The Foreign Service Journal, May 2004

the Clinton administration, its fixation on a strong dollar and balanced bud- gets was, in part, based on a clear understanding of the need to assure foreign investors of the long-term strength of the U.S. economy. A Return to Core Competencies The impact of American unilater- alism and its concentration on politi- cal-military matters is obvious. There is a vacuum of leadership in other international policy areas, be they political, economic, legal, or environ- mental. The vacuum exists by defini- tion. If you have a unilateral policy, you can’t lead, because you have been unwilling to make the compromises necessary for others to follow. As with domestic issues, success in foreign policy means meeting the often-conflicting needs of con- cerned parties. For example, if we had shown some regard for the views of the United Nations and our traditional allies as we prepared for war (or even afterward), we might not be bearing the costs almost entirely alone — and the situation in Iraq, not to mention its prospects, would likely be considerably brighter. Compare the current mess with the handling of the Persian Gulf War. There, patient diplomacy ensured that the financial, political and human costs to the U.S. were minimal — as opposed to the open- ended costs of the present “Coa- lition of the Willing” in Iraq. The unilateralist neoconservative policies of today are a badly mutated descendant of our isolationist her- itage. Isolationism at least had the clear advantage of limited objec- tives, keeping the United States from entering two world wars until a national consensus existed for inter- vention. Our late entry into both conflicts spared the United States from most of the human, social and financial consequences of those two great conflicts. Of course, isolationism is dead, buried by technology that makes it outmoded except in backwaters such as North Korea and Burma. But the concept of limiting commit- ments on the basis of national inter- est and real needs makes as much sense today as it always has. American foreign policy today needs to re-examine its commitments worldwide and redefine them. Our 60-year relationship with Europe is crumbling, and better solutions exist than moving U.S. military bases from Western to Central Europe. U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East has been a disaster since 1967. An even-handed policy with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian con- flict would do more to reduce the threat of anti-American terrorism than any other step we could take. We also need to question why, in view of the end of the Cold War and a vast- ly changed energy situation world- wide over the past three decades, we need a military presence in the Persian Gulf. In sum, the primary need of the United States today is to greatly reduce U.S. commitments world- wide. The existing U.S. decision- making and intelligence structures are no more capable of running a global empire (at least one in accord with the moral and democratic views of the American public) than the centralized Soviet system was of controlling a far less complicated global equation. In the language of the business community, the United States needs to get back to its core competencies. In the 21st century, there is no reason for Americans to play the “Great Game” in the mode of 19th century European elites — particularly when no vital U.S. interests are at stake. To follow such a course is, in the words of Talleyrand, “Worse than wrong, mon- sieur. It is stupid.” 60 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 4