The Clinton Years: Reinventing US Foreign Policy?

Author(s): Linda B. Miller

Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 70, No.
4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 621-634
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
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 The Clinton years:

reinventing US foreign policy?

LINDA B. MILLER

This article analyses USforeign policy in the Clinton admini

the shifting visions of America's role, the changing dimens
the emerging agenda in Europe. The author explores the imp
focusfor international relations after the Cold War.

Writing in these pages in I990, I argued that the end of the Cold War would
enable American policy-makers and observers to ask

more straightforward questions about America's role. What are US interests, both
enduring and transient? What issues or places may be safely ignored? Will internal and
external pressures lend a sense of urgency to these questions inside government, as well
as outside where debate runs ahead of officialdom? The alternative is evident: the
perpetuation of containment, with its false sense of global stability and American
primacy. A wise leadership will preach the joys of selectivity: a foreign policy goal the
Executive may be the last to adopt, but one capable of commanding a domestic
consensus, if properly conceived and applied.'

Now, half a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with a youthful Democratic
President in the White House focusing on ambitious domestic goals, the
anticipated questioning is proceeding, albeit somewhat incoherently. The main
tenets of this rambling discourse are slowly emerging. But the actual content of
US foreign policy has not necessarily changed radically as a result of the clamour
outside the government. The fluid discussion among analysts, some of them
former government officials, has taken on a life of its own, as the current
executive and legislative leadership tries to put, out brush fires abroad in an ad
hoc fashion.
At first glance, then, it would appear to be business as usual for both policy-
makers and their critics. Yet this conclusion would be too hasty. If nothing else,
at least the two sets of players agree that the end of the Cold War has found
Americans unprepared for the turmoil that has followed the collapse of

I Linda B. Miller, 'American foreign policy: beyond containment?', International Affairs 66: 2, I990, p. 324.

International Affairs 70, 4 (I 994) 62 I-63 4 621

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Linda B. Miller

communism and the Soviet empire. They disagree on why this matters and, if it
does, what to do about it. In these circumstances, discerning any central themes
in contemporary American foreign policy has become a more formidable task,
one best undertaken by examining the shifting visions of America's role, the
changing dimensions of goals and means, and the emerging agenda in Europe.

America's role: shifting visions

Historically, watershed events, such as the end of the Cold War, have produced
new or revised visions of America's role or roles in world politics, although
rarely has a single vision prevailed quickly. Instead, an evolutionary process has
shaped the outlook of both officials and theorists. In this sense, what has taken
place in Washington and beyond in recent years seems to be following a familiar
pattern. With the Soviet threat gone, with the simplicities of action-reaction
irrelevant, a sense of both anti-climax and free-floating anxiety prevails.
Nothing comparable to the high drama of the Cuban missile crisis or
superpower tensions in Berlin is on the horizon, with the unifying effects such
international conflicts once produced at home. The post-Cold War era has
introduced a different kind of urgency, given the widespread disorder abroad
and the relative inexperience of the Clinton administration's personnel.
The President's well-documented predilection for domestic affairs has
compounded the problem. A substantial part of the US electorate shares this
preference. They now believe that, even if containment's exertions were
necessary, America has paid its dues and the country must now revitalize itself
at home. This is not to say that traditional isolationism commands any significant
following. It does not; nor should it. Rather, on contentious issues like
immigration, individual states like Florida and California, even municipalities,
rush to devise their own policies, which may conflict with federal law or
intention. No longer do eastern internationalists or Atlanticists control the
foreign policy agenda.2 No longer are domestic and foreign affairs perceived or
handled as 'separate' in practice as well as in theory. Paradoxical consequences
follow. On the one hand, no longer are political leaders or pundits able to argue
that what happens abroad must take precedence over what happens at home. On
the other hand, they cannot declare that what happens overseas is
inconsequential to America's peace and prosperity. Understandably, no single
vision animates the selection of goals and means. To acknowledge the linkage of
domestic and foreign affairs is only the first step in developing a consensus on
the suitable agenda in Europe and elsewhere.
Beyond these generalities, there is much confusion, which the Clinton
administration has done too little to explain or remedy, perhaps because its
attention is so scattered. But the world cannot and does not wait for the US
President to reorder priorities and formulate logical policies for the long term.

2 See Michael Clough, 'Grass-roots policymaking', Foreign Affairs 73: i, Jan.-Feb. I994, pp. 2-7.

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The Clinton years

Nor does the country itself stand still. Demographically, the United States is a
far more heterogeneous place than it was at the last major turning point, after
the Second World War. In addition, the rise of sub-national interest groups with
their own specific foreign policy objectives, and the pervasive presence of mass
communications that accelerate history and narrow choice, create a radically
different setting for both the President and Congress.
Visions of America's role therefore must meet more stringent tests that reflect
these changes. Thus far, there are several interesting, although flawed, contenders
for a vision that would unify the country or inspire foreign audiences. The most
grandiose vision on offer is that implied in the 'clash of civilizations'. Carried to
its extreme, this overview of world politics would have America represent 'the
West against the rest'. Presumably, Washington's task would be to preserve and
promulgate its values against challengers who espouse antithetical, hence
hostile, values. Another form of global crusading would ensue, providing no
respite from foreign imperatives, despite the palpable desire to turn inward.
Moreover, America itself is clearly less 'Western', less white and less Anglo-
Saxon at the century's end. Not surprisingly, theorizing at this meta-historical
level provides no guidelines for either the conduct of day-to-day international
transactions or the management of 'crises'. If the current US leadership lacks a
world view, this call to the barricades is not well suited to fill the gap. Even the
Bush administration, often accused of precisely the same deficiency of vision,
would have found this battle cry offensive to its basically 'status quo plus'
orientation.
A somewhat less pernicious vision, one that the Clinton administration has in
fact 'tried on', at least rhetorically, is that of the 'lone superpower'. Proponents
believe that an American hegemon in a setting of diffused global power would
calm the fears of those who worry that the only alternative to US
preponderance is anarchy. As always, the question of whether a moderate
international system really requires America to assume this role is posed but not
answered.4 In any case, serious internal renovation must precede adopting or
retaining this vision. If America is to remain or become 'the catalytic state',5 the
expense must be accepted by a sceptical US public. This vision does little to
stimulate debate about sensible goals and means or the appropriate agenda.
Another familiar vision, less dangerous perhaps, but equally demanding, is
that of the United States as the global 'balancer'. This candidate for a
comprehensive world view is not a new entrant, but a frequently discussed
successor to Britain's old imperial role. It relies heavily on imported ideas more
appropriate to nineteenth-century problems than to the future.

I For a fuller account, see Samuel P. Huntington, 'The clash of civilizations?', Foreign Affairs 72: 3,
Summer I993, pp. 22-49.
4 See Stanley Hoffmann, Primacy or world order? American foreign policy since the Cold War (New York:
McGraw-Hill, I978).
I This phrase was coined by Zbigniew Brzezinski in Out of control: global turmoil on the eve of the twenty-first
century (New York: Macmillan, I993).

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Linda B. Miller

Its chief advocate, Henry A. Kissinger, is alarmed at the present conceptual

disarray. He is not alone in thinking that the exploits of Metternich and
Bismarck might offer useful lessons for the less distinguished foreign policy team
in Washington.6 James Chace echoes Kissinger in asserting that 'five great
powers' will seek regional and global balances to manage world politics.7 This
prescription says little about how Russia, Europe, China, Japan and the United
States will achieve such diplomatic arrangements when their governments and
societies are overwhelmed by myriad domestic woes. Indeed, state-to-state
power balancing is also more complicated when there are no significant
adversarial relationships among these five. Such balancing provides no guidance
when non-state actors and functional topics crowd agendas.
A derivative of the global balancer role, the conciliator or 'facilitator' role, is
far more appealing and realistic, if still incomplete and improvised.8 In fact, it is
this role that the US has played recently in the Middle East peace process, after
Israel and the PLO negotiated with each other and with Norway. 'Facilitator'
could be a useful follow-up to the Cold War roles of the world's banker or
policeman, although American economic and security resources are still a
desideratum as a condition of agreements between regional disputants such as
Israel, Jordan and Syria.
If foreign policy is still the projection outward of the nation's basic values, it is
axiomatic that visions of the US role should be grounded in a thorough
appreciation of America's history and political system. A potentially more
rewarding source of ideas and ideals might therefore be found within the
country, where the subject of America's role has been vigorously debated
throughout the history of the Republic. A re-examination of 'the homegrown
tradition' reveals that economics has often served to bridge the gap between US
interests and its morals;9 hence the significance of the Bretton Woods economic
system. Clearly, the collapse of that structure, starting in I97I, is as fundamental
as is the demise of the Soviet Union in I99I.
The Clinton administration's emphasis on economic affairs, both domestic
and foreign, indicates an awareness of this situation. Yet, like many of their
predecessors, current policy-makers have not found an easy way to coordinate
economic and security concerns within or across regions, or to sell their
economic priorities to citizens at home who worry about jobs, or to groups
abroad who worry about America's steadiness in global trade and finance. The
hard-won victories in the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA)
and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) took enormous time
and energy to bring off. Washington's subsequent hesitation as the dollar has
declined against the Japanese yen and the German mark has undercut any claim
to special competence that these earlier economic successes had established.

' Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, I994).
I James Chace, The consequences of the peace (New York: Oxford University Press, I992).
8 See Charles W. Maynes, 'A workable Clinton doctrine', Foreign Policy 93, Winter I993-4, pp. 3-2I.
9 This linkage is explored in Walter Mead, 'The world according to Kissinger', Washington Post Weekly,
II-I7 April I994, p. 35.

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The Clinton years

A second element of the US national tradition is equally vital. The American

penchant for universalist pretensions, often circumscribed by the fact of limited
means, has frequently led to the declarations of 'world orders' in which America
would assume a leading role, followed by more careful assessments of risks and
gains befitting those policy-makers who might instinctively overreach in deed as
well as in word. George Bush, in prematurely proclaiming a 'new world order'
as part of the ill-considered Gulf War triumphalism, appeared to be following in
the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. The difference was
that, whatever the oratorical gifts of these major historical figures (in sharp
contrast to Bush's legendary malapropisms), they never confronted a world of
nuclear weapons. Nor were they stuck with historical memories of a conflict
like the Vietnam War, a war America had lost rather than won. Moreover, the
Wilson and Roosevelt visions were not as dependent on achieving American
primacy through massive military force alone as was Bush's transient conception.
Whether any convincing vision could inform US foreign policy in the last
decade of a tumultuous century depends upon whether political leaders are able
to bring American power, purpose and principle into alignment. It is the
Clinton administration's perceived 'lack of leadership' that is lamented most
often on the editorial pages of the elite press in New York and Washington, as
well as in London and Bonn. Many analysts are uneasy with the generational
shift that has taken place in the White House, although their own calls for
'American leadership' are often as vague in specifics as those of the US policy-
makers they criticize.
If this animated discussion (too fragmentary to constitute a debate) has
accomplished nothing else, it has shown that after the Cold War it is now
possible for US leaders to be free of containment's negative goals. It is now
legitimate to speak of world politics as requiring many hierarchies of power and
influence, in some, but not all, of which America would rank high. It is now
desirable to admit that the challenges lie as much within as without, and that
psychological and institutional flaws need attention. It is now possible to admit
that American 'exceptionalism' may be a barrier to distinguishing security
threats from more general interests. Whether these newer insights form a
comprehensive 'vision' is less important than whether they affect goals and
means or shape the emerging agenda in Europe.

Goals and means: changing dimensions

If absence of a coherent world view is the most obvious deficiency

Clinton administration, a second charge is equally grave: the failure to art
foreign policy objectives clearly or to employ the various foreign p
instruments effectively in order to attain these goals. By any standa
Democrats inherited an especially messy agenda of unfinished items f
Republicans. The difficulty of sorting out what America needs to do f
others (including the UN) could do in such places as Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia,

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Linda B. Miller

Iraq or North Korea would test the leadership of any advanced industrial
democracy. For an administration committed to domestic goals, coming into
office convinced that foreign affairs were essentially an unwelcome distraction,
the difficulties have been magnified. Add to the list the tasks of redefining
bilateral ties with Russia, China, Japan and the European Union, and the agenda
is overloaded.
As in so many aspects of foreign policy, the Clinton administration was
lamentably slow in the public announcement of its goals. Only in September
I993, nine months after taking office, did four high-level officials, including the
President himself, articulate their priorities in a series of widely publicized
speeches. The National Security adviser, Anthony Lake, a former academic and
Carter administration official, stressed the principal aim of 'enlargement of
democracy and free markets', to be realized on the basis of existing
commitments rather than new obligations. The four speeches glided over the
question of the means available to attain the goals. More to the point were the
prior remarks of Peter Tarnoff, the third highest-ranking State Department
official, who had explained that Washington no longer commanded the
resources to run the world. Although Tarnoff's realistic comments were
immediately denied, they were a sobering reminder that the recently revised
category of 'superpower', already shrunken in value, bears little resemblance to
the romantic view of America's pre-eminent Cold War status.
Apart from this one concerted effort to reassure domestic and foreign critics
that a reasoned approach to goal-setting and implementation was in place, the
administration has essentially tended to react pragmatically to a complex set of
issues and 'crises', some of its own making. Perhaps if President Clinton had
initially chosen a more imaginative set of advisers, had filled mid-level jobs in
the State Department quickly, or had pushed through more ambassadorial
appointments efficiently, some of the vacuity at the level of the Secretary of State
might have been mitigated. As it stands, much of the unremitting attack is
directed at Warren Christopher, a former Carter administration deputy
secretary, now elevated to the top diplomatic job on the basis of years of
previous service to the Democratic Party and his personal ties to President
Clinton. His main contribution has been to underscore the President's
instinctive caution, especially with respect to the use of force.
As Secretary of State, Christopher has encouraged President Clinton to follow
his own inclination to elevate trade and economics as foreign policy
instruments, and to focus on Asia and Latin America as regions where these
instruments will yield impressive gains for Washington. Christopher has also
endorsed Clinton's determination to emphasize diplomacy and sanctions, rather
than military action, as the appropriate response to the post-Cold War
breakdown of states (as in Somalia), or coups (as in Haiti) or 'aggression' (as in
former Yugoslavia), or the dangers of nuclear proliferation (as in North Korea).
Sanctions have the advantage of allowing the US to appear to be 'doing
something'-short of force, and beyond diplomacy. They allow the President

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The Clinton years

to rally domestic- and foreign support and exact a price from target states who
misbehave. Whether they work depends on the goals initiators seek and the
means targets possess to evade the full impact of phased embargoes and bans on
arms or financial transactions. Sanctions may hurt less advantaged groups in target
states and postpone tough decisions in initiating states. For the Clinton
administration, sanctions require persistent coalition-building: a healthy exercise,
but one that may blur the focus on domestic priorities. Moreover, the use of
sanctions has contributed to a series of dizzying policy zig-zags that hint at some
of the larger structural problems in contemporary American foreign policy.
Once in office, President Clinton quickly backed away from the more
'muscular' stances he had adopted during the campaign to persuade wary voters
that the Democrats could be as 'strong' on defence as the Republicans, that they
could move boldly beyond the Vietnam quagmire as President Bush claimed he
had done during the Gulf War. What ties together the convoluted US reactions
in these cases is Clinton's unswerving desire to avoid the placing of American
troops in physical danger. As a result, the administration has denied itself the
credibility it needs to back up its diplomacy. Although some threats to use force
have been incorporated into the already limited collection of foreign policy
instruments, the general perception at home and abroad is that such threats must
not and will not put American forces 'in harm's way', even if the results of such
self-denial may erode the possibility of securing favourable outcomes.
In Somalia, what began in the waning days of the Bush administration as a
humanitarian intervention to deliver food supplies to a starving population
turned into counter-insurgency, as the United States and UN became
embroiled in clan politics in the absence of a government structure. The
televised pictures of a US raid gone wrong, with i 8 men killed, hardened public
opinion against using American forces in the internecine quarrels of a
homogeneous people in a far-away place. The President determined to wind up
the American participation as quickly as possible in the face of mounting
congressional concerns, and did so. The circumstances exacerbated relations
with the UN Secretary-General, Boutros-Boutros Ghali. After months of
hunting General Aideed as a murderer of UN peacekeepers, the US eventually
flew him to negotiations in a US aircraft.
Much closer to home, in Haiti, the administration has lurched from varieties
of diplomatic pressure to increasingly tighter sanctions and threats of force
against the military junta that overthrew Father Aristide, the first democratically
elected president in the country's history. In Haiti, as in Somalia, President
Clinton himself publicly acknowledged that previous policies had failed.
Characteristically, Clinton removed personnel in order to put a more favourable
interpretation on events. As more refugees took to the sea in rickety boats, the
twists and turns of American policy became more intricate and prone to
debacle. Disagreements on means found the State Department and the National
Security Council more willing to undertake an invasion than the Pentagon,
with all federal agencies acknowledging that even if military action succeeded in

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Linda B. Miller

toppling the junta, the subsequent chore of nation-building would be fraught

with uncertainty and too burdensome for the hemisphere's dominant power. A
combination of seeking regional partners to aid in administering Haiti after the
generals' departure and positioning potential invasion forces near the island
heightened the sense of crisis. Rapid policy changes, succeeding each other
daily, revealed the persuasive influence of the Congressional Black Caucus,
whose accusations of racism in the treatment of Haitian refugees struck a
responsive chord in the White House, where votes are being counted on health,
crime and welfare reform bills.
The Haitian drama has also underscored the continuing controversy over uses
of American force after the Cold War. In Congress, previous party divisions on
uses of force in Kuwait, Panama and Grenada have yielded to a reversal of
positions on whether and when US military action is desirable to oust the junta.
Republicans have been arrayed against invasion, while Democrats are split.
Nevertheless, congressional attempts to tie the President's hands via legislative
amendments will not succeed, particularly when the debate over what
constitutes a vital interest remains unresolved.
Another inheritance from the Bush administration has haunted its successors.
While the Republicans pleaded rhetorically for a halt to the secession of the
republics from both the old Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, and hinted
darkly of dire consequences, they essentially looked away from the more
horrifying aspects of subsequent multi-ethnic conflicts in both areas. The Clin
administration worsened the situation by sanctimonious hand-wringing and
legalistic hair-splitting, first insisting that the Bosnian war involved no national
interest and later declaring that sacred principles of human rights and preservation
of state sovereignty and territorial integrity were at stake. US leaders vaciliated,
often declaring that the 'civil war' was a European problem to be resolved under
the aegis of the European Union, and then, reluctantly, endorsing NATO's first
strikes against Serb targets when public opinion condemned the Sarajevo market
massacre. From outrage against genocide across internationally recognized
frontiers to denunciation of the Vance-Owen partition plan, America's officials
reacted spasmodically, especially when trying to promote the once preferred
option of lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian government. In the face of
unprecedented resignations from the foreign service, Washington ultimately
brokered a Muslim-Croat deal in order to strengthen the possibility of rolling back
some of the Serbian territorial gains. As part of a high-level contact group, the
United States helped formulate a map that, if accepted by the parties, would give
51 per cent of Bosnia to the Muslim-Croat federation and leave 49 per cent to the
Serbs, down from the 70 per cent taken by force.
Inevitably, questions about American inconsistencies and u-turns have arisen.
Has the United States settled for a type of ethnic partition it could have secured
many deaths earlier?Io Although the administration once promised to supply up
to 25,000 troops if a viable peace arrangement ensued, the standards for

'o See Albert Wohlstetter, 'Creating a Greater Serbia', New Republic, August I994, pp. 22-7.

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The Clinton years

dispatching US forces are now so stringent that they may never be met. The
eagerness to embrace General Colin Powell's guidelines for the use of American
force abroad-that force must be used massively, if at all, with clear political
objectives and a definitive 'exit strategy'-may make sense in theory; in practice,
such dogma robs American leaders of flexibility, however well suited it may be
to the popular mood in the United States or to congressional constraints.
The humanitarian disasters of Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia have raised questions
not only about America's competence or moral centre, but also about the future
of international peacekeeping, as more geographical areas descend into
violence. New mechanisms, new institutions may be necessary to cope with
these assaults on traditional concepts of national sovereignty. For starters, the
United States could take the lead in paying its UN debts so that at least others
more willing to participate in its peacekeeping missions could do so. The
Somalian episode ended the 'assertive multilateralism' that the Clinton
administration promoted in its early days. For better or worse, the recent
presidential decision directive on peacekeeping (PDD25) will limit
Washington's activity in UN operations at a time when demands for US
logistics, transport, intelligence and cash are increasing, as in Rwanda/Zaire.
In Iraq, the United States has used air strikes to reinforce the sanctions against
Saddam Hussein's regime, sanctions that other governments are moving to lift,
on certification of Iraq's grudging compliance with UN resolutions. In North
Korea, the United States has tried to orchestrate diplomacy (personal and
otherwise) with the threat of sanctions and vague threats of the use of force to
stop or reverse the development of North Korea's military nuclear programme.
Accused by 'hawks' of selling out to the late dictator's whims, and by 'doves' of
brandishing a clumsy stick and unpersuasive carrots, the Clinton team has
sought a middle ground between looking weak and looking like a bully. In an
effort to shore up his hopes for a 'Pacific Community', as well as to garner Asian
support for pressure on North Korea, President Clinton finaliy divorced human
rights from Most Favoured Nation status for China, and climbed down from his
insistence that Japan stop 'managing' its trade. These recent moves indicate a
more nuanced appreciation of China's andJapan's domestic political struggles as
they affect international relations.
For at least some foreign observers, the Clinton administration's sloppiness and
the dissonance between its actions and its declarations constitute a recurring
pattern: 'First, America signals bold intentions: it will do something about the
butchery in Bosnia, make a stand on human rights in China, hunt down Somali
warlords, restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti, stop North Korea
becoming a nuclear power. Then, each time, it backs down. A message of
American weakness is sent to the world."' Although a more charitable
judgement might emphasize the acknowledged difficulties of maximizing
autonomy, attaining solvency and minimizing the risk of war, even a benign
interpretation of the administration's inconsistencies could not obscure this

The Economist, I 5 January I 994, p. 24.

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Linda B. Miller

record of indecision. Posturing by Congress on these same issues has worsened

appearances. Its budgetary responsibilities give the legislature a major role in
both the setting and the implementation of foreign policy goals. In addition,
Congress represents the wide array of conflicting interests and tensions in
American society at large. Whatever its flaws, Congress is exquisitely sensitive to
the residual competition between domestic and foreign priorities. With the
Soviet threat gone, and with tax increases either ruled out or mandated for
health care, congressional committees are preoccupied with costs. Whether the
issue is technology transfer, the decline of the dollar, or legislation
implementing the NAFTA or the GATT, Congress finds it no easier than the
executive to seek a middle ground between relative isolationism and hasty
overinvolvement.
To cite one glaring example, after intense denunciation of the President's
dithering on Bosnia, Congress passed, on a single day, by one-vote margins, two
contradictory amendments: one that would force the United States to lift the arms
embargo unilaterally, and the other that would urge presidential consultation with
European allies on the same measure. As always, Congress is most deeply involved
in foreign policy when it senses a vacuum or internal divisions within the
executive branch. Only a last-ditch White House lobbying campaign just before
the July 1994 annual meeting of the Group of Seven, an effort involving
European defence and foreign ministers, ensured the defeat in the Senate of a
resolution demanding the immediate unilateral lifting of the embargo.
Like the President and his advisers, Congress is struggling to comprehend the
emerging foreign policy agenda, if not to control it. Despite the intermittent
talk of military action as an option in Haiti, Bosnia and North Korea, despite the
frequently expressed nostalgia for the allegedly simpler Cold War, political
world, Congress prefers the use of non-violent means, especially sanctions, in
such trouble-spots. Both the executive and legislative branches realize that the
European continent is precariously suspended between older hostilities and
newer alignments. Each is eager to claim premature success in the larger issues of
transforming the 'east' and reorientating former adversaries towards Western
security and economic institutions. Both the President and the Congress seem
to grasp that Europe presents both opportunities and dangers. An administration
out of its depth elsewhere might redeem itself by skilful manoeuvring on a host
of economic and security issues that require delicacy and sophistication-often
in short supply.

The emerging agenda in Europe: opportunities and dangers

If lack of vision, vague goals and ineffectual means are among the most
frequently voiced criticisms of the Clinton administration's foreign policy, a
third accusation often follows. It is that the White House has allowed places of
less importance or conflicts of lesser magnitude to overshadow the more
significant issues resulting from the end of the Cold War in Europe. These
complaints have some validity, for American efforts here, beginning with th

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The Clinton years

Bush administration, betray a cobbled-together quality. Unprepared for the

Cold War's end, all Western leaders, European as well as American, have been
slow to devise a comprehensive strategy to cope with the plethora of social,
political, economic and security problems deriving from the collapse of the
Soviet empire and German unification.
Attempting to set the agenda in Europe has proved to be as frustrating as
responding to it. Of course, no one country ever controls the ebb and flow of
events, especially in Europe, where 'allies' and 'adversaries' no longer comprise
the range of possible bilateral relationships and when so much of world politics
takes place in regional or global organizations. Nowhere is the emerging agenda
fraught with more traps than in Europe, including Russia and the former Soviet
republics. Nowhere is it more important to transcend the Cold War vocabulary
of 'threats' in favour of 'interests'; but nowhere is it proving more difficult to do
so because nowhere was the Cold War so salient, and its dangers so oversold.
This necessary transition is highly problematic, in part for psychological reasons.
As usual, Stanley Hoffmann has captured the essence of an awkward dilemma:

Western Europe suffers, paradoxically, both from the legacy of the postwar habit of
dependence on American leadership in geopolitical affairs and from the decline of an
American predominance which had assuredly been a factor of division (between
Gaullists and Atlanticists) but also a goad toward a European entity capable of talking
back to the United States. And it remains torn by disjunctions it cannot overcome:
between politics, which is still national, and economics, national no longer; between
economics, which is becoming common, and diplomacy and defense, where the
Union still falters; between a settled West and unsettled East. In I964 I wondered about
Western Europe's spiritual vitality. I still do.I2

It is ironic that just when the United States is more willing to listen to a Europe
that speaks with one voice or many, individual and collective identity crises in
the West have made political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic cautious about
moving beyond the existing structures of NATO, the European Union and the
G7. Revitalizing these essentially Cold War institutions has seemed the safer
course, one capable of gradually incorporating the former east-as well as
Scandinavia, Russia and perhaps even Ukraine.
While there is nothing dishonourable about this slow pace, it creates a security
vacuum and postpones a more serious coming to terms with the post-Cold War
disarray. While the rapidly assembled Partnership for Peace is a convenient halfway
house to stave off Polish, Czech and Hungarian demands for immediate entry into
NATO, it is a stop-gap measure that could backfire, if Russian membership keeps
the former east European countries in the security vestibule too long.
A more serious question is whether the functional agenda the Clinton
administration prefers is too narrow, too focused on short-term economic
advantages for Washington. By defining his presidency as an effort to promote
economic growth and trade liberalization, Clinton has acknowledged that with

" Stanley Hoffmann, 'Europe through a glass darkly', Daedalus, 123: 2, 1994, p. 22.

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Linda B. Miller

Europe and Russia, America must negotiate continuously on complicated

questions. The trade-offs required are not self-evident. 'What appears to have
been learned during I993 and early 1994 is the "art of the deal"-no mean
achievement in itself-which has not attacked the underlying systematic and
structural differences, but has led in important ways to their clearer definition."'3
There are several other difficulties in the economic arena, apart from the
obvious problem of coordination with security aims. First, economic issues are
inherently divisive when growth rates differ. Unless and until the US public is
better informed on the dangers of protectionism, the European capitalist
democracies, like Japan, will be seen as 'enemies' in a zero-sum game with
Washington. Second, the economic emphasis has meant ever-deepening
involvement in the domestic politics of America's traditional allies and former
adversaries. Understandably, this insistence on 'trade as well as troops' has
created situations where Washington may be blamed for what goes wrong
locally in Paris or Moscow. Third, as in the 1994 G7/G8 (including Russia)
meetings, there is a danger of premature trade initiatives being presented,
resented, rejected and rapidly withdrawn, thereby adding to the general sense of
American ineptitude. Finally, the danger of sending mixed signals is inevitable.
To argue that a strong dollar is in everyone's interest and then to appear
indifferent to the currency's slide looks foolish and self-defeating.
In framing a discourse where economics will dominate all other US interests,
President Clinton has often looked like 'a kind of glorified secretary of
commerce who must subject his programs to the whim of every private
lobby."4 Nevertheless, the concentration on economic matters may have
protected the Clinton administration from some of the more crippling defects
of its predecessors. By treading carefully, President Clinton has supported Boris
Yeltsin against an array of ultra-nationalist Russian opponents without
succumbing to the obsessive fixations on particular foreign leaders that plagued
previous US presidents. After numerous false starts and mid-course corrections,
the administration belatedly began to appreciate the necessity of engaging the
leaders of Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus in a dialogue designed to offer the
former republics modest aid and trade packages. Given the functional agenda
that includes preventing the proliferation or theft of nuclear materials, the
Clinton entourage wisely has not linked its fortunes to the first generation of
leaders who secured independence from Moscow. When they are swept away, as
in Ukraine or Belarus, Washington will have some room to manoeuvre with
their successors, probably former communists responding to public disgust at
the disappointments and hardships of post-Soviet economic and political
realities. This flexibility could be an important asset if the former republics' drive
to re-establish ties with Moscow stimulates any overreaction in Congress, any
domestic hysteria over Russian 'neo-imperialism' that would force the

' Michael Smith and Stephen Woolcock, 'Learning to cooperate: the Clinton administration and the
European Union', International Affairs 70: 3, I994, pp. 459-76.
I4 John Judis, 'The foreign unpolicy', New Republic, I2 JUly I993, p. 20.

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The Clinton years

administration to pay more attention to defence and security needs, as during

the Cold War.
Overall, Europe and Russia serve a number of domestic and international
purposes for President Clinton and his beleaguered colleagues. Highly symbolic
trips and summits offer televised images that suggest a mastery of technical
detail. Such encounters, if properly orchestrated, if replete with thoughtful
speeches on anniversaries like D-Day, may also convey an impression of stature at
a time when American leadership generally is seen as rudderless. Moreover, for
President Clinton personally, Germany and France offer examples of social policy
that America might emulate, for instance in job training or healthcare. As the
1994 G7 final communique indicated, the administration is not indifferent to the
fears of France and others that Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria and elsewhere
may be a significant threat to European stability. Nor, in exhorting Germany to
play a larger role in world affairs, has the administration absolved Britain or other
EU members from doing more to their open markets to the east.
On balance, then, President Clinton has discovered that vis-a-vis Europe,
temporizing, inadequate damage control and poor timing are serious dangers, as
serious as the unemployment or sagging political leadership that afflicts
America's traditional allies. Soaring rhetoric in the Baltics or Berlin does not do
much to reassure those who believe that Clinton's theme of 'reconciliation' is
too short on specifics to alter Europe's post-Cold War doldrums or Russia's
struggles with imported concepts of democracy and free markets.
Nevertheless, whatever Clinton's clumsiness or failure to consult allies in
advance (a perennial European complaint), the administration may be learning
on the job that its agenda alone will not command respect, unless the President
rises above the parochial aspects of the economic focus. Thus the 1994 G7/G8
discussions were a missed opportunity to coordinate policies on Haiti, Rwanda
or China. The President retained, but did not really enhance, his shaky personal
prestige as this cycle of intense Western diplomacy closed. To his credit, the
President seems to comprehend that the days of American dominance in Europe
are over and that exhortation has now replaced dictation in the absence of a
common threat. Yet the President and his advisers have not articulated how
security and economics are related and how reactive crisis-coping may
undermine long-term stability in the global economy.
Unfortunately, even Clinton's mantra of 'jobs, jobs, jobs' may not engage
weary US public, suspicious of its own leaders' competence to manage foreign
policy for domestic ends. This lack of confidence is crucial, because

the success of presidents in the post-Cold War era will hinge on their ability to recast
public expectations about their performance in new directions, while deploying
presidential energy toward foreign opportunities linked to domestic economic problems
Presidents must learn new ways to harness and deploy their power, but they must also
redefine how the public sees and judges them."5

'5Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, 'After the long war', Foreign Policy 94, Spring I994, p. 35.

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Linda B. Miller

At an instinctual level, Clinton appears to understand these new rules of the

game. At the level of conduct, as measured in poli data, he continues to fali
short of expectations.

Conclusion

On the eve of congressional elections, the first national verdict on the Clinton
administration, the questions posed in I990 are still pertinent and the answers
still elusive. Now, as then, the debate over US interests proceeds vigorously
outside the government. Commentators disagree over whether America must
'lead' or whether America may 'select' in order to promote long-deferred
domestic renovation. Citing the lack of a convincing world view, poorly
articulated goals and ineffectual means, plus a confusing agenda in Europe,
many observers have essentiafly deemed the Clinton years a failure in foreign
policy terms.
Like other Democratic Presidents who wanted to focus on domestic affairs,
for example, Lyndon Johnson, President Clinton has discovered the painful
reality that America matters to others in ways that make it impossible to divorce
what happens abroad from what happens at home. Unlike his predecessors,
Democratic and Republican, the President has avoided the debilitating squabbles
between the Secretaries of State and National Security Advisers that hobbled US
policy-making in the 1970S and I98os. With the assistance of Vice President Al
Gore, the administration moved towards the normalization of relations with
Vietnam, the signing of the Biodiversity Treaty and the re-joining of the Law of
the Sea regime.
Just as it has not 'reinvented' government, the Clinton administration has not
reinvented foreign policy. Rather, the President has tried to revise the
conventional Cold War wisdom about the relationship between domestic and
foreign policy. Now we are to believe that it is domestic politics that may 'kill us'
and foreign policy that may 'hurt us', in part to prevent the overselling of post-
Cold War threats. The Clinton administration appreciates that foreign policy
successes, even if few and far between, may build status at home. Conversely,
foreign policy defeats may blight attempts to forge national unity, already
strained by sectional, regional, class and racial conflicts.
Unfortunately, what constitutes success or failure is itself unclear in the new
world, where issues like defence and trade are increasingly chaotic. At best, the
United States still enjoys a preponderance of power and influence that slipshod
management may endanger but cannot destroy. At worst, the severest critics are
right: that the margin for US error is greater after the Cold War and the Clinton
administration has taken fuli advantage of this opportunity.

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