DATE=12/21/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=YEARENDER: U-S FOREIGN POLICY - TWO
NUMBER=5-45076
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:

            /// EDS: This is the second of two year-
end spots on foreign policy. The first moved as 5-
45073 ///

INTRO:  As U-S officials try to develop a post-Cold 
War foreign policy, many foreign policy experts debate 
what they see as the need to reconcile two sometimes 
conflicting needs - the desire to do good in the world 
and the requirement to defend U-S national interests.  
V-O-A's Ed Warner asked four leading foreign policy 
analysts for their views of this continuing dilemma.


TEXT:  There is always tension between the national 
interest and humanitarian impulses in American foreign 
policy, says Joseph Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School of 
Government at Harvard University:

            /// Nye Act ///

      It is not enough just to say one should look 
      only at the interests we have and not at our 
      values because our values are included in our 
      interests.  The hard part is to find ways to 
      include our values without at the same time 
      undercutting the larger foreign policy.  Human 
      rights policy is part of a foreign policy, but 
      it is not a whole foreign policy.

            /// End Act ///

Too often, says Mr. Nye, U-S foreign policy may be 
driven by what he calls the "C-N-N factor" - that is, 
television images of suffering people may lead to a 
public demand for action that does not turn out to be 
in the national interest.  He cites the U-S 
intervention in Somalia in 1992 as an example.

Americans cannot impose their morality on such an 
imperfect world, says Michael Mandelbaum of the 
Council on Foreign Relation.  Trying to right too many 
wrongs can make things worse:

            /// Mandelbaum Act ///

      The new kinds of commitments, the humanitarian 
      interventions - what some have called foreign 
      policy as social work - are not very well 
      defined and have not been particularly 
      successful.  The United States led NATO to war 
      against Yugoslavia in 1999, but it is not clear 
      on the basis of what principle that war was 
      fought and therefore it is not clear where else 
      the United States would fight under similar 
      circumstances.

            /// End Act ///

Mr. Mandelbaum says despite its good intentions, the 
United States is gaining the reputation of a rogue 
superpower.  This may lead other powers to join an 
anti-American coalition.

Many consider the United States the bully of the 
planet, says Ted Carpenter, director of Defense and 
Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a 
libertarian policy research group in Washington.  The 
trouble with humanitarian intervention, he says, is 
that it can quickly become inhumane:

            /// Carpenter Act ///

      It also assumes almost unlimited knowledge on 
      the part of American policy makers that we know 
      who is on the side of the angels in a quarrel 
      and who is the aggressor and the evil party.  As 
      we have seen in the Balkans, Somalia and so many 
      other parts of the world, these conflicts are 
      often very murky struggles involving parties 
      that are not all that savory.  There may be no 
      good guys in a particular conflict.

            /// End Act ///

Mr. Carpenter says the United States bombed the Serbs 
in Kosovo to stop their ethnic cleansing of Albanians.  
Now Albanians are cleaning out Serbs.  What, he asks, 
has been accomplished, other than some Americans 
feeling good about themselves?

General William Odum, director of National Security 
Studies at the Hudson Institute, a policy research 
group, believes American values and interests coincide 
in the Balkans, which are part of Europe and therefore 
of vital concern to the United States.  He concedes 
that interventions are usually a close call - a trial 
and error process:

            /// Odum Act ///

      If presidents decide to intervene in places that 
      do not work out, after they become failures, the 
      American public will take their retribution in 
      voting, and presidents will have to get out of 
      some of these areas.  There is no formula that 
      will resolve the morality issue versus our 
      strategic interest issue in advance and in all 
      cases.  Some of them are fairly clear cut, but 
      most are not.  It takes leadership and judgment.

            /// End Act ///

General Odum says no policy or formula can ever 
replace informed judgment on foreign affairs and the 
will and ability to put it into action. (signed)

NEB/EW/JP




21-Dec-1999 11:40 AM EDT (21-Dec-1999 1640 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.