Jason A. Edwards Navigating the Post Cold War World, President Clinton's Foreign Policy Rhetoric (2008)

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.And we have to make somedecisions to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges before us.To put itanother way, the train of globalization cannot be reversed, but it has more thanone possible destination.If we want America to be on the right track, if we wantother people to stay on the right track and have the opportunity to enjoy peaceand prosperity, we have no choice but to try and lead the train.86The other people to whom Clinton referred were the general world popula-tion for whom he was privileged to speak in his role as world leader.The pres-ident maintained that as the destinies of America and the rest of the planetwere fused, to succeed, America and the world must go down together thesame track of globalization.The leadership of the United States was im-perative to remain on the right track because the world s greatest opportunityto shape the future in the proper way depended upon constant American en-gagement.To use an earlier reference, American leadership was truly indis-pensable for the world s future.Shaping future change for the United Statesand the globe provided a polestar for American foreign policy, which thenmaintained continuity with the intervention narrative inherent in the foreignpolicy discourse of Clinton s predecessors.In the end Clinton argued shaping America and the world s future requiredAmericans to be farsighted like their World War II forbearers.Speaking to theAmerican people in his 1997 State of the Union Address, he explained:To prepare America for the 21st century we must master the forces of change inthe world and keep American leadership strong and sure for an uncharted time.Fifty years ago, a farsighted American led in creating the institutions that se-cured victory in the Cold War and built a growing world economy.As a result,today more people than ever embrace our ideas and share our interests.Alreadywe have dismantled many of the blocks and barriers that divided our parent sworld.For the first time, more people live under democracy than dictatorship in-cluding every nation in our hemisphere but one, and its day, too, will come.Nowwe stand at another moment of change and choice and another time to bringAmerica 50 more years of security and prosperity.8708_421_03_Ch02.qxd 10/8/08 6:17 AM Page 53Staying the Course as World Leader 53Here the president returned to the Truman analogy, but did so not as a lessonof the past, but in a context where the analogy stood for future global stabil-ity.To prepare America for the 21st century, U.S.leadership would beneeded for an uncharted time. Clinton defined the age of globalization asunruly and unpredictable.American leadership acted as a counterweight tothe unpredictable state of global affairs.The United States was stable andstrong.Although globalization brought great change, America s leadershipcould master the forces behind it.In doing so, the vision of Clinton s genera-tion of the 1990s would be equated with the World War II generation s fore-sight in creating institutions that proved vital to fighting the Cold War.Ac-cordingly, the 1990s generation would be revered by future generations if ittook steps to shape change to America s and the world s benefit.Notably Clinton made himself (just as he had Truman) a progenitor ofAmerica s ability to be a stabilizing force and master of change.The presi-dent invoked Truman by stating a farsighted American led in creating the in-stitutions that secured victory in the Cold War, which resulted in more peo-ple in the world sharing American ideals and interests.As Truman s heir,Clinton would continue to produce farsighted, transitional leadership.Amer-ica s and the world s future was secure with Clinton because fifty years fromnow, history would record that he was also a farsighted American. Justify-ing U.S.leadership to shape the world not only gave it a mission, it providedClinton a foreign policy legacy as a visionary transitional president.Clintonused the missions of exceptionalism to justify continued American engage-ment and leadership [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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