Why conventional wisdom and “Republican strategists” are wrong

The Hill magazine has recently published an article profiling Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s rise in stature in the Senate and the ranks of the GOP, primarily due to her study of, and hard work on, defense and FP issues. She has been especially outspoken about the dangers – military and economic – of sequestration, which would cut $600 bn (not $500 bn as the Hill claims) out of the defense budget over the next decade on top of the 487 bn cuts already mandated by the First Tier of the Budget Control Act:

“Freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) has turned the threat of $500 billion in defense cuts into her signature political issue, raising her Senate profile and sparking speculation that she could become Mitt Romney’s running mate.

Her focus on defense has helped her carve out a unique space among the vice presidential contenders; she’s frequently mentioned as a sleeper pick behind a top tier that includes her colleagues Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

And her work has given her a platform alongside big-name defense hawks like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, has praised her efforts, even throwing in some flattery on the Senate floor on Friday.

“Our most eloquent member has arrived on the floor,” McCain said of Ayotte. “Not to mention other attributes that we are lacking in.””

However, as the Hill notes, several (if not most) “Republican strategists” are still propagating the conventional wisdom that the economy is the sole issue of this election (or at least one that the GOP ticket needs to obsessively focus on) and that defense and FP issues are unimportant, if not irrelevant. For that reason, they are dismissing Ayotte and other figures who specialize in defense and FP:

“This is an economic election, and while she is from a battleground state and that’s important, her credentials may not match up with what the campaign really needs, which is a No. 2 who can speak eloquently on the economy,” said one Republican strategist.

“If this was post-9/11, she would be a perfect VP candidate,” the strategist said. “I’m not saying she’s not qualified — she could do a very good job — but her skill set is only part of what’s needed, not all.”

But they and Washington conventional wisdom are wrong, as usual.

Firstly, while the economy is the #1 issue of this election, it isn’t the only one, nor is it one that eclipses all others in terms of importance. There are also several other crucial issues which the GOP ticket MUST be prepared to credibly address. Defense and foreign policy are two such issues.

Secondly, knowing Romney’s limited knowledge of and experience in foreign policy, the Obama team plans to savagely attack him on this issue. They will be merciless and will not, unlike Republicans, restrict themselves in any way – whether in terms of the scope of topics they will discuss nor in terms of the blatant lies they will state and methods of attack they will employ.

If Romney does not educate himself adequately on defense issues before the presidential debates, he will be savagely attacked and may lose the election. And you can take that one to the bank.

OTOH, if Romney picks a person knowledgeable about defense and FP, such as Ayotte or Kyl, he will gain a credible defender on that front, will inoculate himself against such criticism, and will even be able to credibly attack Barack Obama. Which brings me to my next point.

Barack Obama’s national security record, as I have documented here and elsewhere, is disastrous. Not just bad; it’s downright disastrous. (For the latest examples of that, see here, here, and here.) It gives Republicans a HUGE opening to attack and defeat Obama – if they are willing to do so and know how. If they do so competently, they can add greatly to Obama’s woes and defeat him. Attacking him on defense foreign policy is even more important given that Romney cannot credibly criticize Obama on socialized medicine – because he instituted the prototype of Obama’s scheme in Massachusetts in 2006. It would be a foolish mistake, one which would cost Republicans the election, to waste this great opportunity to pound on Obama’s disastrous national security record.

Those Republican strategists and Washington conventional wisdom are wrong. Romney does not need a veep who can eloquently speak on economic issues. Romney can do that himself, and is an expert on the subject. He already has the economic front covered, so to speak.

But Romney is very inexperienced in, and not knowledgeable about, foreign policy – and Obama will exploit that weakness mercilessly unless Romney selects a defense/FP expert as his running mate.

The only thing that disqualifies Kelly Ayotte – although it’s really a disqualifier – is her lack of experience and proper vetting. She’s been a Senator for just 1.5 years, and this is her first elected office. Prior to that, she was an appointed AG of New Hampshire. She has little political experience and has not yet gained the stature of John C. Stennis, Barry Goldwater, John Warner, John McCain, or Jon Kyl. And, due to her short (so far) stint on the national stage, she has not been properly vetted yet. Nominating her for vice president would cause the American people to doubt Ayotte’s qualifications for the Vice Presidency and Romney’s wisdom and decision-making skills.

Fortunately, Romney does not have to choose between an experienced running mate and one who is knowledgeable about defense and foreign policy. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl meets both requirements, and also has no skeletons in his closet.

Jon Kyl should be Romney’s running mate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/236029-tough-defense-talk-ups-ayottes-veep-creds

Paul Ryan is right; the generals are wrong; or “how dare you question Obama’s infallible generals”!

Recently, House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, decided to stop Obama’s process of gutting America’s defense, reject his pseudo-strategy, and pass a budget that adequately funds defense – adequately according to their and their advisors’ judgment, not that of Obama and his penny-pinchers in the Pentagon.

When asked by defense cuts’ supporters why he wants to provide more funding to the DOD than the DOD itself and the Joint Chiefs request, he replied, “I don’t think the generals are giving us their true advice.”

When he said that, the Democrats, other defense cuts’ supporters, and the media went ballistic, claiming that Ryan had called the generals “liars” and had insulted them, and calling on him to apologize. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey himself took umbrage at those words, while still claiming that the DOD developed a strategy first and a budget second when everyone knows it’s not true:

“[Ryan was] calling us, collectively, liars. (…) I stand by my testimony. This was very much a strategy-driven process to which we mapped the budget.”

But Paul Ryan and other pro-defense Republicans is right, and their critics are dead wrong, for the following reasons.

Firstly, we know that Obama has a habit of pressuring senior generals to change their testimonies to suit their agenda. Just ask 4-star General William Shelton, the commander of USAF’s Space Command, who says Obama pressured him to do just that.

It is quite conceivable that the Joint Chiefs were also pressured to testify, wrongly, that the $487 bn in defense cuts ordered by Obama is survivable.

General Dempsey himself, before he was confirmed, testified that deep defense cuts would weaken defense, that “national security” spending did not cause the deficit problem and that cutting it will not solve it.

More recently, he said, quite correctly, that sequestration of defense spending (the second round of BCA-ordered cuts, totalling another $600 bn) would mean “we would no longer be a global power”. Today, under obvious pressure from the White House and other defense cuts supporters, he claims he was misunderstood and that he only meant that “we wouldn’t be the global power that we know ourselves to be today.”

No, General, that’s not what you originally said. That’s what the White House now tells you to say. I’m sure that if the White House told you “say that the sequester would be harmless”, you would be saying exactly that.

While I wouldn’t call the generals liars or fools, this is not the first time that someone has coached witnesses to deliver a favorable testimony.

Secondly, no matter how hard the generals and civilian DOD bureaucrats may insist to the contrary, the FACT is that Obama’s defense budget cuts mandate drove the pseudo-strategy the DOD issued in January, not the other way around. Obama demanded deep defense cuts, and the DOD had to produce a “strategy” to fit these cuts. That’s what happened, despite the generals’ and civilian bureaucrats’ pretensions to the contrary.

Obama demanded $400 bn in defense cuts on April 13th, 2011, during a budget issues speech at the GWU – long before there even was any talk of a debt ceiling deal. At the time, even his own SECDEF, Robert Gates, was surprised of the defense cuts mandate, and the DOD had to start working out how to implement them. Then, on August 1st, Obama negotiated a debt ceiling deal that mandated $487 bn in cuts from “security spending”, which Obama slapped exclusively on the DOD.

Only later was there any talk of a “strategy” to fit these cuts. Before April 2011, the DOD was not working on any “strategy” and was hoping that the cuts of January 2011 would be the last. Indeed, Gates himself cautioned against any further, let alone deep, additional defense cuts repeatedly, both in DOD briefings and Congressional testimonies. Yet, in April 2011, Obama slapped a $400 bn defense cuts mandate on him and the DOD.

Even if someone claims “the DOD knew for a long time that more budget cuts would be coming”, that doesn’t help them. In fact, it only proves my point. Budget cut mandates came first; the strategy came only later. Thus, the National Journal lied when it claimed

“Ryan’s frank rebuke of the generals came as he repeated an oft-heard Republican complaint: that the fiscal 2013 defense request (…) was not “strategy-driven,” but rather was based on an artificial spending cap imposed by the White House.”

That is not a mere “oft-heard Republican complaint”, that is a FACT. The FY2013 defense budget proposal was NOT strategy driven. It was based on an artificial spending cap that Obama instituted as early as April 2011 – long before there was any “strategy”!

And the DOD’s genuine strategy from just 2 years ago (when budget circumstances were even worse), the 2010 QDR, is quite different from this pseudostrategy. It called for a much larger and more capable military than this pseudostrategy calls for. Did the world become much safer in the last 2 years? No. Obama decided to cut defense even more deeply.

Thirdly, can’t we see it for ourselves that Obama’s new defense cuts would severely weaken the military? They include, inter alia, scrapping one third of the cruiser fleet (the 7 youngest cruisers), retiring 2 amphibious ships and many other vessels, eliminating 7 fighter squadrons, cutting funding for bombers by 40%, eliminating many crucial weapon development programs (including lasers, other directed energy weapons, and railguns), delaying many other crucial weapon programs (including the next-gen cruise missile) and procurements (including SSNs and SSBNs), cutting the shipbuilding plan by 16 vessels, cutting the already-underfunded nuclear-weapon-modernization program by 15%, and cutting 27 strategic and 65 tactical airlifters when the USAF already has too few of them. Anyone with half a brain should understand that this will weaken the military.

Fourthly, the generals are humans, not gods. They are not infallible – no more than I am or you are. As mere humans, they are just as prone to grave error – including a severe error of judgment – as everyone else. It’s time to stop fetishizing generals.

Lastly and most importantly, determining what’s necessary to defend America, and providing the necessary resources, is NOT the generals or the DOD’s job. It’s Congress’ job. The Congress is supposed to make America’s defense policy, and the generals, along with DOD civilians, are supposed to merely execute it. In other words, the Congress makes policy, and the generals are to obey.

The US Constitution vests the prerogatives to “provide for the common defense (…) of the United States”, “to raise and support Armies”, “to provide and maintain a Navy”, to make laws for governing the Armed Forces, to summon and discipline the Militia, to declare war, to punish piracies and felonies on the high seas, and to make appropriations SOLELY in the Congress. The Constitution gives Congress, and ONLY the Congress, the prerogative to make America’s defense policy – to determine both defense budgets AND programs and the force structure (along with bases, deployments, wars, and the UCMJ).

Of course, to make informed decisions, it needs the advice from many sources – and that includes not only serving generals, but also former military officers, independent analysts and study panels (such as the Hadley-Perry Panel), Congressional advisors/analysts, the CRS, and others.

But Congress is supposed to rely, above all, on its own knowledge and sound judgment (if it’s capable of rendering any – and it’s supposed to be). It should NOT fetishize generals and DOD bureaucrats, nor is it supposed to defer to them, let alone to President Obama. It must rely primarily on its own judgment and knowledge, for it, not the generals, is to make defense policy decisions (and take responsibility for them).

This entire  argument has four root causes. One is the understandable, but wrong deference to generals on defense policy caused by the fetish of generals. The second one is the overall worship of supposed “experts” (generals on defense policy, the SCOTUS on the Constitution, the IPCC on “global warming” – remember how skeptics like Jim Inhofe were treated when they questioned the saintly IPCC?) that Americans have been forced to perform since their primary school days. People are taught to blindly listen to “experts” and never question them; if you do, you’re condemned universally. Thirdly, decades ago, the Congress ceded its Constitutional prerogatives on defense policy to the Executive Branch long ago.

And fourthly, as schoolchildren and adults, members of Congress, like all Americans, were constantly taught and told NOT to think for themselves, to rely on others for judgment, and to defer on others on various issues. Such indoctrination not to think independently has caused most of them to be unable, or afraid, to render independent judgment.

And this needs to be corrected. Members of Congress are supposed to think for themselves, not defer to others.

Paul Ryan and HASC Republicans have shown they are capable of doing that. For that, they should be praised, not pilloried.

http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/paul-ryan-accuses-generals-of-budget-dishonesty-20120329

My proposal of a defense/foreign policy consensus

There is currently a debate ongoing in the Republican Party and in the American electorate at large whether or not to cut defense spending, and if so, by how much; what weapon systems to nix, if any; which missions and commitments to end; how to size the military; which allies to defend; and when, if ever, to intervene militarily abroad.

Unsurprisingly, extremists on both sides of the spectrum are demanding extremist, damaging policies. Libertarians and liberals want to deeply cut defense spending (while claiming it that it still hasn’t been cut), modernization programs, the military’s force structure, and end strength; end all commitments to all of America’s allies; and renounce military interventions abroad completely, hiding behind oceans and retrenching into an illusory “Fortress America”, despite the fact that one nuclear weapon, delivered by a Chinese, Russian, or North Korean ICBM at a high altitude above the US, would set America back to the dark age. On the other hand, neocon promiscous interventionists want the US to involve itself in every war around the world without Congressional authorization.

Both of these sides are wrong. Both of their policies are wrong and unfeasible. However, contrary to the claims of those like Jarrett Steppman of HE who claim that these are the only foreign policy options available to the US government and to the voters, there is a third option, which is much better than the other two. I first outlined this foreign policy philosophy on Conservatives4Palin.com in early 2011 and repeated it, in more detail, in the pages of the American Thinker in October.

I propose the following defense/foreign policy consensus:

1) The US must always have a strong defense and must generously fund it (so the defense cuts ordered by the debt ceiling deal and the sequester should be completely reversed), and equip it with all it needs. Funding should be prioritized and devoted first and foremost to those missions most critical to America’s survival: nuclear deterrence, missile defense, cyberdefense, long range strike, and homeland defense. However, other missions should be funded adequately, too.

2) That does not, however, mean that taxpayers should write a blank check to the Pentagon. Because the DOD has been tasked with the government’s most important function, waste at the DOD is even less excusable than waste at other government agencies. The Secretary of Defense must review the entire budget, line by line, excise everything that is not necessary, and reinvest the money in those programs that are critical to America’s survival. He should start with his own travel budget, which Secretary Panetta has been abusing.

3) The US should continue to defend its treaty allies, provided that they are willing to invest seriously in defending themselves. As President Nixon said, “We shall do our share in keeping peace around the world. But we shall expect others to do their share.”

4) The US should intervene militarily abroad only when its crucial interests or key allies are threatened and only if all non-war means of ending the crisis have been tried and failed. If there is an imminent threat to America (e.g. if enemy SSBNs have been detected off US shores, or if terrorists have acquired a nuclear weapon, or a rogue state is threatening an imminent launch of ballistic missiles), the President should intervene immediately; but if there is no imminent threat, the President must ask for Congressional authorization.

Those are the basic principles and policies of the defense/foreign affairs consensus that I’m proposing. You know who originally invented these ideas? It wasn’t me. It was President Reagan. His policy of rebuilding the military and funding it generously while intervening, after 1983, only in countries where the US REALLY needed to intervene was not only the right policy, it was a very popular policy which helped him win the presidential elections of 1980 and 1984 by a landslide. And I’m absolutely sure that it would be a very popular policy today, if embraced by a presidential candidate.

According to a recent poll, 82% of Americans oppose the sequester’s defense cuts and didn’t want the Super Committee  to impose any further budget cuts on the Pentagon, either. According to other polls, 52%-57% of Americans oppose any defense budget cuts. But at the same time, polls show that a majority of Americans wants American troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as possible. So a majority of Americans – possibly even a huge majority – professes an opinion on these issues that is practically the same as my policy proposal.

I hope at least one Republican Presidential candidate will embrace it.