In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton acted as if foreign policy were basically a non-issue. President Bush, astoundingly, seemed to agree. Since then, Americans and their elected officials in both parties have been listlessly basking in the afterglow of Ronald Reagan’s victory in the Cold War. Attention to events in the world has been episodic. President Clinton, as everyone knows, is bored by the everyday issues of foreign policy — even the big ones. He has been roused out of his snooze only by impending crises, and only at the last minute. The Republican Congress, we’re sorry to say, has been no better. A significant chunk of Republicans behave as if disdain for foreign-policy matters should be a source of pride. Internationalists like Newt Gingrich and Richard Lugar are a beleaguered minority.
Well, hang on to your hats, folks. In 1998, it’s going to be all foreign policy, all the time. Consider just the major foreign-policy issues and problems that are certain to come up.
The biggest issue of 1998, and the one on which the most will be riding, will be Iraq. The Clinton administration, aided by a sleepy Washington press corps, has tried to make it look as if the situation is more or less under control. It isn’t. In 1998, Saddam will either break out from the box he’s been in since the Gulf War and destabilize the Middle East or be taken out by some combination of foreign and indigenous forces. The status quo, which the Clinton administration and the rest of the Washington establishment are betting on, is untenable.
Early in 1998, the Senate will vote on the enlargement of NATO to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The votes are probably there for approval, but if the margin is too small or if senators appear too grudging, it will send an ambivalent message to Europe. Then there is the inconvenient question of whether the U.S. and its allies have the military wherewithal to make good on the new commitments. The answer? If the defense budget continues to drift down, we probably do not. So maybe we’ll get a too-long-delayed serious debate about defense.
Meanwhile, on the heels of NATO expansion, and while defense issues begin to reemerge, there may come another battle, this one over the president’s decision to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia past the June 1998 deadline. It’s the right thing to do, and if Republicans want to be constructive, they should push the administration to prosecute the mission with less timidity and tentativeness. Instead of carping at Clinton for spreading our resources too thin, Republicans should use this as an opportunity to push for the defense budget we need to carry out our responsibilities in the world.
China will be a big issue all year. Sometime in late spring, President Clinton will go to Beijing for another summit to try to prove that his strategy of “engagement” is working. The last summit produced American concessions in return for a promise of Chinese cooperation on nuclear proliferation, a promise of dubious worth. Since the summit, the Chinese have released Wei Jingsheng, which turns out to have been a mixed blessing for both the Chinese government and the Clinton administration. The courageous and outspoken Wei has added a powerful voice to the demand for pressure on China for political reform. Clinton won’t want to come back from Beijing next year empty-handed, but the Chinese are unlikely to make any meaningful concessions.
The real wildcard in Sino-American relations is likely to be Taiwan. A few weeks ago, the Taiwanese pro-independence party won big in local elections. National elections will be held at the end of 1998, and the pro-independence party may well have its best showing ever. The Chinese continue to warn that they will use force against any Taiwanese move toward independence. If you had to guess where the world’s most dangerous military conflict is likely to occur next year, other than in the Persian Gulf, it would be in the Taiwan strait.
Meanwhile, the crisis on the Korean peninsula continues, and it may be exacerbated by the collapse of the South Korean economy. Who knows whether the starving North may be emboldened by the South’s evident frailty? Then there is the more general question of the Asian financial crisis, which with every week seems to have more wide-ranging ramifications. The Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia may be tottering, and the effect of the crisis on China’s government and its domestic and foreign policies is unpredictable.
Sound like a full plate? Well, that’s not the end of it. For one thing, there will be a fight early on about money for the International Monetary Fund, accompanied by broader questions on how to handle the Asian economic crisis and international economic policy in general.
The president is also scheduled to submit in 1998 a revised ABM treaty to the Senate, as well as a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and possibly an agreement on biological weapons to accompany last year’s Chemical Weapons Convention. The revised ABM treaty foolishly limits America’s ability to develop and deploy the most promising anti-ballistic-missile technologies — a limitation that ought to be rejected by the Senate. The test-ban treaty would make it difficult for the United States to have confidence that its nuclear weapons can work when needed, and this at a time when American military strategy, thanks to cuts in conventional forces, is excessively reliant on nuclear weapons. As for a biological-weapons convention, we have as much confidence in its ability to solve the problem as we did in the chemical-weapons agreement — none. Meanwhile, at the same time that the Defense department announced a plan to vaccinate U.S. soldiers against anthrax, it was reported that Iraq had requested 1,300 vials of anthrax as part of the U.N. food-for-oil program.
Put it all together and it seems pretty clear that, despite the best efforts of Clinton and the Republicans to spend all their time arguing about education, the environment, health care, and taxes, the headlines are going to be filled with foreign policy. The Clinton administration will likely stumble along, sometimes in the right direction, sometimes in the wrong, but paying attention only sporadically and acting only half-heartedly. Republicans, in Congress and out, will have a chance to do the right thing for their party and their country by articulating a Reaganite foreign policy of military strength, strategic boldness, and moral confidence. Will they rise to the occasion?
