More Than a Negotiating Technique

The phrase "good cop/bad cop" is in one critical sensemisleading. It
can imply a mere negotiating technique, as in the technicalsense
used by police, in which a suspect is induced to be truthfulby
alternating harsh interrogatory techniques with moreunderstanding,
sympathetic treatment. While this technique is used quiteconsciously
by American diplomats from time to time, its success in the casesof
the Soviet Union and South Africa came not from its use as a
negotiating tool but from the perception--and the reality--thatthere
were indeed powerful forces in the United States that weredeeply
hostile to both countries and wanted to use punitive measuresagainst
them. In other words, the success of the strategy resultedprecisely
from the fact that the Soviet and South African leadershipsbelieved
it was not just a negotiating technique.

This is the point that Chester Crocker, assistant secretary ofstate
for African affairs throughout the Reagan presidency, misses inhis
otherwise highly perceptive account of his tenure:

"Ted Koppel had written in April 1985 that constructiveengagement,
conducted against the backdrop of an aroused public, could enableus
to "calibrate" pressures and enhance our influence on P.W.Botha's
government in Pretoria. Theoretically, this might make sense. Butthe
good cop, bad cop analogy--arming a reasonable and balanced
policymaker with the "threat" of a meaner alternative--doesnot
always work well in American foreign policy. . . "

Koppel's model would have worked if the good cop and the bad copwere
working for the same police chief. In this case, the bad cop wasnot
trying to help Reagan, Shultz, and me; he was trying todiscredit,
undermine, or replace us; and he sought to redefine U.S.policy.

But it was precisely because the bad cop was not working for thesame
police chief that the "threat" posed by a potentially volatileU.S.
policy to the South African government was credible. Had it comefrom
an administration committed to engagement and driven by ColdWar
imperatives, it would not have been nearly as convincing.

The "crazy man" strategy used by Nixon and Kissinger atvarious
times--in which the adversaries of the United States were
confidentially warned against opposing President Nixon, becausehe
was liable to go berserk and lash out in an incalculable way--is,of
course, an imaginative variation of the bad cop strategy,exploiting
the president's reputation as a strange man and as a loner. Attimes
it even allowed Nixon himself to be simultaneously both good copand
bad cop. It was particularly useful in negotiations thatconceded
advantages to the Soviets, as a means of warning them againsttrying
to take liberties with Nixon's flexibility.

All this is not to depreciate Crocker's remarkable contributionin
bringing change to South Africa. Indeed, the influence of thegood
cop was essential in bringing about constructive change in bothSouth
Africa and the Soviet Union; and those changes weakened bothregimes,
and contributed to their fall when the bad cop took over. Butthe
presence of the bad cop--sometimes in power, sometimes hoveringin
the background--made the blandishments of the good cop more
appealing. Constructive engagement worked because destructive
engagement was not merely possible but seriously proposed, and,in
the case of South Africa, eventually implemented.

This is also an element that Fukuyama neglects in "The Endof
History?" Even while he brilliantly analyzes the philosophicaland
economic shortcomings of communist states, he is less clear as towhy
the United States was able to prevail in its struggle with theSoviet
Union but not, say, against Cuba. Fukuyama points out that whatmade
continued contact so necessary to the Soviet Union and SouthAfrica,
and what made isolation impossible as a policy option, was notjust
an awareness of American power but the realization that theirown
systems were failing. A communist system capable of mobilizingthe
industrial capacity of the 1950s proved incapable of masteringthe
technological innovations of the information age. It was clear bythe
late 1970s that the Soviet Union was not only falling behindthe
United States, it was not even keeping up with Singapore.

In a smaller way, but at more or less the same time, the effortof
the South African government to run a modern economy while
maintaining the fiction that 70 percent of its population wouldsoon
be going back to their own "homelands" became ever more absurd.

True, Fukuyama warns that we should not "underestimate theability of
totalitarian or authoritarian states to resist the imperativesof
economic rationality for a considerable length of time," butthat
leaves unexamined the question of why some are able to do sowhile
others are not. Why was there, in the case of the Soviet Unionand
South Africa, a voluntary decision by the old regime to cede powerto
a democratically-elected government, while such a decision hasnot
been taken by Cuba or North Korea?

The answer lies in the relationship of each country to theUnited
States. Divergent pressures from within the United States facedSouth
Africa and the Soviet Union with a critical choice as to howto
conduct their affairs. If each country continued to alienatepowerful
sections of American opinion, it would be denied importantelements
of the revolutionary new technologies. The good cop (the Right inthe
case of South Africa, the Left in that of the Soviets) wantedtrade,
contact and communication; the bad cop (the Left with SouthAfrica,
the Right with the Soviet Union) wanted sanctions, boycott,and
breach. The cops were different in each case, but the effect wasthe
same. The very existence of the bad cop made it necessary fordespots
to embrace the good. But in the cases of Cuba and North Korea,the
absence of divergence has been the key. No good cop has been
available to offset the bad; and they have thus been left withoutan
option to engage.

Sir Richard Evans, Britain's ambassador to China from 1984 to1988,
well describes the identical choices now facing that country.The
Sino-American Agreement of 1982, he writes:

"left China with two balances to strike: the balancebetween
political independence at the cost of slow economic progressand
rapid economic progress at the cost of at least some degreeof
political dependence on the United States; and the balance betweenan
open door to Western ideas at the risk of generatingpolitical
discontent and a door shut to such ideas at the risk ofexcluding
industrial know-how. Much in China since 1982 has turned onthe
management of these balances."

Those choices for China arise from the same contending forcesin
American democracy that dominated the debate on relations withthe
Soviet Union and South Africa: between a U.S. nationalinterest
narrowly construed and one that incorporated the traditionalAmerican
commitment to liberty; between a stress on the limits to U.S.power
and more expansive ideas; between traditional concepts of
non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, andan
equally traditional moral urge to interfere; between theUnited
States as exemplar and as trader. And finally on a lesselevated
level, between periods when media and public attention are focusedon
a country, and times when they are not. In short, China, likethe
Soviet Union and South Africa before it, is now being subjectedto
the happy--and messy--unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy.

A Propensity to Bewilder

Americans rarely appreciate how unpredictable their foreignpolicy
can be. As citizens of the most powerful country in the world,they
have less reason to brood over long-term influences andconsequences;
they are involved in the here and now in a way that no othernation
can afford to be. Geographical isolation, too, has allowed Americato
escape the ancient disputes and fractures that still hauntless
fortunate countries. During the time that I had dealings with themas
director of the South Africa Foundation in Washington, I foundthat
State Department desk officers usually had superb command ofthe
events of the last six months, but had sometimes never heard ofthe
Great Trek, an event not much less significant in SouthAfrican
history than the shots fired on Fort Sumter are in Americanhistory.

One can count at least five sharp alternations in U.S. policytoward
South Africa over the past three decades--changes which, to asmaller
country confronted by the power of the leader of the free world,were
both confusing and alarming.

Up to the end of the Eisenhower administration, the UnitedStates
followed the policy of friendship and non-intervention thathad
prevailed since the Second World War. The United States abstainedon
UN resolutions critical of South Africa's race policies onthe
grounds that it was a matter that fell within South Africa'sdomestic
jurisdiction. The first departure was to vote to condemn SouthAfrica
for the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. The Kennedy and Johnson
administrations broke with Eisenhower's policy of benignneglect,
instituting a voluntary arms embargo and voting to terminateSouth
Africa's mandate over South West Africa, now Namibia. TheNixon
administration changed policy again, though without fanfare,by
adopting National Security Council Study Memorandum 39 (NSSM 39)of
August 15, 1969, which proposed encouraging reform bybroadening
contact, on the assumption that "the Whites are here to stay, andthe
only way that constructive change can come about is throughthem."

The Carter administration reverted to the tone of theKennedy/Johnson
period, supporting a mandatory arms embargo and calling for a
one-man, one-vote system of government, at a time when fewwhite
South Africans could even contemplate such a change. TheReagan
administration shifted back to a policy of "constructiveengagement,"
which recognized South Africa's pre-eminence in Southern Africa,and
sought to get its cooperation in solving other regionalquestions
before turning to South Africa itself. The policy's centralpremise
was that hostile external pressures were counterproductive,and
served only to reinforce South Africa's intransigence. But muchof
that policy was in turn cut short by an impatient Congress,which
forced a reluctant administration to introduce limited sanctionsin
1985, and more comprehensive ones the following year.