Change of Course

Abstract

The Democrats in control of Congress could redirect U.S. security policies, but only if they avoid political posturing.

Former democratic house Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas once said, “Any jackass can knock down a barn. It takes a carpenter to build one.” Bush administration officials have proven expert at knocking down security agreements their predecessors carefully constructed, but have created few replacements. They have left the national defense landscape a shambles.

The new Congress must provide the carpenters. In particular, it must fill the void left by the Bush administration's failed nuclear weapons policies. The administration's radical approach of trying to eliminate regimes rather than weapons has dramatically worsened every nuclear threat it inherited in 2001, save for Libya. (There, the combination of force and diplomacy, plus sanctions and security assurances kept the regime but ended the nuclear program with little cost, no deaths and 100 percent effectiveness.)

Everywhere else the danger increased. Thousands of nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert; favored nations gain prestige from nuclear programs blessed by the United States; nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea advanced more in the past five years than in the previous ten; the nonproliferation regime teeters on the edge of collapse; and the danger of a nuclear terrorist attack grows as terrorist groups flourish while programs to secure nuclear bomb materials languish.

Here are four areas where members of both parties can cooperate to make a real difference in the 110th Congress:

Prevent nuclear terrorism. Members must promote and accelerate the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programs to secure and eliminate nuclear materials before Al Qaeda can use them against U.S. cities. (Note to presidential candidates: Run on a platform to eliminate the nuclear terrorist threat by the end of your first term–it's practical, cheap, and enormously popular.)

Get real about anti-missile systems. This need not be an ideological battle (though none need shrink from that challenge). Congressional due diligence will soon expose the waste and fraud in the frozen turkey of an Alaskan anti-missile system. As defense budgets tighten, the Joint Chiefs of Staff could help restore budget balance just as they did at the beginning of the Clinton administration, by recommending funding defenses against the short-range threats we actually face and not wasting money on weapons that do not work against threats that do not exist.

Contain and engage North Korea and Iran. Congress can both pressure the administration and develop an alternative policy. Hearings can demonstrate what many know: The administration's inept strategy and internal divisions squandered several real opportunities to end the nuclear weapons programs in both countries. It is now much harder to do so, but not too late. Congress can use its oversight and budget authorities to prevent hardline U.S. officials from sabotaging the work of U.S. negotiators. Members can detail strategies to negotiate directly with both nations and, if these talks fail, to work with allies to contain both programs. On Iran, members should insist the administration produce the new National Intelligence Estimate of the Iranian program they ordered last year and then use it as the basis for comprehensive hearings on a new approach.

Devalue nuclear weapons. This is politically difficult but absolutely necessary to the success of all other efforts. Bush administration policies elevated the role of these weapons in U.S. strategy after 10 years of declining importance in both the Clinton and the George H. W. Bush administrations. Congress can help push back towards nuclear realism.

Some have already started. Two years ago, Ohio Republican Cong. David Hobson called for “a thoughtful and open debate on the role of nuclear weapons in our country's national security strategy.” Gen. Eugene Habiger, former commander-in-chief of U.S. Strategic Command, says that the United States and Russia could quickly reduce their enormous arsenals to 600 total warheads each. In 2001, even former Reagan administration official Richard Perle argued, “I see no reason why we can't go well below 1,000… . The truth is we are never going to use them.”

Congress should begin its own review of the U.S. nuclear posture and end funding for unnecessary “replacement warheads,” plutonium reprocessing schemes, and Rube Goldberg-like plans to use multi-billion dollar nuclear submarines to launch conventionally armed missiles at bunkers. The temptation for inaction will be great–advisers from each party are already scrambling to position themselves for 2008 campaigns. It would be a national tragedy if they prevail over those earnest carpenters eager to build a new policy framework.