Campaign 2000: Global Warnings

So the disparity in the candidates' records is less significant than the differences in their views. Both support open markets in principle, but Bush is the more evangelical free trader: he pushed hard earlier this year for congressional passage of a bill to normalize trade relations with China, while Gore remained reticent to avoid alienating his labor and environmentalist supporters. Yet Bush and his advisers also denounce the Administration for pursuing a "strategic partnership" with Beijing and for being too friendly with a corrupt and ruthless Russian government. Gore says he would negotiate with Moscow on changes to the Antiballistic Missile Treaty to allow the U.S. to build a limited missile-defense system; Bush says he is willing to scrap the ABM treaty, rapidly develop a missile shield and make unilateral arms reductions.

Where Bush and Gore present a real choice is on the more abstract, but more vital, questions surrounding the nature of American power and how to use it. Gore has outlined a robust foreign policy driven as much by morality as strategic self-interest. "Our national interest should be defined in terms of our values," he says. Gore and his running mate, Joseph Lieberman, have long been among the country's most hawkish Democrats. Both defied their party to support the Gulf War, and both lobbied Clinton for swifter intervention to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo. Gore's doctrine of "forward engagement" extends beyond problems that bend to military action. He identifies social maladies around the world, from AIDS in Africa to poor prenatal care in developing nations, as potential security threats that require American engagement.

Bush and his team of advisers--many of them members of the Reagan-Bush foreign policy brain trust--dismiss the significance of what Gore calls the "new strategic agenda" and take a dim view of the efficacy of U.S. interventions. Bush adheres closely to the doctrine articulated by Colin Powell, his favored future Secretary of State: military interventions "need to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear and the exit strategy obvious." Local conflicts are better left to regional powers. Bush considers the Clinton-Gore deployments in Haiti and Somalia ill-advised attempts at "nation building" and says the bombing campaigns over Kosovo and Iraq were halfhearted. Though Bush does not advocate isolation from the world's conflicts--and stresses America's commitments to its European and Asian allies--his philosophy suggests he would be, at best, a reluctant interventionist. "We can't be all things to all people in the world," he said in the second debate. "I'm worried about overcommitting our military."