The Squandered Presidency: Demanding More from the Commander in Chief

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Letter to the Editor

EAST IS WEST

Robert E. Hunter

Essay

Two Cheers for Clinton's Foreign Policy

Stephen M. Walt

Bill Clinton's foreign policy record leaves room for improvement, but he did quite well under the post-Cold War circumstances. Even faced with a partisan, isolationist Republican Congress and a disinterested American public, Clinton managed to engage Russia and China, fight nuclear proliferation, liberalize world trade, and save lives in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. His successor will inherit the same constraints and follow much the same course -- no matter who wins in November.

U.S. foreign policy in the Clinton era was not a disaster. In some respects, it was even a modest success. Not surprisingly, therefore, the basic theme of those who defend the administration -- those who give it reserved praise (Stephen M. Walt, "Two Cheers for Clinton's Foreign Policy," March/April 2000) -- is that the Clinton administration did not upset the pervasive peace and prosperity it began its tenure with. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Indeed, such a defense of the Clinton era misses the larger point: the overriding theme of recent U.S. foreign policy is underachievement and squandered potential. Like investors crowing about the returns of a money-market fund when they could have been sharing in the greatest bull market in history, Clinton supporters are satisfied, rather than upset, only because they compare their gains to what was, rather than what might have been.

Clinton inherited a world of unprecedented American advantage and opportunity and did little with it. Few relationships or institutions bear his imprint; no consensus exists at home on U.S. purposes in the world or how they should be pursued. Indeed, the measure of Clinton's tenure is less what he said and did than what he failed to say and failed to do. As a result, he will bequeath his successor a dangerous international situation and a difficult domestic one -- situations more dangerous and difficult than those Clinton himself faced and than should have been allowed to develop.

Despite some noteworthy achievements in foreign as well as domestic policy, the Clinton era was marked by a preference for symbolism over substance and short-term crisis management over long-term strategizing. Unlike domestic policy, however, foreign policy suffered from a lack of presidential interest, attention, and respect. It suffered, in short, from malign neglect.

ONE CHEER...

Several of Clinton's accomplishments stand out in the economic realm. Clinton inherited agreements largely negotiated by his predecessor, but he still deserves credit for gaining congressional passage (albeit with mostly Republican votes) of both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. In its initial five years, NAFTA contributed to a near doubling in trade volume with America's two largest trading partners and helped insulate Mexico from what would otherwise have been deep recession and political instability. For its part, the WTO provided a set of rules to govern important areas of world trade and a mechanism for resolving disputes among member countries. The WTO is one reason why world trade volume continued to grow steadily, despite the Asian economic crisis. Other economic achievements include the Clinton administration's concerted effort to cobble together the coalition of countries, banks, and international financial institutions that rescued Mexico from an economic meltdown in 1994. It should also be praised for its steady hand during the 1998 Asian economic crisis, when it refused to apply proffered cures that would likely have been more harmful than the disease.

Arms control had important milestones as well. Perhaps the most significant achievement was the agreement that ensured Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan would voluntarily give up their nuclear weapons to Russia. The Clinton administration also helped persuade a reluctant Senate to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and put in place a framework with North Korea that deferred and possibly solved the threat posed by its nuclear weapons program.

Finally, significant diplomatic progress was made in both Northern Ireland and the Middle East. In both instances, the bulk of the credit should go to those local leaders who showed courage and flexibility. But the Clinton administration played a crucial role through its sustained and often high-level diplomatic efforts. And the government's large-scale humanitarian interventions brought some measure of stability -- however fleeting or tenuous -- to Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

...BUT NO MORE

These accomplishments, however, do not add up to a foreign policy legacy, because they did not alter the administration's international environment in basic and lasting ways. A foreign policy legacy can result either from achieving something great on the ground (defeating major rivals or building major institutions, for example) or from changing the way people at home or abroad think about international relations. Clinton did neither. Despite what Walt argues, such an outcome was hardly inevitable. It was a deliberate choice on the part of the president, who was not willing to spend political capital for enduring results.

For instance, for all the administration's words on international trade, it made no serious effort to expand NAFTA to Chile or elsewhere, or to initiate a new round for the WTO that would cover agriculture or services. And despite knowing that Congress was dubious about extending "fast track" negotiating authority, the administration waited until the last minute to press its case, allowing a crucial tool to slip not just from its own hands but from those of its successors as well. The administration chose to delay bringing China into the WTO and allowed misguided economic sanctions to proliferate. And it conceded so much to its labor and environmental constituencies on trade issues that its rhetoric increasingly echoed the sentiments of WTO critics rather than supporters. Nothing embodies the loss of momentum on trade as much as the December 1999 fiasco in Seattle, which forced the president to acknowledge that protectionist sentiment is stronger now than when he assumed office.