The United States should act as the world's "sheriff," Richard Haass, director of Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings Insititution in Washington, told a Rockefeller Center audience in a speech last night.
The civil strife in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Somalia are examples that the world does not self-regulate, and the United States must act to protect American interests and values, Haass said.
The United States must take the reins in global leadership, Haass said, because organizations such as the United Nations and NATO are hampered by lack of ideological consensus.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the economic turmoils in Europe and Asia, the United States is currently the strongest state both politically and economically to take the global leadership role, Haass said.
"And if we are successful sheriffs now, we'd have to saddle up and ride out less in the future," he said.
Haass stressed the need for fostering strong relationship with other nations, thus spreading the costs of operations to make success more likely. "You aren't much of a sheriff without a posse," he said.
Former National Security Council Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs and special assistant to President Bush during the Gulf War, Haass cited the war as a successful example of a U.S.-led coalition.
Haass criticized the current lack of interest in foreign affairs on the part of both the political leadership and the American public.
"The American people aren't isolationist since you have to care passionately about foreign policy but be against having it to be called that," Haass said.
Instead they are weak internationalists, who do not see the links between domestic priorities and international action and therefore do not support spending money on foreign issues.
Haass pointed out that the $300 billion dollars spent annually on national defense and international diplomacy is actually the lowest level of spending as a percentage of GNP since immediately after World War II.
