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Clinton's Foreign Policy: Uncertain Trumpet
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10292 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1993 |
2,976 Words |
| Author
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Adam M. Garfinkle
Adam M. Garfinkle is adjunct professor of political science at
the University of Pennsylvania and research associate at the
Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. He is also
a contributing editor of Orbis. |
Writing as a Democrat, it grieves me to say that, thus far, the Clinton administration's foreign policy record is most unimpressive. Mainly it has been AWOL, but even beyond its sins of omission there have been several sins of commission, too. Indeed, it is hard to think of much the administration has done right.
It may be unfair to complain overly much about the gaffes of the novice. President Reagan, too, ignored foreign affairs throughout his first year until the Polish crisis forced his attention from domestic matters, and he and his aides said many uncoordinatedly embarrassing things in 1981 before they found their sea legs. As one wag said, the only thing to distinguish inexperience from incompetence is time.
Moreover, these are inherently difficult days for making foreign policy. With the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy is stranded without clear purpose. Mainstream debate over policy direction has come down to differing judgments over how to match three highly interwoven factors: American interests, American values, and American resources. No matter how one does this, one ends up with some variant of selective engagement. The key word here is selective, which presumes that thought be given to prioritizing interests and matching them to problems and challenges.
NO ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE
The organizing principle of selectivity that is chosen, whether military-strategic risk or opportunity (promoting democracy or domestic penury) is extremely important because discrete decisions flow from it. Without such an organizing principle, foreign policy reduces to a reactive chain of ad hoc responses without coherence or much prospect of overall success. It is up to the president to set a direction, establish priorities, and then stick to them. Clinton has not done this; indeed, it was not until September 21 that his national security adviser, Anthony Lake, even made a stab at the matter, and the impression he left in talking about enlargement was not deep. Subsequent speeches on broad foreign policy themes by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, and then by the president himself at the United Nations were more feeble still. The president sounded more like a nervous actuary than the leader of the greatest power on earth.
George Bush was criticized by Democrats for lacking vision, and rightly so. But at least Bush had his eyes open.
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