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.

Unfortunately that debate has been disappointing and risks degenerating into sloganeering. For example, it is legitimate to urge a shift in priorities to domestic policy. Such a proposal should not have been contentious. With the end of the Cold War, foreign policy automatically became less important and less urgent. Yet as one observer put it: "We have all grown so jaded by the constant proclamations of new eras and new beginnings that we seem to have trouble recognizing the real thing when it finally arrives."

Such skepticism is well founded. In an election year, promises of a peace dividend are especially suspicious. The great budget battle of 1990 drew a sharp line to protect defense spending. Even the president reflected the lingering concern that somehow threats would continue; he claimed that "the challenges of this world are as daunting as Stalin?s army was menacing forty years ago."

Opinion polls, however, suggest that a change in the direction of priorities is what the public wants. Even in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, polls showed that the chief concerns of the American people, by a large margin, were domestic. These views merely confirm what has been a long-term trend of the post-Vietnam period. Since the late 1960s foreign policy issues have receded as the most important concerns of the public.

How to strike a balance between domestic and foreign policy requirements was therefore a serious issue. It was trivialized, however, by the charge that President Bush was spending too much time on foreign affairs. One Democratic candidate for president has said: "Our president has devoted his time and energy to foreign concerns and ignored dire problems at home. As a result, we?re drifting in the longest economic slump since World War II." It did not help much when the new White House chief of staff, Samuel Skinner, seemed to confirm the charge against the president by announcing that "the baton has been passed" from foreign to domestic policy.

It is quite misleading to frame the issue as a choice between domestic and foreign concerns. The two are traditionally distinct but are not easily fungible, and it is not a question of either/or. This initial phase of the debate, however, has created the impression that some form of isolationism was behind the proposals to shift resources to the domestic account. The president could hardly pass up a chance to attack the new isolationists for their "stubborn fantasy that we can live as an isolated island surrounded by a changing and developing world." Proposals for "disengagement" were interpreted as a call for a "retreat." Fears over isolationism were fueled by the success of Harris Wofford?s senatorial campaign in Pennsylvania featuring a protectionist tone, and given a further boost by the colorful candidacy of Patrick Buchanan. Perhaps most bizarre was the adoption of "America First" as one of the slogans of Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder?s short-lived presidential campaign.

It ought to be obvious that this country cannot afford to abdicate its interests to the decisions of others. Fortunately no serious observer or candidate is proposing to go that far. Many of the issues raised in Buchanan?s campaign and elsewhere, however, are not frivolous, and some impact has already been made by the revival of nationalistic rhetoric. His call for a "new nationalism" strikes a responsive chord with segments of the public. Attacking foreign aid is a hoary shibboleth, but in a recession, it exploits deep-seated popular resentments.

Even the so-called realists have defined the concept of the national interest in more circumspect terms than heretofore: "more discriminating in purpose, less cataclysmic in its strategy and, above all, more regional in design." A wariness of new commitments is also more evident. When Buchanan proposes to reexamine "all the institutions of the Cold War," from alliances to the stationing of permanent American armies abroad to the issue of foreign aid, he is in the company of many major figures in both parties. Indeed, Buchanan aside, a reversal of historical positions may even be in the making: the Democrats are sounding like Harding and the mainstream Republicans are sounding like Wilson?and both parties are sounding a little like Smoot and Hawley.

Fortunately the choice is not between isolationism and internationalism, or nationalism and globalism. There will always be a reservoir of isolationist sentiment in the United States; it is part of our heritage. This inclination was bound to reappear as foreign threats receded. What is new is that these isolationist overtones are heard from both the left and right.

There has also always been a strong Wilsonian strain in American policy. The new dimension is that, with the Soviet Union on the sidelines, the United States is free to intervene on behalf of human rights or democratic freedoms. Moreover the United Nations, in disrepute during the Cold War, has been resuscitated by the vigorous role of the Security Council in the gulf crisis.

Thus there is probably a better chance that a new internationalism may be in the offing than a return to some variant of isolationism; indeed, many observers argue that the real debate is between two categories of international realists. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, for example, writes: