Weighing the Proper Role

By WALTER ISAACSON

Grenada and Lebanon illustrate the uses and limits of power

Dispatching gunboats. Sending in the Marines. The projection of American power once seemed so straightforward. And yet in recent years it has presented more and more of a dilemma for a superpower whose every military endeavor elicits endless review and frequently querulous recriminations at home and abroad. By reaffirming the U.S. commitment to keep its Marines in Lebanon, and by sending troops to a minuscule island in the eastern Caribbean, the Reagan Administration last week attempted to reassert the global role of American military might. "This may be a turning point in history," Secretary of State George Shultz told a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, hours after the Grenada landing and two days after the Beirut carnage. "We've let the world know that we are going to protect our interests whatever it costs."

Those costs will certainly be high, far higher than the tragic loss of life alone. By invading Grenada, the U.S. risks tarnishing the high moral standard, based on respect for national sovereignty and self-determination, that distinguishes its conduct in the world from that of its Soviet adversary. Indeed, cries of outrage rang forth from Latin America, Western Europe and even the chambers of Congress--not to mention the predictable howl from Moscow, where TASS called Reagan "a modern Napoleon," devoid of conscience and simpleminded. By embroiling itself more deeply in the turbulent situation in Lebanon, the U.S. risks becoming a combatant rather than a peacemaker in the endless strife there. "Our forces in Lebanon are now not a deterrent, they are hostages," said Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

Reagan and his advisers argue that the high stakes and legitimate objectives in each case justify the perils. The invasion of Grenada was necessary, they say, to protect the lives of Americans. But in fact the Marines' mission had a more brazen goal. U.S. timidity in recent years has encouraged Soviet mischief in diverse parts of the world. Particularly in the Caribbean, the U.S. has felt it has a responsibility to stand up against hostile influences and ensure that there are "no more Cubas." The Administration seized on the situation in Grenada to demonstrate, after years of near paralysis, that the U.S. is again able to use military force as an extension of its political will. With a symbolic significance far greater than Grenada's size warranted, the takeover was meant to show that the U.S. could forcefully roll back a tide of Soviet successes in the Third World. Both U.S. strategic interests and the welfare of Grenada and its neighbors are well served, the Administration's argument goes, by ejecting the Cubans and their East-bloc partners. Grenada "was a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy," Reagan said in his televised speech last Thursday. "We got there just in time."

Likewise in Lebanon, the stakes of U.S. involvement in the multinational peace force are viewed as far greater than the professed goal of facilitating the withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli forces. American presence has made possible the survival of the government there, at least for the moment, and helped fend off another Arab-Israeli war. In that region too, Reagan argued, the larger issue is that of resisting Soviet expansionism. Asked the President in his televised address: "Can the U.S., or the free world for that matter, stand by and see the Middle East incorporated into the Soviet bloc?"

Reagan's actions last week, and his effective speech defending his approach, will likely work to his advantage, at least in the short term. The week began with the nation stunned and reeling from the horror of the mass death in Beirut. News that the U.S. had invaded a little-known island added to the shock and confusion. Yet Reagan for the moment has been able to put an orderly gloss on the staggering events and to rally the public support for the presidency that usually can be summoned in times of international turmoil. In addition, he has bought himself some more time in which to seek a face-saving solution in Lebanon and has given vivid notice to the Soviets, Cubans, Syrians and other adversaries that he will not be pushed around.

The week's dramatic events, however, raise a more troubling fundamental question, one that is likely to be at the center of the ongoing national debate. Final judgment on the events in Lebanon and Grenada will depend on how the nation comes to view the proper uses and limits of military force in conducting foreign policy. As Secretary Shultz explained the Administration view last week, "If we want the role and influence of a great power, then we have to accept the responsibilities of a great power." Democratic Congressman Paul Simon of Illinois was among many who challenged the underlying premise of that vision. Said he: "The military solution seems to be an automatic reflex with this Administration."

Armed intervention is a common international practice, despite the shock many nations express when it is perpetrated by others. From Suez to the Falkland Islands, major powers have used force against weaker nations to protect their real or perceived security interests. In 1979, the French engineered the overthrow of Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic and hand-picked a new President for the country. Some 2,500 French troops and nine fighter aircraft now stationed in poverty-stricken Chad represent the third French intervention in that former colony. Israel's current military occupation of southern Lebanon, which began with the Israeli invasion of that country in June 1982, is only the latest of many efforts by that country to protect its territory from Palestinian terrorist attacks. In 1979, Moscow undertook a massive invasion of Afghanistan when a Communist-dominated regime there seemed to be faltering. Now, more than 100,000 Soviet troops are bogged down in an aggressive counterinsurgency effort to protect the Soviet Union's southern flank.

Since the end of World War II, a basic American goal has been the containment of Soviet influence in the world. But since the Viet Nam War, the U.S. has been reluctant to project its power. These two opposite impulses have produced conflicting pressures regarding the role of force in U.S. policy. "Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power," wrote McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Adviser during the Viet Nam buildup, in a preface to the papers of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, one of the original architects of the containment policy.

The Reagan Administration came into office determined to cure the U.S. of the so-called Viet Nam syndrome. Ever since the humiliating helicopter exodus from the Saigon embassy roof in 1975 ended direct American involvement in Southeast Asia, there has been a tendency to see any attempt to send U.S. troops anywhere, for any purpose, as another potential quagmire. The Viet Nam nerve twitched, and isolationist instincts were aroused. Harvard Government Professor Joseph Nye uses a metaphor of Mark Twain's to illustrate the syndrome: "A cat that sits on a hot stove won't sit on one again. But it won't sit on a cold one, either. We're still trying to decide where to sit." Last week, Democrat Sam Gibbons of Florida delivered a speech on the House floor, the brevity of which was matched only by its shallowness. Said he: "Lebanon--Reagan's Viet Nam."

During this period, the Soviets or their surrogates have been expanding their influence, displaying none of the U.S.'s reluctance to use military force, in places such as Angola, South Yemen, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Other setbacks to U.S. interests occurred in Iran and Nicaragua. The U.S. seemed helpless, almost paralyzed.

When Reagan moved into the White House, he and his advisers vowed to prevent future situations from getting out of hand. The CIA stepped up covert support to insurgents fighting Marxist-led regimes in Nicaragua, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Cambodia. In addition, the U.S. searched for a new fight, one that could be won, in order, as former Secretary of State Alexander Haig told an early staff meeting, "to get Viet Nam behind us." Ideally, that confrontation would be small and easily manageable. Michael Mandelbaum, a political scientist at the Lehrman Institute in New York City, notes wryly: "The worst possible maxim to follow in geopolitics is 'Pick on someone your own size.''

A curious role reversal was exhibited in discussions about the use of force. The traditionalists at the State Department, led first by Haig and then by Shultz, seemed eager to "lay down a marker" and take a stand militarily. The Pentagon hardliners, led by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were more wary of symbolic displays of power, feeling that the armed forces should be used for precise military missions and not for vague diplomatic goals. That is why the Pentagon was somewhat reluctant to place military personnel in El Salvador or use the Marines for political purposes in Lebanon. And during the discussions on Grenada, while Shultz was urging "Let's strike while the iron is hot," Weinberger and the military chiefs wanted to wait for more intelligence and planning.

The Administration's first clear chance for a simple military showdown came in August 1981, when Libya's Soviet-built fighter jets imprudently challenged the planes of a U.S. carrier over the Gulf of Sidra. The American victory in that dogfight--two Libyan Su-22s were downed--yielded a brief lift, but hardly a substantive one. It did not really prove anything about the uses and limits of U.S. power. Reagan's rhetoric remained filled with firmness and grit, but he found no safe opening to translate the talk into action. The Administration was looking, as one official said last week, "for any opportunity that came along where we could take a direct punch at the other side's nose with maximum chance of success and minimum risk of tangling with the Soviets themselves."

Grenada provided that opportunity. As events were to prove, there was not sufficient intelligence to assure that an incursion there would be quick and painless. Nor was such a seemingly insignificant dot on the map--down at the very tail end of the Caribbean's long chain of Windward Islands--much of a plinth on which to erect a major geopolitical statement. Yet Reagan had long been obsessed with Grenada, and in particular with the militarily useful lengthened airstrip built there with Cuban assistance. "That airstrip," said one U.S. official, "came to symbolize all we were fighting against in the hemisphere."

After the operation was launched last week, the Administration provided a string of justifications for its assault on a sovereign country. The primary consideration, Reagan said, was the safety of the 1,000 U.S. citizens there, most of them students at St. George's University School of Medicine. Foremost in the minds of U.S. officials was an event that happened four years ago this week: the taking of hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Said Shultz to reporters: "With the violent and uncertain atmosphere that certainly was present on Grenada, the question is, Should he [the President] act to prevent Americans from being hurt or taken hostage? I think that if he waited and they were taken hostage or many were killed, then you would be asking me that same question: 'Why didn't you, in the light of this clear violent situation, take some action to protect American citizens there?' "

A fair point, though of course the proof for any event that has not taken place must always be subjunctive--and therefore debatable. Moreover, if the safety of U.S. citizens were the primary motivation, a far more limited, and far less inflammatory, rescue and evacuation mission could have been attempted, though given the unexpected resistance of Grenada's defenders, that too might have proved hazardous. But if a straightforward rescue mission had been the goal, there then would have been no need, and no opportunity, to wrest control of the island from its Marxist strongmen. So the Administration put forth other justifications for its actions.

The contention that a request from the little-known Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (O.E.C.S.) provided a legal basis for the invasion seemed fragile. Grenada is one of the seven members of O.E.C.S., the charter of which says that any decision to take military action must be unanimous. Nor is it clear that the O.E.C.S., formed in 1981, has any provisions, or any right, to authorize military intervention in one of its member states.

The organization that is designated to handle matters of collective security in the region is the Organization of American States (O.A.S.), which was formed in 1948 expressly to protect the principles of nonintervention and national sovereignty. The O.A.S. charter is explicit: "The territory of a State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or other measures taken by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever." The O.A.S. was not consulted, nor did most of its members approve of last week's invasion. At an emergency meeting of the O.A.S., most countries called the action a violation of international law and the principles of nonintervention. Professor Abram Chayes of Harvard Law School, who played a key role in the determined and successful effort by the Kennedy Administration during the 1962 missile crisis to get the O.A.S. to provide a legal basis for the blockade of Cuba, said of Reagan last week: "It seems as though the President thinks he is a law unto himself in this situation."

The Administration, along with members of the O.E.C.S., argued that the breakdown of order and authority on Grenada added to the need for some military intervention. Even many Grenadians applauded the invasion, at least initially. That slippery rationale, however, could be used to justify invading any one of a number of countries in Latin America or elsewhere. Indeed, when Shultz made that argument on Capitol Hill, one black Congressman snapped, "Hell, if that's the criterion, the Marines should be sent into my district."

It was obvious that there were deeper reasons for the American action. High among them was the fear that the Cubans, and by extension the Soviets, were establishing a military outpost in the Caribbean that could serve as a way station for ferrying Cubans to Africa and Soviet arms to Latin America. The U.S. was quick to highlight the cache of Cuban and Soviet weapons and numbers of military men found on the island. Vice President George Bush told TIME last week: "What we had felt about Grenada long before the brutal slaying of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was probably accurate. Cuba has been hyperactive there."

Also at the heart of the U.S. action was a message to both adversaries and allies that the U.S. was willing to use its military power in resisting Cuban and Soviet influence. "This was not taken as a signal about anything else," said Shultz, adding, "Of course, those who want to receive a message will have to receive it."

Such a willingness to use military force in the superpower struggle represents a challenge by Reagan to the "Brezhnev doctrine," the late Soviet President's determination, aimed at Poland and other nations, that Moscow has the right to use military force to prevent pro-Soviet governments from drifting or being pulled out of its sphere. The "Reagan doctrine," as indicated by the rationales for the Grenada invasion, is that the U.S. can and may use force to challenge regimes that threaten American security.

Reagan's approach revives a long tradition of American assertiveness in the hemisphere. As President Theodore Roosevelt, the original wielder of the big stick, said in 1904, "The Monroe Doctrine may force the U.S., however reluctantly in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power." During the 1920s, U.S. Marines were involved in extended occupations of Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In all, American forces have intervened 26 times in Latin America during this century.

The most recent previous case, which Reagan advisers have cited as an example of a successful action comparable to Grenada, came in 1965 when President Johnson sent 23,000 troops to the Dominican Republic to quell a left-wing revolution. The action, which was approved after the fact by the O.A.S., was successful for the U.S. The words L.B.J. used to justify the involvement--"to insure the safety of innocent people, to restore normal conditions and to open a path to democratic process"--were almost the same as Reagan's last week. Yet the comparison is not quite apt: the intervention in the Dominican Republic was not exactly an invasion, because the troops had been requested by the military authorities ostensibly in control of that Caribbean country. In fact, never before in this century have U.S troops actually invaded a country to fight against a ruling government.

Even so, the Dominican Republic incident provoked an undercurrent of resentment in Latin America that helped spell the end of the Alliance for Progress. "Ever since the invasion of the Dominican Republic, we've been trying to tell other countries that the U.S. has forsworn military intervention," says Sol Linowitz, a former U.S. Ambassador to the O.A.S. who helped negotiate the Panama Canal Treaty. By far the greatest cost of the Grenada invasion, and the new assertiveness it exemplifies, may be that it resurrects in Latin America the "Yankee imperialist" stereotype that the U.S. has been struggling to shake off. "Gringos out of Grenada," was the cry in front of the U.S. embassy in Mexico City as a cardboard Reagan was burned in effigy. The Mexican Senate denounced the U.S. as an aggressor and said the invasion violated the "principle of nonintervention."

The specter of American military intervention has long been brandished by leftist governments, such as the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, and by revolutionary movements seeking to stir anti-American sentiment. Nicaraguan newspapers last week published a list of all U.S. interventions in Central America since 1854, when the U.S. Navy destroyed the Nicaraguan port of San Juan del Norte to avenge an insult to the American minister. Until now, such propaganda seemed shopworn. "This would appear to prove everything the Sandinistas have been saying about the intentions of the U.S. here," one American official in Managua said last week. "It gives them the chance to consolidate their support."

Nicaragua has reason to be concerned about Reagan's new willingness to wield American power. The U.S. has been covertly supporting contra terrorists attempting to overthrow that government. Daniel Ortega Saavedra, head of Nicaragua's junta, charged last week that the U.S. is preparing to manufacture a provocation that would justify an invasion. The revitalization of a Central American defense alliance known as CONDECA might serve as the vehicle to launch an American attack. The military chiefs of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala secretly met with the head of the U.S. Southern Command a month ago in Guatemala and agreed that the aims of CONDECA included "the use of force against Marxism." Edgar Chamorro, a leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the largest of the CIA-backed contra groups, predicts that the O.E.C.S.-sponsored invasion of Grenada will serve as a model for a CONDECA-sponsored U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. "The U.S. will let some time go by and then they'll do it again," he says.

In both Grenada and Nicaragua, the Administration has been somewhat disingenuous in its public explanations of U.S. policy. The rationale in Nicaragua has been that the U.S. is trying to force that country to stop aiding the rebels in El Salvador, while in fact the real American purpose is to alter, or perhaps even overthrow, the Nicaraguan regime. Likewise in Grenada American aims go well beyond those stated. Whether or not the goals in each case are valid, by obscuring those true objectives and pretending to be pursuing others, the Administration may be creating bigger problems for itself down the road.

The invasion of Grenada has also altered the terms in which America will be able to question the Soviet Union's use of military force. Moscow at least had obvious national security interests regarding Poland and Afghanistan, and could point to the justification, however flimsy, that it was acting at the behest of those governments. Nonetheless, Washington quite justifiably protested vigorously when the Soviets intervened in their affairs. After Grenada, the wording of such denunciations will require a little more care. "What's the difference between Afghanistan and Grenada?" a concerned Democratic Congressman asked one of his party's leaders. "Afghanistan is larger," the leader quipped cynically, "and Grenada is in our sphere of influence." Vice President Bush made a more serious distinction to TIME. Said he: "The objective in Grenada will be democratic constitutional government. That is a far cry, it seems to me, from putting in one's own puppet who doesn't adhere to democratic institutions."

That may be the case, but many Americans are still concerned that important principles were among the casualties of the landing. "It may earn us a bitter harvest," says Linowitz. "We can't assert we are committed to nonintervention and then act as we have in Grenada." Harvard Government Professor Stanley Hoffmann, author of Duties Beyond Borders, says: "An intervention of this sort is justifiable only if there is very strong evidence that the regime in power has begun actively to subvert neighbors." Columnist Anthony Lewis wrote in the New York Times: "It undermines the ability of free people to complain effectively when the Soviet Union uses force for its purposes. It legitimizes Soviet intervention in other countries."

Others, however, see the invasion as a welcome reversal of the post-Viet Nam paralysis. Richard Pipes, a professor of history at Harvard and former Reagan adviser, says Washington should be launching more actions like the one in Grenada. Says he: "Some people have the notion that America cannot use force short of an absolute Pearl Harbor-like attack, and that's just ridiculous." Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, contends, "If one is going to use power at all, the way we did it in Grenada was the proper way to do it. You can't abdicate the use of power in the real world." Administration officials argue that the U.S. will garner more influence by being willing to use power than it will by carefully treading a moral high ground. In addition, the Western democracies in the postwar world face the constant challenge of internal subversion and indirect aggression, with few means short of force to counter such activities.

Another serious cost of the invasion has been increased tension within the Western alliance at the critical moment when NATO countries are scheduled to deploy intermediate-range U.S. missiles (See box). The world has a short memory for such matters, but last week the concerns were widespread. Most offended of all was Britain, and for good reason: Grenada is part of the Commonwealth and has the Queen as its monarch. France proved to hold the key anti-American vote during the United Nations Security Council debate on the invasion. It cast its weight behind a resolution that "deeply deplores the armed intervention in Grenada, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of that state." The vote was 11 to 1, with Britain abstaining; the U.S. was forced to use its veto in order to kill the resolution.

The most tangible constraint on the use of American force is the War Powers Act, passed in the wake of the war in Viet Nam. Every President during the ten years the law has been on the books has disputed the constitutionality of its provision that the President cannot deploy troops in combat situations for more than 60 days without the approval of Congress, and the Supreme Court has not ruled conclusively on the issue. Reagan informed Congress of the invasion of Grenada, as required by the law, but refrained from indicating compliance with the 60-day requirement. The Senate voted 64 to 20 on Friday to set the act's 60-day clock ticking. Said Democrat Gary Hart of Colorado: "We are dealing with an Administration that is not inclined to obey the law." The House will vote on the measure this week.

Congressional reaction to the invasion hewed to party lines at first, indicating that it may have been too early to assess the true political fallout. "This was a proper use of our power," argued House Minority Leader Robert Michel of Illinois. "It is in our hemisphere. We are beginning to draw some lines here. How much of it do you take before you say, 'This is enough'?" Trent Lott of Mississippi agreed: "We don't want another pro-Castro Marxist government down there." Senate Democrats were far harsher. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts called the invasion "Reagan's new interventionism," Thomas Eagleton of Missouri said it represented "a trigger-happy foreign policy," and New York's Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted: "I don't know that you restore democracy at the point of a bayonet." House Democrats were initially more muted, with Speaker Tip O'Neill contending that criticism was inappropriate while the fighting was under way. But once the battle on the island was winding down, O'Neill declared, "We can't go the way of gunboat diplomacy. His policy is wrong. His policy is frightening."

Editorial reaction to the Grenada invasion was mixed. "It doesn't show much resolve to take over as soft a target as Grenada," noted the Chicago Tribune, which suggested that the move may have been taken to drum up domestic political support for Reagan as a stalwart antiCommunist. The New York Times commented that the attack was undertaken because it was feasible, not because it was right, and was concerned that under the standards set forth by Reagan, "there would be no end to the wars fought to topple 'thugs.' " But the Indianapolis Star accused critics of the action of "advocating a U.S. bereft of power in an area of the world vital to its security."

The public, on the other hand, seemed ready to rally to the President's defense, especially in the wake of Reagan's skillful television appearance. A New York Times/CBS News poll taken after the speech showed that 55% supported the invasion, while only 31% opposed it. Inquiries poured into Marine recruiting stations at two to three times the normal rate from those seeking to enlist or reenlist. (One volunteer in the Midwest was a 71-year-old woman.)

The reaction to the troubled situation of the Marines in Lebanon, however, was far less supportive. Americans have increasingly been uncomfortable with the prolonged murky mission of the troops there, and the attack on headquarters a week ago came as a further blow to public confidence. The outrage went beyond the loss of so many lives; the death of troops in a worthy cause, however sad, could be borne. What upset most Americans was the sense that the deaths were the unnecessary result of lax security and that lives were sacrificed for a goal that is, if not futile, at least hard to understand. While most people agreed with the President that the Marines should not be forced into retreat by terrorist fanatics, many expressed concern that the reasons for having Marines in Lebanon at all were becoming more and more doubtful. There is an essential difference between the use of force in Grenada, and Lebanon: In the former case, the mission was militarily attainable; in the latter, there seems nothing the Marines can productively do except serve as sitting ducks in a situation that offers scarcely any signs of resolution.

Reagan in his speech last week asserted that "the Marines will stay," and that their role will remain the same. But by virtue of the fact that they continue to be bogged down in Beirut month after month, their role is subtly changing even without a change in policy. They were first sent in as part of a temporary multinational force to oversee the removal of the Palestinians from Lebanon after the Israeli invasion. That mission was accomplished in 16 days. But less than three weeks later, in the wake of massacres at two Palestinian refugee camps and the assassination of the President of Lebanon, they came back as part of another multinational force, along with troops from France, Britain and Italy.

This time their role was to help stabilize Lebanon so that an agreement could be worked out for the withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli troops. They would not, the President promised, be involved in combat. That too seemed a worthy and workable plan. It met with general approval, and the main controversy in Congress was not over the mission but over whether the War Powers Act applied to it. Yet there were some who had reservations. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pointed out that fighting forces were not necessarily suited for what was basically a symbolic and diplomatic role. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, while providing key support in passing the resolution that authorized the Marines to be there, privately argued against the plan. He wrote the President on Oct. 7 urging that "every avenue be explored to achieve the removal of American troops."

The reservations, both in Congress and the country, began to shift as the role of the Marines did. It became clear that there would be no agreement in the foreseeable future for the withdrawal of Syrian troops. The Marines soon found themselves de facto allies of the Lebanese Army in its struggle against Syria and its allied radical Muslim and Druze factions.

Once it became clear that the Marines were no longer in Lebanon to facilitate a withdrawal, and once it became clear that the Lebanese government of President Amin Gemayel was far from consolidating its power beyond Beirut, there seemed to be no mission for the troops except as a symbolic presence. George Ball, who was Under Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson, expresses the dilemma that such a situation creates: "God knows we might have learned from our tragic Viet Nam fiasco that, as a great power, we should deploy our troops only where they are vitally needed and it is clear they can be effectively used ... [otherwise] their bitter plight will exhibit not America's strength but its impotence."

Complicating the situation was the growing Soviet presence. Moscow steadily rearmed the Syrians, who became increasingly determined to assert their own military and political role in Lebanon. The symbolic role of the Marines thus shifted again. Now by propping up the Gemayel government they were standing firm against the encroachment of Soviet influence. Still, the Marines remained officially noncombatants in a very combative situation. The only military change was the arrival of a naval armada offshore to shell the high grounds where gunners took aim at the symbolic targets. "These forces right now don't have a mission," said Kissinger after last week's bombing. "I don't think it's clear what we're trying to achieve in Beirut ... It doesn't make sense to say American forces are put somewhere simply to defend themselves. They can defend themselves better in Camp Lejeune."

The main reason that the Marines must remain in Lebanon, it seems, is that there is no satisfactory alternative: pulling them out right now would clearly be worse. But the situation shows that a military presence cannot be a substitute for diplomatic efforts. Short of an all-out military campaign, the Marines can do little to assure a stable central government in Lebanon. That task requires the U.S., along with its partners in the multinational force, to concentrate its efforts on the "national reconciliation" talks, which are scheduled to begin this week in Geneva, designed to broaden the composition of the Gemayel government.

In other diplomatic circles, the possibility was raised of retaliating against whoever launched the attacks on French and American forces. Secretary Shultz floated the idea of reprisal on his way to a meeting with the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Britain in a chateau near Paris. That is, of course, impossible until it is known with assurance who is responsible for the bombings. British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe seemed concerned that Reagan, flushed by his success in Grenada, might lash out at a Lebanese rebel group, or even Syria or Iran. Howe pointedly remarked that massive retaliation would be imprudent. Says a State Department official: "The Brits were just seeking to reassure themselves that we were not planning to take out a country, or go off half-cocked." Shultz did not respond to the remark because, as one participant recalls, "there was a sense that Howe was stating the obvious."

There is, nonetheless, a growing desire within the Administration to allow the Marines to take a more aggressive role against Syria. The radical Iranian groups thought most likely to be responsible for the attack operate from behind Syrian lines. Said Shultz: "Syria must bear a share of the responsibility for any Iranian actions in Lebanon whether or not it knew of any specific terrorist plans." His tough talk may have been laying the groundwork for a retaliatory assault. This could come through an attack on the Syrian artillery positions far up in the mountains, or on their weapons dumps in the Bekaa Valley, or on the camps of the pro-Khomeini factions near the town of Baalbek. The U.S. is also considering a move to coordinate diplomatic and economic pressure on Syria. An even stronger approach, hinted at by Kissinger, would be to form an offensive alliance with the Israelis to take an aggressive role against the Syrian positions.

One of Reagan's staunchest supporters on the importance of keeping troops in Lebanon has been Speaker O'Neill. In a private caucus of House Democrats Wednesday, Samuel Stratton of New York, generally a hawk, and Clarence Long of Maryland, generally a dove, proposed a joint resolution to cut off funding for the Marines in Lebanon. O'Neill rose at the end of the meeting to make a grandiloquent and emotional appeal. "This is not the time," he cried, "to cut and run." He urged the party to put "patriotism above partisanship" and said he supported Reagan "because I am a patriot!" A vote on the joint resolution was postponed for a week.

Nevertheless, Capitol Hill resounded with criticisms of the ill-defined policy for the troops in Lebanon. "Our Marines have been placed in an untenable situation, and I think it is criminal," said conservative Democrat Sam Hall of Texas. "There's a real need to clarify our policy and to explain exactly what the Administration's goals are," said Pennsylvania's Joe McDade, a key Republican on the Appropriations Committee. "A nation cannot wear two hats," said Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, "one being that of a peace-keeping force and the other being that of taking sides with one of the warring factions."

Congress specifically plans to look into why security arrangements at the Beirut airport were so obviously faulty. Marine Corps General Paul X. Kelley will be called to testify, and probably grilled harshly, in light of his insistence after visiting the scene of the bombing that security had been adequate. "I can't believe that statement," said McDade, who knows and admires Kelley. "On its face, it's so unresponsive."

The events in Lebanon and Grenada, though oceans apart, are closely related," President Reagan maintained in the summation of his televised address. Moscow, he said, "assisted and encouraged the violence in both countries." As a consequence, the U.S. must become less reticent about asserting itself in the world. As Reagan noted, "We are not somewhere else in the world protecting someone else's interests. We are there protecting our own."

The situation in Grenada, and certainly the one in Lebanon, actually bristles with many more complexities than simply Soviet adventurism. But Reagan is doubtless correct that America's global responsibilities demand a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices in protecting national interests. The crucial judgment lies in determining when the use of force can be effective, when it is counter-productive and, perhaps above all, when it is morally right.

In assessing this question, distinctions have to be made between Grenada and Lebanon. Assaulting a small Caribbean island is, or ought to be, a quick and precise operation. Unlike establishing a presence in Lebanon, it carries relatively little risk of becoming a protracted standoff or of holding American troops hostage to a baffling diplomatic and political situation. In that limited sense, it is a job suited for the Rangers and the Marines. Yet there are deeper differences between the two involvements. The U.S. is in Lebanon because it was invited by the government in power. The military force is designed to protect the important principles of sovereignty and nonintervention --the same principles that were called into some question by the invasion of Grenada.

Should the U.S. be willing to use power to pursue its foreign policy objectives? Clearly it must. Can the projection of power be a substitute for diplomacy? Just as clearly it cannot. Power asserted for its own sake, or as a symbolic action designed to cover deficiencies of diplomacy or policy, can be as feckless and futile as eschewing the use of force altogether. The question in Grenada is whether America's force has justifiably been used to intervene in the affairs of another nation. The question in Lebanon is to what extent America's military presence can remain effective in pursuing complex and seemingly intractable political objectives. Each situation exacts its own lessons and challenges --all of them painfully difficult--about the proper uses and limits of military force.

--By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Strobe Talbott/Washington

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