Center Calls on Presidential Candidates to Endorse the Peace through Strength Platform

Washington, DC September 6th, 2011:  The Center for Security Policy announced that it has invited nine major current 2012 Presidential contenders to endorse the 12-point Peace Through Strength Platform, in advance of the next Presidential Republican primary debate on September 7th.  The candidates are: eight Republican primary candidates, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, and the current Democratic candidate, President Barack Obama.

Regarding the importance of the platform, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy said:

Our nation faces multiple fiscal and other crises, all linked – but we can’t solve any of them unless we remain safe from attack by our enemies.  What is most worrying is that such foes are being emboldened by what they correctly perceive as yawning shortfalls in our military preparedness and homeland security.  These deficiencies greatly magnify the risks associated with present and emerging threats.

Now more than ever, we need to be guided in such matters by the time-tested philosophy Ronald Reagan dubbed “Peace through Strength.” It has served us well in the past.  To realize its benefits for our country and her people in the future, Americans must insist in the run-up to the 2012 election that we adhere to the “Twelve for ‘12” policy platform.

Last year, a number of other candidates, including 2011 Iowa straw poll winner Michelle Bachmann, as well as other national security and public policy figures, lent their names to the Peace Through Strength Platform, and its objective of applying that Reagan philosophy to contemporary challenges.

In the letter below, the Center for Security Policy asked all candidates to associate themselves with that time-tested approach – or identify an alternative to which they subscribe. The Peace Through Strength Platform encourages the sort of clarity about national defense and foreign policy that the times urgently require of would-be Commanders-in-Chief.

The current Peace Through Strength Platform is comprised of twelve principles, dubbed the “Twelve for ’12.”  These principles address a wide range of national and homeland security issues directly relevant to the safety and well-being of American voters:

1. Maintain a robust defense posture.
2. Invest in our national security.
3. Preserve American sovereignty.
4. Insist that arms control accords enhance America’s security.
5. Preserve and Protect the Constitution of the United States.
6. Assure America’s energy security.
7. Secure America’s borders.
8. Protect America from unlawful enemy combatants.
9. Protect the military culture essential to the All-Volunteer Force.
10. Pursue a foreign policy that supports our allies and opposes our adversaries.
11. Enlist judicial and educational institutions in defending America.
12. Use force only where appropriate and, where that is the case, commit to victory.