U.S. foreign policy
International policy won't change, Secretary of State Warren Christopher bravely told the South Koreans and everyone else listening, which means everyone else. "It is a tradition that whatever the outcome of the midterm elections, there is a strong continuity in American foreign policy." It may be a tradition, but it is not an automatically binding one. There is a continuity to national interest, but foreign policy is set partly on the thermostat of domestic politics. The country has moved to the right, and as a result its international outlook moves to the right, too, in some degree yet to be told.
In the wide range of foreign policy that concerns trade and money, there may be substantial changes. It depends on which of several conflicting aspects of recent Republican behavior the new majority chooses to follow. The first test is likely to be the vote on the trade bill several weeks from now in a rump session of the present Congress. The Republicans may stick with the principle of more open markets and support the bill. But they may decide to oppose it or -- much the same thing -- delay it, as some of them were doing before the election, to embarrass the Clinton administration.
Later comes the federal budget deficit, which has a heavy impact on foreign economic policy because its voracious borrowing requirements have turned the United States -- the world's richest country -- into an importer of capital. It sharpens the competition for capital and contributes to high interest rates worldwide. If the Republicans put their new power to work on real deficit-cutting this winter, that will be a good sign. But if they devote their energy to a fake constitutional amendment to balance the budget while business proceeds as usual, it will be clear that they are not serious. These Republican choices will make a difference in America's place in the world and the nature of that world.
Then there will be the new defense budget, a spending issue and a policy issue at the same time. Current defense spending is at $280 billion -- on the order of 10 times Russia's. Of course the United States has global responsibilities. Should the resources, or the responsibilities, be adjusted? Of course the United States has global responsibilities. Should the resources, or the responsibilities, be adjusted? Where will old responsibilities be laid off? The country has already conducted one thorough post-Cold War defense review. It is not evident to us that another is needed so quickly.
Meanwhile, specific issues testing the new political configuration will not be in short supply. In Haiti, North Korea and the Middle East, three areas where Mr. Clinton has claimed foreign policy achievement, the delivery on administration commitments of aid and possibly of peace-keepers will fall to the new Congress. A Republican Congress will almost certainly cool further the Democratic administration's already-cooling interest in UN peacekeeping. There may be a falling inclination to bail out Russia at home and a rising inclination to challenge it abroad. And so on around the world.
Not that Republicans are of one mind on any of these issues. The party has a center that works with the Democratic center and a right ready for battle with both that center and the Democratic left. Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar speaks for the one and incoming chairman Jesse Helms for the other. The play of these two currents will determine how severe and how useful will be the GOP's challenge. Accustomed in recent decades to holding the presidency and fending off congressional interventions in foreign policy, the Republicans must now balance their current role as proprietors of Congress against their hoped-for future role as proprietors of the White House too.
In short, the outlook is for, at the least, more tension and a greater politicization in the making of foreign policy. This may not have been an explicit part of what the voters ordered up when they went to the polls Tuesday, but it seems an implicit part of the result.
-- The Washington Post