Presidential elections are not, as a rule, decided by foreign-policy issues. But key foreign-policy issues can be decided by presidential elections, and this will be particularly true of 2004’s. The differences between George W. Bush and John Kerry in their approaches to international relations could not be more dramatic. Never has the partisan gulf been wider. While in the past Democrats and Republicans frequently disagreed about individual issues—the Vietnam War, U.S.-Soviet arms control—at stake now is a fundamental operational principle: whether American foreign policy will be principally driven by considerations of the national interest or by a tender regard for the wishes of the “international community,” based on an ideology of “multilateralism.”
Although the Left in general, and Democratic activists in particular, have ceaselessly carped about George W. Bush’s “unilateralism,” the president has actually followed a highly pragmatic approach to international cooperation, acting, whenever possible, in concert with other states and institutions—including Europe and the United Nations. In fact, on each of the major foreign-policy challenges it has faced, and continues to face—including war with al-Qaeda, deposing Saddam Hussein, interdicting
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