"Nations, like men, love that which flatters their passions--even more than that which serves their interests." --Alexis de Tocqueville

As the century draws toward its close, America's position as the leading, if not the dominant, world power appears to be unchallengeable. Yet its preeminence, and certainly its ability to lead, are being undermined by internal weaknesses rather different from those that have affected great powers in the past--weaknesses that were well controlled in that long period of the Second World War and the Cold War during which America achieved that preeminence. Some of these weaknesses are structural, some merely habitual. They range from the character of the American Constitution (whose defects are the obverse side of its strengths), to the American constitution in a broader sense, that is, the elements and the habits of mind of the American Democracy. Included in the latter is a growing hubris, reflecting the weakening of restraints and the absence of a serious challenge in the post-Cold War world, and a naive belief that assertiveness is now cost-free and does not entail serious consequences. Unless we are able to acknowledge and confront these weaknesses, our ability both to lead and to achieve the international goals we seriously pursue will increasingly be eroded.

One must start with the Constitution. The Founding Fathers did not envision a nation absorbed by foreign policy, let alone one that was the world's leading power. They were as much concerned with avoiding the abuse of executive authority as they were with providing the executive power lacking under the Articles of Confederation.

By contrast to executive authority elsewhere, the American presidency is a constitutionally weak office that ultimately remains dependent upon the celebrated "bully pulpit" to win support for a foreign policy. For over a quarter of a century, essentially starting with Pearl Harbor, the inherent weakness of the presidential office in this respect was obscured by the willingness of Congress regularly to defer to the president on important issues. That habit of deference began to disappear around the time of the Tet Offensive, and has further weakened with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of an ever-present threat.

For many years, the inherent power of the Congress in matters of foreign policy was little understood overseas. Foreign governments typically believed that they could rely on the commitments of the executive branch. Only in recent years has awareness of the power of Congress grown, and other nations, as well as national groups, have turned to it increasingly and with zest. And that, as we shall see, detracts from the potential coherence of American policies.

During the Cold War, the United States was ideally suited for its role of international leader. Its purposes were benign. It generally stood ready to protect other states against external assault, and most others were comfortable under the protective wing of the United States. The American public could focus on a central, seemingly permanent military and political threat. Policies could focus on that threat, and thus be shaped by an overarching design. If the government were inattentive or the policies lacked adequate coherence, the public would demand a change.

By contrast, the United States is far less suited to the role of international leader in the more complex and ambiguous environment of the post-Cold War world. It is difficult to build or sustain public support for an overarching structure. The public mood is volatile and given to the pursuit of multiple and changing objectives, frequently in conflict with one another. To the extent that the public pays attention to foreign policy, it can no longer focus as sharply as it could on the clear villainies of an evil empire.
From the standpoint of U.S. foreign policy, the good news is that there is no major challenge out there, and few are in prospect. But the bad news comes from the same source. Without any serious challenge, both our ambitions and our illusions have tended to grow. With no external check, a set of demands, frequently peremptory, is made on others--often without the necessary engagement on our part or understanding of their position. Thus, despite America's preeminence in the post-Cold War period, our relations with other nations, including many friendly ones, have become subject to growing strain. We have increasingly tended to alienate others and seem scarcely cognizant of their growing annoyance.

Legitimizing Ethnic Politics

What underlies these phenomena? A crucial ingredient has been the sharp decline in the public's concern about foreign policy that has followed the end of the Cold War. In recent polls only 2 percent of the American people indicate that foreign policy is the most important issue facing the country, down from some 30-40 percent in 1984. With the disappearance of the Soviet threat and the fading of public attention, the field has been left open to domestic interest groups that have their own special axes to grind, unhindered by any commonly accepted vision of the national interest. The goals of our foreign policy are said to be the expansion of democracy and market economics. These provide precious little in the way of specific guidance across a range of problems and are subject to easy manipulation. In these circumstances domestic constituencies, most notably ethnic groups, have acquired an excessive influence over our foreign policy. The inevitable consequence is that our policy lacks overall coherence. Rather than reflecting a hammered-out vision of the national interest, America's present policy consists largely of the stapling together of the objectives of these individual constituencies. In terms of traditional standards it can scarcely be said that we have a foreign policy at all.

Examples abound of how such constituencies have dominated specific policies in recent years. The aggregate list is almost embarrassing. Even though Azerbaijan has been partially occupied by Armenia, now well armed by Russia, U.S. law prohibits any assistance (other than humanitarian) to Azerbaijan. The Armenian community is now girding itself to preserve this anomalous section of U.S. law. Turkey has given critical assistance to the United States throughout the Cold War, into the Gulf War, and beyond. Yet this long-time ally has been unable to obtain delivery of helicopters and frigates that it has purchased, because of pressures from the Greek-American community. Our policies toward Castro's Cuba have been wholly dominated by the Cuban-American community, and by keen attention to the votes in south Florida and New Jersey. It is scarcely possible to overstate the influence of Israel's supporters on our policies in the Middle East. Present policies toward Haiti were initially driven by pressures from the Black Caucus. During President Clinton's first term our relations with our closest ally, Britain, were repeatedly roiled by our interventions in Northern Ireland, ultimately driven with an eye on the Irish-American vote. Whatever its merits, NATO expansion too has been driven by concern over the politics of appealing to voters of East European origin.

One could go on. It should also be noted, of course, that pressures from domestic constituencies may result in appropriate policies. If one sees national benefits in NATO expansion, for example, one may well welcome these sorts of pressures. Clearly the influence of the business community prevented the disruption of U.S.-China relations that would have been precipitated by the termination of MFN, i.e., normal trading relations. Yet overall these domestic pressures tend to damage our international position. We have less of a great power's foreign policy in the traditional sense than we have the accumulation of disparate goals put forth by domestic constituencies. Even by our own standards--let alone the standards of the outside world--the result is an American foreign policy viewed as incoherent and capricious. It is scarcely what others expect from the world's leading power.

Changing mores have also altered the behavior of politicians. Pandering to ethnic constituencies has become an accepted norm. Little embarrassment is expressed--or probably felt. Foreign policy in this post-Cold War world is increasingly viewed as simply another way of building domestic political support. Ethnic constituencies are widely viewed as a prime source of political funds at home (and abroad?). The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which has severely strained relations with our allies, is widely ascribed to the quest of a committee chairman to gain support among Jewish voters in his state. A newly elected senator brags to the Washington Post that "Nobody does it [ethnic politics] better than me." Historically, such calculations played a central role in urban politics, but they were permitted only tangentially to affect the formulation of foreign policy. One wonders whether any political leader in this era would be prepared to accept the political risk that Roosevelt did in 1940 of alienating a large ethnic group when he denounced Mussolini's assault on France ("The hand that held the dagger has struck itself into the back of its neighbor"). Today, one suspects, such a denunciation could occur only of a country that had no more than a minuscule voting block in this country.

Such political courting has altered the presuppositions and the behavior of the constituencies. In the past those who pushed an ethnic agenda were defensive and somewhat sheepish about it. There were lots of explanations and even a touch of an apology. Now, however, such groups are persuaded that they have the right to demand that the power of the United States back their parochial claims. Demands on behalf of particular ethnic agendas have been legitimized. Too many politicians seek legislation to satisfy those demands. Ethnicity has become the norm. To speak of the national interest in the abstract is to invite rebuke.

The weakening, if not the disappearance, of the time-honored concept of America as a melting pot has reinforced these tendencies. The new fashion among academics of multiculturalism and what is called "ethnic consciousness-raising" serves to legitimize further the demands of ethnic constituencies to have the world's leading power back their special agendas. But in terms of its impact on foreign policy, it is hard to find the benefit of multiculturalism or "ethnic consciousness-raising." To sustain an effective and reasonably consistent foreign policy requires a national consensus, which in turn depends upon a sense of common purpose. The new intellectual fashions weaken and, in a sense, delegitimize the search for that common purpose. They abet the fragmentation of the society. This is not the foundation on which the American democracy can sustain its role as world leader.

Were we not the world's leader such behavior might be tolerable. But a world leader, if it wishes to have others willingly follow its policies, must have a foreign policy that is reasonably predictable and consistent. It cannot be seen as capricious. It is also essential that its leaders be attentive to the attitudes and interests of those other countries that it wishes to attract or retain as followers. It is neither tolerable nor is it just for a U.S. leader to demand that those followers toe the mark even on positions in direct conflict with their own interests. This is particularly the case when the policy in question is clearly seen to be driven not by external requirements and formulated national interests, but simply by a congeries of domestic pressures. Under such circumstances, to insist, either querulously or self-righteously, that others follow our prescriptions inevitably means a loss of credibility. And over time that necessarily means that fewer and fewer will willingly follow us.

The New Assertiveness and Its Consequences

America's status as the "sole remaining superpower" has given Americans a heady feeling. The collapse of the Soviet Union has meant that few are prepared seriously to challenge us, and then only with considerable reluctance. China, with its own touchiness about its newly enhanced status, is perhaps the principal exception. A few Asian states, buttressed by "Asian values", breathe a kind of rhetorical defiance, as do France and Russia and occasionally others. But the simple reality of the post-Cold War world is that most governments are reluctant even to express criticism directly to our officials, and mainly grouse in private conversations.

The only restraint on a nation in the position of the United States, with all the global power that it has acquired, is ruthless self-criticism. But, to put it plainly, ruthless self-criticism has never been a principal characteristic of the American people. Humility is not our national style. Rather, we are given to the exuberant enjoyment (and praise) of our own exceptionalism. In the absence of a serious external challenge, we are, quite simply, feeling our oats. More decorously put, the United States in this post-Cold War period is marked by a condition of national hubris. To be sure, American hubris is more acceptable than the hubris of other nations in the past, such as Wilhelmine Germany. We have no territorial ambitions; we are reasonably benign. We just want to instruct others on how to behave.
Still, it is an American illusion that other nations are eager to have pointed out to them what the U.S. government regards as their defects. Over time the spokesman for the Department of State intones a veritable litany of such condemnations. The U.S. government likes to ruminate not only on present offenses but past offenses as well. It is not the way either to garner goodwill or to preserve political capital for international leadership. It is our little conceit that once other nations have learned how we feel, they will mend their ways. Experience has yet to disabuse us of this belief. Other nations disregard our chidings and go on doing what they did before. Japan has not at our urging embraced the "Strategic Impediments Initiative" structural reform of its economy. China continues to treat dissidents with scant regard for their human rights--and regularly reminds us that it can manage its internal affairs. The Saudis (and many others) pay little heed to our preachments on democracy or religious toleration. Even Bosnia has been unable to understand, let alone embrace, our insistence on a multiethnic society. Few nations are prepared to follow our urgings with regard to politically motivated trade restrictions, and then only briefly.

The upshot is that the United States has successfully established itself as a nigh-on universal international nag. It makes us feel good, even though our hectoring irritates others. Occasionally there are angry protests. Some Asian states, for example, have argued that "Asian values are superior to Western values." For the most part, however, other nations simply ignore our chastisements.
But chastisement alone is not always sufficient to satisfy us. We regularly feel the urge to express our disapprobation of the behavior of others in a more dramatic form. Only rarely is there an inclination or the stomach to express it through military action, which, of course, involves risks. Hence, the appeal of economic sanctions. Sanctions appear to be politically costless, at least domestically, enabling us to express our displeasure without the risk of casualties.

Sanctions, however, have serious drawbacks. Because they appear to be politically costless, they have tended to be habit-forming. The Congress is "feeling its oats" as much as the executive branch. Congress and the administration vie with one another in seeking to impose sanctions on unpopular nations. And there are always more unpopular nations to be found for the purpose, it seems, with members of Congress eager to burnish their credentials by locating the next victims. Imposing sanctions has come to appear a suitable response to virtually any problem, and their use is quickly becoming indiscriminate to the point of promiscuity. During President Clinton's first term alone, the United States imposed new unilateral economic sanctions, or threatened legislation to do so, 60 times on 35 countries that, taken together, make up about 42 percent of the world's population.

This leads to a second drawback. In the long run the penchant for sanctions undermines the attractiveness of economic dealings with the United States--and thereby the long-run position of American business. Very few nations can measure up to all of the standards that we would impose--with respect to human rights, the drug trade, the arms trade, military action, or the openness of their markets. So other nations will become more wary about entering into economic relationships with American companies for fear of suddenly being subjected to sanctions.

Take the case of oil, which happens to be the principal cash export of several "erring" states. At the moment U.S. economic sanctions are in place against Iran, Iraq, and Libya. Earlier, of course, they were also imposed on Kuwait and the neutral zone. Nigeria, Indonesia, and Burma are currently being proposed for sanctions. Other states in the Middle East, such as Syria; other states in Africa if they slip on the question of human rights; and even Russia if it were to become less cooperative--all these are potential candidates for future sanctions. Someone likely will discover that the performance of Colombia or Mexico on the drug trade deserves such punishment too.

I pass over the irony that this country continues to proclaim its energy policy in terms of sustaining access to secure supplies of oil (an irony that is sharpened by the memory that in the 1970s the United States inveighed against use of the "oil weapon" as unacceptable). The point is that such past and potential actions tend to undermine the long-run position of the American oil industry. Few oil-producing nations other than Norway, Canada, and--probably--Britain can be assured that they will not ultimately fall afoul of our moral or political standards. Their willingness to grant concessions to American, as opposed to other foreign, firms is diminishing and will likely diminish further. It may be noted that the oil company whose crude oil reserve position has improved most dramatically in the last decade is the French company, Total. Washington's policies toward the Persian Gulf, no doubt, are highly welcomed in the Total boardroom. For a generation the French government has, by hook or crook, attempted to win an enhanced position in the Gulf for French oil firms. That goal has finally been achieved, not through any action by the French government but courtesy of Washington's policies.

A third problem is indicated by the French example. Over time, sanctions can only be effective if they are multilateral. The U.S. attempt to impose sanctions unilaterally has regularly proved ineffective. So we become offended and angry if others do not join us in the sanctions, and then we are tempted to make the sanctions effective through the extraterritorial reach of American law, through the promise of punishments, and through instruments we have long repudiated as inconsistent with international law, such as the secondary boycott. To impose relatively small penalties on the targeted nations, we are likely to incur very substantial political costs. Using an instrument only partially effective in the short run while undermining our position in the long run is hardly a winning strategy for the world's leader.
The attempt to impose our will on others through such measures elicits resistance and anger from other industrial nations, including those who happen to be our allies. As William Drozdiak put it, when the allies argued before the Madrid Summit over how many countries would be invited to join NATO in the first round:

"The criticism voiced this week by French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin about 'a certain tendency toward hegemony' on the part of the United States is no longer confined to Paris. Even close U.S. friends, such as Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Britain's new leader, Tony Blair, have started expressing open irritation with what they view as Washington's haughty behavior. A senior German official said speculation about the impact of growing U.S. arrogance was a major theme of private discussions among the delegations of France, Germany, Italy and Britain attending the summit. 'Everybody seemed to agree that if this gets out of hand, it could lead to some serious problems for the alliance', the official said."

Perhaps even more revealing of allied attitudes were Canadian Prime Minister Jean ChrŽtien's private comments at the Madrid summit to Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene on Clinton's motives for pressing NATO expansion, which were picked up on an open microphone: "It's not for reasons of state. It's all done for short-term political reasons."

American pretensions will also be resisted by others who are not our allies, like Russia and China. Moreover, the overreliance on sanctions threatens to trigger a much more significant phenomenon. The study of history reveals an almost reflexive tendency for other states to band together to cut a leading power down to size. Americans tend not to be much interested in history, but they would be wise to pay careful attention to this point. In April, the newly anointed Chinese paramount leader, Jiang Zemin, visited Moscow. He and Boris Yeltsin issued their "Joint Capital Declaration on the Multipolar World and a New World Order." No Russian leader is likely to be more friendly to the United States than Mr. Yeltsin, yet he observed at the news conference: "Somebody is longing for a single-polar world. He wants to decide things himself." The Declaration stated: "No country should seek a hegemony, practice power politics or monopolize international affairs." It clearly represented a joint attempt to limit the global power of the world's sole surviving superpower.

Both Russia and China have been reaching out to Iran, to Iraq, and to others--as have France and, in the case of Iran, others of our European allies, including Turkey. Our European allies have banded together and appealed to the World Trade Organization to restrict what they consider to be the extraterritorial reach of American law. That point of view, incidentally, is also shared by our Canadian and Latin American associates. From all this we should derive one clear conclusion: It is essential for us, if we wish to continue to lead in the way that we have, to avoid gratuitously antagonizing other nations. The tendency for others to band together to cut the leader down to size is, of course, a variable. Clearly, if a leader fails to refrain from exasperating other nations, that process will inevitably be speeded up. Pride goeth before a fall.

The constraints of our Constitution, the fragmentation of our body politic through "ethnic federalism", the playing up to domestic constituencies while the general public's gaze is focused elsewhere, the increasingly indiscriminate use of sanctions, and the preachiness and general willfulness of American foreign policy all raise questions regarding the long-term sustainability of our leadership. Picking needless fights squanders precious political capital. Even the United States must recognize that the tolerance of our allies, and of others whom we would have follow us, is not inexhaustible. Over time the position of preponderance that we have acquired with the close of the Cold War inevitably must weaken. Yet we ought to avoid doing things that speed up that process, for that weakens both our long-term leadership position and our current credibility.

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