War Torn - Republicans accused of being isolationist

Eliot Cohen calls it the "ornithological miracle": Hawks have become doves, and doves hawks. The wisdom of the moment is that the war in Kosovo represents a rejection among Democrats of McGovernite hangups and a recrudescence among Republicans of (take your pick) isolationism / nationalism / paleoconservatism. Some supporters of the administration replace the ideological charge with a partisan one: Republicans would be backing the war if Bill Clinton weren't president.

Ironies and inversions such as these are the stuff of high-toned punditry. But let's take a closer look at the aviary. Do these hawks have talons? The administration is using as little force as it can to inflict as few casualties as possible. In the Johnson administration, gradual escalation was part of a strategy, however misguided; with Clinton, it seems to reflect precisely those hangups that liberals acquired from McGovern. He is a dove trying to be a hawk, and the result is predictably misshapen.

Whether Republicans are turning "isolationist" is a trickier question, because it's hard to pin down both the party's position and the meaning of the term. (As Joe Sobran remarked during the Gulf War, "The word 'isolationist' suggests a churlish provincialism, a refusal to face the outside world; presumably showering that world with bombs is the cosmopolitan approach.") The libertarians at the Cato Institute are often called isolationist, but they combine a minimalist foreign policy with open borders on trade and immigration. The administration, for its part, often seems to regard as isolationist anyone who questions the value of the International Monetary Fund (see John Hillen, "Forced Isolation," March 23, 1998).

Obviously, a vigorous internationalism is compatible with objections to particular foreign entanglements. When a person finds objections to almost every proposed and existing mission, however, it's fair to describe him as an isolationist. The McGovern Democrats opposed U.S. action in Cambodia, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Gulf, and even Grenada; they wanted to bring our troops home from Europe and South Korea. Patrick Buchanan, while not a strict isolationist, essentially wants us to stop guaranteeing the security of our allies, let them build nuclear weapons, and then start trade wars with them-a policy mix that should keep the second Buchanan administration lively. Robert Novak suggested that America brought last year's embassy bombings on itself by adopting provocative policies in the Middle East. And this strategy of pre-emptive capitulation to potential enemies is frankly advocated by Cato-one of its papers was titled "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is To Give No Offense." Come home, America! If you go outside, you might get hit by a car.

But these views are not dominant among Republicans. Sens. John McCain, Richard Lugar, and Chuck Hagel-three of the GOP's leading foreign- policy voices-have urged Clinton to use more force, not less, in Kosovo. And for the most part, even the Republicans who oppose intervention in Kosovo want a tougher policy toward Iraq and North Korea. Their stance has depended on the circumstances. They just don't believe that America has security interests in the Balkans that justify a major commitment. (David Frum spoke for this camp in the National Post, where he wrote that "Yugoslavia is the perfect liberal war . . . fought by means liberals prefer for ends that liberals approve.") Or they think intervention will not solve, only exacerbate, the humanitarian and strategic problems. Or they don't have confidence in Clinton's conduct of the war.

Given Clinton's past behavior, current policy, and character traits, that lack of confidence is surely reasonable. If the administration is bound to end up damaging U.S. credibility anyway, one might conclude that it's best to cut our losses now. But there's a certain vicious circularity to this view: Clinton will cut and run, so he should be encouraged to do exactly that? Alternatively, one could simply advocate a strategy with a greater chance of success, as McCain, et al., have done, even if Clinton isn't likely to adopt it. Regardless of which answer is right-and I'm with McCain, for what it's worth-the question is one of prudence, not principle. Whether one favors sending ground troops to Kosovo isn't a moral test of concern about atrocities, let alone of isolationism.

So why are critics of the war getting tagged as isolationist? One reason is that some Republicans are so unused to making traditional conservative arguments about the need to recognize limits to, and set priorities for, foreign policy that they have lazily fallen back on the language and tactics of the McGovernites. Hence the spectacle of Republican senators nattering on about Serbia's precious sovereignty under international law, and conservative pundits demanding an "exit strategy." More troubling is the willingness of some congressional Republicans to threaten to prohibit ground troops, which really does call to mind the Watergate Congress.