Half a decade has elapsed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and nearly four years have passed since Bill Clinton became president of the United States. These two events, nearly simultaneous in occurrence, present a fitting time for an assessment of specific international policy decisions made by the White House. This juncture is particularly appropriate for an evaluation of President Clinton's handling of prominent foreign policy crises as he seeks a second term.

The Clinton administration has dealt with four high-profile problems- Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and North Korea-which demanded presidential attention, resulted in the deployment of U.S. military forces, and generated congressional and public controversy. All were small-scale operations when compared with U.S. involvement in major twentieth-century conflicts. Yet they are significant because the way they were handled may determine the way future large-scale emergencies are managed.

The Clinton administration displayed hesitation, vacillation, and ambivalence in addressing turmoil in Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti, which carried international ramifications. Somalia emerges as a defining foreign policy decision for the Clinton administration. After suffering a setback in Somalia, the White House moved overcautiously and abdicated leadership in the Bosnian crisis. When Clinton intervened in Bosnia and Haiti, he first narrowed the operational scope, set rigid timetables, put undue restrictions on the missions, and finally emphasized exit strategies. The results of these American efforts, therefore, are likely to be transitory. In the case of North Korea, the White House has been correct to engage the decrepit but dangerous North Korean regime, but the administration's nuclear agreement is difficult to verify and has secured inadequate quid pro quos in return for American, Japanese, and South Korean inducements for cooperation. Most important, the Geneva Agreement set a bad international precedent in the fight against nuclear proliferation.

Whoever wins the national election and takes office as president must reassert America's moral and strategic leadership to bolster U.S. credibility in a world undergoing profound change. The next president must articulate with clarity and conviction for Congress and the public the importance of America's international responsibilities that accompany its power and influence. Among the specific recommendations for the incoming administration in 1997 are the eastward enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the construction of a missile defense system, and an increase in military spending to meet future crises, which are almost certain to be greater challenges than Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, or North Korea.

After a brief period of calm in the early 1990s, the United States and Korea are about to enter a new round of trade conflict. Given the importance of bilateral trade to each other's economy and the need for sustained cooperation in the face of North Korea's nuclear program, the United States and Korea must resolve emerging trade disputes over U.S. access to Korean auto, telecommunications, and food markets.

In dealing with Korean trade barriers, however, the United States should avoid a confrontational approach. Under his "globalization" initiative, President Kim Young Sam has placed a priority on deregulation and economic liberalization. Even without U.S. pressure, then, Korea will open its markets for its own good. If the current reforms in Korea do stall, the United States should consider offering a free trade agreement to Korea unilaterally and waiting for Korea to decide. This will give the people of Korea a chance to choose what kind of economy they want to have.

For reasons of nationalist sentiment and in hopes that it might help prevent People's Republic of China (PRC) military action, public opinion in Taiwan is strongly in favor of seeking U.N. membership. Responding to this sentiment, both major political parties, the ruling Kuomintang and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), eagerly support the idea. But consensus ends there.

To promote its program of ultimate de jure separation from China, the DPP wants to apply as a new member called Taiwan even though it understands that new members can enter only with approval of the Security Council in which the PRC holds a veto. The government wants a General Assembly (GA) study committee formed in hopes that it will recommend amending GA resolution 2758, which expelled the Republic of China (ROC) in 1971.

The Taiwan government's approach is half right: any General Assembly can amend or revoke a resolution adopted by one of its predecessors. But even if a study committee were formed--and two previous assemblies have declined to create one--the PRC would have one of the seats and, because such committees operate on a consensus basis, would be able to block such a recommendation.

Given that there is no court that will decide the matter, the best, indeed only, way to amend resolution 2758 is by direct appeal to the assembly. This can be successful if the ROC can accumulate a working majority of its voting members. The author argues that this can be done by working through the specialized agencies within the U.N. constellation to demonstrate to Third World countries the valuable contributions Taiwan can make to their hopes for development and thus enlist their support.

World attention has wandered but neither the Contra war nor the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua has ended. Promises to former Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance combatants, better known as Contras, of protection and help with restarting their lives have been systematically broken. A second breath granted to the Sandinistas by President Violeta Chamorro has resulted in continuing threats to U.S. interests. Nicaragua, which has often generated political problems for this country, continues to do so because we failed to seize the moment in 1990. Since then $2.1 billion in foreign aid, including more than $1.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars, has bankrolled Nicaraguan retrogression toward a patriarchal, nondemocratic political system. The primary aid beneficiaries, in an uneasy but symbiotic alliance, have been the pro-Chamorro elite and and the Sandinista senior cadre. The resultant political system fits an analytic model centered on identity and ethnicity. The core is dominated by a postcolonial Europeanate global tribe with political values that favor self, family, and private fortune over the nation and the poor. From this perspective recent Nicaraguan history, including the Sandinista Revolution, becomes simply a variant on traditional intraelite rivalries for power, with the peripheral masses, including the United States' erstwhile allies, the big losers. Current U.S. policies reinforce this nondemocratic process. New ones are needed. In addition to real, not minimal, democratization, these should include demilitarization, disarmament, and aggressive observation of the 1996 elections. Current political biases built into U.S. aid should also be reversed, and the Organization of American States' protection for our former allies should be reinforced. It is not too late to recover from the mistakes of 1990.