Reprinted from "Candidates Miss Message on Foreign Policy," Newsday, October 19, 2000
DESPITE AGREEMENTS between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush on specific issues that sometimes camouflaged contrasts in their perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, the presidential debates made clear the fundamental differences between their approaches.
Bush proposes an interest-based foreign policy. As he said in the second debate, in Winston- Salem, N.C., the United States should use military force only when its vital interests are at stake. In other cases, the governor believes that "the idea of humility is an important one." If the United States is viewed as an "arrogant nation," he said, there might be a global backlash.
Gore has no such concerns. In the debate Tuesday in St. Louis, he said that he sees the United States "promoting the values of democracy and human rights and freedom all around the world." There is little humility in this approach, in which according to the vice president, "we have to be willing to assert" our values, presumably through means that include the use of military force.
Three assumptions underlie Gore's perspective: that the United States generally knows what is in the best interest of other nations and that our values are universal; that the world (at least the democratic world) will be hospitable to such U.S. guidance and that it may be offered without considerable cost; and that this kind of global social work-with not-so-gentle persuasion when possible and cruise missiles when necessary-can bring democracy to other countries.
All three assumptions are demonstrably false. The United States is much better at defining and pursuing its own important interests than determining what is most appropriate for people in far away places about whom most Americans know and care little. In the latter circumstance, special interests too often dictate congressional resolutions aimed at pleasing specific domestic constituencies, such as Armenian-Americans opposed to Turkey and Azerbaijan and Cuban-Americans hostile to Havana. More broadly, our political system was not constructed to decide what is best for those living in other countries and those countries are not represented in our political process.
In the end, the United States gets arbitrary policies lacking a moral foundation. This is exemplified by the Clinton administration's condemnation of Slobodan Milosevic as a war criminal and its simultaneous embrace of Yasser Arafat, whose record of terrorism includes actions against American diplomats.
This hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed. Many nations, most notably Russia, China and France, increasingly resent Washington's propensity to offer indispensable advice. Gore might see imposing his values around the world as asserting democracy, but many other countries view it as unwelcome interference threatening the stability of their regimes.
So while Gore claims that international opposition to the United States is primarily a result of our size, our strength and our democracy, other countries in fact also respond to our behavior. This does not justify their actions-particularly terrorism or reckless proliferation-and should not deter America when vital interests or great principles are at stake. But it does suggest the possible costs of "asserting" our values, especially when every public opinion poll demonstrates that Americans are not prepared to sacrifice lives and treasure simply to export democracy.
We must also recognize that promoting democracy has rarely worked. Though Bush agreed with Gore that the ouster of Milosevic was a triumph for U.S. policy-probably on the assumption that one cannot argue with success-he gave a different explanation, less moral in tone, for the NATO air campaign. Bush spoke of the U.S. interest in protecting relations with NATO and in NATO remaining "strong and confident." Indeed, once the Clinton administration and the Blair government in Britain had succeeded in turning the confrontation into a test of NATO's credibility, it would have been costly to settle for anything less than military victory.
But was victory instrumental in removing Milosevic from power? Not quite.
The Yugoslav president was defeated in elections that he called himself. Also, while the country's political system could hardly be called a democracy before the NATO attacks-it was more a hybrid system not that different from what Clinton and Gore have celebrated as the triumph of freedom in Russia-the air campaign provided Milosevic with a perfect opportunity to crack down on opposition political groups, which he exploited fully to strengthen his hand.
Finally, though it is impossible to judge the impact of the war on public opinion in Yugoslavia, it was clear beforehand that many Serbs already blamed Milosevic and his brand of nationalist politics for the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, the fiasco in Bosnia, exploding corruption and economic misery.
Meanwhile, Gore could not mention Kosovo as a success story. Even with his tendency toward exaggeration, Gore cannot brag about the mounting evidence that Kosovo's Albanians have turned the tables on the Serbs and engaged in their own ethnic cleansing. Haiti is another example of a failed American attempt at nation building; the country seems as corrupt and miserable as ever.
The new crisis in the Mideast is a powerful reminder that the world remains a dangerous place. A foreign policy that combines excessive ambitions with hypocritical double standards will not make the world any safer for American interests or values.
