COLUMN ONE : After Cold War, What Is Security? : As old issues of anti-communism and military intervention recede, the focus is on economic strength. Bush and Clinton positions aren’t that far apart.

As President, Bill Clinton says he would transform American foreign policy--making economic competitiveness our main international goal, cracking down harder on foreign barriers to U.S. exports and promoting democracy’s spread around the world.

“We have to organize our thoughts, our policies and our government . . . (to) focus on the economic consequences of every decision we make, because that is the national security issue of the 1990s,” the Democratic candidate declares.

Yet on specific policies, a President Clinton might not be so different from the man he seeks to replace. He endorses much of the Bush Administration’s drive for free trade, pledges to continue talks toward peace in the Middle East and generally holds to the centrist mainstream on other issues.

“Their deeper philosophical roots may be different,” says John Steinbruner, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution. “But translated into immediate choices, it’s pretty marginal.”

The seeming paradox reflects the confusing reality of the post-Cold War world: Old issues of anti-communism and military intervention, part of every presidential campaign since 1948, have receded. No longer are Republicans accusing Democrats of being soft on communism; there’s much less communism to be soft on any more. No longer are Democrats accusing Republicans of being trigger-happy hawks; both parties seem equally unsure of how U.S. military power should be used to temper the new world disorder.

Instead, 1992’s three presidential candidates are vying to sell their remedies for a recession-wracked economy--and foreign policy, for the moment, has become little more than an adjunct to fiscal policy. Moreover, with the domestic economy the dominant issue, the three candidates have not been pressed to define themselves more clearly on international affairs.

For independent candidate Ross Perot, foreign policy is mostly an afterthought to his drive to balance the federal budget and revitalize U.S. industry. “We’re in a business war” with Japan and Europe, he said in a recent television broadcast. He likened Washington lobbyists for foreign governments to “Russian spies . . . during the Cold War.”

Clinton and his aides say they will remake U.S. foreign policy to focus on American economic interests first and move away from the Bush Administration’s concentration on global political stability.

Bush says he, too, considers economic competition “the defining challenge” of the decade. But it is a theme the President took up only recently, after years of emphasizing more traditional diplomacy.

And Bush still puts most of his emphasis on the successful foreign policy record of his first term. “We said ‘peace through strength,’ and it worked, and the Cold War is over,” he said in last Sunday’s debate. “But we’re turned so inward, we don’t understand the global picture.”

Said Steinbruner: “This whole election is about priorities and focus.”

Economy Top Issue

When Clinton describes his world, he consistently puts economic power first. The Arkansas governor warns that unless the next President focuses on the domestic economy, the American public might veer into a bitter isolationism. “We must have a President who attends to prosperity at home if our people are to sustain their support for engagement abroad,” he said in Los Angeles in August.

He has proposed creating an “Economic Security Council” with stature equal to the National Security Council that now runs foreign policy--an idea several earlier presidents also tried while the Cold War was still on, without much effect.

He has said he will seek congressional authority to retaliate more sharply against countries that restrict U.S. imports, saying: “If other countries refuse to play by our trade rules, we’ll play by theirs.”

And while Clinton endorsed the North American Free Trade Agreement the Bush Administration has negotiated with Mexico and Canada, he warned that he will sign it “if and only if” Canada and Mexico agreed to three supplemental accords designed to protect the environment, jobs and the economy.

Reflecting a traditional theme in Democratic Party foreign policy, Clinton has also called for more emphasis on promoting democracy abroad--backing the establishment of a “Radio Free Asia” to broadcast news into China and a “Democracy Corps” to help other countries cast off authoritarian ways. In a recent speech, he accused Bush of “embracing stability at the expense of freedom,” and suggested--without being specific--that he would do more to help democratic reformers in Asia and the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, Bush has charged Clinton with inexperience and ignorance on foreign policy. Clinton’s own advisers, while praising him as a quick study on international issues, acknowledge that foreign policy has never been the Arkansas governor’s main focus. In preparing his foreign policy speeches, one associate said, Clinton has found himself grappling with some issues for the first time.

Most of his policy papers are notable for their vague centrism; aside from “Radio Free Asia” and the “Democracy Corps,” ideas first proposed by members of Congress, he has offered no new initiatives.

Clinton’s vagueness has been most notable on a thorny issue facing the Bush Administration even now: whether the United States and other nations should use military force to intervene in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Clinton has said the United States should not send ground forces into the conflict, but has said Western nations should be ready to use air power to protect humanitarian aid convoys and establish a “no-fly” zone. Still, he has avoided setting out a comprehensive policy with clear criteria for U.S. action. (Bush has been only a little clearer; the President initially resisted any use of force, but later came to a position much like Clinton’s on the use of air power and a “no-fly” zone.)

Bush has also charged that Clinton’s stance on trade amounts to old-fashioned protectionism, warning that the Arkansan “hopes to exploit the darkest impulses of this uncertain age: fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of foreigners.”

Independent scholars note that Clinton has given more support to free trade than most Democrats. But they also note that a President Clinton might be vulnerable to protectionist pressure from labor unions and Democrats in Congress.

“Where Clinton comes out on trade will depend on how much he is in thrall to the unions and the Congress,” said Joseph A. Massey, a former U.S. trade negotiator who now teaches at Dartmouth College. “Under Bush, the Administration has been the good cop and Congress has been the bad cop. . . . A Democrat as President would change that equation.”

The trade issue is an important touchstone, for it is the key point on which Clinton’s focus on the domestic economy will shape his approach to diplomacy:

Will he take a much more aggressive stance on trade disputes with Japan and the European Community, a move that could accelerate the trend toward a world divided into trade blocs? Or will his tough rhetoric turn out to be mostly a tactic aimed at pressuring Japan and Europe toward worldwide free trade?

Even among Clinton’s advisers, there is division on these issues.

“There is no question that there are splits in his camp,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank that has provided Clinton with policy advice.

“On one side, there is the school that I would call ‘economic nationalism,’ resting on the primacy of economics and the idea that we’re headed into an era of geo-economic conflict,” he said. “Taken too far, that can get you into danger, especially if you start defining democratic allies as enemies.”

“On the other side, there is liberal internationalism,” the more traditional Democratic foreign policy school, Marshall said. “It is tempered by a realistic view of the national interest, it understands the importance of economics, but it makes the promotion of democracy the center of foreign policy--as the way to prevent real threats to our interests from arising.”

Accent on Competition

Most of Clinton’s foreign policy advisers fall into the “liberal internationalist” camp. His economic advisers, including professors Robert B. Reich of Harvard University and Derek Shearer of Occidental College, would probably reject the label of ‘economic nationalists’ but agree that competitiveness should take precedence.

“In a Clinton Administration, there could be some real arguments over trade, pitting the economists against the foreign policy types,” one adviser predicted.

Still, one of the most striking characteristics of Clinton’s policies and advisers is how centrist and conventional they are. “I don’t think he’d be any more protectionist than Reagan and Bush have already been,” said Harald Malmgren, a former U.S. trade negotiator.

“Clinton’s approach is in the mainstream,” agreed Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a former aide to Henry A. Kissinger who is now at the Brookings Institution. “It’s broadly centrist and internationalist.”

Even some senior Bush Administration officials say privately that the prospect of handing foreign policy over to a Clinton Administration is not costing them much sleep. “He’s got very good people advising him,” one senior official said. “They’ll face the same problems we have, and they’ll probably come up with mostly the same answers.”

Ironically, Bush has talked about foreign policy in this campaign much less than Clinton; the President’s problem has been convincing voters that he is serious about working on domestic issues, not global problems.

Aides say the Bush second-term agenda in foreign affairs will consist largely of completing the unfinished business of the first term: aid to Russia, Middle East peace talks, concluding global trade talks, controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and managing a slow decline in the size of the U.S. military.

Like his first-term agenda, it is a managerial program, not a visionary one--and Bush has been stressing his experience more than his goals.

“I am the President who has led the world and made these kids safer,” he said at a campaign rally near Philadelphia on Monday. “When it comes to steering America through new global economic challenges, America needs a driver who knows the highway.”

Here is how Clinton, Bush and Perot stand on some specific issues:

Middle East peace: Clinton, seeking to cement his support in the traditionally Democratic Jewish community, sharply criticized Bush for putting pressure on Israel over Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank. But he has said he will continue the peace talks Bush launched, and Middle East experts predict that, like most presidents, he would probably find himself putting pressure on Israel sooner or later. Clinton backed Bush’s decision to sell F-15 fighters to Saudi Arabia and to give Apache helicopters to Israel. Perot endorses the peace talks, but has expressed no opinion of the arms sales.

Aid to Russia: Clinton called for major Western economic aid to Russia early last spring and criticized Bush for moving too slowly. After some delay, Bush responded with a multinational aid package. Clinton aides maintain that their candidate would give the issue more attention. Perot, too, has endorsed the aid.

Military intervention: All three candidates have said they are willing to use U.S. military forces to intervene abroad in defense of the national interest, but none have offered clear criteria for the decision. Clinton has put more emphasis than Bush on working through the United Nations, and has endorsed requests by Japan and Germany for seats on the U.N. Security Council. Perot has criticized the Persian Gulf War as a needless adventure to rescue the royal family of Kuwait.

Differ on Focus

Democracy and human rights: Both major party candidates cite the defense of democracy and human rights as a central purpose of American foreign policy. But Bush, in practice, has put little focus on these issues, centering his policy instead on achieving global stability. Clinton has said he will devote more energy to spreading democracy, but has not spelled out what that will mean in practice. Perot has not spoken on this issue.

China: Bush has fought to maintain China’s most-favored-nation trade status and resisted congressional attempts to retaliate against China for the 1989 Tian An Men Square massacre. “You isolate China and turn them inward, and then we’ve made a tremendous mistake,” Bush said in Sunday’s debate. Bush also opposes Clinton’s proposed “Radio Free Asia.” Clinton has said he would cancel the trade status unless Beijing enacts political reforms and restrains its arms exports. Perot has said: “We have a delicate, tight-wire walk that we must go through at the present time to make sure that we do not cozy up to tyrants. . . . But time is our friend there, because their leaders will change in not too many years.”

Defense: Bush has called for a $50-billion budget cut over six years; Clinton has called for cuts of about $87.5 billion. Clinton has endorsed military restructuring proposals offered by Democrats in Congress that would emphasize lighter, more mobile armed forces. Accordingly, Clinton supports the Marines’ V-22 Osprey tactical fighter but opposes the Air Force’s B-2 Stealth bomber; Bush opposes the V-22 but supports building 20 B-2s. Perot has proposed cuts and restructuring similar to Clinton’s.