Small Wars: Low-Intensity Threats and the American Response since Vietnam

Chapter 5: "Peace," Nation Building, and the New World Disorder

5 “Peace,” Nation Building, and the New World Disorder The longing for the preservation or resurrection of an old order, real or fantastic, is the key to understanding much of the world’s disorder. Even when our enemies are not personally motivated by the fear of change, it is the fears of their neighbors that grant those enemies opportunity. . . . Demagogues capitalize on the sense of trust betrayed and the “evil” of the new. They are geniuses of blame. All of their failures, and the failures of all of their followers, will forever be the fault of someone else. —Ralph Peters, “Our New Old Enemies” One way or another, we are in for it, and the only real question is whether we will realize it in time. —Madeleine Albright, “The Testing of American Foreign Policy” America began the post–Cold War era with a new world and new leadership . As was the case with Mikhail Gorbachev only a few years earlier, Bill Clinton represented a generation whose coming of age postdated World War II. As a “new” Democrat, Clinton remade his party’s approach to domestic affairs. Similarly, with respect to American foreign policy, the White House actively sought out a model that would move 140 New World Disorder beyond the ossified lines of the old world order. Candidate Clinton had been highly critical of the Bush administration coddling countries that endorsed repression, particularly communist China.1 He proposed that, in the future, the United States would promote standards around the world that embodied its democratic principles. Much as Jimmy Carter had done at the start of his presidency, Clinton embraced a high-minded desire for the United States to become a primary sponsor of global economic, political, and social progress . However, lacking foreign policy credentials, Clinton exhibited two unfortunate characteristics during his time in office. One was a tendency to conflate the foreign and domestic sides of his policy making . This trait allowed him to dovetail his diplomatic portfolio with a successful political campaign and allow him to speak about diplomacy with some degree of authority. As president-elect, Clinton claimed that “in this new era, our first foreign priority and our first domestic priority are one and the same: reviving the economy. An anemic, debt-ridden economy; the developed world’s highest rates of crime and poverty; an archaic education system; decaying roads, ports, and cities; all undermine our diplomacy, make it harder for us to secure favorable trade agreements, and compromise our ability to finance essential military action.”2 Unfortunately, what meant rhetorical sense did not translate well in reality. Despite his efforts to lend gravity to American foreign policy, Clinton’s lack of depth in foreign affairs distanced him from foreign service professionals and the Pentagon, making the practical application of his ideas difficult.3 A second tendency was Clinton’s penchant for delegating responsibility for foreign policy. To alleviate the gap between his experience and policy demand, Clinton relied heavily on a small group of key cabinet level officials: Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake. Collectively, they were idealists, combining foreign credentials with a general frustration about the status quo bequeathed by the Bush administration , in addition to an academic faith in sound international relations theories.4 When he left the State Department after Ronald Reagan’s election, Christopher called for a “new compact” between the president and the Congress, emphasizing “foreign-policy decision making based on mutually reinforcing commitments and mutually accepted restraints.”5 In 1984 Tony Lake wrote at length, along with New World Disorder 141 Leslie Gelb and I. M. Destler about the pitfalls of American policy making . The article recalled Henry Kissinger’s belief in policy designed for global realities and suggested a new consensus that moved the country away from “organizational disarray,” inconsistency, and the selfinflicted wounds of political partisanship.6 At its core, American foreign policy in Clinton’s first term was fundamentally reactionary, responding to the real and perceived shortfalls of the Reagan-Bush era. Moreover, the new foreign policy team and the president tended to focus on process rather than policy objectives in an effort to derive a new consensus from common practices (e.g., neoliberal economic policies) rather than common agreements. Unfortunately, without clear objectives, the administration suffered in its first term, particularly when it traveled in the wake of previous decisions . Such was the...