The recent constitutional debate over the president's right to send U.S. military forces into combat was emotional but not simply a partisan swipe at President Clinton. Any U.S. policy that seeks to make U.S. military forces available to form the backbone of a United Nations army, dedicated to carrying out the whims of the secretary-general, is not in America's interest.
Should we support multilateral efforts to resolve the world's problems? Absolutely. But is "nation-building" in Somalia or Haiti in our national interest? "Nation-building" is not a mission our military is designed or trained to accomplish. Clinton's policy, placing U.S. military forces under U.N. command and in harm's way to create government where none exists, is poorly conceived and ill-defined.When the president, as commander in chief, seeks to delegate his responsibility of command to the U.N., the question is no longer one of constitutional authority but of responsible policy.
The Clinton administration has proposed a policy of placing U.S. troops under U.N. command in an effort to "multi-nation-alize" America's military. This policy, which was explained on Capitol Hill prior to the Somalia debacle, is known as Presidential Decision Directive 13 (PDD-13). Reportedly drafted by Morton Halperin, and largely ignored by the press, PDD-13 seeks to make the U.N. secretary-general captain of the ship, with the U.S. military left to pull the oars.
If you think Clinton has no intention of moving in this direction you need only to look at his budget request to the Congress. It included over $300 million to begin implementation of PDD-13.
Some may think these issues were resolved by the Senate votes last month, when questions surrounding Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti were addressed. But the underlying Clinton-Halperin policy that seeks to multinationalize America's military has not been resolved.
I had hoped Clinton's policy would be explained by Halperin when he comes before the Senate Armed Services Committee for confirmation to his newly created post as assistant secretary of defense for democracy and peacekeeping. But now it appears the administration is distancing itself from Halperin.
In the summer 1993 edition of "Foreign Policy," Halperin wrote, "The United States should explicitly surrender the right to intervene unilaterally in the internal affairs of other countries . . . Such self-restraint would bar interventions like those in Grenada and Panama unless the United States first gained the explicit consent of the international community. . . . "
Foreign-policy failures - placing U.S. troops under the control of an incompetent United Nations; making the United States the laughing stock of the world, afraid of Haitian thugs; sacrificing American lives in a hostile and dangerous Somali town - are the responsibility of Halperin's bosses.