[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2553-S2565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I am going to begin my remarks. We had
originally intended for Senator Cleland to begin this dialog. But I am
going to go ahead since he has been detained. Then he can follow me. I
do not think that is going to upset the order at all.
I thank my good friend, the distinguished Senator from Georgia, for
this continued initiative and for his leadership in continuing our
bipartisan foreign policy dialog.
As I said back in February during our first discussion, our objective
is to try to achieve greater attention, focus, and
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mutual understanding--not to mention a healthy dose of responsibility--
in this body in regard to America's global role and our vital national
security interests. Our goal was to begin a process of building a
bipartisan coalition, a consensus on what America's role should be in
today's ever-changing, unsafe, and very unpredictable world.
This is our second dialog. We will focus today on how we can better
define our vital national interests.
In doing our homework, both Senator Cleland and I have been doing a
lot of reading and pouring over quite a few books and articles and
commentaries and reports and legislation and speeches and position
papers and the like. If it was printed, we read it.
We have also been seeking the advice and counsel of everybody
involved--in my case, the marine lance corporal about to deploy to
Kosovo, to the very serious and hollow-faced old gentleman I visited at
a Macedonian refugee camp, as well as foreign dignitaries and the
military brass we admire and listen to as members of the Armed Services
Committee, and all of the current and former advisors and experts and
think tank dwellers and foreign policy gurus and intelligence experts.
Needless to say, our foreign policy and national security homework
universe is ever expanding and apparently without end. I hope I didn't
leave anybody out.
We both now have impressive bibliographies that we can wave around
and put in the Record and we can recommend to our colleagues to prove
that our bibliography tank, as it were, is pretty full. We have very
little or no excuse if we are not informed.
There was another book I wanted to bring to the attention of my
colleagues. Its title is ``Going for the Max.'' It involves 12
principles for living life to the fullest, written by our colleague and
my dear friend, with a most appropriate and moving foreword from the
Senate Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie. This is a very easy and enjoyable
read with a very inspirational message.
Chapter 10 of Max's book states--and this is important--that success
is a team effort, that coming together is a beginning, keeping together
is progress, and working together is a success.
That is a pretty good model for our efforts today and a recipe for us
to keep in mind in this body as we try to better fulfill our national
security obligations and to protect our individual freedoms.
Thank you and well done, to my distinguished friend.
Senator Cleland, in his remarks, will quote Owen Harries, editor of
the publication, the National Interest. He will point out the need for
restraint in regard to exercising our national power. Editor Harris
warned--and this is what Senator Cleland will say--
It is not what Americans think of the United States but
what others think of it that will decide the matter.
When we are talking about ``matter,'' the ``matter'' in this case is
stability and successful foreign and national security policy. I could
not agree more. Senator Cleland will go on to quote numerous statements
from foreign leaders and editorials from leading international
publications and commentaries from respected observers around the
globe, from our allies and from the fence sitters and our would-be
adversaries.
Sadly, I have to tell my colleagues that all were very critical of
U.S. foreign policy. The basic thrust of the criticism, as described by
Senator Cleland--and he will be saying this. Again, I apologize that I
started first. In the order of things, we are sort of reversing this. I
am giving him a promo, if that is okay. At any rate, Senator Cleland
will state:
The United States has made a conscious decision to use our
current position of predominance to pursue unilateralist
foreign and national security policies.
Senator Cleland is right. Dean Joseph S. Nye of the Kennedy School of
Government and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs warns about the CNN effect in the
formulation and conduct of our foreign policy; the free flow of
information and the shortened news cycles that have a huge impact on
public opinion, and placing some items at the top of the public agenda
that might otherwise warrant a lower priority; diverting attention from
the A list of strategic issues of vital national security. What am I
talking about? What does this criticism really suggest?
We need to take the spin off. We need to take off our rose-colored,
hegemonic glasses and take a hard look at the world and what the world
thinks of us. I have a suggestion. It would only take Senators 10
minutes a day. Every Member of the Senate can and should receive what
are called ``Issue Focus Reports.'' These are reports on foreign media
reaction to the world issues of the day. They are put out by the State
Department. We at least should be aware of what others think of us and
our foreign policy. Unfortunately and sadly, it is not flattering.
For instance, the February 24 Issue Focus detailed foreign commentary
from publications within our NATO allies, those who comprised Operation
Allied Force in Kosovo, headlines of 39 reports from 10 countries. If
my colleagues will bear with me a moment, these are some of the
headlines. This is the Issue Focus I am talking about. It is a very
short read. Senators could have that or could have this report at their
disposal every week. Again, these are leading publications--some
liberal, some conservative, some supportive of the United States and
some not. Just as a catch-as-catch-can summary, listen to the
headlines:
Kosovo Unrest--A Domino Effect; Another War?; Wither
Kosovo?; Holding Back The Tide Of Ethnic Cleansing; Losing
The Peace; By The Waters of Mitrovica; West Won The War, But
Now Faces Losing The Peace; Holding Fast In The Kosovar Trap;
Speculation On U.S. Domination In The Balkans; Whoever
Believed In Multi-Ethnic Kosovo; Kosovo Calculations; The
U.S. Is Playing With Fire; The West Is Helpless In Kosovo;
Mitrovica, The Shadow Of The Wall Is Back; Military
Intervention Against Serbia A Mistake; U.S. and Europe Are
Also Clashing In Mitrovica; Kosovo Chaos Is A Trap For NATO;
A Failure That Burns; The Difficult Peace.
It goes on and on.
This kind of reading would help us a great deal in understanding how
others really think of us. The March 24 Issue Focus, based on 49
reports from leading newspapers and publications in 24 countries,
assessed the U.S. and NATO policy 1 year after Operation Allied Force
in the bombing of Kosovo. Summed up, the articles conclude it is time
to ask some hard questions. Some unsettling headlines--again, this is a
wide variety of publications from all ideologies and the whole
political spectrum:
A War With No Results; No End To The Kosovo Tragedy;
Europe's Leaders Warned Of A New Crisis; The West Fiasco In
Kosovo; Halfway Results; A Year Later: Where Do We Stand; A
Victory Gambled Away; No Sign Of Will For Peace; Making
Progress By Moving Backwards In The Balkans.
Again, it goes on and on.
I don't mean to suggest that we should base our foreign policy on
foreign headlines or perceived perception with regard to criticism in
foreign countries. If we take the spin off, I think a case can be made
that we are seeing a world backlash against U.S. foreign policy no
matter how well-intentioned.
A timely article last month by Tyler Marshall and Jim Mann of the Los
Angeles Times summarized it very well when they said:
The nation's prominence as the world's sole superpower
leaves even allies very uneasy. They fear Washington--
By the way, I certainly include the Congress--
has lost its commitment to international order. America's
dominant shadow has long been welcomed in much of the world
as a shield from tyranny, a beacon of goodwill, an
inspiration of unique values. But, ten years after the
collapse of Communism left the United States to pursue its
interests without a world rival, that shadow is assuming a
darker character. In the State Department, it is called the
hegemony problem, a fancy way of describing the same
resentment that schoolchildren have for the biggest,
toughest, richest and smartest kid in school.
The Marshall and Mann article goes on to say that America is
suffering from a bad case of ``me first,'' that during the
administration years we have seen a lot of focus and it has been on new
objectives, pressing American commercial interests, the championing of
democracy--certainly nothing wrong with that--and then the
intervention, militarily, to protect human rights. They state the goals
that concern the foreign leaders are less than the manner in which they
have been pursued, a manner that appears inconsistent and
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sporadic and capricious. The article cites very serious backlash.
Thirty-eight nations rallied to fight Iraq in 1991. Only Britain
answers to the call today. Today, the French--our oldest ally--along
with China, India, and Russia, have all discussed independently, or in
consultation, ways to counter the balance of the enormity of American
power.
Japan is making plans to develop an independent military capability.
In Europe, pro-Americanism is on the wane. European leaders cut their
teeth on the protests of the 1960s, not the American aid packages of
the 1950s. The situation in Russia is especially perilous with Russians
seeing secondhand treatment--by their definition--with the U.S. in
regard to their continued economic morass, NATO expansion, Kosovo, and
the American condemnation of Moscow's war against Chechnya.
Under the banner of the law of unintended effects, Washington Post
columnist Charles Krauthammer opined the cost of our occupancy of
Bosnia and Kosovo which has already cost tens of billions of dollars,
drained our defense resources, and strained a hollow military which is
charged with protecting vital American strategic interests in such
crises areas as the Persian Gulf, the Taiwan Strait, and also the
Korean peninsula. But he cited another cost, as he put it, more subtle
and far heavier. He said that Russia has just moved from the
democratically committed, if erratic, Boris Yeltsin to the dictatorship
of the law, as promised by the new President, former KGB agent Vladimir
Putin. I have his article. It is called ``The Path to Putin.'' I ask
unanimous consent that it be printed at this point in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The Path to Putin
(By Charles Krauthammer)
In late February, as the first anniversary of our
intervention in Kosovo approached, American peacekeepers
launched house-to-house raids in Mitrovica looking for
weapons. They encountered a rock-throwing mob and withdrew.
Such is our reward for our glorious little victory in the
Balkans: police work from which even Madeleine K. Albright,
architect of the war, admits there is no foreseeable escape.
(``The day may come,'' she wrote on Tuesday, ``when a Kosovo-
scale operation can be managed without the help of the United
States, but it has not come yet.'')
The price is high. Our occupations of Kosovo and Bosnia
have already cost tens of billions of dollars, draining our
defense resources and straining a military (already hollowed
out by huge defense cuts over the last decade) charged with
protecting vital American strategic interests in such crisis
areas as the Persian Gulf, the Taiwan Strait and the Korean
Peninsula.
But there is another cost, more subtle and far heavier.
Russia has just moved from the democratically committed, if
erratic, Boris Yeltsin to the ``dictatorship of the law''
promised by the new president, former KGB agent Vladimir
Putin. Putin might turn out to be a democrat, but the man who
won the presidency by crushing Chechnya will more likely
continue as the national security policeman of all the
Russias.
What does that have to do with Kosovo? ``Without Kosovo,
Putin would not be Russian president today,'' says Dimitri
Simes, the Russia expert and president of the Nixon Center.
The path from Kosovo to Putin is not that difficult to
trace. It goes through Chechnya. Americans may not see the
connection, but Russians do.
Russians had long been suffering an ``Afghan-Chechen
syndrome'' under which they believed they could not prevail
in local conflicts purely by the use of force. Kosovo
demonstrated precisely the efficacy of raw force.
Russians had also been operating under the assumption that
to be a good international citizen they could not engage in
the unilateral use of force without the general approval of
the international community. Kosovo cured them of that
illusion.
And finally, Russia had acquiesced in the expansion of NATO
under the expectation and assurance that it would remain, as
always, a defensive alliance. Then, within 11 days of
incorporating Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, NATO
was launching its first extraterritorial war.
The Russians were doubly humiliated because the Balkans had
long been in their sphere of influences with Serbia as their
traditional ally. The result was intense anti-American, anti-
NATO feeling engendered in Russia. NATO expansion had
agitated Russian elites; Kosovo inflamed the Russian public.
Kosovo created in Russia what Simes calls a ``national
security consensus:'' the demand for a strong leader to do
what it takes to restore Russia's standing and status. And it
made confrontation with the United States a badge of honor.
The dash to Pristina airport by Russian troops under the
noses of the allies as they entered Kosovo was an unserious
way of issuing the challenge. But the support this little
adventure enjoyed at home showed Russian leaders the power of
the new nationalism.
The first Russian beneficiary of Kosovo was then-Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov. But it was Prime Minister Putin
who understood how to fully exploit it. Applying the lessons
of Kosovo, he seized upon Chechen provocations into
neighboring Dagestan to launch his merciless war on Chechnya.
It earned him enormous popularity and ultimately the
presidency.
One of Putin's first promises is to rebuild Russia's
military-industrial complex. We are now saddled with him for
four years, probably longer, much longer.
The Clinton administration has a congenital inability to
distinguish forest from trees. It obsesses over paper
agreements, such as the chemical weapons treaty, which will
not advance to American interests one iota. It expends
enormous effort on Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, places
of (at best) the most peripheral interest to the United
States. And it lets the big ones slip away.
Saddam Hussein is back building his weapons of mass
destruction. China's threats to Taiwan grow. The American
military is badly stretched by far-flung commitments in
places of insignificance. Most important of all, Russia, on
whose destiny and direction hinge the future of Eastern
Europe and the Caspian Basin, has come under the sway of a
cold-eyed cop, destroyer of Chechnya and heir to Yuri
Andropov, the last KGB graduate to rule Russia.
Such is the price of the blinkered do-goodism of this
administration. We will be paying the price far into the
next.
Mr. ROBERTS. Charles Krauthammer points out in the article--and I
will read a little of it--that, basically, what the Russians thought
was the path from Kosovo to Putin is not that difficult to trace. It
goes through Chechnya.
Americans may not see the connection, but the Russians do. The
Russians have been operating under the assumption that to be a good
international citizen, they could not engage in the unilateral use of
force without the general approval of the international community.
Well, Kosovo certainly cured them of that illusion. Finally, Russia
acquiesced in the expansion of NATO under the expectation and assurance
that it would remain always a defensive alliance. I am not arguing the
pros and cons of that, but simply the reaction in Russia. Russians were
doubly humiliated because the Balkans had long been in their sphere of
influence, with Serbia as their traditional ally. The result was an
intense anti-American, anti-NATO feeling engendered in Russia, and NATO
expansion had really agitated the Russian elites, and Kosovo inflamed
the Russian public.
So Kosovo created what has been called a national security consensus.
The demand for a strong leader to do what it takes to restore Russia's
standing and status made the confrontation with the United States a
badge of honor. I will tell you, in going to Moscow and talking with
Russian leaders regarding the very important cooperative threat
reduction programs that happened to come under the jurisdiction of my
subcommittee, you get a lecture on Kosovo for a half hour even before
you have a cup of coffee. So this article has some merit.
In regard to Mr. Krauthammer's article:
The first Russian beneficiary of Kosovo was then-Prime
Minister Primakov. But it was Prime Minister Putin who
understood how to fully exploit it. Applying the lessons of
Kosovo, he seized upon the Chechen provocations into
neighboring Dagestan to launch his merciless war on Chechnya.
It earned him enormous popularity and ultimately the
presidency.
We are now saddled with him for four years, probably
longer, much longer.
We hope the man without a face--which is how some describe Putin--we
hope we can work with him and build a positive relationship. I think
under the law of unintended effects, this is a good example.
In China, obviously, the political wounds fester in the wake of the
U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; the Taiwan issue,
charges of espionage, and the criticism of human rights; and continued
controversy over whether or not Congress will approve a trading status
that will result in the U.S. simply taking advantage of trade
concessions that the Chinese have made to us.
In Latin America, the lack of a so-called fast-track authority and
U.S. trade policy is muddled. You can drive south into Central America
and into trade relations with our competitors in the European Union. My
friend from
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Nebraska, Senator Hagel, who will join us in about an hour, put it this
way:
It worries me, first, because most of us are not really
picking this up on our radar--this sense that we don't care
about what our trading partners or allies think. It is going
to come back and snap us in some ways. It will be very bad
for this country.
Well, the criticism from the Marshall and Mann article becomes very
harsh when they cite why the U.S. has become so aloof. I am quoting
here:
* * * a President who engages only episodically on
international issues and too often has failed to use either
the personal prestige or the power of his office to pursue
key foreign policy goals. * * * a Congress that cares little
about foreign affairs in the wake of the Cold War and seems
to understand even less. * * * a poisonous relationship
between the two branches of our Government putting
partisanship over national interests * * * an American
public inattentive to world affairs and confused by all of
the partisan backbiting now that the principal reference
point--the evil of communism--has all but vanished as a
major threat.
Indeed, that is a pretty harsh assessment. Aside from all the
criticism and 20/20 hindsight--and it is easy to do that, trying to
chart a well-defined foreign policy course is more complicated and
difficult today than ever before. Both Senator Cleland and I understand
that. As chairman of the newly created Emerging Threats and
Capabilities Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, it
seems as if we have a new emerging threat at our doorstep almost every
day. I am talking about the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, rogue nations, ethnic wars, drugs, and terrorism.
Concluding our second hearing on the subcommittee this session, and
again asking the experts, ``What keeps you up at night?'' the answer
came back: ``Cyber attacks and biological attacks'' from virtually any
kind of source, and the bottom line was not if, but when.
So it is not easy, but if we are worried about proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, we should also be worried about the
proliferation of overall foreign policy roles, not to mention the role
the U.S. should play in the world today.
Some may say events of the day will determine our strategy on a case-
by-case basis. That seems to be the case. But I say that is a dangerous
path, as evidenced by adversaries that did not or will not believe we
have the will to respond.
Former National Security Adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, put it this
way in a speech at the Brookings Institution National Forum, and he
said this in response to some questions:
The nature of our approach to foreign policy also changed
from, I would say, from foreign policy as a continuing focus
of the United States, which it had been for the 50 years of
the Cold War, to an episodic attention on the part of the
United States, and thus without much of a theme, and further
to that, a foreign policy whose decisions were heavily
influenced by polls, by what was popular back home or what
was assumed to be popular.
General Scowcroft went on to say:
So at a period when we should have been focusing on
structures to improve the possibility that we could actually
make some changes in the way the world operated, and some
improvements, we have frittered away the time. I think never
has history left us such a clean slate as we had in 1991. And
we have not taken advantage of it.
One point on looking ahead from here. I think we have begun
engaging on a fundamental transformation of the international
system with insufficient thought.
We, NATO, President Clinton, the U.N. Secretary General,
are moving to replace the Treaty of Westphalia, replacing the
notion of the sovereignty of the nation-state with what I
would call the sovereignty of the individual and
humanitarianism. That is a profound change in the way the
world operates. And we're doing it with very little analysis
of what it is we're about and how we want this to turn out.
Evidenced by the Charles Krauthammer article.
Again I quote from the general:
In Kosovo, just for example, we conducted a devastating
bombing of a country in an attempt to protect a minority
within that country. And, as a result, we're now presiding
over reverse ethnic cleansing. What's the difference between
Kosovo and Chechnya?
That is a question not many of us want to ponder.
How many people must be placed in jeopardy to warrant an
invasion of sovereignty? Where? By whom? How does one set
priorities among these kind of crises?
And, events of the day, again dominated by the so-called CNN effect,
ignore the same kind of core questions posed by General Scowcroft and
reflected again in an article by Doyle McManus the Washington Bureau
Chief of the Los Angeles Times: When should the United States use
military power?
President Clinton has argued in the Clinton Doctrine that Americans
should intervene wherever U.S. power can protect ethnic minorities from
genocide. I would add a later UN speech seemed to indicate a backing
off from that position.
How will the United States deal with China and Russia, the two great
potentially hostile powers?
What is the biggest threat to our nation's security and how should
the U.S. respond? Weapons of mass destruction head the list of course,
but the President has added in terrorism, disease, poverty, disorder to
the list.
I know about the Strategic Concept of NATO, when that was passed
during the 50-year anniversary last spring in Washington. Those of us
who read the Strategic Concept and all of the missions that entailed--
moving away from a collective defense--we were concerned about that. We
asked for a report as to whether that obligated the United States to
all of these missions.
Finally, we received a report from the administration of about three
pages. The report said we are not obligated and not responsible. If we
are not responsible for the Strategic Concept of NATO, what are we
doing adopting it?
When the U.S. acts, should it wait for the approval of the United
Nations, seek the approval of our allies, or strike out on its own?
However, my colleagues, the biggest question remains and it was
defined well by retired Air Force Brigadier General David Herrelko who
wrote in the Dayton Daily News recently:
``The United States needs to get a grip on what our national
interests are, what we stand for and what we can reasonably do in the
world before we can size our military forces and before we send them in
harms way. We must hammer out, in a public forum, just what our
national priorities are.'' He says, and I agree, we cannot continue
adrift. Consider this retired military man's following points:
More Americans have died in peacekeeping operations
(Lebanon, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia) than in military actions
(Iraq, Panama, Grenada and Yugoslavia).
We have a president seeking United Nations approval for
military intervention but skipping the dialogue with
Congress.
I might add, the Congress skips the dialog with the President.
We commit our military forces before we clearly state our
objectives.
We gradually escalate hostilities and we leave standing
forces behind.
Some 7,000 now in Kosovo, and the peacekeepers. When there
was no peace, they became the target.
General Herrelko ends his article with a plea: ``We are starved for
meaningful dialogue between the White House and the Congress.''
I agree Mr. President and would add we are starved for dialogue here
in the Senate as well and that is why we are here.
And, as Senator Cleland has pointed out, our goal is not to achieve
unanimity on each and every issue but to at least contribute to an
effort to focus attention on our challenges instead of reacting
piecemeal as events of the day take place.
And, goodness knows even if the foreign policy stadium is not full of
interested spectators, we do have quite an array of players. LA Times
Bureau Chief McManus has his own program:
Humanitarian interventionists, mostly Democrats and
President Clinton with Kosovo being the prime example.
Nationalist interventionists, mostly Republicans who would
intervene in defense of democracy, trade and military
security.
Realists, both Republicans and Democrats
I think Senator Cleland would be in that category.
skeptical about intervention but wanting the United States to
block any concert of hostile powers.
Minimalists, those who think the United States should stay
out of foreign entanglements and quarrels and save its
strengths for major conflicts.
Richard Haass, former foreign policy advisor in the Bush
administration and now with the Brookings Institution, has defined the
players in the foreign
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policy program much along the same lines as Senator Cleland did in his
opening remarks during our first forum last month:
Wilsonians who wish to assist other countries achieve
democracy;
Economists, who wish to promote trade, prosperity and free
markets;
Realists, who wish to preserve an orderly balance of power
without worrying too much what kind of states are doing the
balancing;
Hegemonists who want to make sure the United States keeps
its status as the only superpower;
Humanitarians, who wish to address oppression, poverty,
hunger and environmental damage;
And, Minimalists, who wish to avoid spending time or tax
dollars on any of these matters.
I'm not sure of any of my colleagues would want to be identified or
characterized in any one of these categories but again the key question
is whether or not the members of this foreign policy posse can ride in
one direction and better define our vital national interests and from
that definition establish priorities and a national strategy to achieve
them.
Fortunately, as Senator Cleland has pointed out, some very
distinguished and experienced national security and foreign policy
leaders have already provided several road maps that make a great deal
of sense. What does not make a great deal of sense is that few are
paying attention.
Lawrence Korb, Director of Studies of the Council on Foreign
Relations, in a military analysis published in a publication called
``Great Decisions'' has focused on the Powell Doctrine named after
retired Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, citing the dangers of
military engagement and the need to limit commitments to absolutely
vital national interests. On the other hand, the sweeping Clinton
Doctrine emphasizes a global policing role for the United States.
How do we reconcile these two approaches?
I am not sure there is only one yellow brick foreign policy road but
there are several good alternatives that have been suggested:
First, I am going to refer to what I call the ``Old Testament'' on
foreign policy in terms of vital national interests. This is the
Commission on America's National Interests, 1996.
Second, a national security strategy for a new century put out by the
White House this past December. If you are being critical, or
suggesting, or if you have a different approach than the current
policy, as I have been during my remarks, you have an obligation to
read this. The White House put this out as of December of 1999.
Third, adapting U.S. Defense to Future Needs by Ashton Carter former
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security in the first
Clinton administration and currently professor of science and
international affairs at Harvard.
We had him testify to this before the Emerging Threats Subcommittee
just a month ago.
Fourth, defining U.S. National Strategy by Kim Holmes and Jon Hillen
of the Heritage Foundation, a detailed summary of threats confronting
us today with appropriate commentary about their priorities.
Fifth, transforming American Alliances by Andrew Krepinevvitch of the
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
He has been of real help to us in regard to the Emerging Threats
subcommittee, and also the full Committee on Armed Services.
Sixth, a highly recommended article ``Back to Basics: U.S. Foreign
Policy for the Coming Decade,'' by James E. Goodby, a senior fellow at
the Brookings Institution and former Ambassador to Finland and Kenneth
Wisebrode, Director of the International Security Program at the
Atlantic Council of the United States.
In this regard, Messrs. Goodby and Weisbrode have summarized the
concerns of Senator Cleland and myself very well when they said:
The most common error of policymakers is to fail to
distinguish among our levels of interest, leading to an over
commitment to higher level interests. In other words,
strategic or second tier interests, if mishandled, can
threaten vital interests. But, strategic interests, if well
understood and acted upon, can support vital interests.
Goodby and Weisbrode do us a favor by following the example of others
in prioritizing our vital national security interests:
First and vital, homeland defense from threats to well being and way
of life of the American people. I can't imagine anyone would have any
quarrel with that.
Second and strategic, I am talking about peace and stability in
Europe and northeast Asia and open access to our energy supplies.
Third, and of lesser interest, although it is of interest, stability
in South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and open markets favorable to the
United States and to world prosperity.
The authors suggest how to accomplish these goals with what they call
three essential pieces of foreign policy balance:
First, stability and cohesion in Europe and between the European
Union and the United States; second, mature and effective relations
among China, Russia, and the West to include first among all others, a
regular forum to oversee the reduction of the risk of nuclear weapons;
and third, systematic patterns of consultation and policy coordination
of the States benefiting from the global economy and positive relations
between those States and the developing world.
The authors also suggest the means to their ends by looking ahead and
stressing the need for eventual NATO and Russian cooperation and
stability, the need for a similar organization and effort between the
United States and China, Japan, Russia, and Korea, and lastly, American
support for the United Nations.
In a self-acknowledged understatement, they state this is going to be
a hard and tedious task. This is not easy. But it is absolutely
necessary.
Now, Mr. Goodby and Mr. Weisbrode are not critical per se, but they
issue a warning and this is what we are trying to bring to the
attention of the Senate. It is central to what Senator Cleland and I
are trying to accomplish with these foreign policy and national
security dialogs.
The public perception and the private reality suggest
worrisome disorganization and a certain degree of impatience
with a foggy conceptual foreign policy framework. It is time
to return to the basic elements of the American role in the
world and to raise the public understanding of them.
American strategic planners and policymakers cannot afford
to be arbitrarily selective about where and when to engage
U.S. power. This would make our foreign policy aimless and
lose the support of the American people.
They continue:
We should set out each of America's interests and how they
best may be achieved with the cooperation of other powers.
However, this cannot take place until the executive and
legislative branches of government resurrect the workable
partnership in foreign affairs that once existed but exists
no more.
And Senator Cleland, my colleagues, that is why we are here today and
that is why we are involved in this forum. In my personal view, we are
starved for meaningful foreign policy and national security dialog
between the White House and the Congress and within the Congress. The
stakes are high.
I recall well the meeting in Senator Cleland's office between Senator
Cleland, myself, and Senator Snowe, worried about our involvement in
the Balkans. I had an amendment, we had an amendment; we passed both
amendments, setting out guidelines that the administration would
respond, saying that before we spend money in regard to the defense
appropriations or in the authorization bill, hopefully we can establish
a better dialog, trying to figure out what our role was in regard to
our constitutional responsibilities, I say to my good friend, without
having to come to the floor with appropriations bills and have an
amendment and say you can't spend the money for this until you explain
this. That is no way to operate.
It seems to me we can do a much better job. The stakes are high.
As Carl Sandberg wrote of Americans: Always there arose enough
reserves of strength, balances of sanity, portions of wisdom to carry
the Nation through to a fresh start with ever renewing vitality.
I hope this dialog and these discussions, all of the priority
recommendations we have had from experts in the field, will help us
begin that fresh start. We cannot afford to do otherwise.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a chart that
outlines and prioritizes the vital national
[[Page S2558]]
security interests of the United States as recommended by the many
experts and organizations I have discussed earlier in my remarks. This
chart was prepared by Maj. Scott Kindsvater, an outstanding pilot in
the U.S. Air Force and a congressional fellow in my office.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
DEFINING U.S. NATIONAL INTEREST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source Vital Interests Important Interests Other Interests
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
``A National Security Strategy 1. Physical security of our territory 1. Regions where we have sizable 1. Responding to natural and manmade
for a New Century''; The and that of our allies. 2. Safety of economic stake or commitments to disasters. 2. Promoting human rights
White House; 1/5/2000. our citizens. 3. Economic well-being allies. 2. Protecting global and seeking to halt gross violations
of our society. 4. Protection of environment from severe harm. 3. of those rights. 3. Supporting
critical infrastructures from Crises with a potential to generate democratization, adherence to the
paralyzing attack (energy, banking and substantial and highly destabilizing rule of law and civilian control of
finance, telecommunications, refugee flows. the military. 4. Promoting
transportation, water systems, and sustainable development and
emergency services). environmental protection.
``Americans and the World: A American public's foreign policy ....................................... ......................................
Survey at Century's End,'' priorities--1.--Prevent the spread of
Foreign Policy, Spring 1999. nuclear weapons. 2. Stop the influx of
illegal drugs into U.S. 3. Protect
American jobs. 4. Combat international
terrorism. 5. Secure adequate energy
supplies.--(American foreign policy
leadership priorities)--1. Prevent the
spread of nuclear weapons. 2. Combat
international terrorism. 3. Defend the
security of U.S. allies. 4. Maintain
superior military power worldwide. 5.
Fight world hunger.
``America's National 1. Prevent, deter, and reduce the (Extremely Important)--1. Prevent, Just Important--1. Discourage massive
Interests,'' Commission on threat of nuclear, biological, and deter, and reduce the threat of the human rights violations in foreign
America's National Interests; chemical (NBC) weapons attacks on the use of nuclear or biological weapons countries as a matter of official
7/1996. United States. 2. Prevent the anywhere. 2. Prevent the regional government policy. 2. Promote
emergence of a hostile hegemon in proliferation of NBC weapons and pluralism, freedom, and democracy in
Europe or Asia. 3. Prevent the delivery systems. 3. Promote the strategically important states as
emergence of a hostile major power on acceptance of international rules of much as feasible without
U.S. borders or in control of the law and mechanisms for resolving destabilization. 3. Prevent and, if
seas. 4. Prevent the catastrophic disputes peacefully. 4. Prevent the possible at low cost, end conflicts
collapse of major global systems: emergence of a regional hegemon in in strategically insignificant
trade, financial markets, supplies of important regions, such as the Persian geographic regions. 4. Protect the
energy, and environmental. 5. Ensure Gulf. 5. Protect U.S. friends and lives and well-being of American
the survival of US allies. allies from significant external citizens who are targeted or taken
aggression. 6. Prevent the emergence hostage by terrorist organizations.
of a reflexively adversarial major 5. Boost the domestic output of key
power in Europe or Asia. 7. Prevent strategic industries and sectors
and, if possible at reasonable cost, (where market imperfections may make
end major conflicts in important a deliberate industrial policy
geographic regions. 8. Maintain a lead rational). 6. Prevent the
in key military-related and other nationalization of U.S.-owned assets
strategic technologies (including abroad. 7. Maintain an edge in the
information and computers). 9. Prevent international distribution of
massive, uncontrolled immigration information to ensure that American
across U.S. borders. 10. Suppress, values continue to positively
contain, and combat terrorism, influence the cultures of foreign
transnational crime, and drugs. 11 nations. 9. Reduce the U.S. illegal
Prevent genocide. alien and drug problems. 10. Maximize
U.S. GNP growth from international
trade and investment.
``Adapting to U.S. Defence to A-List: Potential future problems that B-List: Actual threat to vital U.S. C-List Important problems that do not
Future Needs,'' Ashton B. could threaten U.S. survival, way of interests; deterrable through ready threaten vital U.S. interests--1.
Carter, Survival, Winter 1999- life and position in the world; forces--1. Major-Theater War in NE Kosovo. 2. Bosnia. 3. East Timor. 3.
2000. possibly preventable--1. Danger that Asia. 2. Major Theater War in Rwanda. 4. Somalia. 5. Haiti.
Russia might descend into chaos, Southwest Asia.
isolation and aggression. 2. Danger
that Russia and the other Soviet
successor states might lose control of
the nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons legacy of the former Soviet
Union. 3. Danger that, as China
emerges, it could spawn hostility
rather than becoming cooperatively
engaged in the international system.
4. Danger that weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) will proliferate and
present a direct military threat to
U.S. forces and territory.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I cannot express strongly enough what an
honor it is to be on the floor of the Senate and listen to my
distinguished colleague talk about the need for a meaningful dialog on
a subject that often gets put down at the bottom of the list when it
comes to public issues. I am reminded of a line from one of
Wellington's troops after the battle at Waterloo, after the battle was
won, that in time of war, and not before, God of the soldier, men
adore; but in time of peace, with all things righted, God is forgotten
and the soldier slighted.
Unfortunately, I think my dear colleague, Senator Pat Roberts, and I
have sensed that the vital interests of the United States, the
interests that cause us to go to war, the interests that compel us to
fight for our vital national interests, these basic fundamental
principles have been lost in the shuffle. Somehow they have been
slighted and somehow the issue of foreign policy and defense has been
shoved to the background. We have lost sight of the basis of who we are
and what we are about as we go into the 21st century, which is why we
have tried through this dialog to call attention to this issue.
We have some wonderful colleagues joining in our dialog, including my
fellow Vietnam veteran, Senator Kerrey, and Senator Hagel, as well as
Senator Hutchinson and Senator Kyl.
For a few weeks, I wondered whether I was a little bit out of touch
and wondered whether or not this dialog on American foreign policy and
global reach was something that was out of touch with what was going on
in the world. I went back home the last few days and in my own hometown
paper in Atlanta I came across an article, a New York Times piece,
Anti-Americanism Growing Across Europe.
Hello. Good morning. I realized that what I was seeing in a daily
newspaper was what I was attempting to engage here in terms of a
perspective on our global reach, a sense that we were overcommitted in
the world and yet underfunded, a sense of mismatch between our ends and
our means to achieve those ends. I realized we really were on target.
In my State, we say that even a blind hog can root up an acorn every
now and then. I think my distinguished colleague and I from Kansas have
rooted up an acorn.
We are on to something. That is a reason why I am strengthened in
pursuing this dialog, and I am delighted we will have additional
Senators entering into this dialog because unless we ourselves begin to
define who we are as a nation, what we want out of our role as a
nation, and where we want to go and how we exercise our power, unless
we decide it, it will occur by happenstance. We will move from crisis
to crisis. We will not have a plan and we will end up in places in the
world where we know not of what we speak.
One of the quotes I have come across, one of the lines that continues
to reinforce my view of my own concern and caution about America's
expanded role in the world, is from our first dialog back in February
when Owen Harries, editor of the National Interests, summed up his
views on the appropriate approach for the United States in today's
world with the following comments: I advocate restraint because every
dominant power in the last four centuries that has not practiced it,
that has been excessively intrusive and demanding, has ultimately been
confronted by a hostile coalition of other powers. Americans may
believe that their country, being exceptional, need have no worries in
this respect. I do not agree. It is not what Americans think of the
United States but what others think of it that will decide the
matter. Anti-Americanism is growing across Europe. The distinguished
Senator from Kansas has accumulated, in a shocking way, some headlines
from 40 or 50 newspapers among our allies and our friends, questioning
our role, particularly in the Balkans, but questioning our exercise of
power, as it were.
The foreign perspective is not one to which we generally devote much
attention in the Congress, certainly after the cold war is over, but
our attention to foreign affairs has been slight. We do not really
devote much attention to foreign affairs and consideration of our
foreign policy options unless we are threatened.
I am delighted Senator Roberts is sitting as the chairman of the
Emerging Threats Subcommittee in the Armed Services Committee. He has
his
[[Page S2559]]
eye on the ball, certainly an emerging ball in terms of threats to our
country. I think the overall threat is that we do not realize one could
occur now that the cold war is over.
I think, also, one of the emerging threats, from my point of view, is
that we will overcommit and overexpand and overreact and, instead of
being only a superpower working with others and sharing power, we will
wind up imposing--by default, almost, in the power vacuums around the
world--a pax Americana that cannot be sustained by the will of the
people in this country--again, a mismatch between means and ends.
But it is important, as Mr. Harries suggests, to focus on this issue.
I have spent some time, over recent months, as has the distinguished
Senator from Kansas, reviewing what foreign opinion makers and leaders
are saying about the United States. While we may think, as I do, that
our country has not made a clear choice about our global role, the view
from abroad is very different. Many people think we have chosen the
path we are now on.
A Ukrainian commentator, in the Kiev newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli, wrote
in April of last year:
Currently, two opinions are possible in the world-- the
U.S. opinion and the wrong opinion. . . .
He said the U.S.
. . . has announced its readiness to act as it thinks best,
should U.S. interests require this, despite the United
Nations. And let those whose interests are violated think
about it and draw conclusions. This is the current world
order or world disorder.
That, from Kiev.
The influential Times of India editorialized in July of last year:
New Delhi should not lose sight of the kind of global order
the U.S. is fashioning. NATO's policies towards Yugoslavia
and the U.S.-led military alliance's new Strategic Concept
are based on the degradation of international law and a more
muscular approach to intervention. Such a trend is certainly
not in India's interest.
So India has concluded: Why don't we go it alone? Why don't we
develop ourselves as a nuclear power?
The President of Brazil was quoted on April 22 of last year in an
interview with a Sao Paulo newspaper as to his views about the United
States: While President Cardoso was generally sympathetic to the United
States and supportive of good bilateral relations between our two
countries, the President of Brazil nonetheless expressed certain
misgivings about our approach to international relations.
He said:
The United States currently constitutes the only large
center of political, economic, technologic, and even cultural
power. This country has everything to exert its domain on the
rest of the world, but it must share it. There must be rules,
even for the stronger ones. When the strongest one makes
decisions without listening, everything becomes a bit more
difficult. In this European war, NATO made the decision, but
who legalized it? That's the main problem. I am convinced
more than ever that we need a new political order in the
world.
I think I am correct that Jack Kennedy once indicated we would seek a
world where the strong are just and the weak preserved. Because we are
strong now, I think we have to have an inordinate sense of being just.
But these are all voices from countries that have not traditionally
been close to the United States. Let's look, then, at some of our NATO
allies, nations with whom we presumably share the closest relationships
and common interests.
In a commentary from February of last year in Berlin's Die
Tageszeitung, a German writer observes:
There is a growing number of people with more and more
prominent protagonists who are at odds with American
supremacy and who are inclined to see the action of the State
Department as a policy of interests. And Washington is
offering no reason to deny the justification of these
reservations. As unilateral as possible and as multilateral
as necessary--that's the explicit maxim under which U.S.
President Bill Clinton has pursued his foreign and defense
policies in the last 2 years.
From Italy, an Italian general expressed the following view in the
December 1999 edition of the Italian geopolitical quarterly LiMes:
The condition all the NATO countries as a whole find
themselves in is closer to the condition of vassalage with
respect to the United States than it is to the condition of
alliance. NATO is not able to influence the policy of the
United States because its existence in effect depends on it.
No member countries are able to resist the American pressures
because their own resources are officially at the disposal of
everybody and not just the United States.
What evidence do our foreign friends cite for such concerns? The
influential left-of-center Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad wrote last
October:
The U.S. Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty does not just represent a heavy defeat for President
Clinton. Far more important are the consequences for world
order of treaties designed to stop the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and hence boost world security. .
. .
According to this newspaper in the Netherlands:
Unfortunately, the decision fits in with a growing tendency
on the part of U.S. foreign policy to place greater emphasis
on the United States' own room for maneuver and less on
international cooperation and traditional idealism.
In a similar vein, the Times of London carried a commentary last
November. It said:
The real fear is of an American retreat, not to
isolationism, but to unilateralism, exacerbated at present by
the post-impeachment weakness of President Clinton and his
standoff with the Republican Congress. That's shown by the
Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
the stalling of free trade initiatives, and the refusal to
pay arrears to the United Nations. The U.S. is seen as
wayward and inward-looking.
While there are some exceptions, the majority of statements I looked
at expressed the view the United States has indeed made the conscious
decision to use our current position of predominance to pursue
unilateralist foreign and national security policy.
When I first came to Washington 30-some-odd years ago as a young
intern, I found out there could not be a conspiracy here. We are not
that well organized. There cannot be a unilateralist conspiracy in the
world by the United States--we are not that well organized. What has
evolved is a sense in which we have moved from crisis to crisis and
looked at power vacuums and said, ``We need to be there.''
I like the notion that General Shelton has about the use of American
military power. He says:
We've got a great hammer, but not every problem in the
world is a nail.
I do like President Kennedy's insight, too, that there is not
necessarily an American solution for every problem in the world.
Yet we act as if there is. If one looks at the outcomes of recent
American foreign policy debates, it is easy to see how those viewing us
from a distance might come to such a conclusion. Since I have come to
the Senate, the U.S. Government through the combined efforts of the
executive and the legislative branches--what are, relatively speaking,
nondiscussions, I might add--has made the following decisions: Withheld
support from the international landmines treaty; rejected jurisdiction
by the new international criminal court; been slow to pay off long
overdue arrears to the United Nations; rejected the current
applicability of international emissions standards set at Kyoto;
rejected fast-track international trade negotiating authority for the
President; rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, apparently
committed to a national missile defense system which will violate the
ABM Treaty; and established a principle of ``humanitarian
intervention'' where national sovereignty can be violated without
United Nations sanction under certain circumstances.
My purpose here is not to argue for or against any of these
individual positions; for, indeed, I have supported some of them as,
indeed, have virtually every Member of the Congress and the
administration. But, as far as I know, not one of us has supported them
all.
If the Republican congressional majority has been largely responsible
for the actions rejecting multilateral commitments and entanglements in
the national security sphere, it is my party, the Democrats, who has
taken the lead in opposing international trade obligations, and the
Democratic administration which has espoused the cause of humanitarian
interventions in violation of national sovereignty. In short, the sum
total of our actions has been far more unilateral than any of us would
have intended or carved out for ourselves.
This is relatively incoherent, and I can see why other nations might
view us as more organized than we are.
It is also very damaging to our national interest and is one of the
major motives for our efforts to promote this development of a
bipartisan consensus
[[Page S2560]]
through these floor debates. We have to get back to some basic
understanding of who we are and what we are doing in the world.
As was discussed in our first dialog, there are certainly some
leading voices among America's foreign policy thinkers who do, indeed,
advocate a unilateralist course for America in the post-cold-war era,
but not even that group actually believes we have actually embarked
upon that course. Very few believe we are willing to invest sufficient
resources today to even pursue the somewhat less demanding
multilateralist approach which seems to have more support among our
foreign policy establishment.
The direct danger to America from this mismatch between means and
ends, between our commitments and our forces, between our aspirations
and our willingness to pay to achieve them is one of the central
concerns for our discussion today and one I will turn to later.
However, I want to conclude these opening remarks with an observation
about indirect consequences of this situation with respect to the
credibility of American foreign policy abroad.
The chief of the research department of the Japanese Defense Agency's
National Institute for Defense Studies wrote in March of last year:
(O)pinion surveys in the United States show that people are
inclined to think that the United States should bear as
little burdens as possible even though the country should
remain the leader in the world. This thinking that the United
States should be the world's leader but should not bear too
much financial burden may be contradictory in context, but is
popular among Americans. This serves as a warning to the
international community that the United States might get at
first involved in some international operations but run away
later in the middle of the operations, leaving things
unfinished.
Because we do not have a comprehensive strategy, because we do not
talk to each other enough, because we do not have a proper dialog,
particularly in this body, and because we move from crisis to crisis in
our foreign policy and come up with different solutions for different
situations without a clear understanding of who we are and where we are
going, we are sending a mixed message to even our best friends.
To me, the case is clear: If we are to avoid misunderstandings at
home and abroad, if we are to prevent unwanted and unintended
conclusions and consequences, as the distinguished Senator from Kansas
mentioned, about our objectives, we have to pull together and forge a
coherent, bipartisan consensus to guide our country in the uncertain
waters of the 21st century. Those who came before us and built this
country into the grand land it is today, and those who will inherit it
from us in the years ahead deserve no less.
I am honored to yield to the distinguished Senator from Kansas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. Parliamentary inquiry: I believe I have 1 hour reserved
in morning business and that the distinguished Senator from Georgia has
1 hour; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 hours under the control of both
Senators.
Mr. ROBERTS. I inform my colleagues that Senator Hutchison of Texas
and Senator Hagel will be taking part, and I think perhaps Senator
Kerrey will be coming to the floor. Senator Hagel will be arriving in
about 9 minutes. If my distinguished colleague wants to summarize any
other comments or perhaps go over the Commission on America's National
Interests, I think now is the time to do so, if he is prepared to do
that.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I want to add some additional comments,
if that is all right with my distinguished colleague.
Earlier, I spoke about the mismatch between the goals of American
foreign policy and the means we employ in achieving them. Whether one
espouses a unilateralist or multilateralist approach, or something in
between, most of those with a strong interest in American foreign
policy have major goals for that policy, whether in preventing the
emergence of global rivals or in promoting the spread of democracy,
whether in halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction or in
protecting human rights. Yet today we devote a little over 1 percent of
the Federal budget for international affairs, compared to over 5
percent in 1962 in the middle of the cold war.
Of particular concern to me as a member of the Armed Services
Committee, since the 1980s we have gone from providing roughly 25
percent of the budget for national defense to 18 percent today. We have
reduced the active-duty armed forces by over one-third but have
increased overseas deployments by more than 300 percent. I have often
said we have, as a country, both feet firmly planted on a banana peel.
We are going in opposite directions. That cannot last. We have a
mismatch between our commitments and our willingness to live up to
those commitments. We are sending a mixed message abroad.
What is the result of all of this? Newspapers reported that last
November, for the first time in a number of years, the U.S. Army rated
2 of its 10 divisions as unprepared for war. Why were they unprepared
for war? Because they were bogged down in the Balkans. That was never
part of the deal going into the Balkans, that an entire U.S. Army
division would be there for an indefinite period of time. No wonder
these other two divisions were unprepared for war because they had
elements in the Balkans doing something else--not fighting a war, but
peacekeeping missions.
The services continue to struggle in meeting both retention and
recruiting goals, and the service members and their families with whom
I meet and who are on the front lines in carrying out the policies
decided in Washington are showing the visible strains of this mismatch
between our commitments and our resources. They deserve better from us.
I hope other Senators had an opportunity to watch Senator Roberts'
discussion of our national interests during our February 24 dialog. If
not, I commend my colleagues' attention to those remarks as printed in
the Congressional Record of that date.
In brief, he stated the opinion, which I share, that in the post-
cold-war world, our country has had a hard time in prioritizing our
national interests, leading to confusion and inconsistency. He went on
to cite the July 1996 report by the Commission on America's National
Interests, of which he was a member, along with our colleagues Senators
John McCain and Bob Graham and my distinguished predecessor, Sam Nunn.
Of particular relevance to our topic today of defining and defending
our national interests, the Commission found:
For the decades ahead, the only sound foundation for a
coherent, sustainable American foreign policy is a clear
public sense of American national interests. Only a national-
interest-based foreign policy will provide priorities for
American engagement in the world. Only a foreign policy
grounded in American national interests will allow America's
leaders to explain persuasively how and why specific
expenditures of American treasure or blood deserve support
from America's citizens.
As my colleagues will note from the charts I have, the Commission
went on to divide our national interests into four categories. They
defined ``vital interests'' as those:
Strictly necessary to safeguard and enhance the well-being
of Americans in a free and secure nation.
And as Senator Roberts has discussed, and you can see on the chart,
they found only five items which reached that high standard.
In addition to attempting to identify our national interests, the
commission also addressed the key issue of what we should be prepared
to do to defend those interests:
For ``vital'' national interests, the United States should
be prepared to commit itself to fight, even if it has to do
so unilaterally and without the assistance of allies.
But there is a lower priority than that.
Next in priority come ``extremely important interests''--these are
not vital; but they are extremely important--defined as those which:
. . . would severely prejudice but not strictly imperil the
ability of the U.S. Government to safeguard and enhance the
well-being of Americans in a free and secure nation--
And for which:
the United States should be prepared to commit forces to meet
threats and to lead a coalition of forces, but only in
conjunction with a coalition or allies whose vital interests
are threatened.
Next, third, we have another set of interests. These are called
``just important interests.'' They are not vital, not
[[Page S2561]]
necessary. These are important, which would have major negative
consequences:
The United States should be prepared to participate
militarily, on a case-by-case basis, but only if the costs
are low or others carry the lion's share of the burden.
Finally, last, comes the most numerous but lowest priority category
of ``less important or secondary interests,'' which:
Are intrinsically desirable but that have no major effect
on the ability of the U.S. government to safeguard and
enhance the well-being of Americans in a free and secure
nation.
My colleagues in the Senate, this is exactly the kind of exercise--of
defining and differentiating our national interests, and of gauging the
proper kind and level of response for protecting such interests--that
we need to be engaging in if we are to bring coherence and
effectiveness to our post-cold war foreign and national security
policy. Everything is not the most important thing to do. Everything is
not necessarily in America's vital interest to do. It is, in my
judgment, what we must do in considering our policies, particularly
toward the Balkans and now with a plan in Colombia to involve ourselves
in a war against narcotraffickers in Colombia. We need to do several
things. We need to ask ourselves: How vital are our interests in those
areas? And what are we willing to pay to protect those interests?
What about the role of other countries, who, for reasons of history
and geography, may have even greater national interests at stake?
Senator Roberts pointed out back in February the similarities between
the Commission on America's National Interests list of ``vital''
interests and related compilations by other groups and individuals. I
believe, for example, that the commission's definitions of ``vital''
and ``extremely important'' national interests are quite compatible
with the relevant portions of the January 2000 White House ``National
Security Strategy for a New Century.'' The conflicts will lie in
applying these general principles to specific cases. That is what
Senator Roberts and I intend to do with the remaining sessions of these
global role dialogs, including such applications as the role of our
alliances and the decision on when and how to intervene militarily.
However, from my perspective, though we may have some implicit common
ground as to our most important national interests and what we should
be prepared to do in defending them, in the real world where actions
must count for more than words and where capabilities will inevitably
be given greater weight than intentions, the picture we too often give
to the world--of unilateralist means and narrowly self-interested
ends--and to our own citizens--of seemingly limitless aspirations but
quite limited resources we are willing to expend in achieving them--is
surely not what we should be doing.
Samuel P. Huntington writes in the March/April edition of Foreign
Affairs:
Neither the Clinton administration nor Congress nor the
public is willing to pay the costs and accept the risks of
unilateral global leadership. Some advocates of American
global leadership argue for increasing defense expenditures
by 50 percent, but that is a nonstarter. The American public
clearly sees no need to expend effort and resources to
achieve American hegemony. In one 1997 poll, only 13 percent
said they preferred a preeminent role for the United States
in world affairs, while 74 percent said they wanted the
United States to share power with other countries. Other
polls have produced similar results. Public disinterest in
international affairs is pervasive, abetted by the
drastically shrinking media coverage of foreign events.
Majorities of 55 to 66 percent of the public say that what
happens in western Europe, Asia, Mexico, and Canada has
little or no impact on their lives. However much foreign
policy elites may ignore or deplore it, the United States
lacks the domestic political base to create a unipolar world.
American leaders repeatedly make threats, promise action, and
fail to deliver. The result is a foreign policy of ``rhetoric
and retreat'' and a growing reputation as a ``hollow
hegemon.''
One of my favorite authors on war and theorists on war, Clausewitz,
put it this way:
Since in war too small an effort can result not just in
failure but in positive harm, each side is driven to outdo
the other, which sets up an interaction. Such an interaction
could lead to a maximum effort if a maximum effort could be
defined. But in that case, all proportion between action and
political demands would be lost: means would cease to be
commensurate with ends, and in most cases a policy of maximum
exertion would fail because of the domestic problems it would
raise.
I think we are maximally committed around the world. I think we have
to review these commitments because I am not quite sure we have the
domestic will to follow through on them or the budgets to take care of
them. We do not want to risk failure.
Once again, I thank all of the Senators who have joined in today's
discussion. I have benefitted from their comments, and encourage all of
our colleagues of whatever party and of whatever views on the proper
U.S. global role to join in this effort to bring greater clarity and
greater consensus to our national security policies through these
dialogs. Our next session will be on the role of multilateral
organizations, including NATO and the United Nations, and is scheduled
to occur just after the Easter break.
During the Easter break I intend to go visit our allies and friends
in NATO, in Belgium, to go to Aviano to get a background briefing on
how the air war in the Balkans was conducted, to go on to Macedonia and
into Kosovo itself to see our forces there. That would be over the
Easter break. I will go back through London to get a briefing from our
closest ally, our British friends.
I hope to come back to the Senate in a few weeks with a more
insightful view of what we should do, particularly in that part of the
world, regarding our responsibilities.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. First, again, I thank my good friend, the distinguished
Senator from Georgia, for this continued initiative and his leadership
in what we think is a bipartisan foreign policy dialog. I hope it is
successful.
We said back in February during our first discussion that our
objective was to try to achieve greater attention, focus, and mutual
understanding--not to mention a healthy dose of responsibility--in this
body in regard to our global role.
I repeat again, in chapter 10 of the Senator's book that he has
provided to every Senator, with a marvelous introduction by our
Chaplain, the Senator stated that success is a team effort, that coming
together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working
together is success. That is a pretty good motto for our efforts today,
as well as a recipe for our foreign policy goals.
I am very privileged to yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator
from Nebraska, Mr. Hagel. He is a recognized expert in the field of
international affairs, and more especially, a strong backer of free
trade. I seek his advice and counsel often on the very matters that we
are talking about.
I am delighted he has joined us. I yield 15 minutes to the
distinguished Senator and my friend.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, first, let me acknowledge the leadership of
my colleagues from Georgia and Kansas for bringing attention and focus
to an area that does not often get appropriate focus. It is about
international affairs--the connecting rods to our lives in a world now
that is, in fact, globally connected.
That global community is underpinned by a global economy. There is
not a dynamic of the world today, not an action taken nor a consequence
of that action, that does not affect America, that does not affect our
future. I am grateful that Senators Cleland and Roberts have taken the
time and the leadership to focus on an area of such importance to our
country.
I point out an op-ed piece that appeared in Monday's Washington Post,
written by Robert Kagan, and I ask unanimous consent that the article
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 10, 2000]
A World of Problems . . .
(By Robert Kagan)
Call me crazy, but I think it actually would serve the
national interest if George W. Bush spent more time talking
about foreign policy in this campaign. Not to slight the
importance of his statements on the environment and the
census. But perhaps Bush and his advisers can find time to
pose a simple, Reaganesque question: Is the world a safer
place than it was eight years ago?
[[Page S2562]]
A hundred bucks says even James Carville can't answer that
question in the affirmative--at least not with a straight
face. A brief tour d'horizon shows why.
iraq
As the administration enters its final months, Saddam
Hussein is alive and well and Baghdad, pursuing his quest for
weapons of mass destruction, free from outside inspection and
getting wealthier by the day through oil sales while the
sanctions regime against him crumbles. The next president may
see his term dominated by the specter of Saddam Redux.
the balkans
You can debate whether things are getting better in Bosnia,
or whether Kosovo is on its way to recovery or to disaster.
And Clinton deserves credit for intervening in both crises.
But Slobodan Milosevic is still in power in Belgrade, still
stirring the pot in Kosovo and is on the verge of starting
his fifth Balkan war in Montenegro. Milosevic was George Bush
Sr.'s gift to Bill Clinton; he will be Clinton's gift to Al
Gore or George Jr.
china-taiwan
Even Sinologists sympathetic to the Clinton
administration's policies think the odds of military conflict
across the Taiwan Strait have increased dramatically.
Meanwhile, the administration's own State Department
acknowledges the steady deterioration of Beijing's human
rights record. Good luck to Al Gore if he tries to call China
policy a success.
weapons proliferation
Two years after India and Pakistan exploded nuclear
devices, their struggle over Kashmir remains the likeliest
spark for the 21st century's first nuclear confrontation. If
this is the signal failure of the Clinton administration's
nonproliferation policies, North Korea's and Iran's weapons
programs come in a close second and third. Even the
administration's intelligence experts admit that the threat
to the United States has grown much faster than Clinton and
Gore anticipated. And where is the missile defense system to
protect Americans in this frightening new era?
haiti and colombia
After nobly intervening in Haiti to restore a
democratically elected president in 1994, the administration
has frittered away the past 5\1/2\ years. Political
assassinations in Haiti are rife. Prospects for stability are
bleak. Meanwhile, the war in Colombia rages, and even a
billion-dollar aid program may not prevent a victory by
narco-guerrillas. When the next president has to send troops
to fight in Colombia or to restore order in Haiti, again,
he'll know whom to thank.
russia
Even optimists don't deny that the election of Vladimir
Putin could be an ominous development. The devastation in
Chechnya has revealed the new regime's penchant for
brutality.
Add to all this the decline of the armed forces--even the
Joint Chiefs complain that the defense budget is tens of
billions of dollars short--and you come up with a story of
failure and neglect. Sure, there have been some successes:
NATO expansion and, maybe, a peace deal in Northern Ireland.
Before November, Clinton could pull a rabbit out of the hat
in the Middle East. But Jimmy Carter had successes, too. They
did not save him from being painted as an ineffectual world
leader in the 1980 campaign.
Bush maybe gun-shy about playing up foreign policy after
tussling with John McCain in the primaries. But Gore is no
McCain. He is nimble on health care and education, but he is
clumsy on foreign policy. Bush may not be a foreign policy
maven, but he's got some facts on his side, as well as some
heavy hitters. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Goerge Shultz and
Richard Lugar, instead of whispering in W.'s ear, could get
out in public and help build the case. John McCain could
pitch in, too.
The offensive can't start soon enough. The administration
has been adept at keeping the American people in a complacent
torpor: Raising the national consciousness about the sorry
state of the world will take time. And if Bush simply waits
for the next crisis before speaking out, he will look like a
drive-by shooter. Bush also would do himself, his party and
the country a favor if he stopped talking about pulling U.S.
troops out of the Balkans and elsewhere. Aside from such talk
being music to Milosevic's ears, Republicans in Congress have
been singing that neo-isolationist tune for years, and the
only result has been to make Clinton and Gore look like Harry
Truman and Dean Acheson.
Some may say it's inappropriate to ``politicize'' foreign
policy. Please. Americans haven't witnessed a serious
presidential debate about foreign policy since the end of the
Cold War. Bush would do everyone a service by starting such a
debate now. He might even do himself some good. Foreign
policy won't be the biggest issue in the campaign, but in a
tight race, if someone bothers to wake the people up to the
world's growing dangers, they might actually decide that they
care.
Mr. HAGEL. Mr. Kagan is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. He echoes what Senators Roberts and Cleland
have talked about; that is, the vital interests of our country in world
affairs. He suggests that America's two Presidential candidates this
year, Governor Bush and Vice President Gore, focus attention in the
remaining months of this Presidential campaign on international issues.
He lays out a number of areas in the world that are of vital
consequence and concern to not only those particular regions but to the
United States.
The point is, others are coming to the same conclusions and
realizations as our friends from Georgia and Kansas: that international
relations is the completeness of all of our policies--trade, national
security, economy, geopolitics. It is, in fact, a complete policy.
We are living in a most unique time in history, a time when
everything is possible. We live in a time when we can do more good for
mankind than ever in the history of the world. Why is that? It deserves
some perspective and some review.
Over the last 50 years, it has been the multilateral organizations of
the world, beginning with the visionary and foresighted leadership of
Harry Truman after World War II and a Republican Congress, working
jointly to develop and implement multilateral policies and
organizations such as the United Nations, such as what was born at
Breton Woods, the IMF, the World Bank, trade organizations,
multilateral peace, financial organizations--all are imperfect, all are
flawed. But in the real world, as most of us understand, the choice is
seldom between all good, the easy choice, and all bad. Normally our
foreign policy and every dynamic of that foreign policy, be it foreign
aid, be it national security interests, be it geopolitical interests,
falls somewhere between all good and all bad. It is a difficult
position to have to work our way through.
With this weekend's upcoming annual meetings for the IMF and the
World Bank and the number of guests who will be coming to Washington--I
suspect not exactly to celebrate the IMF and the World Bank and the
World Trade Organization and other multilateral organizations--it is
important that we bring some perspective to the question that fits very
well into the larger question Senators Roberts and Cleland have asked;
that is, is the world better off with a World Trade Organization, with
a world trade regime, its focus being to open up markets, break down
barriers, allow all nations to prosper? And how do they prosper? They
prosper through free trade. Underpinning the free trade is individual
liberty, individual freedom, emerging democracies, emerging markets.
We could scrap the World Trade Organization, 135 nations, and go back
to a time, pre-World War II, that essentially resulted in two world
wars, where there would be no trading regime. Those countries that are
now locked in poverty have to go it on their own. That is too bad. We
can scrap the World Trade Organization. While we are at it, have the
IMF and the World Bank added to any prosperity in the world? Have they
made mistakes? Yes.
Let's examine some of the underlying and most critical and realistic
dynamics of instability in the world. We do know that when there is
instability, there is no prosperity and there is no peace. What causes
instability?
Let's examine what it is that causes instability. When you have
nations trapped in the cycle of hopelessness and the perpetuation of
that cycle because of no hope, no future, poverty, hunger, pestilence,
what do we think is going to happen? History is rather complete in
instructing us on this point: conflict and war. When there is conflict
and war, is there an opportunity to advance the causes of mankind? No.
Why is that? Let's start with no trading. There are no markets. Do we
really believe we can influence the behavior of nations with no
contact, no engagement, no trade? I don't think so.
As many of our guests who are arriving now in Washington, who will
parade up and down the streets, burning the effigies of our President
and the Congress and the World Trade Organization and the IMF and the
World Bank--and I believe sincerely their motives are pure; that they
wish to pull up out of abject poverty the more than 1.5 billion people
in the world today, which is a worthy, noble cause--I think the record
over the last 50 years is rather complete in how that has been done to
help other nations over the last 50 years do that a little differently
[[Page S2563]]
than tearing down the multilateral institutions that have added to
prosperity and a better life and a hope for mankind.
I will share with this body a couple of facts from the 1999 Freedom
House survey. Most of us know of the organization called Freedom House.
It issued its first report in 1978. This is what Freedom House issued
on December 21, 1999: 85 countries out of 192 nations today are
considered free. That represents 44 percent of the countries in the
world today. That is the second largest number of free countries in the
history of man. That represents 2.34 billion people living in free
countries with individual liberties, 40 percent of all the people in
the world. Fifty-nine countries are partly free, 31 percent of the
countries. That represents 1.5 billion people living in partly free
countries, 25 percent of the world's population.
What are the real numbers? Seventy-five percent of the countries,
largest in the history of mankind, are living in either free or partly
free countries. Forty-eight countries not free. That represents 25
percent of the population of the world.
What does that mean? Let's go back and examine about 100 years ago
where the world was. At the turn of the century, no country on Earth,
including the United States, had universal suffrage. Less than 100
years ago, the United States did not allow women to vote, and there
were other human rights violations we accepted in this country. My
point is, the United States must be rather careful not to moralize and
preach to the rest of the world. Yes, we anchor who we are on the
foundation of our democracy and equal rights, but it even took America
250 years to get as far as we have come.
So we should, if nothing else, at least be mindful of that as we
dictate to other countries. Now, as we examine a number of the points
that have been made this morning and will be made throughout the next
few months about foreign policy, it is important for us to have some
appreciation and lend some perspective to not only the tremendous
progress that has been made in the world today, and the hope we have
for tomorrow, and the ability and the opportunities we have to make the
world better--and it is fundamentally about productive capacity,
individual freedoms, trade, free markets, private investment, rule of
law, rights, contract law, all that America represents, all that three-
fourths of the world countries and population represent. It is
solutions, creative solutions, for which we are looking.
Creative solutions will come as a result of imaginative and bold
leadership. As I have said often when I have been challenged about
America's role in the world and is America burdening itself with too
much of a role--incidentally, what should our role be? That is a
legitimate debate. But I have said this: America has made its mistakes.
But think of it in this context. If America decides that its burden is
too heavy, whether that be in the area of contributions to the United
Nations, to NATO, wherever we are around the world, as an investment,
we believe in markets, in freedom, in opportunity, in less war, less
conflict, a future for our children, for whatever reason, if we believe
we are too far extended--and that is a legitimate question--and we will
have an ongoing dynamic debate on the issue and we should remind
ourselves of this--the next great nation on earth--and there will be a
next great nation if America chooses to recede back into the cold, gray
darkness of mediocrity--that next great, powerful nation may not be
quite as judicious and benevolent with its power as America has been
with our power. That is not the world that I wish my 7-year-old and 9-
year-old children to inherit.
If there is an additional burden--and there is--for America to carry
on to be the world's leader, for me, it is not only worthy of the
objective to continue to help all nations and raise all nations'
opportunities, but realistically, geopolitically, it is the only answer
for the kind of world that we want not just for our children but for
all children of the world.
So rather than tear down organizations and tear down trade regimes
and tear down organizations that are focused on making the world
better, we should ask our friends who are coming to Washington this
week to give us creative solutions and be part of those creative
solutions.
Mr. President, I am grateful for an opportunity to share some
thoughts and hopefully make a contribution to what my friend from
Georgia and my friend from Kansas have been about today and earlier in
our session. This will continue throughout this year because through
this education and this information and this exchange of thoughts and
ideas we will fundamentally broaden and deepen the foundation of who we
are as a free nation and not be afraid of this debate in front of the
world. It is the debate, the borderless challenges of our time--
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, the scourge of our time,
illegal drugs--that must be confronted and dealt with as a body of all
nations, all peoples. Understanding and dealing with these fundamental
challenges and issues are in the common denominator, mutual self-
interest of all peoples.
Again, I am grateful for their leadership. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. L. Chafee). The Senator from Kansas is
recognized.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator for his
very valuable contribution and for taking part.
How much time does the Senator from Texas need? We have approximately
25 minutes still remaining under morning business.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Up to 15 minutes, or if someone else is scheduled in,
let me know.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I will soon yield to the Senator from
Texas. She has been a champion on behalf of our men and women in
uniform. She is a former member of the Armed Services Committee, now a
very valued and influential member of the Appropriations Committee.
These are the folks who have the obligation and responsibility to pay
for a military that I believe today is stressed, strained, and somewhat
hollow, unfortunately.
I think Senator Hutchison, probably more than any other Senator, has
been very diligent expressing concern and alerting the Senate and the
Congress and the American people as to our commitments abroad, what is
in our vital national security interests, and the problems we have
talked about regarding an overcommitment.
The Senator has come to me on repeated occasions when proposing
amendments. Sometimes she has withdrawn them, and other times she has
proceeded but always prompting a debate on the Senate floor where there
literally has been none in regard to our military policy and when we
commit the use of force. She has pointed out, I think in excellent
fashion, the paradox of the enormous irony that we have in Bosnia where
we are supporting a partitioned kind of society among three ethnic
groups, or nationalities; whereas, just to the south, in Kosovo, our
goal is to somehow promote a multiethnic society where the divisions
are at least equal to that in Bosnia.
Senator Hutchison not only comes to the floor and expresses her
opinion, but her opinion is based on facts and on actually being
present in the area with which we are concerned. She has been a repeat
visitor to Bosnia, Kosovo, and every troubled spot I can imagine,
including Brussels and Russia. She does more than talk to officials.
Senator Hutchison, when she goes on a co-del, not only talks to the
briefing folks, but she actually goes out to the people involved and
talks about their daily lives, their individual freedoms, their
pocketbooks. She talks to these folks individually and gives us a
healthy dose of common sense and reality when she is reporting on it.
We are glad to welcome her to this debate. I yield the Senator 15
minutes.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senators for taking time
on the Senate floor to discuss an issue which is not before us this
very minute, but it is something that requires much more thought, much
more long-term debate in the Senate.
I commend the leadership of these two distinguished members of the
Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan basis. Certainly, both have
served in our military quite honorably, and especially Senator Cleland,
who has given so much for our country. I say thank you for setting
aside this time. I look forward to participating on future
[[Page S2564]]
occasions that you are setting aside for discussion of the big picture
items.
I think one of the problems we face today is we haven't truly come to
grips with what America's role in the world is in the post-cold-war
era. The issues you are bringing forth are exactly what we should be
setting out in order to have a policy in the post-cold-war era that
allows the United States to take its rightful place and do the very
best job we can for America and for our allies around the world.
It is an understatement to say that the United States is the world's
only superpower. In pure military terms, we are a colossus. Our troops
are in Japan, Korea, throughout Europe, and in the Middle East. We
guard countless other nations. We keep tyrants in check from Baghdad to
Pyongyang to Belgrade. No other nation has ever wielded such military
power.
Leadership on this scale requires discretion, the confidence to know
the right course, and the will to pursue it--the confidence to know
when not to engage but to encourage others to do so.
True leadership is striking out on a right course of action grounded
in a central philosophy of advancing the American national interests.
Simply put, both our allies and our enemies must know what to expect
from the United States of America. We must always be strong. We must
rely upon diplomacy to maintain much of our leadership. But when
diplomacy fails, global leadership may require the use of military
force.
When and how should the United States use our military power?
There was a time when the answer was clear. During the cold war, we
determined we should only use military force when our vital national
interests were clearly threatened. In the cold war, there was a clear
military focus on a threat we could easily identify. We knew that if we
acted, the Soviets would react. There was a clarity.
Today, however, because we are the only superpower, we are often
called upon to act when there is a crisis anywhere in the world.
Leadership in this instance requires much more discipline than in the
past.
In our political system, that discipline comes from the checks and
balances that have been built into it.
The only clear authority our Constitution grants to the President in
committing our forces to conflict is in the role of Commander in Chief
to deploy troops. But equally clear in the Constitution, Congress alone
has the power to declare war, to raise and support an Army, and to
provide for the Navy.
Our framers couldn't have been more clear on this issue. They did not
break with the monarchy in England to establish another monarchy in
America. They feared placing in the hands of the President the sole
power to commit to war and also implement that war. Yet, especially in
the last 50 years, Presidents have sent our troops into conflict
without formal declaration of war that would be required by Congress,
and not only for emergencies such as repelling sudden attacks that were
envisioned by our founders.
Congress is being gradually excluded in its constitutional role in
foreign policy. The consultation process is broken, and it must be
fixed.
In a representative democracy such as ours, elected officials must
stand up and be counted when the fundamental decisions of war and peace
are made.
I believe it is important for Congress to reclaim its deliberate role
intended by the Constitution. I have proposed limits on the duration
and size of a force that can be deployed without congressional
approval. I have proposed that the President be required to identify
the specific objectives of a mission prior to its approval by Congress.
Too often operations such as those we have seen in Bosnia, and now
Kosovo, become open ended with no milestone to measure success, no
milestone to measure failure, and no exit strategy.
It is the hallmark of this administration for the United States to go
into regional crises and displace friendly, local powers who share our
goal and could act effectively on their own. In Kosovo, we fought and
sustained an unsustainable government. We are trying to prevent the
realignment of a region where the great powers have tried and failed
many times to impose their will on ancient hatred and atrocities.
In fact, I am interested in working with others to see if we can
address this issue. We must condition future peacekeeping funds on the
requirement that the administration reconvene the parties to the Dayton
peace accords that ended in the Bosnia conflict, and those involved in
the Rambouillet talks that resulted in Kosovo, and other regional
interests.
We must review the progress we have made and begin developing a long-
term settlement based on greater self-determination by the governed and
less wishful thinking by outside powers. This will probably involve
tailoring the current borders to fit the facts on the ground. But this
will create the condition for a genuine stability and reconstruction.
When we take up further funding of Bosnia and Kosovo, I am not going to
try to determine the outcome of these talks, but it is essential that
we reconvene the parties to see where we are. For Heaven's sake, that
is a modest proposal from the world's only superpower.
Years ago, President Nixon laid out principles on how our military
forces should be used overseas. Based upon his principles, I offer the
following outline for a rational superpower to try to bridge the
ethical question:
First, we should acknowledge that bold leadership means war is the
last resort--not the first. We cannot let our allies and our enemies
suck us into regional quicksand. This is what happened in Bosnia and
Kosovo. Our allies refused to act on their own, insisting they could
not take military action without a commitment of U.S. troops. That was
not the case. Our European allies have sophisticated military forces.
We should have been ready with backup assistance with heavy air and sea
support, intelligence monitoring, supplies, and logistical
coordination, but they did not need our combat leadership for a
regional conflict that could be contained by their own superb ground
forces.
Second, we should not get involved in civil conflicts that make us a
party to the conflict. We learned this with tragic consequences in
Somalia when we got in between warring forces trying to capture one
warlord. Yes, Serbia has a terrible leader. And it was tempting to
punish him with our military force. But look who pays the price with
many innocent civilians in Serbia as well. Often these types of
missions are ones in which our allies can do a better job because
oftentimes it takes more money and it is less efficient for American
troops to do peacekeeping missions.
When we commit 10,000 troops, it is not 10,000 troops. It is 10,000
troops on the ground and 25,000 troops in the surrounding perimeter to
protect them. This is because American troops are always the target
wherever they are, as they were in Somalia and as they have been in
Kosovo. You are never going to hear me say we should not have the
protection force. Of course, we are going to have the protection force
if our troops are involved.
I have heard it said by many in our military who come home from
overseas that if there is an incident, it is going to be against us.
I have heard our military people say if they are walking with other
groups of military on parade, that people who are wishing to protest
will let the Turks go by, the French go by, and the Brits go by. They
wait for the Americans to hurl the epitaphs. We have to have a
protection force. But that is not the case for many of our allies.
Third, why not help those who are willing to fight for their own
freedom? The administration seems to see no option between doing
nothing and bombing someone into the stone age. There are, too often,
other options. These options that we ignore, and sometimes even oppose,
include local forces willing to fight for their own freedom.
In Bosnia, for example, since 1991, we have maintained an arms
embargo on the Muslim forces who wanted, and begged, to be able to
fight for themselves. I met with them many times. I have been to Bosnia
and that region seven times. I am going again next week. I am going to
have Easter services with the great 49th Division, the reserve unit
that is in control of the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Congress
voted to lift the arms embargo and allow the Muslims to have arms to
defend themselves, but the administration opposed it. For 3 years the
Muslims and Croats were routed because
[[Page S2565]]
they could not fight. They didn't have the arms. But the Croats got the
arms, they ignored the arms embargo, and they fought back. When they
did, President Milosevic cut a deal.
I think we need to look at the option of helping people who are
willing to help themselves rather than keep a fight artificially
unfair.
Fourth, we should not even threaten the use of troops except under
clear policies. One clear policy should be if the security of the
United States is at risk. When should we deploy our troops? We need a
higher standard than we have seen in the last 6 years. Look at the war
in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. security interests were at stake. A
madman, with suspected nuclear and biological weapons, invaded a
neighboring country and threatened the whole Middle East. It could have
realigned the region in a way that would have a profound impact on the
United States and our allies and subjected the entire territory to
chemical, biological, and perhaps nuclear weapons.
We, of course, should always honor our commitments to our allies. If
North Korea invades the south, we are committed to helping our allies.
We also have a responsibility toward a democratic Taiwan, which has
been under constant intimidation from Communist China. We have the
world's greatest military alliance, NATO, where we are committed to
defend any one of those countries that might be under attack from a
foreign power.
It is in the U.S. interest that we protect ourselves and our allies
with a nuclear umbrella. Yes, we would use troops to try to make sure a
despot didn't have nuclear capabilities.
These are clear areas of U.S. security interests. However, the United
States does not have to commit troops on the ground to be a good ally.
If our allies believe they must militarily engage in a regional
conflict, that should not have to be our fight.
The United States does not have to commit troops to be a good ally.
If our allies believe they must militarily engage in a regional
conflict, that should not have to be our fight. We could even support
them in the interest of alliance unity. We could offer intelligence
support, ``airlift,'' or protection of noncombatants. We do not have to
get directly involved with troops in every regional conflict to be good
allies.
When violence erupted last year in Indonesia, we got it about right.
We stepped aside and let our good ally Australia take lead. We helped
with supplies and intelligence, but it wasn't American ground troops
facing armed militants.
Instead, we should focus our resources where the United States is
uniquely capable; in parts of the world where our interests may be
greater or where air power is necessary.
It is not in the long-term interest of our European allies for U.S.
forces to be tied down on a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia or Kosovo
while in some parts of the world there is a danger of someone getting a
long-range missile tipped with a germ warhead provided by Saddam
Hussein and paid for by Osama Bin Laden.
A reasonable division of labor--based on each ally's strategic
interests and unique strengths--would be more efficient and more
logical.
What has been the result of our unfocused foreign relations?
Qualified personnel are leaving the services in droves. In the past 2
years, half of Air Force pilots eligible for continued service opted to
leave when offered a $60,000 bonus.
The Army fell 6,000 short of the congressionally authorized troop
strength last year. We used up a large part of our weapons inventory in
Kosovo. We were down to fewer than 200 cruise missiles worldwide. That
may sound like a lot, but it's just a couple of days worth in Desert
Storm.
So let's be clear that if we do not discriminate about the use of our
forces it will weaken our core capabilities. If we had to send our
forces into combat, it would be irresponsible to send them without the
arms they need, the troop strength they need, and the up-to-date
training they must have. It takes 9 months to retrain a unit after a
peacekeeping mission into warlike readiness.
As a superpower, the United States must draw distinctions between the
essential and the important. Otherwise, we could dissipate our
resources and be unable to handle either. To maximize our strength, we
should focus our efforts where they can best be applied. That is
clearly air power and technology. This will be the American
responsibility, but troops on the ground where those operations fall
short of a full combat necessity can be done much better by allies with
our backup rather than us taking the lead every time.
Any sophisticated military power can patrol the Balkans, or East
Timor, or Somalia. But only the United States can defend NATO, maintain
the balance of power in Asia, and keep the Persian Gulf open to
international commerce.
I thank the distinguished Senators Roberts and Cleland for allowing
Members to discuss these issues in a way that will, hopefully, help to
solve them in the long term.
Mr. ROBERTS. Senator Cleland and I thank the distinguished Senator
from Texas for her contribution.
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