WHAT ‘REAGAN DEMOCRATS’ REALLY CARE ABOUT: SAFEGUARDING AMERICA’S INTERESTS IN A DANGEROUS WORLD

(Washington, D.C.): Amid mounting
evidence that Bill Clinton has made a
first-class hash-up of U.S. security
policy, his Republican challenger has yet
to capitalize on this evident
vulnerability. By so doing, Mr. Dole
risks repeating an error that contributed
to George Bush’s defeat four years ago.
Worse yet, he is denying the
Nation an urgently needed opportunity for
stock-taking and course-correction in
areas certain adversely to affect vital
national interests in the years — and
possibly even the weeks and months —
ahead.

It’s Not Just the Economy,
Stupid

In 1992, President Bush’s handlers
persuaded him that foreign and defense
policy were not politically potent
issues. Instead, Mr. Bush found himself
waging the campaign almost entirely on
his opponent’s terms — notably the
Clinton campaign’s contention that
“It’s the economy, stupid.” To
the extent that security policy questions
featured at all, Governor Clinton
shrewdly portrayed his positions as being
to the right of the Bush
Administration, notably with respect to
its “coddling” of dictators
from China to Iraq to Yugoslavia. Only
after the election did the insincerity of
those Clinton stances become apparent.

Today, Senator Dole is clearly trying
to stay “on message” with
respect to tax-cuts and the war on drugs.
In the process, however, he is not
adequately making the case that in an
increasingly dangerous world, he would be
a more competent guardian of U.S.
national interests — to say nothing of
Commander-in-Chief — than the incumbent.
As a result, the myriad problems
besetting American security policy are
going largely unremarked and the
alternative approaches that Mr. Dole
would adopt as President are not being
laid fully before the public.

Ticking Time Bombs

Consider three ticking time-bombs that
the Clinton Administration has put
squarely in the laps of the U.S. armed
forces but would prefer not to discuss
this fall:

• Iraq: The
  Clinton Administration’s inept
  handling of Saddam Hussein’s
  latest aggressive behavior
  invites more of the same — if
  not before the United
  States’ November election, then
  surely afterwards. The American
  people should be offered a clear
  alternative to the present policy
  of muddling along with symbolic,
  if expensive, U.S. responses to
  Iraqi actions that are
  symptomatic in nature and certainly
  not the cause of the problem
  there. Specifically, a strategy
  must be enunciated that would
  have as its aim the destruction
  of the police-state apparatus
  that keeps Saddam Hussein’s
  brutal dictatorship in power.
• Bosnia: This
  weekend’s elections in Bosnia
  were neither free nor fair. Their
  principal effect seems to have
  been to legitimate and empower
  three of the most xenophobic
  leaders of the Muslim, Serb and
  Croat factions. The unworkability
  of the co-presidency arrangement
  is giving rise to a not-so-secret
  Clinton plan to extend the U.S.
  troop deployment in Bosnia well
  beyond its promised end-point of
  1996.

In fact, such an outcome was
inevitable given the profound
defects of the Dayton Peace
Accord, notably its failure to
bring to justice those like
Serbian dictator Slobodan
Milosevic who were responsible
for initiating the conflict and
who profited most from its
genocidal “ethnic
cleansing.” President
Clinton needs to be held
accountable for the part he has
played in this tragedy and for
the costs that will be incurred
when, inevitably, those who have
gone unpunished and/or those who
seek revenge will cause the
region to explode in a renewed
spasm of violence.

• Haiti: The
  tenuous nature of the democracy
  installed in Haiti two years ago
  by thousands of American
  “peacekeepers” is
  evident in the fact that U.S.
  troops have now been returned to
  Port au Prince to serve as a
  Praetorian Guard for the recently
  elected president. While this
  action may have served
  temporarily to keep a lid on the
  festering Haitian crisis, it must
  not be confused with the creation
  of a viable and durable
  democracy. The American people
  deserve the truth about not only
  the billions that have been spent
  to postpone the day of reckoning
  in Haiti but what will be the
  U.S. response when it comes.

Meanwhile, the United States faces
emerging challenges from Russia to Iran,
from North Africa to North Korea, from
China to Cuba — challenges that may well
jeopardize important American equities.
Similarly, it refuses to reckon with the
need for effective, near-term
anti-missile defenses in light of the
global proliferation of ballistic
missile-borne weapons of mass
destruction. The Clinton
Administration has seriously
under-invested in the military resources
that may be required to meet these
potential problems, let alone deal
with them in addition to those that
are already in evidence.

The Clinton Response? Cut
Defense

In fact, Leon Panetta, the
White House Chief of Staff, is demanding
that Congress reduce the FY1997 Defense
appropriations bill by some $2.5 billion
if it is to enjoy Mr. Clinton’s support.
While it is not clear at the moment just
where the Administration would like the
legislative branch to make such cuts,
chances are that it will have to come out
of discretionary funding added by the
Congress to rectify identified shortfalls
in the Pentagon’s readiness, research and
development and procurement accounts. The
upshot will be to exacerbate present
deficiencies that affect the fighting
trim and morale of today’s forces and to
degrade the ability of tomorrow’s forces
to perform their missions safely and
effectively.

The Bottom Line

The Clinton Administration has set the
United States up for a series of falls
around the world. That reality is a
legitimate subject for debate and
national decision-making at the polls
this November. In order for it to be so,
however, the Republican nominee
will have to engage Mr. Clinton on these
subjects frontally, repeatedly and
forthwith. While Mr. Dole’s
call today for a national missile defense
capability and the critique of what
passes for a U.S. Iraq policy offered
last week by his running mate, Jack Kemp,
are welcome, they are no
substitute for making security policy a
major campaign focus. Not
least, Mr. Dole should be heard from on
the question of President Clinton’s
latest bid to reduce military spending
even as his Administration is busily
committing the U.S. armed forces to
various expensive and often dangerous
missions around the world.

As a non-partisan organization, the
Center for Security Policy believes that
it is imperative that security policy be
given the prominence in this election
cycle that it deserves. To the extent
that swing voters President Clinton has
identified as “Reagan
Democrats” continue to recognize
peace requires American strength, the
candidates’ respective records and
positions in this area may even prove to
be determinative of the outcome.

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