Paradigm Lost

Richard N. Haass

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1995

Article preview: first 500 of 5,379 words total.

Summary:  No single successor to the containment doctrine could possibly guide U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War. Instead, American policymakers must distinguish between the means and ends of policy and strike the proper balance between the contending schools of thought in each. The task is to fashion a sturdy intellectual framework for policy, one weighted in favor of American leadership and "augmented realism." But the drift toward short-term ad hocracy simply will not do.

Richard N. Haass, until recently Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is Director of National Security Programs for the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is Intervention: The Use of American Military Force in the Post?Cold War World.

FROM CONTAINMENT TO CONFUSION

Senior Clinton administration officials are quick to point out that one reason for their foreign policy difficulties is that the world they inherited is a more complex place than what came before. Although this explanation exaggerates the simplicity and clarity of the past half century -- the applicability of "containment" was hotly contested throughout the Cold War, especially during the wars in Korea and Vietnam -- it does contain a kernel of truth.

Global changes have undoubtedly complicated the conceiving and conducting of U.S. foreign policy. Ours is a period of "international deregulation," one in which there are new players, new capabilities, and new alignments -- but, as yet, no new rules. This international flux is compounded by political anxieties at home. The public is motivated by a pervasive sense that domestic problems warrant the bulk of America's energies. Extensive media coverage and scrutiny have increased the pressure on the government to act while making acting more difficult. And the Republican control of both chambers of Congress that resulted from the 1994 midterm elections is certain to aggravate institutional friction between the legislature and the executive. The net result is that domestic support for foreign endeavors is contradictory, weak, and growing weaker.

In these unsettled circumstances, the Clinton administration has sought to articulate a new foreign policy doctrine -- a framework for international reregulation. Its principal attempt was National Security Adviser Anthony Lake's September 1993 statement that "the successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement, the enlargement of the world's free community of market democracies." While arguably useful as a long?term vision, this statement falls short as a practicable doctrine, which, as containment did, must define both interests and intentions. Despite the administration's insistence, it remains unclear that "enlarging" democracy actually qualifies as a paramount American interest. In any event, the objective is difficult -- at times impossible -- to translate into immediate policy while the process of democratization works its uncertain way.

The need to articulate a doctrine cannot be met by refining Mr. Lake's vision or developing an alternative. Such a conclusion reflects the nature of the world we are entering, one characterized by a diffusion of power in all its forms, whether technological, military, or economic. The immediate future will be one in which the United States faces numerous, if limited, challenges to its interests around the world. Moreover, new and growing problems -- from environmental degradation, disease, and population growth to weapons proliferation, nationalism, and the erosion of traditional nation?states -- pose serious challenges in their own right to regional stability. No doctrine can hope to provide a lens through which to view most events or a compass by which to decide most policies.

But to say that there can be no single foreign policy construct is not to argue that there can be no structure. To the contrary, intellectual structure is essential if we are to determine priorities and shape policies. Case?by?caseism, even if done ...

End of preview: first 500 of 5,379 words total.