A National Security Team That Knows the Terrain

For much of the first half of Bill Clinton’s first term, the presidential national security team had to work overtime to get the attention of a boss whose interest in the details as well as the broad sweep of the nation’s foreign relations appeared to be minimal and grudging. The result was an approach to foreign policy that often seemed to be not just lacking in strong leadership but inconsistent and sometimes even incoherent. That changed as events changed--in Bosnia, most notably--and as Clinton found he enjoyed meeting and talking over common problems with other world leaders. Now he has named a national security team for his second term. All are familiar Washington faces, all presumably satisfy Clinton’s concern that they be compatible with each other as well as with him. The real test, of course, is how well they are able to do their jobs.

Madeleine Albright, the hard-working, multilingual and politically astute ambassador to the United Nations, will succeed Secretary of State Warren Christopher. When confirmed, she will be the first woman to hold the top post in the Cabinet. Albright is a strong believer in an activist foreign policy. “There are those who repeat the historical error of believing that America can isolate itself from the rest of the world,” she has said. “Distant problems, if left unattended, will one day come home to America.”

William S. Cohen, retiring as a senator from Maine after three terms, will become the secretary of Defense, the Clinton Cabinet’s first Republican and, perhaps of interest to some, its first published poet. A member of both the Armed Services and the Intelligence committees, Cohen believes the United States must maintain a forward military strategy even with the end of the Cold War, and he has supported a bigger sea-lift capacity, more mobile forces and a national missile defense. The question is whether he can manage the huge Defense Department and its many competing interests as effectively as the departing William J. Perry has done.

The seldom-seen Anthony Lake, who surely has the lowest profile of any national security advisor in memory, will move from the National Security Council to the directorship of the CIA. Some in Washington are already questioning whether he is tough enough--perhaps ruthless enough--to shake up an agency whose image, along with its morale, has suffered grievously from recent betrayals and perceived shortcomings in its analytical responsibilities. Replacing Lake as national security adviser will be his deputy, Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, whose organizational skills Clinton is said to respect.

Clinton’s second-term domestic agenda promises to be far more modest than his first, meaning that he should have a lot more time to focus sharply on foreign and strategic interests. That at any rate is something Albright and her colleagues must be ready to insist upon. The global concerns of the United States are varied, complex and challenging, and key policy decisions affecting relations with the Middle East, China, Russia and Europe loom. The new team knows its way around the issues. By now its boss should as well.