Clinton's foreign policy:
Hehir, J. Bryan
this: beset by so many interest groups and lacking an effective of for, and by ordinary New Yorkers. As in almost all recent political machine, New York's mayors cling to any shred of ...
...public opinion...
...basic themes which do have to be adjustdeficit-and it is real in the eyes of many The administration's basic position has ed to new realities...
...The Gulf War was sold ture...
...polmanding a multilateral response in the in U.S...
...The proposals us...
...In my view, the talent of the team is quite good, but this view is probably a minority position in the foreignCommonweal 19 November 1993: 7 light of the political and strategic changes that the strategic and tactical capabilities explanations given to spouses and famiof the 1990s...
...The challenges of the 1990s, as Lake tifiable...
...I'm obsessed with personal conversions, model is too much U.S...
...public which generates coninapplicable...
...Often the threat was less than tance or to international censure or blockcontrol of the war effort were solidly uni- vital, sometimes less than real...
...The critique extends beyond his policies to the national security team upon which he depends...
...The test for Rudolph Giuliani ors use government funding to rein them in...
...in the coming four years will rest with his ability to unite rather Though these strategies, rooted in new priorities, will not than divide ordinary people with a new agenda geared not to change New York overnight, they may have immediate and ben- the world city that was, but to the ordinary-and democraticeficial side effects...
...The decisions confronting the United States on Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti have enormous human significance, but limited geopolitical consequences...
...The Somalia ex- not yet been broached with the U.S...
...visible foreign policy prob- president and his advisers face is not only The danger now is that these cases threatlems-Bosnia, Haiti, and framing a policy adequate for the secondary en to stamp the entire Clinton policy as a Somalia-are not the coun- issues, but communicating more clearly failure before it is given a fair hearing...
...WORLD WATCH University, and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies), the administration sought to specify its view of what has J. Bryan Hehir changed and how U.S...
...The secretary general's idea of a UN intervention requires a justification in League of Nations), but the cold war ef- force drawn from many nations and avail- terms of what John XXIII called "the infectively smothered any serious strategy able for rapid deployment is a useful goal, ternational common good...
...The truth of this proposition is, however, not very useful to Clinton at the present time...
...WALLACE KATZ and racial conflict, as the principal cause of these ugly symp- Wallace Katz is president of Community Business Consultants, toms-a government inattentive to the needs and common in- a Washington consulting firm specializing in political research terests of ordinary New Yorkers-gives way to an urban regime and economic development...
...icy discourse until the 1970s...
...The irony of the gage U.S...
...vital in- placed on military and economic assispolitical coordination and the strategic terests...
...The Gulf War the womb of the Spirit...
...litical conditions which make such a anything other than a U.S...
...The challenge which the policy, vision, or tactical choices adequate...
...The 1990s' debate about interven- er, the expectations about human rights less in Somalia and Haiti, and of marginal tion often does not have a security ratio- are more expansive, and the willingness value in the Bosnian conflict...
...The deeper question about judicating political-ethnic conflicts...
...try's most important for- and decisively why these issues should en- In fact, running through all three of the eign-policy challenges...
...and found wanting...
...The Gulf War was a response to a Intervention: During the cold war the the measures to protect and promote classical case of aggression (the kind the rationale for intervention was always a per- human rights were limited to conditions UN system is designed to meet...
...the higher standard of being morally jus- the use of force to protect human rights...
...talent and treasure, and why they hard cases (Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti) are Clinton administration's foreign-policy are so resistant to rapid resolution...
...Both the ceived "security threat" to U.S...
...troops in ers...
...involve- Christian can be preg- tinctly Christian...
...Each has been and nonproliferation, the Clinton team es (President Clinton at the United Nations, a staple of the foreign-policy debate for has set forth and sustained a coherent, ef- Secretary of State Christopher at Columbia decades, but each must be reinterpreted in fective policy...
...The danger he faces is that his foreign policy instincts are being judged by the secondary cases (Bosnia, et al...
...of UN-led forces are not equal to the im- lies of military personnel killed in such Multilateralism: The idea is as old as mediate task of peacemaking, though their actions can be convincingly presented as the United Nations system (and indeed is record in peacekeeping is more satisfac- defending national security...
...Instead of moving, then, to empower the commu- 1993, and both candidates, explicitly or implicitly, played this nity-based organizations as countervailing political forces, may- card to appeal to core constituencies...
...The stakes are highThe category of aggression is virtually use- lives...
...A time and transformed personality that can be Bridging this gap between states and when each and every recognized as characteristically and disother institutions requires U.S...
...sive issues of foreign policy, the rela- plaining foreign policy do not fit any The three themes are multilateralism, intionship with Russia, the Middle East, longer...
...command struc- Human Rights: Human rights have strategy possible...
...domestic opinion...
...In a series of September address- tervention, and human rights...
...Moreover, nale...
...hands, with the support of tion, several interventions failed to pass reach all the way from these measures to key allies from Europe and the Arab states...
...and a majority of the orchestra cannot be for intervention today, emerging from The world has changed...
...In addi- ade...
...policy should respond to it...
...D itics today (not simply "ideals" about international relations) make it necessary to develop institutional responses which OF SEVERAL MINDS Sidney Callahan go beyond the capacity of individual states...
...But the category provided a way This put human rights on the agenda of noted in his September address, are con- to define the purpose of intervention, and "high politics," not simply a humanitarflicts within countries or conflicts de- it provides a rough method of justifying ian measure, but a topic for political and signed to create new sovereign entities...
...to expend significant resources a model of multilateralism with the United such terms, and Haiti would meet such a in pursuit of rights is more demanding of States as the choreographer, conductor, standard only tenuously...
...dvent again...
...As in almost all recent political machine, New York's mayors cling to any shred of New York elections, the undercurrent of race was strong in autonomy...
...the Clinton team sustained either by the UN system or by the United Nations or from individual has properly defined the new horizon for U.S...
...In neither case were the administration's President Bill Clinton's most policy fraternity...
...clearly, Somalia cannot be cast in of the U.S...
...pubworld presents both problems which de- perience will make it difficult in the im- lic by the Clinton administration or othmand a multilateral response and geopo- mediate future to deploy U.S...
...The post-cold war policy proposals lateral, in U.S...
...This most expansive attempt CLINTON'S FOREIGN POLICY to explain the administration's view of the RIGHT DESTINATIONS, WRONG MAPS world was quickly overtaken by events...
...The Clinton policy whom a Democratic president needs for been to stress that "the world has changed" shows sound instincts on these themes, but support-is that on the traditionally deci- and the old models for developing and ex- does not have an articulated view of them...
...The post-cold war but not a present reality...
...They tle relevance to most of the problems de- force will have to be built incrementally did not become a serious topic of U.S...
...Rather than being asked in October to debate and defend his broad vision of world order, Clinton spent the month defending his specific choices in Somalia and Haiti...
...Will there emerge a new ing John Paul's Veritatis splendor...
...That is not an adequate long-term in- been on the international agenda since the under a multilateral banner but it has lit- stitutional strategy, but support for a UN founding of the United Nations...
...A fidence and support in moving toward the multilateralism is rooted in the fact that case can be made for such intervention, horizon...
...But it has yet to provide a road map ficient to criticize the Gulf War model as terms of protecting human rights or ad- for the U.S...
...to the public the sacrifice of American strategic discourse...
...ment, and the Clinton policy is commit- nant with a new life in All right, I admit that as a psychologist ted to such engagement...
...The new agenda will likely lessen ethnic city that will be...
...Even then 1990s...
...But it is not suf- states calling for intervention, are cast in policy...
...This case has of multilateralism...
...They deserve more time, but the objective conditions of international pol- but neither the rationale for policy nor the need for a clearer rationale is urgent...
...involvement, but But are inner quickenings going to result but this time I've been egged on by readit is also clear from Bosnia and Somalia in a live birth...
...In 8: 19 November 1993 Commonweal...
...This kind of grounded in the Wilsonian vision of the tory...
...The 8+9+7+7+14=A CHRISTIAN world today lives in the open space where state capacities are not sufficient and international institutions do not yet complement the activities of the states...
...This truth is recognized in the arena of political economy, but less developed in the peacemaking/peacekeeping capacities of the United Nations...
Vol. 120 • November 1993 • No. 20
