The ‘Peace Through Strength’ Platform: An agenda for national security

In the wake of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ serial announcements of deep cuts in defense spending and modernization, a call to arms has been issued in today’s Washington Times by seven influential, national security-minded leaders of some of America’s most prominent public policy organizations.  They have called on elected officials, candidates and the public at large to join them in advancing a ten-point platform for restoring national security by returning to the time-tested practice President Ronald Reagan called "Peace Through Strength."

The original signers of the Peace Through Strength Platform: Edwin Meese (Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation); Elaine Donnelly (the Center for Military Readiness,); Frank Gaffney (the Center for Security Policy); Brian Kennedy (the Claremont Institute); Herbert London (the Hudson Institute); Cliff May (the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy); and Herman Pirchner (the American Foreign Policy Council).  They are inviting public figures, incumbent and would-be legislators, non-profit organizations and concerned citizens to sign onto the Platform at peacethroughstrength.com.

The Peace Through Strength Platform takes on a special urgency as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in two speeches last week further advanced the evident Obama agenda of hollowing out the U.S. military.  The massive and broad cuts to the military budget now being telegraphed will ensure that the armed forces are  ever-less-capable of projecting power, leaving the nation and its allies increasingly open to blackmail, if not actual attack.

The ten points in the Peace Through Strength Platform contrast sharply with the policies and programmatic priorities of the Obama administration.  They can, therefore, help frame a needed debate over national security first principles and assist the "Loyal Opposition" in charting and securing popular support for the needed, different course. Such a debate will improve the chances that the country will be both prepared for the challenges that are coming, and be able to meet them in ways that safeguard the interests of the American people and others around the world who share our love for freedom.

Mindful that the best way to ensure the nation’s security for the long term is to have an authentically bipartisan vision of national security, it is the original signers’ hope that candidates and public figures of all parties will embrace and seek prompt implementation of the Peace Through Strength Platform.

A Platform for Restoring ‘Peace Through Strength’

In a world characterized by growing threats to freedom and the U.S. Constitution, America’s exceptional role, and indeed our country’s very existence, is at risk.  We believe such times demand a robust, comprehensive national security posture appropriate to today’s threats, and tomorrow’s.  Toward that end, we espouse and will work to achieve the following:

1. Renewed adherence to the national security philosophy of President Ronald Reagan: "Peace Through Strength." American security is most reliably assured by having military forces that are fully trained, equipped and ready to deter or defeat the nation’s adversaries.
2. A robust defense posture including: A safe, reliable effective nuclear deterrent, which requires its modernization and testing; the deployment of comprehensive defenses against missile attack; and national protection against unconventional forms of warfare – including biological, electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) and cyber attacks.
3. Preservation of U.S. sovereignty against international treaties, judicial rulings and other measures that would have the effect of supplanting or otherwise diminishing the U.S. Constitution and the representative, accountable form of government it guarantees.
4. A nation free of Shariah, the brutally repressive and anti-Constitutional totalitarian program that governs in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Islamic states and that terrorists are fighting to impose worldwide.
5. Protection from unlawful enemy combatants.  Enemies who refuse to wear uniforms, use civilians as shields and employ terrorism as weapons are not entitled to U.S. constitutional rights or trials in our civilian courts.  Those captured overseas should be incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, which should remain open, or in other prisons outside the United States.
6. Energy security, realized by exploiting to the fullest the natural resources and technologies available in this country.  We Americans must reduce our dependence for energy upon – and transfers of national wealth to – enemies of this country.
7. Borders secure against penetration by terrorists, narco-traffickers or others seeking to enter the United States illegally.  Aliens who have violated immigration laws should not be rewarded with the privileges of citizenship.
8. High standards that protect the military culture essential to the All-Volunteer Force.  The Pentagon should implement sound priorities, policies and laws that strengthen recruiting, retention, and readiness.
9. A foreign policy that supports our allies and opposes our adversaries.  It should be clearly preferable to be a friend of the United States, not its enemy.
10. Judicial and educational institutions that uphold the constitutional responsibility of elected officials to make policy for our military and convey to future generations accurate portrayals of American history, including the necessity of defending freedom.

We call on elected officials, candidates for office and others who share these principles to join us in advancing them and, thereby, to restore the time-tested practice of promoting international peace through American strength.