New faces, same hat Steady

...During the campaign, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times observed that the world had given Clinton a free ride for four years: no major foreign-policy challenges or disasters...

...Krauthammer does not, however, draw an imperial policy mandate from his premise...

...There are good reasons for this nation to attend to these choices...

...To assess this spectrum of concerns, one could use a strategic perspective that distinguishes three areas of activity for U.S...

...Precisely because of the internal character of most of those states, and the fact that engagement will be by choice, the focus on the moral dimension of policy resides significantly at this level...

...But the need for a U.S.-UN relationship which is broad and deep remains substantial...

...Often the focus of grand strategy analysis is exhausted by considerations of national interest understood as material interests (physical security, economic competitiveness, political influence...

...The president's nominations of Ambassador Madeleine Albright as secretary of state, Senator William Cohen as secretary of defense, Sandy Berger as national security adviser, Anthony Lake as director of the CIA, Congressman William Richardson (D-N...

...Rather than a unipolar world, Kissinger's grand strategy is a return to the classical vision of a multipolar world in which all actors by choice and by necessity relate through balance-of-power strategies...

...Two articles in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993, November/December 1996) previewed the argument now available as a book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster...

...and it has come to accept the public reaction to Somalia as decisive when it comes to weighing further U.S...

...Even though the Congress is a major part of the foreign-aid problem, only the president can take the initiative, conceptually and politically, to provide a foreign-aid program that would sustain U.S...

...Rather, he argues for selective engagement by the United States based on national-interest objectives...

...This is a long-term problem which goes far beyond foreign aid but falls heavily upon it...

...While the pursuit of democracy is entirely valid and necessary, a policy protecting basic human rights in places where democratic governance is years away is also needed...

...The new Clinton team, especially with Strobe Talbott continuing at the State Department, will very likely continue on course...

...It also includes Middle East policy...

...policy toward Bosnia for much of the 1990s...

...In sum, if one presupposes strong continuity between the first and second terms of a Clinton presidency, it is likely that the broad direction of both strategic big-power policies and economic policies will not change...

...Whatever one's judgment on the first Clinton term, we now know who will lead foreign and defense policy in the second...

...A much sharper break with the analytical premises and policy conclusions of the cold-war era is proposed by Professor Samuel Huntington in his "Clash of Civilizations" thesis...

...Some of the president's closest advisers-the late Ron Brown, Mickey Kantor, Robert Rubin, and the National Economic Council-provided the foundation in the administration for foreign policy as economic competitiveness...

...Rather than sustained engagement, one could find a wait-and-see attitude that at best goes in to pick up the pieces after the damage is done...

...This dimension of world politics reflects Kissinger's proposal, and is cast in the classical logic of interstate relations...

...The Clinton policy has given substantial attention to these issues, and, in spite of criticisms of both its NATO-expansion proposal and its handling of human rights with China, it has maintained a defensible record...

...The continuity will be provided by the president's low-profile conception of the role of foreign policy and by the fact that most of his team have served with him, apparently sharing that vision...

...Henry Kissinger's recommendations arise from the same realist basis as Krauthammer's, but move in a quite different direction...

...policy, approaching the question of humanitarian military intervention is a high jump...

...Both because of the domestic support for this policy and the personnel sustaining it, it is unlikely that it will change in any significant way...

...These proposals exemplify but hardly exhaust the grand strategy discussion that circulates almost in spite of the Clinton case-by-case approach...

...The Lake-Berger combination at the NSC was a remarkably consistent one...

...Some have criticized Clinton's policy for attending too much to these problems...

...As a whole, the Clinton policy was often better than it looked...

...The foreign-assistance budget should be a sign of the seriousness of purpose of the United States in addressing these issues of choice in foreign policy...

...Presently there is neither a policy framework nor domestic support for an adequate U.S...

...The first option, incremental change, is represented by two different recommendations, both rooted in a realist conception of interstate relationships...

...First, there is the 1990s version of the great power game, which principally involves the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and Europe...

...In fact, there are broad, powerful patterns of change at work in world politics, and it is neither possible nor desirable for the United States to ignore them...

...Developing such a policy will force the new Clinton team to revisit the U.S.-UN relationship...

...In principle, grand strategies should help policy makers, analysts, and plain citizens to define the contours of world politics and the way a specific state should respond to the patterns of power, influence, and human needs that characterize the state of the world...

...During the cold war, with its global stage, which made any part of the world seem strategically important (from Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa to Central America), a logic of coercion governed superpower policy...

...On this problem, the administration must contend with a Congress that is notable for its indifference to serious foreign-policy planning, debate, and responsibility...

...national interest...

...policy than Krauthammer envisions...

...shifts in personnel are not likely to manifest policy differences...

...But it will take significant change if the United States is to accept its share of responsibility for the part of the world where "choice" will be the only driving force for engagement...

...Critics of the Clinton policy have focused less on specific decisions than on the absence of a "grand strategy" for American foreign policy...

...The larger question is whether such continuity is desirable...

...Involvement will depend upon choosing to become engaged, even if the U.S...

...One gets a different set of questions, however, if the purpose of the grand strategy is to encompass both interests and moral responsibilities of a state as part of the international community...

...Like the welfare system in domestic policy, the foreign-aid program undoubtedly needs a new foundation, rationale, and method...

...The Kissinger and Brzezinski style of grand strategy often made the policy community wary of its sweeping assumptions and predictions...

...The Clinton response has been that the very depth and breadth of change at work in the world has made the formulation of a grand strategy impossible...

...There are reasons, political and moral, that call for a broad and deep debate on this question...

...But the recognition of that fact is not an argument against having a serious program...

...In essence it held that each superpower had to be involved everywhere if for no other reason than to deny influence to its adversary...

...The reason why quarantine must be considered a real danger is that three dimensions of U.S...

...Some have argued for incremental change from cold-war policy...

...Once those two dimensions of policy are accounted for, one then confronts a broad, diverse array of states and issues that stretch across the globe but are not captured by either of the primary networks...

...Hunting-ton's policy prescriptions assume a realist tone ("the West against the rest") while starting from quite different premises-a world of cultures (with religion at the heart of culture) rather than states defending territory and material interests...

...policy will be governed by a logic of choice...

...My own sense is that, while these problems have engaged key players in the president's first term, there is no coherent framework or public consensus to support sustained U.S...

...The Clinton policy has been mixed: this showed up in the general lack of orientation of U.S...

...At the same time, it may be useful to ask what role a grand strategy should fulfill and what are some of the available options...

...The situation was strikingly illustrated by Jim Lehrer, moderator of the Clinton-Dole debates, who finally asked his audience in the final debate, "Doesn't anyone have a foreign-policy question...

...The Clinton presidency was not designed as a foreign-policy administration and it has fully met its design...

...Each of these issues has been impacted by the shift to a post-cold war world...

...Clinton policy has moved from strong advocacy of the UN to its being a disruptive force in the institution...

...Human rights, particularly as they are embodied in democratic polities, have been a major concern of the administration...

...This logic of coercion passed with the cold war...

...To be sure, without these elements there is no "grand strategy" for a state...

...will suffer no significant harm if it remains aloof from much that goes on at this third level of policy...

...engagement in areas where arguments from coercion (we must do this or suffer losses) will not work, but when human needs still lay claims upon us as a nation...

...Albright will be a more visible, more public, and more activist leader of the team than her predecessor, Warren Christopher, but it is not evident that she will be bringing broad thematic changes to the policy...

...It is the one area where Clinton policy can and should change...

...interventions...

...The UN's strong suit is in the "choice" areas of the world...

...involvement with these issues...

...the administration took decisive action, against public and congressional opinion, on Haiti and it has been vindicated...

...There is no shortage of grand strategy proposals outside the administration...

...Here the players are the United States, Europe, and Japan, along with a web of multilateral institutions and the prospect of China as a full-fledged participant in the next century...

...policy regarding humanitarian intervention...

...I say this as one who has been broadly supportive of significant elements of that policy...

...At this level one finds Rwanda, Burundi, Serbia, the Sudan, Haiti, and other candidates from the category of failed states, conflicted cultures, and governments known for human-rights abuses...

...The democratization objectives of Clinton policy cover only some of the human-rights problems in the world...

...policy will be marked by continuity in substance and some change in style...

...Having read and heard most of the criticisms of the last four years, I am reminded of Mark Twain's comment on Wagner's music, "It is better than it sounds...

...the better approach has been the lawyer-like style epitomized by Christopher's case-by-case approach...

...This last judgment is mistaken and it prevents sustained reflection and public debate about how to think about humanitarian intervention in the post-cold war era...

...The danger is that, faced with an arena governed by "choice," the policy of the United States or other major actors will be governed by a de facto quarantine of much of this agenda...

...The primary players are the first three, and the issues that will persist in this arena involve the evolution of Russian policy (domestically and internationally), the future of NATO, the role of China in the context of the East Asian balance of power, the control of weapons of mass destruction, and the interplay of these major actors with various international institutions...

...Charles Krauthammer has argued that the United States is the only bona fide superpower in the post-cold war world...

...Huntington proposes a shift in analytical attention from states (which still persist) to the relationship of cultures where he expects the new lines of conflict will appear in world politics...

...If foreign aid is a hurdle for a coherent U.S...

...This setting produces a more activist, more complex design for U.S...

...Cohen's known policy views are not dramatically different from William Perry's, and Cohen has already sent out word that major personnel changes are not in line for the Defense Department...

...It involves basic issues-the use of force, the nature of the problems faced in such intervention, the role of international institutions, and the conception of U.S...

...policy necessary for sustained engagement in these states stand in need of more attention: human rights, foreign assistance, and humanitarian intervention...

...as UN ambassador, and Strobe Talbott as deputy secretary of state, provide the basis for my judgment that U.S...

...A second arena of policy is the world of the global market...

...today, for these undefined areas and problems beyond big-power relations and foreign economic policy, U.S...

...President Bill Clinton's decisive victory will not resolve the concern of many about his foreign-policy objectives...

...At times this dimension of global engagement has seemed like the totality of Clinton foreign policy, at least in terms of the prominence given it, the energy invested in it, and the weight it carries over against other policy concerns...

...Moreover, it must be acknowledged that the range of human-rights problems today outstrips in complexity earlier versions of this policy...

...Such a design is always more abstract than any single policy decision a state makes, but it should provide an interpretive framework for a multiplicity of policy choices...

...He doubted that Clinton's luck could hold out until the end of the century...

...others have called for a substantial break with the conceptual framework that provided most policy guidance over the last fifty years...

...This is one of those perennial policy arguments that is perhaps unresolvable...