American Public Would Intervene in Bosnia, But Not Unilaterally

By Kurt Holden

"Most of the criticism on Bosnia, [Christopher] has said, is from 'East Coast newspaper columnists' who wanted the United States to use military force in the former Yugoslavia. 'I don't find that out in the country,' he said. Aides note that Christopher keeps close track of public opinion polls that do, indeed, show widespread opposition to U.S. military action on Bosnia."

—Correspondent Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times, June 10, 1993

Lyndon Johnson's first two years in office were among the most productive of any U.S. president. He harnessed his congressional know-how and a wave of sympathy over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the task of enacting into law the vast array of "new frontier" social legislation bequeathed him by his predecessor. It was only when Johnson ventured into foreign policy, and the growing American involvement in Vietnam also bequeathed him by his predecessor, that he began relying on polls instead of his own experience and common sense.

Critics pointed out that using the sons of the poor to fight a war for which he was not asking even a tax increase from the rich was bound to create domestic tensions, particularly within the liberal base of his own Democratic party. Instead of "reasoning together" with the doubters, however, he would pull a poll from his handkerchief pocket to demonstrate that "the American people are with me on this."

Wise presidents use polls to determine when their policies need further explaining. Foolish presidents use polls to justify those policies. Only leaders without a political compass use polls to determine where to go.

Taking campaign positions from the polls may earn a candidate the sobriquet "Slick Willie.'' Continuing to do it as president will sooner or later earn the same leader the label "Wafting Willie," "Wavering Willie,'' or "William the Weak."

If none of this is news, what may come as a shock to Americans who just want their country to do the right thing is that, according to the Los Angeles Times citation above, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, the foreign policy compass for a president clearly without one, may also be sneaking glances at the polls instead of a map of the Balkans to figure out what to do about genocide in Bosnia.

If that's the case, here's another quotation from the same newspaper just one day earlier on June 9: "The public debate about Bosnia has for months been shaped by an assumption that the American public is self-preoccupied and opposed to military intervention in Bosnia. This assumption is wrong. "

That's the lead paragraph in a Los Angeles Times article by Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay of the Program for International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, based on 11 recent polls. Six of them showed that when presented with a question about sending U.S. troops to Bosnia, an average of 47 percent reacted negatively, and 43 percent positively.

In another five polls, however, when respondents were asked whether the U.S. should participate in U.N. operations in Bosnia, support averaged 60 percent and, in one Time/CNN poll, hit 68 percent.

A Key Distinction

''The distinction between unilateral and multilateral intervention is the key variable,'' according to Kull and Ramsay. Asked on an ABC poll whether the U.S. should take unilateral military action, opposition also reached 68 percent.

Getting down to specifics, when asked on one poll whether the U.N. should set a deadline for the Serbs to comply or "face allied military action," 76 percent responded positively.

When respondents to seven polls were asked simply whether the U. S. should mount air strikes, support averaged 39 percent and opposition averaged 49 percent. However, in two other polls which asked about air strikes in conjunction with America's European allies or as part of a U.N. approved action, support averaged 59 percent.

Even on the touchy question of U.S. ground troops, three polls found that an average of 64 percent of the American public favored the idea of Americans participating in a U.N. peacekeeping force to implement the Vance-Owen plan. As the two researchers put it:

"Presumably it was a failure to discern this distinction in public thinking that led congressional leaders to tell the president that the American public would not support having 20,000 troops participate in a U. N. peacekeeping force to implement the Vance-Owen plan should the Bosnian Serbs agree to it."

Kull and Clay did their own nationwide survey of the American thinking behind the media-commissioned polls. They reported:

Sixty-eight percent of respondents agreed with the proposition that "since the war in Bosnia is a war of aggression by Serbia, the U.N. principle of collective security obliges U. N. members to help defend the Bosnian government.''

"U.S. policy should be guided by moral principles and collective security."

Sixty-seven percent agreed that ethnic cleansing "is a form of genocide and that the U.S. should take strong steps to stop it."

On the other hand, 53 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that "the U.S. has no real interests in Bosnia and that the U.S. should focus on programs at home.''

Forty-eight percent agreed with an argument "against committing U.S. troops 'even as part of a U.N. operation' because 'there is too great a chance of becoming bogged down like in Vietnam.'''

Summarizing their seemingly contradictory findings, Kull and Clay wrote: "The idea that U.S. policy should be guided by a vision that has moral principles and a concept of collective security appears to have an upper hand over the idea that the rest of the world should simply be left to its own inhumane devices. Such activist principles, though, can only be shaped into a viable policy after being forged, at every turn, by healthy doubts about whether the game is really worth the candle—especially when American lives are put at risk."

For the rest of the world, the good news in the article by Kull and Ramsay is that there still is a stubborn streak of morality underlying the pragmatism for which Americans are best known. The bad news, however, may be contained in the old adage that armies (or nations) are no better than their leaders. For America in 1993, that may be very grim news indeed.