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CIAO DATE: 6/99

Key Issues in Congressional Foreign Policy Making

Doug Bereuter

March 1999

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
Harvard University

 

WCFIA Editor’s Note: We publish here, as a special WCFIA Working Paper, a presentation on “Key Issues in Congressional Foreign Policy Making” by Representative Doug Bereuter (R-Nebraska).

 

I have been asked to speak today about the role of Congress in the formulation of foreign policy. This certainly is a broad mandate, but I will do my best to address the issue. Let me say at the outset that my remarks will be general, and designed to provoke follow-up questions. I propose to:

 

I.The Congressional Role In Foreign Policy

As you all know, under our system of government, responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy rests primarily with the President. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and he is the chief U.S. representative when negotiating treaties and agreements with foreign nations or multinational entities. The President has the bully pulpit, and has a unique ability to energize the country to action.

Nevertheless, the Congress has a significant role to play as well. The President may serve as the voice of America in our dealings with the rest of the world, but it is ultimately proves to be a fairly impotent voice if he lacks congressional support. If you look through history, the times when U.S. foreign policy was most effective have been the times when the Congress and the Administration spoke with one strong voice (WWII, Persian Gulf War). But when the Executive and Legislative branches have been locked in a test of wills, U.S. foreign policy tends to be ineffective and vacillating (i.e., Vietnam, and arguably, during the Clinton Administration).

What then is the role of Congress in foreign policy?

 

II.Trends In Congressional Attitudes Toward Foreign Policy

A. The First Trend: Growing Power of Appropriators vis-a-vis the Authorizing Committees

In theory, the congressional foreign policy involvement is supposed to be simple and clear-cut. The Appropriations Committee is to provide the Executive branch with the funds to conduct foreign policy, and the authorizing committees (Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations) are to set the parameters for important elements of our nation’s foreign policy by how that money is to be spent. The International Relations Committee (of which I am Vice-Chairman) is tasked with enacting [annual] legislation governing foreign aid, and also to enact legislation to govern the functioning of the State Department and other international agencies — not including the DOD except on foreign military roles.

Unfortunately, the system has broken down. The last time Congress passed and the president approved a Foreign Aid bill was 1985! We have not passed a State Department Authorization since 1994. There are plenty of reasons for this inaction—the most important of which is the emergence of international funding of abortion (and related family planning issues) as a sufficiently important foreign policy agenda item for enough Member of the House to make a difference and create an impasse with the Clinton Administration. (I will return to this issue later). Since Republicans assumed control of Congress in the 104 th Congress, the President repeatedly has vetoed (and stopped by threatening vetoes) of authorization bills that the House and Senate have approved. Similarly, under President Bush and even President Reagan, the then-Democrat-controlled Congress would send forth authorization bills that were unacceptable to Republican presidents. There has been a near-total lack of cooperation and compromise on these key issues.

In point of fact, however, the formulation and implementation of foreign policy has obviously continued without an annual authorization...the foreign policy mechanisms continue to operate as the money keeps flowing. As a result, the Executive branch has quietly worked with the relevant Appropriations subcommittees to ensure that the State Department gets what it needs to continue and increasingly ignored the authorizing Committees. And, as time has gone by, more and more policy guidance (which is not supposed to be in an appropriations bill) finds its way into the appropriator’s legislation, oftentimes with the concurrence or even at the request of frustrated authorization committee leaders. The occurrence of this phenomenon came with the recent Omnibus Appropriation Act that ended the 105 th Congress. Huge swaths of foreign policy guidance—which is strictly the purview of the Foreign Relations Committee and the International Relations Committee—found its way into the final product. For example, the consolidation of the State Department, ACDA, and USIA—which the authorizers had labored upon for three years—but which remained stuck on the abortion and family planning issue — quietly found its way into the Omnibus Appropriations bill.

Now, why should anyone (except the authorizers, who lose power) care about such details? Because this trend means that a handful—really no more than 5 or 6 key Senators and House members—are vested with huge foreign policy power and responsibilities. This is a problem because some of these legislators have specific agendas that do run counter to the overwhelming majority in Congress. (i.e., Last year Rep. Pelosi’s staffer single-handedly killed the resumption of the IMET for Pakistan) It is a problem because, on occasion, the Executive branch seeks from the appropriators the authority for highly controversial initiatives that they know they might not receive if it were broadly scrutinized (i.e. near-full KEDO funding). But, at the most basic level, it simply is not good government when the oversight process is circumvented so easily.

Clearly, this is an institutional problem. Serious and honorable men with admittedly very different views, like Lee Hamilton, Jesse Helms, Joe Biden, John Kerrey, Ben Gilman, have looked for ways to break out of the current situation, but have had no success. I personally believe the only way to alter the situation is for the authorizers to enact small narrowly circumscribed slices of foreign policy authorization legislation at a time. If we cannot enact the entire foreign aid bill, we can perhaps tackle small slices of the jurisdiction with parliamentary strictures against destructive extraneous riders. This was my strategy, for example, when I successfully pursued the Africa: Seeds of Hope legislation this year. This legislation focused only on U.S. agricultural assistance in Africa. And, by putting together a coalition of farm state Republicans and Democrats, members of the Black Caucus, and with the support of a very broad array of religious and humanitarian organizations, we were successful in pushing this legislation through in the final days of the 105 th Congress. The President signed Africa: Seeds of Hope legislation last week. This is a tactic I hope to repeat in the next Congress and put into wide usage if I am the Chairman of the House International Relations Committee in 2001.

B. The Second Trend: The Continued Rise of Sanctions

In the closing days of the 105 th Congress, I had my staff do a count of the number of countries on which the United States currently has imposed political or economic sanctions. In the last four years alone, 61 laws or executive orders have established sanctions, and 35 countries have been targeted for these sanctions. Nearly all of these sanctions have their origins in the legislative branch.

There are any number of explanations for the congressional proclivity to use sanctions. First, we need to note that we are a nation of immigrants, many of Americans or their ancestors fled persecution from human rights abuses. Ethnic communities often have very personal reasons for demanding that the United States stand up to offensive regimes. Whether it is Portuguese-Americans opposing our current relationship with Indonesia, Cuban-Americas supporting a tougher stance on Cuba, or Armenian-Americans seeking to punish Azerbaijan or Turkey, the United States is unlike any other nation in the diversity and degree of activity of its ethnic communities. Anything that happens in any corner of the world has a domestic constituency in the United States and Congress feels the effect. Increasingly, they are well organized. I can confirm that Congress listens to these communities...perhaps too closely.

Congress reacts to activists and ethnic Americans who push sanctions—that makes sense because they are constituents but often these congressional actions are not in our national interest; nor do they contribute to a rational, consistent foreign policy. Many times, these activist groups come to Congress after their sanctions proposals are rejected by the Executive Branch. For example, recently proposed Russian sanctions arose in significant part because Israeli defense officials were wholly disappointed by the Administration’s unwillingness to confront Russia’s missile cooperation with Iran.

Let me make it clear — I believe that much of this sanctions legislation is counterproductive and undermines U.S. foreign policy. I believe sanctions should be employed sparingly, in cooperation with our allies, when they are likely to be effective, and only when vital national security interests are at stake.

Congress certainly does bear considerable blame for the current state of over-reliance on sanctions. But while it is true that Congress has pursued a number of sanctions laws in recent years, it is equally true that the current Administration, more than any other, has been willing to sign sanctions without seriously fighting Congress on the matter.

Admittedly, President Bush signed the Tiananmen sanctions and—ultimately and reluctantly under campaign pressures—the Cuba sanctions. But the Clinton Administration probably has been unmatched in modern times for its willingness to sign bad legislation and then attempt to avoid the consequences of that action by over-utilizing national security waivers or by simply ignoring a law that requires that sanctions to be triggered. For example, in 1996, President Clinton did not oppose and then signed sanctions legislation that mandated a range of trade sanctions on Burma if conditions continued to deteriorate. Within a month of signing that legislation, the military junta in Burma had rounded up the leaders of the democratic movement and once again placed opposition leader Aung San Su Kyi under house arrest. The Executive Branch’s first reaction was to explain that the Burmese military crackdown didn’t really make conditions all that much worse. When that ploy didn’t work, they simply attempted to ignore congressional objections. The Clinton Administration only invoked the mandatory sanctions when its own chief Asia advisors (i.e., Winston Lord, Stanley Roth) acknowledged that they could no longer pretend that conditions had not gotten worse. Now, despite the desperate conditions in Burma, I opposed those Burma sanctions when they were considered because they were unilateral, unlikely to work, and therefore not clearly in our national interest. However, once the President signed that sanction legislation, it became the law of the land. The President was obliged to honor the law _ a law that he should have had the courage or conviction not to sign in the first place. It was “feel-good legislation” that should have been opposed or sharply modified.

The net result is that rule of law in the United States and the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy is diminished, and too many in Congress continue to follow its inclination to "punish" offending countries through ineffective sanctions. It is already a very important problem that, I fear, will get worse before it gets better. Frankly, Congress and the Executive branch need to reach an effective agreement that sanctions are only authorized and implemented when vital U.S. interests are at stake and when they are likely to be effective. That agreement has yet to be sought. It will require serious leadership from the President in making the case against sanctions before that change occurs. Richard Lugar, departing Lee Hamilton, Phil Crane, and Doug Bereuter's leadership on this issue will not alone make it happen.

C. The Third Trend: Decreased Congressional Appreciation for National Security Concerns

America’s vital interests were much clearer during the Cold War. The Soviet Union’s possession of some 30,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons had a unique ability to focus congressional attention on what really mattered when it came to the ultimate survival of the nation. Despite the obvious exception of the Vietnam War, from the 1940s through the 1980s, for the most part there was remarkable unanimity of opinion regarding key foreign policy decisions. And, frankly, often Administrations were willing to cooperate with some very authoritarian regimes to advance what was seen as our national interest or for Cold War reasons.

The fall of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet empire, while very welcome indeed, has gradually but dramatically shifted the congressional approach to U.S. foreign policy, with more changes yet to follow. In the past, our efforts had been geared to win and maintain friends and allies in the global fight against the Soviet Union. Certainly there were nuances and subtleties in our foreign policy, but the Soviet threat always was the single unifying factor. We could be wonderfully successful in all other areas of foreign policy, but if we failed with Moscow, we risked nuclear annihilation. Even much of our international humanitarian relief effort had the U.S.-Soviet competition as a backdrop.

Just as the Executive branch has made a number of missteps in the post-Cold War era (attempted nation-building or at least unwise mission-creep in Somalia, indecision regarding Saddam Hussein, etc.), Congress also flounders in the absence of an enumerated and widely supported core set of foreign policy beliefs. In many ways, the choices facing us are much more difficult. Should we cooperate with Russia in the dismantling of its nuclear arsenal, or should we impose sanctions on Russia because it is knowingly permitting key components for weapons of mass destruction and modern missile to go to Iran? Of course, both have important or even crucial desirable ends. How do we achieve both with the Russia we see today?

Similarly, should Congress impose sanctions on Indonesia (the longtime bulwark against communism in Southeast Asia) because of its admitted brutality in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor? Should we recognize the rebel pro-independence movement, despite the fact that they are responsible for a great portion of the violence and destruction in Timor? If we alienate Indonesia, do we help create an Islamic backlash that could have catastrophic human rights and American foreign policy consequences? Even worse, of course, there is a real risk of civil war and dismemberment in this nation with the world’s fourth largest population.

Being a veteran of military service certainly is not a necessary part of a congressional candidate’s biography, but I would be much more comfortable about Congress’ ability to deal with some of these terribly difficult national security decisions if there were more in Congress with military experience. Of the seven new Senators and forty new Members of the House, only six have any military experience. In the 106 th Congress, only 179 of the 535 Senators and House Members will have served in the armed forces, the lowest number in post-WWII history, and many of them never served on active duty with active forces. Of course, it is possible to reach sound national security decisions without military service, but service in the armed forces does, I believe, help a Member understand the magnitude, the complexity, and the complete and utter seriousness of military operations. Such service makes one appreciate the paramount importance of preserving the national interest and that service also makes such Members to actually be more effective, less intimidated critics of the military and of proposed actual military actions.

As an aside, I would also feel more comfortable with decisions coming from the Clinton Administration if more of the top people at the NSC and among the civilian leadership at DOD had actual military experience. It would inject a greater degree of caution and realism in considering when, where, and how to use American military force — with combat forces.

With the collapse of the Soviet threat, I increasingly see congressional efforts to redefine "national interest"—although usually through indirect, ad hoc, even unintentional efforts. Often, Members of Congress will argue that promotion of human rights is a vital national interest, or that ensuring free and democratic elections worldwide is a vital national interest, or that addressing international labor rights is a vital national interest. Now, I firmly believe and support enhanced human rights practices around the world. For six years I was the senior Republican on the Human Rights Subcommittee. However, in a world fraught with so many real, life-threatening dangers, we must be very clear about what constitutes a vital national interest. There are rogue regimes that do not wish us well. The threat of chemical and biological warfare is real. The threat of limited ballistic missile attack against our country and our assets and allies abroad is becoming much more real. As this summer’s bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam highlighted, the terrorist threat is far more serious and imminent than the average American recognizes. First and foremost, we have to address these very real threats to American citizens and assets.

D. The Fourth Trend: Suspicion of International Institutions (UN and IMF)

I should begin by telling you that I am a supporter, but not an uncritical supporter, of the United Nations. As such, I would I hope reassure you by saying that I believe my views are fairly reflective of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

However, it should be no secret to you that there is deep suspicion about the role and responsibility of international organizations, particularly the United Nations and its peacekeeping activities and about the loss of U.S. sovereignty to the UN. Clearly, peacekeeping is an important international function and responsibility. Peacekeepers have played an important role in Cyprus, Namibia, the Sinai, El Salvador, and Cambodia. However, in the past few years the role of UN peacekeepers has changed dramatically. Only a few years ago there were no more than 8,000-10,000 peacekeepers, and they were assigned to a few low-risk locations. Now there are almost 100,000 peacekeepers, and they increasingly are deployed in contingencies where there is high risk.

In addition, there is the matter of money and what is an equitable share for the U.S. The U.S. assessment levels for peacekeeping activities is 31.7% or perhaps down a bit from that recently. The next closest assessment is that of Japan, at 12.5%. No other country comes close. Members of Congress look at this assessment, and then look at the insignificant assessments of a number of prosperous nations. For example, we find:

Frankly, this is a ludicrous assessment scale that is retained only because those who are assessed at a minimal level continue to vote to retain the current system in the UN General Assembly. (And, indeed, to increase the U.S. assessment, as was the case after the breakup of the Soviet Union.)

In addition, the United States contributes an enormous additional amount that is not counted towards our assessment. This includes logistics and transport, humanitarian food and supplies, intelligence, and the like. The actual figure is classified (unbelievable, but true), but it is safe to estimate that the U.S. contributes at least $1-$2 billion extra annually in such non-reimbursable costs. (We are now, for example, the only nation that can provide substantial long-range airlift capacity for supplies and equipment during disaster or peacekeeping operations.) As a result, the total U.S. contribution to peacekeeping efforts is really 40%-45% of the full cost of peacekeeping.

Congress has been trying on a bipartisan basis to reduce our assessment for years. Quiet pressure on the Administration and the State Department, when they belatedly got serious about it, not surprisingly, was a dismal failure. Finally, in 1994, the Democrat-majority Congress enacted legislation stipulating that we would pay no more than 25% of UN peacekeeping costs. This limitation was one of the first foreign policy initiatives that the new Republican majority reaffirmed in 1995, and it was repeated once again in the recent Omnibus Appropriation Act. While the Administration has been funded to contribute to the UN at this new, lower, more realistic assessment rate, as now required by U.S. law, the UN continues to bill us for additional costs that we repudiate (the current sum is several hundred million dollars).

I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge that congressional financial support for the United Nations has recently been linked with one seemingly extraneous issue—abortion. Throughout the Reagan and Bush Administrations, it was U.S. policy to refrain from assisting any NGO that performed or promoted abortion internationally (i.e., the Mexico City policy). This was one of the first policies the Clinton Administration overturned. However, a solid bipartisan but not veto-proof majority in the House, led by New Jersey Representative Chris Smith (Chairman of the International Operations Subcommittee) believes that U.S. funding or promotion of abortion overseas is wrong. Legislation has repeatedly been sent to the President re-establishing the Mexico City policy, and he repeatedly has vetoed that legislation. While I don’t approve of this linkage tactic, frustrated leaders of the anti-abortion movement in the House now have linked the Mexico City policy to UN funding. Even then, however, an effort was made to compromise — i.e., Congress would not provide our arrearages until the Administration restores the portion of the Mexico City policy that prohibits AID recipients from actively lobbying for abortions. In order to avoid alienating a core element in his political support base who oppose any retreat from full opposition to the Mexico City policy, President Clinton continues to veto the UN funding legislation with any abortion-related rider attached, despite the UN arrearage issue and the U.S. role in the UN hanging in the balance. This is an impasse that is likely to continue for the remainder of the President’s second term and both sides must weigh the very real costs of their position. At this point, any compromise actions have come from Chris Smith’s camp and none from President Clinton.

The general mistrust of international institutions certainly extends to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which sought $18 billion in additional funding last year. During my 20 years in the House of Representatives, and as an 18-year veteran of the Banking Committee where we have IMF and MDB jurisdiction, Congress has never had a straight up or down vote on stand-alone authorization or appropriation for IMF, which reflects this unpopularity. In addressing that problem, I need to talk a bit about the shortcomings of the IMF. Certainly, many share blame for exacerbating the Asian financial crisis. However, we should also recognize that much initial effort, generally and by the IMF, was misdirected in certain key ways, based on an unsound analogy with the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s.

I want to be clear that, despite its shortcomings, of course, I support the IMF's efforts to restore economic and political in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere. I do so because there is simply no current alternative to the IMF's unique capabilities, including its service as the international lender of last resort. This is certainly a role the United States cannot perform alone. However, the IMF must alter its ways. I believe that a number of policies mandated by the IMF actually exacerbated the Asian financial crisis. In particular, the requirement that countries like Thailand and South Korea curtail instead of increase infrastructure development projects made absolutely no sense. These countries were not the usual "basket-case" clients of the IMF, but the IMF's initial prescriptions treated them that way. (Recount experience with the Korean finance minister.)

Such misguided policies and lack of transparency have made many in Congress extremely suspicious and quite critical of the IMF's role in responding to crises. For that reason—using the recently successful Rumsfeld Commission on ballistic missile defense as a model—I successfully added language in the Omnibus Appropriations Act to require the appointment of an eleven-member Commission. The purpose of the Commission is to advise and report to Congress within six months on the future roles and responsibilities of the Bretton Woods era international financial institutions and the International Bank of Settlements. In addition, my legislation requires the Executive Branch to report on the steps it is taking to implement the Commission’s recommendations. One important objective, of course, is to ultimately implement reforms that will increase the effectiveness of the IMF or a successor institution and not incidentally thereby increase congressional support for its mission and programs.

Finally, in the third and last part of my remarks today, I will address the 1998 congressional election and foreign policy.

 

III. The 1998 Congressional Election And Foreign Policy

As you obviously know, the slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives has become even slimmer. While Republicans had expected to enlarge our 11-seat majority (the smallest majority in 30 years), we find ourselves reduced to only a 6-seat majority. Given that we will soon be entering the Presidential campaign period for the 2000 election, it is fair to say that it is likely that congressional politics will be, if anything, increasingly partisan _ despite a new Speaker with a different orientation and reputation.

Certainly the most notable victim of the 1998 election was Speaker Gingrich. Recognizing that he always would be a lightning rod for criticism (both fair and unfair) and that he was no longer able to effectively lead, the Speaker has stepped aside and paved the way for Bob Livingston to become Speaker in the 106 th Congress. Other changes occurred in the Republican leadership, most notably the elevation of J.C. Watts (the only black Republican in the House of Representatives) to the fourth most important in the Republican leadership. However, the change of Speakers is by far the most significant change in terms of foreign policy.

While it wasn’t that widely known, Speaker Gingrich has been by far the most internationalist member of the House leadership on either side of the aisle. As an example, I would say that the majority of my time as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, unfortunately, had to be dedicated to preventing irresponsible or destructive legislation from reaching the floor of the House — much of it on China. An enormous amount of legislation is introduced on behalf of specific ethnic communities that simply runs counter to the U.S. national interest. Stopping or modifying this legislation would have been much more difficult (often impossible) without the aid that Speaker Gingrich quietly gave to me on crucial occasions.

While Speaker Gingrich's departure represents a significant loss of foreign policy interest and clout in the House leadership, I would say that Speaker-elect Livingston has an unusually good grasp of foreign affairs and security policy because of his experience on the relevant subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. He served for many years on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Foreign Operations Subcommittee. As such, he has a very broad understanding of the issues. It is certainly true that Mr. Livingston has strong views on a number of issues, and on occasion may be less likely to give the Administration the "benefit of the doubt" than did Speaker Gingrich. This is particularly true of North Korea, where the new Speaker is apparently convinced that the Clinton policy has failed, that it is dangerously misguided, and that he has been lied to in the process.

We also have a new Rules Committee Chairman, David Drier of southern California. Suffice it to say that this is very good news for an international and pro-trade orientation. This elevation of Drier to replace Gerald Solomon of New York is probably the most important foreign policy-related change in the House.

On the Democrat side, perhaps of particular interest to this audience, the only change of note regards the continued rise of newcomer Patrick Kennedy, who will chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Congressman Kennedy, who represents a large Portuguese-American constituency, has an agenda that is strongly critical of Indonesia and seemingly without qualification. Perhaps the visibility of the East Timor issue will increase slightly because of Patrick Kennedy’s interest. More likely, however, the East Timor issue will increase in visibility because of the ongoing political, economic, and social chaos in Indonesia. Portugal and Indonesia need to respond to the United Nations' leadership and set the stage for a realistic settlement of this issue—and do it now. I will visit with UN teams on this issue (Ambassador Marker) in New York tomorrow.

As for the key elected House Democrat leadership, they remain tightly linked to labor, and very protectionist in their actions (this is in contrast to the Democrat leadership in the Senate or under Speaker Foley). For example, fewer than twenty-five Democrats in the House were willing to vote in favor of giving their own President fast-track trade negotiating authority, an authority that all preceding presidents have enjoyed. Despite the fact that about 70-80% of House Republicans favored fast track, it was not enough to overcome the near-unanimous rejection by Democrats. You probably should anticipate a recurrence of such highly divisive and partisan fights on trade issues, particularly if Minority Leader Gephardt seeks the Democrat nomination in 2000.

 

IV. Conclusion

I have provided a far-ranging and fairly diverse review of various trends regarding Congress' role in foreign policy. I have described problems I see within the institution such as the declining influence of the authorizing committees and the overuse of economic sanctions. I also have described a few of the major roadblocks that find their way into virtually every foreign policy debate (i.e., abortion and international family planning funding). I have briefly mentioned some of the changes in the membership of Congress that reduce the appreciation of national security as a paramount consideration. And, I have briefly described the general and increased mistrust that many in Congress have toward international institutions. In addition, I have tried to provide some insights into how the new congressional leadership might view foreign policy.