Abstract
As George W. Bush took office on January 20, a fearsome foursome took charge of the top national security positions in the new administration. Their names were Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld.
Only hours after the inaugural ceremonies, the Senate voted to confirm Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and Colin Powell as secretary of state. Condoleezza Rice, the new national security adviser, holds a position not requiring Senate approval. The biggest cheese of the four may be Vice President Dick Cheney, sworn in moments before George W.
All four bring with them reputations as leaders in the national security establishment. All have healthy egos. All four are forces to be reckoned with. Their relationships with each other and the president will be fascinating to watch.
The teams behind these four officials will not be set for months, particularly at Defense and State. The process of filling key positions at the two cabinet agencies–undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and other key personnel–can take up to six months. These early months when the cabinet secretaries are “home alone” are likely to be awkward, as the secretaries struggle to gain control of their bureaucracies, win underlings' approvals from the White House, the FBI, and the Senate, and conduct extended policy reviews.
The Pentagon had already begun lengthy bureaucratic policy revaluations before Bush assumed office. Last year's annual defense authorization bill mandated a review of U.S. nuclear weapons policies for the next five to 10 years. The Defense Department is also conducting a wide-ranging appraisal of military policies as part of its Quadrennial Defense Review. Consequently, the big four will have to decide whether to start their own, easier-to-manage deliberations, or try to direct existing bureaucratic processes.
In January, the new team provided its first clues about policy direction, mostly in Senate confirmation hearings for Rumsfeld and Powell. They also revealed wide policy areas in which only a general outline has been formulated and major decisions remain.
One point all four agree on is the need to move expeditiously toward deploying a national missile defense. In the course of their hearings, Rumsfeld and Powell laid out elaborate rationales for a new system. But apart from their enthusiastic embrace of the concept of national missile defense, there is–to paraphrase former President Bill Clinton–no consensus about what “it” is. When pressed at his January 11 confirmation hearing, Rumsfeld admitted that there have been no decisions about “exactly what form that [national missile defense] might take.” Rumsfeld spoke of expanding from the so-called more limited Clinton plan to base up to 250 interceptor missiles in Alaska and North Dakota to a “phased and layered” system that could be based on land, at sea, and in space. He suggested that the new scheme would be built in stages over a number of years. Details to come later.
Bush's selection of Rumsfeld as his defense secretary was widely interpreted as a signal that missile defense would be a top priority. After all, Rumsfeld headed the commission that in 1998 warned of an increasing “rogue state” missile threat to the United States, a report that provided a major boost for missile defense. Yet the nomination can just as easily be read as a compromise between factions of the Bush transition team that could not settle on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, or former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz.
Rumsfeld says the ABM Treaty is “ancient history.”
“The teeny little arrows. The stray feathers. It looks like a turf war, Lieutenant.”
While Rumsfeld may be a Star Wars enthusiast, he hinted that it will take a while to get up to speed on the details of the program:
“The press has kind of played me up as an expert in missile defense, and I'm not. I know a lot about the threat, and I've spent a lot of time on it, but I've spent much less time on the ways of dealing with it, and that is something I've simply got to wrap my head around.”
Powell, at his January 17 confirmation hearing, similarly endorsed deployment “when a system is ready to be deployed.” This statement was read by some to suggest that Powell is more skeptical about deployment than his colleagues. Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden claimed to discern a “nuanced” difference between Powell's views and those of the other members of the quartet. Chief diplomat Powell wins the dubious assignment of negotiating defenses with the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, and others–all of whom have vocally opposed deployment.
Both Rumsfeld and Powell agreed that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty should be altered or discarded. Rumsfeld labeled the treaty “ancient history.” Powell argued that it was “no longer relevant.” The foursome has strongly indicated that while they will at least go through the motions of attempting to negotiate treaty changes with the Russians, they are prepared to abandon the 28-year-old agreement if deployment is inhibited.
At the same time, there were mixed signals about whether the Bush administration would follow through on a campaign promise to seek deep reductions in U.S. nuclear stockpiles. During the campaign, on May 23, 2000, Bush declared: “It should be possible to reduce the number of American nuclear weapons significantly further than what has been already agreed to under start ii without compromising our security in any way.” He labeled nuclear weapons: “Expensive relics of dead conflicts, and they do nothing to make us more secure.”
Rumsfeld, during his confirmation hearing, appeared to move in a different direction. While conceding that candidate Bush had endorsed cuts, Rumsfeld said: “I don't know whether we can reduce or not.” He suggested that while the Russians will be forced by economic weakness to reduce nuclear weapons, the United States may need to maintain a large nuclear force to counter a growing Chinese nuclear threat and to target a large list of military sites.
Two days later, Bush–who may play a modest role in national security issues–appeared to contradict Rumsfeld when he reiterated his belief in nuclear weapons cuts:
“One thing I did talk about in the campaign that hasn't gotten much focus is our willingness to reduce our own nuclear capacity, to reduce the offensive nature of our inventory, and enhance the defensive posture of America.”
This response to questions in the January 14 New York Times was one of the few coherent answers in an extensive interview filled with vague responses.
Bush may have astonished both Powell and Rumsfeld when he said: “National missile defense is going to be an assignment of the secretary of state.” When trying to explain his position on peacekeeping, he opined: “Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment.”
Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor
Secretary of State Colin Powell calls the CTBT “flawed.”
On another key issue, Rumsfeld and Powell reiterated Republican opposition to ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Rumsfeld, who in 1999 testified against the treaty, reiterated his key concerns about verification and the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons. Powell agreed that the treaty remains “flawed.” Yet both acknowledged their obligation to review the test ban report released in early January by former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili. This well-respected retired general, appointed a special adviser to President Clinton after the test ban treaty was defeated in the Senate, made a series of recommendations to strengthen the case for its reconsideration. At a minimum, Powell agreed, there is no need for the United States to resume nuclear testing “in the foreseeable future.” Perhaps grasping at straws, test ban proponents saw some glimmer of hope when Powell said he would rule out a new vote on the treaty for only one year–not for one four-year term.
Rumsfeld and Powell provided the preponderance of clues about the direction of the Bush administration. Yet to be heard from are their more silent but equally powerful partners: Condoleezza Rice, who grew close to the president as she tutored the candidate on national security issues; and Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary who may be on the way to becoming the most powerful U.S. vice president in history. Whether these four powerful individuals can work in concert remains to be seen. It is likely to be months before the four start laying out an extensive policy agenda.