Excerpts of REMARKS BY FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. before THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

President Clinton’s just-completed trip to Bosnia
affords an excellent backdrop for today’s discussion of
peacekeeping and the respective powers of the executive
and legislative branch.

As I listened to Mr. Clinton calling the troops
“warriors for peace” and promising them medals
for participating in a “major non-combat
operation,” the leitmotif of his Administration’s
approach to the American military came into sharp focus: This
President is committed to mutating the U.S. armed forces
from first-class war-fighting machines and instruments of
national power-projection into something altogether
different — a sort of armed AmeriCorps. Its most
legitimate, if not principal, mission would be that of a
glorified constabulary, available to monitor Solomonic
peace agreements wherever they can be fashioned around
the world.

This sort of mutation fits the
“counterculture” mindset of the 1960s that
proved such a profound influence on the outlook of this
President and many in his Administration. Indeed, as the
President moved through carefully choreographed photo
opportunities among the troops he has dispatched to
“enforce” just such a deal for Bosnia, one
might have been forgiven for expecting him to start
placing flowers in the barrels of their M-16s!

Symptoms of the Clinton Agenda

If one believes — as contemporary critics of the
Vietnam War, like Mr. Clinton, are inclined to do — that
excessive American power makes the United States a menace
to world peace, then it follows that diminishing that
power will reduce the likelihood that future Vietnams
will occur. Defense budget cuts greatly reducing force
structure and deferring needed military modernization
programs represent an important ingredient in such a
stratagem. Other changes directed by what might be called
the “Counterculturalist-in-Chief” that are
affecting the character and use made of remaining
national security assets are also noteworthy.

These include:

• Adopting policy guidance — among other
  things, in the secret annexes of Presidential
  Decision Directive 25 — ascribing a clear
  priority to multilateral peacekeeping operations
  as a tool of American diplomacy…
• Establishing military service in peacekeeping
  operations as a prerequisite to career
  advancement…
• Giving priority to training for peacekeeping
  missions. This step reflects the reality that
  such missions require different skills and tools
  than those associated with the combat arms. In
  fact, such training comes at the expense of
  readiness for war-fighting.
• Diverting billions of dollars from Pentagon
  operations and maintenance accounts to underwrite
  peacekeeping and other “warriors for
  peace” missions. The military is, in
  theory at least, reimbursed for such expenditures
  by subsequent appropriations. In practice,
  however, the impact of these funding diversions
  is often to disrupt — or at least defer —
  traditional training and maintenance activities,
  thereby compounding the adverse impact of
  peacekeeping assignments on military proficiency
  and readiness…
• Asserting the President’s authority
  unilaterally to commit U.S. troops to
  peacekeeping operations, effectively relegating
  congressional action — if any — to an
  after-the-fact rubber-stamp activity. This
  was the practice in Haiti and Bosnia. Last week,
  Secretary of Defense Perry signaled that it would
  also be the case with respect to the Golan
  Heights in the event of an expected agreement
  between Syria and Israel.
• Making U.S. intelligence resources and assets
  available to users who may compromise their
  capabilities, or at least render them less
  available for vital national security functions.
  For example, the Clinton Administration has made
  something of a fetish of intelligence-sharing
  with the United Nations, an institution
  demonstrably incapable of protecting American
  intelligence sources and methods — and generally
  unwilling even to try…

Other Factors That Advance the
Counterculturalist Agenda

Passing mention is also due three other factors that
have served to date to advance the Clinton
Administration’s counterculture agenda — the respective
roles played by the military itself, by multilateral
institutions and by the Congress.

First, the mutation of critical national security
capabilities has been abetted by a U.S. military
leadership that is: politically attuned to the
proclivities of its civilian masters; insecure about its
mission and future after the end of the Cold War; and
traumatized by its perception of the lesson of Vietnam…

Second, in the event the Clinton Administration’s
unilateral steps fail to curb what its
counterculturalists perceive as the inherent malevolence
of the U.S. military, there is a further hedge:
Subordinate American activities to the United Nations or
other multilateral institutions. By insisting on
Security Council mandates for U.S. actions or placing
U.S. troops under the command of UN military and/or
political authorities, an ultimate check can be
instituted on the possible “abuse” of American
military power…

Third, the Congress may not have
liked the fait accompli it was handed on a U.S.
troop deployment in Bosnia. But it bears some
responsibility for that unhappy state of affairs.
After all, this was the predictable result of accepting
the Clinton Administration’s argument that it was
“premature” to discuss the idea of deploying
U.S. troops in a dangerous situation — until there was
an agreement providing for such a deployment. At that
point, of course, it is said to be too late to
oppose the idea. Unfortunately, the same ruse is being
used to parry congressional objections to another dubious
Clinton commitment — the deployment of American forces
on the Golan Heights…

What is to be Done?

The Clinton mutation of the U.S. military
makes it all the more urgent for Congress to establish
its opposition to this practice — and its various
manifestations. A place to start would be by establishing
that the President may not assume responsibilities for
international peacekeeping operations without prior
congressional authorization and appropriations.

The need for such legislation is clear given recent
experience with existing law. According to the UN
Participation Act (initially adopted in 1945 and amended
in 1949), Congress has pre-delegated only limited
authority to the President to enable U.S. participation
in peacekeeping operations. In its Section 7, the Act
imposes a world-wide cap of 1,000 troops and stipulates
that they are to be used exclusively as non-combattant
guards or observers in what the UN Charter defines as
Chapter 6 situations. These are circumstances where the
parties to a conflict have agreed to terminate it and
there is a peace to monitor.

In Chapter 7 situations — i.e., where no such
agreement exists and there is a threat to international
peace — the President is not delegated authority
to act unilaterally. According to the UN Participation
Act’s Section 6, in these circumstances the President is
supposed to make an agreement with the UN governing,
among other things, the use to which U.S. forces are to
be put. That agreement then must be statutorily approved
by Congress.

The case of Specialist Michael New, the Army medic
who challenged the legality of the order directing him to
don a UN uniform to serve in the UNPROFOR/UNPREDEP
mission in Macedonia, has shed important light on the
Clinton Administration’s response to the UN Participation
Act’s constraints: In a 9 July 1993 letter to the
Congress, Mr. Clinton described the Macedonia mission as
a “Chapter 6 operation” and invoked his
authority to deploy forces pursuant to Section 7 of the
UN Participation Act. In fact, the UN mandate under which
this operation — and the larger Bosnia Protection Force
mission of which it is a part — has repeatedly (and
correctly) been classified as a Chapter 7
operation. [If Congress were to] look into the actual
status of the peacekeeping operation in Macedonia…it
may help establish the correctness of Spec. New’s
contention that the order he refused to obey was, in
fact, an illegal one.

Conclusion

…The President must have the authority
and the latitude to deploy U.S. military forces overseas
in emergency situations. If need be, those forces must be
able to engage in combat to defend America’s vital
interests.

In other circumstances, however — where no such
emergency conditions apply and especially where it is
debatable that U.S. vital interests are in immediate
jeopardy — it seems to me essential that the President
obtain prior congressional authority before committing
American troops. Peacekeeping operations fall in this
category…

[Toward that end,] Congress [should] stipulate that the
President may not commit U.S. forces to deployments
overseas in non-emergency situations in the absence of a
specific appropriation to pay for such deployments …
Such an approach seems to me to be consistent with the
“power of the purse” vested by the Constitution
with the Congress. It would, however, clearly afford the
executive branch the latitude to take decisive military
action where circumstances demand it.

Of course, the institution of arrangements like these
would not, in and of themselves, correct other aspects of
the Clinton counterculture agenda regarding American
security policy and the tools with which it can be
executed. Such a step would, however, mark a dramatic
departure from the direction that agenda is currently
leading the United States. The mere act of debating
legislation along these lines, moreover, would help
illuminate the urgent need for corrective action on the
broader Clinton agenda.