[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 101 (Thursday, July 28, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN THE NEW SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

                                 ______


                          HON. MARTIN R. HOKE

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 28, 1994

  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday I had the privilege of hearing 
Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense and House Republican 
conference chairman, deliver some remarks concerning the role of 
American leadership in the new security environment, and I was very 
impressed by his insight and vision. What follows are excerpts from 
this speech.
  I commend the speech to my colleagues as both a highly perceptive 
critique of the current administration's foreign policy and an incisive 
prescription for American leadership in the 21st century.

          American Leadership in the New Security Environment

                            (By Dick Cheney)

       On January 20, 1993, Bill Clinton was given an opportunity 
     any of his predecessors would have envied. He became the 
     first American President to take office as Commander-in-Chief 
     of the world's only superpower.
       Under Ronald Reagan and George Bush, we had rebuilt 
     America's defenses. We had won the Cold War. We had rolled 
     back Saddam Hussein's aggression in the Persian Gulf. We had 
     banished the disillusionment of the Vietnam era and restored 
     public respect for the military. We had demonstrated that 
     with sound civilian leadership the magnificent men and women 
     of our armed forces can defeat any adversary. Our military's 
     morale was high and its resources mighty, even with the force 
     reductions after the end of the Cold War.
       As the Presidency passed into Mr. Clinton's hands, America 
     had the tools and the credibility to quell crises and 
     capitalize on opportunities. And world peace and freedom 
     depended on it: Nothing was more vital to hopes for peaceful 
     transformation to democracy and free markets in Russia and 
     Eastern Europe than the credibility of American leadership. 
     No efforts to shield the civilized world from the spread of 
     ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological arms 
     could succeed without American preparedness and American 
     leadership. No deterrent was more effective against powerful 
     tyrannies like North Korea than the clarity and constancy of 
     American leadership.
       But in just 18 months, Bill Clinton has squandered the 
     legacy he inherited--and the world has become a more 
     dangerous place. North Korea's communist dictatorship 
     threatens the free world's interests with nuclear 
     proliferation, conventional war in Asia, or both. The 
     development of enduring democratic and market institutions in 
     the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe is in peril. Our 
     strategic relationships with Japan, China, and western Europe 
     have begun to fray. American troops were not adequately 
     supported in Somalia. And now the President appears ready to 
     send American soldiers into Haiti to install an unstable 
     leftist regime.
       The United States faces a full-blown crisis of national 
     security leadership. Bill Clinton has given us one of the 
     last competent administrations in the field of national 
     security and foreign policy that we have had in this century.
       The fact is, when Bill Clinton charged into the White House 
     in 1993, he had thought a lot about expanding the domestic 
     powers and costs of government--but when it came to 
     international diplomacy and security, he didn't have a clue.
       As I see it, national security leadership has four 
     requirements: vision, strategy, constancy of purpose, and 
     good stewardship of our military forces. Bill Clinton's 
     Administration fails on all four counts.
       First comes vision. A leader ought to have moral 
     imagination about the way things ought to be. But national 
     security leadership is not simply a pastime for dreamers. We 
     also have to see realities and possibilities as they are. 
     America has a responsibility to take a practical leadership 
     role in building and expanding zones of peace among the 
     world's democracies, but while doing this, we need to 
     perceive in sharp focus our own priorities and interests--and 
     to advance them proudly. And we must remember two 
     essential points: That peace and freedom in the world 
     depend upon American leadership, and that American 
     leadership depends upon maintaining the world's finest 
     fighting force.
       Bill Clinton entered office with gaping holes in his 
     understanding of international economic, political, and 
     military dynamics. More fundamentally, he exhibits no 
     coherent sense of America's purpose and role in the world. 
     Those on his national security team who are not novices are 
     returnees from the Carter Administration. As though the 1980s 
     had never happened, these appointees still nurse groundless 
     notions that anti-Western radicals are our kind of people--
     just a bit more passionate in political style. They still 
     think that when totalitarians decide to sit down at a 
     negotiating table, they are people just like us. When the 
     President and his national security aides communicate with 
     foreign governments and publics, they project neither the 
     values of the American people nor our common sense. Again and 
     again, Bill Clinton has let domestic political interests 
     drive his foreign policy without any conception of what is in 
     the long-term interests of the United States.
       Bill Clinton's second major flaw in international 
     leadership is a lack of strategy. On taking office he let 
     loose a scattershot of initiatives with no apparent regard 
     for context or consequences. His initial policies were about 
     as thoughtful and detailed as bumper sticker slogans.
       With Japan, he made trade the be-all and end-all issue. The 
     Clinton team's overheated rhetoric needlessly raised tensions 
     and hurt our political and security relationship with Japan 
     at a sensitive time of change in that country's political 
     history. This, while producing little on the trade front--the 
     one thing Clinton seemed to care about.
       In eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, candidate 
     Clinton charged America was not doing enough to aid the 
     transition to democracy and free markets. The presidents of 
     Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary--the most valiant and 
     successful nations in the transformation from Communism--
     asked President Clinton to support their bid for early 
     integration into NATO. But Clinton rebuffed them, allowing 
     Moscow to veto this effort to secure their independence.
       Meanwhile, the Clinton adminsitration has been inconsistent 
     in its support for economic reformers in Russia itself and 
     throughout the former Soviet empire. Par for the course, Bill 
     Clinton made wildly exaggerated promises of direct financial 
     aid. Then his Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, 
     abruptly pulled the rug out from under the known champions of 
     free market transformation in Moscow when he said that Russia 
     needed ``less shock and more therapy.'' Moreover, it is not 
     lost on the men and women laboring to dismantle socialism in 
     their own countries that Bill Clinton's top domestic priority 
     is to collectivize one-seventh of the United States economy--
     our health care markets.
       The third essential quality of leadership in statecraft is 
     constancy of purpose. No one has ever found this to be one of 
     Bill Clinton's strong suits. The President is continually 
     changing his mind regarding important foreign relationships 
     or ongoing foreign crises--and he never fails to keep 
     everyone the world over, friend and foe, informed of his 
     latest vacillation.
       The longest-running and most confused set of policy flip-
     flops has been with regard to Haiti. There is simply no other 
     way to describe the Clinton record on Haiti than as an abject 
     national embarrassment.
       Last year President Clinton burned into our consciousness 
     the lingering image of a United States Navy warship, the 
     Harlan County, being chased out of Port-au-Prince harbor by a 
     bunch of demonstrators. It's an unhappy metaphor for much of 
     the Clinton record worldwide: Under Bill Clinton's helm, 
     expect the American ship of state to turn tail at the first 
     sign of trouble.
       But worse than last year's fiasco in Port-au-Prince harbor 
     would be an ill-advised use of force. President Clinton will 
     be making a calamitous mistake if he carriers out his threats 
     to launch United States forces into Haiti.
       While invading the island should not be a difficult 
     exercise for American forces, what would we do with the 
     country once we captured it? The last time American forces 
     invaded Haiti, they ended up having to stay for 19 years.
       I take the strongest exception to the Clinton 
     administration's declaration that Haiti is ``of vital 
     interest to the United States.'' Haiti represents no 
     significant threat to our interests nor is it an asset to 
     U.S. policy. Haiti is not a base for international terrorism, 
     nor is it a significant transit point for drugs destined for 
     the United States. This impoverished country has never 
     consolidated the basic institutions for the kind of civil 
     society needed to build democracy--an independent judiciary 
     guaranteeing the rule of law, a press free from government 
     bullying, a free enterprise system untrammelled by government 
     influence and control. Replacing the military regime with the 
     leftist Aristide will not suddenly bring those institutions 
     into being. Risking U.S. soldiers' lives and spilling Haitian 
     blood to enthrone Aristide offers precious little chance of 
     yielding gains for true democracy and human rights in Haiti. 
     Jean-Bertrand Aristide is intolerant of opposition and has 
     spoken approvingly of the use of violence against democratic 
     opponents. He is not--I repeat, not--the Thomas Jefferson of 
     Haiti.
       Both Clinton's vacillations around the globe and his 
     apparent determination to take ill-advised military action in 
     Haiti send dangerous signals to outlaw regimes which 
     genuinely threaten our interests.
       The most perilous immediate threat, of course, is from 
     North Korea. President Clinton has used bold words to assert 
     that under no circumstances will North Korea be allowed to 
     acquire nuclear weapons. But North Korea's dictators go right 
     along pursuing their nuclear program.
       After having observed for a year and a half so much self-
     defeating American behavior--so many fiascos and flip-flops, 
     so much bluster followed by inaction, so many misplaced 
     priorities--why should North Korea take Bill Clinton's 
     warnings seriously? And can we really accept Jimmy Carter's 
     assurance that `'the crisis is over''?
       The administration already has squandered vital time and 
     credibility in dealing with the North Korean threat. If the 
     President is to prevent a catastrophe in Korea, he needs to 
     stop the wishful thinking and begin exercising some 
     leadership.
       The President should issue a clear, unmistakable warning to 
     the North Korean leadership that any attack upon South Korea 
     will be an attack upon the United States, and will be met 
     with overwhelming military force, resulting in the 
     destruction of North Korea and its government. They must not 
     be allowed to assume that a war on the Korean peninsula will 
     be fought on their terms.
       President Clinton should enhance the defenses of South 
     Korea and improve the capability of both South Korean forces 
     and our own forces stationed there. He must get 
     some effective diplomatic work done with China--to assure 
     its cooperation with our effort to isolate North Korea. He 
     must move Japan to cut off the vital hard currency it now 
     allows to flow to North Korea. He must lead the 
     international community to impose airtight sanctions.
       A President's most important commodity as Commander-in-
     Chief is his credibility. Bold talk that is never followed up 
     by bold action leads our adversaries to conclude we do not 
     have to be taken seriously. The cost of reclaiming that 
     credibility once it is lost is likely to be paid in terms of 
     American lives. In these dangerous times, a President must 
     always say what he means and mean what he says.
       Let me address the fourth and final defect in Bill 
     Clinton's world leadership: his failure in good stewardship 
     of our vital national security resources--in particular his 
     failure to support an adequate peacetime military capability 
     for the United States. Some people say the problem of the 
     Clinton national security policy is a mismatch between 
     strategy and resources. I don't agree with that. The Clinton 
     strategy and its resources are closely matched. The President 
     has an inadequate strategy--and he has paired it with 
     inadequate resources.
       Remember, we already had carried out major reductions in 
     U.S. defense spending before President Clinton took office. 
     Since then, to indulge their appetites for a bigger welfare 
     state, Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress have made 
     new, far deeper defense cuts. For a five year period, they 
     are cutting an additional $150 billion more from defense than 
     the significant cuts planned by President Bush. At the same 
     time the Administration is trying to fund activities out of 
     the defense budget that do nothing to improve our military 
     capability, such as ``defense conversion'' and ``U.N. 
     peacekeeping.''
       The result is a serious erosion in the quality and 
     capability of our military forces. Our field commanders 
     report our troops are not getting needed training hours for 
     lack of funds. Jet engines for the Air Combat Command are 
     going unrepaired for lack of spare parts. There are 
     increasingly serious shortfalls in readiness and 
     sustainability. Test scores for our recruits are falling. For 
     the first time in a decade, the Marine Corps has failed in 
     two successive months to meet its recruitment quota.
       Particularly unpardonable is Clinton's failure to ask for 
     adequate funds for active military cost-of-living pay 
     adjustments. He has sought to curb military pay even as 
     growing numbers of military families are having to turn to 
     food stamps to make ends meet. Maintaining adequate pay and a 
     good quality of life for the troops has to be our Number One 
     defense priority.
       We are seeing shades of the shameful days of Jimmy Carter's 
     ``hollow military.'' In 1980 American voters sent a powerful 
     rebuke to the liberal Democratic Congress and the 
     administration responsible for that era of military weakness. 
     But we do not have to wait until 1996 to take corrective 
     action against the Clinton failures in military leadership.
       Republicans in Congress this year offered the American 
     people a clear choice--a straightforward plan for making 
     military strength a budget priority. Republicans in the House 
     of Representatives offered a budget alternative that would 
     have spared our military forces the recklessness of the 
     Clinton cuts. The Republican budget resolution provided an 
     adequate cost-of-living adjustment for our servicemen and 
     women's pay. Republicans would have kept adequate funding for 
     training and maintenance. The Republican proposal called for 
     moving forward with a vital program gutted by President 
     Clinton and the congressional Democrats--the program for 
     defenses against ballistic missiles.
       The Clinton Democrats are blinded by an ideological animus 
     against President Reagan's visionary Strategic Defense 
     Initiative. Clear perception and leadership demand that we 
     build a ballistic missile defense system as soon as possible. 
     Ballistic missile technology is not hard to acquire: Being 
     one of the world's poorest, most isolated and technologically 
     backward countries did not stop North Korea from becoming a 
     ballistic missile power. Even now, American forces and 
     friends abroad are within range of potentially hostile forces 
     armed with ballistic missiles. The last thing we need is to 
     wake up one morning to an intelligence surprise--to find that 
     a radical regime has acquired a long-range ballistic missile, 
     capable of striking New York or California. I urge the 
     President to move to give our country theater missile 
     defenses without further delay--and then to proceed with 
     national missile defenses.
       The President must not let outdated diplomatic instruments 
     get in the way of defenses to protect the people of the 
     United States from missile attack. In particular, it would be 
     a grave mistake to transform the old ABM Treaty into a 
     multilateral affair. Most important, America must pursue in 
     its own national interest the attainment of defenses against 
     ballistic missiles. We must not let anything--including the 
     ABM Treaty--stand in the way.
       What resources we will have for the defense budget and who 
     will make those decisions is a matter of greatest timeliness. 
     Americans who want to keep our military from becoming 
     perilously weak do not have to wait until 1996 to make 
     changes. Voters can replace anti-defense Democrats with pro-
     defense Republicans in Senate and House elections this 
     November. Republican victories this fall protect our defenses 
     from Bill Clinton's worst instincts before he can do much 
     more damage. Republican majorities in the Congress could even 
     provide some adult supervision on national security for the 
     Clinton White House staff.
       Let me say just one other thing about this White House and 
     its treatment of our military men and women. Whenever one 
     gets one's hopes up that the Clinton White House has broken 
     with its practice of demeaning American military personnel, 
     we hear word of another new insult. Earlier this year, it was 
     the spectacle of a uniformed Marine saluting a golf bag when 
     Bill Clinton's director of White House administration misused 
     military helicopters for a trip to the country club. Then 
     last month we heard of uniformed military officers being 
     asked to serve hors d'oeuvres at a White House reception. For 
     a man who campaigned on putting people first, I wish Bill 
     Clinton would find a way to put our troops first for a 
     change.
       When Republican leadership returns to the White House, I am 
     confident we will have a Commander-in-chief who understands 
     his responsibility to maintain the morale and combat 
     effectiveness of our military forces, including when to 
     commit them to combat. He will know he must never do so 
     unless he is prepared to do whatever is required to achieve 
     victory.
       It is my great honor to be with you today to talk about how 
     we can go about once again giving our country unrivalled 
     strength and standing in the world--strength and standing 
     that will help shape a freer and more peaceful future.
       The key is leadership! The men and women of our armed 
     forces deserve it. The nation deserves it. And I deeply 
     appreciate your commitment to bringing it about.

                          ____________________