Inescapable Entanglements

As it has for the past four decades, the American-Soviet relationship will dominate the foreign policy of the next administration. This is as it should be. The Bush Administration takes office at a culminating point in American diplomatic history. If the Soviets are serious in the foreign policy proposals they have put forth during the second Reagan Administration, the next president could well negotiate the terms of the post cold-war era. Unfortunately, there are grave foreign political problems outside the East-West context that could derail the efforts of the new administration to explore the limits of a U.S.-Soviet rapprochement.

Time and again we have seen how an administration can be consumed by issues that have little if any connection with those central concerns of U.S. foreign policy that are embodied in the East-West axis. Two recent examples are the Carter Administration’s Iran hostage crisis and the Reagan Administration’s Iran-contra affair. There are, after all, a number of countries to which we are closely tied by historical experience and interests. At times because of domestic political considerations, at other times for security reasons, Americans cannot remain indifferent to what happens in those places. These countries and their problems are inescapable entanglements. If left unattended, they could engulf an administration.

Some trouble spots do not threaten consequences of this magnitude for U.S. policy. In the cases of South Africa, Haiti and Israel, for example, there are constituencies here at home that require Washington to pay the closest attention to internal political developments there. But while the United States should press for racial equality in South Africa, for democracy in Haiti and for a settlement that will satisfy the requirements both of Palestinian nationalism and of Israeli security, in none of these cases is it likely that American troops will be involved. No convincing case can be made that U.S. security is threatened.

A very different situation exists in South Korea, the Philippines, Panama and Central America. In recognition of the stakes involved, U.S. troops are stationed there—about 40,000 in South Korea, some 18,000 in the Philippines, about 10,000 in Panama, about 1,000 in Honduras and over 100 advisers in El Salvador. These are all inescapable entanglements.

II