NEWS ANALYSIS : Somalia Spurs New Activism in Congress : Government: Lawmakers imposed their will in a way that could herald greater legislative involvement in foreign affairs.

After a weeklong roller-coaster ride, President Clinton and Congress seem to be on the same track again with regard to disengagement of American military forces from Somalia.

But the near-derailment in the Senate this week is likely to have major implications for the future conduct of foreign policy, particularly the jousting between Presidents and Congress over how much influence legislators should have over international affairs.

The Administration escaped the humiliation of a congressional rebuke over its policy only after intensive intervention by the White House and Senate leaders--as well as some fancy rhetorical footwork by Clinton.

But after a stormy period that began with the deaths of 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu on Oct. 3-4 and ended in a historic vote to mandate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia by March 31, it was also clear that Congress had imposed its will on a major foreign policy dispute in a way that could herald greater legislative involvement in the future.

For the first time in 20 years, Congress had exerted its constitutionally derived “power of the purse” to cut off funds for an American military venture abroad. The action illustrated a new activism that many lawmakers expect Congress to display in dealing with foreign policy disputes.

The new attitude, which is paradoxically both more activist and isolationist, reflects the changing nature of American diplomatic and military involvement in a post-Cold War world, where peacekeeping and humanitarian missions with no overriding national security interests at stake have replaced the more menacing but also clearer challenge of containing a Communist foe.

One of the lessons this week’s uproar in Congress taught the Administration is that, when the United States becomes entangled in violent situations abroad, purely humanitarian missions are much more difficult to sustain than those involving national security interests--if only because the public’s tolerance for American casualties is much lower.

“Without the reality or the perception of being able to resort to a national security interest when problems or casualties occur,” questions are bound to arise about “whether American forces should be used for (humanitarian) purposes,” said Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.).

But Congress’ new activism, some lawmakers said, also reflects an anxious concern that U.S. foreign policy is largely rudderless nearly one year into the Clinton Administration.

“There is a concern that the Administration still hasn’t sorted out where they want to be” in the world, said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that appropriates foreign aid. “We still don’t have a Clinton doctrine . . . and without one you are bound to see a more aggressive Congress, at least when it comes to the question of sending troops abroad.”

The problem, added Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), lies not “with the execution of foreign policy but with its formulation.”

It is a frustration that has been building for some time but went largely unnoticed because Congress and Clinton had been preoccupied with domestic issues. But the deaths in Mogadishu this month brought the frustration to a head, demonstrating that U.S. soldiers have been risking their lives in Somalia without a clear mission to guide them.

“I understand that the President wants to concentrate on domestic matters and turn foreign policy over to his national security team, telling them to keep him out of trouble,” said a senior House Democrat, who spoke on condition that he not be named. “But the problem is they haven’t been able to keep him out of trouble.”

Not surprisingly, during the Senate debate some Republicans pounded away at what they said is a leadership vacuum in foreign affairs.

“It appears more and more that this is amateur hour in American foreign policy,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), widely respected as one of his party’s most nonpartisan and thoughtful voices on foreign affairs, said the Administration “has not understood the foreign policy dilemmas which we are now trying to work our way out of” in the confusion of the post-Cold War world.

The Administration does have its defenders, who say that Congress, as much as the President, is to blame for being caught without a policy when the crisis in Somalia erupted last week.

“Congress always prefers to let the President make the call on committing troops abroad, praising him if he’s right and condemning him if he’s wrong” while shirking responsibility for the “tough decisions” itself, said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

But as the Somalia debate has begun to illustrate, the real change on Capitol Hill is that even Democrats are now beginning to criticize Clinton’s foreign policy openly.

If concern over future peacekeeping ventures and muddled policies is forcing Congress to take a more active role in foreign affairs, there is another motive lurking close behind: budget restraints.

Already frustrated by the lack of funds for pressing domestic needs, lawmakers “want to be reassured that we’re not going to spend the whole defense budget on closing bases and going to Somalia,” said a House Democratic leadership aide. “We just don’t have the money for five, six, seven peacekeeping operations.”

Most members of Congress reject the notion that the United States should be the world’s cop--a “911 service for the United Nations” in Hatch’s words. Yet they are equally loath to embrace the most obvious alternative: greater reliance on multilateral, U.N.-flagged ventures where U.S. troops could end up under the command of foreign officers.

The only other alternative is an isolationism that, in Leahy’s view, amounts to a “prescription for international anarchy” with which Congress is ill equipped to cope.

But until the Administration can articulate its grand view of the new world order and the American place in it, other analysts said that having Congress temporarily bridge the gap is not such a bad thing.

“Congress is America’s second opinion on major operations,” said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at New Jersey’s Rutgers University. “Until the President can come up with a comprehensive, broad appraisal of what American interests are in the world, it’s a pretty good thing to have Congress standing in the road and saying: ‘Mr. President, you haven’t thought this thing through.’ ”