‘New Isolationism’ is a Bum Rap

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration and its allies are intensifying their
efforts to
paint those who oppose the “aggressive multilateralism,”appeasement and illusory arms control
agreements as ineffectual — and potentially very dangerous — responses to today’s threats, and
tomorrow’s, as proponents of a “new isolationism.” Nothing could be further from the
truth.

In fact, as William Kristol and Robert Kagan pointed out in a thoughtful op.ed. article
in
yesterday’s New York Times, the choice is not between isolationism and internationalism.
Rather, it is a struggle between Reagan-style hard-headed realistic internationalism on the one
hand and “utopian internationalism” on the other. If the Clinton Administration and like-minded
individuals and organizations genuinely wish to promote a constructive debate about the
future direction of U.S. security policy — as opposed to the sort of unfounded polemical rants in
which the President and National Security Advisor Samuel Berger have recently indulged — the
terms of reference must be accurately established. The Kristol and Kagan essay is a helpful
contribution to satisfying that precondition.

Reject the Global Buddy System

By William Kristol and Robert Kagan

The Clinton Administration has been trying to frame the foreign policy debate for the 2000
election in the simplest possible terms: It’s Clintonian internationalism versus Republican
isolationism. Samuel Berger, the national security adviser, offered the fullest version of this
thesis last Thursday, arguing that the Senate’s rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty means we have returned once again to the “old debate” of the 1930’s.

It is true that some Republicans want the United States to pull back from its overseas
commitments and stay out of messy conflicts in the Balkans, East Timor and elsewhere.

But the leading Republican Presidential candidates — George W. Bush and John McCain —
are
both internationalists and free-traders. Both believe in American leadership and global
responsibilities. Both supported intervention in the Persian Gulf at the beginning of this decade
and in Kosovo at the end. No matter who wins next November, American foreign policy after
2001 is going to be characterized by some version of internationalism.

The real debate in the coming year will be: What brand of internationalism? This is the
debate
between the internationalism of Theodore Roosevelt and that of Woodrow Wilson, between the
internationalism of Ronald Reagan and that of Jimmy Carter.

The Clinton Administration has placed itself squarely in the tradition of Presidents Wilson
and
Carter, and never more so than in Mr. Berger’s speech, entitled “American Power: Hegemony,
Isolationism or Engagement.” Mr. Berger is opposed to American hegemony and decries
Republican calls for increased defense spending. The true test of leadership, he argues, is not
whether the United States remains militarily powerful, but whether it signs onto international
conventions such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Climate Change Treaty,
provides enough money to global poverty programs and supports the United Nations.

It is on these matters, Mr. Berger argues, “that our most fundamental interests are at stake.”
Mr.
Berger derides those who worry about the threat posed by China or Russia as “nostalgic” for the
cold war. In the Clinton Administration’s world, there are no enemies or even potential enemies.
There are only potential partners in the search for what Mr. Berger calls an international
“common good.”

This is the kind of utopian internationalism that the Democratic Party rejected under the
hardheaded leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson but embraced again after Vietnam. It
is the internationalism of Jimmy Carter, squeamish and guilty about American power and content
to base America’s security, and the world’s security, on arms control agreements rather than on
American arms. This is the internationalism which in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s favored the
SALT II agreement and the “nuclear freeze” and opposed the Reagan arms buildup and the
Strategic Defense Initiative.

Republicans in the coming election will likely propose a very different kind of
internationalism.
In the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, they will argue that the United States
can and should lead the world to a better future, one built around American principles of freedom
and justice — but only if it has the power and the will to use that power.

Republicans will argue that American security cannot be safeguarded by international
conventions. Instead, they will ask Americans to face this increasingly dangerous world without
illusions. They will argue that American dominance can be sustained for many decades to come,
not by arms control agreements, but by augmenting America’s power and, therefore, its ability to
lead.

President Clinton may enjoy calling Republicans isolationists, but a year from now,
Democrats
will be running against the party of Reagan. It looks as if they plan to run as the party of Jimmy
Carter.

William Kristol is editor of the Weekly Standard. Robert Kagan is a senior associate at
the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.