United States Foreign Policy

First Great Triumph How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power Warren Zimmermann Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 562 pp., $30 * Warren Zimmermann's "First Great Triumph," an account of the imperialist era in American foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century, is one of the most readable and important books on American foreign policy in recent years. Zimmermann, a distinguished U.S.

After almost two decades of U.S. frustration over the growing toll from international terrorism, the bold attacks Thursday on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan marked a major departure from past U.S. strategy. In the past, U.S. retaliation for terrorist attacks often came years after the fact, if at all. American officials usually focused their efforts on trying to bring terror suspects to trial in the United States.

A few hours after President Clinton's order to launch military attacks Thursday on select targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, it became clearer than ever before that Americans watch way too many movies. The president's domestic foe, independent counsel Kenneth Starr, was in Little Rock, Ark., when news broke of the U.S. airstrikes. Know what he was asked? "Have you seen 'Wag the Dog?' " That's right.

There is scant precedent in international law for military attacks that cross national borders to strike terrorist organizations operating independently of government sponsorship. But legal experts said a U.S. claim of self-defense in Thursday's missile strikes is likely to withstand diplomatic scrutiny in the United Nations and other forums. Moreover, they added that the proliferation of freelance terrorist networks around the world means more such attacks are likely in the future.

These days, American foreign policy faces, in a sense, two different worlds. One is the nice, fictitious world that was portrayed in the movie "Wag the Dog." And the other is the much nastier reality we are beginning to see unfold in Russia. "Wag the Dog" is, of course, on everyone's mind, because of the U.S. missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan.

Few American presidents have worked the sound bite or the photo op to better advantage on overseas trips than Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Reagan stumbled badly only once: when he laid a wreath at a West German war cemetery in Bitburg where members of Hitler's notorious SS units are buried. Clinton's equivalent could come Saturday.

In Latin America, President Clinton has tried to play both sides of the arms sale game. As a result, he has managed to rile both sellers and buyers. On Aug. 1, President Clinton lifted a 20-year-old ban on the sale of U.S. arms to Latin America. That disheartened arms control advocates in the United States. About the same time, he secretly wrote to the most likely Latin American customer, Chilean President Eduardo Frei, urging him to hold off on buying any arms.

The threat of a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan may reignite a political movement to eliminate nuclear weapons from the globe, a leading author told a Pasadena church audience Sunday. Jonathan Schell, who has written two books examining the origin and danger posed by nuclear arms, said the recent atomic weapons tests in South Asia come as a "sharp slap" that a nuclear threat cannot be ignored.

From the world's farthest corners, Argentina and Australia are in. But Arab powers and former partners Egypt and Syria are out. And front-line states Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have a foot in each camp. Seven years after the Persian Gulf War, the United States this week put finishing touches on a new coalition supporting the use of military force against Iraq if Baghdad continues to block United Nations inspectors from seeking out weapons of mass destruction.

President Clinton on Wednesday signed and sent to the Senate documents setting out the terms for enlarging NATO, confident that the hallmark foreign policy initiative of his presidency will probably win easy ratification.