Few Foreign Policy Disputes Surface in Campaign ’96

When a candidate is said to look presidential, the image evoked is a somber figure in the Oval Office addressing the nation on some dire turn in foreign affairs. Both Bill Clinton and Bob Dole could have been sent over by Central Casting to perform the role, Clinton earnestly and Dole gravely. But the two candidates have clearly different instincts on foreign policy. Dole comes to it naturally as the product of a world war and the Cold War, and as standard-bearer of a party historically cautious on foreign commitments. Clinton is a celebrated domestic policy wonk and has been learning the game of nations on the run. He’s getting it down, though he sometimes appears to be a quick-fix thinker.

The major political parties have a wealth of policy specialists ready to whisper in a presidential ear. But voters nonetheless should closely appraise the Clinton and Dole positions and tendencies, for the prospect of a four-year term passing without some foreign crisis embroiling the White House is negligible. Put Russia, the Middle East and NATO at the top of the list.

An instructive yardstick for the two men is China. For even longer than Dole has been a national politician, the presence of the Communist behemoth has helped shape American policy in the Pacific. Dole supported Taiwan as a House member in the 1960s, and then as a senator in 1979 he roasted President Jimmy Carter for establishing full relations with Beijing. But in his long career in Congress Dole always made clear he thought the United States could do business with China in a number of instances--including, not surprisingly, when the sale of wheat from his home state of Kansas was involved.

China put a spotlight on Clinton’s tendency to tinker with a policy line, to allow his administration to speak with multiple voices. He came to the China issue talking tough, accusing his predecessor, George Bush, of “coddling dictators” in Beijing and making abundantly clear that without progress on human rights China would not share the maximum benefits of trade with America. Surely his advisors had told him that China does not make deals involving its domestic governance. Would Washington? In the end Clinton opted for trade over human rights.

Not until two weeks before election day did President Clinton deliver a full-fledged foreign policy address, the Detroit speech in which he called for expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe by 1999. Earlier, the campaign’s two TV debates showed both candidates well-coached on questions of foreign policy but touchy. Dole was on the attack, assuming the leadership mantle, mounting an assault on the incumbent’s role in misadventures abroad. He skewered Clinton for the 1993 tragedy/debacle in Somalia, in which 18 U.S. troops were killed in a distant conflict that Americans had long since despaired of resolving.

That’s the sort of slapping match we get in election years, but American foreign policy is rarely so partisan. It is, after all, formulated by a group of men and women in Washington who know each other well. The most persistent policy objective they have managed in the Clinton years is Bosnia, and it’s instructive of how both the president and his GOP opponent view foreign policy.

Something clicked with Dole on Bosnia, and he was out front with condemnation of Serbian aggression. He enunciated a “lift and strike” policy--lift the U.N. embargo that denied arms to the Bosnian Muslims and strike the aggressing Bosnian Serbs with air power. The Europeans and many in the Republican Party wouldn’t buy it. But last year, when Clinton decided to commit 20,000 U.S. troops to the peacekeeping force that came with the Bosnian peace treaty, Dole, despite significant heat from some GOP colleagues in the Senate, stood and delivered for the president.

Clinton’s instincts on Bosnia initially reflected his tendency to spotlight a problem and then back off, a tendency that has troubled some of his domestic programs. But ultimately he pushed through, got his peace treaty and the recent national elections, and Bosnia, while fragile, is better for it.

American foreign policy is driven by the fact we are now the sole superpower, with unchallenged strength and responsibilities. The purpose of foreign policy is to use these assets positively and actively--to lead. Clinton and Dole know that and would use that power to expand trade and pursue political objectives. Voters should demand nothing less of the victor.