Subordinating Values to Interests: Clearing Up Confusion in Our National Security Strategy

摘要

President Clinton presents three 'core objectives' in the preface to his 1997 National Security Strategy. These objectives are to enhance U.S. security with effective diplomacy and with military forces that are ready to fight and win, bolster America's economic prosperity, and promote democracy abroad. As clarified later in the report, the President's first two objectives are derived from language in the Constitution, which calls on government to 'provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.' The promotion of democracy abroad is presented as a means of guaranteeing the American 'way of life,' and thus could be linked to the realization of the Constitutional mandate quoted above. In developing its argument, the Clinton Administration defines the promotion of democracy as secondary in a hierarchy of interests. While creating this distinction, however, the authors fail to apply it consistently throughout the document. This weakens the conceptual framework of the overall statement. In this essay, the author reviews how the drafters present the distinction between 'vital interests' and the promotion of American values. The author argues that the Administration is less than clear in its presentation. The drafters advance the argument that values are subordinate to vital interests, but they purposefully avoid making unambiguous statements to this effect for political and bureaucratic reasons. This treatment of the issue weakens the National Security Strategy by complicating the identification of interests, and by confusing readers who attempt to use the strategy to interpret or predict Administration actions. The document would be strengthened by a straightforward discussion of the ways in which the promotion of democracy and other values are considered in the formulation of American foreign policy.