Clinton Lets Trade Trump Security, Again

(Washington, D.C.): The World Trade Organization meeting that opens tomorrow in Seattle
will
provide an unparalleled backdrop for demonstrations by those around the country worried about
the Clinton-Gore Administration’s proclivity to put trade above every other national interest.
Interestingly, there is one group whose equities have been perhaps even more seriously afflicted
by this practice than have those of the voluble labor union operatives, environmentalists, human
rights organizations, AIDS activists and opponents of world government — namely, the
national
security community.

Just how grievously America’s defense posture has suffered at the hands of the trade
uber alles
crowd has been obscured by other manifestations of the “hollowing out” to which the U.S.
military has been deliberately subjected over the past seven years. It is far easier to see, for
example, the devastating effects being wrought by the combination of: sustained
over-commitment of the armed forces’ personnel and assets on innumerable peacekeeping,
humanitarian and other assignments; inadequate force structure and recapitalization; and
plummeting morale.

Decimating the Nation’s ‘Qualitative Edge’

It could be argued, however, that even more serious damage has been done to our armed
forces’
“qualitative edge” — the decisive advantage in technology that has in the past permitted
numerically inferior American units to dominate the battlefield and accomplish their mission
with minimal casualties. That advantage has been compromised by Mr. Clinton’s single-minded
determination to curry favor with deep-pocketed U.S. exporters and/or foreign governments by
selling Communist China or other potential adversaries militarily relevant equipment and
manufacturing know-how. The latter include, for example: supercomputers, advanced machine
tools, fiber optic and other sophisticated telecommunications gear, jet engine hot sections, rocket
propulsion and guidance components, “stealth” technology, to name a few.

There is no indication that the Defense Department is properly addressing the prospective
costs
to the United States associated with these transactions. These can be huge. Consider the case
nearly two decades ago of the Soviet Union’s illegal acquisition of tools needed to produce very
quiet submarine propellers. For an expenditure of roughly $40 million, the Kremlin was able to
degrade dramatically the U.S. Navy’s acoustic anti-submarine warfare (ASW) techniques. At the
time, it was conservatively estimated that restoring the Nation’s previous advantage in ASW
would require an investment of over $1 billion. No one has proposed adding many times that
amount to the Pentagon’s budget to help preserve or restore America’s qualitative edge in the
wake of more recent — and Clinton-approved — technology transfers.

Worse yet, the ultimate costs of the Administration’s ill-advised dual-use exports will
probably
be measured in a currency we hold still more dear: the lives of American servicemen and
women.
This is especially true since the Administration has all-but-liquidated America’s mechanisms for
controlling overseas sales of such technologies. The House select committee chaired by
Rep.
Chris Cox (R-CA) underscored this point recently in connection with Chinese
technology theft,
diversion and above-board acquisition efforts — using words that could apply equally well to
other potential foes:

United States and international export control policies and practices have facilitated
the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to obtain militarily useful technology. Recent
changes in international domestic export control regimes have reduced the ability to
control transfers of [such] technology. The dissolution of the Coordinating Committee
on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) in 1994 left the United States without an
effective, multilateral means to control exports of militarily useful goods and
technology.

Interring D.T.S.A.

Unfortunately, the Clinton-Gore team has compounded its folly in dismantling COCOM by
waging war on the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA).
The fact that this
Pentagon agency played a pivotal role in winning the Cold War by impeding Soviet efforts to
acquire Western dual-use equipment and know-how apparently earned it the abiding enmity of a
number of Mr. Clinton’s political appointees. From the get-go, they have employed one
bureaucratic instrument after another to ravage DTSA — taking job actions against and otherwise
harassing some of the organization’s most savvy and effective analysts; cutting back on of
DTSA’s resources; and reducing its role and clout in interagency decision-making on
controversial export licenses. ¹

Not content with hamstringing DTSA in these ways, Deputy Secretary of Defense John
Hamre
further weakened the agency’s critical sense of mission — and its ability to carry it out — by
imbedding this export control unit into a newly created entity with the catch-all responsibility for
“threat reduction.” The effect has been to add layers of bureaucracy, compounding the
Administration’s already considerable impediments to having key licensing actions informed by
national security-minded expertise.

Now, Hamre wants to banish this unwieldy and incoherent Threat Reduction Agency to
“temporary” and other structures at Fort Belvoir, an Army base sufficiently removed from
Washington effectively to preclude DTSA experts’ participation in day-to-day deliberations
about technology transfers. The plan calls for completing this kiss-of-death “consolidation and
relocation” by August, just before next fall’s election, thus presenting a new President who may
take a more responsible view of export controls on strategic technologies with a fait accompli.

The Bottom Line

The United States cannot afford to wait for another, more responsible administration to come
to
town to begin correcting some of the damage done by the Clinton Administration’s misfeasance,
if not outright malfeasance, with respect to the export of strategic technologies. Unfortunately,
unlike efforts to correct the underfunding of the military or its over-utilization for non-combat
purposes, it may prove not just costly but exceedingly difficult fully to redress the military
repercussions of having allowed such technologies out of the proverbial barn.

We must nonetheless start at once with a wholesale reexamination of the premises and
repercussions of the Clinton approach to exporting dual-use equipment and know-how. At the
very least, the Defense Technology Security Administration must be rehabilitated and given once
again a real say in decisions about strategically sensitive licenses. This will require, among other
things, that DTSA remain a force to be reckoned with in Washington — not a spent force
consigned to the bureaucratic equivalent of Siberia.

¹See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Profile in Courage: Mike Maloof Speaks Truth to
Power about Clinton’s Dangerous Tech Transfers to China ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_192″>No. 98-D 192, 30 November
1998); Broadening the Lens: Peter Leitner’s Revelations on ’60 Minutes,’ Capitol
Hill Indict
Clinton Technology Insecurity (No. 98-D
101, 6 June 1998); and Profile In Courage: Peter
Leitner Blows The Whistle On Clinton’s Dangerous Export Decontrol Policies
(No. 97-P 82,
19 June 1997).