Dimensions: 9.25'' x 6.24'' 273 pages AEI Press  (Washington) Publication Date: March 1996 Hardcover ISBN: 0-8447-3958-8 Price: $ 24.95 Add to Cart   Examination Copies

March 1996
The Imperative of American Leadership: A Challenge to Neo-Isolationism
By Joshua Muravchik

This book presents the case for an active, interventionist American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. The author is a resident scholar at AEI. A summary of the book follows.

This book is an argument. It is an argument for a certain kind of U.S. foreign policy now that the cold war is behind us. It is an argument for a foreign policy that is engaged, proactive, interventionist, and expensive--as compared with what others would do.

This argument flies in the face of the shibboleth that America cannot be the world's policeman. In truth, it must be more than that. A policeman gets his assignments from higher authority. But in the community of nations, there is no higher authority. America is the wealthiest, mightiest, and most respected nation. At times, it must be the policeman or head of the posse--at others, the mediator, teacher, or benefactor. In short, America must accept the role of world's leader.

This message will not fall on welcoming ears in America. Other peoples at other times have warmed to the lures of empire. But Americans have no taste for it. Never in history has so much power whetted so little imperial appetite. And while Americans always rally to their president's summons in times of danger, they also have little taste for the burdens of leadership. It took the menace of Stalin (on top of the lesson of Hitler) to draw America out of the peacetime aloofness that had been its tradition since the founding of the republic.

Since the cold war ended, Americans have felt tempted to reduce our international engagement. Full-blown isolationism appeals to few of us, but the call to put the world's troubles at arm's length, to lay down burdens, is seductive both to liberals and to conservatives. In 1995, President Clinton accused the new Republican congressional majority of isolationism, and he was right insofar as they slashed foreign programs while treating many domestic entitlements more gingerly, throwing in needless tax cuts, and insofar as they voted to abolish an important foreign policy instrument, the U.S. Information Agency. But who was Clinton to talk? The plan pushed by Senator Jesse Helms to abolish the USIA and other agencies originated with Clinton's own secretary of state. And a large part of the isolationism of which Clinton accused the Republicans consisted of restraints on U.S. involvement with the United Nations, an involvement swelled by Clinton's own isolationist wish to deflect responsibilities for global security so that he might concentrate on "our own problems."

The voice that beckons us home is singing a siren song, for we cannot go home again. We can close military bases and bring some American soldiers back to the states. But we cannot return to being just another country among countries. That role has not been available to us for eighty years, and it is less available now than ever before. We emerged from World War I with the potential to be the world's strongest power but allowed that potential to waste, a lapse that unsettled the balance of power. We emerged from World War II as one of two supreme powers, and had we abdicated, as we were tempted to do, the results would have been even more disastrous. Now we have emerged from the cold war as the lone superpower, carrying a weight in world affairs unmatched in history except perhaps by the Roman or British Empires at their height. If we refuse to exercise the leadership that accrues naturally from our position, world politics will remain in volatile disequilibrium. It will be impossible for any other power, certainly any other democratic power, to find the confidence to lead from under our shadow.

Bosnia: A Test Case

Bosnia illustrates this point tragically. As the great test of leaving leadership to Europe and the United Nations, it revealed the sad decay of the United Nations. Originally, the organization had embodied the ideal that nations could unite against an aggressor to achieve collective security; it has now united behind the aggressor to achieve peace at any price. That was the plain meaning of the public complaints by Mr. Yasushi Akashi, the highest representative of the United Nations in Bosnia, that NATO airstrikes to protect UN-declared "safe areas" would discourage the Moslems from giving up.

The Bosnia debacle also revealed the weakness of the other great democracies. After proclaiming that the crisis in Yugoslavia constituted "the hour of Europe, not of the Americans," they allowed themselves to be held hostage by Serbia. They absorbed one humiliation after another, while they stoically endured the suffering of others. They could not fight without us. They could not even withdraw, we were told, without our coming to extricate them.

Even if we could return to the status of a nation like any other, why would we want to? Owen Harries says that America's "dirty little secret" is that it enjoys its status as superpower. What is dirty about it? And why should it be a secret? The Pax Americana, if you want to call it that, is unlike the Pax Romana or Pax Britannica in that it consists only of influence, not of empire. While it may be true that our power has sometimes been overbearing or oppressive, we have used it to liberate, not to conquer. We do not guard our status by keeping others down: some of our competitors are countries we have nurtured. Americans have every reason to feel proud and to want to keep our country strong, safe, and successful.

Ironically, while other people often envy or resent America's preeminence, they generally recognize that American leadership is essential. "It is really tragic to give a signal to the world that you [Americans] are not prepared to pursue your leadership," recently warned the foreign minister of Sweden, a country scarcely known for its subservience to America or its devotion to power politics. Aside perhaps from the French, the only people averse to American leadership are the Americans.

The Need for American Leadership

Why does the world need leadership? To speak of leadership implies that the nations are headed in some common direction, and it is not obvious that they are or should be. Despite their diversity, however, the nations do share the goal of prosperity and are to some degree interdependent in its quest. Most also share the goal of human rights, or at least pay lip service to it. Leadership is important in pursuit of both these goals. But there is a still more urgent requirement for leadership--leadership for peace and security. The world needs leadership to respond to crises, to discourage or thwart aggression, to settle quarrels, to uphold international law. In short, leadership is needed to prevent the world from dissolving into a Hobbesian chaos in which the strong prey at will on the weak.

That may explain why the world needs America's leadership, but does America need the world? What is the stake that justifies bearing the onus of leadership? With the demise of the Soviet Union, no force on earth can threaten America. We could minimize our political and military involvement abroad and still continue commercial relations. Adverse developments might impinge on our trade, but that would cost us only money, not lives or freedom. So goes the argument of the true isolationist, and it is perfectly coherent. But it fails on several grounds. Foreign trade is not a small part of our economy, but a large and growing part. To ignore international politics would mean leaving our economy hostage to fate. In addition, were America to turn its back, the havoc that would ensue outside our borders would break our hearts. This spectacle might impel us to reengage, but we would find that the costs of restoring order would be much higher than the costs of preserving it. If we remain aloof, how-ever, a rival might eventually emerge that would command sufficient economic and scientific resources to end our physical invulnerability. Thus our own security is ultimately connected to preserving the peace and forestalling the rise of a hostile imperium.

Have we the wherewithal to do it? Early in Clinton's term, Peter Tarnoff, the under secretary of state for policy, proclaimed that "we simply don't have the leverage, we don't have the influence, we don't have the inclination to use military forces, we certainly don't have the money" to tackle various international crises. Therefore, he said, the administration's deliberate inaction on Bosnia exemplified a new foreign policy based on "setting limits on the amount of American engagement."

These assertions reflect a state of mind widespread within the administration and also within the country. But they do not reflect the state of things. Having emerged from the cold war as victor and sole superpower, America finds its influence and military power are greater than ever. And the country is wealthier than ever.

It is not influence or money or might that we lack, but purpose, as Tarnoff himself exemplifies. Faced with Pearl Harbor or the Czechoslovak coup of 1948, we were prepared to "pay any price, bear any burden." But in the absence of a direct attack or an imminent threat, we are reluctant to embroil ourselves in distant quarrels, to sacrifice butter for guns. Our lethargy comes not merely from selfishness but also from uncertainty. It is not obvious how best to preserve the security we now enjoy. We are unsure which foreign problems we can safely ignore and which ones will come back to haunt us. In that sense, the circumstance we face after the cold war is more like what we faced after World War I than World War II. After World War II, the danger was clear, while after World War I, it was not, but it turned out to be equally dire.

It is tempting to wait to deal with threats only when they become clear and present dangers. History shows that we are very effective at doing that. We entered World War I late and won it. We entered World War II late and won it. We entered the cold war late and won it. Each time, though, there were costs to our lateness. I am optimistic that should we have to fight again we will win again, if we preserve military strength and preparedness. But the cornerstone of our policy should not be to win the next war but to prevent it.

The history that lies ahead of us is not already written. Nor will it be determined by abstract "forces." It will be created by men and women. And because America is the most influential nation, it will be created by Americans more than others. It would be folly to imagine we are omnipotent: we have influence, not control. But it would be folly, too, to imagine we are impotent. America has already had a huge impact on the world. Today, the majority of the world's rulers have been elected by their subjects. This is an enormous change, brought about within two hundred years, in large measure by American influence.

The world is also progressing toward universal free enterprise. This, too, is a blessing brought about in part by American influence. Through promoting democracy and free trade, we can help sustain these two beneficent trends. The more difficult goal is peace. It is beyond even America's mighty influence to put an end to war. Nonetheless, with the advent of weapons of mass destruction we cannot accept the inevitability of another general war nor even of large-scale regional wars. We must try to prevent them by strengthening the norm against aggression as well as by encouraging democracy and prosperity.

The Example of America

Isolationists are fond of saying that we should lead by example. And so we should. The example that will impress the world even more than our domestic institutions is our behavior in the international arena. We should be strong, generous, and lawful. We should be a good friend and a bad enemy. We should comport ourselves with honor, a virtue held in contempt since Vietnam. Honor means behaving righteously ourselves, and it requires keeping our promises and threats. There is no honor in using our power to extort trade concessions. Nor is there honor in proclaiming safe havens that are not safe--nor in accepting human rights violations in China, nuclear weapons in North Korea, or Serbian aircraft in the skies over Bosnia after having said that we would accept none of these things. To act in these honorless ways makes America small. It diminishes our influence and makes the world more dangerous and unpredictable.

Strengthening our sense of honor will also help us with our domestic problems. Isolationists claim that we cannot afford the money costs of weapons or aid or other foreign expenditures. President Clinton said he could not afford to pay much attention to Bosnia because he was busy solving domestic problems. But our domestic problems do not arise from a lack of money or of presidential attention. They arise more from weakness of character. This is true for both economic and social problems. With rising rates of divorce and illegitimacy, fewer Americans live in intact families, and this trend is a major cause of poverty. The weakness of the family is a major cause of the deterioration of schools and of crime, not to mention unhappiness. Another cause of crime is a criminal justice system that fails to hold people accountable for their behavior. Spending all we earn and more, and saving almost none, is the cause of our trade deficit and sluggish economic growth, although we would rather blame the Japanese.

The amelioration of these problems lies in persuading or inducing people to behave more responsibly. Although government action can help, its effectiveness will depend on fostering responsibility. We are highly unlikely to learn to behave collectively more responsibly here at home while turning our back on responsibilities abroad. Far from there being a trade-off, therefore, between addressing our domestic problems and conducting an active foreign policy, the two go hand in hand.

We should shoulder international responsibilities not just because that is the moral thing to do but because, as is usually the case with following the moral path, it is also in our best interests. America carries so much weight that if we disengage, turmoil is certain, and that turmoil will eventually catch up with us. Where ambitious tyrants rise, even if we choose to ignore them, they will covet our wealth and fear our power. If we leave them alone, they will still not leave us alone. We were surprised when Japan attacked us, surprised when Hitler declared war on us, surprised when Stalin broke our wartime partnership and initiated the cold war. We have trouble grasping how much such forces see us as an obstacle to their goals.

When the Soviet Union imploded, we found ourselves, for the moment, with a windfall of security. What to do with it? We can spend the windfall by turning our energies and funds away from foreign affairs, as Congressman Barney Frank so aptly put it, to "be nicer to ourselves"--for as long as the security lasts. Or can we invest it by working to counteract hostile forces that could grow to threaten us, to dampen down turmoils that could explode into major conflicts, and to encourage the growth of democracy and trade. These are the burdens of leadership. The goal of assuming them would be to strengthen the peace and prolong the high level of security we now enjoy.

Although we did not set out to be the sole superpower, it is what we have become, and there is no safe or peaceful way to retreat from this position. The wiser course is to make the most of it, not in aggrandizement, but in pursuit of our own security and world peace.