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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 13KB | 257 lines

<text> <title> The Isolationist Movement and Its Consequences </title> <article> <hdr> Foreign Service Journal, February 1992 Yankee Come Home: The Isolationist Movement and its Consequences </hdr> <body> By George Gedda. Mr. Gedda covers the State Department for the Associated Press. He is a frequent contributor to the Journal. The great national debate has begun. For the first time in two generations, the United States is fortunate enough not to face an obvious military threat. The United States will clearly relate differently to the world, but there is broad disagreement over how. The question is whether the interventionist tendency the United States has shown since the 1940s was prompted by the unique circumstances of the Cold War or whether international meddling is a burden that American must continue to bear even in the post-Communist era. The renewed debate over America's future role in the world has been rich and often entertaining. Now that the Soviet genie is back in his bottle, the question of purpose is being subjected to increasing scrutiny. Americans have tended to swing between poles of isolationism and interventionism. Generally, when the United States has begun military adventures, "bring the troops home" movements spring up almost overnight. Almost immediately after the final shots of the first and second world wars, the government was forced by public opinion to evacuate U.S. troops. More recently, public pressure dictated an early American withdrawal after the U.S. interventions in the Persian Gulf, Panama, and Grenada. Yet the White House has tended to be run either by interventionist realpolitikers, such as Richard Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt, or by equally interventionist crusading moralists, such as Jimmy Carter or Woodrow Wilson. John Sullivan of National Review notes that the last time an isolationist candidate sought the White House was in 1972, when George McGovern lost by a landslide in the midst of an unpopular war. McGovern could identify with former Representative Abraham Lincoln (R-IL), who lost his House seat in 1848 because of his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Mexican War. Home to roost The argument over disengagement versus intervention could emerge as one of the major themes of the 1992 presidential campaign. President Bush already has staked out a position in support of continued U.S. global involvement, but some of his Democratic rivals are adopting an "American First" theme. When he announced his candidacy in September, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin pledged to "make American our most favored nation." He says America should stop spending $160 billion for Europe's defense and use the money to improve the country's schools, highways, and health care. "We're not going to get there if we have a president who thinks the real threats to our national security are half way around the world, when they are really half way down the streets." Some of Harkin's Democratic competitors are also pushing the "America First" theme but seem less inclined radically to alter the country's foreign policy. "Given the problems we face at home, we do have to take care of our own people and their needs first," says Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. But he says isolationism will hurt the country economically and set back the cause of global democracy. And Virginia Governor Doug Wilder says his "Put America First" slogan "in no way conflicts with our nation's international standing or obligation to help friends in need." The post Cold War debate has highlighted a rift on the right over isolationism versus interventionism that makes some conservatives sound like Harkin. "Our war, the Cold War, is over," writes columnist-turned-presidential-candidate Patrick Buchanan. "Time for America to come home." Fellow conservative Charles Krauthammer demurs: "Even after the defeat of the Soviet threat, we face a highly dangerous new world.... Our best hope for safety...is in American strength and will: the strength to recognize the unipolar world and the will to lead it." Between Buchanan and Krauthammer is Zbigniew Brzezinski, perhaps the most conservative of the senior advisers to President Carter. He believes that neither isolationism nor a worldwide pax Americana is a practical option. He envisions a continuing U.S. role as the principal source of nuclear deterrence. At the same time, he says the nation will be able to concentrate additional resources on domestic renewal. Under the changed situation, America can be more selective about its global commitments, Brzezinski says. Buchanan wants to dissolve the mutual security treaty with Japan, withdraw all ground forces from South Korea, and pull all troops and weapons out of Europe once Soviet troops are out of Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Ukraine. He recommends an end to U.S. bilateral aid and says the United States should pull out of international lending institutions. There are too many unmet needs at home, says Buchanan. He is unperturbed by the prospect of Germany and Japan's going nuclear. "We lived with nuclear weapons in the hands of Stalin and Mao. Why fear them in the hands of Kaifu or Kohl?" (Kaifu has since stepped down.) Heal thyself When Buchanan announced his candidacy for president on December 10, some of his most biting rhetoric was directed at the foreign aid program, which he characterized as "routinized annual transfers of our national wealth to global bureaucrats who ship it off to regimes who pay us back with multiple ingratitude." Beyond that, he said, "With a $4 trillion debt, with a U.S. budget chronically out of balance, should the United States be required to carry indefinitely the burden of defending rich and prosperous allies who take America's generosity for granted as they invade our markets?" Hours after Buchanan spoke, Bush countered by saying, "We must not pull back into some isolationism sphere listening to the siren's call of America First." It was a lesson Bush said he had learned as a "young kid" fighting World War II. Krauthammer believes the end of the Cold War will offer the United States no respite from onerous international obligations. As he sees it, there will be plenty of international wrongs that only America can right. He recalls that when the Cold War was won, the first response was a demand for unilateral disarmament, the folly of which, he says, was underscored in August 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. "It took Saddam to remind us that the world is a nasty place even without the Soviet threat," Krauthammer writes. "To hell with the rules" Asserting that there is no alternative to an aggressive U.S. international role, Krauthammer cites a Pentagon study contending there will be two dozen developing countries with ballistic missiles by the year 2000, 30 with chemical weapons, 10 with biological weapons and almost as many with nuclear weapons. He claims that because of the technological revolution, "small, peripheral and backward states will be able to emerge rapidly as threats not only to regional security but to world security." To deal with this situation, he says it may be necessary to disarm these nations even if that infringes on cherished ideas of sovereignty. Yet another threat Krauthammer perceives relates to the rise of what he calls "aggressive nationalists": groups that command American sympathy when they are down but which may act in ways that "elicit horror" when they are up. To deal with this specter, Krauthammer recommends not U.S. retreat but a U.S. effort "to try to create new norms and rules." Under Krauthammer's New World Order, when "existing international rules conflict with basic American values, to hell with the rules." Midge Decter, a bright light of neo-conservatism, agrees. "America is the world's policeman, whether you, I or the American government likes it or not. Everything we do or fa