Washington Post - 12.08.2003

The Washington Post

Wrong Priorities

Editorial

THEY PROVIDE what one Lithuanian politician calls "neutral, solid, Western programming" reflecting Western values. They give an American point of view but are not generally regarded as propaganda. They have millions of listeners across the new democracies of Eastern Europe as well as a long tradition. They cost, by U.S. budgetary standards, very little: The overall funding, for 11 countries, is $11 million a year. Yet if congressional appropriators have their way, one of the cheapest, most effective and most popular tools of U.S. public diplomacy -- the foreign language services of Radio Free Europe -- will soon cease to exist. Seven languages are to be cut altogether, including the services to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Baltic states. Several more, including services to Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Serbia, will be cut by 25 percent. 

The logic behind the cuts -- which have been heavily pushed by the administration and opposed by many in Congress -- is allegedly financial: More money is now going to radio services in the Middle East, and budgets are limited. But the omnibus appropriations bill awaiting congressional approval is hardly austere. As we've said before, it is proving to be yet another example of lax congressional spending, funding everything from a rain forest museum in Iowa to Alaskan fishing communities. 

Like the relatively low funding for the newer but equally effective services of Radio Free Asia, the cuts to Radio Free Europe do not, therefore, really reflect a new administration push to control spending. Instead, they are yet another example of the administration's poor choice of foreign policy priorities. With a short attention span and little understanding that allies, too, require attention and diplomacy, the administration seems to have let whole chunks of the world fall off its diplomatic radar screen altogether. No iron law says that new democracies will remain democracies or even remain American allies. In this unstable part of the world, the sober presentation of an American point of view is still necessary.