Clinton Legacy Watch # 26: The ‘Feckless-izing’ of U.S. Security Policy

(Washington, D.C.): Everyone knows the Clinton Administration has been busily downsizing
the
U.S. government, though most are unaware this has been accomplished principally at the expense
of the Nation’s military force structure, the backbone of American security policy. What has,
until recently, gone largely unremarked — in this country at least — is the fact that the
Administration has also been engaged in another, equally troubling phenomenon: the
“feckless-izing” of American security policy.

Kosovo — A Case in Point

The past few days’ activities regarding Kosovo exemplify the problem:

• First, came frantic attempts over a period of weeks to build a multilateral
  consensus for
  punishing a “rogue” leader of a “rogue state.” In this instance, the object of this diplomatic
  lather was Slobodan Milosevic — the war criminal who bears greatest responsibility for
  Serbia’s aggression against Croatia and Bosnia, a despot who is now engaged in more acts of
  ethnic cleansing against his own subjects.

• Next, came U.S.-promoted threats and accompanying brandishing of military
  hardware.
  In this case, the vehicle was a 13-nation, 85-aircraft NATO fly-over of Macedonia and Albania
  — areas adjacent to but out of sight of Kosovo. Instead of actually dropping
  weapons, which
  might have heightened the impression that the West meant business, at Russian insistence there
  was no live-fire component, just aerial maneuvers, refueling and the like.

• Third, came Russia’s interference (a.k.a. “mediation”). As the airshow
  was underway in
  the Balkans, its intended audience, Milosevic, was paying court to his sponsors in Moscow.
  The Clinton Administration let it be known that the President had spent 40 minutes on the
  phone giving Boris Yeltsin his talking points for the session (presumably: “stay sober”; “talk
  sternly”; “frown”; “tell him we are serious”; etc.) One senior NATO official actually told the
  Wall Street Journal yesterday: “It’s wait-and-see time now. If Yeltsin can pull this
  off and
  force Milosevic to back down, we will all be the happier for it.”

• Finally, comes word from the Kremlin that the object of Western hand-wringing
  and saber-rattling has, thanks to Russian mediation, agreed to parley. Diplomats rush to
  assure the
  press and the public that they are going to be looking carefully at the fine print. But, as a
  practical matter, whatever Moscow has cooked up is going to be “good enough for
  government work.”

In any event, the word will soon go out that there is not much we can do about the
terms if, as can be predicted, the details of the Yeltsin-Milosevic understanding prove
to be unacceptable: There is no stomach for a war; Russia will wield its veto in the UN
Security Council even if a war over Kosovo were desirable and, since multilateralism is
now the order of the day, there will be no military action without the Russians (the
French will see to that).

One Mo’ Time

Sound familiar? If this seems like Yogi Berra’s deja vu all over again, it
is. The foregoing
describes essentially the same play that was run by the Kremlin a few months ago to
protect another of its clients: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Its beauty from the point of view
of
the Primakovs of this world is that, in the process of saving Russia’s friends, this gambit also
serves to neutralize and demean the West — and, in particular, the United States, while
demonstrating Russia’s re-emergence as the truly “indispensable nation.”

Unfortunately, the hapless Clinton Administration seems approximately as ill-prepared to deal
with the present crisis as it was the last time it was snookered by Russian Foreign Minister
Yevgeny Primakov. As the Center for Security Policy noted on 11 March 1998:

“In the former Yugoslavia, as in Iraq, the Clinton Administration refuses to recognize
the fundamental reality: One cannot ‘do business’ with psychopathic,
megalomaniacal criminals like Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein. By trying
to do so, the United States government merely emboldens and empowers them, even as
it demoralizes and otherwise undermines those whose commitment to Western-style
values compels them to oppose the regime in question.

“It is time for America to adopt a fundamentally different approach in both
the Balkans and Iraq. We must address the source of the problem in these
crises — Milosevic and Saddam, respectively. Toward this end, Washington
must stop compounding the ignominy and futility of U.S. policy by subordinating
it to the dumbing-down that is unavoidable if its approval by Russia, the UN or
others must be obtained.”

A similar view is expressed in an superb essay entitled “To End the Kosovo Slaughter,
Target the Source” published in today’s Wall Street Journal ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_112at”>see the attached). George Melloan
brilliantly dissects Milosevic’s cynical and ruthless modus operandi — and the U.S.
government’s
haplessness when confronted with it and the support it enjoys in Moscow. Such is Mr. Melloan’s
grasp of the Clinton ‘feckless-izing” dynamic that, even though his deadline preceded the Butcher
of Belgrade’s mission to Moscow, his column accurately predicted what would happen:

“If Slobo operates true to form, he will make limited concessions. If Bill Clinton
operates true to form, as in Iraq for example, he will take the heat off in return, rather
than risking some serious action. The source of the Balkan problems in the last
decade, Slobodan Milosevic, will remain in place to cause still more trouble down
the road.”

The Bottom Line

The United States has helped to make situations like the present one in Kosovo more likely —
and
more intractable — by its failure to identify the true sources of the serious challenges to American
interests and allies around the world; by its creation of vacuums of power thanks to its hollowing
out of the U.S. military and the attendant inability to articulate, let alone implement, a coherent
strategy; and by its proclivity for subordinating national interests to the dictates of the UN, the
manipulation of the Kremlin and the corrupting effects of a foreign policy defined by trade
uber
alles. Corrective action is urgently required in each of these areas if the feckless-izing of
America’s security policy is to be reversed before any further damage results.