Part two of a two-part series on the need
to demilitarize American foreign policy. Part
one can be read here.
At the Democratic Party convention last summer,
former President Bill Clinton said it was time
for the United States to pursue the “power
of its example” and to be less reliant
on the “example of its power.” In
the wake of a misbegotten war in Iraq, a misconceived
war in Afghanistan, and an incongruous “war
on terror,” it is essential that the United
States learn from the mistakes of the past decade.
A radical transformation of our national security
and foreign policies is required.
Not since Lyndon Johnson became president 45
years ago, has a president taken the reins of
power with such energy. Obama, in his inauguration
speech, demonstrated that he fully understood
the need for a reversal of many U.S. foreign
policies. His rejection of the “false
choice between our safety and our ideals,”
was a denunciation of the Bush administration’s
subversion of the Constitution in the wake of
9/11. His emphasis on earlier generations, which
“understood that our power alone cannot
protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as
we please,” was a rejection of Bush’s
“long war” against terror that has
created more enemies than friends. And in stressing
that the “world has changed, and we must
change with it,” Obama sounded the clarion
call for new policies around the world. Two
days after the speech, the new president released
executive directives that called for the end
of torture and abuse, the closing of Guantanamo,
and an end to CIA’s secret prisons. More
recently, he has laid out plans for a withdrawal
from Iraq, a possible opening to Syria, and
a new dialogue with Russia. This is an impressive
start, but more needs to be done.
Reducing the Power of the Pentagon. The United
States is now spending more than the rest of
the world combined on its military ($660 billion),
its intelligence community ($55 billion), and
its homeland security ($45 billion). This has
not led to military successes in Iraq and Afghanistan,
intelligence successes, or greater security
on U.S. borders. Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates has not addressed the record cost overruns
on U.S. weapons systems, but yesterday the president
called these overruns unacceptable and called
for an end to no-bid contracts. Hopefully, the
Obama administration will address the necessity
for the pet rocks of the various services, including
the Air Force’s F-22 fighter, the Navy’s
DDG-1000 stealth destroyer, and the Army’s
Future Combat System as well as our unworkable
national missile defense. Stopping or scaling
back all of these systems would save $15 billion
a year; ending construction of unnecessary attack
submarines and the Marines’ tilt-rotor
Osprey aircraft would save more.
A promising development is in legislation sponsored
by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain
(R-AZ), who want to create a director of independent
cost assessments, who would have a senior staff
with the authority to obtain data from weapons
contractors and to ensure that costs are justified.
The services, which are responsible for cost
estimates on weapons programs, have never developed
a professional staff to provide accurate cost
estimates, let alone discipline profligate weapons
manufacturers. Last year, according to the Washington
Post, the Government Accountability Office reported
that cost overruns on the largest weapons systems
totaled about $300 billion. The Obama administration
also needs to block the Pentagon’s current
efforts to take over the nation’s weapons
laboratories in order to ensure that the labs
expand their efforts in non-military research.
The intelligence community must also be demilitarized.
Rebuilding the Tools of Diplomacy. The huge
increases in military and intelligence spending
came at the expense of investment in American
diplomacy. Secretary of State Clinton had to
go outside the department to name special envoys
to deal with the Middle East (George Mitchell),
Southwest Asia (Richard Holbrooke), and the
Persian Gulf (Dennis Ross). None of these officials
has experience or special expertise on their
particular areas of concern, but the State Department
lacked credentialed specialists who would be
authoritative spokesman for U.S. policy. In
naming retired flag officers to the posts of
national security adviser, intelligence tsar,
and ambassador to Afghanistan, President Obama
implicitly concurred that there were no logical
civilian candidates for these sensitive national
security positions.
Obama and Clinton must rebuild the State Department,
which lacks a domestic constituency and has
been an easy target for cutbacks by congressional
troglodytes. For the past two decades, the Congress
has slashed the funding for diplomacy and permitted
the overseas headquarters of our regional military
commanders to double their Cold War size. The
influence of the State Department has deteriorated
during this period, and there has been an additional
bleeding of overseas programs and personnel
from civilian to military agencies. As a result,
the United States lacks a coherent and integrated
foreign policy, has dysfunctional foreign assistance
programs, and lacks the expert cadre that the
Foreign Service requires.
Returning to Arms Control and Diplomacy. Shackling
the Pentagon, which has never encountered an
arms control agreement that it supported, and
retooling the State Department, which has lost
most of its arms control experts, will contribute
to a resumption of the arms control agenda supported
by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Ironically, Secretary of State Clinton will
have to correct the mistakes of her husband,
President Clinton, who permitted the dissolution
of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and
mishandled the ratification process for the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The greatest
damage was done by President Bush, who junked
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to
clear the way for national missile defense and
the militarization of space. Bush also walked
away from decades of negotiation on verification
and monitoring that should accompany treaties
to reduce strategic weapons.
The recent collision between British and French
nuclear submarines carrying more than 100 nuclear
warheads demonstrated the need for greater reductions
in nuclear inventories. Most of the 20,000 nuclear
warheads in U.S. and Russian inventories have
no strategic or military justification, and
this year’s expiration of current treaties
offers an important opportunity to reduce these
bloated arsenals. Nuclear nonproliferation also
must be put at the top of the strategic agenda,
with the U.S. pursuing a diplomatic agenda to
deal with challenging situations in Iran, North
Korea, and Pakistan. The Pentagon’s Office
of Net Assessment engages in long-term planning
for developing and using nuclear weapons, but
there is no comparable institution in the policy
or intelligence communities that advocates arms
control and disarmament.
Mark Twain warned us long ago that, “if
the only tool in our toolbox is a hammer, then
all of our problems will begin to look like
nails.” Unfortunately, President Obama
has inherited that toolbox and needs to replace
some of the hammers with the traditional tools
of statecraft.
Melvin A. Goodman is senior fellow at the
Center for International Policy and adjunct
professor at the National War College. He spent
more than 42 years in the U.S. Army, the Central
Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense.
His most recent book is “Failure of Intelligence:
The Decline and Fall of the CIA.”
Copyright 2009 The Public
Record
