[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 12, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S654-S655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ``THE OTHER HALF OF THE JOB''

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, last week the Washington Post ran an 
opinion piece authored by Michael McFaul, a professor of political 
science at Stanford University, entitled ``The Other Half of the Job.''
  Professor McFaul's thesis is that while the budget presented by the 
President last week contained a significant, and needed, increase in 
resources for the Department of Defense, it failed to provide a 
significant, and needed, increase for ``the other means for winning the 
war on terrorism.'' The budget, Professor McFaul writes, ``builds[] 
greater American capacity to destroy bad states, but it adds hardly any 
new capacity to construct good states.''
  I share Professor McFaul's concerns about the inadequacy of the 
international affairs budget, that is, the funds for the State 
Department and foreign assistance. The President's budget request for 
foreign affairs for Fiscal Year 2003 is actually less than the amount 
provided in Fiscal Year 2002, if the funds provided in the emergency 
supplemental after September 11 are included in the calculation. 
America's armed forces are doing a brilliant job in the military 
campaign in Afghanistan. But it will take American diplomats, and our 
assistance agencies, working with other partners, to win the peace. We 
cannot win the peace there, or prevent other failed states from 
becoming havens for terrorism, without giving our people the tools they 
need.
  I commend Professor McFaul's article to my colleagues. I ask 
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S655]]

                [From the Washington Post, Feb. 5, 2002]

                       The Other Half of the Job

                          (By Michael McFaul)

       The United States is at war. President Bush therefore has 
     correctly asked for Congress to approve additional resources 
     to fight this war. The new sums requested--$48 billion for 
     next year alone--are appropriately large. Bush and his 
     administration have astutely defined this new campaign as a 
     battle for civilization itself, and have wisely cautioned 
     that the battle lines will be multifaceted and untraditional.
       So why are the new supplemental funds earmarked to fight 
     this new war largely conventional and single-faceted--i.e., 
     money for the armed forces? Without question, the Department 
     of Defense needs and deserves new resources to conduct the 
     next phase of the war on terrorism. The Department of Defense 
     may even need $48 billion for next year.
       What is disburbing about President Bush's new budget, 
     though, is how little creative attention or new resources 
     have been devoted to the other means for winning the war on 
     terrorism. The Bush budget is building greater American 
     capacity to destroy bad states, but it adds hardly any new 
     capacity to construct new good states.
       We should have learned the importance of following state 
     destruction with state construction, since the 20th century 
     offers up both positive and negative lessons. Many have 
     commented that our current war is new and unprecedented, but 
     it is not. Throughout the 20th century, the central purpose 
     of American power was to defend against and, when possible, 
     destroy tyranny.
       American presidents have been at their best when they have 
     embraced the mission of defending liberty at home and 
     spreading liberty abroad. This was the task during World War 
     II. This was the objective (or should have been the mission) 
     during the Cold War. It must be our mission again.
       The process of defeating the enemies of liberty is twofold: 
     Crush their regimes that harbor them and then build new 
     democratic, pro-Western regimes in the vacuum.
       In the first half of the last century, imperial Japan and 
     fascist Germany constituted the greatest threats to American 
     national security. The destruction of these dictatorships, 
     followed by the imposition of democratic regimes in Germany 
     and Japan, helped make these two countries American allies.
       In the second half of the last century, Soviet communism 
     and its supporters represented the greatest threat to 
     American national security. The collapse of Communist 
     autocracies in Europe and then the Soviet Union greatly 
     improved American national security. The emergency of 
     democracies in east Central Europe a decade ago and the fall 
     of dictators in southeast Europe more recently have radically 
     improved the European security climate, and therefore U.S. 
     national security interests. Democratic consolidation in 
     Russia, still an unfinished project, is the best antidote to 
     a return of U.S.-Russian rivalry.
       The Cold War, however, also offers sad lessons of what can 
     happen when the United States carries out state destruction 
     of anti-Western, autocratic regimes without following through 
     with state construction of pro-Western, democratic regimes. 
     President Reagan rightly understood that the United States 
     had an interest in overthrowing Communist regimes around the 
     world. The Reagan doctrine channeled major resources to this 
     aim and achieved some successes, including most notably in 
     Afghanistan. State construction there, however, did not 
     follow state destruction. The consequences were tragic for 
     American national security.
       So why is the Bush administration not devoting greater 
     capacity for state construction in parallel to increasing 
     resources for state destruction? Bush's pledge of $297 
     million for Afghanistan for next year is commendable, but 
     this one-time earmark does not constitute a serious, 
     comprehensive strategy for state construction in Afghanistan 
     or the rest of the despotic world that currently threatens 
     the United States.
       On the contrary, in the same year that the Department of 
     Defense is receiving an extra $48 billion, many U.S. aid 
     agencies will suffer budget cuts. Moreover, the experience of 
     the past decade of assistance in the post-Communist world 
     shows that aid works best in democratic regimes. Yet budgets 
     for democracy assistance in South Asia and the Middle East 
     are still minuscle. Strikingly, the theme of democracy 
     promotion was absent in President Bush's otherwise brilliant 
     State of the Union speech.
       It is absolutely vital that the new regime in Afghanistan 
     succeed. Afghanistan is our new West Germany. The new regime 
     there must stand as a positive example to the rest of the 
     region of how rejection of tyranny and alliance with the West 
     can translate into democratic governance and economic growth. 
     And the United States must demonstrate to the rest of the 
     Muslim world that we take state construction--democratic 
     construction--as seriously as we do state destruction. Beyond 
     Afghanistan, the Bush administration must develop additional, 
     non-military tools for fighting the new war. To succeed, the 
     United States will need its full arsenal of political, 
     diplomatic, economic and military weapons. Bush's statements 
     suggest that he understands this imperative. Bush's budget, 
     however, suggests a divide between rhetoric and policy.

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