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Guest Commentary: August 9, 2001
A New Century of American Leadership
The Honorable Tom Daschle
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The United States begins this century at a place unique in the history of the world. By any measure, the scope of our power and influence are unmatched. With a GDP in excess of $10 trillion, our economy is larger than that of the next four largest nations combined. American innovation not only has yielded American prosperity, but fuels the engine of global growth and technological change.
Our military expenditures now are larger than those of all other countries combined. We are the only nation on the earth able to project power in every region of the earth. Consider this: B-2s stationed in Missouri flew halfway around the world to help bring an end to the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and returned home without stopping to land.
The reach of American power is perhaps superceded only by the reach of American culture. In 1995, more than half of all the royalties and licensing fees in the world were paid to Americans. Our movies, music and media are everywhere - the Senate may never hold confirmation hearings on Mickey Mouse, the Microsoft butterfly, or Madonna, but in many ways, they are seen as our ambassadors to the world.
At the same time we have achieved dominance, we are also confronted with the reality of truly global interdependence. By 2004, one billion people will be surfing the World Wide Web. The result is an exchange of ideas and information never before known. ...
Two trends in history - U.S. dominance and global interdependence - would seem, in some sense, to be contradictory. Standing alone, we are stronger than ever before. And yet we are more vulnerable in more ways than ever before.
That is our paradox - a nation as susceptible to an explosives-laden skiff as it is to a nuclear weapon; a nation that can be attacked by a single terrorist, or the rising tide of global warming, computer virus, or a biological one; a nation unrivaled in its economic strength, but whose strength is increasingly tied to the economic and political stability of the rest of the world.
These contradictions create a number of challenges - some as old as the human race, and some as new as our newest technologies. But all demand our vigilance, and all demand our leadership.
First, we need to maintain the military strength and superiority we now enjoy, while preparing our military to meet the threats of tomorrow. This is our first obligation as public servants.
Second, we need to multiply our own strength by maintaining strong, solid relations with our allies.
Third, we need to recognize that it is in our national interest to help our former adversaries like Russia and China build pluralistic societies tied to the West.
Fourth, we must continue to be an active force for peacemaking from the Middle East to Northern Ireland, to the Balkans.
Fifth, we need to confront a new breed of global challenges: proliferation, terrorism, AIDS and infectious disease, and global warming.
And sixth, we need to maintain leadership in the global economy, expand trade, and deal with the growing economic disparities that arise from it.
And we must do all of these while recognizing that, in the wake of the President's nearly two-trillion-dollar tax cut, we now have limited budgetary resources at our disposal to do all of this.
In confronting these challenges, we face three options: We can act alone, we can act in concert with a handful of others, or we can try to bring together broad coalitions.
There are, to be sure, times when our national interest will compel us to go it alone. When President Reagan bombed Libya in 1986, when we retaliated against Saddam Hussein in 1993 or Osama Bin Laden in 1999, we were properly exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We should continue to do so when circumstances demand it, and our goals are advanced by it. But many of the challenges we face, and most of the new challenges that are emerging, are global in nature and demand a global response. ...
The Administration seems to have forgotten an essential fact of today's global age. With the Cold War over, fear of a common enemy no longer keeps our allies by our side. Our allies will follow us only if we use our unparalleled strength and prosperity to advance common interests. Only then will our power inspire respect instead of resentment.
If we continue down this path, our allies will be forced to fill the void we leave, not necessarily with our interests uppermost in their minds. It is not enough, as President Bush has suggested, simply to send U.S. officials to international meetings. Woody Allen wasn't talking about foreign policy when he said that "85 percent of life is just showing up."
Of course, these problems did not begin with President Bush's inauguration. In many ways, as the world's only superpower, we must accept that they come with the territory. Remember, our allies weren't so enthusiastic about President Clinton calling America the "indispensable nation." But these problems have intensified so much, and so quickly, that I fear our allies may be tempted to treat us as a dispensable nation.
There's another way, a better way. And it's not a new idea, and it's not a partisan one either. I think President Nixon summed it up best: "Free-world leadership," he said, "does not mean dictatorship to the free world. It means consultation with the free world and developing from the leaders of the free world the best possible thinking that we can develop for attacking our common problems."
American leadership in this new world begins by maintaining and modernizing the alliances we already have. ...
Finally, we must reach out in a clear-eyed way to those powers in transition that were once our adversaries - Russia and China.
The 20th Century, in many ways, was the story of our triumph over two great and pernicious adversaries - Nazism and Communism. Today, we do not need a great adversary to be a great country. Unfortunately, some don't accept this reality, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they would like to see China take its place. I believe we need to take a more nuanced view. ...
We have to engage China -- even as we challenge China on key areas of difference. It is in America's clear national security interest to do so. It is in America's vital economic interest to do so. And in the long run, it is the only way to help bring freedom and reform to the people of China.
Similarly with Russia: It is a good thing that we are talking with Russia about strategic stability. Russia's potential arsenal of 60,000 nuclear warheads gives us 60,000 reasons to engage.
But it is much more than that. Russia is an emerging democracy, a process whose outcome is still far from certain. Russia borders 14 countries, many of which are undergoing fragile transformations of their own. The political and economic well-being of Russia affects the well-being of Europe and the rest of the world. This was demonstrated when Russia's financial crisis sent shockwaves from Frankfurt to Sao Paolo, to Tokyo, to Wall Street.
That's why it was troubling to watch President Bush reduce our complex relationship with Russia to a simple matter of trust between two leaders. The stakes are too high to base our strategic relationship on one man's assessment of another man's soul. ...
God willing, the place we now enjoy in the world will not have to be secured in the future on the field of battle. But for that to be the case, we must secure it through the wisdom of our decisions, and a recognition of our responsibilities.
Our strength is our great blessing, our freedom is our great inheritance, and by meeting our obligations we can secure them at home, and spread them throughout the world.
Note: The above column has been adpated from a speech Senator Daschle gave at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, August 9, 2001.
 How to contact Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD)
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