-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Linda Muller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date sent: Mon, 24 May 1999 09:53:10 -05:0 Subject: [BRIGADE] Saving the World Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Brigade, "At a time when Clinton and Representative Richard Gephardt are forming a new consensus in favor of regulated free trade, popular opinion could tilt toward Pat Buchanan's protectionism... Failure in Kosovo would, of course, give any kind of internationalism a bad name. It would not necessarily spell the end of nato, but it would doom that organization to serving as a kind of expensive professional association for European and American generals, in which potentially unruly Eastern Europeans could be taught manners and decorum..." GO PAT GO!! Linda --------------------------------------------------- The New Republic - MAY 24, 1999 Saving the World BY: John B. Judis The "third way" is a political strategy identified with Bill Clinton in the United States, Tony Blair in Great Britain, and Gerhard Schroeder in Germany. It is a self-conscious alternative to the old left and new right. It seeks to promote rather than hinder the creation of global capitalism but at the same time to foster greater social equality and community within and among nations. "Its core value," Al From, the president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), has declared, "is community." The practitioners of the Third Way have defined it primarily as an approach to welfare reform, progressive taxation, and vocational education, but it is also integrally related to foreign policy; and its success or failure may be linked to the nato mission in Kosovo. One connection is obvious. A disaster in Kosovo will imperil many of the current nato governments. In the United States, failure could also derail Vice President Al Gore's presidential candidacy. But there are deeper connections that could threaten the Third Way itself. Its basic objective is to foster social justice without fueling class resentments. In the twentieth century, this kind of liberal communitarianism has worked best when the United States and other democracies faced totalitarian adversaries during World War II and the cold war--when our international commitment to democracy fed our commitment to democracy at home. When America's commitments have lapsed--during, for instance, the 1920s--an irresponsible individualism has triumphed. At a forum on the Third Way sponsored by the DLC at the end of last month's nato conference, Clinton and Blair both drew the connection between the Third Way and Kosovo. Blair made it the clearest. The Third Way, Blair said, " applies internationally as well as nationally." Kosovo "is every bit as much about our values as it is about strategic interests." Kosovo, he argued, was about extending the concept of "active community" from the nation to the globe. The success of the Third Way also depends upon the creation of a progressive bloc of nations that can carry forward its approach. This is particularly true in global economics. The Third Way is based on the assumption that, because of global competition, purely national economic initiatives can often prove destructive. Trade barriers, for instance, can hinder technological development. The corollary of this--as understood by Clinton, Blair, and Schroeder--is that many economic and environmental ills that can't be attacked nationally can be addressed through international organizations and multilateral initiatives such as the World Trade Organization and the global warming treaty. The Third Way leaders favor regulating the global economy to avoid recurrent financial crises and a growing divergence between rich and poor nations. At the DLC forum, Schroeder called for the "internationalization of politics" to tame "financial speculators." Clinton favored a new "framework" to keep international markets from "getting out of hand." Clinton, Blair, and Schroeder have also advocated some kind of new labor and environmental regulations. Extending outward an "active community"--or promoting what Blair adviser Anthony Giddens calls "cosmopolitan democracy"--also requires the creation of a progressive bloc of nations that can act together not simply in their own immediate interests but on behalf of a greater democratic ideal. Kosovo is the first real test of this Third Way bloc of nations. It is a different kind of war-- waged not only to achieve stability in the Balkans but also to uphold a standard of morality. Blair and Clinton provided much of the impetus and the initial rationale for intervention. It is their war--and a war that epitomizes their new political philosophy. Success in the war, meaning at a minimum the guaranteed safe return of all Kosovar refugees, would strengthen Clinton and Gore, Blair, and Schroeder. It would create an important precedent for international action and help establish an ideal of democracy and human rights that could nurture a spirit of community within the different nations. Unfortunately, however, success in Kosovo looks extremely unlikely. What appears most likely is that nato will agree to a facesaving compromise in which a U.N. occupation force oversees the repatriation of a relatively small number of Kosovar Albanians. Such a result would be a defeat for civilization in Europe. But, secondarily, it would also be a setback for the Third Way. The war's failure would buttress the argument that foreign policy should be based solely on narrow national interests rather than on the attempt to create a democratic community of nations. In the United States, it would reinforce Republican isolationists who gauge foreign policy issues on what they will mean for department store sales in Houston or the price of mutual funds. And the same sentiments might well extend to international economic issues, limiting support for international economic and environmental regulation. At a time when Clinton and Representative Richard Gephardt are forming a new consensus in favor of regulated free trade, popular opinion could tilt toward Pat Buchanan's protectionism. Failure in Kosovo would, of course, give any kind of internationalism a bad name. It would not necessarily spell the end of nato, but it would doom that organization to serving as a kind of expensive professional association for European and American generals, in which potentially unruly Eastern Europeans could be taught manners and decorum. Nato would no longer contemplate intervention in places where its own members' survival wasn't immediately challenged--and, even then, who knows? Failure in Kosovo would reinforce a diplomacy based militarily on spheres of influence and economically on regional trading blocs. Perhaps these predictions are too dire, but there is a clear precedent in the twentieth century. Like the proponents of the Third Way, American progressives of an earlier era saw their own fate bound up with America's greater role in the world. In The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly, the founder of tnr who would later advise Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, argued that the "vigorous assertion of a valid foreign policy" would force the United States "into the adoption of a really national domestic policy." Croly and Roosevelt believed that, by becoming involved in world affairs, Americans would come to appreciate their own common values and commitments and would endorse a progressive national reform agenda. Later, these progressives, who also saw themselves as creating a Third Way between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, believed that out of World War I would come not only a new progressive bloc of nations but also an abiding commitment to community at home. They would, however, be sorely disappointed. The war's aftermath would not bring democratic renewal but an end to progressivism itself. Kosovo is not, of course, World War I, but it can still be asked whether today's proponents of the Third Way will eventually suffer the same fate as their progressive forebears. ------------ end --------------------- Help Pat and the Brigade in our Battle for the White House... 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