The Next President's World
By George Friedman
The beginning of a new American presidency is always fraught with
surprise. There is no way to know how a new occupant will handle
the Oval Office, until it tests him.
But this much is certain: A world more dangerous and complex than
the one President Clinton bequeaths will test the next president.
The next administration will encounter a world in transition, an
interregnum between eras. Where the Cold War ended in the collapse
of a single superpower, competition between many great powers will
mark the new era.
In mastering this emerging world, the new president must first
master his own house. U.S. foreign policy is in disarray because we
are in a period of transition, and given overwhelming American
power, there has been little need for precise strategy and tactics.
But at its deepest level, U.S. foreign policy is in disarray
because of an underlying duality in the country's character one
that every president faces but few can control. The problem lies in
a very simple observation: This is a country with two names. There
is America, a geographic entity. And there is the United States, a
legal and constitutional entity.
America is a country like any other with geography, peoples and an
economy that springs from both. America has its power, its fears
and its greed. But the United States is the expression of the
Constitution, the moral project of the American Revolution. When a
president, or a soldier, takes an oath he does not swear to protect
America. He swears to defend the Constitution. This vision is not
pluralistic; it has always inferred there are nations with other
values, morally defective by comparison.
In foreign policy, America's moral mission has clashed with the
national interests of the United States. Many cases date back to
the alliance with France against Britain. The clearest was during
World War II when the idea of alliance with Stalin a homicidal
dictator of historic proportions was clearly counter to America's
moral mission. But it was in the national interest of the United
States to build the alliance and defeat Hitler's Germany.
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In recent years, the pursuit of human rights abroad has become the
imperative of U.S. foreign policy. From Somalia to Kosovo, the
moral project of America has directed foreign policy. When the
question has arisen should we intervene in say, Rwanda or Kosovo? -
the tension has shown itself.
During periods in which the United States enjoys overwhelming
power, it can pursue moral ends without risk. In extreme times, as
during World War II, it is necessary to abandon moral scruples and
ally, as Churchill said, with the devil if need be. The in-between
times make life difficult for a president. And the next one is
unlikely to have the luxury of always choosing the moral
imperative.
Why? Because we are at the end of the post-Cold War world in which
the overwhelming U.S. power and the willingness of other great
powers to subordinate their activities to Washington's demands
characterized that world. For Europeans, this was as much habit as
interest. For others, like Russia and China, this was a matter of
economics. Russia pinned its hopes on Western aid. China built
economic development around the twin pillars of Western investment
and access to Western markets.
That world is changing. Today, the Putin government continues to
hope for Western assistance but strongly suspects little will be
forthcoming. With the carrot of economic assistance disappearing,
Russia is moving to recover its sphere of political influence and
increasingly has reasons to challenge the United States.
Similarly, China's economy underwent a sea change in the late
1990s. Its economy increasingly sustains itself on domestic
resources. As such, Beijing's desire to accommodate Washington must
take second place to the desire to create domestic political
conditions necessary to maintain stability and sustain development.
This will translate into pressure on interests closest to Western
corporations in order to drive wealth from the coast to the
interior. And it means increased repression at home.
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Finally, European and Japanese habits are changing too. The easy
equation of alliance with the United States leading to security and
prosperity no longer applies. For the Europeans, alliance with the
United States means military adventure in the Balkans and tension
with Russia. It also means a Euro pressured by the dollar. For
Japan, the relationship with the United States no longer equals
prosperity.
The trajectory is clear. Interests between the world's great powers
will diverge. Since each by itself is incapable of restraining the
United States, many will band together, forming ad hoc and formal
alliances as necessary.
The new president, as a result, will face twin challenges. The
first is the need to act with greater caution; imprudence can only
accelerate the divergence between the great powers. The second is
to re-examine human rights in foreign policy. Russia, China and the
Islamic world have very different understandings of the nature of
just regimes. The willingness to ignore American demands is already
rising, particularly in China's case.
Where necessity imposed Roosevelt's choice to ally with Stalin and
Clinton could make choices because of low risk, the next president
will live between the luxury of overwhelming power and extreme
crisis choices. This was the one point on which Governor George
Bush and Vice President Gore truly engaged foreign policy,
particularly over the Balkans. Bush made it clear he would tilt
decisions away from human rights, toward national security. Gore
insisted human rights must play a central role, quite apart from
national security.
In the next term, this inherent contradiction in the country's
character will intensify. The man who sits in the Oval Office will
not have the luxury Clinton enjoyed. And the new foreign policy, in
the emerging new world, will become more important and difficult at
the same time.
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