REMARKS BY FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. before THE CATO INSTITUTE

‘THE GATHERING STORM’ REDUX

The topic I have been asked to address today is a pertinent one: "Are we entering a new Cold War era?" My answer, in short, is that we should be so lucky.

The regrettable truth about the current moment in international affairs is that we are unlikely to experience anytime soon the sort of stability — albeit an armed and, to varying degrees, dangerous one — that characterized the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union. For reasons I will discuss shortly, I anticipate increasing difficulties from Moscow, some of which may be reminiscent of the challenges the Kremlin posed to the West during the period Churchill dubbed the "Twilight Struggle."

Still, the troubling developments in the former USSR are but one heavy weather system building up in what might be called, to borrow another Churchillism, our generation’s "Gathering Storm."

Indeed, I fear that we live today in a period fully as portentous as that prior to the Second World War. Unfortunately, too many in this country — as in the time of Churchill’s "Gathering Storm" — misperceive the present period of relative quiescence in international affairs as a permanent state of affairs, one in which the United States can safely and dramatically reduce its military might and overseas presence. Of late, this misperception has been translated into U.S. policies that entrust the safeguarding of the Nation’s world-wide interests to economic power, diplomatic machinations or the good will of others. While proponents of such policies at CATO may recoil from the term "New World Order" — the notion has taken hold among both the American elite and the general public that the bipolar status quo ante has been replaced by a new and durable arrangement in which serious threats to the United States are unlikely if not inconceivable.

In fact, I would argue, what we are experiencing is the lull before the storm: A period of world history that is marked by highly dynamic and violent forces whose interrelationship and repercussions can only be guessed at this juncture. If we have the wit to recognize them for what they are (as Churchill did in his day) and act appropriately (as the Western powers declined to do in the late 1930s), we may still be able to influence the course of this storm and mitigate somewhat its impact on us and our vital interests around the world.

At the risk of overdoing the Churchillian metaphor, I would like to serve as your meteorologist — the Willard Scott, if you will — describing several weather patterns (high pressure areas, Siberian Express cold fronts, Pacific tidal waves, blinding desert sand squalls) that are contributing to our own "Gathering Storm."

Let me specifically address myself to five "weather patterns" that bear considerable watching: Russia, China, Korea and Iran. I will say a few words about each — and then try to give you a sense of how these atmospheric conditions are likely to interact with one another in the days ahead.

Russia

First, as any Canadian can tell you, Russia — not our neighbor to the North — is responsible for arctic cold fronts. In any event, it is certainly true that Russia is likely to prove to be — to paraphrase good old Saddam Hussein — the mother of all geopolitical weather systems for the foreseeable future.

Among the storm clouds on the Russian horizon are the following:

• The emergence of an informal red-brown coalition of Communists and nationalists whose policies — both domestic and foreign — are inimical to U.S. and Western interests. The December elections for the Duma are likely to increase the influence of these factions. And the subsequent June presidential elections, if they are held, may give them the powerful presidency, as well.

 

• An ongoing strategic force modernization program involving advanced land- and sea- based missiles and new launch platforms. In addition, there are continued deep tunneling for hardened wartime command-and-control of Russia’s strategic forces and periodic exercises of those forces in simulated attacks against the United States. Such Kremlin initiatives, coupled with its retention of at least 9,000 strategic and 18,000 theater nuclear weapons — unfortunately under ever more uncertain control — bespeak a persistent desire to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

 

• No less disturbing is the fact that Moscow reportedly is conducting its intelligence collection activities against the United States at unprecedented levels of intensity. The renamed KGB is also closely collaborating with the mafia organizations inside Russia, in Eastern Europe and, almost certainly, in the United States, as well. It is also training the security services of client states like Iran, in the process, likely sharing intelligence information about Iran foolishly shared with the Kremlin by the Clinton Administration.

 

• The Kremlin is also flexing its muscles throughout the former Soviet Union, seeking through intimidation, assassinations, covertly promoted "civil wars" and full-fledged combat operations, to resubordinate the "near abroad" and discourage independent policies on the part of former Warsaw Pact states. Such efforts appear to be paying dividends, not least with respect to the strategically sensitive issue of controlling the Caspian Sea’s immense oil reserves.

 

• Toward this end, Russia has also been violating its international arms control obligations, including — but not limited to — the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the INF Treaty, the START I Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and various chemical weapons conventions.

 

• By design and/or without authorization, the Russian military-industrial complex is greatly contributing to the proliferation of advanced weaponry, including weapons of mass destruction. Some of the beneficiaries of Russian military technology are the most dangerous nations on earth including: China, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria.

 

• Moscow’s policies towards Bosnia and the eastward enlargement of NATO are indicative of the sorts of serious conflicts of interests to be increasingly expected in the future.

I am often reminded when compiling a bill of particulars like this one of the statements that have frequently been made to the effect that the U.S. would have years of warning if Russia were ever to revert to form and pose a Cold War-style threat. To be sure, the present condition and physical disposition of much of the Russian military bears little resemblance to that of the Soviet era. Still, the relevant question is whether what we see today approximates the sorts of indicators that one would expect to see during the first year or two of "warning" the West supposedly would have?.

China

Unfortunately, a similar litany could be offered for China. Beijing’s booming economy and vast trade surplus are making possible an immense military build-up. The People’s Liberation Army is clearly exploiting the leadership crisis to secure funds for a major modernization program. China is also engaged in aggressive muscle-flexing in the Spratleys, bellicosity towards Taiwan and intimidation of Hong Kong.

No less troubling is the role China is playing in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. Advanced Western technology — some of it acquired through a massive Chinese espionage effort in the U.S., some of it willingly sold to the PRC by a Clinton Administration indifferent to the security threats posed by such transfers — are not only facilitating China’s efforts to emerge as the world’s next superpower. They are also proving to be hard currency-earning opportunities with nuclear wannabes like Iran and North Korea.

For all these reasons, China represents a significant emerging threat to U.S. interests in East Asia and, in due course, elsewhere.

Korea

The Clinton Administration’s decision to reward North Korea for having "gone nuclear" by cobbling together a $4+ billion investment in Pyongyang’s nuclear reactor program has already begun to have very undesirable repercussions. First, it has emboldened the North Koreans to believe that they can continue to extort more and more concessions — diplomatic, political and financial — from the United States. And second, it has given the Russians and Chinese a perfect excuse to proceed with their respective nuclear "cooperation" programs with Iran.

I anticipate that this initiative will have at least two other adverse repercussions:

• It will compel Japan, South Korea and perhaps others in the region to "go nuclear" — setting off a regional arms race that will exacerbate instability in this strategic part of the world already heightened by the perceived collapse of U.S. power and military engagement in the Asian Pacific. Against this backdrop, current trade conflicts with Japan could be simply the beginning of a rapid and portentous transformation of the U.S.-Japanese relationship from one of strategic partners to adversaries.

 

• And North Korea’s success will also assure that pariah nations in the Middle East and elsewhere will have an option for one-stop-shopping for nuclear weapons technology — as well as for the long-range delivery systems for them that nations like Iran, Syria and Libya are already buying from Pyongyang.

Iran

Of these nations, the most worrisome is clearly Iran. Iran is engaged simultaneously in a massive offensive military build-up — including Backfire bombers, advanced fighter aircraft and tanks, and diesel submarines from Russia as well as modern ballistic missiles from North Korea — at the same time that its holy war or "jihad" against the West in general and its outpost in the Middle East, Israel, in particular.

The principal features of this "jihad" are:

• Support for international terrorism from the Persian Gulf to Manhattan.

 

• It is aggressively seeking the violent overthrow of Egypt’s political leadership and the installation of radical Islamic regimes throughout the Middle East (e.g., Sudan and Algeria).

 

• More troublesome still, with the world market awash with cheap oil, Iran’s economy is afflicted with rampant inflation, a devalued dinar, enormous international indebtedness, payment arrearages and galloping demographic growth.

The parlous economic condition of a dangerous nation that sits astride the strategically vital oil lifeline of the Persian Gulf is eerily reminiscent of that of Iraq in the summer of 1990. Indeed, some members of the U.S. security community are concerned enough about these parallels to issue warnings that Iran — like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before it — may seek to find in renewed militarism relief from economic and financial disaster.

My guess is that the West is going to face a confrontation with Iran in the near- to medium-term, a probability that can only be increased as Iran succeeds in accruing a substantial arsenal of weaponry of mass destruction and the means to deliver them throughout the Middle East, and perhaps beyond.

Conclusion

As with dangerous weather patterns in nature, the United States may not be able to prevent these strategic developments from converging in a new, "gathering storm." Still, there are clearly things that the United States can — and should — do, if not to dissipate these storm clouds, than at least to protect its interests against their destructive potential.

The following are hardly all inclusive but illustrative of those steps:

• Stop the free fall in U.S. military readiness and power projection capability. It is not enough "not to cut any further"; under present and prospective circumstances, increased spending is going to be required in defense for some time to come. In particular, it is recklessly irresponsible not to be building on an urgent basis a global defense against missile attack.

 

• If American military power is to be used, use it strategically — don’t squander it on tactical excursions — Somalia war-lord hunts; Haitian dock exercise, Bosnia gun emplacements around Sarajevo.

 

• Improve U.S. intelligence capabilities, especially in the human intelligence arena.

 

• Stop the insane export of sophisticated dual-use technologies that are going to fuel the raging fires of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other threats (notably to China and Russia).

 

• Refrain from mindless multilateralism: U.S. leadership is going to be required, not passivity and buck-passing.

 

• Reinforce deterrence, don’t undermine it, by making empty threats. And,

 

• Stop encouraging the weakening of actual or potential allies — e.g., Israel and the West Bank, Golan; Ukraine and nuclear weapons; leaving Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary out of NATO.

Such steps are made all the more necessary by virtue of the fact that unlike the capabilities the United States could rely upon to fight the Cold War, many of the institutions and resources that constituted those capabilities have since been dismantled or mortally weakened (e.g., NATO, COCOM, RFE/RL, the DOE nuclear weapons complex, the SDI program, etc.) As a result, if today’s "gathering storm" proves to be as dangerous as the Cold War, if not more so, the U.S. will be even more vulnerable than in the past.