The right man for the job?

Dimitri Simes

DESPITE AGREEMENTS between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush on specific issues that sometimes camouflaged contrasts in their perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, the presidential debates made clear the fundamental differences between their approaches.

Bush proposes an interest-based foreign policy. As he said in the second debate, in Winston- Salem, N.C., the United States should use military force only when its vital interests are at stake. In other cases, the governor believes that "the idea of humility is an important one." If the United States is viewed as an "arrogant nation," he said, there might be a global backlash.

Gore has no such concerns. In the debate Tuesday in St. Louis, he said that he sees the United States "promoting the values of democracy and human rights and freedom all around the world." There is little humility in this approach, in which according to the vice president, "we have to be willing to assert" our values, presumably through means that include the use of military force.

Three assumptions underlie Gore's perspective: that the United States generally knows what is in the best interest of other nations and that our values are universal; that the world (at least the democratic world) will be hospitable to such U.S. guidance and that it may be offered without considerable cost; and that this kind of global social work-with not-so-gentle persuasion when possible and cruise missiles when necessary-can bring democracy to other countries.

All three assumptions are demonstrably false. The United States is much better at defining and pursuing its own important interests than determining what is most appropriate for people in far away places about whom most Americans know and care little. In the latter circumstance, special interests too often dictate congressional resolutions aimed at pleasing specific domestic constituencies, such as Armenian-Americans opposed to Turkey and Azerbaijan and Cuban-Americans hostile to Havana. More broadly, our political system was not constructed to decide what is best for those living in other countries and those countries are not represented in our political process.

The link is Dmitri Simes writing on Gore's far reaching view of an American Prometheus, straddling the globe and sowing the seeds of democratic and economic freedom. Whoops, that was october 19, 2000. Ahh, nevermind.

Fast forward to all the talk radio blather and screeching post 9-11: "Just imagine if Gore won! What a pickle we'd be in then, boy!"

Now, click on the tube or pick up a newspaper. How many deaths? How many more hate us? How many more self-inflicted administration gaffes and foreign policy missteps?

My point? Simes, writing in October, 2000 for the Nixon Center of all things, finds himself in an unenviable position. In recommending against the adventurism that he thought Gore might be prone to--and, by Simes' admission, more comfortable and capable with--Simes was clairvoyantly pointing out all the conservative articles of foreign policy faith that Bush has chucked out with the bathwater. Simply put, finding ourselves in the position we are in, Gore's temperament and philosophy is proven by necessity to be the more useful today. At least, that seems to be Simes' point.

Bush told the truth. He doesn't believe in internationalist thinking. And that's fine. As long as a 9-11-01 event never happens. When, tragically, it does, and you're a non-internationalist, you have no clue how to react in any sustainable way. Grief you can do. Dusting yourself off is fairly easy. Blustering that "evil-doers" will pay is a fair, if not poetic rallying cry. But then what? What do you do when the long haul starts; when the long range scenario planning and spadework calls?

Grief? Done that. Bluster? Check. Global chess? Global? Chess? Anybody?

"Aww, do I have to?"

Simes suggested that Gore's "adventurist" bent would ill-serve America, his ambition to display his wonkish understanding of the levers of international diplomacy and security dispensation would be too tempting. His point is that Gore would be better equipped to handle the monumental task of responding globally to modern, assymetric threats.

That was 2000, so Simes suggested George Bush would be the better man. To govern in a bell jar.