Which is to say that the meaning of Clintonism is up for grabs. Berger is no dispassionate observer. In an interview in his West Wing office, a lengthy article in the current Foreign Affairs magazine and a recent speech at Georgetown University, he set out to establish the rationale and context for foreign policy decisions that often seemed to lack just that. Now we had to figure out what to build. Moreover, America was widely described as being in economic decline when Clinton came to Washington and the Cold War ended, Berger likes to recall.
Today there are no economic or military rivals to the United States on the world scene.
The question has become how the United States will use its power while trying to defuse the inevitable envy and opposition it will arouse in the rest of the world. We are the only country capable of projecting power globally and often the only one with the impartial standing to mediate disputes. If we fail to support our friends and allies when they do take the lead, we will find ourselves alone when we need them. It is an announcement of a doctrine of globalization, taking shape as time expires on the Clinton presidency. There's the rub.