[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 27 (Friday, March 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, last week the Armed Services Committee 
held hearings to receive testimony from the commanders in chief, or 
``CINC's,'' of the major regional and operational commands. The CINC's 
are the officers who will carry out combat missions in their theaters 
should conflict arise. One troubling conclusion that emerged from these 
hearings is the apparent lack of a sound, well-conceived national 
security strategy. At the same time a major news story appeared in the 
Washington Post which supported my fears that the administration lacks 
consensus and coherence in its approach to national security strategy. 
This is disturbing because a coherent, overall strategy should provide 
the basis for judgments about the resources devoted to defense and the 
force levels required.
  How much Defense spending is enough in today's still dangerous world? 
How much security can we afford in today's economic climate? An agreed-
on strategy can give us standards by which to answer these questions. 
It can provide consensus on what military spending should actually buy, 
and clarity about what we must defend. Without such standards, one 
man's budget cuts are just as valid as another man's increases.
  Sooner or later America is going to face another test of the Nation's 
military capacities and national leadership. That test may be severe, 
and may come in a time, place, and circumstances not of our choosing. 
Perhaps it will come again in the Persian Gulf, perhaps in Korea, 
perhaps in the Balkans. But let there be no doubt, such a challenge 
will come.
  Before the Nation confronts another challenge that demands American 
lives and resources, I believe the Congress and the executive branch 
must do better in making the case to the American people for 
maintaining a strong military, and what is expected of it.
  In 1986, Senator John Warner, one of the Armed Services Committee's 
most prominent members, introduced the National Strategy Act which 
required the President to send to the Congress a report at the 
beginning of each year laying out the national security strategy of the 
United States. The purpose was to provide the Congress a solid 
foundation for decisions on Defense budgeting, programs, and force 
levels. Senator Warner's legislation was incorporated into the 
Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, which I 
supported.
  The executive branch has not always met the requirement to submit the 
strategy document, and even when submitted it has generally been late. 
In addition, the National Security Strategy report has seldom met the 
expectations of those of us who participated in passing the Goldwater-
Nichols Act. Nevertheless, the requirement for a national security 
strategy document was a step in the right direction.
  I am taking this occasion to call upon the President to give the 
National Security Strategy report the attention it deserves. Moreover, 
I hope he and his national security advisors will go beyond a narrow 
vision of national strategy and a pro forma compliance with the act. In 
consultation with the Congress, I would like to see the Secretary of 
Defense and Secretary of State avoid parochial squabbling, and get 
involved jointly in developing overall national strategy. The joint 
effort would aim first at achieving consensus on the lasting principles 
that undergird our foreign policy, and clarify the vital interests 
which must be protected by military power. Second, it would identify 
potential threats, insofar as they can be identified in today's rapidly 
changing world. Then logically would follow the national security 
strategy to defend those interests, encompassing all the Nation's 
resources, diplomatic and economic, as well as military. From that 
would flow the national military strategy and state of the forces, 
which would deal with the specifics of funding, military capabilities, 
force structure, and doctrine.
  Approaching strategy in this coherent way will give us the clarity 
needed to determine who many and what kind of forces we need. Without 
such clarity, it will be increasingly difficult to sustain public 
support for Defense spending, or public support for military 
intervention abroad when necessary to defend the Nation's interests. I 
reiterate that without a clear assessment of vital interests, threats, 
and military requirements, there is no basis by which to properly 
evaluate budget cuts or assess the adequacy of resources available.
  Mr. President, in response to my call for a more coherent approach to 
national strategy, I expect the administration will cite the Bottom-Up 
Review conducted by former Secretary Aspin. It is not my intention to 
offer a full critique of the Bottom-Up Review, which in some respects 
was useful. At least it showed an effort to come to grips with some of 
the issues I have raised. However, in my opinion it was inadequate in 
many respects.
  To begin with, it was not a true bottom-up review: it did not start 
at a zero base and build force requirements from that point. It appears 
instead to have started with a budget figure, and then constructed a 
force posture to justify it. It did not clarify the most vital U.S. 
interests to be defended. It did not adequately address the Clinton 
administration's commitment to a greatly expanded role in U.N. peace 
operations, nor set limits on U.S. peacekeeping and peace enforcement 
missions. Its underlying assumptions about the future of the former 
Soviet Union are not clear, and it did not adequately assess the 
possibility of a renewed threat from Russia if democratic reforms fail.
  Despite the end of the global threat from Soviet imperialism, the 
world remains dangerous, uncertain, and unpredictable. Though 
uncertainty is increasing, that does not relieve us of the need to 
prepare for crisis. Today's uncertainty obligates us to prepare for the 
defense of the Nation and our interests as much as the cold war did. 
Yet today we have far less agreement on what those interests are, and 
how we should defend them. The tensions that divide us must be resolved 
before they grow to undermine the foundations of national security.
  Chief among those tensions is the issue of intervention in foreign 
conflicts. It is clear that America cannot live apart from the world's 
problems, which to a greater or lesser extent are our own. Today's new 
isolationists should remember that America, a maritime, trading Nation, 
has found it necessary to take military action abroad many times, even 
when the homeland was not directly threatened. We waged an undeclared 
naval war with France in 1797, defeated the Barbary pirates, fought 
Mexico and acquired new territories in the Southwest. We sent a naval 
force to Japan in 1854 to open up trade with that reclusive nation. We 
went to war with Spain and acquired new territories far beyond our 
traditional sphere of influence. We fought the Boxers in China, and 
sent Marines to Haiti and Nicaragua in the 1920's.
  However, it should be clear to everyone but the most determined 
globalists that righting all the world's wrongs is impossible. Trying 
to do so will only leave us confused, weakened, and over-extended so 
that we would not be able to meet our first responsibility, assuring 
our own safety and security. The American people understand this. They 
have made it clear they are not willing to substitute globalism for the 
primacy of America's interests as the foundation of U.S. foreign 
policy.
  A second major tension is using the Defense budget to pay for 
domestic and social programs Taking money intended for Defense does 
have an impact on our capabilities, and those who have succumbed to 
this temptation should remember that threats to America still abound. 
There are times when diplomacy by itself will not suffice and we will 
need a strong military to defend our interests.
  On the other hand, we cannot give the Pentagon a blank check. We must 
also remember that war has shaped the modern collectivist state as much 
as any other influence. Perhaps it had to be; harnessing the Nation's 
resources to wage five major wars in this century, plus the cold war, 
required a powerful and therefore intrusive state. But supporters of a 
strong defense should never forget that the growth of centralized 
government and loss of individual liberty comes also from the warfare 
state as well as from the welfare state.
  I believe that we as national leaders have a moral obligation to 
those who put their lives in danger for the Nation, to resolve these 
tensions and define clearly for what the Nation expects them to fight 
and possibly die. We need to do a better job of establishing national 
purpose and priorities, and giving direction to the services concerning 
what we want to achieve with U.S. military power, either by itself, or 
in concert with other Nations.
  Mr. President, some of my colleagues might ask, what is the point of 
this philosophical discussion? For the skeptics who see no need for 
more clarity and consensus in our national security strategy, let me 
move from the abstract to the concrete. After all, I hope what I am 
advocating is practical, and will contribute to better decision-making 
in defense and foreign affairs.
  First is the issue of defense spending. We recently passed a $10 
billion emergency supplemental appropriation, which contained $1.2 
billion to pay our bill for peacekeeping in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. 
Those bill payers included $850 million in rescissions from the 1994 
Defense budget. Important Defense programs were slowed or canceled 
because of these rescissions. But is this expenditure a better use of 
scarce Defense dollars than ballistic missile defense, for example?
  The administration's fiscal year 1995 Defense budget request 
supposedly boosts readiness spending by $5 billion. But only about 20 
percent appears to be devoted to genuine readiness and training of the 
forces. Perhaps this allocation is appropriate, but without more 
clarity for which the forces are getting ready, who can say with 
authority?
  Regarding Somalia, our combat forces will be out by the end of March, 
and within weeks of our departure I expect Somalia may revert to clan 
warfare, followed by the hunger and disease that brought us there in 
the first place. In short order, it will be as if we had never gone to 
Somalia. Yet this operation cost 30 Americans dead and 130 wounded, and 
nearly a half billion dollars, much of it taken from operations and 
maintenance accounts or key Defense programs. Had we gone through the 
national strategy and state of the forces exercise I am calling for, we 
might have been able to determine in advance if Somalia was worth this 
high price.
  Last week in Bosnia we have taken the first steps of a possibly wider 
military involvement. I support the limited intervention by NATO to 
lift the siege of Sarajevo, and the enforcement of the no-fly zone over 
Bosnia. But I cannot help but ask: where will these steps lead? How 
many American dead and wounded are we prepared to accept? How many 
scarce tax dollars are we prepared to expend? Do we have vital national 
interests at stake, and if so, what are they? I am not saying we have 
none, only that we need to have clarity and consensus before we ask the 
American people to send their loved ones into the third Balkan war in 
this century.
  As much as we might wish otherwise, the world of the future will not 
be a peaceful world. There will be ``wars and rumors of wars.'' America 
and North Korea are on a possible collision course. South Africa is 
headed toward possible break-up and civil war after the April 
elections. Iran and Islamic revolutions may challenge the United States 
in the Persian Gulf. The future will not be forgiving if we blunder 
into conflict blindly, or fail to act when our interests are 
challenged. We had better start now to build consensus on America's 
interests in the world, develop a coherent strategy to defend them, and 
ensure the means to carry it out.
  Mr. President, I intend to offer additional thoughts from time to 
time on important questions of defense policy and strategy, which I 
hope will contribute to the national security debate by illuminating 
first principles. These principles abide, even in today's uncertain and 
changing world. They determine Defense budget decisions--or should. 
They can give us a fixed reference point in these difficult and 
challenging times. Unless we return from time to time to these abiding 
principles, we run the risk of wasting precious American blood, 
treasure, and moral energy on barren concepts unconnected to America's 
needs, or to the cause of liberty and justice in the world.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wofford). The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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