Who's on first?

WHO'S ON FIRST?

MICHAEL DUKAKIS'S foreign policy is a mystery, a veneer of standard Democratic rhetoric overlaying an essentially blank record. The result can be characterized in one of two ways: Charitably, it's good politics with something in it for everyone. Alternatively, it's simply a frightful mess. Can something so riven with internal inconsistencies possibly perform effectively? Consider the following sampler of positions that, it is said, make up Governor Dukakis's foreign-affairs agenda:

Deterrence policy: To his credit, the Duke appears to part company with many in the Democratic Party in his refusal to jettison NATO's threat to resort to first-use of nuclear weapons if attacked by conventional forces. And yet, the rest of the Dukakis approach works at cross-purposes with a collective-security strategy based on nuclear deterrence. For example: Dukakis seems unconcerned about the centrality to that strategy of modern, effective nuclear weapons. To the contrary, his support of a nuclear freeze, his interest in banning flight-testing of ballistic missiles, his commitment to halting nuclear tests, and his opposition to the deployment of every new strategic system (he says he will develop--but not necessarily field--the Trident II missile and the Stealth bomber) would, together, make it impossible over time for the United States to sustain a strategy he ostensibly supports.

More puzzling still is his grandiloquent commitment to fighting and winning a conventional war. No President since Roosevelt has entertained seriously the notions either that the United States could in peacetime afford to acquire and maintain such a capability or that--even were we to do so--we could safely rely on our conventional strength to deter Soviet aggression.

The fact that Mr. Dukakis obviously wishes to avoid being portrayed as "soft" on the defense issue fosters the cynical suspicion that his commitment to something as ill-defined as a "Conventional Defense Initiative" is simply a way of being for some military program without having to be too precise or too hawkish for his Democratic constituency. In fact, the only conventional-weapons program about which the Duke has commented specifically is one he says he will cancel--the two planned new aircraft carriers. Governor Dukakis is prepared to extol the virtues of conventional defenses without accepting their staggering cost or the strategic consequences of obtaining them at the expense of effective nuclear deterrents.

Arms Control: Governor Dukakis finds himself in the uncomfortable position of praising the results of Ronald Reagan's initiatives with the Soviets--the Summit meetings, the INF treaty, the Afghan settlement--without endorsing the Reagan approach, which, arguably, was essential to bringing them about. He makes clear he would have no truck with Reagan policies of negotiating from strength, with tenacity and patience, on initiatives in the U.S. interest. Instead, a Dukakis Administration seemingly would pursue unilateral programmatic restraint, "progress" for its own sake, and arms-control agreements which can neither make us more secure nor be verified.

Global Role of the United States: Brave Dukakis rhetoric such as "the Nation must be strong and involved.... There is no way this country can retreat" suggests a Trumanesque commitment to U.S. leadership and global engagement belied by other stated views. As governor, he sought to prevent the dispatch of Massachusetts National Guard troops to Panama and Honduras for training missions intended to show both U.S. strength and involvement in the region.

As President, Governor Dukakis asserts he would subordinate American freedom of action in foreign-policy matters to consensus with our allies or, worse yet, multilateral measures--consensus with any country that wants to be consulted. Such a sentiment might be simply the naive palaver of an innocent in such affairs which will fall by the wayside with office and experience. Whether that is the case or not, the electorate should be under no illusion: while there certainly is a place for consultation and joint initiatives, any actual implementation of Dukakis's policy would result in utter U.S. paralysis and, inevitably, our "retreat."

IT MUST BE SAID, of course, that beyond the known inconsistencies may lie a host of as yet unidentified Dukakis foreign-policy contradictions. As the entirety of the man's public thinking on the subject is to be found in a handful of speeches, articles, and interviews, much remains to be revealed (or thought?).

Unfortunately, the garbled quality of Dukakis's foreign-policy views as illustrated by the preceding examples does not offer a very satisfactory guide to the way he will answer questions like the following: Does he favor the continued granting by the West of billions per year to the Soviet Union in untied loans? Does he believe the Soviets are cheating on existing arms-control treaties? When he says "the threat /M to our security /N is not those struggling against apartheid; it is those who impose apartheid," what exactly does he mean? Is he suggesting, when he argues that the Reagan Administration "has tried to manipulate nations when it should have tried to understand them," that the brutally repressive, aggressive character of the Sandinista regime is not the problem; rather, it is our lack of understanding of it?

The Presidency of the United States is a tough place to get on-the-job training in foreign and defense policy. It can, moreover, be--as Jimmy Carter taught us--damn sporty for U.S. national interests to elect a President who requires it.