Moderating Bush Foreign Policy

Domestically, two important developments have helped lead to this approach. First, the shift in power in the United States Senate over to Democratic leadership in May this year has already constrained the Bush team's efforts on certain foreign policy efforts. The shift is perhaps best illustrated by the transition of power in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from the conservative Jesse Helms to the moderate-to-liberal Joseph Biden. But more broadly, the realities of governing foreign policy in the face of a sharply divided Congress are beginning to take root in the Bush White House. Second, it appears that the more moderate State Department, led by the popular and widely-respected Colin Powell, have more firmly asserted control over foreign policy matters in the past several months. The influence of the Vice President's office on foreign policy matters has not gained the prominence first assumed, and the Pentagon has remained primarily focused on more narrowly-defined military issues, such as the research and development of missile defenses and reshaping the military's operations, deployments and procurement to face post-Cold War threats. Still, divides certainly exist in the Bush Administration on many key foreign policy issues, which would still result in a more moderate consensus on most questions.

Looking abroad, it appears the Bush team has settled into an indentifiable pattern on foreign policy issues, which again leads toward more moderation than originally expected. On the one hand, President Bush will quite naturally try to shape international developments from the "bully pulpit" of the White House, heading as he does the world's sole superpower. But on the other hand, pragmatism dictates this be done in a more consultative manner. We see this pragmatism at two important levels: "Great Power" consultations and understandings, as in intensified U.S.-Russia, U.S.-Europe, U.S.-Japan, and U.S.-China discussions; and other key, but less formalized "ad hoc" bilateral and multilateral diplomacy efforts such as on the Korean peninsula and in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

However, at the same time, it is apparent the new Bush Administration will not place great emphasis on traditional, multilateral forums for the achievement of its foreign policy objectives. For example, early on the Bush Administration expressed its dissatisfaction with the Kyoto Protocol, and will try to convince key bilateral players, such as Japan and China, of the need to take an alternative approach. Similarly, the U.S. side has not supported ongoing multilateral U.N. efforts to address the problem of small arms proliferation worldwide, and has also walked away from the ongoing international effort to develop verification measures to strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. On the multilateral front, it appears the Bush team seeks maximum U.S. flexibility both for U.S. national interests and the interests of U.S. businesses, while also flagging the broader concern that such large, multilaterally-negotiated arrangements tend to be "lowest common denominator" solutions. Look instead for the current U.S. administration to place its faith in both unilateral and smaller, like-minded, multilateral "coalitions of the willing" to meet jointly-accepted interests on the environment, nonproliferation, and other international issues.

While it is still early, the fruits of such an approach seem to be paying off. The President has made two major trips to Europe in the past two months, and has worked to reassure allies there about U.S. foreign policy. A bilateral Great Power approach with Russian President Putin holds the potential of finding a compromise on the question of strategic offense versus strategic defense, which may assuage concerns among European allies and in Congress. Secretary of State Powell conducted a positive trip to China in late July, dropping the "strategic competitor" rhetoric and placing that volatile bilateral relationship on firmer ground in the run-up to President Bush's trip there in October. During his recent consultations in Seoul, Powell also expressed the Administration's desire to restart stalled discussions with Pyongyang, saying, "We're prepared to meet any time and any place; we're ready to go now."

The ultimate proof of this approach awaits continued follow-through and frank discussions across a range of issues and a range of partners, large and small. But an approach of moderated international leadership combined with serious Great Power consultations and ad hoc multilateralism surely holds more promise than an assertively unilateralist approach many in the world first feared six months ago.