Michael Mandelbaum

The recent deal over the debt ceiling guarantees that the U.S. government will reduce its spending on foreign policy, which will force America to scale down its ambitions abroad.

For the authors of three new books about power and U.S. foreign policy, the essence of "the power problem" is that the United States has too much of it. But the era in which U.S. foreign policy could be driven in counterproductive directions by an excess of power is in the process of ending.

American supremacy --military, economic,and social--is so overwhelming it can no longer be denied. Nor can the supremacy of three ideas that have come to dominate the global system: peace, democracy, and free markets. Yet none of these three ideas is universally practiced or completely secure. And U.S. power, although good at achievieng many things, may not be suited to the most important task: defending, maintaining, and expanding these goals around the world.

In this 1999 article, Michael Mandelbaum explains why previous NATO interventions, such as that in Kosovo, had just the opposite effect of what NATO intended, leading to civilian suffering and regional instability. James B. Steinberg replies.

In one sense Russia and China pose the same problems. An international order of trade and cooperation has been established, and the two countries are in the process of joining. But their central governments are weak -- Russia's military is quasi-independent of Moscow, China's factories do not heed Beijing. Humiliation over national decline prompts symbolic defiance of the United States. Ukraine and Taiwan remain dangerous flash points that call for tacit deterrence. Like adolescents, Russia and China are in a transitional stage requiring patience and guidance rather than confrontation.

President Clinton's foreign policy, rather than protecting American national interests, has pursued social work worldwide. Three failed interventions in 1993--in Bosnia, in Somalia, and the first try in Haiti--illustrate this dramatically. Preoccupied with "helping the helpless," the administration alienated vital allies, changed direction repeatedly to repair Clinton's sagging image, and let special interest groups harm U.S. policy toward Japan and Russia. With his domestic policy stalled, Clinton's opponents may end up painting him what he never wanted to be: a foreign policy president.

Expanding NATO east is unwise. It will not promote democracy or capitalism, and it is premature to assume Russian belligerence.

Appraises (1) the admirable wisdom of detached watchfulness in reacting to the communist collapse, the end of the Cold War and the onset of German unification (2) the skilfull management of the coalition against Iraq for the liberation of Kuwait (3) the predominantly economic character of US foreign policy interests for the future