One Degree of Separation

By Johanna McGeary

This is supposed to be the campaign of domestic issues, in which foreign policy is President Bush's strong suit -- even though he doesn't necessarily want to remind voters of that -- and candidate Clinton is too inexperienced to challenge him. But a funny thing happened when they wrangled over Bosnia for a day last week. Bush looked vulnerable on foreign matters, and Clinton showed he was not afraid to attack him. More important perhaps, it reminded voters of the fundamental choice they make when they step into the ballot booth each four years: Who deserves to sit in the Commander in Chief's chair? That used to boil down to whose finger Americans wanted on the nuclear button. But in the post-cold war era, does it matter if that man is George or Bill?

The answer is not that simple. Most foreign policy is reactive, the business of handling events the U.S. didn't initiate and can't necessarily control. Presidents tend to be judged less by the good deeds they set in motion than by ! how well they respond to crises. Jimmy Carter's conscientious conclusion of the Panama Canal treaties was overshadowed by his fumbling over the Tehran hostages. George Bush's adroit management of the Gulf War largely explains his reputation for statesmanship.

On the big issues, no President's foreign policy is all that different from his predecessor's and neither candidate is calling for radical revision. Americans by and large don't want great swings in the conduct of foreign affairs, which is why a Barry Goldwater or a George McGovern doesn't get elected: the art form rests in reinventing the center.

On the other hand, the choice of President this time has rarely been more important; 1992 is a year, like 1815 or 1945, when a great transformation of global politics is under way. The old verities that shaped U.S. policy have vanished: for 45 years all candidates shared the basic belief that America's main job abroad was to contain communism, though some took a more confrontational line, some a more conciliatory one. The next President faces an entirely different challenge, grappling with seismic changes in which the choices are confusing, the directions obscure.

Once the political chaff is dusted away, the mini-debate over Bosnia is instructive. Both Bush and Clinton were saying the same thing. What Marlin Fitzwater called "reckless" -- Clinton's suggestion that the U.S. seek U.N. authorization for selective bombing to safeguard the relief of Sarajevo -- virtually repeated the prescriptions of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. Clinton barely overstepped the cautious line the Bush Administration has been following.

In fact, the two are remarkably similar on most foreign issues.

YUGOSLAVIA. No real debate here. Both call it a multinational and mainly European responsibility. Both support the Sarajevo airlift, but that is just a Band-Aid. Neither man has offered a plan for bringing the carnage in the splintering republics to an end, or a clear policy on how to manage the dangerous separatist wave sweeping the world. The Clinton camp's critique is mainly hindsight: Bill wouldn't have held on to the sanctity of Yugoslav unity so long, Bill wouldn't have signaled Serbia that the U.S. would not resist its aggression as the Bush Administration did, Bill would have acted sooner on humanitarian relief.

IRAQ. Not much difference here either: Clinton's main note is one of strong backing for Bush's get-tough policies. The U.N. resolutions must be complied + with, and if Saddam will not do it voluntarily, force has to be contemplated. "I supported the Gulf War, and I support being firm with Saddam now," he declared last week. Well, not quite. Clinton's position in January 1991 was far more equivocal, simultaneously suggesting sanctions be given more time and advising Congress not to vote against authorizing the use of force. The candidate is trying to deflate Bush's Gulf War reputation by depicting the President as an appeaser whose "coddling" of Saddam before August 1990 helped bring the war on. "Clinton will not try to buy good behavior from tyrants," says foreign policy adviser Michael Mandelbaum. But Clinton doesn't have a better idea on how to resolve the Kurdish problem or how to remove Saddam from power either.

THE FORMER SOVIET UNION. Clinton stole a march on a meek and miserly Bush by coming out in December for substantial aid to assist Russia's transition to democracy and a market economy. Twenty minutes before the candidate delivered his second major speech on the subject in April, Bush rushed to join his rival by stepping into the White House press room and delivering a similar message. Now little separates them but rhetoric: Clinton has been able to make the more compelling case that a modest investment is a sound investment in America's own future well-being.

MIDDLE EAST. Credit where credit is due, says Clinton. He applauds Secretary of State James Baker's handling of the peace process, but he would not have held loan guarantees for resettling Soviet Jews in Israel hostage to a freeze on building settlements in the occupied territories. "That is a signal to Arabs that the U.S. will deliver Israel, and that's not right," said a Clinton adviser. The Democrat's rejection of such a link puts him squarely in the old party tradition of siding firmly with Israel. This is one case in which Clinton's effort to distance himself from Bush seems more partisan than wise.

CHINA. Bush refuses to rescind most-favored-nation trading status for Beijing in retaliation for human-rights abuses, weapons sales and the Tiananmen Square massacre; Clinton would. That might satisfy American moral outrage, but neither move seems likely to affect China's political course for the better.

HAITI. Bush says the refugees are fleeing destitution, not persecution, and refuses even to let them plead their cases for political asylum by turning them back on the high seas. A New York appeals court last week declared the practice illegal, and Clinton shares the view that the boat people deserve the right to assert their claims. But he is a good deal vaguer when it comes to actually accepting them in the U.S., no doubt mindful of popular resistance to any major influx.

The similarity of the two candidates' positions may be Bush's biggest problem. Republicans have had a lock on foreign policy ever since McGovern and Vietnam swung the Democrats sharply to the left. Voters consistently found them too soft to trust with the nation's security. But Clinton is attempting to erase that stigma by aligning himself closely to the middle. Both he and Bush are internationalists, both are willing to use force if necessary, neither is an ideologue. Their differences on specific issues tend to be in degree rather than in kind: a matter of a few dollars more or less in defense cuts or Russian aid; a tad more aggressive or cautious in Bosnia.

So the main difference -- and the essence of the choice -- comes down to attitude. Bush says trust me, I am the man to take the phone call in the night, I am the candidate with "the experience, the seasoning, the guts to do the right thing." Clinton counters that he is the younger, forward-looking man of bold action who can set the new goals, devise the new mission the U.S. needs in the post-cold war world. Bush says Clinton is "reckless"; Clinton says Bush is "rudderless and reactive." Bush is selling himself as the custodian of American hegemony in a unipolar world, Clinton as the advocate of multinational responsibility exercised through reshaped global institutions.

So far, Clinton has been longer on rhetoric -- and sometimes shorter, as Bush gibed last week when he recalled that Clinton devoted a mere 141 words to national security in his convention acceptance speech -- than on detailed policies. He apparently hopes to establish his credentials with broad arguments of conviction: strength abroad depends on economic revival at home; the U.S. must build on freedom's victory in the cold war; leaders must act, not react. Bush no doubt agrees with most of this, but he has been unable to articulate any guiding principles.

The President's difficulty in touting his foreign policy record is that there is one. While voters credit him -- with growing reservations -- for the Gulf War and maybe the Middle East peace talks, his statesmanship is afflicted with the same sense of drift and passivity as his domestic agenda. Clinton's & problem is that he is a tabula rasa on which a foreign agenda has yet to be written: Much is promised, but what will he deliver? Choosing between them looks like an act of faith. If there ever is a real debate over national security issues in this campaign, it might help the voters decide which man to believe.