The First Big Test

By NANCY GIBBS

When the courtiers came calling on Prince George down in Austin this winter, the Texas Governor liked to talk about how much he needed to learn to become a strong candidate for the White House. Bush would tell visitors about his crash course in foreign policy with the Republican Party's best and brightest. And he would cite the Balkans as an example: "For instance," he'd say, "a year ago, I didn't know where Kosovo was. But I bet you didn't either."

He knows now. And he also knows that sooner than anyone planned, the candidates are having to take their first test, and can't quite get away with giving true-or-false answers to the essay questions. Yes, they all support the American troops. They all hope that NATO wins, whatever that would mean. They all believe the Clinton Administration has botched the job somehow or other. But beyond the safe consensus, the problem of figuring out what to say, and what not to say, about the Balkan crisis is turning out to be the first test of the candidates' reflexes, a measure of their principles and their political skills. It is also demonstrating that contrary to the advice of the party wise men all winter, foreign policy may not be such an easy issue for the Republicans after all.

Instead of rallying Republicans, the Balkan showdown has exposed how divided the party is over America's duties in the post-cold war world. After days of tap dancing, by late last week the Republicans had cleaved fairly cleanly between two camps: those in Pat Buchanan's populist, isolationist fortress who were arguing we should leave Europe to the Europeans, and those who, belatedly in some cases, fell in step behind Arizona Senator John McCain, the former prisoner of war in Vietnam, and called for NATO to fight on even harder to preserve the credibility of U.S. power.

The split first surfaced two weeks ago on the Senate floor, when only 16 Republicans voted to support the NATO air strikes. "To say Republicans are uneasy about this is an understatement," says a top G.O.P. official on Capitol Hill. "This is a party that likes to think of itself as the mirror image of those antiwar protesters who undermined those American boys in Vietnam. But because the situation is so volatile and the President hasn't laid out an endgame, it's hard to react to it."

Forced to try on their Commander in Chief uniforms a little earlier than they might have liked, it was no wonder so many of the presidential candidates at first went searching for camouflage. Most had planned to pad through the complexities of the post-cold war world in careful speeches in front of think tanks that would be largely ignored. Now their strengths and weaknesses are in full view: Buchanan, McCain and Gary Bauer (on leave as Family Research Council president) at least have the benefit of strong, albeit wildly different, convictions. Bush has to confront his inexperience; Elizabeth Dole is determined to show that her positions come from her own work with desperate refugees, rather than from pillow talk with Bob, who served as Clinton's envoy on one Kosovo mission in early March; billionaire publisher Steve Forbes wants to show he really knows the issues, the boy in the front row with his hand up who can tell you his five-point plan, complete with exactly how many tanks there are in Kosovo and Belgrade.

Lucky Al Gore had the fewest decisions to make, although he also has the most to lose. He was in no position to distance himself from the Administration's conduct, so instead he talked about "the privilege of being on the inner circle to give advice." Considered more hawkish and well schooled in foreign policy than many in his party, Gore is said to be among the strongest arguing privately in favor of the bombing but against ground troops. In the end he is banking that the American public will decide this is a moral endeavor and the right thing to do. "People can raise questions about the tactics," said a Gore aide, "but it's going to be very difficult for people to say this is something we shouldn't have done."

Not so difficult for Buchanan. He has been consistent over the years in holding the most narrow interpretation of when to put U.S. troops in harm's way. In this case he argues it is wrong for anyone to attack Serb soldiers who are fighting on their soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their country. Buchanan, like Bauer and former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, is opposed to introducing ground troops. "Like Reagan in Lebanon," he says, "better to admit your mistake and cut your losses than redouble a bad bet."

House budget chief John Kasich has been labeled an isolationist as well, but his opposition is actually more specific and nuanced. A free trader, he has supported Clinton's bombing of terrorist targets in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. But weeks before the NATO campaign began, he was arguing against it. "A great power has to have the discipline not only to go when necessary but to know when not to go," he told TIME last week. "Getting involved in ethnic, religious civil wars is a recipe for disaster."

Kasich has contempt for candidates who have tried to dodge the question. "How can you duck something like this?" he asks. Among the most forthright, however, is the one who most disagrees with him: McCain, whose credentials as a war hero have given him the most cover to speak out on the issue. He put aside his doubts about Clinton's foreign policy team, postponed the formal announcement of his candidacy planned for this week, and kept his focus on Kosovo, arguing across the airwaves that the U.S. must fight to win. (See following essay.)

Bush and Dole, as the front runners, were the most cautious, still enjoying their happy worlds of eager fans and no positions to speak of. Of all the hopefuls, Bush was the most closely watched and the last to speak out. He consulted his chief foreign policy adviser, Stanford's Condoleezza Rice, and policy director Josh Bolton before declaring that he supported the troops but had doubts about the policy. His initial answers were so cautious and vague that the Wall Street Journal editorialists denounced them as "Clintonian." But his staff was in no hurry to dig in any deeper. Asked for comment by TIME, spokeswoman Karen Hughes couldn't resist: "I'll make you a deal," she said. "We'll get the Governor to you just as soon as Elizabeth Dole talks to you!"

Dole actually brings some advantages to this issue. Husband Bob has been a strong voice in favor of military action, and she came out in support of the air strikes right away. In a speech in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday, she was able to remind her audience that as a former Red Cross chief, she has been to Rwanda, been to Bosnia, knows what ethnic cleansing is all about. "I would not back down, and I would take no options off the table," she told TIME on Friday. "We should continue the air campaign and expand the list of targets to include the Serbian government's infrastructure."

By week's end Bush too had seen how McCain's positions were lauded as statesmanlike and presidential, and moved to sound more forceful himself. In East Texas on an Easter bass-fishing holiday, Bush told TIME that he would support the use of ground troops if the military believed they were necessary in order to win the conflict. NATO's success and credibility were crucial to U.S. interests, he argued. He resisted taking swipes at Clinton. "It's easy to second-guess the Administration," Bush said. "The question is what do we do next. America must be careful to commit our military. But when we do so, we must do so ferociously. Once in, we should be in to win, and we should take no options off the table." You couldn't ask for a more explicit echo of McCain's position. Sooner than he might have liked, George W. is no longer trying to be all things to all Republicans.

--Reported by James Carney, John F. Dickerson and Karen Tumulty/Washington

With reporting by JAMES CARNEY, JOHN F. DICKERSON AND KAREN TUMULTY/WASHINGTON