Foreign Policy for a Democratic President

Samuel R. Berger

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004

Summary:  By stressing unilateralism over cooperation, preemption over prevention, and firepower over staying power, the Bush administration has alienated the United States' natural allies and disengaged from many of the world's most pressing problems. To restore U.S. global standing--which is essential in checking the spread of lethal weapons and winning the war on terrorism--the next Democratic president must recognize the obvious: that means are as important as ends.

Samuel R. Berger served as National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 and is Chairman of Stonebridge International, LLC.

Part of the problem has been reluctance in certain military quarters to adapt our armed forces to these kinds of missions. Some military leaders fear that if the army develops peacekeeping capacity, civilian leaders will be too tempted to use it. But the fact remains that presidents of both parties have sent our forces on at least seven major postconflict peacekeeping or "stability" operations in the last decade. Denial is not a strategy for preparedness. Like it or not, such operations will inevitably be a large part of the military's role for the foreseeable future. A Democratic administration will need to ensure that our army has the force structure, training, and appropriate weaponry to do what we ask of it, including fighting enemies, combating insurgencies, safeguarding public security, and protecting civilians. And it must ensure that we have civilian institutions -- domestic and international -- that are prepared to act so that our military is not asked to do more than is necessary.

If the Bush administration were more committed to collective action, it would have greater authority to press NATO allies to improve their military capabilities. We cannot accept a division of labor in which we fight and they talk. We will be confronted with the need to rebuild failed and postconflict societies, yet we should not be compelled to do so alone. We need international institutions with ready-to-move capability. Ensuring such capability is imperative for the UN if it is to maintain its relevance. A Democratic administration should lead an effort to turn the UN into the NATO of civilian peacekeeping, giving it the capacity to call upon member countries' dedicated capabilities -- from police to civil servants -- and deploy them rapidly to hot spots around the world.

MAKING THE WORLD'S FIGHT OUR OWN

The primary objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to make the United States more secure, which means applying our power to the fight against terrorism and the spread of deadly weapons. But if there is one lesson we should have learned in the last three years, it is that American power will be resisted -- even by our friends -- if it is applied solely for self-protection and not for purposes that are more broadly shared.

With precious few exceptions (including President Bush's Middle East democracy initiative and his realization that the United States must help combat AIDS), we have witnessed a narrowing of purpose and vision since September 11, 2001. Before that date, the administration had a national missile defense policy. It now has a terrorism policy and an Iraq policy. But the Bush administration still does not have a true foreign policy suited to the demands of a global power with global responsibilities. We must start leading again across a broader agenda, in more places, and with a wider definition of our national interest.

The next president must end our neglect of Latin America and restore the United States' reputation as a defender of democracy, which has been frayed by the Bush administration's approaches to Venezuela and Haiti. He must treat Africa as more than a backwater in the war on terrorism. President Bush's promise to send U.S. troops to Liberia, only to pull them back after ten days ashore, did enormous damage to our reputation on that continent.

In Asia, home to more than half of the world's people, a tectonic geopolitical and economic shift is taking place. But the United States remains strangely disengaged. Not long ago, the nations of the region feared China and saw their future tied to ours. Today, the reverse is happening. China has skillfully turned most of the countries of Southeast Asia, including Australia, into allies. Its economy is growing by leaps and bounds, it has stepped up to diplomatic challenges such as that posed by North Korea, and it is increasingly seen as a dominant power in the region. Russia, flush with oil, is emerging as a stable and growing power and asserting itself in Asia. India is emerging from generations of insularity and self-absorption, opening itself up to the world. A Democratic administration will have to ensure that the United States stays in the game in Asia. It must encourage emerging regional powers to channel their energies in the right directions and restore our leadership in responding to regional crises.

The new president will also need to reassert U.S. interest in what happens inside the borders of China and Russia. The stakes are enormous: without political reform, China will stagnate economically, unable to meet the demands of hundreds of millions dislocated by change. And without more widespread respect for the rule of law, or for its neighbors' sovereignty, Russia will neither attract investment nor energize its people. True realists understand the linkage between the way countries are governed and their external behavior. Yet the Bush administration has largely ignored questions of internal development in these countries. President Bush has not once articulated a comprehensive strategy for dealing with China or Russia, instead concerning himself narrowly with their actions on the global stage.

A Democratic president will face the challenge of restoring the substantive as well as the geographical reach of our foreign policy, showing the world that we understand a simple truth: all terrorism is evil, but not all evil is terrorism. For the vast majority of people in the world, the greatest danger is not al Qaeda. It is localized armed conflict over political power, resources, and ethnicity. It is poverty, disease, and environmental destruction. These scourges claim exponentially more lives each year than terrorism does. They should matter to us as much as we expect our concerns to matter to others.