INMAN FLAME-OUT BREAKS THE CODE ON ‘MYTH OF AUTHORITY,’ RAISES QUESTIONS ON ‘EXPERT’ JUDGMENT RE: CLINTON POLICIES

(Washington, D.C.): Ironically, the
nation owes Adm. Bobby Ray Inman a debt
of gratitude: With his bizarre
performance at an Austin press conference
yesterday — the equivalent of an act of
political hara-kiri — Admiral
Inman not only spared us his possibly
quite problematic leadership at the
Pentagon. He also shattered what might be
called the myth of authority.

This particular Washington institution
dictates that ordinary mortals defer
abjectly to those who — by virtue of
impressive resumés, congressional
support, fatuous press coverage or other
forms of conventional wisdom — are
deemed to be unassailable authorities on
any given subject. According to the myth
of authority, if such figures or
their policies defy common sense, then
common sense is wrong.

Bobby Ray Inman personified this
phenomenon. His job history during thirty
years as a U.S. naval intelligence
officer, at the National Security Agency
and Central Intelligence Agency was
shrouded in secrecy, making independent
evaluation of his performance exceedingly
difficult. Adm. Inman nonetheless enjoyed
a reputation in Washington — and most
especially on Capitol Hill — for
intellectual brilliance and bureaucratic
savvy that overshadowed a more easily
assessed and utterly dismal
record in the private sector. He was the
ultimate Washington authority, an
“insider” or, as he put it in
his remarkable Rose Garden appearance
last month, an “operator.”

A Close Call on Inman, Too
Late on Others

Until yesterday’s press conference
sundered his carefully cultivated, Wizard
of Oz-like veil, Inman’s peculiarities
and personal shortcomings were nearly
completely obscured. His judgments and
policy recommendations were no less
impenetrable for most citizens. According
to the myth of authority, this was no
cause for concern. After all, the
conventional wisdom ran: Adm. Inman was
highly respected by Members of Congress;
Adm. Inman was the youngest four-star
admiral in history; Adm. Inman held a
number of the government’s most sensitive
jobs. By definition, he must be qualified
to be Secretary of Defense. And but for
the Inman press conference — and the
decision to withdraw his nomination that
precipitated it — he would have easily
gotten the job.

Even more disturbing, however, is the
thought of all the other
“authorities” who are already
in senior Clinton Administration
positions — individuals whose common
sense-defying policy prescriptions are
currently being adopted by the U.S.
government, generally without serious
challenge or debate. Such individuals
abound in the Clinton security policy
team, notably, Strobe Talbott, Warren
Christopher, Anthony Lake, Madeleine
Albright, Peter Tarnoff and, until
recently, Morton Halperin.

What is Wrong With This
Picture?

The following are a sample of just a
few of the dubious policies which —
thanks to the advocacy of these highly
pedigreed, Washington-respected
“authorities” — are now part
of the Clinton agenda:

• Denuclearization:
  Common sense suggests that the
  world is rapidly becoming a more
  dangerous place as increasing
  numbers of malevolent actors
  acquire nuclear weapons. It would
  seem, therefore, that every
  effort would be made to maintain
  and enhance the effectiveness of
  U.S. deterrent power.

Instead, the Clinton
Administration has embraced
nuclear disarmament policies that
are going to result in the
“denuclearization” of
the United States.
Thanks to these policies: The
nation has already lost its
capacity to produce new nuclear
weapons; it is rapidly losing the
talented workforce needed to test
those currently in the inventory;
and the present stockpile faces
block obsolescence early in the
next century unless new sources
for the essential radioactive
gas, tritium, are developed. In
addition, the decision announced
in Moscow to detarget U.S.
missile forces invites new
pressure to eliminate those
weapons altogether.

When combined with the
Administration’s effort to end
all effective programs for
defending the United States
against the burgeoning danger of
ballistic missile attack, its
denuclearization stance not only
defies common sense. It is
profoundly irresponsible.

• Encouraging Instability
  in Ukraine: Rational
  strategic analysis suggests that
  it is in the United States’
  interest for Ukraine to be
  militarily strong and
  economically viable. Such a
  nation could serve as a deterrent
  to and buffer against renewed
  Russian expansionism against
  Ukraine and other former victims
  of Soviet aggression. Common
  sense suggests that, toward this
  end, the U.S. should encourage
  Ukraine to retain the nuclear
  arms it inherited from the former
  Soviet Union — not insist that
  Kiev surrender them to Moscow.

Instead, thanks in no small
measure to Deputy Secretary of
State-designate Strobe Talbott’s
influence, the United States has
joined Russia in coercing Ukraine
to surrender its nuclear arms.
Under virtually all foreseeable
circumstances, the U.S.-brokered
agreement toward this end signed
last week in Moscow by Messers.
Clinton, Yeltsin and Kravchuk is
likely to have very undesirable
consequences.

If approved by the parliament
in Kiev (a big if), this
accord evidently will substitute
as-yet-unannounced American
security guarantees to Ukraine
for a local nuclear deterrent
capability. As a result, the
United States faces two
unattractive possibilities: If,
as seems probable, conflict
eventually erupts between Russia
and Ukraine, the U.S. will have
to choose between failing to live
up to its guarantees or becoming
embroiled in the fighting.

On the other hand, if the
Ukrainian parliament rejects the
new agreement, Russia will
inevitably claim that it is
justified in taking corrective
action, if necessary through
military means. The United States
will be expected to support
Moscow in taking such measures,
or at the very least to stay
neutral.

• Lauding Russian
  “Greatness”:
  Common sense suggests that the
  last thing the United States
  would want to do at the moment is
  enthuse sentimentally about
  Russia’s past imperial splendor.
  After all, doing so would give
  legitimacy to the rabid
  nationalist sentiments being
  mined so effectively by Vladimir
  Zhirinovsky and his communist
  allies who promise to restore the
  empire. It also would encourage
  the nominal democrat Boris
  Yeltsin to continue his recent
  strategic drift in the Red-Brown
  coalition’s direction — even as
  it would reinforce fears of
  Russian revanchism among those
  who have been its victims in the
  past.

And yet, Talbottesque
romanticism about Great Russia
was a prominent theme of
President Clinton’s trip to
Moscow. In all likelihood,
Yeltsin’s unceremonious purging
of the last reformers from his
cabinet immediately after the
Clinton road-show left Moscow
is but the first indication that
Russian policy is going to be
more and more characterized by
traditional Russian imperial
ambitions and less and less by
the political and economic
reforms that the West can
support.

• ‘Yalta II’:
  Against such a strategic
  backdrop, common sense argues for
  establishing prudent defensive
  arrangements for the family of
  democratic nations that might
  once again be threatened by
  Moscow. Instead, the Clinton
  Administration has indulged in a
  diplomatic flim-flam known as the
  “Partnership for Peace”
  (PFP). Initially conceived — in
  deference to Russian opposition
  — as an alternative to NATO
  membership for the fragile
  democracies of Eastern Europe,
  the PFP was served up in Brussels
  and Prague last week as a
  “dynamic process” and a
  “first step” leading to
  such membership.

In Moscow, however, where
Yeltsin renewed his objections to
including the East Europeans in
NATO, such talk was notably
absent. Instead, the Kremlin’s
veto was effectively sustained
and Russia was encouraged to join
the Partnership — ensuring
the PFP’s irrelevance as a
device for enhancing the security
of Poland, Hungary and the Czech
republic against Russian imperial
designs.

• Construing Assad as a Man
  of Peace: Rounding out
  the Clinton trip was his
  five-hour meeting with one of the
  world’s most cunning and ruthless
  murderers: Syrian despot Hafez
  Assad. A common-sensical review
  of the totality of Assad’s
  behavior — notably his
  continuing support for terrorism,
  his immense build-up of offensive
  arms and his brutally repressive
  domestic policies at home —
  suggests that the Butcher
  of Damascus remains (like Yasir
  Arafat) fundamentally
  unreconciled to Western
  institutions and values in
  general and to their regional
  exemplar, Israel, in particular.

The Clinton team has
nonetheless decided that Assad is
now committed to achieving peace
with Israel. The basis for this
momentous conclusion, though, is
apparently little more than the
Syrian’s willingness in Geneva to
express a vague commitment to
begin “a new era of…normal
peaceful relations” with
Israel. Incredibly, there is no
discounting of this statement for
the fact that it is the product
of weeks of careful coaching and
scripting by U.S. officials.
Instead, there is only new
pressure on Israel to reward
Assad for this
“breakthrough” by
making dangerous territorial
concessions.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy was
founded in the belief that practical
common sense — not ideology, abstract
theories or “conventional
wisdom” — should drive U.S.
security policy decisions. While the
Center agrees with Adm. Inman that the
world would be a better place if the
press were more honest and less vicious,
an even greater contribution to informed
and sound American defense and foreign
policies would be made if citizens were
readier, in the words of a popular
bumper-sticker, to “question
authority.”

It would be ironic indeed if Bobby Ray
Inman’s greatest service to his country
were to be performed when he declined to
serve as Secretary of Defense. Yet that
might just be the effect if his press
conference helps put an end to the myth
of authority — prompting the public to
insist that common sense evaluations of
policy receive equal attention as (if not
greater weight than) the resumés and
reputations of the Washington insiders
who tend to promote such policies.

As a result, the nation might well be
spared the ominous consequences otherwise
to be expected from the aforementioned
Clinton policies. Who knows, it might
even be spared some of the sorry
personnel choices responsible for these
policies — choices that have been all
too characteristic of the Clinton
national security team to date.