Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Toward a New Kind of International Leadership
If we are to escape from the trap recent policies have led us into, we must take urgent and dramatic steps to reestablish our credibility and thereby reestablish our leadership. Only then can we pursue the essential goals of any American administration: the protection of American interests at home and abroad and progress toward the achievement of a better life for all people.
At a minimum, the following steps are necessary:
1. Make careful and judicious use of our resources. This means avoiding spending beyond our means except in clearly exceptional times. In military terms, it means undertaking actions only when we have clear objectives and when we can apply overwhelming force. It means ending actions only after our objectives have been attained. Following this path, we will reduce casualties on all sides and preserve the ability of the country to respond in a timely fashion to other crises as they arise.
2. Establish and maintain friendly working relationships with all responsible governments, even those with which we have important policy differences. In the case of Iraq specifically, this means working with the governments of all adjoining states to help contain the movement of supplies to the insurgents and to assist in the development of the country. In the case of Russia, it means avoiding unnecessary criticisms of their internal policies and offering assistance in their struggle against terrorism and ethnic unrest. It also means taking a more even-handed approach to Russia’s relations with its former socialist republics.
3. Play a more supportive and cooperative part in international organizations or conferences, whether the subject be environmental policy, trade policy, nuclear proliferation, or international courts. We must be seen as playing a positive rather than disruptive role in creating a new international order, as well as in the creation of new regional organizations or systems.
4. Work for the extension of freedom (democracy and human rights) in the world through peaceful means. We can do this through offering democratic assistance to countries that ask for it. Many countries desire our assistance in improving their security, judicial, or electoral systems - or in the building of a civil society. We should remain a haven for exiles working for freedom in countries still without freedom. We should publicize our impression of the degree to which the performance of some states falls below international standards. Official condemnations of the behavior of other governments should, however, only be made in exceptional circumstances. Finally, we should support freedom through our example, through inviting people throughout the world to become acquainted with the better aspects of our way of life. We should, of course, be sure to continue working on improving the level of freedom and democracy in the United States.
5. Assist in the creation and maintenance of chains of nonaggression agreements throughout the world. We might, for example, help to create and ensure a nonaggression agreement running from Lebanon and Turkey to India and Bangladesh. This would include specific guarantees to the countries involved that we will not threaten them and will come to their assistance if threatened, thereby strengthening their ability to develop nonthreatening relations with the countries around them.
6. Strive to develop along with other existing nuclear weapon powers a more responsible and equitable nuclear nonproliferation program. As it is, rising states with nuclear ambitions have no reason not to use the same logic that we do in imagining that nuclear weapons makes a country invulnerable through deterrence. We can say little that is convincing to the Iranians as long as we have allowed Israel, Pakistan, and India to possess these weapons and as long as we show little sign of actually dismantling the overwhelming nuclear deterrent capacity that we maintain. In the end, an effective nonproliferation program will be one in which all nuclear weapon countries move together toward a radical reduction in their stockpiles and radical change in their nuclear weapon doctrines. It is past time that the United States take a lead in an effort to develop such a program.
With an approach along these lines, we will begin to look more like a leader than a bully, and we may find it easier to induce other states and peoples to help us extricate ourselves from those projects in which we have floundered.
At a minimum, the following steps are necessary:
1. Make careful and judicious use of our resources. This means avoiding spending beyond our means except in clearly exceptional times. In military terms, it means undertaking actions only when we have clear objectives and when we can apply overwhelming force. It means ending actions only after our objectives have been attained. Following this path, we will reduce casualties on all sides and preserve the ability of the country to respond in a timely fashion to other crises as they arise.
2. Establish and maintain friendly working relationships with all responsible governments, even those with which we have important policy differences. In the case of Iraq specifically, this means working with the governments of all adjoining states to help contain the movement of supplies to the insurgents and to assist in the development of the country. In the case of Russia, it means avoiding unnecessary criticisms of their internal policies and offering assistance in their struggle against terrorism and ethnic unrest. It also means taking a more even-handed approach to Russia’s relations with its former socialist republics.
3. Play a more supportive and cooperative part in international organizations or conferences, whether the subject be environmental policy, trade policy, nuclear proliferation, or international courts. We must be seen as playing a positive rather than disruptive role in creating a new international order, as well as in the creation of new regional organizations or systems.
4. Work for the extension of freedom (democracy and human rights) in the world through peaceful means. We can do this through offering democratic assistance to countries that ask for it. Many countries desire our assistance in improving their security, judicial, or electoral systems - or in the building of a civil society. We should remain a haven for exiles working for freedom in countries still without freedom. We should publicize our impression of the degree to which the performance of some states falls below international standards. Official condemnations of the behavior of other governments should, however, only be made in exceptional circumstances. Finally, we should support freedom through our example, through inviting people throughout the world to become acquainted with the better aspects of our way of life. We should, of course, be sure to continue working on improving the level of freedom and democracy in the United States.
5. Assist in the creation and maintenance of chains of nonaggression agreements throughout the world. We might, for example, help to create and ensure a nonaggression agreement running from Lebanon and Turkey to India and Bangladesh. This would include specific guarantees to the countries involved that we will not threaten them and will come to their assistance if threatened, thereby strengthening their ability to develop nonthreatening relations with the countries around them.
6. Strive to develop along with other existing nuclear weapon powers a more responsible and equitable nuclear nonproliferation program. As it is, rising states with nuclear ambitions have no reason not to use the same logic that we do in imagining that nuclear weapons makes a country invulnerable through deterrence. We can say little that is convincing to the Iranians as long as we have allowed Israel, Pakistan, and India to possess these weapons and as long as we show little sign of actually dismantling the overwhelming nuclear deterrent capacity that we maintain. In the end, an effective nonproliferation program will be one in which all nuclear weapon countries move together toward a radical reduction in their stockpiles and radical change in their nuclear weapon doctrines. It is past time that the United States take a lead in an effort to develop such a program.
With an approach along these lines, we will begin to look more like a leader than a bully, and we may find it easier to induce other states and peoples to help us extricate ourselves from those projects in which we have floundered.
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