A DEFINITIVE CRITIQUE, AND WINNING PLATFORM, ON SECURITY POLICY; WILL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES HAVE THE ‘VISION THING’ TO EMBRACE IT?

(Washington, D.C.): Even though the torrent of
announcement speeches and campaign rhetoric from
Republican presidential candidates is becoming ever more
voluminous, the quantity — and quality — of what has
been said to date about America’s role in the world
leaves much to be desired. In particular, the leading
contenders have tended to address this subject with
generalities and platitudes, if at all.

This is a truly astonishing fact given two
considerations: First, Bill Clinton has no greater
political vulnerability than his record of haplessness in
the conduct of foreign relations and the squandering of
U.S. power and prestige. And second, the candidate
who successfully articulates that critique and offers a
convincing alternative stands to reforge the
Republican-Reagan Democrat coalition that has repeatedly
secured the White House for those whose views on social
policy and domestic issues did not enjoy majority
support.

Fortunately, the Republican contenders have just been
offered a brilliant analysis of recent failures in the
foreign and defense policy fields. With characteristic
eloquence and conviction, former Senator Malcolm Wallop
of Wyoming laid out for an audience at the Heritage
Foundation last Monday the main lines of attack — and a
prescription for corrective action — that his party’s
candidates would be well advised to integrate into their
thinking and their platforms.

Denying Clinton the ‘Me-Too’ Excuse

To do so, the Republican field will, however, have to
make a crucial strategic decision: The would-be
presidents must disavow, or at least distance themselves
from, the roots of Mr. Clinton’s most abject security
policy failures which, regrettably, lie in Bush
Administration decisions. To do otherwise is to allow
Bill Clinton an easy out — the credible claim that any
fault for such failures must be apportioned on a
bipartisan basis. In this manner, he might just wrest
from Republicans in 1996 their most empowering issue,
namely, a powerful, secure and respected America, just as
he did in 1992, with devastating results.

The Center for Security Policy believes that Sen.
Wallop’s remarks bear close reading. They epitomize the
clear-headed analysis of foreign and defense policy and
courageous leadership that earned this long-time member
of the Center’s Board of Advisors the organization’s
“Keeper of the Flame” award in 1992. At a
minimum, the Senator’s formidable intellect and
committed conservatism should make him a contender in his
own right — for the position of Secretary of State or
Defense in a Republican administration headed by
whichever candidate has the good political and policy
sense to embrace the Wallop vision and, thereby, to
improve his chances of winning the White House.