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Volume 41/No. 4/Winter 1999–2000
Foreign perceptions of the US are varied and, to a large extent, incompatible in logical terms. They include a US intent on minding what it sees as its own business; the dark, satanic US of the Islamic conspiracy theorists who see deliberate purpose in everything America does (or indeed, does not do); a unilateralist and anti-status quo power which has made military force its tool of choice; and the US as keystone and ultimate guarantor of what measure of international order may exist. In part, this diversity of views flows from the multi-dimensional nature of the US. In part, it has to do with the foreign beholders themselves—who all too often combine the reality of ignorance with the belief that they know a lot about the US. Although such confusion and misperceptions are understandable, their costs can be high. Accurate perceptions are the key to the successful conduct of foreign and security policy, and this naturally applies to relations between the world’s most powerful nation and its allies, partners and rivals.
François Heisbourg, Chairman of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; Director of the IISS from 1987–92.
One American myth of the 1990s is that, in the ‘good old days’, Congress deferred to the Executive branch on foreign policy. Since the Cold War, the myth continues, an unusually troublesome Congress has obstructed the conduct of foreign relations. Yet tension between the Executive and Congress over foreign policy is neither new, nor a unique product of the end of the Cold War. Under the US Constitution, and based on experience, the two branches of government must develop US policy by sharing powers and resolving their ‘creative tension’. It is important to undertake this challenging task in order to build a sustainable and effective foreign policy. Trade policy and the use of force are two critical areas where the experience and evolution in Congressional processes are most evident and where, with vision, consultation and an openness to debate, the present generation of political leaders can strive to meet national aspirations.
Robert B. Zoellick, Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a Research Scholar at Harvard University. He served as an Under-Secretary of State and Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House during the Bush administration.
The US has been gradually shifting its focus away from the need to foster global and regional consensus against proliferation and towards the desire to keep all political and military options open and, indeed, to broaden their scope. The Clinton administration’s spectacular failure to secure the Senate’s timely ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has epitomised this shift. The US should redress this trend. It run contrary to the preference of the American public for cooperative solutions to international problems; it will impair cooperation with allies; and it could also be counter-productive for the US itself in the long run. The voluntary renunciation by states of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons or missiles is the ultimate measure of the success of non-proliferation policies, and much has been achieved by that measure during the 1990s. But this renunciation will not be secured in the long run if the US itself intends to remain essentially unconstrained by arms-control agreements, or free to devise any option it deems suitable to treat the problem on its own terms.
Gilles Andréani, Senior Fellow in International Relations at the IISS.
No state can fully achieve its objectives without the authority and material support which international institutions alone can provide. The US espouses multilateralism as a virtue and, like every other state, seeks to use multilateral institutions as instruments for achieving its own policies. However, America’s relations with such institutions are complicated by four, sometimes competing roles which the US plays in the international system: a prophetic and reformist role; an infra-organisational role; a custodial role; and a domestic-pressure reactive role. Occasionally all four roles are performed harmoniously, but in particular cases they may lead the US to conduct its international institutional diplomacy more abrasively than intended. The probable future is one in which the US remains paramount in the world and, because of its character and the multiplicity of its roles, continues to stir controversy in its complex relationships with international institutions.
W. Michael Reisman, McDougal Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
In Operation Desert Fox, and during the aerial bombardment of Iraq that has followed, the United States and the United Kingdom argued that they were acting to enforce the ‘will’ of the UN Security Council, that they were responding to a ‘material breach’ of the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War, and also that they were pre-empting Iraq’s future potential use of weapons of mass destruction. Neither of the first two arguments stands up to legal scrutiny, while the third suggests a doctrine of preventive war that carries with it extremely dangerous implications for international relations. Rather than strengthening the existing structures of international order, the armed action against Iraq has undermined them, and has unacceptably tainted the development of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in general international law.
Marc Weller, Deputy Director of the Centre for International Studies, University of Cambridge.
The American military is the envy of the world. But its impressive performance against the relatively minor challenges of the post-Cold War era has engendered a dangerous complacency in American national-security thinking. As a result, the US is not making four related adaptations needed to ensure that today’s superiority endures. Strategy should focus on a preventive-defence approach to the most important long-term threats to security, rather than on intervening in minor conflicts. Budgeting should reflect both preventive approaches and protection against asymmetrical threats if prevention fails. The Department of Defense’s organisation should give homes to the growing number of new missions that have ‘no one in charge’. And defence-industrial policy must adapt to the commercialisation and globalisation of the industrial base upon which America’s technological edge rests.
Ashton B. Carter, Professor of Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He serves as Special Advisor to the North Korea Policy Review and is a member of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the first Clinton administration.
NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia precipitated the most dangerous turn in Russian-Western relations since the early 1980s. Although tensions have eased since the end of the Kosovo war, the anger and suspicion engendered on the Russian side will not easily dissipate. The anger will endure not least because the Russian reaction had little to do with the Serb-Kosovar conflict itself, and much more to do with Russia’s growing unease about NATO’s post-Cold War transformation: its enlargement and pretensions to act beyond the territory of its members, without an explicit UN mandate. Repairing relations will require political realism in Russia, the absence of a major new crisis in Kosovo, and restraint from NATO.
Oksana Antonenko, Research Fellow at the IISS.
In 1999, the Atlantic Alliance asserted its absolute primacy in European security affairs, successfully reversing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, admitting three new members from Central Europe and unveiling a New Strategic Doctrine. Yet the challenge of Russia’s unremitting opposition to NATO remains. This situation is serious not so much because Russia can threaten Western interests directly, but because of the negative impact that continued confrontation with NATO has on Russia’s domestic political evolution. For the West to construct a more cooperative and constructive political and security relationship with Russia, other organisations ought to assume greater prominence—most notably the European Union, but also the UN and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is also neither in the West’s nor in Russia’s interest for NATO to enlarge further eastwards.
Roland Dannreuther, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh.