THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN U.S. POLITICS AND REALITY

PARIS - The $1.3 billion U.S. grant of police and military aid to
Colombia's counter-narcotics program, which President Bill Clinton launched
during a flying visit to that country Aug. 30, has three things in common
with the American plan for a national missile defense.

First, both are inspired by ongoing U.S. electoral politics, not by serious
policy analysis.

Second, neither can succeed in terms of its avowed objective. The Colombian
program can't really reduce the supply of drugs to the United States or
make a real difference to America's drug crisis. And limited national
missile defense can't really protect the United States from "rogue" or
terrorist mass-destruction weapons. (The president has just postponed a
decision on deployment, leaving it to his successor to decide.)

However, success or failure in their avowed purposes makes no difference to
the political sponsors of the two projects. They ask only that the issues
serve as electorally potent symbols of action against drugs and protection
against rogue states - allowing the programs' opponents to be characterized
as "soft" on drugs or weak on defense.

The final common element is that both are essentially unconnected to the
possibilities the real world affords, and both could have serious negative
consequences. Aid to Colombia might contribute to regional destabilization
and possibly draw the United States into deeper Latin American military
engagement. A national missile defense could easily subvert the existing
international balance of nuclear deterrence and restraint.

The missile defense project, as even supporters concede, is of extreme
technological difficulty. The likelihood is remote that in the next decade
it could provide even limited effective defense against "rogue" missiles.

Even if it proved able to do so, the security of the United States would
not measurably be improved. The rogues or terrorists from whom the missiles
are meant to defend the United States know that nuclear devices, anthrax
bacteria or containers of lethal gases with timing devices can be shipped
to New York or Los Angeles in easier ways than by expensive, complicated
and conspicuously identifiable intercontinental missiles.

The program is fundamentally meant to exploit a potent image of national
security for electoral advantage. It provides a second electoral benefit to
its supporters. Aerospace manufacturers want the program because it
promises them important government contracts. Therefore, the aerospace
firms are willing to contribute a great deal to the re-election campaigns
of congressional backers of NMD.

The aid program for Colombia is likewise an essay in illusions. For
Colombians themselves, the problem created by drug producers protected by
rebel bands constitutes a terrifying threat to national unity and security.
But as the Clinton administration has repeatedly stated, U.S. military
trainers, equipment and funds are not going to Colombia to fight a war
against Colombia's rebels. They are only there to support the campaign
against drug producers and traffickers.

But once again, the program cannot succeed. It can't do what the United
States ostensibly expects of it, which is to resolve America's own drug
crisis. Again, its backers understand this. So long as the United States
provides an enormous and lucrative market for drugs, the drugs will be
supplied. That is the reality of market economics. The demand will be met.

Even if Colombian President Andres Pastrana's ambitious anti-narcotics and
political pacification policies should succeed inside Colombia, drug
production would simply move to another country. As Pastrana said during
President Clinton's visit, "What we are talking about is the most lucrative
business in the world."

Production would move across the frontiers to Peru, Brazil or Ecuador.
Asian producers would take up the slack. Narcotics production in Africa has
already begun to expand.

Foreign intervention to fix America's drug problem once again offers voters
an illusion to distract them from the politically unpalatable reality that
the drug crisis is caused inside the United States, not beyond its borders.

Washington externalizes the problem by sending soldiers, helicopters and
money to Colombia. It knows no politically acceptable way to deal with
addiction and the drug traffic inside the United States. Therefore, it does
what it knows how to do. The illusion of action is thought to make voters
feel better.

The United States is not the first country, nor are these the first
occasions, in which politicians have manipulated foreign threats to deceive
the electorate. It nonetheless should be understood that this is what is
going on.