In recent days, from the blogosphere to Starbuck’s Coffee, discussions are abuzz all across America over president-elect Barack Obama’s national security team and what policies he should pursue regarding our foreign policies and defense structure.  The new Administration would do well to hearken to the example set by the late President Ronald Reagan who believed that it takes a strong America to build a peace that lasts.  This doctrine of “peace through strength” gives America a powerful deterrent against aggressive enemies that would seek to strike first, and it also gives the President the added value bringing to any diplomatic negotiating table the fact that America has the power to back up its interests. One of the core, fundamental functions of government is to ensure the defense and safety of its people. There are several areas which I believe are the pillars of a peace through strength doctrine that we must work and improve upon if we wish to build a peace that lasts.

TRANSITION THE ARMY AWAY FROM COUNTER INSURGENCY WARFARE AND “LOW INTENSITY” CONFLICTS

Sun Tzu’s Art of War dictates that “the best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities.” America’s military needs to get out of the “hot spot” mentality in which we fight against enemies that hide among civilian populations and wage asymmetric warfare such as what we are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We do not want our troops to be permanently engaged in the business of knocking down doors, clearing out caves, or chasing after insurgents.  Our focus should be on developing a military so strong and alliances with nations so comprehensive that it allows us the ability to place considerable diplomatic pressure on nations to change without actually resorting to force, and allowing our intelligence agencies to have the sufficient resources and networks to subvert our enemies without the use of bringing the regular army’s boots on the ground in.  Rather than destroying our enemies with our lives, we need to employ the use of tactics that destroy the enemy using the enemy’s own resources and personnel.

Furthermore, the Obama Administration needs to adopt policies very similar to the so-called “Powell Doctrine” which was developed to govern the use of our military forces, including questions to pre-empt potential deployment, such as:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
3. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
4. Do we have a clear and attainable objective?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

KEEP THE CONVENTIONAL FORCE MODERN AND IN GOOD WORKING CONDITION

Contrary to what one might glean from watching the latest action movie, the US conventional arsenal is quickly aging and is in need of modernization and replacement.  Taking our Air Force as an example, the breakdown rate of USAF aircraft has increased by 17% since September 11, 2001.  Those of you who have been following the news may recall that in recent days we’ve seen some of our most advanced aircraft crash, including the B-2 bomber at Anderson AFB, Guam and more recently, the Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-15 which crashed into the ocean not far from Diamond Head.  It is projected that the average USAF aircraft has been flying for 24 years, meaning that stress is beginning to take its toll on our platforms.  According to Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force needs to purchase 160 new aircraft of all classes per year just to maintain the average age of the fleet.  This aging of not only the Air Force’s systems but those of all the other services is something that the new Obama Administration must not overlook.  In order to accomplish this task, we must modernize our force and ensure that at the minimum we maintain parity with our enemies and strive for total battlespace dominance.

ENCOURAGE PRIVATE ENTERPRISE TO DEVELOP NEW DEFENSE TECHNOLOGIES AND SERVICES

One thing that should not be overlooked as part of our defense policy is giving research and development incentives to the domestic private sector for the development of new defense-related technologies and services.  American private enterprise has the resources to develop and innovate systems which are far more advanced than anything that the Pentagon’s planners could issue RFPs for on their own.  By creating a national policy, tax and regulatory regime that encourages, rather than discourages innovation in this area, the defense industry could thrive in the United States and allow for the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars into the economy, as well as create new systems which can benefit non-defense related industries as well.

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC COUNTERFORCE CREDIBILITY

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the prevailing thought among idealists was that the United States of America no longer needed to maintain a strategic force and that all nations should seek to completely eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.  While that ambition definitely had worthy merits, the collapse of the Soviet machine resulted in former Soviet republics becoming overnight nuclear powers who possessed thousands of warheads, some of which were not completely well secured or totally accounted for, and put a number of Russian military scientists out of work, many of whom did not hesitate to sell their technical expertise to non-nuclear powers willing to pay. 

Today, it is estimated that among the rest of the world and excluding the United States, there are a minimum of at least 10,160 nuclear warheads.  As long as there are nuclear weapons possessed or under development by other nations, whether they be our allies or our enemies, the United States must not only continue to possess nuclear weapons of our own, but seek supremacy in relative numbers, our deployment platforms, and our alert readiness.

Under the soon to conclude Bush Administration, anything remotely associated with the “Cold War doctrine” of massive retaliation was seen as passé and in need of “transformational” change.  That meant that we eliminated multiple warhead-configured, land based intercontinental ballistic missiles and replaced them with single warheads, demobilized our most advanced nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and converted several of our ballistic missile submarines into conventional (non-nuclear) platforms.  This was fine so long as we were fighting developing or third world nations that used antiquated weapon systems and poor training and readiness.  The problem that this doctrine presents is that in recent years, the Russians have become belligerent in resuming armed patrol flights of their nuclear bombers and the Chinese have sought to develop and field both land based and submarine-based nuclear weapons capable of first strike against the United States.

While the Bush Administration’s efforts to deploy anti-ballistic missile weapons in response to rouge state nuclear proliferation and the resurgence of Sino-Russian power plays is admirable, the simple fact remains that avoiding and if necessary surviving a nuclear exchange is all about being able to match or exceed the number of weapons our enemies have.  Say for example that tomorrow, the Russian Federation at 8:00 pm Hawaii Standard Time were to launch a limited, first strike of 120 warheads fired from ballistic missile submarines parked just at the outskirts of our territorial waters  against targets in Hawaii, Alaska, and the Continental United States.  Unlike land based ICBMs which take upwards of 30 to 40 minutes to reach their targets, submarine launched ballistic missiles (or SLBMs) when fired near the coast of the target take between 5 to 15 minutes from launch to warhead detonation, leaving very little time for early warning identification, confidence checks, attack conferencing and evacuation of key leaders for the purposes of continuity of government. Even “if” the United States had as many as 120 anti-ballistic missile systems active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, the fact remains that the probability of all our interceptor systems hitting all 120 inbound tracks without fail is completely unrealistic: one or more of the warheads will get through.  In fact, once our interceptors are expended, without effective threat of overwhelming annihilation from a US counterstrike, there is absolutely nothing to stop a second strike in which more missiles are launched. This is why ballistic missile defense cannot be the sole foundation of 21st century strategic policy any more than the cruiser can be the sole class of warship in a Navy.  We need anti-ballistic missile systems, but more than that we need new and more effective nuclear delivery platforms. President Ronald Reagan put forth the Strategic Defense Initiative as an element of his strategic policy, but he also maintained supremacy in nuclear forces as the primary foundation.

Though derided as barbarian, the best deterrent to the outbreak of nuclear hostilities is still the knowledge that even if one were to strike first, the nation being attacked has the power to not only mitigate the effectiveness of the initial strike through anti-warhead systems, redundancy of forces or both,  but has the power to launch a second strike which will completely devastate the aggressor’s ability to wage war.  That is counterforce credibility.

America needs new ICBMs to replace our aging, single-warhead, land based LGM-30 Minuteman rockets.  We also need to produce new, quieter, stealthier ballistic missile submarines capable of first strike against anyone, anywhere, anytime.  We need to replace our aging B-52 bombers which will soon approach sixty years of age and operational wear with faster, stealthier, more capable strategic bombers capable of delivering a first strike or a retaliatory second strike all on their own.   We also need to revive the procurement and acquisition of a 21st century tanker aircraft capable of refueling our strategic air forces across the world.  These systems and technologies, though derided as “Cold War” dinosaurs are still very necessary in a world with so many nuclear weapons.

America needs a strong defense and a thriving defense industry to remain secure into the next century and beyond.  Our nation must also have the military credibility and power to be effective in diplomacy. I encourage both our Hawaii Congressional Delegation and the new Obama Administration to consider these facts and to ensure the future and the survival of the American way of life.