The Case for Pragmatism

William G. Hyland

From Foreign Affairs, America and the World 1991/92

Summary:  With the end of the Cold War, and of the concerns it involved, it is natural that US attention should turn to the solution of domestic and economic problems. It is exaggeration to read such a shift as "some form of isolationism".

William G. Hyland is Editor of Foreign Affairs.

Last year should have been a time to reflect on the profound changes brought by the end of the Cold War. Instead it turned out to be the year of America?s first war since Vietnam. No sooner had the country begun to absorb that amazing victory than events in the Soviet Union turned 1991 into the year that witnessed the end of the personal reign of Mikhail Gorbachev and, indeed, the end of the U.S.S.R. itself. Finally, the nation paused to pay its respects at Pearl Harbor, on the 50th anniversary of the day that would "live in infamy."

December 7, 1941, was the opening battle of the Second World War for the United States. But Pearl Harbor also marked the closing of one historical period and the opening of another. America finally ended its self-imposed isolation from world affairs on that day, and for the next 50 years was to be deeply involved in the global struggle against fascism and then against communism.

That period has ended. It was an odd twist of fate that on the very day America marked the 50th anniversary of Congress? declaration of war against Japan, the leaders of three former Soviet republics gathered in Brest to proclaim the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was World War II and the destruction of Japan and Germany that opened the way to the aggressive advances of the U.S.S.R. and its satellites and to the Cold War itself. Now that war also has definitively ended. With that dramatic proclamation on December 8, 1991, America was freed from the threats and fears that had driven its foreign and domestic policies for half a century.

It is rare in history that a country can craft a wholly new foreign policy. But within the constraints inevitably imposed by geography and history, the United States now has that very opportunity. Thus it turns out that what only last spring seemed like a shrewd political slogan?a new world order?is quite appropriate. What America is involved in will indeed be quite different, if not completely new. The arena will still be global in scope. But what constitutes "order" and how to achieve it are already focal points of debate.

II

Is America turning isolationist? The quick answer is no.

It should not be surprising, however, that such a question arises. The end of the Cold War has liberated the debate about foreign policy; ideas that would have been anathema only five years ago have to be entertained (for instance, withdrawing from the Philippines). There is also America?s traditional bias against foreign "entanglements." Economic troubles are easy to blame on foreign countries, especially with a political campaign on the horizon. After decades of internationalism, there is nostalgia for a more "normal" foreign policy. Even some of the old isolationist slogans have been revived.

But times have changed. The isolationism of the 1920s and 1930s reflected a determination to avoid being dragged into another European war. Even then, America was not truly isolated. Washington sponsored the naval disarmament conference of 1921-22 and was actively involved in European affairs through the Dawes and Young reparation plans, and even took the lead in condemning Japan?s invasion of Manchuria in 1932. The America First Committee was not formed until 1940, as a movement opposed to joining the war on Britain?s side; it earned a reputation as antisemitic and pro-German, and disbanded four days after Pearl Harbor.

Those days are long gone. The United States is deeply entangled by the world?s economy, by global technology, by international politics and institutions, and by half a dozen security alliances. It would probably take at least a decade of dedicated efforts by both the Congress and the president to extricate the United States from the world enough even to approximate the isolation of the 1930s. The result would be a global crisis of unimaginable proportions in a world of a dozen or more nuclear powers.

If isolationism is not a serious option, however, this does not mean that there will be only marginal adjustments to the basic policies of the Cold War era. The neo-isolationist critique provokes some genuine questions about policy: What is the rationale for a multibillion-dollar foreign aid program? Why are large American forces stationed abroad? What is an adequate defense posture? What are "fair" trading practices? Posing such questions, long thought settled in the Cold War, suggests that there will be, and ought to be, genuine debate over the conduct of post-Cold War policy.