Foreign Policy That Wears Its Heart on the Sleeve

Once again, the prospect of U.S. intervention in foreign lands, the source of often bitter debate since the Vietnam War, is center stage. Even as U.S. troops help Rwandan refugees and a confrontation with Fidel Castro looms, attention is shifting back to Haiti. Armed with a U.N Security Council endorsement and an “international” presence of 266 Caribbean troops, the Clinton Administration is edging toward an invasion of Haiti that will be the ‘90s version of gunboat diplomacy.

Although U.S. intervention in Cuba may seem far-fetched by comparison, the logic of Administration policy toward Cuba is virtually identical to that of its policy toward Haiti. Both are largely driven by narrow domestic politics--the Congressional Black Caucus (Haiti) and Cuban Americans (Cuba). In both, tightening U.S. trade embargoes adds misery to the lives of ordinary citizens, which makes the temptation to flee their country all the more compelling. And in both cases, regimes lacking democratic legitimacy are somehow seen as threats to the United States.

During the Cold War, national interest or a perceived security threat was the prime mover behind U.S. interventions. Today, a moral imperative--feeding the hungry, imposing democracy, for example--appears to be the rationale. But will spending U.S. resources for such noble goals win over the American public, or will it generate an isolationist backlash?

The issue of intervention goes to the heart of the debate over what the post-Cold War order will be. It is an untidy, two-tier world: One, encompassing North America, Western Europe, Japan and parts of East Asia, is a relatively stable, democratic zone of peace. The other, including a large swathe of Southwest Asia and Africa, is a conflict zone of ethnic and religious hatreds, crushing poverty and failed nation-states.

The gap between these two worlds is growing even as the will or ability of the international community to close it lessens. However belatedly, the United States filled the humanitarian vacuum in Rwanda. But which country will step in when neighboring Zaire, 10 times the size of Rwanda, falls apart?

Moreover, at a time when the United Nations lacks the resources to feed the world’s starving, let alone stop such internal horrors as the genocide in Rwanda, the big powers are eroding its legitimacy by blessing what U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright euphemistically calls “sphere-of-influence” peacekeeping. In the name of multilateralism and international law, they are discrediting perhaps the most important instrument of multilateralism--the U.N. Security Council. Whatever else Haiti may be, it is not enough of a threat to international security and peace to warrant invoking the U.N. Charter. Putting a U.N. stamp of political correctness on the Administration’s desire to oust the thugs in Port-au-Prince does not make what is, in reality, the exercise of power politics any less so.

To be sure, each case of regional instability is different and must be assessed in its particulars. The problem, as the President pointed out in a recent speech, is that “unless human tragedy is caused by natural disaster, there is no such thing as a purely humanitarian enterprise.” Thus, regardless of the motive for intervention, it almost inevitably puts you on one side or the other in an internal conflict. Furthermore, in a world of sovereign nations, few governments will sacrifice its citizens where no vital interest is at risk. Witness the lack of response to the U.N. call for help in Rwanda when genocide raged.

Building an international system reflective of big-power realities and responsive to the burgeoning challenges flowing from failed states will take time. Progress will be incremental, at best. Consider the U.N. success story of Cambodia. In effect, the 1991 Paris peace accord placed the country into receivership for two years, during which U.N. civil servants oversaw government until last year’s democratic elections. But to many, the idea of trusteeship smacks of a politically incorrect neo-colonialism. And even if this were a preferred course of action, who would foot the bill? Cambodia cost the international community some $1 billion and its turmoil is still not over.

Unlike those “present at the creation” of the post-World War II order, the Administration lacks the Soviet threat, which animated U.S. efforts to rebuild Europe and Japan. It is far more difficult to generate--and sustain--support for the hard slogging of forging a new world system without a direct threat. But it is wrong to accuse the Administration of failing to replace the policy of containment with new universal principles.

In the complex and murky global environment we live in, there is no real replacement for the Soviet threat. The challenge is to define U.S. national interests and priorities, balance means and ends, resources and commitments, and exercise steady leadership as a first among equals. It is on these issues that the Clinton Administration can be fairly criticized for leaving much to be desired.

The use of force where no vital interest is at stake, however well-intentioned, may only fuel isolationism and skepticism of the need for a strong defense. In the case of Cuba, pursuing a policy designed to ease its transition from post-Cold War orphan to mainstream member requires not acts of war, but enlightened engagement aimed at building a private sector and civic society--the basis of a transition to democracy.

Clearly, starving refugees should be fed, genocide stopped, peace kept and democracy encouraged. But the hard reality is that not all problems have readily available solutions. That doesn’t mean the international community should not do the best it can. The danger is that by raising expectations--of “enlarging democracy,” preventing crises where conflict grows not from misunderstanding but long-simmering hatred or “nation-building” of failed states--a lack of realism will foster the isolationism the Administration quite rightly opposes. Balancing a clear-eyed pursuit of national interest with the strain of idealism that is the hallmark of the American character in a world lacking an all-encompassing threat is the key to successful U.S. engagement in the new era.