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« Back to The Cold War is Over: What Do We Do Now? main page    Transcript for: The Cold War is Over: What Do We Do Now?Think Tank Transcripts: Post-Cold War Foreign Policy ANNOUNCER: 'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient ofthe Presidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow. Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation andthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. The fall of the SovietUnion left America as the world's only superpower. What shouldAmerica do with its newfound status, turn inward or try to lead theworld and set the global agenda through peaceful means when possibleand military might if necessary? Joining us to sort through the conflict and consensus are: JoshuaMuravchik, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute andauthor of 'The Imperative of American Leadership: A Challenge toNeo-Isolationism'; Ambassador Richard Holbrook, former assistantsecretary of State for European and Canadian affairs and chiefnegotiator of the Dayton peace accord; Owen Harries, editor of thejournal 'The National Interest' and editor of two compilationvolumes, 'America's Purpose,' and 'In the National Interest'; andCharles William Maynes, editor of the journal 'Foreign Policy' andco-editor of 'U.S. Foreign Policy and the United Nations System.' The topic before this house: The Cold War is over -- what do we donow? This week on 'Think Tank.' For almost 50 years, American foreign policy was organized aroundthe concepts of containing Soviet expansion, averting nuclear war andexporting democracy. With the Cold War over, things are not socoherent. Many observers think American foreign policy is now adrift. The Cold War was expensive. America spent vast amounts of moneystationing troops and weapons in Europe and the Far East. Today weare closing bases and bringing our soldiers home. The Cold Warrequired allies in critical regions: NATO in Europe; Japan, Korea andthe Philippines in the Pacific. Today many think we should leaveregional issues to regional powers. Finally, the Cold War requiredactive diplomacy: foreign aid to Third World countries, Radio FreeEurope and the Voice of America to spread democratic ideas, a strongAmerican presence at the United Nations. Today America is cuttingback its foreign agencies. In a new and controversial book, our panelist Joshua Muravchikcalls all this neo-isolationism. He says he has a better way to go. Joshua Muravchik, my colleague, what is your problem? MR. MURAVCHIK: Well, my alarm is that with the Cold War havingended, there is a tremendous urge in this country to take a vacationfrom foreign policy. Congressman Barney Frank put it, 'It's time tobe nicer to ourselves.' But the world remains a very perilous place,and I think that if we turn our back on foreign policy, we'll verysoon find ourselves with some major new threats or crises that we'llhave to deal with some major new threats or crises that we'll have todeal with in a painful, expensive way. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Owen Harries, what do you think of Josh'sstatement? You've read his book, I know. MR. HARRIES: Yes. Put in that moderate way, I have littlecomplaint with it. But that's not how it comes through in the book.It's a very assertive demand that America lead across the board, thatit be the global leader, that it be the teacher, the sheriff, theleader of the posse, the mediator everywhere in a veryundiscriminative, unselective way. I'd sum up my complaint with Josh in Isaiah Berlin (ph) terms.He's a hedgehog in a world that is increasingly foxy. MR. WATTENBERG: We will come back to that to figure out exactlywhat that means. Bill Maynes. MR. MAYNES: Well, I think there is room for retrenchment from theCold War postures that we had, but not retreat. And so like Owen,when I listen to Joshua's presentation of his position, I would agreewith that as well. I think the question is how engaged, how we spendour money. Right now, we're making, I think, many of the wrongchoices in the way that we're allocating our international budget. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. In New York, Dick Holbrook, you have of thispanel been most recently on the ground in a heroic role in Bosnia.How do you see it? MR. HOLBROOK: You know, the end of the Cold War did not mean, aswas famously and fatuously said, the end of history. And Josh isabsolutely correct that the world is a more complicated and difficultplace. Some retrenchment may be necessary. I had no problem withreducing the forces in Germany. But it was only when the UnitedStates and the Europeans finally got their act together after fourterrible years, 1991 to 1995, that we were able to stop the war inBosnia. It required NATO air power, American diplomatic, politicaland military leadership, and I think it's a model for the future. The events in the NATO ministerial meetings in Berlin show againthat NATO has a role. The Americans must take a leadership role. Wedon't want to be the policemen of the world, as Owen says, Ben, butwe have a major role in the world and isolationism would bedestructive to our own economic and national interests. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Josh, you have been characterized asspeaking less vigorously than your book speaks. Is that correct? MR. MURAVCHIK: Well, give me time and I'll get it all out. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. MR. MURAVCHIK: Owen has said there's room for some retrenchment.Bill said it, and others agree. Of course there's room forretrenchment, but the reality is we have done more than retrenchalready. In the first five budgets after the Cold War, we cut defensespending by $350 billion. That's an awful lot of retrenchment. We'vecut back our diplomatic budget so that we've closed between two andthree dozen embassies and consulates around the world. We'veradically reduced the hours of broadcasting around the world on VOAand Radio Free Europe. We've cut foreign aid very drastically. Sowe've done a lot more than retrench, and there's no sign that we'restopping. We're just cutting back and cutting back because we've got a bigbudget problem that really has nothing to do with foreign policy. Ithas to do with an imbalance between entitlements, on the one hand,which are going up, and taxes, which aren't going up with them, orare coming down. Those two are out of balance. And we've been tryingto postpone the reckoning on our entitlements problem in the budgetby just slashing foreign policy accounts across the boardrelentlessly, and we're going to get into trouble. MR. WATTENBERG: Do you agree with that, Dick? MR. HOLBROOK: Of course I do. Look, Ben, let's talk about what'shappened. At the end of the Cold War, Americans said, enough, we wantdomestic priorities. That was a legitimate decision. It happened in1920 and 1945 as well, but it went too far, and the consequences weremost evident in Bosnia, but elsewhere in the world. We have a world leadership role now as much as ever, and we wantthe Europeans and leading Asian countries to be our partners. Butthis closing of embassies and consulates, I personally fought likehell against it, but I lost some big ones. So of course at thatlevel, I agree completely with Josh. MR. HARRIES: Yes. Well, can I break in and try to disturb thisharmony a little bit and ask Josh a question? A few minutes ago, Dicksaid that he certainly didn't believe that America should be thepolicemen of the world. Do you think America should be the policemenof the world, and don't you virtually say that it should in yourbook? MR. MURAVCHIK: Well, in a sense, I say it should be more than thepolicemen of the world because a policeman is a hired hand that takeshis orders from a mayor or a city council. And in the community ofnations, there is no mayor or city council; there's no one to giveorders. So we have to do more than be the policemen. We have to bethe leader of the world. We have to be the ones who are shaping thedecisions about where military might needs to be applied. MR. HOLBROOK: I think Josh's abstract theory is exactly proved bywhat happened in Bosnia. In 1991, the European Community, as it wasthen called, came to the Bush administration and said, we'll takecare of Yugoslavia, it's in our back yard. The Bush administration,riding high after the defeat of Saddam Hussein, said fine. It took usfour years and two administrations to untrack from that, and it wasonly when the Clinton administration pressed the Europeans andinsisted on NATO air power and an all-out diplomatic effort that wegot anywhere. Now we must share with the Europeans the responsibility forsuccess. I think it's an exact illustration of what Josh is arguing. MR. WATTENBERG: All right, now let -- Bill, what were you -- MR. MAYNES: Well, I disagree with some of the assertions that Joshhas made here. It's true that we've cut defense significantly, but wecut it from the Ronald Reagan highs. In fact, the American defensebudget now is at the level of 1980 after the Carter buildup. In otherwords, it's at a level that it was at when the Soviet Union stillexisted, when the Warsaw Pact existed, when there were 500,000 Soviettroops in Eastern Europe, more than that, in fact. So that thestatement that, you know, we've massively cut defense is misleading. The real problem is that we have a very vigorous defense. TheUnited States represents 37 percent of all military spending in theworld. We don't have a real enemy right now. We're unable to usemilitary force in some of the problems that do exist in the world,like Liberia or others, maybe for legitimate reasons, maybe forillegitimate reasons. Meanwhile, we are starving our diplomatic side of the equation.This is what is crippling American foreign policy. It is not -- MR. WATTENBERG: Well, let me -- what on earth would happen ifAmerica didn't, quote, 'lead'? I mean, what is there some marchingband or something that we need a drum major? Isn't there a wholeworld out there that -- MR. HOLBROOK: Ben, look. We are in a bizarre set of false choiceshere. Everyone agrees that our economy is now global andinterdependent. You cannot disaggregate your economic policy and yourforeign and strategic policy. You cannot make false choices of thissort. So this is empty words, this isolationism. We have no choice.If we want to be a successful nation economically, we have tomaintain a worldwide presence. MR. HARRIES: My philosophical problem with what Josh is saying isthat to assert that America must lead is to assert that others mustfollow. To assert that America must lead globally is to assert thateverybody else must follow. That's a subordinate relationship. It's asubordinate relationship that is alien to America's basic values,which are egalitarian and which are values of freedom. America should be concerned to spread responsibility, to spreadenterprise, to spread initiative throughout the world, to seekcooperative relationships, not subordinate relationships. That Ithink is my basic objection to this unrelenting emphasis in your bookon leadership, leadership, leadership. The world is too diverse. And coming back to Dick's point about Bosnia, the Europeans werefeeble in Bosnia precisely because they had 40 years of depending onAmerican leadership and had lost the instinct to act effectively ontheir own. MR. WATTENBERG: Oooh. MR. MURAVCHIK: Well, they didn't act very effectively on their own40 years ago, either. They haven't acted very effectively on theirown any time since 1914 on. And why that is is something we canspeculate about. But you know, when you say a subordinate position,let's unpack that a little bit. The United States is not an imperialpower. We don't suppress anybody, we don't conquer anybody, we don'tabsorb anybody. But we are by far the mightiest power militarily andalso economically, and the fact is that whether you look at Europe,in Bosnia or other situations in Europe and the Cold War, whether youlook at Asia, with China and Taiwan or the nuclear threat from NorthKorea or the Middle East, wherever you go, the one force that is ableto often keep the peace, not always, but often keep the peace orrestore it, that the others look to to play the leading role is theUnited States. MR. MAYNES: But they look to us because thus far we have beenwilling to play a disproportionate role, and we have deprived them oftheir own leadership responsibilities. But my question to you is,when you look around the world, I think the count is that of the last82 conflicts that have taken place in the world, 79 have beeninternal. So the call right now around the world is for the UnitedStates to get involved in situations like Somalia or Bosnia. Joshseems to be asking for a measure of U.S. leadership that would takeus into all of those situations. MR. HOLBROOK: Ben, Ben -- MR. WATTENBERG: All right, Dick wants to -- yeah, go ahead. MR. HOLBROOK: I'm really puzzled by the conversation. It's so farafield of the actual challenges we face. First of all, in the firsttwo years of this administration, we were criticized in Europe forlack of leadership. Now we're being criticized by people, includingOwen, for too much leadership. I'll take the latter charge any time. Secondly, it isn't the result of creating a dependency over theCold War period that created Europe's problem. The fact is, the 1991decision to let Europe handle Yugoslavia was mutually wrong in bothWashington and Europe. We are a partnership, a partnership, Owen, inwhich we are the senior partner, but it is a true partnership. We're not going to go into all 80-some internal wars, but thereare also a lot of unresolved problems in the world where Americanleadership is key. Let me give you two more examples from current European history,but a legacy of 1919, 1920. All of southeastern Europe has legaciesof unresolved problems. In the last year, the United States has takenthe lead in settling the Greeks' Albanian problems andHungarian-Slovakian state treaty issues, which now have reducedsharply the chances of conflicts between those two countries. We areactively working on Hungary-Romania. We also settled the Greeceproblems with the former Yugoslav Republic in Macedonia. We areworking on Cyprus, although it's been very tough. We're trying towork on Romania, Ukraine. Any one of these problems could erupt intoa mini-Bosnia at some future time. MR. HARRIES: What we're having here is the sort of -- an extremenotion of American exceptionalism. MR. HOLBROOK: No, Owen. MR. HARRIES: The benign, disinterested hegemon. MR. HOLBROOK: Owen. MR. HARRIES: Which doesn't want anything for itself, which is justconcerned with fixing the world. Now, you know, we spent 40 yearstalking about and insisting that it's not motives that one must lookat, it's capabilities. Look at it from the side of other powers,other countries in the world, that this well-meaning insisting thatit's -- that it has no interest except to preserve order and peace inthe world, but is insisting that its will prevail in virtually everydispute everywhere. MR. MURAVCHIK: Owen, when you say that for 40 years, we said it'snot intentions, but capabilities, I don't know who you're talkingabout. I would have never dreamed of saying that. The whole essenceof the Cold War was not that the Soviet Union had all thesecapabilities, but precisely what Soviet intentions were and thenature of the Soviet political system, which was totalitarian andwhich was aggressive and imperial. MR. WATTENBERG: I want to ask -- I want to introduce a somewhatdifferent topic here for a moment, and let me direct this to you,Owen. You sort of said a few moments ago that this really isn't theAmerican way, to seek a global, benign hegemony, to havesubordinates. I would make the case that American history is repletewith exactly that view. I mean, this is the nation where that phrase'manifest destiny,' which as a matter of fact, kind of went a littletoo far at some points, but this is where it comes from. This is the country -- Ronald Reagan used to always quote JohnWinthrop's 'City on the Hill.' This country has a messianic streak,and you don't have to scratch very deeply to find it. We think, withall our flaws, that this is something we want to offer to the world,and we should be prepared to do it somewhat assertively. Therefore -- MR. HARRIES: Offer to the world, by all means. Impose it on theworld, no. MR. HOLBROOK: No one is imposing it. MR. HARRIES: Democracy is not an export product. It's ado-it-yourself enterprise. MR. MURAVCHIK: Nothing could be more wrong than that. How didJapan get democratic? How did Germany get democratic? How did Italyget democratic? MR. HARRIES: By being conquered in war and occupied for severalyears. Now, do you intend doing that all around the globe? MR. MURAVCHIK: No, but that is enough to refute your point thatit's something everyone has to do for themselves. And if you goaround the world other places, you see democracy in a lot of placeswhere it's come by virtue, in part, of American influence, Americanexample, American diplomatic pressure. And that's not a violentimposition of our ways, but it's an exercise of leadership which -- MR. MAYNES: There's always been a debate in American history as towhether we should impose our views on others or whether, by ourexample, we should make the American experiment so attractive thatothers would embrace it. And this has been an intellectual debate that has raged for 150years. I think the problem with the position that you seem to betaking is that while it might work in this case or that case, it isalso going to get the United States in an enormous amount ofdifficulty in some other areas. It's precisely that kind of messianicattitude that carried us into Vietnam. MR. MURAVCHIK: Well, Bill, I think you're posing a false dichotomywhen you say the choice is between imposing our way and just being amodel. There is a lot of room in between. MR. WATTENBERG: Isn't this, the argument between you all, whetherwe should have an ad hoc foreign policy, case by case, or should wehave a theoretical foreign policy, a grand rubric, and then makethings fit as much as we can into that? Is that the argument thatwe're hearing here? MR. HARRIES: That's part of the argument. That's what I meant byhedgehogs in a foxy world. MR. WATTENBERG: Oh, yeah, tell us what that means. Hedgehogs in afoxy world. MR. HARRIES: Hedgehogs are people who know one big thing, who seea unifying -- who look for a unifying principle or impose a unifyingprinciple on reality. MR. WATTENBERG: Josh is a hedgehog. MR. HARRIES: Yeah. MR. WATTENBERG: Right. MR. HARRIES: The foxes are the ones who know many things or whocomes to terms with diversity and recognize that there ain't onegrand unifying principle. MR. WATTENBERG: So you Owen Harries and you Bill Maynes are foxes? MR. HARRIES: I think so. MR. MAYNES: We hope so. MR. WATTENBERG: Yeah. Now, where are you, Dick Holbrook? Are you ahedgehog? MR. HOLBROOK: Well, I think Owen, with all due respect, has got itexactly wrong. We are -- the American foreign policy is going to haveto be foxy in a hedgehog world, in one sense. All right, the Cold Waris over, but instability, whether it's in the Pacific or southeasternEurope or Iraq, Turkey, Iran, which is going to be our next powderkeg, has got to require individual tailored responses, but within astrategic vision. That's the hedgehog part of the argument. The foxpart of the approach is you tailor to the situation. MR. MAYNES: The problem is not how policymakers deal with this.The issue is how these questions are presented to the Americanpeople, and one of the reasons for a hedgehog approach to foreignpolicy is to try to convey some kind of vision that people can rallyaround. So even though I have disagreements with him, what he'strying to do is important. I mean, whether or not the policymakersare -- MR. WATTENBERG: You are pro-vision, but your vision is an ad hocapproach. MR. MAYNES: I think it's important -- MR. HARRIES: Instrumental vision. MR. MAYNES: I think it's important for every administration tocome up with some kind of concept of how the world works that theycan present to the American people. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay, I am making you President Maynes.Congratulations. You've just been elected. It's your inauguraladdress. I'm giving you one paragraph to give me the concept that youthink ought to be the American guiding concept. Mr. President. MR. MAYNES: Well, I think that the United States should be workingfor a concert of great powers and that the role of the United Statesis that of a responsible steward of the international system rightnow. MR. WATTENBERG: Owen Harries, MR. HARRIES: I am against vision, and I think the time has come totry to educate the American electorate not to expect vision, that itgets -- creates more problems, except in certain circumstances,exceptional ones like the Cold War one. I also would point out that if you want to downsize centralgovernment, if you want to decentralize power in America, that isincompatible with insisting on a very assertive, proactive -- to usethat awful word -- foreign policy, where America intervenes all overthe place and assumes leadership roles on virtually every issue. MR. WATTENBERG: In New York, President Holbrook. Does that have anice ring? (Laughter.) MR. HOLBROOK: I'm a vice chairman, actually, of an investmentbank. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. MR. HOLBROOK: We have a foreign policy. It needs to have a visionand values. Now, the fall of 1995 and 1996 were a turning point in Americanforeign policy. I would say, Ben, that the post Cold War era ended atDayton and we are now in something that I would call the post postCold War era. Perhaps you can think of a better and sexier phrase. MR. WATTENBERG: The post post Cold War -- MR. HOLBROOK: The post post Cold War era, an era -- MR. WATTENBERG: I'm just trying to figure out if it fits on abumper sticker. MR. HOLBROOK: No, I'm hoping that you'll come up with a betterphrase than that. But the point is that we are -- that history willwrite the period as a seminal period in American foreign policy, buthistorians will know how this movie came out. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. MR. HOLBROOK: And they will decide whether Dayton was the highwater mark of American good intentions, which would be a tragedy, orthe beginning of our return to the kind of global leadership which isnecessary. MR. WATTENBERG: All right, President Muravchik. MR. MURAVCHIK: When the Cold War ended, it's as if we inherited awindfall of security. And the choice we face now is whether to spendthat off by ignoring foreign policy or to invest that extra securityand strength we now enjoy to try to make the world more peaceful andsecure for ourselves and, in general, for the long run. To do that, what we need to do is keep up our military strength,which discourages a lot of mischief around the world, be willing totake a very harsh stand against aggressions across borders, such asin Iraq and Kuwait and Serbia and Bosnia. We need to promotedemocracy around the globe, which makes it more peaceful, and we needto promote free trade, which offers poor countries a means throughexport to lift themselves out of poverty. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. My own inaugural address would carry mybumper sticker, which is 'Neo-Manifest Destinarianism,' which you canall write in to find out about. We thank you all. Thank you, JoshuaMuravchik, Bill Maynes, in New York, Richard Holbrook, and OwenHarries. And thank you. Please send your comments and questions to: NewRiver Media, 1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20036. Or we canbe reached by e-mail at thinktv@aol.com or on the World Wide Web atwww.thinktank.com. For 'Think Tank,' I'm Ben Wattenberg. ANNOUNCER: This has been a production of BJW, Incorporated, inassociation with New River Media, which are solely responsible forits content. 'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient of thePresidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow. Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation andthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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