CLASSIC CLINTON: PATRIOT DEPLOYMENT BY SLOW BOAT FITS PARADIGM OF MISUSE, POLITICIZING OF U.S. MILITARY
(Washington, D.C.): On 21 March,
President Clinton responded to the
latest, calculated insults from North
Korea with what might be called his
signature approach — abundant
tough-sounding rhetoric unaccompanied by
the actions needed to make his statements
credible and therapeutic.
In this instance, he affirmed in
writing, on the one hand, that an
invasion of South Korea would be regarded
as an invasion of the United States and
announced that he was ordering a
battalion of up to 192 Patriot missile
defense interceptors to South Korea. In
making the latter announcement, Mr.
Clinton said: “We have agreed that
it is in our national interest and in the
interest of the security of the people of
South Korea and the security of our armed
forces there to send Patriot missiles at
this time.”
On the other hand, the Administration
decided that the “national
interest” and security
considerations did not require it to
effect this Patriot redeployment decision
with dispatch. Indeed, four months have
already lapsed since the U.S. commander
in Korea, Gen. Gary Luck, made an urgent
request for such missile protection. And
now, having belatedly agreed to honor
this request, Mr. Clinton has decided
that the Patriots will be moved by rail
and ship — rather than by air. As a
result, it will take 30-45 days for them
to reach South Korea and to become fully
operational.
The Worst of Both Worlds
This Clintomonic compromise was
evidently constructed with a view to
communicating American resolve in the
face of North Korea’s intransigent
pursuit of nuclear weaponry but doing so
in a way that is minimally provocative to
Pyongyang. As one senior Administration
official told the Associated Press on 21
March, moving the Patriots by sea
“shows we are not going to war
tomorrow.”
Such a protracted logistical approach
also has another advantage for a White
House given to changing its mind — or at
least its tactics — every few days, if
not every few hours: It can be reversed
at any time over the next four weeks.
Statements made yesterday by a Pentagon
press spokesman and reported in today’s Washington
Times to the effect that the Patriot
“shipments ‘will continue on’ even
if an accord is reached with North
Korea” are singularly implausible.
Indeed, in all likelihood, this
lengthy run-up to deployment ensures that
Washington will be subjected to intense
pressure from China, and perhaps Russia
or other self-appointed mediators. If
the emplacement of Patriot missiles in
South Korea begins to take on the
considerable political costs — and
require the sort of steady American
leadership — entailed in the deployment
of INF missiles in Europe, there is
little reason to believe the present U.S.
administration will get the job done as
President Reagan did a decade ago.
In a sense, the Clinton decision on
Patriot deployments is the worst of both
worlds: Predictably, Pyongyang has seized
upon it as a provocative measure, one
tantamount to an act of war. But if North
Korea decides to respond by attacking
South Korea at a time of Pyongyang’s
choosing during the next month,
these weapons will be of no use to Gen.
Luck and his 36,000 troops. In the
interval, these American forces and their
critical support facilities, airfields,
ports and other assets — to say nothing
of the South Korean people — will remain
utterly exposed to nuclear, chemical or
biological as well as conventional
weapons-equipped ballistic missiles.
‘What Is Wrong With This
Picture?’
Unfortunately, the present decision to
slowly redeploy the Patriots seems of a
piece with the myriad Clinton
Administration missteps that have
contributed to the present crisis:
- failure early on to comprehend
the gravity of the North Korean
nuclear situation — and, in
particular, the consequences of
delay in coming to grips with it; - a misplaced confidence in
negotiations as a means of
managing the crisis and
dissuading Pyongyang to abandon
its decade-long and immensely
expensive pursuit of nuclear
weaponry; - a series of concessions to the
North that have, among other
things, subordinated the
readiness and defensive
capabilities of U.S. forces on
the Korean peninsula to political
gestures; and - a refusal to pursue missile
defense options that would end
the de facto veto over
decisions to protect American
forces and allies against
ballistic missile strikes
effectively given to friends
(like South Korea) and
adversaries (like North Korea)
due to the United States’
complete reliance on short-range,
ground-based theater defense
systems like Patriot.
What Needs To Be Done Now
The Center for Security Policy has
repeatedly warned that the Clinton
Administration approach would embolden,
rather than deter, Kim Il Sung’s despotic
regime in its pursuit of nuclear weapons
capabilities. As the Center observed on
11 March:
“In the final analysis…as
long as Secretary Christopher and his
colleagues continue to reward North
Korea for its intransigence (e.g., by
canceling joint U.S.-South Korean
military exercises, holding
high-level bilateral meetings,
deferring deployment of Patriot
anti-missile batteries and other
reinforcements to the South, etc.),
the bottom line will be the same: The
West will continue to be defied and
reviled by a ruthless despot
relentlessly — and successfully —
pursuing a nuclear weapons capability
for Pyongyang.” (1)
Instead, the Center has long
recommended a series of military steps
that would:
“…simultaneously shore up
the U.S.-South Korean deterrent
posture vis-à-vis Pyongyang and
afford [the President] options for
dealing with Kim Il Sung’s nuclear
weapons program — and other
threatening activities — that are
not otherwise currently
available.”
The Center continues to believe that
such steps must include:
- Augmenting the 36,000
U.S. troops permanently stationed
in South Korea including
airborne, naval and air force
elements. The purpose would be
both to demonstrate unmistakable
U.S. resolve and to improve the
South’s capacity to deter
aggression in the near-term. - In this connection,
ostentatiously deploying
ships equipped with
nuclear-capable sea-launched
cruise missiles within
striking distance of North Korean
targets. - Serving notice that further
North Korean defiance will result
in the basing of nuclear-capable
aircraft and their weapons in
South Korea. And, - Rescinding once and for
all past commitments concerning
the suspension of joint
U.S.-South Korean exercises.
In fact, it should be made clear
that the certain consequence
of continued North Korean nuclear
activity will be intensified
bilateral military cooperation.(2)
We Must Have Effective Global
Missile Defenses
North Korea’s efforts to block the
deployment of Patriots in South Korea and
Seoul’s ambivalence over accepting them
has clearly illuminated the absurdity of
the Clinton policy toward missile
defense. As the Center observed on 31
January 1994:
“It is time to stop investing
— as the Clinton Administration is
intent on doing — exclusively in
defensive technologies like Patriot
(i.e., short-range, land-based
anti-missile systems) that require
either immense investment, improbable
prescience or an adversary’s de
facto permission to deploy where
they might be needed. The
United States should instead proceed
immediately to acquire a truly global
defense against missile attack.” (3)
Pyongyang’s bellicosity ought to be
all the warning Washington needs to
effect an urgent overhaul of its
shortsighted emphasis on short-range,
theater missile defenses. In any
event it is likely to be all the warning
America gets. A modest, albeit
sustained and high priority effort should
be launched at once to develop and field
space-based sensors and interceptors
coupled with sea-based radars and
anti-missile missiles that would,
reasonably quickly, give America the
alternative to Patriot it so obviously
needs: essentially global, permanently
available, real-time, all-weather
protection against ballistic missile
strikes.
The Larger Defense Crisis
The possibility of imminent
conflict with North Korean should also be
prompting an overhaul of the Clinton
Administration’s defense planning more
generally. As Dov Zakheim, a
former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
and distinguished member of the Center
for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors,
told the House Armed Services Committee
on 10 March 1994:
“[The Clinton
blue-print for future U.S. defenses,
the so-called ‘Bottom-up Review’] did
not fully address its own strategic
objectives [i.e., being able to fight
two major regional conflicts ‘nearly
simultaneously.’] It did not
account for the new demands of
missions that this Administration
holds dear, such as the peacekeeping
mission. It did not come to grips
with the real demands of meeting two
nearly simultaneous contingencies. It
did not even provide for force levels
that it had set forth as its own
required standard.“Finally, and most
ominously for the longer term, the
Bottom-Up Review’s recommended force
has been seriously underfunded.
Projected shortfalls in defense
spending are likely to lead to
further steep declines both in force
levels and in the material to support
them. At a minimum, therefore, the
Bottom-Up Review should be fully
funded. Better yet, it should be
enhanced, at least to the point where
our ability to fight even in two
‘nearly simultaneous’ contingencies
will be truly credible.”
The Bottom Line
President Clinton will bear a grave
responsibility if he finally begins to
take long-overdue steps needed to respond
to the North Korean nuclear threat without
adopting the necessary changes to
U.S. military capabilities, force
structures and resources that will
mitigate the risks of taking such steps.
It is unconscionable that an American
military commander in harm’s way on the
Korean peninsula has — like his
counterpart in Somalia last year — been
denied the capabilities he believes are
required to defend his troops and to
execute their assigned missions. This is,
however, the inevitable consequence of
the Clinton Administration’s abiding
determination to subordinate the safety
and effective employment of U.S. armed
forces to expedient political
considerations and endless
micromanagement.
No less unconscionable though is the
Administration’s failure to appreciate —
and take steps to rectify — the
dangerous shortfalls in American capacity
to thwart missile attacks and to project
power around the globe. It can only be
hoped that another devastating
war on the Korean peninsula will not be
required to secure the necessary
political attention to these problems and
the requisite policy and programmatic
course corrections.
– 30 –
1. See the Center
for Security Policy Decision Brief
entitled Christopher Reaps
the Whirlwind in East Asia: Kow-Towing to
Beijing, Appeasing Pyongyang, Bungling in
Tokyo (
2. See the
Center’s Decision Brief entitled
U.S. Reinforcement of South
Korea Must Not Stop With Patriots; Why Is
No Better Missile Defense Available?
(No. 94-D 09, 27
January 1994).
3. See the
Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Flash — Kim Il Sung Doesn’t
Approve of Patriots: Do We Need More to
Buy Global Missile Defenses? (
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