Responses

...Perhaps the deepest criticism of Clinton's foreign policy is its embrace of a geo-Disney outlook that promotes a complacent consumerism as a substitute for human solidarity...

...Surely most of the blame for the record of meager response deserves to be widely shared...

...We can do better...

...On tone, I find the reliance on Kissinger's banal insistence that the United States must find a balance between excessive involvement in the troubles of the world and withdrawal quite puzzling, and on reflection disturbing...

...Hoffmann treats Clinton's strong stands on foreign economic policy as extensions of his commitment to be a domestic president...

...And, further, what about the democratizing of the United Nations itself, creating a second assembly by way of direct election (similar to the European Parliament), adding a moral superpower to the Security Council (by reference to internal criteria of well-being and external contributions to peacekeeping and human rights), and giving appropriate NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) networks standing to participate in Security Council and General Assembly debates...

...The Kissinger quote also appears to operate as a signaling device in Hoffmann's essay, conveying acceptance of the world as constituted, with criticism limited to matters of tactics and process...

...A world steering committee already exists...

...And finally, on the issue of genocide, whether in Bosnia, Rwanda, or anywhere, can't we expect more from American leadership...

...As such, it is not surprising that the only reform mentioned by Hoffmann is a call for "a world steering committee" (the Concert of Europe globalized) of leading states and regional powers to handle the daunting agenda of humanitarian crises, failed states—in effect, to address the whole domain of implosive geopolitics that has come to dominate the international political scene since the end of the Gulf War...

...Why can't we expect Clinton to do for people what Bush did so skillfully for the sake of oil...

...The point here is that without the East/West encounter as a global setting the tragedies associated with Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda do not engage the strategic interests of the United States, and others...

...Leading governments in the region and public opinion havê been apathetic, aside from brief surges of concern often stimulated by television...

...To the extent such criticisms are dismissed as utopian, citizens holding progressive commitments have been disenfranchised...

...Characteristically, Stanley Hoffmann assesses the challenges facing American foreign policy with the touch of a master: broad brush strokes set on an enormous canvas, with impressive attention to nuance...

...But the United States as the anointed leader of "the new world order" does have a special opportunity, and hence a heavy responsibility, to mobilize a high-profile response...

...The unwillingness of countries to put many of their citizens at risk for humanitarian goals, or to finance the UN in a suitable manner, surely supports recent calls for establishing a UN peace force composed of volunteers and especially trained for "peace-waging" missions...

...Similarly with the United Nations...

...Why not tap into the foreign policy potential of transnational democracy...

...First of all, opportunities for bolder action in a world released from significant conflict among leading states are not even mentioned...

...Instead of Hoffmann's Beltway stress on antiproliferation policy it would seem opportune to insist that our government explore prospects for the renunciation of nuclear weaponry...

...Why make such a gesture of deference to the realist wizardry that Kissinger exemplifies...

...And it FALL • 1994 • 505 is a pact made more distasteful in Clinton's case since it so perfectly reproduces the Reagan-Bush approach to these issues, including the refusal to heed the objections of organized labor and liberal church and environmental constituencies...

...The stance adopted is neither critical nor apologetic, but rather magisterial: the detached scholar sensitive to complexity and human frailty, approaching the torments of the world with compassion, but also with a measure of irony, given the way states behave, especially the sole surviving superpower, and thus not expecting much to be forthcoming by way of innovation or commitment...

...I believe that Hoffmann accepts too readily the mainstream line of discussion on American foreign policy...

...True, intervention under UN auspices may often not work, or require too large a commitment, but for precisely this reason a more autonomous United Nations seems like a preferable alternative to the current US approach: a combination of revived unilateralism (vis-à-vis North Korea) and anti-internationalism (Rwanda...

...Surely this is correct, yet insufficient: Clinton's do-or-die support of NAFTA and GATT while he waffles on everything else (from human rights in China to UN peacekeeping), is also part of his implicit pact with Wall Street, and thus with the priorities of global capital...

...Shouldn't we also hold Clinton to account for his failures to follow through on his promise of a foreign policy based on "assertive multilaterialism...

...Hoffmann seems to overlook the annual economic summits of the G-7 (Group of Seven)—which is now the G-8, with the addition of Russia—bringing together the heads of state of the leading market economies...

...It is the exclusion of such concerns from Hoffmann's depiction of the foreign policy scene that I find particularly distressing, implying that the degree of freedom available to the critical political imagination is no greater than media moguls like Rupert Murdoch would have us believe...

...These summits are preoccupied with core strategic interests, namely, the management of the world economy for the sake of maximizing growth, trade, and efficiency, and guarding against radical challenges to security, resources, and markets of the sort posed by pariah states (Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea...

...If the party affiliation of a president makes no difference on foreign economic policy, then the whole relationship of democracy to the centrality of parties, elections, and accountable politicians is undermined, especially with respect to disadvantaged segments of society...

...Even in the latter stages of the cold war, no other event commanded such consistent attention on the part of political leaders in the West...

...I find myself in general agreement with Hoffmann on specifics, but disappointed by his accommodating tone and by the absence of a more radical line of critique that might contribute to the building of a post-Marxist, post-cold war consensus on foreign policy among progressives in the United States...

...I have two sets of difficulty with this aspect of Hoffmann's approach...

...After all, if Mikhail Gorbachev could seriously propose (and Reagan briefly endorse) a nuclear-free world for the next millennium, why not Bill Clinton...