
``domesticization of foreign policy'' (40). America's
strength is reflected in military, economic, ideological,
technological and cultural spheres, but America is
ineffective in influencing other countries (42-43). This
paradox is partly the result of a gap between American
resources and governmental power. The nature of American
power has changed. Immediately after WW II America directly
expanded its influence to other parts of the world. From the
1970s, U.S. power has shifted to ``the power to attract''
(44), as illustrated by the power of the U.S. to raise money
from other countries for the Persian Gulf War and a shift
toward widescale lobbying by foreign governments. U.S foreign
policy, with its attention to special interests, is turning
into a policy of particularism. A policy of restraint (48),
which would limit attention to special interests, would
better position the U.S. to ``[assume] a more positive role
in the future . . . and to pursue national purposes''
supported by the American population (49).
13. Hutchings, Robert L. ``Rediscovering `The National
Interest' in American Foreign Policy.'' Washington, Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1996.
The end of the Cold War has left the U.S. struggling to
redefine its global role. Encompassing principles like
``democratic enlargement'' and ``new world order'' fail to
fully address U.S. foreign policy needs; ``new world order,''
for example, has been ambiguous on the relationship between
principles and interests and has been constantly redefined
and reformulated (2). Foreign policy should not pit
principles against interests. Principles alone fail to solve
foreign policy problems. Interest-based policies should be
tied to U.S. capabilities (2-3). The U.S. placed top priority
on Eastern Europe in relations with Moscow and thus helped
contribute to ``an international environment conducive to''
the success of Eastern European democracy movements (4). The
U.S. recognized the importance of German affairs to European
security. In other parts of Europe, the U.S. ``continued to
cling instinctively to a dominant role that [it was] no
longer ready to play and so found it difficult to cede
leadership gracefully to the Europeans'' (5). These
approaches to Western and Eastern Europe together helped
bring about the end of the Cold War, but the U.S. failed to
develop suitable policies to support post-Communist
countries. The Cold War should teach the U.S. that a stable
Europe, more than a stable Asia, is vital to U.S. security,
and U.S. leadership is necessary for European unity (6-7). A
stable Eastern Europe is most vital for a stable Europe. The
U.S. should not assume responsibility for Russian reform; the
task should fall into Russian hands (8). The U.S. should
``invite'' Russia into the international arena and encourage
Russia to pursue peace (9).
14. Joffe, Josef. ``How America Does It.'' Foreign Affairs,
v. 76, Sept.-Oct. 1997: 13-27.
No alliance in history has persisted long past victory, and
yet the U.S. continues to build its alliance system even
after the end of the Cold War. Organizations like the EU
could challenge U.S. power, and Russia, China, and France
have paid lip service to ending U.S. hegemony, but allies of
the U.S. have yet to truly turn against America. The reason
for ``America's unchallenged primacy'' lies in the uniqueness
of America (16). The U.S. ``irks and domineers, but it does
not conquer'' (16). During WWI and WWII, the U.S., like
Imperial Britain, maintained a strategy of checking
hegemonies. More recently, U.S. policy has come to resemble
the
[[Page S767]]
policies of Bismarck's Germany; the U.S. has built a ``hub
and spoke'' relationship with other countries in which
``association with the hub [Washington] is more important to
them than are their ties to one another'' (21). As a result,
other countries cannot form old-style alliances against the
U.S. (24). The U.S. bears a great deal of responsibility in
upholding security for other countries, but this benefits and
provides for America's own security (27).
15. Kagan, Robert. ``The Benevolent Empire.'' Foreign
Policy, no. 111, summer 1998: 24-34.
Although foreign countries complain about U.S. global
leadership, many countries nonetheless have grown to rely on
American dominance. Although European and other nations call
for ``multipolarity,'' U.S. dominance in fact provides the
best option for global affairs (26). U.S. hegemony is a
benevolent hegemony (26). The U.S. has risked its own safety
for the safety of other countries, and Americans have
believed since WWII that ``their own well-being depends
fundamentally on the well-being of others'' (28). It is in
the best interest of the nations that benefit from this
benevolent hegemony to support rather than criticize U.S.
power. Advocates of multipolarity, and the similar
balance-of-power theory of global parliamentarianism, or
world federalism (30), fail to recognize that no other
country would be willing to truly take on the
responsibilities and sacrifices multipolarity entails.
Countries like France and Russia have not adopted measures
that would enable them to shoulder the burdens of
multipolarity; what these countries truly want is an
``honorary multipolarity'' (32): ``the pretense of equal
partnership in a multipolar world without the price or
responsibility that equal partnership requires'' (32). The
growth of neo-isolationism in the U.S. satisfies European
calls for less U.S. involvement in international affairs,
but the U.S. must continue to recognize the ultimate
importance of its dominance (34).
16. Kennan, George F. ``On American Principles.'' Foreign
Affairs, v. 74, Mar.-Apr. 1995: 116-126.
Kennan defines a principle as a ``general rule of conduct
by which a given country chooses to abide in the conduct of
its relations with other countries'' (118). This principle
should provide a framework for policy and, with special
exceptions, should be ``automatically applied'' (119). A
principle should be set forth by a political leader who can
reflect the views of the population he represents. Despite
wide differences among Americans, most Americans agree on
certain ideals. In choosing when to intervene in other
countries' affairs, the U.S. should respond only to events
that truly threaten U.S. interests (124). U.S. policy must
embody John Adams' principle of foreign policy that the best
way to help other countries is through ``the benign sympathy
of our example'' (125) rather than through direct
intervention.
17. Kennedy, Paul. ``The Next American Century?'' World
Policy Journal, v. 16, spring 1999: 52-58.
For much of the early twentieth century, America looked
inward in its foreign policy. By the end of WWII, however,
America's role as the world's leader was clear; the twentieth
century had become the American century. Later, the Cold War
suggested that world affairs were dominated by a bipolar
system of Russian and American power, and anti-Americanism
abroad and domestic crises at home lent further doubts to the
primacy of America. The appearance of an ``America in
relative decline,'' however, was not fully accurate (55). The
U.S. held many advantages over a Soviet Union constantly
plagued with problems, and despite domestic difficulties, the
U.S. demonstrated its ability to renew its economic power in
the 1980s. The U.S. is influential in its ``soft power''
(American culture) and ``hard power'' (military resources)
(56), and is a leader in finance and technology. These
advantages place America ``in a relatively more favorable
position in the world than at any time since the 1940s''
(56). It is uncertain, however, whether the U.S. will sustain
its number-one position throughout the 21st century. The
spread of American influence could lead to a backlash against
the U.S., and other nations have the potential to develop
into superpowers.
18. Khalilzad, Zalmay. ``Losing the Moment? The United
States and the World After the Cold War.'' Washington
Quarterly, v. 18, spring 1995: 87-107.
The U.S. must develop a foreign policy for the post-Cold
War world in order to maintain its strength. Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney's ``Regional Defense Strategy,'' (88)
which focused on strengthening alliances, preventing the rise
of regional hegemons, and eliminating sources of instability,
never took root under the Bush administration. Clinton
Administration foreign policy, outlined in National Security
Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, (88) stresses similar
points but also emphasizes peacekeeping efforts, economic
issues, and the expansion of democracy. But the Clinton
strategy fails to prioritize foreign policy issues, and
Clinton's handling of foreign affairs has been controversial.
Possible alternatives for foreign policy are neo-isolationism
(89-91), a return to multipolarity (91-94), and global
leadership (94-106). Although neo-isolationism offers short-
term benefits, in the long term it is likely to lead to power
struggles and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. A
return to multipolarity and balance of power would allow the
U.S. to reduce defense spending and concentrate on economic
concerns, but depends on other major powers ``[behaving] as
they should under the logic of a balance of power framework''
(93). Global leadership, in which the U.S. would maintain its
position and prevent the rise of rival powers, provides the
best option. For this policy to work, it must ``maintain and
strengthen the `zone of peace' and incrementally extend it;
preclude hostile hegemony over critical regions; hedge
against reimperialization by Russia and expansion by China
while promoting cooperation with both countries; preserve
U.S. military preeminence; maintain U.S. economic strength
and an open international economic system; be judicious in
the use of force, avoid overextension, and develop ways of
sharing the burden with allies; and obtain and maintain
domestic support for U.S. global leadership and these
principles'' (95).
19. Kristol, William and Robert Kagan. ``Toward a Neo-
Reaganite Foreign Policy.'' Foreign Affairs, v. 75, July/
August 1996: 18-32.
Kristol and Kagan advocate a conservative, ``neo-
Reaganite'' foreign policy, in which American exceptionalism
is celebrated and in which America ``cheerfully'' takes on
the international responsibilities that come with its role as
the benevolent global hegemon (32). They assert that
``American principles around the world can be sustained only
by the continuing exertion of American influence'' by such
means as providing foreign aid and playing a role in conflict
control or resolution in its diplomatic and/or military
capacity when appropriate; they further assert that ``most of
the world's major powers welcome U.S. global involvement''
(20-28). Neo-Reaganite foreign policy differs from the
neoisolationism of the ``America First'' variety in that it
is a policy of engagement for the purposes of maintaining
peace and international order, as well as national benefit
(21-23). In addition, unlike the pragmatist foreign policy
under the Bush administration, neo-Reaganite foreign policy
justifies its engagement not only with practical or material
interests (such as jobs), but also with the goal of upholding
and ``actively promoting American principles of governance
abroad--democracy, free markets, respect for liberty'' (27-
8). America ought to reassume that sense of responsibility
for global ``moral and political leadership'' which underlay
the ``overarching Reaganite vision that had sustained a
globally active foreign policy through the last decade of the
Cold War'' (28).
20. Layne, Christopher. ``Rethinking American Grand
Strategy: Hegemony or Balance of Power in the Twenty-First
Century?'' World Policy Journal, v. 15, summer 1998: 8-28.
Layne favors the balance of power strategy over the
strategy of preponderance (synonymous with hegemony) that has
prevailed in U.S. foreign policymaking circles since after
World War II. The ``essence'' of the strategy of
preponderance is the creation of ``a U.S.-led world order
based on preeminent U.S. political, military, and economic
power, and on American values'' (9). Preponderance is
unsustainable for several reasons: one, hegemonic power
instigates its own demise--states that feel threatened will
endeavor to emerge as new great powers to balance against the
hegemon, thus destroying the unipolar situation(13); second,
the U.S. is at risk of strategic overextension when it must
defend its extensive interests throughout the world in order
to maintain its hegemonic status (17); and third,
preponderance as a strategy will be obsolete in the emerging
multipolar world, China, Japan, Germany and Russia being the
potential new great powers. The balance of power alternative
to preponderance is ``offshore balancing''(20). The premise
of the offshore balancing strategy ``is that it will become
increasingly more difficult, dangerous, and costly for the
United States to maintain order in, and control over, the
international system'' (21). As an insular great power
geostrategically shielded from most foreign threats, the U.S.
is in position to disengage itself from many of its military
commitments and global leadership role, thus avoiding
overextension. Offshore balancing lets the U.S. stand to the
side and achieve relative gains while other, less insulated
powers quarrel amongst themselves; it also lessens the U.S.
risk of war by allowing the U.S. to act last, when the
situation is clear (20-22). Geostrategic concerns are
paramount in offshore balancing; other issues such as
``market and global economic welfare imperatives'' are to be
subordinate (24). U.S. power and strategic choice are
maximized through offshore balancing (24).
21. Mastanduno, Michael. ``Preserving the Unipolar Moment:
Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold
War.'' International Security, v. 21, no. 4, spring 1997: 49-
88.
Mastanduno offers a discussion of realism and its two major
variants, the balance of power theory and the balance of
threat theory, and how these theories apply to different
aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Realism is not itself a
theory, but instead a ``research program that contains a core
set of assumptions from which a variety of theories and
explanations can be developed'' (50). Realist assumptions
include an anarchic international system and that states are
``like units'' (52). Balance of Power theory states that a
hegemonic state will ``stimulate the rise of new great
powers'' or the formation of coalitions that will balance
against its preponderance (54). The rational course of action
under this theory is to accept the ``inevitability of
multipolarity'' and make the most of it, by adopting the
position of offshore balancer (see Layne)(56). Balance of
[[Page S768]]
Threat theory assert that states are not threatened by power
(aggregate resources) alone; the presence of other
considerations such as ``geographic proximity, offensive
capability, and aggressive intentions'' is necessary to
constitute a threat (59). The rational strategy under this
theory would be to ``pursue policies that signal restraint
and reassurance''--be nonthreatening, in other words (59).
Balance of power guides U.S. foreign economic policy while
balance of threat informs U.S. security policy, and the two
theories thus applied has worked together in the scheme to
preserve U.S. global primacy (51). To ``dissuade'' and delay
challenges to U.S. hegemony, the U.S. must not allow economic
conflicts to undermine security relations; the U.S. must be
willing to shoulder the costs of a ``global engagement
strategy'', and the U.S. must consult and get the cooperation
of its allies (a multilateral approach) and refrain from
preaching and imposing U.S. values (87-8).
22. Maynes, Charles William. ``America's Fading
Commitments.'' World Policy Journal, v. 16, summer 1999: 11-
22.
Maynes traces the American attitude toward multilateralism
since the Second World War. Multilateralism and international
institutions like the UN have fallen out of favor among the
U.S. political elite since the 1980s, due to the restrictions
multilateralism places on America's freedom of action. To
maintain that freedom, America has moved toward unilateralism
(``American isolationism in another form'') by acting alone
or through dominating its alliances (17). Maynes argues that
the multilateral experiment cannot be abandoned (21).
Globalization brings new transnational problems that must be
dealt with multilaterally, and the balance-of-power approach
to foreign policy is too prone to catastrophic failure to be
completely relied upon (20-21). America's unilateral approach
also creates resentment among other states (22). Despite
appropriate concerns about the erosion of sovereignty and the
erosion of democratic control, America must revive the
Wilsonian commitment to international organizations and
international law (also liberal internationalism), for ``the
hope for a more orderly and peaceful world lies in the
commitment to progressive multilateralism . . . [a hope
which] will never be fulfilled unless the most powerful
country in the world does its share'' (22).
23. Maynes, Charles William. `` `Principled' Hegemony.''
World Policy Journal, v. 14, fall 1997: 31-36.
America has the ability to deter attacks against itself,
but often lacks the will and resources to compel other states
to act in accordance with its wishes (35). Maynes suggests
limiting the obligations of principled hegemony (specifically
in the human rights area) by restricting the U.S. role to
providing logistical and political assistance and acting as
an example, instead of taking over other states'
responsibilities, acting as global or regional policeman, or
imposing American views (35-6)
24. Maynes, Charles William. ``The New Pessimism.'' Foreign
Policy, no. 100, fall 1995: 33-49.
Influential authors informed by Hobbesian realist
assumptions express an unwarranted mood of pessimism for
America's future, Mayne asserts. The state of the world is
better than it has been for decades and there is much America
can do for a better future. The international system is
``structurally sound'' because no great power is seeking the
hegemonic position (a goal repudiated by the Bush
administration)(44). Wars and conflicts are now more numerous
but on a much smaller scale--war doesn't pay like it used to;
there is also no ideology fueling a drive for world supremacy
(43). The U.S. should use this ``moment of unusual structural
stability in world affairs'' to ``found a structure of peace
for the future''(44), by devising a European structure that
would involve both Germany and Russia and to fully integrate
China into the international system (45-6). The American goal
must not be to counter the power of these emerging great
powers, but ``to channel it in directions that are more
benign and that respect the rights of [their] neighbors''
(46).
25. Maynes, Charles William. ``The Perils of (and for) an
Imperial America.'' Foreign Policy, no. 111, summer 1998: 36-
48.
America leads the world economically, militarily, and
politically (37). It already carries the burden of ``a
totally disproportionate share of the expense of maintaining
the common defense'' as well as being the ``world economic
stabilizer'' (37). Yet America should NOT go further and
attempt to pursue a policy of world hegemony, for four
reasons: ``domestic costs, impact on the American character,
international backlash, and lost opportunities'' (39). Since
there is ``no clear geographical limit to the obligations''
imposed on an aspiring hegemon, America, should it elect to
pursue world hegemony, must be prepared for huge increases in
military and non-military spending, in dollars and in
bloodshed (40). Hegemony can be attempted ``only by using the
volunteer army,'' which would exacerbate the social
fragmentation between those who reap benefits from
globalization, and those who have to pay the price (42).
Dangerous too is the arrogance supreme power brings, and from
which America already suffers. Unilateral actions such as
economic sanctions and dictates to the U.N. and other
countries provoke alienation and resistance, making other
countries less cooperative (44). A policy of hegemony ``will
guarantee that in time America will become outnumbered and
overpowered'' (46). America should not waste this post-Cold
War moment on pursuing hegemony, but use the opportunity to
try to forge a new relationship among great powers.
26. ``Old Challenges in a New Era: Addressing America's
Cold War Legacy, Defense, Economic & International Security
Concerns.'' Washington, Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis, 1995.
During the Cold War, ideology was the dominant factor
governing international relations. But economic
considerations have taken the place of ideology with the
collapse of the Soviet Union and following globalization.
Unlike during the Cold War era, the transfers of arms and
defense technologies to other states are being made largely
on the basis of economic considerations, not ideology. A
laissez-faire approach to arms transfers might have negative
impacts on regional stability and detrimental effects on
future international commercial relations and overall
political stability in the long term (Chapter 1).
Even though the U.S. was the leader of the globalization of
the international economic system, it failed to adopt
internal policies to maintain its competitiveness in the
world market. In reality, however, the United States
considerably depends on importation. Consequently, it is
demanded that the United States continues to improve its
economic competitiveness in international markets if it is to
reverse the trend of dependency. (Chapter 2)
The increasing competition incurred from
internationalization and interdependence of trade transformed
the structure of the U.S. economy. For example, wages of U.S.
workers were adjusted to the equilibrium of global wage
levels. This structural transfiguration of the U.S. economy
from industrial era to information age resulted in U.S.
defense downsizing. The U.S. defense drawdown appears prima
facie to have negative impacts on the national job market.
The impact upon the U.S. job market as a whole is, however,
minimal in the context and also can be ameliorated with
continued economic growth. (Chapter 3)
Today's defense industrial base was formed during World War
II, and evolved during the quasi-warlike period of the Soviet
Union threat. The strategy of the U.S. military against
Soviet quantitative military advantages was technological
innovation with qualitatively superior weapon systems. This
also demanded large-scale industrial production of products
and a massive modernization of industry. But with the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the primary role of defense
industry disappeared and left dichotomous problems; ``how to
reduce the size of the US defense industrial establishment
without losing the capability to support the armed forces in
the near-term surge by major powers such as Russia and China,
or to respond to provocations from major regional states and
to concurrently facilitate futuristic armaments production
needed for long-term security needs.'' (Chapter 4)
Regarding the direction of U.S. military industry, ``the
key objective of U.S. defense industrial policy must be the
preservation of critical design, engineering, and production
skills in the United States economy.'' Moreover, ``long-term
U.S. defense production is rooted in maintaining a robust
manufacturing base within the United States. Failure to
preserve a diverse manufacturing base will eventually result
in increased U.S. vulnerability to foreign veto over U.S.
security-related decisions.'' (Chapter 5)
U.S. foreign dependency on military production will
naturally increase as the United States moves toward a
unified commercial/defense industrial base and prime
manufacturers continue to reorganize their supplier networks.
Within this framework, long lead-time products such as
aircraft, submarines, aircraft carriers, and tanks are not
vulnerable to foreign suppliers who might prove reluctant to
provide parts for U.S. defense production if tensions
develops in selected international relationships. The United
States currently has the technology to reestablish industries
if required but at a cost. The United States is more
vulnerable to stoppage of critical parts and components for
electric equipment and combat consumables needed for quick-
response intervention operations. In the long-term, U.S.
vulnerability will depend on the scope and diversity of the
United States industrial base.'' (Chapter 7)
Preserving international stability is of great importance
to the U.S. political, economic and military capabilities.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the security
condition of the world has been transformed, triggering a
dispute about how much military capability should be retained
under the new uncertain world order. The Clinton
Administration's Bottom-Up Review (BUR) postulated the United
States must be able to fight two nearly simultaneous major
regional conflicts (MRCs). But the U.S. force structure
planning has been complicated along with the continuous
change of the World and the diversity of potential missions
unlike during the Cold War. ``As a result of the changes in
global stability and Allied force levels, three questions
need to be reexamined. 1) what are the critical international
interests of the United States, 2) what are the emerging
threats to international stability, and 3) what military
capability does the United States need to defend those
interests.'' (Chapter 8)
``The twin goals of maintaining a viable U.S. defense
industrial base and promoting international stability are not
mutually exclusive. As long as discretion is exercised,
[[Page S769]]
transfers of U.S. arms to non-aggressive states is more
desirable than the alternatives of allowing other arms-
exporting states to dominate the trade, or cutting off
international arms supplies and encouraging the
development of indigenous arms industries.'' (Chapter 9)
27. Olsen, Edward A. ``In Defense of International
Abstention.'' Strategic Review, v. 24, spring 1996: 58-63.
Olsen advocates the return of American foreign policy to
its pre-Second World War program of ``abstention, benign
neglect, and non-interventionism within a framework of highly
selective engagement'' (58). The U.S. was pulled into a
collective approach to security by the special circumstances
of the Second World War and the Cold War, and even now
retains this ``anachronistic'' pursuit of world leadership
with little concern for national self-interest (58-9). Now
that the Cold War is over, the U.S. should return to a more
``normal'' role in world affairs by disengaging itself from
the ``permanent allies'' and ``entangling alliances'' frowned
upon by the Founding Fathers (59-61). A policy of
disengagement and non-intervention is not isolationism; non-
intervention merely provides the kind of ``strategic
independence'' that allows America to get involved ``when
Americans--not other countries or international
organizations'' decide it is wise (59). Less intervention
overseas, less foreign aid, and fewer entanglements will let
the U.S. shed burdens its allies can and should carry on
their own, and ``maximize U.S. geo-economic influence through
a demilitarization of U.S. involvement overseas,'' as well as
grant the U.S. a ``more benign and unprovocative image'',
facilitate ``trade and investment, and permit a wholesale
reduction in obligations without calling into question
American prestige and credibility'' (63).
28. Pfaff, William. ``The Coming Clash of Europe with
America.'' World Policy Journal, v. 15, winter 1998/99: 1-9.
The Atlanticist dream of an American-European political,
economic, and security union is unlikely to be realized due
to the oncoming Western European versus American clash over
economic and industrial competition (1). The euro (EU common
currency), if successful, will draw investments away from
U.S. securities as well as become a ``powerful rival for
denominating international trade products'' (3). Europe is
also expected to resist the globalization trend of mergers in
strategic industries such as aerospace and other high-
technology sectors to achieve and maintain the ``industrial
and economic guarantees of sovereignty'' (5). European
economic and industrial interests serve to make European
countries more economically and politically integrated as a
union, as EU institutions and policies develop to maintain
these interests; further, these same interests will become a
``new and fundamental factor of U.S.-EU rivalry and
competition,'' forming an obstacle to transatlantic
integration (3). Europe does not wish conflict with the U.S.,
but these vital interests render conflict almost inevitable
(1). On a slightly different note, Pfaff argues against an
American claim on hegemony, because hegemony is an
``inherently unstable'' position that provokes resistance,
because most of the world does not accept the idea of
American exceptionalism, and because American public opinion
does not support the kind of expenditure necessary for
hegemonic pursuit. (6-7).
29. Rielly, John E. ``Americans and the World: A Survey at
Century's End.'' Foreign Policy, no. 114, spring 1999: 97-
113.
The latest quadrennial foreign policy opinion survey of the
American public and leadership, sponsored by the Chicago
Council on Foreign Relations, finds three major trends (1).
First, the American public prefers a multilateral approach in
U.S. response to crises abroad, while the leadership is more
willing to take unilateral action (112,100). Second, although
the public recognizes many vital American interests around
the world, it is disinclined to send troops or money overseas
except to defend national self-interests--a position Rielly
calls ``guarded engagement'' (105). Altruistic
internationalist causes (such as promoting human rights and
democracy and defending allies' security) are low priority.
Guarded engagement ``could prove problematic if global
leadership requires the United States to make tougher choices
in the next century'' as the ``world's only superpower''
(113). Third, there is a marked contrast between public
pessimism (major concern being international violence) and
leadership optimism for the 21st century world (112). The
survey also finds that both the public and leadership groups
are upbeat about globalization (105), and that both are
viewing ``economic rather than military power as the most
significant measure of global strength'' (97).
30. Rosati, Jerel A. ``United States Leadership into the
Next Millennium: A Question of Politics.'' International
Journal, v. 52, spring 1997: 297-315.
The ``constraints and political uncertainty faced by
[American] presidents in today's domestic political
environment does not bode well for a strong proactive foreign
policy in the future'' (310). No longer do presidents have
the ``automatic or long-lasting'' support behind their
foreign policy like they did in the Cold War era (307); now
they must deal with a contentious public (307) and a more
assertive Congress which increasingly involves itself in
foreign policy (308). In addition, presidential policies are
constrained by what bureaucracies, usually more oriented to
the past than the present, are ``able and willing to
implement'' (309). Finally, the personal qualities of the
president also determine the success of presidential foreign
policy--whether the president has the persuasive power,
professional reputation, public prestige, and ability to make
good choices (311). The result of these combined factors is
that U.S. foreign policy ``has tended to become increasingly
reactive--as opposed to proactive--and, hence, incoherent and
inconsistent over time,'' rendering the exercise of the much-
advocated sustained U.S. global leadership very difficult
(306).
31. Rosenthal, Joel H. ``Henry Stimson's Clue: Is
Progressive Internationalism on the Wane?'' World Policy
Journal, v. 14, fall 1997: 53-62.
Rosenthal explicates and distinguishes the philosophies of
conservative and progressive internationalism, and concludes
that ``a realist foreign policy and a `progressive' social
agenda did not have to be mutually exclusive'' (61).
Conservative internationalism is ``conservative in that it
sought modest, incremental change in international
relations'' and maintains the state-centered model in which
nations have sovereign control over their own territories and
domestic policies (56). Conservatives are concerned with
promoting American geopolitical and mercantilist interests,
not radical world reformation (56). Progressive
internationalism takes its cue from the American Progressive
movement and ``sought to extend the ideals and achievements
of the Progressive movement'' to the world, as reflected in
its emphasis on political democracy, and social and
economic justice worldwide (55-7). Progressives also
envision a ``One World'' international structure.
Rosenthal then writes that ``the story of American
internationalism is a history of how `national interests'
grow out of and are defined by domestic considerations''
(54). Citing Morgenthau's idea that ``international power
depended on domestic power and that a key factor in
determining domestic power was the presence or absence of
moral principles,'' Rosenthal observes that even realists,
of whom Morgenthau is a prime representative, accept that
power rests not only on military and economic might, but
also has a moral basis--legitimacy (54). Working for and
achieving social progress at home is ``a prerequisite'' in
the extension of American power and interests abroad (61).
Thus although conservative internationalism is the more
mainstream policy, ``progressive aspirations cannot and
should not be jettisoned,'' for these aspirations of
equality in freedom and opportunity constitute the
``purpose of American politics . . . [and] for various
historical, geographic, cultural and technological
reasons, `the area within which the United States must
defend and promote its purpose [had] become world-wide''
(61). It is the American purpose and ethical obligation to
deliver on the progressive philosophy, domestically and
globally (the latter by example), in its role as the
``indispensable nation'' (62). In short, moral principles
cannot be ignored in foreign policy.
32. Rubinstein, Alvin Z. ``The New Moralists on a Road to
Hell.'' Orbis, v. 80, spring 1996: 277-295.
American policy on aid to needy nations and especially on
military intervention against political injustices (like
ethnic violence) has come under the negative influence of a
group Rubinstein calls the ``new moralists'' (277). The new
moralists are a ``disparate group of influential notables in
the media, academy, and think tanks,'' who want to use U.S.
military power to ``spread democracy, protect the victimized,
and promote economic development,'' even where the U.S. has
no strategic stake (277). New moralists assume that the U.S.,
as the sole world superpower, must shoulder global
leadership; that the international community is willing to
follow its lead; that civil and ethnic conflicts must be
stopped before ``they lead to great-power wars'' and that the
U.S. has a ``moral responsibility'' to promote democracy and
defend the downtrodden (278). They view national interest
through a moral, not strategic, framework (278). Rubinstein
criticizes the new moralists for misusing historical evidence
and for wrongly claiming international support (286-7).
Foreign policy ``must be affordable, supportable, and
demonstrably in the best interests of the country at large,''
and based on ``sober calculations of fundamental U.S.
strategic, economic and political interests'' (293). ``Except
in cases of direct threats to the survival or vital interests
of the United States, the determination of which moral
goal(s) to emphasize is a matter of choice'' (294). Further,
the moral dimensions of foreign policy must be carefully
handled with the proper perspective and sound priorities, in
order to prevent trivialization, indifference, and self-
righteousness (292).
33. Rubinstein, Alvin Z. ``NATO Enlargement vs. American
Interests.'' Orbis, v. 42, winter 1998: 37-48.
NATO enlargement is not in the U.S. interest. The decision
to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO was
based on Clinton's bid for votes from voters with strong ties
to Central and Eastern Europe, and not on a cost-benefit
policy analysis (37). NATO enlargement will cost the U.S.
money, add to NATO's security burden, and force the new
members to divert money from economic and social development
in order to upgrade their defense system to NATO standards
(38-40). Given the new challenges and uncertainties facing
the U.S. in East Asia, it is unwise for the U.S. to take on
``unnecessary responsibilities'' in Europe, where the
situation is stable (43). Introducing new elements into NATO
will disrupt its ``secure
[[Page S770]]
strategic environment'' by affecting power structures and
member cohesion, possibly resulting detrimental consequences
(44). The key concern here is Germany. Admitting the Central
and Eastern European members will once again put Germany in
the center of Europe, with the potential for rekindling
adversarial Franco-German and Russo-German relationships, as
well as undermining European integration as France and
Britain assess Germany's new, more important status (45). The
addition of new members, all ``heavily dependent on
Germany,'' may affect intra-NATO politics (45). Finally,
``any geopolitical development . . . that transforms Germany
from an ordinary nation-state into a strategic hub . . . will
pose problems for America's presently unchallenged
dominance''; in an enlarged NATO where Germany has NATO
members as a buffer against Russia (thus reducing its
security reliance on the U.S.), America may well lose its
leverage in NATO to Germany (45).
34. Ruggie, John Gerard. ``The Past as a Prologue?''
International Security, v. 21, Spring 1997: 89-125.
Ruggie uses three past reconstruction periods in
international policy, 1919, 1945, and post-1947 to predict
future trends (109). He contends that in all three instances
American leaders advocated ``multilateral organizing
principles . . . to animate the support of the American
public'' (117). He states that these principles are embedded
in American nationalism and by their nature appeal to the
public. ``Multilateral organizing principles are singularly
compatible with America's own form of nationalism, on which
its sense of political community is based'' (109). However
the author is hesitant to define these acts as ``mere
rhetoric'' or idealism (117). He asserts that various factors
must be taken into account depending on the complexity of
each situation, with special focus on ``strategic interests
and collective identity'' (124). Ruggie argues that the
outlook for American foreign policy should be not simply
defined by historical instances or past successes but in
terms of the existing situation and political climate.
35. Schild, George. ``America's Foreign Policy
Pragmatism.'' Aussenpolitik, v. 46, 1st Quarter 1995: 32-40.
Schild discusses American foreign policy transition from
isolationism (33) to internationalism (34). The author states
that isolationism ``does not mean the complete decoupling of
the United States from Europe and from the world'' but rather
``refusal to enter into lasting political commitments'' (33).
The change in U.S. foreign policy from isolationism to
internationalism was a result of four factors. The era of
isolationism between the two world wars caused a belief in
the American population that it left the country unprepared
for attack, as in the case of Pearl Harbor. The policy failed
to provide economic growth and the development of new weapons
expanded defense borders beyond American coastlines. Finally,
the Cold War created an adversary in which the general public
accepted the Soviet Union as an enemy (34). The combination
of these factors led to the emergence of internationalism,
defined as universal or transnational interests (34).
However, Schild declares that since the end of the Cold
War the trend toward isolationism has re-emerged, a trend
he calls ``pragmatic foreign policy'' (33).
36. Schwabe, William. ``Future Worlds and Roles: A Template
to Help Planners Consider Assumptions About the Future
Security Environment.'' Rand Corporation, 1995.
Schwabe discusses nine possible future roles for the U.S.
concerning international security. He explains the origin of
his roles by distinguishing between possible future worlds
and possible U.S. roles. Possible future worlds include ``new
era'' denoting improvements in economic and political
structures, ``baseline'' referring to status quo levels which
continue in the same fashion as it has since World War Two
and ``Malthusian'' meaning deterioration in which the
international system is failing and all countries struggle
(2). Potential roles for the U.S. encompass leadership, co-
equal, and second tier (3). The leadership function maintains
that the U.S. will continue the role it has assumed for the
past half century, dominating in many aspects of
international relations and security. The co-equal option
posits that the U.S. will maintain its comparative advantage
in some aspects but recognize equivalent or superior ability
of other first tier countries. In this respect the U.S. will
``abandon the modern version of manifest destiny and comes to
see greater value and security in not having to lead'' (6).
The second tier role presumes that the U.S. will decline in
status, falling below other leading industrialized nations.
Schwabe does not hypothesize on which of these possibilities
will occur.
37. Schwenninger, Sherle R. ``Clinton's World Order: U.S.
Foreign Policy is Hastening--by accident--Arrival of the
post-American Century.'' Nation, v. 266, Feb. 1998: 17-20.
Since President Clinton has taken office a ``new global
order'' has taken shape (17). Schwenninger states that
Clinton's policy of ``political isolation and economic
strangulation have hardened into an ideological commitment''
(18). The author explains his theory through examples of U.S.
economic trade agreements and various attempts at sanctions.
He notes that American sanction policies especially have done
more to strain U.S.-European relations than they have altered
behavior of condemned countries. Schwenninger continues by
saying, ``It (the Clinton Administration) has mismanaged this
period of U.S. dominance in world affairs by pushing
ideologically driven initiatives (like NATO expansion), which
will bring little if any lasting benefit to U.S. interests or
the larger cause of a stable world order'' (20). The author
promotes U.S. foreign policy that includes labor and
environmental protections, more extensive domestic measures
to insure the majority of Americans benefit, and when needed
international regulatory structures needed to oversee
international capital flows (19-20).
38. Shain, Yossi. ``Multicultural Foreign Policy.'' Foreign
Policy, no. 100, Fall 1995: 69-87.
In the past century America's population has expanded
considerably. Ethnic groups living in America have altered
the shape and function of U.S. foreign policy. Those involved
in U.S. foreign political affairs have recognized this wave
of influence and have acknowledged the resurgence of
Wilsonianism (70). However, this presents a foreign policy
conundrum: foreign policy- makers must take into account the
demands of citizens but avoid undermining national
cohesiveness due to ethnic strains. With increasingly
powerful ethnic influences such as diasporic lobbies, ``one
should expect to see strong ramifications in U.S. foreign
affairs, including a redefinition of U.S. national
interest''. (73) Shain states two ideologies that ethnic
communities encounter when compelled by ethnic and U.S.
interests. Isolationists consider their culture superior to
American culture and reject cultural assimilation in the U.S.
(75). Integrationists endorse a vision of pluralist democracy
that includes cultural and political recognition from main
stream institutions (78). American policymakers will have to
carefully consider these factors when creating and
implementing foreign policy.
39. Sloan, Stanley, R. ``The U.S. Role in the Twenty-first
Century World: Toward a New Consensus?'' Foreign Policy
Association, 1998: 64 p.
Sloan contends that U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold
War era must be directed by executive leadership with the
acknowledgment of scholars, analysts, and Congress. A crucial
element in comprehending America's new role is to understand
world interdependency. Sloan proposes U.S. interests can be
``affected by developments in any region of the globe'' (5).
Sloan suggests that the U.S. has been experiencing an
``escapist'' period in foreign policy (36). He contends that
escapism is a result of America's uncertain international
role in the future and a misunderstanding of U.S. foreign
objectives. He recommends the current Administration
explicitly defining America's foreign policy agenda based on
common values, goals, and interests (59). The author reveals
that this endeavor would ``reflect post-cold-war realities
and would restore flexibility to U.S. policymaking'' (59).
40. Travers, Russell, E. ``A new Millennium and a Strategic
Breathing Space.'' Washington Quarterly, v. 20, Spring 1997:
97-114.
In a reevaluation of threats against U.S. security Travers
suggests eight general policy prescriptions to succeed during
the post Cold War period. Included in his recommendations are
rejection of isolationist and instant gratification policies
which he depicts as being two major mistakes in U.S. history
(110-111). He promotes the use of newly defined sovereignty
combined with neo-Wilsonian ideals ``because it is in the
U.S. national interest to help build such a world'' (112).
The author also suggests minimizing future threats by
addressing potential vulnerabilities including possible
domestic problems. He states that this can be accomplished by
creating a exceptional intelligence community with early
warning systems to thwart domestic and international threats.
Military preparedness should include readiness in low
intensity conflicts with small force packages of highest-end
U.S. technology integrated with 1980s- and 1990s-vintage
weapons (112). Essentially, Travers concludes that the U.S.
maintains a favorable strategic position in the post Cold War
era.
41. United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations.
``U.S. National Goals and Objectives in International
Relations in the Year 2000 and Beyond.'' Hearing, 104th
Congress, 1st Session, July 13, 1995. Prepared Statement by
Henry Kissinger, 12-22.
Kissinger states that every major nation finds itself in a
transitional stage. ``The current world contains six or seven
major global players whose ability to affect nonmilitary
decisions is essentially comparable'' (13). For this reason
Kissinger believes that there are two stable options for U.S.
policy makers: hegemony or equilibrium. Hegemony would allow
the U.S. to dominate in the international sphere but has been
recently rejected by the American public (13). The
equilibrium or ``balance of power'' approach has also been
dismissed by U.S. society due to endless tension that many
feel it causes (13). However, Kissinger maintains that
``the reality is that the emerging world order will have
to be based on some concept of equilibrium . . . among its
various regions'' (13). He also argues that the U.S. will
be forced to impose a variety of foreign policy
initiatives, based on U.S. relations and each nation's
political agenda. Concerning countries with which we share
common values and principles, Kissinger suggests emphasis
on democratic principles to usher in the new world order
(17). In the case of nontraditional U.S. allies he asserts
that we must avoid containment policies of a generation
ago. Containment may allow or possibly promote unified
defiance. (21). Kissinger stresses
[[Page S771]]
the need for a well developed and supported international
policy, blind to partisanship. ``The national interest of
the United States does not change every four years;
foreign leaders judge our country by its insight and its
constancy'' (22).
42. Van Heuven, Marten. ``Europe in 2006: A Speculative
Sketch.'' Rand, 1997: 16 p.
U.S. foreign policy with respect to Europe in the next
decade should be founded on ``the fact that a secure, stable,
and prosperous Europe is vital to American security and well-
being'' (13). Europe and America have had a long record of
cooperation as a result of similar interest and values. For
this reason political, financial, and social stability in
Europe is essential to prosperity in America. Van Heuven
stresses that because of our historical partnership
bipartisanship should not muddle U.S. foreign policy
objective in the region (15). Emphasis on pragmatic policies
such as those concerning the EU and open markets should
continue to be the American objective (15). In closing the
author states that there is a need for greater public
discussion about what the U.S. role should be concerning
Europe.
43. Weston, Charles. ``Key U.S. Foreign Policy Interests.''
Aussenpolitik, v. 48, no. 1, 1997: 49-57.
Since the end of the Cold War the U.S. has remained the
only influence capable of international influence. Changes in
America politically and domestically have influenced U.S.
foreign policy decisions. Weston states that the current
Administration's policy combines ``idealism with pragmatism
and emphasizes democracy and human rights'', a reflection of
public sentiment (52). Despite international engagements such
as Bosnia, ``Washington is not at all keen about the idea of
an offensive and worldwide interventionism'' (52). The author
concludes that to overcome international challenges faced in
the 21st century the U.S. must lead alliances with examples
of coordination and cooperation (57).
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, James Lindsay of the Brookings
Institution, I think, well summed up where we in Congress are today in
this great debate on America's proper role in the world in the Winter
2000 Brookings Review, where he wrote:
Much like friends who agree to dine but can't agree on a
restaurant, foreign policy elites agree that the United
States should do something, just not what. Congress naturally
reflects this dissensus, which makes it difficult for the
institution to function. Divided by chamber, party, ideology,
region, committee, and generation, Congress lists toward
paralysis whenever a modicum of agreement and a sense of
proportion are absent.
In a nutshell, attempting to overcome this ``dissensus'' and
``paralysis'' is what Senator Roberts and I are trying to do in these
dialogs. I'd like at this point to yield to the distinguished Senator
from Kansas for his comments.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. President, Senator Cleland has very effectively outlined the
evolution of our nation's foreign policy, from Washington and Adams
(chary of foreign involvement and alliances) to the Monroe Doctrine to
Wilson's idealism and all of the so called ``ism's''--economism,
realism, humanitarianism, minimalism, unilateralism, regionalism,
isolationism with intervention and non intervention tossed in. Now,
that is quite a foreign policy tossed salad.
But, the point is, discussion and definition must preface clarity,
purpose and consensus and Senator Cleland has done just that along with
a Clelandism, a new concept he will define in his closing remarks,
``Realistic Restraint.''
In setting the framework for discussion on the global role our nation
will play in the 21st century, the benchmark used by virtually all
observers is the post-cold-war period.
Ashton Carter, professor of science and international affairs at the
John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and an Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the first
Clinton administration, put it very well when he recently wrote:
The kindest thing that might be said of American behavior
ten years into the post-Cold War world is that it is A-
STRATEGIC, responding dutifully to the (crisis du jour) with
little sense of priority or consistency.
A less charitable characterization would be that the United
States has its priorities but they are backwards, too often
placing immediate intervention in minor conflicts over a
``preventive-defense strategy focused on basic, long term
threats to security.
This formula has become awkward, even embarrassing, as the
years go by. It is an admission that we do not know where we
are going strategically, only whence we have come. It is time
to declare an end to the end.
In his recent article, ``Adapting U.S. Defense to Future Needs,''
Professor Carter has recommended identifying an ``A-list'' of security
priorities to fill the current strategic vacuum. I was struck by the
similarity between Professor Carter's A, B, and C lists determining
threats to our national security and the recommendations by the
Commission on America's National Interests four years previous that I
mentioned in my opening remarks.
And, Professor Carter did us another favor in his article by quoting
George Marshall at the time of America's previous great strategic
transition following the Second World War. In 1947 at Princeton
University, General Marshall said:
Now that an immediate peril is not plainly visible, there
is a natural tendency to relax and to return to business as
usual. But, I feel that we are seriously failing in our
attitude toward the international problems whose solution
will largely determine our future.
The report by the Commission on America's National Interests in 1996
expressed a similar view:
The confusion, crosscurrents, and cacophony about America's
role in the world today is strikingly reminiscent of two
earlier experiences in this century: the years after 1918 and
those after 1945. We are experiencing today the third post-
war transition of the twentieth century. In the twenty years
after 1918, American isolationists forced withdrawal from the
world. America's withdrawal undermined the World War I peace
settlement in Europe and contributed mightily to the Great
Depression, the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, and the
resumption of war in Europe after what proved to be but a
two-decade intermission. After 1945, American leaders were
determined to learn and apply those lessons of the interwar
period. Individuals who are known now as the ``wise men,''
including Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower,
Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson, and
Senator Arthur Vandenberg, fashioned a strategy of
thoughtful, deep American engagement in the world in ways
they judged vital to America's well-being. As a result, two
generations of Americans have enjoyed five decades without
world war, in which America experienced the most rapid
economic growth in history, and won a great victory in the
Cold War.
To address this historical challenge and responsibility, what did the
Commission recommend? We recommended the following:
Challenges to American national interests in the decade
ahead. Developments around the world pose threats to U.S.
interests and present opportunities for advancing Americans'
well-being. Because America's resources are limited, U.S.
foreign policy must be selective in choosing which issues to
address. The proper basis for making such judgments is a
lean, hierarchical conception of what U.S. national interests
are and are not. Media attention to foreign affairs tends to
fixate on issues according to the vividness of a threat,
without pausing to ask whether the U.S. interest threatened
is really important. Thus second- and third-order issues like
Bosnia or Haiti become a consuming focus of U.S. foreign
policy to the neglect of issues of higher priority, like
China's international role or the unprecedented risks of
nuclear proliferation.
Based on its assessment of specific threats to and
opportunities for U.S. national interests in the final years
of the century, the Commission has identified five cardinal
challenges for the next U.S. president: To cope with China's
entry onto the world stage; to prevent loss of control of
nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons-usable materials, and to
contain biological and chemical weapons proliferation; to
maintain sound strategic partnerships with Japan and the
European allies; to avoid Russia's collapse into civil war or
reversion to authoritarianism; and to maintain singular U.S.
leadership, military capabilities, and international
credibility.
Note the similarity in agreement in regard to Professor Carter's
recent article in which he says, 4 years later:
The public imagination, reflected in the press, abhors the
post-Cold War's conceptual vacuum. Under CNN's relentless
gaze, and in the absence of any widely accepted strategic
principles, the accumulation of a decade's worth of telegenic
events has begun to furnish the public with a conception of
strategic priorities that differs from an A-list as defined
here. Citizens watching the news (and even those few who
still read it) can be forgiven if they have begun to get the
impression that the security challenges of the new era (the
post-Post-Cold War era) arise in such places as Kosovo,
Bosnia, East Timor, Haiti, Rwanda and Somalia. These are the
issues that have dominated the security headlines in the
1990s. Indeed, there is even talk of the post-Cold War's
first presidential doctrine, the so-called ``Clinton
Doctrine'', dealing with precisely this issue. According to
President Bill Clinton: ``Whether you live in Africa or
Central Europe or any other place, if somebody comes after
innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of
their race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it
is within our power to stop it, we will stop it.''
The Kosovos and their ilk are undoubtedly important
problems: they represent not only atrocities that offend the
human conscience,
[[Page S772]]
but if allowed to fester can undermine the foundations of
regional and international stability. However, it is also
true that such problems, while serious, do not threaten
America's vital security interests.
Carter went on to say there are four dangers that he puts on the A
list, the top priority concerns in regard to vital national security
interests: No. 1, the danger that Russia might descend into chaos,
isolation and aggression as Germany did after the First World War; No.
2, the danger that Russia and other Soviet successor States might lose
control of the nuclear and chemical and biological weapons legacy of
the former Soviet Union; No. 3, the danger that, as China emerges, it
could spawn hostility rather than becoming engaged in the international
system; the danger that the weapons of mass destruction will
proliferate and present a direct military threat to U.S. forces and
territory; and finally, the danger that catastrophic terrorism of
unprecedented scope and intensity might occur on U.S. territory.
Professor Carter indicated these A-list problems do not take the form
of traditional military threats and they have not, as a general rule,
made headlines or driven our defense programs during the decade-old
post-cold-war era. While neither imminent nor certain, the A-list
problems will, to quote Marshall again, ``largely determine our
future.''
Both Professor Carter and the commission report go on to stress many
additional policy recommendations. I commend both the report and the
article to my colleagues.
In trying to better prioritize our national security obligations, I
think we are faced with two clear policy alternatives: The first I call
the so-called Powell doctrine, named after retired Joint Chiefs
Chairman, General Colin Powell, who focused on the dangers of military
engagement and recommended limiting commitments that put America's men
and women in uniform in harm's way to absolutely vital national
interests; the second being the so-called Clinton doctrine, which
emphasizes more of a global policing role for the United States.
This debate does recall others. It was 40 years ago that President
Eisenhower's emphasis on strategic deterrence was challenged by
President John Kennedy's advocacy of something called ``flexible
response.'' However, the difference is that once in office, the Kennedy
administration increased defense spending, while in the last 10 years
after engagement and sending more American service men and women
overseas than any other President took place in tandem with cutting our
military by one-third.
Our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry Shelton
summed up the situation very well when he told the John F. Kennedy
School of Government recently:
The military makes a great hammer in America's foreign
policy tool box, but not every problem we face is a nail.
He went on to say:
As a world superpower, can we dare to admit that force
cannot solve every problem we face. I think that the decision
to use force is probably the most important decision our
nation's leaders can make. The fundamental purpose of our
military forces is to fight and win the nation's wars.
General Shelton went on to echo what both the commission on America's
interests and Professor Carter have said: Military intervention should
be used for vital national interests, important national interests, and
they have been used for humanitarian efforts. But the general cautioned
that such efforts should be limited in duration and clearly defined.
The general referred to the Dover test, named after Dover Air Force
Base, the point of entry of the bodies of service members that are
killed in action overseas. The general said: The question is, Is the
American public prepared for the sight of our most precious resources
coming home in flagged-draped caskets into Dover?
He said this should be among the first things raised by Washington
decisionmakers. Both Senator Cleland and I agree very strongly.
The historical analogies aside, there is one clear difference in
today's global world and what faced our political and military leaders
of yesterday. That is what I call the information age of the CNN
effect. Joseph S. Nye, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs, said in a recent article:
Today the free flow of information and shortened news
cycles have a huge impact on public opinion, placing some
items at the top of the public agenda that might otherwise
warrant a lower priority. Our political leaders are finding
it harder than ever to maintain a coherent set of priorities
on foreign policy issues that determine what is in the
national interest.
The so-called ``CNN effect'' makes it harder to keep some
items off the top of the public agenda that might otherwise
warrant a lower priority. Now, with the added interactivity
of activist groups on the Internet, it will be harder than
ever for leaders in democracies to maintain a consistent
agenda of priorities.
In closing, let me say that while this forum is intended to focus on
debate and discussion, events of the day have a way of forcing the
agenda.
I paraphrase from the distinguished admiral who heads up the Defense
Intelligence Agency when he said before a recent hearing: We must pay
attention to uncertainties in regard to Russia, China, Europe, the
Middle East, and Korea. They must be addressed. We must deal with rogue
states and individuals who do not share our vision of the future and
are willing to engage in violence. Rapid technology development and the
proliferation in information technology, biotechnology, and
communications, tactical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, pose a
significant threat. A 50-percent reduction in global defense spending
means both our adversaries and allies have not kept pace with the
United States, but as we see after the war in Kosovo, it will result in
asymmetric threats from our adversaries and reduced help from our
allies. Demographic developments will stress the infrastructure and
leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Disparities in global
weather and resource distribution will get worse. The reaction to the
United States and western dominance will spur anti-U.S. sentiments now
more pronounced since Kosovo, the law of unintended effects.
International drug cultivation and production and transport and use
will remain a major source of crime and instability. And lastly, ethnic
and religious and cultural divisions will remain a prime motivation for
conflict.
To be sure, the Senate of the United States cannot solve all the
problems, but these problems do indeed comprise current and emerging
threats to our national security, international stability, and to
peace. The question is, Can we reach consensus in this body to address
them in a rational fashion as the leader in the free world?
I think my colleague has some closing remarks, as I do.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, may I say my colleague from Kansas, as he
so often does, put his finger right on it. The question is one of
priorities. I appreciate him pointing out the CNN effect. The extent to
which this country can respond to each and every problem in the world
is limited. We have to recognize that; therefore, we must insist on
dealing with our top priorities.
I deeply appreciate the wonderful quote of General Shelton which I
first heard at an Armed Services Committee hearing, that we have, in
effect, a great hammer, but not every problem in the world is a nail.
What a great way to phrase that particular point of view.
I appreciate Senator Roberts' mentioning General Powell, one of my
personal heroes. I once had the pleasure of visiting him in the
Pentagon when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We spoke
about the purpose of the American military. He said: My purpose is to
give the President of the United States the best advice I can on how to
use the American military to stay out of war; but if we get in war, win
and win quickly.
That is still probably the finest definition of the mission statement
of our military forces I have ever heard.
So I thank the Senator from Kansas for his insight and for his timely
remarks.
I will now conclude my prepared remarks today by offering some
preliminary thoughts as we begin this dialogue on the U.S. global role.
As I said at the outset, I certainly do not have any final judgments or
answers to this critical question. In my view, no one has, or can have,
all of the answers right now because so many of the elements of the
post-cold-war world--including its geopolitical alignments,
[[Page S773]]
``rules of the game'' in dispute resolution and trade, and the role of
non-national actors, including non-governmental organizations, the news
media and unfortunately transnational terrorists--are in flux. But we
cannot let this lack of certainty and finality deter our efforts to
find the best set of policies we can now develop, not when challenges
or potential challenges to our national interests continue to arise,
not when the people of America are asked to sustain whatever policy we
here espouse.
I might say, as a Vietnam veteran who almost came back in a body bag,
the Dover test, the Dover, DE test, or the ability of this country to
measure the rightness of our actions based on the price we are willing
to pay, is a powerful one.
When our sons and daughters in the military are asked to put their
family life on hold and their lives on the line in support of whatever
the civilian authorities determine, they have a right to ask us if
those policies are worth it.
I have been deeply disturbed by the tenor of our recent debates in
the Congress and with the administration on a host of important
national security issues. Most recently, the Senate failed to ratify
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty after little meaningful debate and no
Senate hearings. This was one of the most consequential treaties of the
decade, and it was sadly reduced to sound-bite politics and partisan
rancor.
In addition to the CTBT, the Senate has made monumental decisions on
our policies in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf, funding for the Wye
River Accords and the future of NATO and the United Nations, all
without a comprehensive set of American goals and policies. Simply put,
I do not believe we can afford to continue on a path of partisanship
and division of purpose without serious damage to our national
interests.
In addition, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services
Personnel Subcommittee, I have been heavily involved in trying to
improve the quality of life for our servicemen and women through such
steps as increasing pay and enhancing health and education benefits. It
is my deeply held view that not only do we need to take such action to
address some disturbing trends in armed forces recruitment and
retention, but we owe these individuals nothing less in recognition of
their service.
However, as important as these other factors are, the ultimate
quality of life issues center on decisions made by national security
decisionmakers here in Washington relating to the deployment of our
forces abroad. It is these deployments which separate families, disrupt
lives, and in those cases which involve hostilities, endanger the
service member's life itself. This is not to say that I believe our
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are not fully prepared to do
whatever we ask of them. But we on this end owe them nothing less than
a full and thorough consideration each and every time we put them into
harm's way.
There are thirteen military installations in Georgia, and I visit the
troops whenever I can. When I go to these bases, I see weary and
beleaguered families who are doing their best to make it through the
weeks and months without their husbands or wives. They are, indeed, on
the point of the spear of this Nation's military force. They are paying
a heavy toll for our military engagements around the world. It is a
price they are ready to pay, but one I want the Senate to understand
and appreciate as we continue in our commitment of troops aboard.
For what it is worth, based on what I have seen and heard to date, I
believe we in positions of foreign policy making responsibility in the
United States need to be much more mindful of such traditional realist
diplomatic precepts as ``balance of power'' and ``equilibrium.'' This
is not to say that I believe our distinctly American approach to
foreign policy, dominated throughout by idealist considerations and in
most of the 20th century by what is often called Wilsonian
internationalism has been wrong-headed or unfounded. Clearly, for the
most part, it has served us well in advancing our vital national
interests, whether those were securing our national independence,
promoting the spread of self-determination and democracy, or defeating
Soviet communism.
But the post-cold-war period is a new day for America as well as the
world. In my view, we need not, and certainly will not, renounce our
ideals, but in this new era, those ideals must be grounded in a policy
which realistically gauges what price Americans can or should pay in
support of our global role.
We have to ask the Dover, DE test: How many body bags do we want to
see coming home? We have to ask what price we are going to pay for our
military. We cannot continue to downsize our American military by a
third and increase our commitments abroad by 300 percent, whether or
not our commitments abroad are actually sustainable over a period of
time.
Last, I am struck by the words of the conservative editor of the
National Interest, Owen Harries:
I advocate restraint because every dominant power in the
last four centuries that has not practiced it--that has been
excessively intrusive and demanding--has ultimately been
confronted by a hostile coalition of other powers. Americans
may believe that their country, being exceptional, need have
no worries in this respect. I do not agree. It is not what
Americans think of the United States but what others think of
it that will decide the matter.
Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of the Senate for our
discussion here, and I thank my colleague for his tremendous insight
and his marvelous research into the challenges we face in America's
global role today. I look forward to continuing this discussion and
this dialog in the coming weeks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitzgerald). The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, in closing, I again thank my colleague
for undertaking this effort. As usual, his remarks have been on point.
They have provided focus. They have been very thought provoking.
I would like to recount a personal experience. Last spring, Senator
Stevens led a Senate delegation to the Balkans, to Macedonia.
Obviously, we didn't go into Kosovo at that particular time. Along with
other Senators, we visited the Albanian refugees and the various
refugee camps. This one was Brazda.
Standing in the cold and in the mud amidst a circle of refugees,
there came an old man with a stocking cap. It was pulled over his head.
He was recounting, through his interpreter, his tale of human misery.
He had refused to join his wife and family in fleeing their home. He
didn't want to leave home. He urged them to leave the home because of
his worry about their safety.
Two sons had fled to the mountains. He did not know, since he fled at
the last moment, where his family was. He was wearing the shoes of a
long-time friend who was killed in the violence. His home was burned.
His savings and life's wherewithal were destroyed. And with tears in
his eyes he grabbed me by the lapels and he said: ``I believe in God, I
believe in America, and I believe in you.'' That face will always be
with me.
Yet today, we see the continuing ethnic violence so prevalent in that
part of the world. The Senator from Georgia mentioned Samuel P.
Huntington's book, ``The Clash of Civilizations: The Remaking of the
World Order.'' The central theme of that book is that culture and
cultural identities, which we see so prevalent in the Balkans and in
other places around the globe, which at the broadest level are
civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion,
disintegration, and conflicts in the post-cold-war world.
We should focus on that. I recommend his book to every Senator. It
should be required reading. He has five corollaries to his main point
which will help us shape our future foreign and defense policy:
One, in the post-cold war world, for the first time in history,
global politics has become multipolar, multi-civilizational;
Westernization is not producing a universal civilization--a shock,
perhaps, to many who call themselves decisionmakers in regard to
Western civilization.
Two, the balance of power among civilizations is shifting. The West
is declining in relative influence. Asian civilizations are expanding
their economic, military, and political strength. The Nations of Islam
are exploding demographically, with destabilizing consequences for
Muslim countries and their neighbors, and nonwestern civilizations
generally are reaffirming the value of their own cultures.
Three, a civilization-based world order is emerging. Societies
sharing
[[Page S774]]
cultural affinities tend to really cooperate with each other. Efforts
to shift societies from one civilization to another are unsuccessful.
And countries group themselves around the lead or core states of their
civilization. The West's universalist pretensions increasingly bring it
into conflict with other civilizations.
Finally, the survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming
their Western identity and westerners accepting their civilization as
unique but not universal, and uniting to renew and preserve it against
challenges from nonwestern societies. Avoidance of global war of
civilizations depends on world leaders accepting and cooperating to
maintain the multi-civilizational character of global politics.
Simply put, Samuel Huntington says, leaders in Western nations,
Members of the Senate, the President of the United States and his
Cabinet, maybe we ought to concentrate on strengthening and preserving
our values where they are cherished, they have been nourished, and they
work well, instead of trying to impose them on countries where they are
not welcome. If we do that, we will take a giant step in trying to set
appropriate priorities in regard to our vital national security
interests.
I thank the Senator from Georgia. We have concluded our remarks. I
yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________