A Foreign Policy Headed Toward the Rough Seas of Irrelevance : Diplomacy: The Administration’s avowed purpose and actual policy too often have little in common. Its credibility is slipping away.

Few, if any, administrations have been so ideological in their perceptions or as global in their programs as has the Clinton Administration. Yet, none has been more pragmatic and prudent in execution, or as driven by domestic considerations. The Administration’s operational dexterity has, time and again, saved it from the implications of its sweeping pronouncements.

When concept and action merge--as in the North American Free Trade Agreement--the Administration has been highly effective. But too often it neglects the importance of credibility. Consider:

The Administration started out seeking to vindicate the territorial integrity of Bosnia and wound up supporting partition on terms worse than those available a year ago. In Somalia, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright proclaimed the goal of multilateral democratic nation-building, only to see her country retreat to a mission of defending its expeditionary force. On China, the Administration has insisted on human-rights progress while its body language conveys a desire to extricate itself from its pronouncements. In Eastern Europe, Partnership for Peace will prove either vacuous or counterproductive.

This disparity between avowed purpose and actual policy threatens U.S. foreign policy with growing irrelevance.

The Administration has neither explained to the American people the meaning of current crises nor has it sought to relate the proposed remedies to a definition of U.S. interests. The Bosnian tragedy, for example, still awaits an articulation of the precise U.S. interest at stake. To be sure, the problem is complex because it involves two conflicting principles: how to deal with aggression, and the the relevance of America’s historic commitment to self-determination.

At the root of the Bosnian tragedy was the decision by the international community--inherited by Bill Clinton--to constitute Bosnia as a sovereign nation without regard for its ethnic composition. A responsible course of action would have been to establish a temporary U.N. or European Community trusteeship to bring about either partition into ethnic groups or some kind of ethnically based cantonal arrangement. Ignoring historic, cultural and ethnic realities led to war.

Every American instinct has been to stop the carnage. But in the name of what and by what means? Many argued for a restoration of the status quo ante by means of air power. History suggested, however, that involvement in a Balkan civil war could be costly and prolonged. Serbia would have been unlikely to yield what it considered its national heritage to a few air raids. A prolonged military campaign would have required ground troops. Also, such a course would have been inconsistent with the principle of self-determination, since it would have forced half of Bosnia’s people to live in a country not of their own choosing.

A more feasible objective would have been to insist on a cease-fire with threats similar to those used to stop the shelling of Sarajevo. But the consequence would have been to confirm Serbian and Croatian gains and to support partition.

In its first two months in office, the Administration refused to endorse the Vance-Owen plan as tending to partition Bosnia. Secretary of State Warren Christopher went to Europe to promote military intervention. At the last moment, the Administration recoiled, chiefly because it was not prepared to run the risks of involvement.

The Administration then invoked the rhetoric of Bosnian territorial integrity, coupling it with a policy of partition without participating in a diplomacy on behalf of either course. The Sarajevo carnage ended this ambiguity.

So long as the Administration and the public are unwilling to pay the price to restore Bosnia’s territorial integrity, rhetoric to that effect confuses the issue. The realistic option remains an imposed cease-fire and a negotiated partition. Affirming goals one is not prepared to vindicate by force if necessary will accelerate the loss of credibility.

The gap between proclaimed U.S. objectives and the price the Administration is willing to pay exists as well on issues that are largely diplomatic. The wisdom of making most-favored-nation trading status dependent on Chinese progress on human rights is moot. Nevertheless, the spectacle of the Administration imploring Beijing, on the basis of U.S. domestic necessities, to rescue it from its self-imposed dilemma is worrisome. Beijing will resist reacting to what it considers foreign intervention in its domestic affairs.

The only way out is by way of a political and strategic dialogue defining reciprocal interests into which some American human-rights concern could be embedded. With time running out, unpalatable alternatives loom for the United States: either abandon the proclaimed policy, or start a major confrontation with the nation that has the world’s fastest-growing economy. Such questions--if human rights and other policies clash, how are priorities to be determined?--have not been dealt with for two reasons. The first is the Administration’s tendency to treat programmatic statements and operational policy as separate activities, each driven by its own necessities, usually defined in terms of public relations. Though the underlying reality had been clear for more than a year, the ultimatum on Sarajevo was triggered by television footage.

The second obstacle reflects the Administration’s reluctance to deal with a world that includes conflict, clashing interests and the need for equilibrium. The Administration subordinates such matters to global multilateral concepts. The result is that almost every concrete event is unrelated to the Administration’s philosophical expectations.

On occasion, the President has eloquently stated fundamental principles, and his colleagues have shown great skill in extricating the United States from involvements they had a hand in creating. What is lacking is a national strategy that relates means to ends. Avoiding disaster cannot remain the sole test of U.S. foreign policy.