Hillary Clinton's Muscular Foreign Policy

Clinton and the military

March 28, 2007
Sen. Hillary Clinton is trying to burnish her credentials with the military, according to recent news reports, which may be good presidential politics, but which may also be an indication of a long-standing pro-military bias with important implications for the future.

Within the Democratic Party, Clinton has drawn criticism because of her vote in 2002 authorizing the use of force in Iraq and for her refusal to apologize for that vote. John Edwards has declared flatly that his vote was wrong. Barack Obama, who was not in the Senate at the time, has said he would have voted no.

An analysis of Clinton's views on foreign policy and the military in a recent New Republic magazine shows that Clinton's vote to authorize force may have been more than a tactical gesture to preserve her presidential prospects. It may have been the true expression of her view that force, or the threat of force, is a necessary component of aggressive diplomacy.

The Democrats have grown stronger as President Bush's foreign policy has fallen apart and as the nation has grown disaffected with the Iraq war. But within the ranks of Democrats, there is a divide that mirrors the divide that tore the party apart in the 1970s and which could do damage in the future.

In the wake of the Vietnam War, the Democrats became known as the anti-war party and gained a reputation as weak on defense and national security. Vietnam discredited Democratic hawks who had launched and supported the war.

In the 1990s a new generation of Democratic hawks was born, and Hillary Clinton was among them. The New Republic article reports that she pressed President Clinton to take military action in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. In fact, Bosnia and Kosovo became success stories showing how shrewdly applied military force could achieve goals that were beneficial both in securing international stability and protecting human rights.

It often happens that policymakers apply the lesson of the last war to the new war, with disastrous results. Many of the liberals who were persuaded to support the Iraq war were thinking about Bosnia and Kosovo. The lesson that Clinton drew from Bosnia and Kosovo was that diplomacy often benefits when backed up by the threat of force. In voting for the Iraq resolution in the Senate, she hoped that by allowing Bush to brandish a credible threat of force his diplomacy would be more effective. She did not foresee that Bush would fail so dismally, both diplomatically and militarily.

The Democrats now face the possibility that, as in the aftermath of Vietnam, they will be branded as weak on national defense. Certainly, that is what the Republicans have tried to do, though the Iraq disaster has persuaded the public of the bankruptcy of that attempt.

In a post-Iraq world the threat of force will sometimes be necessary, and Clinton hopes to establish herself as a credible leader who understands the tough challenges the next president will face. She is reported to have established good relationships with many military leaders and to be taking advice from foreign policy specialists who remain convinced that a strong foreign policy will continue to depend on a strong military. Within a Democratic Party outraged by the Iraq war, it is a tough position to promote, but it is one shaped by her years of experience as the wife of the president.