CODA: Volume XVI, No4, WINTER 1999/2000

Rhetorical Internationalism
James Chace

There are many ironies of history. One of the most famous was Woodrow Wilson's assertion as he boarded the train to take him to from Princeton to Washington for his first inauguration: “It would be an irony of fate,” he said, “if my Administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.” That of course was precisely the irony fate had in store for the century's first Democratic president. Today, it is an irony of history that there should be a wave of unilateralism and isolationism breaking over Capitol Hill at a time when the United States has never been so powerful, its military budget greater than that of the next ten industrial powers combined, its economy the envy of the world. The isolationist record of Congress in the 1990s is astonishing. Republicans in the House voted not to support military action in Kosovo and to end registration for the draft for 18-year-olds. They and their allies in the Senate held up paying the $1.7 billion we owed the United Nations until we were about to lose our vote in the General Assembly; they delayed any further financing of the Wye Agreement, the indispensable platform for a Middle East settlement. And now they have endangered national security by rejecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that would have locked in American nuclear superiority and helped curb the proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons.

While the Democrats in Congress have a far better record in supporting multinational initiatives, too often many of them espouse what I would call “rhetorical internationalism.” The Democratic administration, buffeted by the prevailing anti-internationalist sentiment, was forced to back away from its own espousal of “assertive internationalism.” In particular, the final version of Presidential Decision Directive 25, which was issued after much revision in May 1994, posed so many questions and set so many conditions as to make virtually impossible not only American participation in, but also U.S. approval of, future peacekeeping operations. As Brian Urquhart, former U.N. under secretary general, has pointed out, “the directive reverted to the highly restrictive criteria established by [former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], which provided for US participation in international operations only when the US was in control, the public was overwhelmingly in favor, and victory was clearly assured.” In the second Clinton term, the administration did not sign the treaty banning the use of landmines or the Rome Treaty establishing an international criminal court.

To its credit, this past November 15, the Clinton administration salvaged the trade agreement with China it could have concluded in April had the president, under pressure from labor unions and wary of congressional opposition, not rejected it. This agreement paves the way for China's admittance into the World Trade Organization, committing it to obey the rules that apply to all other major trading nations. But signing an agreement is not the same as carrying it out, and the Republican-led Congress, accusing China of stealing America's nuclear secrets and violating human rights, could still refuse to ratify the trade agreement.

The deal between Clinton and Congress to pay $1 billion in back American dues to the United Nations was finally fixed when the White House agreed to new statutory language restricting the use of U.S. monies for family planning aid to international organizations that promote abortion rights. Internationalism comes at a high price in Republican Washington.

Now that the presidential sweepstakes are underway—in the primaries at least—the four major candidates, George W. Bush, John McCain, Bill Bradley, and Al Gore, are all officially internationalists. But in a recent “debate” between Gore and Bradley in Hanover, New Hampshire, no serious foreign policy questions were posed by the audience (though this may have been due to the screening process that eliminated anything so “complicated” as foreign policy). Instead, only questions on human interest topics were allowed to reach the television audience.

But there are hard questions that should be posed to the candidates in a public forum: What changes would have to be made in the test ban treaty for it to get Bush's approval? Would McCain be willing to cut the defense budget in favor of a leaner army, navy, and air force? Would Gore support a U.N. rapid reaction force? Would Bradley endorse a European defense force that did not include U.S. troops? There are many more such questions that spring to mind, depending on whose feet you wish to hold to the fire.

In essence, what is the American mission? To be an exemplar or to be a crusader? To stand for what? To bear any burden for what? If indeed the United States is the “hyperpower” the French think it is, it is time to set our priorities in order. Among the hierarchy of interests that we should attend to in the near term, surely Russia, falling into corruption and misplaced nationalism, and China, eager to challenge U.S. predominance, require the most careful attention, free of the zigzagging that has so often marked our policies toward these two great powers since the end of the Cold War. What do Bush, McCain, Bradley, and Gore think? The ironies of history await one of them. 

James Chace