Foreign Policy: Thoughts on a Second Reagan Administration

FOREIGN POLICY: THOUGHTS ON A SECOND REAGAN ADMINISTRATION Robert W. Tucker he safest wager on what the Reagan administration will do in foreign policy during a second term is that it will follow substantially the same course it followed in its first term. There will be some changes, particularly in style. Indeed, these changes are for the most part already apparent. The administration has learned something from experience. Clearly, it has learned to appear to take arms control more seriously and to show a greater receptivity to arms control proposals than it was once inclined to do. More generally, it has come to appreciate that publics at home and in Western Europe must be constantly reassured against the dangers of war. We may expect that the rhetoric of the administration will be moderated in a second term, as it has already been moderated this past year. There are many reasons for skepticism about the prospects for significant policy shifts. There is the inertia that tends to mark administrations in a second term, even administrations with a higher energy level and interest in foreign policy than this administration has shown to date. Policy changes are more often than not difficult, even traumatic, affairs. They may involve the reexamination of long-held convictions. They may upset and alienate old friends and allies. They frequently give rise to Robert W. Tucker is Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at SAIS. Professor Tucker is also president and trustee of the Lehrman Institute and the author of numerous books and articles, including The Purposes ofAmerican Power and "The Nuclear Debate," which appeared in Foreign Affairs (Fall 1984). 1 2 SAIS REVIEW draining bureaucratic battles. If Mr. Reagan were determined to meet and to overcome these consequences, there is little reason to doubt that he could do so. Yet, now that electoral necessities have passed, what would prompt him to embark on a course marked by the above difficulties? Nevertheless, a plausible case can be made for expecting a change in foreign policy. It proceeds largely on domestic considerations. The administration's security policy has rested from the outset on a rather fragile domestic base, one that is likely to become still more fragile in the course of a second term. Despite the otherwise favorable changes that have occurred in the American global position since 1980, this domestic base must sharply qualify the foreign policy prospects ofa second Reagan administration. If anywhere, it is here that the Reagan course may be challenged in a way that will force a significant change in policy, particularly toward the Soviet Union. It is commonplace to point to the importance of the Reagan economic transformation in contributing to the striking improvement in the nation's global position. But the nature of this transformation continues to cause great unease, and not without reason. For it has rested on the assumption that the nation's economy can provide the wherewithal for the restoration of American military power without exacting any sacrifice from the public. Once again in our postwar history an ambitious defense policy has been predicated on the prospects of sustained economic growth rather than on an increased tax burden. Indeed, on this occasion the promises of an administration improved on past promises. Now, it was promised that economic growth would not only make up for additional military expenditures but—the causes of growth at last being properly understood—would permit a substantial tax cut as well. To date, the promise remains unrealized. Instead, budgetary deficits that almost rival in size the defense budget threaten to become a permanent fixture of the domestic economic scene. Should they do so, the United States may increasingly become a debtor country whose economic growth is more and more dependent on foreign capital and, of course, more and more subject to the discipline of international markets. So far, the Reagan administration, instead of viewing this increasing dependency as a danger to be avoided given the volatility of foreign capital, appears to find in it an opportunity to be more assiduously pursued. Accordingly, it has bent its efforts to attract even more foreign capital. The administration's rearmament effort has thus proceeded on...