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U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE ELECTION YEAR 2004

Speech at University Klagenfurt

Deputy Chief of Mission, A. Daniel Weygandt

March 16, 2004

Professor Hoedl, Professor Filzmaier,

Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak at the University of Klagenfurt. I have to admit this is my first visit to Carinthia despite having been in Austria for a while now. In the embassy we very much value our contacts here. Carinthia seems to be a special place. In connection with your recent elections there were articles in the Vienna papers about why Carinthia "anders ist" so I am sure I will learn a lot during my brief stay here. I would like to see contacts in the cultural and academic spheres between the U.S. and Austria's regions expand.

I have been given a very topical topic to speak about today. We have noticed that there is a great deal of interest in this year's U.S. elections in Vienna, and I am sure across Europe. I have been in Europe during presidential campaigns several times in the past. So I know that the U.S. presidential contest typically attracts lots of attention here, but given the turbulences of the last year in the trans-atlantic relationship, that attention is greater than usual. It is also clear that many Europeans have an unusually negative view of the present US administration. According to a poll published in the "Economist" only 6% of Europeans have a positive view of President Bush.

Here, in a university setting, I would like to examine first in general the role that foreign policy has played historically in U.S. presidential elections - and we also need to keep in mind that along with the President, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be decided, as well as a third of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate - and then turn to some speculations about the impact the elections might have on world events in the months ahead. I would also note, that despite what some people in Carinthia who are quoted in the Austrian media might say, the U.S. is very much a democracy and very much a country with a great respect for the rule of law. So I will also take a few minutes to try to explain the U.S. electoral system, though I know most of you are very familiar with American politics.

What is the traditional or historic role of foreign policy in American electoral campaigns? I am consistently struck by the fact that many Europeans, even people who are very knowledgeable about the U.S., do not know much about American history before WWII. While I do not want to over-emphasize remote events, it is important to recall that for much of American history, the country was largely inward looking. Washington's famous Farewell Address warned against "entanglements" in European wars - and politics. The Monroe Doctrine, which guided U.S. foreign policy for much of the 19th century made clear that as long as Europe kept out of Latin America, the U.S. would keep out of Europe's spheres of influence. I am pleased, however, to say that we had nothing to do with the death of the Habsburg Archduke who had the misfortune of collaborating with the French in Mexico!

Throughout the 19th century, the main "foreign policy" issue in American politics was actually an economic issue, namely the rate of tariffs on imports. The fundamental issue of protectionism and the role of foreign capital were major issues dividing the Democratic and Republican parties.

It is also important to recall that the U.S. constitution, with its division of powers between the judicial, legislative and executive branches of the federal government, establishes that the focus of foreign policy rests with the executive branch. The President's "main job" if you will, is to provide for national security. While this may seem obvious, it plays a major role in how the Congress defers to the executive in matters of homeland security and the response to the terrorist threat following the attacks of September 11. Americans expect their President to lead the country when it comes to issues of war and peace and the safety of the country. So the issue of "strong leadership" is a very important qualification in the public mind when it comes to evaluating presidential candidates.

But the constitution also reserves an essential foreign policy role to the U.S. Senate. When Europeans criticize President Bush for not signing the Kyoto Protocol, for example, they should be aware that during President Clinton's term, the Senate passed a resolution against the climate treaty by a vote of 95-0. Since the Senate must approve treaties by a two-thirds majority, it is clear that the impact of treaties on the domestic economy can outweigh foreign policy considerations.

The most dramatic example of the role of the Senate in American foreign policy came during the period after the First World War. President Wilson, who had campaigned in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of war" failed to get Senate approval for the key element of the post-war settlement, the League of Nations treaty. In part, this was a result of the personal animosity between the Democrat, Wilson, and Senator Lodge, Republican of Massachusetts, the then majority leader in the Senate. Wilson elected not to take any senior Republican leaders to the Paris peace talks after the war, and the issue of America's post-war role in the world became a partisan political issue.

Partly as a result of this bitter experience, a bipartisan consensus emerged during and after WWII.

Senator Vandenberg, also Republican and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Truman presidency, made the famous statement that "politics stopped at the water's edge" i.e., that foreign policy was not to be a partisan issue. The risks to the nation's interests of having a coherent and reliable foreign policy - especially during the Cold War - outweighed the potential political gains.

I do not wish to bore you with a long exposition of American history - there are much more qualified specialists in that field than me. What I am trying to do is set the stage for developments of the last generation to illustrate what has changed, and what remains the same in American politics.

To say that during the Cold War American foreign policy was bipartisan is, of course, not the whole story. While the anti-communism of the McCarthy period had more to do with domestic politics than foreign policy, clearly there was a partisan element to the debate about national security then.

And, foreign policy played a major role in presidential elections, despite the broad agreement between the two parties on America's role in the world during the 50's. Eisenhower campaigned on a peace platform during the Korean War. Kennedy argued the Republicans had paid insufficient attention to national defense, accusing his opponents of allowing a "missile gap" to develop between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But it is safe to say that until the Vietnam period, there was not a fundamental difference between Democratic and Republican foreign policy. Indeed, arguably, under Kennedy, the U.S. pursued a much more aggressive foreign policy which in fact led to the Vietnam engagement.

How important was and is Vietnam to U.S. foreign policy development? What role does it play in contemporary American politics?

My personal view is that "Vietnam" has a somewhat mythical status. In many ways the most important consequence of that conflict was that it led to the end of conscription in the U.S. and the development of an American military that is professional in every respect. The American military has become by the way a very successful example of social integration and upward mobility - but that is the topic for another speech.

My argument is that Vietnam plays a very large role in the worldview of politically interested Americans between the ages of 45 and 60, but for the rest of the population, especially young voters, the war is ancient history. In view of the fact that young people have a very low rate of voter turnout, Vietnam is not an issue that is likely to mobilize new voters.

Kerry vs. Bush

The war that is of course much more on the minds of Americans is the war in Iraq. The relevance of John Kerry's war experience in Vietnam is that it to some extent offsets his subsequent prominent opposition to the war and U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. It is not clear how relevant that experience to the debate about Iraq. One thing that should be clear is that no serious candidate for the presidency would advocate a U.S. abandonment of the Iraq reconstruction effort. One of the reasons the Democratic party establishment opposed Howard Dean's short-lived bid for the nomination was the recognition that having gone to war, the U.S. needs to follow through on the transformation of Iraq into some form of peaceful democracy.

But is the presidential election likely to be a referendum on the foreign policy of the Bush administration, which seems to be the assumption of many observers in Europe?

My argument is that there is a lot more continuity in American foreign policy than changes of direction. Even the popular division of American policy into "multilateral" periods or "unilateral" periods is misleading. The real division in American foreign policy is between internationalists and isolationists and the internationalists have been dominant for a long time in both parties.

The United States has pursued multilateral approaches since the Second World War. The term "United Nations" was originally applied to the wartime alliance against the Axis powers, and the U.S. was the main proponent of the creation of an international body to maintain peace in the world. But the UN has been a source of considerable disillusionment among the U.S. body politic. Put somewhat simplistically, no one will win an election in America by saying the UN is right all the time. The American public is generally very supportive of Israel and the UN has been perceived as biased towards a double standard, with dictators exempted from criticism - like Libya being elected to the chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Commission, but a democratic state, Israel, repeatedly condemned. So you cannot expect presidential campaigns to focus on multilateralism. What you can expect is that there will be a contentious debate about the role of alliances in American foreign policy.

This debate is complex, however. Polls of Americans conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign relations and the German Marshall Fund consistently show a clear majority of Americans favor a foreign policy which has the support of our European allies and whenever possible, support in the UN Security Council. At the same time, when President Bush said in this year's State of the Union message that America will not seek a "permission slip" in order to defend the security of the country, he clearly touched a sentiment held by a majority of Americans.

The fact is that the U.S. has also pursued unilateral goals, especially in our own hemisphere, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

While it is true that the "Lake Doctrine" during the Clinton Administration called for increasing reliance on multilateral approaches, the administration acted without UN Security Council approval in the bombing of Serbia in conjunction with the Kosovo crisis. John Kerry's foreign policy advisers are mainly veterans of the Clinton Administration, so a certain amount of repetition of the themes of that administration can be expected in the election campaign, but I would argue that Clinton's foreign policy was essentially pragmatic.

The best way to analyze U.S. foreign policy is to focus on the fact that since WWII, the U.S. has traditionally viewed its national interests as consistent with the pursuit of global stability, and taken a practical approach to this overriding goal. When the U.S. can obtain international support to this end, all the better; when not, as long as there is support in Congress for a particular course of action as being consistent with national security, then the issue is likely not to be politically contentious.

So, against this backdrop, what role is foreign policy likely to play in this election, and what foreign policy initiatives are likely over the next eight months?

First, foreign policy provides the incumbent an opportunity to appear to be an acknowledged international leader. The three major summits in June - The NATO Summit in Istanbul, the U.S.-EU Summit in Ireland and the G-8 Summit in Sea Pines, Georgia will be important events where the President can demonstrate the central role the U.S. plays on the world stage. Experience in the Senate over many years counts for a lot on behalf of Kerry, but it is hard to make the case for expertise when your opponent is clearly at the center of events.

Second, there is a certain tendency for the U.S. to turn inward when the campaign reaches the intense phase at the beginning of September. In that period, any foreign policy actions are likely to be seen as politically motivated, which can reduce the legitimacy or support for initiatives.

Third, and an unpredictable feature of the post-September 11th world, is the role that potential terrorist acts may have on the perceptions of voters. As last week's terrorist attacks in Spain show, democracies may be at their most vulnerable as they carry out elections.

Do attacks weaken or strengthen the public's resolve? And how does the incumbent generate public awareness of the terrorist threat without being accused of playing to the public's fears?

Because the foreign policy of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq have been very controversial, and also because the U.S. is much more aware of international terrorism in the wake of September 11, foreign policy issues will play a much greater role in this election than was the case in either 2000 or 1996, and of course the 1992 election - the first post-Cold war presidential campaign, also focused largely on domestic issues with the country in a recession and the third party candidate Perot campaigning against free trade.

Those elections showed, however, that presidential elections typically focus on domestic concerns, the economy, health care and all the issues that concern people's daily lives.

Part of the explanation for this domestic focus is that an American presidential election is only in part a national election. It is also 50 simultaneous elections for majorities in the individual states. The American electoral system was designed primarily to balance the interests of the smaller states with the principle of popular majorities. It was also indirectly designed to produce a two party system. The goal was to ensure that no single region or faction would easily dominate national politics, but rather that candidates with broad appeal would emerge. Neither the rural low population states, nor the urban, high population states could be in a position to decide national elections.

Historically, American presidential elections have been fairly close. While in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were predominantly Republican presidents, hence the nickname, Grand Old Party, the elections were fiercely contested. The closest election in U.S. history was the Hays-Tilden election in 1876, in which Tilden, a Democrat like Al Gore, not only won a popular majority, but the race finished in a tie in the electoral college and had to be decided by a special commission.

To win an election for the presidency, a candidate needs to get a majority of the 535 votes represented in the Electoral College, the total number of seats in the House and Senate. Each state has a minimum of three votes since all states have two senators and at least one representative. In practice this means that a large number of small states constitute a disproportionately large bloc of votes. And in political terms, this means that President Bush has to lose at least one state he carried in 2000.

States that are likely to be particularly contested are the industrial states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as well, of course, Florida. In those states, the main foreign policy issues are economic ones - the impact of trade, and the impact on industrial jobs. Whether or not France supported the UN resolution on Iraq is not likely to be a central issue.

So, what does all this mean for America's friends around the world?

First, American foreign policy tends to be a subject that is not in the forefront of the broader political debate, which is one of the reasons why U.S. foreign policy is actually very consistent.

The American foreign policy debate is dominated by experts - including academics - and political leaders who have specialized in international relations. The debate may very well be very partisan, as debates among experts often are, but the debate is essentially about the means to achieve U.S. interests, not what those interests are.

Second, Americans are supportive of the idea that the U.S. has a disproportionate role to play in the world. While others might see this as American efforts to play the world's policeman, most Americans see it as the price of leadership and a role that no other nation, including the EU, is prepared to play. And the fact remains that whenever there is a crisis in the world, as in Haiti, the first question is likely to be, what are the Americans going to do? This role comes at a high cost, but one that polls indicate the American public is consistently willing to pay.

Finally, consistent with the rest of the argument, Americans tend to believe that what is good for the U.S. is good for the rest of the world - namely that the spread of democracy and political freedoms is the best way to promote peace in the world. There is an almost ideological attachment to the principle that democratic states do not go to war against other democracies.

So the essential role of foreign policy in this presidential election will be to carry out a national discussion about how best to promote the goal of freedom and democracy in the world. What is the proper balance between the threat of the use of force against regimes that act outside international norms, and the natural desire to avoid the use of force, since Americans do not like wars any more than other people. Typically, the presidential campaign does not result in a clear mandate for new policies, as might be the case on economic or social policy. Rather, the election campaign is an opportunity to redefine the prevailing consensus about America's role in the world.

At this point, 8 months before the election, it is meaningless to try to predict the outcome. Typically, re-election bids are won or lost by fairly large majorities, yet most experts expect this election to be close.

Following the election from abroad is a good way to learn more about the American system and what makes America different and what it has in common with Europe. My goal today has been to make the point that American foreign policy is not likely to change fundamentally no matter who gets an electoral majority on November 2. The names may change, even if the President is re-elected, but the overall commitment of America to promote stability in the world will not. I hope you consider that to be good news.

Thank you.

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