Letter to an Isolationist

By Henry Grunwald

The dread word isolationism is again being tossed at the U.S. You may think you don't deserve that label, but the fact is that you have turned sharply against American involvements abroad. That is partly because isolationism is as American as apple pie, partly because the cold war is over, partly because in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, Clinton and his foreign policy team evoke the gang that couldn't shoot straight. That impression was certainly reinforced by the spectacle of the "world's only superpower" beating a panicky retreat in Mogadishu over the deaths of 18 American troops. But, you say, along with practically everyone else, if we intervene somewhere and risk even one American life, it must be only in the American national interest. The nagging question: Just what is the American national interest?

During the cold war, you may have violently disagreed about exactly where and how the U.S. should resist communism, but you shared the rough consensus that resistance and involvement were necessary. The Soviets had nukes, they and their allies fought our influence everywhere, and you worried about the prospect of a lot of countries going communist. Maybe you thought it wouldn't matter here and there, but if it happened in too many places, there would go ! the global neighborhood; we would end up with a world in which the U.S. could hardly feel safe, could hardly be itself.

Do you believe that this kind of danger is really gone? Nuclear arsenals, while mercifully shrinking, are still around, many of them in the hands of unstable regimes that are potentially more dangerous than the relatively predictable old Soviet Union. Communism as such may have expired, but it threatens to be replaced by nationalist, aggressive totalitarianism; if that became widespread, the world would be nearly as unhealthful for America as it would have been if communist regimes had proliferated.

Come on, you say, the U.S. cannot fight totalitarianism all over the map. Of course not. But there are certain situations, in addition to attacks on American territory or lives, in which the U.S. must act. Here are some: 1) if the world faces a nuclear threat, for example from North Korea; 2) if a vital U.S. ally is attacked; 3) if a crucial area like the Middle East is once again subjected to Iraqi-style aggression; 4) if we are confronted with a major terrorist offensive.

By these criteria, military intervention in Somalia was a mistake, in the Clinton version even more than in the Bush version. The idea of bringing democracy to Haiti with the help of a few hundred lightly armed troops (or even with much stronger forces) was harebrained, no matter what political deal may yet be cobbled together. Bosnia presented the strongest case for intervention, but it would have been a mistake as well, even if limited to air strikes, which could hardly have curbed the deep tribal hatreds at the dark heart of the struggle. The Clinton Administration's fault was promising action, then pulling back. Only when and if what is essentially a civil war were to become an international conflict would military intervention be justified. Compelling as the moral and humanitarian demands are, we must balance them against what we can realistically expect to achieve; hunger and bloodshed are not stopped by military failure.

Do we then ignore any and all explosive ethnic conflicts? After all, how many Bosnias would it take to tear the fabric of an interdependent world and damage the global marketplace, which is essential to our prosperity? We cannot ignore them, but we cannot usually solve them by sending in American soldiers. The threat of force, including ground troops as a last resort, must remain a weapon in the President's hands, but force must never be threatened unless we are really prepared to use it. You undoubtedly agree with the current conventional wisdom that we must act only when we know when and how to get out, but that makes no sense; if a situation is benign enough to permit this, it probably doesn't require intervention in the first place, and a previously announced exit date merely invites troublemakers to outwait us. You distrust the United Nations, but you should not blame it for American errors. Lately the U.N., with American acquiescence, has tended to overreach, acting like the world government it is not; still the U.N. remains useful, not as an enforcer but as a facilitator of peace. We should work with it, but not under it. Also, we must invent new international structures, including new regional groupings and an expanded, redirected (and possibly renamed) NATO that would take in East European countries and act beyond its traditional area.

The overriding U.S. national interest is an open world in which America can thrive. (That is why protectionism and the anti-NAFTA campaign, merely other forms of isolationism, are so dangerous.) But such a world will not even be approached without American ideas, initiatives and sustained, sophisticated presidential leadership. Power takes many forms, and it seems that Clinton does not yet fully understand the uses of power. The opposite of isolationism is not necessarily intervention but constant, consistent engagement in the world. That is what you should ask of Bill Clinton: the foreign equivalent of his domestic "permanent campaign." If he can achieve that, there should be no reason for you to be an isolationist; but if he fails, America will be isolated.