In Search of the Clinton Doctrine

By Michael Kramer

Those having trouble figuring out Bill Clinton's foreign policy aren't getting much help from the President. In his speech at the United Nations last week, Clinton's sweet words shed little light on the Administration's actions abroad. Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright offered equally reasonable -- and unenlightening -- thoughts. We will always be "engaged," said the President and his aides. We will still "lead." We want to "enlarge" the space for economic well-being since full stomachs and bulging wallets are the best hedge against war. But "a host of caveats accompany a strategy of enlargement," if only because, in the "new era," there are "relatively few ways to convince a skeptical public that engagement abroad is a worthwhile investment." So especially when it comes to sailing in harm's way, America will "pick and choose" among its "core" interests. "Distinctions" will be drawn. Low-risk, low-cost peacekeeping is in; arduous peacemaking is out.

There is nothing wrong with either setting realistic limits on the U.S.'s role abroad or defining a foreign policy that is essentially ad hoc; in a world no longer dominated by two superpowers, an overarching vision is easy to state but maddeningly difficult to craft. The problem, though, is that when the Clinton Administration applies its scaled-down strategy to specific cases, "pragmatism" becomes a euphemism for retreat. That's sad enough for those being abandoned, like the Bosnians who believed American blood and treasure would be expended on their behalf because Clinton had said "you can't allow the mass extermination of people and just sit by and watch it happen." It's worse for the precedent it sets; doing good halfheartedly -- wimping out when the going gets tough (Somalia) or larding a prospective intervention with so many conditions that effective action is virtually impossible (Bosnia) -- emboldens thugs to test America's resolve. Why should the Aidids and Milosevics of the world be wary of Clinton when America's stick is even flabbier than its words?

Clinton rails against the "poison" of isolationism but scolds the United Nations for overextension, no matter that he himself said, during his Inaugural, that force should be used when the "conscience of the international community is defied." Candidate Clinton was ecstatic at the possibility of turning from a concern with mere order to the challenge of creating decent orders. "Now that we don't have to worry about Moscow," he told me in January 1992, "we can finally give content to our saying that human rights is central. We can help in all kinds of humanitarian ways where we couldn't before because we feared war with the Soviets."

Clinton's glee led him to promise a reversal of George Bush's China policy. "There was a case for looking the other way when we needed China as a counterweight to Moscow," Clinton said in early 1992. "I would deny most- favored-nation status to China and impose trade sanctions." None of that happened, thanks to what one Administration official calls "the President's growth," because Clinton now concedes the primacy of trade as a vital American interest. Moreover, he now appreciates that encouraging a robust Chinese economy is the best way to champion the eventual triumph of democracy in Beijing.

Precisely because war was never contemplated and revolution never encouraged, Clinton's evolving position on China was easy. What the President is belatedly realizing in places like Somalia and Bosnia, where horror is the state-sponsored weapon of choice, is that intervening militarily to assuage atrocities carries a high price. When human suffering is a consequence of governmental policy, as it too often is, alleviating the pain is unlikely without changing the political context in which it takes place -- and that means becoming embroiled in the internal affairs of countries whose leaders are not likely to capitulate without a fight.

It was easier to justify such messy interventions during the cold war as part of the ongoing struggle with communism. Today such interventions are a matter of preference rather than need. Justifying them in places like Somalia and Bosnia is a matter of sympathy rather than self-defense. Until the President is willing to make the case on those terms, he had best not try to make it at all. One can argue whether such interventions are worth the cost, but unless Clinton engages the debate forthrightly there will be no Clinton Doctrine worth the name -- and the President will end up reacting to crises too late, when only massive intervention stands a chance of resolving conflicts and America must confront the prospect of its self-induced impotence.