The great issue of American foreign policy today may be simply stated. It is the contradiction between the persisting desire to remain the premier global power and an ever deepening aversion to bear the costs of this position. Evidence of the contradiction is pervasive. In Bosnia, it has merely found its most recent manifestation.
The contradiction itself is hardly novel. Many observers have traced its appearance to the experience in Vietnam.
In fact, it goes back to a much earlier time in this century, for its origins are to be found in the period of World War I. In this respect, as in so much of our twentieth-century experience with the world, Woodrow Wilson is the dominant figure. It is Wilson who aspired, as no American president before him had done, to a role of world leadership for the United States. If we were ever to become partners in the world, he declared in urging the nation to strike out on a new course, our assured role would be that of "senior partner." To America would presumably fall the position of premier global power, were it only to abandon its past and commit itself to his League of Nations.
Yet it is also Woodrow Wilson who shrank from acknowledging and accepting the costs of playing such a role. America's leadership was to be gained, he was persuaded, at very little sacrifice on the nation's part. It had only to make, as he had made, a commitment of faith. The still prevalent view that Wilson failed in the end because he asked too much of the nation is quite misleading. Wilson failed despite the fact that he asked so little while promising so much.
