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Gold9472
01-10-2006, 01:38 PM
So Quiet At the Top

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:eSv1VrfZA5kJ:www.nci.org/01/09/11-6.htm+%22when+it+comes+to+foreign+policy,+we+have+ a+tongue-tied+administration%22&hl=en&client=opera

(Gold9472: Paul Thompson recently found this article, and said the following: "Isn't it odd that the Bush Administration basically had no foreign policy before 9/11? Esp. if one looks at what Bush said on the campaign trail, striking an isolationist tone, mocking nation building, and so forth. And then one can compare that to the secret (at the time) Project for the New American Century plans which called for a renewed American empire world wide. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Wolfowitz, and others signed off on that just two months before the election. It turns out that in the summer of 2001, Rumsfeld even had commissioned a secret study to learn from the mistakes of past empires.

So, isolationist stance vs. secret empire dreams. How to reconcile the two? They did nothing for eight months, until finally 9/11 came along. It's almost as if they were waiting for something like that to happen.")

By Morton Abramowitz
Tuesday, September 11, 2001; Page A27

When it comes to foreign policy, we have a tongue-tied administration. After almost eight months in office, neither President Bush nor Secretary of State Colin Powell has made any comprehensive statement on foreign policy. It is hard to think of another administration that has done so little to explain what it wants to do in foreign policy. Many do not seem to mind: Apparently the less talk the fewer problems.

But there are costs here. Nations still follow us, but that is less likely where they have little idea of where we are going. There are also serious concerns about the policies themselves: uncertainty about what the policy is because of divisions within the ranks; questions about our basic orientation and whether the specific pieces of policy fit together; and skepticism about whether action and rhetoric coincide. Some of these problems of course emerge in every administration. Bush needs to define his foreign policy lines publicly before his leadership in this area is further questioned and his credibility tarnished. Indeed, the process of publicly enunciating policy in the U.S. government often helps not just to clarify policy but to make it. Here are some of the difficult issues that need airing.

First, China -- always a hard nut for Republicans (or Democrats). On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, China is a "strategic competitor." It is turning growth into military expansion, it is a threat not only to Taiwan but to the whole Asian region, and we are overlooking its domestic political obscenities. We have to toughen our posture and increase our forces in Asia, except when we need to be nice to China in advancing missile defense. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, we have to "engage" China: We want to deepen its involvement in the world and help move it further toward economic and political transformation. With Powell's recent visit to China, engagement has staked a claim to Sunday as well.

Similarly, the administration and its congressional supporters are divided on North Korea. Some see the possibility for progress on issues of importance to us such as limiting North Korean missile development and missile exports. Others want no truck with Pyongyang and want it to stew in its juices. The administration started by effectively declaring North Korea an unfit negotiating partner, later suggesting terms in effect requiring it to change its policies before we give it a little food and start a dialogue, and now moving to a posture of wanting to talk without conditions. It remains unclear, though, what we are prepared to discuss and what deals if any we want to do with this opaque and terrible state. So far we have undermined less North Korea and more the president of South Korea.

Problems with European friends and allies are not new, but they seem to be growing, reflecting Europe's rising strength and increasingly different world view. We have basic disagreements over issues such as missile defense, global warming and the death penalty. We have differences on such immediate issues as Arab-Israeli violence and Saddam Hussein. There are always economic arguments. We will need the help of some European countries on a variety of issues including missile defense. On the other hand the major preoccupation of our NATO allies is the Balkans, right now Macedonia. It appears that for the U.S. government the Balkans were yesterday: We continue to diminish our effort there, supply few forces for Macedonia and rule out more, and basically want to get out and leave this still precarious area to European handling. Whatever the merits of our positions, we will need to balance competing demands and establish priorities in our dealings with Europe if we want its cooperation, particularly in areas outside Europe.

Our Iraq policy is a muddle. Administration officials before and after coming to power attacked the Clinton administration -- quite correctly -- for its ineffective policy, including a stunning reversal on the necessity for on-site inspection for weapons of mass destruction. They talked loudly about bringing Saddam down but have so far come up with little more than the Clinton administration had been doing. Here too the administration is divided between those who insist on destroying Saddam but have proposed no convincing way to do it without the help of regional allies, particularly Turkey, and those whose basic posture is to wait Saddam out. The result of our rhetoric is a loss of credibility

Last, our basic orientation is unclear on some matters of principle. We want to get out of peacekeeping, but have we chosen to opt out of difficult, uncertain engagements where vast numbers of lives may be at stake? Have we seriously reduced our willingness to act abroad without complete assurance of success as in the Middle East -- where the administration inherited a bloody mess -- or the Balkans? Is the president's professed interest in reducing worldwide poverty little more than the usual U.N.-type rhetoric? Mr. Bush sees Mr. Putin's soul, but not Chechnya. While affirming a strong commitment to expanding trade, the administration has also expressed its general abhorrence of IMF bailouts but agrees to each one.

Instead of being offered serious elaboration of foreign policy, we often hear the mantra that "the world has changed." True, but that is only a beginning of understanding, not a discussion of policy. The public needs to know where the president intends to take the country internationally. He has told us much of what he is opposed to; he needs to lay out with some specificity what we are for besides missile defense and trade expansion.

Mr. Bush reached out and explained his position -- whatever one thought of it -- on the difficult issue of stem cell research. It is time he did the same for foreign policy -- for the American people, for friends and foes, and for the sake of his presidency. His upcoming speech at the U.N. General Assembly is an obvious opportunity to chart a clearer path.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company