Steve Andreasen: Remarks on American Power and Our World Today

11/09/2005

Freeman Center for International Economic Policy - Workshop on Global Policy
Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota

November 8, 2005

I want to thank Bob Kudrle for that kind introduction.  Bob was one of the people at the Humphrey Institute who propelled me in the direction of public service.  It was 20 years ago this fall that we got on an elevator together in the Social Sciences building and he encouraged me to apply for the Presidential Management Fellows program.  That opened up a number of doors for me, in Washington and Minnesota.

So I’m grateful and pleased to be back at the University of Minnesota, and to have been invited by Dean Atwood to make a small contribution to the Humphrey Institute the past two years.  And it’s good to see so many of my students here.

I’ve given this short talk on American Power and Our World Today four times since the summer of 2004.  Looking back over the past 18 months, there has been a lot of water that has passed under the bridge.

We’ve had an election in the United States, and determined the leadership of our country – through January 2009 in the White House, and January 2007 in Congress.

We’ve also had elections in Iraq - in January and October - resulting in a new Iraqi constitution being adopted in the middle of a large- scale insurgency.

The 9-11 Commission presented its report to the American people over a year ago.  And as a result, Congress passed the first significant reform of the U.S. intelligence community in over 50 years, creating a new -National Intelligence Director - a job that has now been filled by John Negroponte.

This past March, we had another Commission issue a report on the failure of the U.S. intelligence community prior to the war in Iraq to accurately assess Iraq’s capability to produce weapons of mass destruction - that is, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. That Commission also warned that our Intelligence Community might be doing no better in the case of Iran and North Korea, the two nations President Bush labeled along with Iraq as being part of an “Axis of Evil” almost four years ago.

We’ve had a series of revelations regarding the abuse of Afghan and Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody, and a series of internal investigations by the military into these matters.

On top of all of this, we are still engaged in a war, or depending on your point of view, at least two wars - that is, the ongoing war in Iraq, and the war on terror and the al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden.

That’s only a short list of the highlights this past year.  But before we get in to a discussion of “Our World Today,” I wanted to briefly touch on the major sources of American power - that is, our military, our economy and our culture.  Because it is “power” - that is, the ability or capacity to act or influence events - that underpins our national security policy.

The United States

Today, the United States is in a position of unprecedented power, no matter how power is measured.  And that should remain true for at least the next decade.

Military

Let me begin with our military.  Today, the U.S. armed forces are far superior to any military, or for that matter, any combination of military forces, on the globe.  We are capable of fighting anywhere, and in a strictly military sense, we are capable of prevailing on the battlefield anywhere.

We saw that most recently in Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks, where U.S. and local Afghan forces drove the Taliban from power in three months.  And we saw that in 2003 in Iraq, where the U.S. military toppled a regime that had been in power for 30 years in 30 days.

There are a number of reasons why we are so dominant militarily. First, we have the resources.  We easily spend more on defense - over 400 billion dollars per year - than the next 10 countries combined.

Second, we have integrated technology and the battlefield better than any other country.  For example, we use satellites and computers to provide U.S. forces with intelligence in real time - as it’s happening.  What this means is we can give individual soldiers and units the most accurate picture in history of any battlefield while the fighting is taking place, which gives our military a huge advantage.

Third, we have an incredibly well trained, and well motivated, force - with tremendous young men and women.

Finally, the only other country or competitor the U.S. has had in the last fifty years with the ability to project military power on a global scale - the Soviet Union - collapsed almost 15 years ago. Russia today is not able to project conventional military power outside of its borders; and in fact, it’s having a hard time maintaining control within its borders - specifically, in Chechnya.

Beyond Russia, China, militarily, remains largely a regional power. And while China may yet develop a military capability that could rival that of the United States, it is decades away from achieving that.

Now, I don’t mean to say that we don’t face military threats.  For example, while China is not able to project military power globally, the Chinese are increasingly capable of projecting power across the Taiwan straits.  Last March, China made clear - through the passage of national legislation - that it would act militarily in Taiwan should that island move towards independence.

Also in Asia, North Korea has a very capable military force - armed with thousands of artillery, ballistic missiles, and possibly nuclear weapons - that directly threatens our forces in South Korea and Japan.

In Iraq today, you are seeing that a very “low-tech” adversary - armed with roadside bombs and using suicide bombers - can inflict serious casualties on our forces.

Finally, we should all be alarmed by the evolution of the terrorist threat - from the Al Qaeda organization centered in Afghanistan prior to the September 11th attacks to what is today a “new” organization, one that relies on local, self-starting recruits to conduct terrorist strikes.

In addition to these threats, there is also reason to be concerned about the state of our military today, and what it might mean for our military power in the future.

The war in Iraq has put the U.S. military - both active and reserve components - under great strain.  Much of the U.S. Army is committed to Iraq, leaving us with little “margin for error” in other parts of the globe.  Our National Guard and Reserve forces are serving extended tours of active duty.  And for the first time in years, our military has been struggling to achieve its recruitment goals. Finally, there is reason to question whether today’s level of military spending is sustainable over the next decade, given our unwillingness to cut domestic programs or raise taxes.

But these concerns, and the threats we face, don’t change the fact that the U.S. today is the worlds’ only military superpower.  We know that.  The rest of the world knows that.  And that is a major element of our power.

Economic power

Our military is not the only source of U.S. power.  Our economy remains enormous in size, diversity and importance - the definition of a “colossus” - and that is also a major source of our power.

Now that’s not to say that our own economic strength isn’t tied to what’s happening overseas.  And - just as there is reason to be concerned over the vitality of U.S. military power - there is also reason to be concerned about America’s economic strength

First, our economy remains dependent on energy imports, primarily from the Middle East.  We are seeing that today, with oil prices just under $60 per barrel - up 50 percent just this year - and gas prices between $2 and $3 per gallon, depending on where you live.

Second, today we are running huge budget deficits in the United States.  This is a dramatic change from where we were just five years ago, when we had a projected budget surplus of over $5.6 trillion dollars.  These deficits are funded not exclusively but sizably by the willingness of foreign countries to subsidize U.S. debt.  That means our economy today is tied more closely to decisions taken by central bankers in China than it has ever been before, because China today is the largest foreign financer of U.S. debt.

And third, our ability to trade openly with Europe, Japan, China, and the rest of the world is essential for the American economy to prosper.  Here to, the consensus, and prospects, for open trade appears increasingly fragile.  This is most evident in the current difficulties surrounding the World Trade Organization Talks - the “Doha Round” - and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, which stalled out under a fierce assault by opponents this past week during the Summit of the Americas in Argentina.

So:  if energy prices continue to rise - and we should expect home heating costs this winter to be uncomfortably high for many Americans - or if the U.S. continues to run a huge budget deficit, or if trade barriers increase, the U.S. economy could at least stall, if not contract.  And in each of these areas, there is cause for concern.

That said:  the sheer size and diversity of the American economy, along with our ability to innovate, means we should remain the dominant economic power on the globe for some time to come, just as we are the dominant military power.

Culture and ideals

Finally, the third element of U.S. power I want to briefly mention today is that which President Bush spoke of during his second inaugural speech in January, that is, the power of our culture and the power of our ideals.

What our country has historically stood for over the past two hundred plus years - democracy, freedom, liberty, and human rights - has a powerful appeal, perhaps not everywhere, but almost everywhere. Those ideals really do make a difference.  We have seen that recently in the Ukraine, and also, in the Middle East, in Iraq and Lebanon.

It’s also fair to say that anything that undercuts those ideals dramatically undercuts U.S. power.  The most glaring example today is U.S. policy and practice regarding the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

Under the guise of “taking the gloves off” to fight the war on terror, our Executive Branch has:

· Determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply as a matter of law to detainees taken prisoner in Afghanistan;

· Authored a legal memorandum stating that “only acts of an extreme nature” i.e., “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death” would constitute criminal violations under domestic and international law; and

· Most recently, objected to an amendment offered by Senator John McCain that would reinforce the existing ban on “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners contained in the international Convention Against Torture.  The Vice President has reportedly sought to negotiate a change to the McCain amendment that would allow for such abusive treatment by CIA employees operating overseas.

Over 200 years ago, the drafters of our Constitution understood that the abusive treatment of any U.S. citizen by the government would inevitably lead to a broader policy and system of abuse by the State.  Hence, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans “cruel and unusual punishments.” Today, our government seems to have concluded the opposite:  that guidelines can be drawn that would permit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of non-U.S. citizens held in foreign lands, either in U.S. custody, or the custody of others.

At a minimum, that is a double standard that – objectively – has cost us dearly in the eyes of world public opinion.  One suspects that portraits of President Kennedy that used to hang in admiration in houses and huts around the globe are being replaced by the infamous photograph of the hooded detainee from Abu Ghraib.

Moreover, these decisions by the Executive Branch have almost certainly sent a permissive and corrosive message to our troops and civilians in the field – fertile ground for the documented cases of abuse that we have already seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The strongest voices against the Administration’s policies are coming from active and retired military and intelligence officers, who know first hand the limits and costs of a policy that permits the abuse of detainees.  They agree with Senator McCain when he says:  this is not about who “they” are; it’s about who “we” are.

To be clear, my own view is that we can’t move fast enough to publicly and decisively repudiate the Administration’s policy and return to the standards set forth in the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture.

But I also want to make clear my view that, despite this diplomatic and moral setback, the United States still remains a consistent – in fact, the most consistent – proponent of freedom and democracy.  That element of U.S. power was essential in winning the Cold War.  And it remains essential today.

Power, influence and resentment

So:  if the United States is such a powerful country - militarily, economically, and culturally - why isn’t everything going our way today?  Why is it that we continue to have problems securing Iraq, or that we can’t get more help from other countries to secure and rebuild that country?  Or why is it that surveys done in countries overseas continue to show that America is viewed unfavorably in many, if not most countries, even our historical allies?

It’s a fair observation that, while our power is at its peak, our influence in many ways seems to be eroding.  One reason is that our power naturally generates suspicion, even resentment.  That would be true no matter what our policies were.

A second reason is that we have acted unilaterally in Iraq - without the support of the United Nations, or many of our close allies.

A third reason is that - in general - we are seen as not doing enough in areas where other countries have concerns.  For example. after leading negotiations to conclude a global ban on nuclear testing - an agreement first proposed by President Eisenhower and advocated by the man this room is named after, Harold Stassen - our Senate in 1999 failed to approve the Treaty.  And the Bush Administration continues to oppose ratification.

We rejected a global agreement to control pollutants that could lead to global climate change, and refuse to endorse the establishment of an International Criminal Court that would bring war criminals to justice.

But perhaps more broadly, as President Clinton has said, more than fifty percent of the World’s population gets by on less than two dollars a day, or less than the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  And the U.S. is not seen as doing all it can to change this destructive reality.

Iraq

Now, with what I’ve just said about “American Power” as a backdrop, I want to talk briefly about three specific national security challenges that face us today - Iraq, the War on Terror, and the spread of nuclear weapons.

Let’s begin with Iraq.  The Administration continues to assert, in effect, that now that we are in Iraq, we need to stay and - in President Bush’s words - “complete the mission.”

But I think for many Americans, those three words raise at least three questions:  one, what does it mean to “complete the mission” in Iraq?  Two, how long will it take?  And three, how much will it cost?

With respect to the question “what does it mean to complete the mission?” Assuming a “relatively” secure, stable, and democratic, Iraq remains our objective; it is fair to at least hope that the elections in October and the approval of the new Iraqi constitution have moved the process forward.  But:  there are still a number of extremely problematic things that must happen in Iraq in order for a durable “political” solution to take root.

First, the Sunnis must participate in December elections.  Second, they must win enough seats to be able to effect changes in the constitution that has just been adopted.  And third, the Shiites and the Kurds must accept these changes.  Otherwise, the constitution that was adopted in October may deepen, as opposed to alleviate, civil conflict in Iraq.

The probabilities in each case are far from certain; and, as I remember from my quantitative analysis course at the Humphrey Institute, multiplying probabilities in succession leads to diminishing odds of a favorable outcome.

Perhaps more to the point:  it is still very possible that the three major groups in Iraq - the Shiites, the Kurds and the Sunnis - are simply biding their time and using the relative security provided by the United States to plan and arm for a civil war once the U.S. leaves Iraq.

The fact is all three groups may be doing both - proceeding to try to work out their differences politically, while planning for the possibility of open hostilities.  We simply don’t know.

With respect to the question “how long will it take?” The answer again appears to be, “we simply don’t know,” even if the political parties in Iraq have the best of intentions.

The President said in June “We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed and not a day longer.” But the commander of U.S. forces in the region said around that time that the insurgency in Iraq is as strong as it was six months ago, with more foreign fighters joining the fray every day.

And despite Vice President Cheney’s statement on Memorial Day that the Iraqi insurgency is in its “last throes,” there are no firm plans to begin withdrawing U.S. forces, which still number over 130,000 troops deployed in Iraq.

Two months ago, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq indicated that significant U.S. troop reductions might be made next year, assuming progress on both the security and political side of the ledger in Iraq; but the President has not endorsed that position.

So the best that can be said is that the finish line in Iraq does not appear to be well defined, or even in sight.

With respect to the question, “how much will it cost?” We know that the Administration’s latest request for funds will put the cost of the war at $300 billion dollars, and counting, since hostilities began in March of 2003, almost three years ago.

To give you a comparison:  we spent between 500-600 billion dollars in Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 - that is, during the eight years when hostilities were the most intense.

And of course, even more compelling then the dollar cost is the human cost, where we have over 2,000 American dead, and over 15,000 wounded, as well as significant numbers of Iraqi civilian dead and wounded.

Last year, President Bush’s national security advisor - now Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice - gave a speech where she talked about a “generational commitment” to Iraq, along the lines of the commitments this country made to rebuild postwar Germany and Japan.

I have no doubt that the President is committed to seeing this through - he has said over and over that abandoning Iraq will not happen on his watch.  But what concerns me is that the costs of staying in Iraq - and the costs of leaving Iraq - both seem to be growing exponentially.  And as the costs of the war become more transparent, the American public - a majority of whom now believes the war in Iraq was a mistake - may increasingly question whether we can achieve our objective at an acceptable price.

The War on Terror

The second national security challenge I want to touch on today is the broader “war on terror” - specifically, the war against Al Qaeda - the group that struck us on September 11th.

Dan Benjamin and Steve Simon - two experts on the issue of terrorism who I served with on the National Security Council staff - begin their new book, “The Next Attack,” with these three words:  “We are losing.” They go on to state that four years and two wars after the September 11 attacks, “ America is heading for a repeat of the events of that day, or perhaps something worse.”

We all need to understand that Al Qaeda is still out there; they have not been defeated; and they are still determined to strike at America and its allies, wherever they can.

Moreover, as Benjamin and Simon make clear, more Muslims are sympathizing with the radical Islamists and joining their movement - inspired by bin Laden and the war in Iraq.

As we learned last summer in London - radical Islam is a global phenomenon, and the battlefield is anywhere the terrorists can inflict casualties on the United States and its allies.  As a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, that battlefield now includes Iraq; but it also includes the U.S.  We have not seen the last of Al Qaeda, and I fully expect they will try again to strike us here, in the United States.

Just last March, the Commission on threats from weapons of mass destruction pointed out how vulnerable we were to the threat of attack from biological weapons.  In fact, they said that the U.S. was simply “lucky” to have avoided such an attack.

We can’t go on depending on luck to defend the American people against the next attack.

We are still in a race against time to strengthen our defenses at home - airports, seaports, our borders with Canada and Mexico.  We need to do more, and spend more, to defend chemical plants, oil refineries, and nuclear power plants across the United States.  And we also need to do more to make our transportation infrastructure - subways, trains and buses - harder for terrorists to strike.

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons

The third national security challenge I want to touch briefly on is the threat of nuclear proliferation.  This is the issue that both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed during the campaign was the greatest threat facing our nation today.

There are three dimensions to the nuclear problem.  First, more countries have nuclear weapons today than at any time in our planet’s history; and there are many more countries that could move to develop nuclear arms in a very short period of time.

The two nations we are the most concerned about are North Korea and Iran.  Earlier this year, North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons.  While we don’t know a lot about North Korea’s nuclear program, we do know they did produce a small amount of plutonium - perhaps enough to make a weapon or two - over a decade ago.  And we know they recently kicked out international inspectors that were in North Korea to ensure they would not produce more plutonium.  So we have every reason to be concerned that North Korea is telling the truth when they say they are a nuclear power.

The second country we are concerned about is Iran, which has now admitted to having a secret program to produce enriched uranium. Iran claims this is for the development of a nuclear power industry. The U.S. and many other countries believe it is for a nuclear weapons program.

In the case of North Korea, there is some good news:  the North Koreans have returned to “six party” talks involving the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.  Last September, all six parties signed up to a Joint Statement that possibly sketches a path forward to resolving this issue.  And the next round of talks is expected to begin on November 9.  Also, the U.S. is now engaging North Korea “1 on 1,” something the Bush Administration had refused to do for over two years.

That said, we still appear to be a long ways from reaching an agreement with North Korea on how to end their nuclear weapons program - there are still significant differences over how to implement the commitments contained in the Joint Statement.

And we may be in even deeper difficulties with Iran.  In August, Iran rejected a European proposal to resolve the impasse over Iran’s program to produce enriched uranium.  Iran then took the provocative step of restarting their uranium enrichment program, which they had previously agreed to “freeze” during talks with the Europeans.  That triggered a new resolution from the International Atomic Energy Agency, stating Iran was in violation of its nuclear safeguards agreement and setting Iran up for referral to the Security Council at a later date.

It is possible that the threat of referral to the Security Council - combined with a significant collapse in the Iranian stock market in September - explains why Iran is now requesting the resumption of negotiations with the Europeans.  Even so, both Iran and North Korea are proving to be very tough nuts to crack.

The second dimension to the nuclear problem is that more groups have access to the knowledge and, most importantly, materials needed to build these weapons, even without the help of a nation state.

The phenomenon of “globalization” - that is, the ease of trade, travel, and exchanges of information over the Internet - have increased the risks that a terrorist group can design and build a nuclear bomb.  And there are huge stocks of poorly secured nuclear weapons and bomb-making material - highly enriched uranium and plutonium - around the globe, vulnerable to sale or theft.

Finally, we still have a huge overhang of nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War, and we have been too slow to deal with that.

The U.S. and Russia still have hundreds of ballistic missiles armed with thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at each other, even though we are now “partners” with Russia.  Many of these weapons can be launched within minutes and hit their targets in less than a half an hour.  And there remains the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch of a nuclear ballistic missile, which could kill millions.

We should be taking advantage of the opportunity we have - now that the Cold War is history - to first secure, and then get rid of, as many of these weapons as we can.

One of the groups I work with in Washington - called the Nuclear Threat Initiative, headed by former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia - is focused on this problem; but the government should be doing more. Senator Nunn has been asking the question, in the wake of a nuclear catastrophe, what would we wish we had done to prevent it, and why aren’t we doing it now?  We need to speed up our own efforts to make sure terrorists don’t get these weapons – because there is no doubt they would use them.

Cooperation, at Home and Abroad

So that’s at least part of the picture our President, Congress and our country face as we wade in to the second year of President Bush’s second term.

On top of that, there are the truly “unknowns.” President Truman, for example, never thought he would fight a war in Korea.  Presidents Kennedy and Johnson certainly didn’t expect to have over 500,000 men in Vietnam at the end of the decade when they took office.  And the first President Bush did not expect to see the collapse of the Soviet Union during his presidency.  So we should also expect surprises.

Finally, the last point I want to make:  one thing we know for sure is that it will take more than just American power to successfully deal with these threats - whether known, or unknown.  We will need cooperation - cooperation that extends beyond political and national boundaries.

Here too, there is reason to be concerned.  At home, the President’s poll numbers are at an historic low.  Simply put, the President has a “credibility” problem, fueled by the fact that the primary reason the Administration gave for taking the nation to war - weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - was not valid.

And for that same reason, our credibility overseas has also suffered.  When President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Paris to brief President de Gaulle at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he brought photographs of the Soviet missile emplacements taken by U-2 spy planes.  De Gaulle told Acheson he didn’t need to see the photos, because Kennedy would not have provided him with bad information.  It’s hard to imagine that happening today.

The President’s credibility is something only he can address.  An occasional explanation - or even apology - combined with a genuine willingness to consider alternative points of view would be a good start.  And there are Democrats who would respond positively to a President who reached across the aisle, in particular, on national security.  Because the simple fact is, we can’t afford to go 39 months with a President who cannot function.  A Presidency gripped by paralysis, perhaps more than anything else, undercuts our nation’s power and exacerbates the threats that we face.

In the spring semester, I teach a seminar in “Crisis Management in Foreign Affairs.” This past year, we studied the Cuban Missile Crisis, the War in Vietnam, and the Iran Hostage Crisis.  One of the striking things to me is that only a handful of students in my class of thirty had any contemporary memories of these crises.  Most of them had only read about Cuba and Vietnam and were born after the Iran Crisis was over.  Many of them were still in elementary school when the Cold War ended in 1991.

I think it’s safe to say that many of us here today - including me - remember what it looks like when world leaders cooperate against common threats.  That’s the approach both Democratic and Republican Administrations took with our allies to win the Cold War.  And it’s exactly that kind of international teamwork that is needed now to win in Iraq, prevail in the war on terror, stop North Korea and Iran from becoming nuclear powers, and ensure that terrorists cannot get their hands on a nuclear bomb.

In short:  we must be as focused on fighting the new threats we face in this century as we were in fighting the Cold War in the last century.  And with that, I want to thank you again for inviting me here today, and I’ll take your questions.