DIPLOMACY : Spring Awakening: Fiasco of U.S. Policy in the Balkans

Another spring has come to the Balkans, and Yugoslavs are killing each other again. Just as cuckoos and storks reappear, the murderous armies of the tormented former Yugoslavia emerge from winter hibernation to slaughter the neighbors once more. Unfortunately, this spring’s outbreak of violence is more serious than usual; the hostilities between Serbs and Croats reopen the possibility everyone dreads: The conflict, mostly confined to Bosnia, could spread to the other former Yugoslav republics and plunge the region into a far bloodier war.

Croatia’s attack on a small but strategically important enclave under the control of rebel Serbs last week demonstrated the impotence of the U.N. peacekeepers and briefly raised spirits in Zagreb. But retaliatory attacks by Serbian rockets showed the military situation in the former Yugoslavia hasn’t changed. Though over- stretched and vulnerable in places to surprise attacks, the Serbs are firmly in control on the key battlefronts.

The renewed war again draws unwelcome attention to the dismal failure of U.S. diplomacy in the region. Washington appears as addicted to empty threats as Serb militiamen to senseless slaughter. Unable to build a consensus in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, unable to get its way in the U.N. Security Council and unable to abstain from empty threats to the Serbs and empty promises to the Bosnians, Washington’s Balkan diplomacy is a humiliating fiasco.

Walter Lippmann once defined “solvency” in foreign policy as a match between resources and responsibilities. In other words: Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t set goals you can’t reach and don’t make threats you won’t or can’t carry out. By this definition, U.S. policy in the Balkans has been insolvent since the war broke out--and it is costing us plenty.

Here’s the problem. Both the White House and the congressional leadership hate the Serbs and want them punished. The cynicism and brutality of the Serbian government and the Serbian mini-states in Croatia and Bosnia have shocked even the normally impervious consciences of the Washington political Establishment. Furthermore, both the White House and the Congress are leery of any peace settlement that would reward the Serbs too much for their crimes. This would encourage potential aggressors everywhere in the world. For these reasons Washington pushes the United Nations, NATO and its allies to take a hard-line, anti-Serb position and toys with various schemes to punish the Serbs economically or even militarily as they continue to defy the international community.

So far, so good, but official Washington knows something else: Unless the military balance shifts against the Serbs, they have no reason to make major concessions. Since Washington knows the American people don’t want the United States to go to war in the Balkans, and since the military keeps warning the civilian leadership that a Balkan War won’t be a Gulf War-style cakewalk, both the White House and Congress know that the only threats they can make against the Serbs are empty ones.

Logically, the problem is clear. Since the Serbs can’t be forced to make major concessions without military intervention, and since military intervention is not possible, the Serbs can’t be forced to make major concessions. Therefore, unfortunately, the only sensible thing to do is to find a peace proposal acceptable to the Serbs.

But Washington isn’t a logical city, and so another kind of policy process takes over--wishful thinking. The result is insolvency: Empty threats by Washington, scornful defiance by Serbia and continuing slaughter on the ground.

The Balkans aren’t the only place where wishful thinking is the basis for U.S. foreign policy. Washington’s newly proclaimed boycott of Iran requires cooperation from our allies to work. Since neither Europe nor Japan has any intention of joining in, U.S. policy angers Iran without seriously damaging it, and undermines both the stability of the Gulf region and Washington’s influence there.

Lippmann’s Law--that your goals should match your resources--ought to be an easy one to keep, but U.S. foreign policy is in a difficult transition. When the Cold War ended, the U.S. foreign policy elite was quick to proclaim a new era of U.S. supremacy around the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant, people thought, that there was no force in the world that could challenge or frustrate America’s designs.

Things haven’t worked out that way. The end of the Soviet Union also freed Western Europe, Japan and China from dependency on the United States.

Now that the allies don’t need us as much, working with them in the post-Cold War world is a lot like herding cats. President Bill Clinton cannot give orders the way Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could. All the world’s major powers now feel free to thumb their noses at Uncle Sam whenever they are in the mood--and there isn’t much the United States can do in return.

So America’s power in the world is declining, but neither the politicians nor the foreign-policy Establishment can face this. U.S. foreign policy resources have diminished, but we have not scaled down expectations to match. The result is we are committed to grandiose policies we cannot support. Ten years ago, the United States could have forced Britain and France to follow Washington’s lead in the Balkans; 20 years ago, Washington could have dictated their policy toward Iran. Now all we can do is call people names when they don’t do what we want.

For 50 years, Americans have lived with a universal foreign policy. Everybody’s business was our business and there was no place on earth so wretched and far away that we didn’t care about it. Let a left-wing colonel seize power in the dingiest corner of the Third World, and the U.S foreign-policy machine went into overdrive as part of the global contest with the Soviet Union. Our foreign policy was universal in another sense: Besides viewing the entire world as part of our vital interests, the goals we set for ourselves were extraordinarily ambitious--nothing short of the universal spread of democracy and human rights.

Now we are left with the habits and policies of universalism, but not the resources to back them up. Our military power is only useful in those handful of crises where we are ready to use it; our economic and political power are no longer enough to bend many other countries to our will.

So far, we are filling the gap between our goals and our resources with hot air, but that can’t last much longer. Instead of living with illusions, we need to go back to the basics. We must define our vital national interests clearly and responsibly, and then plan to defend those interests at a cost we are willing and able to pay. The people of the United States do not have a moral responsibility to right every wrong on the face of the earth.

Meanwhile, where the United States does get involved, we must learn to match our goals with our resources. In Bosnia, this means recognizing we can’t roll back the Serbs. In the Middle East, it means coming to terms with Iran. And everywhere, it means being realistic about what we can expect to achieve with the resources and willpower we bring to the table.