Foreword

FOREWORD Understanding the difference between necessity and choice is the first step a new administration must take ifit is to develop a successful foreign policy. In the twilight of a Reagan administration foreign policy that has evolved from the limitations placed on policymakers by their ideological zeal to an unexpectedly pragmatic approach to the Soviet Union, the United States must now come to terms with its own mortality. The 1980s have been relatively stable and prosperous, yet the budget and trade deficits accrued over the past eight years exemplify not only poor management but a primary fault in the composition of the American ethos: the differences between necessity and choice have become increasingly blurred and may no longer be distinguished. Excess government spending reflects an attitude prevalent among a cross section of the U.S. citizenry: the tacit acceptance of living, and in some cases thriving , on borrowed money. The government —reflecting the mind-set of its citizenry—has spent beyond its resources and does not worry about payment. As the Republicans continue to rest on the laurels of the economic expansion that occurred during the Reagan years, the Democrats retort that any administration could achieve such economic growth if it had a one trillion dollar limit on its mythical Visa card. The United States must now construct a fiscally sound and realistic foreign policy agenda. The issue of necessity and choice in U.S. foreign policy has become particularly volatile as a new administration must choose those Reagan policies it wishes to pursue and those it will redirect. The ability to control the temptation of misusing the almost unlimited privilege given to a president to create his own unique chapter in a history book will make the difference between a foreign policy guided by ideological zealotry or rational expectations. Simon Serfaty's "Farewell to Reagan: New vi SAIS REVIEW Beginnings Are Not Needed" illustrates that a more pragmatic and less emotional foreign policy agenda in pursuit ofmoderate goals is the best, and most likely successful, course of action. The 1980s have witnessed fragmentation in the many areas of foreign policy decisionmaking, as the Reagan administration's international agenda has been inconsistent and often contradictory. Defining the foreign policy needs and choices for a new administration will require not only a possible reordering of priorities but also a redefinition of consensual goals. In "Building a New Consensus" a distinguished group of past and present foreign policy luminaries have joined in order to define what U.S. foreign policy goals should be after the conservative and liberal labels are shed and party allegiance is dissolved. From Harold Brown to Brent Scowcroft, the authors of the following two policy consensus reports on "Fiscal Policy and Foreign Policy" and "The Future of NATO" attempt— in their respective policy recommendations and working memorandums— to define a credible set of nonideological and nonpartisan policies that will reinvigorate the united voice of U.S. foreign policy from years past. Senator David L. Boren's article discusses the intragovernmental dynamics necessary to create such a consensus in foreign policy. Furthermore, in "1989: A Truly Presidential Agenda," George Liska writes of bipartisanship as a means of relating and reacting to the reform effort now under way in the Soviet Union: "If he [the new president] is to demonstrate leadership—as opposed to mere competence—he will have to shape a new, bipartisan foreign policy consensus, and he will have to show the will and the ability to break with established practice if the American people — and other concerned peoples—are to have a real opportunity to learn from trying antecedents." Since the Soviet Union has found it necessary (or was it by choice?) to reform temporarily its domestic and foreign policy doctrine, the United States must necessarily react to this challenge of a fundamental change in superpower relations. Although arms control agreements and strategic military policy are rarely, if at all, affected by public consensus in either country, cooperative ties in less life-threatening areas can help only to decrease tensions that have developed from years of propaganda and a lack of individual, day-to-day communication. In Burton I. Edelson and Alan Townsend's article on U...