From: king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore on foreign policy [VERY long, and off-topic]
Summary: my last post on this thread
Keywords: foreign policy, democratic, republican, cold war, post-cold war.
Date: 12 Sep 92 01:21:19 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of California, San Diego

Well, this now has nearly nothing to do with the election, so this will
be my last comment on this one.  Due to its length and content, I've
also reduced the distribution.

MEDELMA@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Michael Edelman) writes:
>king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King) writes:
>>      [...]
>>booming economy.  And now that we are no longer dedicated to fighting
>>a land war in Europe against the Warsaw Pact, why shouldn't it
>>continue to shrink?  Or at least change?  You know, I haven't heard
>>either side talk about mine-sweepers yet, or the need to develop much
>>better methods of battlefield damage assessment, or other things that
>>might be really important.  And I bet that I won't.
>>
>Note that the end of the cold war may mean more small, localized wars as
>we've been seeing. Between nuclear powers you get standoffs. Between
>non-nuclear powers disputes become wars.

Uh, are we actually disagreeing here?  I think you could actually
argue about whether or not there are "more wars" now than before; the
involvement of major powers may have changed, but there never seems to
be a big dearth of battles around the globe.

Meanwhile, you didn't say anything about my implicit point, which might
be more succinctly stated as this:  why are we doing Star Wars when
we could be building mine-sweepers and other technologies which
are also possibly cheaper and more useful?
 
>>>What a Clinton presidency promises is something akin to a Carter
>>>presidency--but without Carter's one small success in the mideast.
>>
>>I don't follow this at all.  In Carter's presidency there were no
>>US wars that I can recall, the Stealth program was begun, and he tried
>>to kill the B-1.  Not to say everything was hunky-dory, but I must be
>>missing something here (but not the Iran hostage debacle, since that
>>only grossly distorted our foreign policy in the 1980s).  Meanwhile,
>>I guess we disagree about the importance of that "small success in the
>>mideast".
> 
>Oh, I was thinking of net losses in  the number of free states, 
>increased Soviet domination of other states, weakened US influence 
>throughout the world, that sort of thing.

It looks like we have some major differences of opinion here.  Haven't
recent events in the XSSR suggested that the Soviet Union was grossly
and pathetically over-extended?  Wasn't the invasion of Afghanistan
one of the most devastatingly bad major power moves of all time?  And
I don't buy the weakened US influence argument the way you seem to be
putting it for lots of reasons.  First of all, I think you probably
underestimate US influence at that time, particularly economically.
Second of all, the rest of the world was not standing still, and many
countries were able to grow (economically) much faster than the US for
any number of reasons having not much to do with the US and not
directly controllable by the US.  

The point about free states may be more interesting, but I expect the
accounting is pretty tricky.  So when South Vietnam fell, did the free
state count go down?  When the former Pourtuguese *colony* of Angola
became free of Pourtugal but went Marxist, what did the free state
count show?  Was Nicaraugua really free before the Sandinistas?

>>>That is to say an extremely non-interventionist stance. And along
>>>with that, a corresponding reaction in the rest of the world.
>>
>>The US policy was non-interventionist?  What the heck was the Carter
>>Doctrine about, then?
> 
>Apparantly it was about nothing, because Carter didn't do anything even
>as the USSR attempted to increase its influence in our hemisphere.

Apparently you don't know what the Carter Doctrine was, then.  And,
once again, you also play the game for the long term.  Whose
investments and influence in the Americas (or anywhere else) do you
like better now?  To be very honest, I just don't see your
characterization of Carter as a non-interventionist as meaning very
much.

>>>There are still a great many communists- whom the media in this 
>>>country refer to, in their puzzling way, as "conservatives"- in 
>>>the ex-USSR states, who are capable of a coup attempt.
>>
>>Actually, I wouldn't know what to call them either.  But I don't see
>>their attachment to "Communism" as being their defining trait.  Let's
>>call them "Anti-reform opportunists".  And, yes, they are a problem.
> 
>Boy, that's a novel attempt. How about just sticking with "Communists?"
>It's okay to call them Communists. That's what they call themselves.

And they also call themselves "Anti-Imperialists" and "Friends of the
Workers".  What's your point?  I prefer to use the label "Communist"
to describe people who have particular intellectual interests and
beliefs rather than just some autocrat with a membership card who
mouths doctrine.  Mikhail Gorbachev actually appears to have been a
Communist, but many others were really just in it for the money.  When
I went to the USSR in 1984, I met some Communists, some of whom were
even party members, and some Careerists, who were generally party
members by definition.  And *all* the most interesting black
marketeers were party members; that one KGB lawyer we met in Tbilisi
was just incredible.  He was a Careerist, and a veteran wounded in
Afghanistan.  But a Communist?  Don't make me *laugh*.

Anyway, I agree that "anti-reform opportunists" is long and unwieldy;
how about just "Anti-reformists"?  
 
>>What is the Bush policy on them, by the way?
> 
>The question is, what is the perceived US position? Bush has declared his
>support for Yeltsin and the reformers, for free and open trade between
>the US and the former Soviet states, and so forth. What's Clinton's
>stated position?

But he sure as hell was slow to do this right after the coup hit.  And
he was nowhere to be found when they were going under the treads in
Lithuania.  And his declared support hasn't translated into the level
of US expenditures I think will be needed to speed the recovery of
Russia and her former possessions.

As for Clinton's stated position, I'm not precisely sure.  I know that
he came out in favor of increased direct aid.  As far as his attitude
towards Anti-reformists goes, he was the guy who suggested we use air
strikes to take out Serbian units oustide of Sarajevo.  (I have to
admit I'm not sure what would actually work in the Balkans, but there
has to be something more effective than current US policy in the
region; talk about lack of influence...)

>>>They might be tempted to try localized
>>>coups in some states under a Clinton presidency.
>>
>>As opposed to the Union-wide coup they tried under a Bush presidency?
> 
>But it wasn't a Union-wide coup. It was localized, it was led by a very 
>few, and it collapsed quickly. Whether the perception of possible US aid
>affected that we can't say. 

I don't think the full story behind the coup has gotten out yet.  What
I've heard was that there were wide-spread defections in the face of
popular uprising in the large cities, and assurances/promises given by
Yeltsin to other military units.

As far as US influence goes, I think we can rule this out as the
primary cause of the collapse.  In the first hours, when a strong
statement would have been meaningful, Bush waffled.  When it became
clear that things were collapsing, then Bush actually said something.
Who knows what would have happened if they had actually gone ahead
and opened fire on the Parliament building?  Bush did not set a very
encouraging precedent in the Tienamen Square Massacre.


>If it did, there is less threat from a Clinton administration. 

I don't understand this sentence.

>He has been inconsistent at best in his support of intervention or even 
>support of other countries. Look at his statements 
>on both sides of the Iraq affair- he was against it, but probably would 
>have voted to authorize the intervention. I'm not making this up...!

Why is this unreasonable?  I personally had an incredible sense of
revulsion that we were going head-long into a war as the allies of
Hafez al-Assad with the stated purpose of restoring a monarchy to
Kuwait, and incidentally doing something to relieve those Kuwaitis who
were not fortunate enough to be able to flee.  And we had some moral
responsiblity to push out the Iraq since we had previously spared no
effort to build it up in the first place (which tale was not largely
told until after the war was fought).  This was hardly a no-brainer,
particularly when there were some (presumably well-informed) military
sources who testified to Congress that the correct course of action
was not clear.

>>>Iraq, still a military
>>>power, could well try to reassert itself under a Clinton presidency, 
>>>given his wishy-washy statements about the gulf war. Syria would 
>>>probably move further into Lebanon and surrounding countries.
>>
>>Uh, hold it.  While Clinton wasn't the one who decided to fight Iraq,
>>he also wasn't the one who decided to stop fighting it before some
>>apparently easily achievable military objectives were met.  The
>>decision to stop was just as political (and probably as wishy-washy)
>>as any you're likely to see.  Meanwhile, who was the guy who invited
> 
>There is a theory that Bush stopped short of a full invasion at the
>request of Gorbachev, who was afraid he wouldn't be able to stop his
>military from engineering a coup. Or so says one Washington rumor.

Maybe.  But I've heard rumors he did this at the request of various
Arab nations and the Saudis in particular.  Or that he feared Iran
would take advantage.  Does your Gorbachev theory explain why they
didn't destroy the retreating tanks or insist on the absolute grounding
of the airforce?

>In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to stop short. Of course, had
>we simply crushed the entire Iraq military, what would we be hearing
>from the Democrats? That we overdid it. Can't win in political debate.

I'm not so sure.  What you'd more likely hear (and are hearing now) is
angry voices asking why we gave Hussein so much money/intelligence/
leverage in the first place.  And you did hear about was the
completely cynical abandonment of the Kurds and Shiites, from
Republicans as well as Democrats (I beleive).  The moral of the story
is probably this: don't work to arm repulsive dictators in the first
place

>What would Clinton have done?

This is a really tough counterfactual to answer.  The whole issue is
embedded in the totally bizarre policy we had towards Iraq in the
first place.  I'd like to say he wouldn't have gotten in that deep,
but I don't have a time machine.  The policy of the last 3
administrations towards Iran and Iraq is pretty obscure to me.
 
>>Syria into the coalition in the first place?  Didn't this have a
>>little something to do with the situation in Lebanon today?  And who
> 
>No, they were already in there. They were invited in- under some
>Syrian coercion, no doubt,- to get rid of the PLO.

Who was inviting whom here?  Are you suggesting that the US couldn't
have vetoed this action?  Of course, this would have been very
difficult to do once you've invited him to be your ally.  And as far
as getting rid of the PLO goes, don't you have these vague memories of
the US giving one faction free passage out of Lebanon at some earlier
point?  I guess I'm trying to suggest that this isn't as simple a
situation as you suggest.
 
>>was the guy who signed executive orders to help out Hussein until
>>shortly before the invasion of Kuwait?
>>
>So war is always preferable to attempts at diplomacy?

Uh, no.  That's one heck of a jump, no?  My belief is that diplomacy
is far more useful when it is carried out with at least some attempt
to pay attention to the moral consequences of what you are doing.
Propping up the bankrupt, the shady, the greedy, and the stupid will
not win you anything in the long run.  Violence and death seem to be
the prize you end up reaching for when you play the game as a cynic.
Trying to do the right thing might not always win you something
better, but it probably sends a message to your partners and opponents
that your response will be predictable and hopefully fair in the eyes
of the world.
 
>>>There are a lot of countries and insurgency movements which are
>>>held in check or limited in actions by the real or implied threat of
>>>US intervention.
>>
>>And there are repressive regimes which are kept in power by the same.
>>And there generally have been under presidents both Republican and
>>Democratic for quite some time.
>>
>And the biggest collapses- Nicaragua, the USSR, the Phillipines, Poland,
>the rest of Eastern Europe- were under Reagan's watch. 

(A nit: the final collapse of the USSR and its satellites happened under
Bush's watch, for what it's worth.)

First off, I don't accept the post-hoc (or associative credit)
argument without other supporting evidence.  Second, I don't routinely
accept the attribution of monumental effects to individuals.  (This
goes for things like recessions, too, BTW.)  Third, this is a pretty
weird list.  I was never a Sandinista fan, but I certainly was no
Somoza fan either (although the US was for many years), and I'm not
sure Nicaragua is a shining success at this moment either.  As for the
Phillipines, Marcos was our pal, but even then the collapse of his
regime has not led to better things yet.  (And, as an aside, Reagan
was at first perfectly happy to watch Marcos steal the election until
Schultz told him that this was absolutely unacceptable; further, I
haven't forgotten Bush's fawning comments about Marcos from the early
80s.)  Poland is a weird case, too; don't you remember when they
crushed the first Solidarity revolution in December, 1981?  That was
under Reagan's watch.  And Poland isn't out of the woods yet, either;
it galls me to see the Iron Curtain fall and have the US cry poormouth
when then the newly free ask for help.  I'm sorry, but the irony of
this is very painful for me.

>Now did the US
>presidents have an effect on keeping them in power? If so, then Reagan
>was a factor in the collapse of the regimes as well. Can't have it
>both ways. In Eastern Europe they think Reagan helped.

If the first word of that sentence is "How", I think I can parse it.
But if you can't figure out how we kept somebody like Marcos or Somoza
in power, you just aren't thinking very hard.  If you can't figure out
why we kept them in power, join the club. :-) As far as Eastern Europe
goes, let's wait a couple years until we see what actually happens.
There is definitely also some consternation in Eastern Europe about
life after the fall, particularly in terms of US and other foreign aid,
and in terms of what they can do to wring hyperinflation out of their
economies.
 
>>>The US ceased being an IRA "safe house" under Reagan.
>>
>>Don't know about this one, so I can't comment.  But didn't the US
>>become a Contra "safe house" under Reagan?  Again, these are all
> 
>And didn't the Nicaraguans, given a free, monitored election, vote for
>the Contra-supported leaders? Looks like that one's a plus.

And didn't we tell them that if they voted for the Contra-supported
leaders that we would lift the trade embargo and stop financing their
civil war?  What did you expect?  I'm no fan of the Sandinistas, but
they did allow the elections, and even turned over the government.
No, it wasn't as trouble-free a transition as we have routinely have
over here, but much less bloody than many we've seen recently.

And meanwhile, didn't the people of Myanmar, given a free, monitored
election, vote for the democratic opposition?  Looks like a blood bath
to me.  And didn't the students in China, given the temporary freedom
to speak freely, speak in favor of democratic reform?  Looks like another
bloodbath to me.  But it looks like a Most Favored Nation to Bush.
 
>Actually, the US wasn't a Contra "safe house" in the way that it
>harbored many IRA terrorists from British prosecution.

We didn't?  The Contras were not subject to prosecution by the
Nicaraguan government?  They didn't run back and forth between Miami
and their camps in Central America?  They didn't seek to seize control
of a government there?  I must be missing some subtle point in your
analogy.
 
>>>I could easily see more IRA accomodation under Clinton and a tilt away
>>>from Great Britain.
>>
>>I assume you mean the United Kingdom? :-)  Certainly, I wouldn't expect
>>Clinton to be quite as chummy with John Major as Reagan and Bush were
>>with Thatcher and Major, but I don't know why you expect Clinton to
>>tilt either towards or away the UK.  And I don't know why you think
>>this is more worth mentioning than Clinton's view of, say, China, Japan,
>>India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico or Brazil, to name a few.
>>
>We *know* Clinton wants economic war with Mexico, Japan and Canada. Is
>that what you mean?

No we don't.  At least that's now what I've been reading in his
comments and speeches.  He has voiced his support for the NAFTA in
broad terms, but would like some of the terms adjusted.  What a shock.
I'll bet a candidate for office has never wanted the ratification of a
treaty to wait until after an election before.  

As far as which terms he wants adjusted, I can see some of his points.
Here in San Diego, it is easy enough to go to Mexico and see what kind
of pollution controls they have in force there, how the government
regulates businesses, and what is likely to happen if you aren't very
careful with your treaty language and its enforcement provisions.  I
don't want free trade to become just a license to move factories to
Ciudad Juarez and pollute at will with ultra-cheap labor and the loss
of thousands of US manufacturing jobs.  What I want free trade to
become is a way in which Mexico can raise its wages and its living
standards so that they can afford to buy the neat things we'll
manufacture here while we buy the neat things they'll manufacture
there while the water runs cleaner between us.  In the meantime, we'll
be reducing the pressure for Mexicans to immigrate illegally to this
country, and we can scrap the recently unveiled plan to erect armored
searchlights along the length of the border south of San Diego.

As far as Japan goes, the Clinton message I've heard is "We should do
what they are doing if we want to have a high-wage economy, and if
that means closer government-industry cooperation, so be it."  To be
honest, I don't know what the real impact of the foreign corporation
tax changes he wants will be, but at lest it's an idea.

>>>Whether any of this seems important to you depends on how you perceived the
>>>Carter era, of course. ;-)
>>
>>Uh, why is that?
>>
>I thought Clinton was running as a Democrat- isn't he?

Yes, and I still don't get it.  What are you trying to say here?  That a
Clinton administration would be different from a Bush administration?
 
>>Anyway, back then I at least had the innocent notion that we were
>>trying to support people and governments for moral reasons (yeah, I
>>was pretty innocent).  My perception of the Bush era is much darker,
>>centering around his actions towards Iraq, China, Syria, Burma and the
>>like.
>>
>So you think we should have instead supported Iraq against Kuwait?  What's
>the Burma problem?

No offense, but are you dense?  Oh, I see: you haven't read my reply
yet. :-) No, I don't think we should have supported Iraq before they
invaded Kuwait.  Why not?  Lots of reasons.  In particular, because
they were also the agressor in the Iran-Iraq War, so you certainly had
an idea of what they would do if you gave them any help.

The Burma (Myanmar) problem is obvious, but the US response has been
practically zero.  (If you don't know what the problem is, then please
don't post any more news until you look it up somewhere.)  You can't
say you're a friend of democracy abroad when your actions say that you
Just Don't Care.

jking



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