Voters worried first and foremost about the steadiness of the finger on the nuclear trigger. But with the cold war over and troubles looming at home, the candidates have spent more time discussing Bill Clinton’s draft status in 1969 than America’s diplomatic and military options abroad.
That’s unfortunate, because the winner in November will have an extraordinary opportunity to define America’s global role for years to come. Past debates were variations on a theme set in the late 1940s: how to contain communism. But the next Oval Office occupant will have to define a whole new vision of the post-cold-war world and America’s role in it.
In a basic sense, Bush and Clinton are not far apart. Clinton’s first goal is to appear credible as a commander in chief He may have been in some way shaped by his antiwar activism, but he is not George McGovern advocating “Come Home America.” Like Bush, he is an internationalist who believes that the United States must have a strong global presence, both economically and militarily. But there are also important differences in their fundamental attitudes:
BUSH: Preserving the Status Quo. Clinton likes to charge that Bush is a cold-war has-been, and in some ways the criticism is on the mark. At heart, Bush cares about the old cold-war goal of stability. He still plays the old client game, making friends with foreign leaders and then doing his best to prop them up. He has a cold-war distaste for messy nationalist movements. Their leaders, national-security adviser Brent Scowcroft likes to say, are “not ready for prime time.”
CLINTON: The Economy First. Both candidates would redefine national security to include economic security. But Clinton would tilt more toward the home front. As a practical matter, he recognizes, Americans will no longer automatically support foreign engagements if people are hurting at home. Clinton is considering the idea of establishing an Economic Security Council to mirror the National Security Council. He has not figured out, however, how to meld their inevitably competing viewpoints.
PEROT: Fortress America. Perot’s rhetoric on trade is fairly protectionist, and he would deeply cut U.S. troop strength in Europe. But judging from his penchant for Rambo raids and spying, the CIA would be kept busy abroad.
Whoever wins in November will be strapped for cash. Don’t look for any modern-day Marshall Plans to rescue Russia or some other country. Defense is “the First National Bank for everything else,” says defense analyst Gordon Adams, and any new president will have to raid it for domestic needs. Clinton is likely to dig deeper-his five-year defense plan spends $60 billion less than Bush’s. But Clinton can’t go too far without slashing an unacceptable number of defense-industry jobs.
The most important differences between Bush and Clinton come over their attitudes toward the use of force. Bush showed a willingness, some would say an eagerness, to use force in Panama and the Persian Gulf. But he believes in using a hammer to kill a gnat. He essentially agrees with the position taken by Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: that unless the military can go in with massive force and the certainty of total victory, it should not go in at all. Clinton argues that there are times when limited force should be used to back up diplomatic initiatives, even if the outcome is not certain. Clinton is more inclined than Bush to overlook a nation’s sovereign borders if the local regime is slaughtering the citizenry. Thus, while Bush has been extremely reluctant to commit force in Bosnia, Clinton said the United States should be prepared to join with other nations in a multinational force to shoot its way into the Sarajevo airport. Sending in the Marines still seems unlikely, but Clinton might end up using American air power to bomb Serbian positions.
Clinton’s arguments eerily echo those used by John F. Kennedy 30 years ago. JFK argued that President Eisenhower’s doctrine of “massive retaliation” with nuclear weapons was not a credible deterrent in the fight against communism. Kennedy argued that the United States had to be prepared to fight limited wars. His doctrine of “flexible response” helped get the United States into Vietnam-a war that bred the modern Pentagon’s insistence on all-or-nothing. Will Clinton, like JFK, use force to show that he is tough? The voters may not have to wait very long to find out. By Inauguration Day 1993, the slaughter in Bosnia may provide a powerful impetus for any American president to intervene.
