DATE=12/21/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=YEARENDER: U-S FOREIGN POLICY - TWO
NUMBER=5-45076
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
/// EDS: This is the second of two year-
end spots on foreign policy. The first moved as 5-
45073 ///
INTRO: As U-S officials try to develop a post-Cold
War foreign policy, many foreign policy experts debate
what they see as the need to reconcile two sometimes
conflicting needs - the desire to do good in the world
and the requirement to defend U-S national interests.
V-O-A's Ed Warner asked four leading foreign policy
analysts for their views of this continuing dilemma.
TEXT: There is always tension between the national
interest and humanitarian impulses in American foreign
policy, says Joseph Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University:
/// Nye Act ///
It is not enough just to say one should look
only at the interests we have and not at our
values because our values are included in our
interests. The hard part is to find ways to
include our values without at the same time
undercutting the larger foreign policy. Human
rights policy is part of a foreign policy, but
it is not a whole foreign policy.
/// End Act ///
Too often, says Mr. Nye, U-S foreign policy may be
driven by what he calls the "C-N-N factor" - that is,
television images of suffering people may lead to a
public demand for action that does not turn out to be
in the national interest. He cites the U-S
intervention in Somalia in 1992 as an example.
Americans cannot impose their morality on such an
imperfect world, says Michael Mandelbaum of the
Council on Foreign Relation. Trying to right too many
wrongs can make things worse:
/// Mandelbaum Act ///
The new kinds of commitments, the humanitarian
interventions - what some have called foreign
policy as social work - are not very well
defined and have not been particularly
successful. The United States led NATO to war
against Yugoslavia in 1999, but it is not clear
on the basis of what principle that war was
fought and therefore it is not clear where else
the United States would fight under similar
circumstances.
/// End Act ///
Mr. Mandelbaum says despite its good intentions, the
United States is gaining the reputation of a rogue
superpower. This may lead other powers to join an
anti-American coalition.
Many consider the United States the bully of the
planet, says Ted Carpenter, director of Defense and
Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian policy research group in Washington. The
trouble with humanitarian intervention, he says, is
that it can quickly become inhumane:
/// Carpenter Act ///
It also assumes almost unlimited knowledge on
the part of American policy makers that we know
who is on the side of the angels in a quarrel
and who is the aggressor and the evil party. As
we have seen in the Balkans, Somalia and so many
other parts of the world, these conflicts are
often very murky struggles involving parties
that are not all that savory. There may be no
good guys in a particular conflict.
/// End Act ///
Mr. Carpenter says the United States bombed the Serbs
in Kosovo to stop their ethnic cleansing of Albanians.
Now Albanians are cleaning out Serbs. What, he asks,
has been accomplished, other than some Americans
feeling good about themselves?
General William Odum, director of National Security
Studies at the Hudson Institute, a policy research
group, believes American values and interests coincide
in the Balkans, which are part of Europe and therefore
of vital concern to the United States. He concedes
that interventions are usually a close call - a trial
and error process:
/// Odum Act ///
If presidents decide to intervene in places that
do not work out, after they become failures, the
American public will take their retribution in
voting, and presidents will have to get out of
some of these areas. There is no formula that
will resolve the morality issue versus our
strategic interest issue in advance and in all
cases. Some of them are fairly clear cut, but
most are not. It takes leadership and judgment.
/// End Act ///
General Odum says no policy or formula can ever
replace informed judgment on foreign affairs and the
will and ability to put it into action. (signed)
NEB/EW/JP
21-Dec-1999 11:40 AM EDT (21-Dec-1999 1640 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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