Foreign policy experts--Bush jeopardising key post-Cold War policy initiatives

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Bush under fire for tough foreign policy

By Robin Wright in Washington

United States foreign policy experts fear the Bush Administration's posture on several international issues is jeopardising key post-Cold War policy initiatives.

A coalition of top foreign policy specialists appealed in a letter to President George Bush on Monday for the Administration to resume diplomatic initiatives with North Korea. But alarm spans the gamut of issues.

Mr Lee Hamilton, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson Centre and former chairman of the House international relations committee, said: "The foreign policy community is very anxious about Bush policy because it sees a rising level of rhetoric on China, going from strategic partner to competitor; refusing to negotiate with the North Koreans; some very tough statements on Russia; a total rejection of climate control negotiations and an emphasis in talks with all parties about missile defence.

"This is all having a very unsettling impact on the international foreign policy community as well as heads of state."

The White House's approach is all the more striking because of earlier promises to show humility in dealings with the outside world. In his only significant campaign speech on the issue, Mr Bush called for a foreign policy that reflected American character, especially "the humility of real greatness".

In his debut speech at the State Department last month he told the US diplomatic corps that his goal was to turn an era of US pre-eminence into generations of democratic peace, which would require the US "to project our strength with purpose and with humility".

Yet only nine weeks into office the Bush Administration's approach to foreign policy has been described by leading analysts as defiant. The editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, Mr James Hoge, expressed concern about "schoolyard bellicosity" so early in a new presidency.

"Why are they so interested in saying to Russia that it's mismanaging things, that it's not that important anymore, that they'll take its views into account but not treat them all that seriously? I'm mystified by it. What can they possibly gain from this kind of schoolyard bellicosity at this stage?"

Mr Bush's supporters argue that realism is needed. On several issues, the US has become "flaccid, weak, ineffective and in some cases just wrong", said Mr Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defence for international security during the Reagan administration.

The fault line, he said, was between those who believed Washington should be assertive on national interests and those who had "subsided into a fuzzy internationalism".

Mr Bush had not spent a lifetime adopting the vocabulary and mindset of a professional diplomat, he said, but it was good to have a practical, no-nonsense president.

"Twenty years ago you heard the same things about president Reagan when he talked about the evil empire," he said.

North Korea has become a focus of concern. In the letter to Mr Bush, 30 prominent foreign policy analysts warned that brushing off South Korea's attempt to embrace North Korea risked reversing the most successful initiative in defusing the Cold War's last conflict.

"If Pyongyang is indeed ready to take further steps toward strengthening peace on the peninsula, then the United States should be fully prepared to respond," said the bipartisan independent task force, set up by the Council on Foreign Relations. It includes Mr Morton Abramowitz, former director of State Department intelligence and research; Mr James Lilley, former ambassador to China; Mr Winston Lord, former assistant secretary of state for Asia; and Mr Robert Gallucci, chief US negotiator with North Korea and now head of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.

-- (everyone is @ppealing. he ain't listening), March 27, 2001


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