US Foreign Policy: How History Repeats Itself

The current situation in Libya under the Obama administration carries remnants of the turmoil that happened in Kosovo when Clinton was in office, as both conflicts involve mass killings of people under autocratic rulers that threaten life and liberty in surrounding countries. To justify America’s involvement in Kosovo, Clinton pointed out that it is America’s duty, (along with NATO), to intervene when people are being murdered in mass numbers due to ethnic differences, especially when this conflict could spill over into vulnerable surrounding countries. Similarly, Obama’s speech about involvement in Libya mentioned that the decision to intervene was a moral one that again, would be supported by NATO alliances, and again, served international interest in suppressing the spillage of violence to unstable neighboring regions like Egypt. Stylistically, both presidents did not hesitate to put a face on who was the “bad guy” in the situation by calling out Gaddafi and Milosevic as the culprits for the bloodshed. Both Clinton and Obama also attempted to seek sympathy from the American public by aligning approachable similarities to the targets of violence to more manageable US proportions (after all, it is much easier to imagine Charlotte, North Carolina or the entire state of Nebraska ceasing to exist rather than some population of people thousands of miles away).

Similarities aside, Clinton talked around exactly how the US was planning on achieving peace in Kosovo and what exactly was the concrete mission once peace was achieved. On the other hand, clearly tired of expanding American forces into foreign involvements (“we had been down that road before in Iraq”), Obama stated that no troops would be put on the ground and that the No Fly Zone was pretty much the extent of America’s efforts in Libya. Where Clinton urged Americans to accept the investment of rebuilding Kosovo for the greater well-being of Europe, Obama stated that the Libyan people need to have the opportunity to decide for themselves what kind of government and existence they want to have without hovering foreign intervention.

That being said, neither president seemed to be placing a doctrine into effect. Clinton’s situation with Kosovo came at a time when many other ethnic issues were happening around the world. Essentially, he was faced with picking which battles to fight that would end up being beneficial for NATO’s existence, which is why Rwanda, sadly, had little place in his agenda. Obama’s hesitant attitude in the Libyan conflict does not seem to set down a foreign policy doctrine either; rather it reflects the reality of America’s current position in foreign relations. In the past decade, America has been involved in two wars in the Middle East with its share of controversies and mishaps. The war in Iraq did little to exalt the US on the global stage, so intervening more forcefully in Libya would have made America look like it “hadn’t learned anything” from Iraq, while probably sparking more dissent from people who already think Americans just want to take over the world. Also, fiscally, America probably can’t afford to spend any more money than it has on military projects abroad, so in this way Obama can show America’s support for the Libyan Revolution (and perhaps, symbolically to the other revolutions happening in the region) in a frugal way.

This discussion leads to the question of how should the United States determine when to involve itself in conflicts abroad and when should it steer clear of such associations. President Clinton seemed to put it best in articulating the difference between people having violent disagreements in their own lands, and people systematically attempting to rid the world of a certain race or ethnicity of people based on these disagreements while threatening America’s well-being (even if its by extension through threatening Europe). Also, America’s allies are strategic and not limited to European nations, as is the case with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the US’s key allies in the Middle East, and involvements in Bahrain would have tested that allegiance if not destroyed it. Although it is extremely sad and shameful to admit, we cannot be a nation of do-gooders all the time when faced with our own domestic problems—after a while the money DOES run out, and then what do we do?