By Peter Huessy, Warrior Nuclear Weapons Analyst
The four decades since Ronald Reagan was elected President have seen five frameworks for pursuing US security and foreign policy objectives. Are there lessons we can learn from US security policy successes and failures, especially as we face the serious challenges of today? Today is the 16th anniversary of a dinner held at the War College at Ft. McNair. General Keith Alexander, then the Director of the National Security Agency, warned an assembled group of senior American industry leaders at 2009 dinner that China was then stealing up to $600 billion in US corporate intellectual property each year. That remains the case today, says the FBI.
From 1981-1991, the US made economic war on Moscow, backed up by a strong US military that challenged Moscow in Europe, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Angola. Our nuclear deterrent was rebuilt in the US and Europe. The US developed space and related technologies such as SDI that prompted the Soviet chief of the General Staff to conclude that much of the then existing Soviet military technology was rapidly becoming obsolete.
Unfortunately, after the collapse of the USSR to 9-11, the United States went through an age of neglect of our military as “General” Carville told the troops “It’s the economy, stupid.” In parallel many US leaders decided it was the end of history and great power conflict itself had been thrown into the dustbin of historical anachronisms, prompting the country to go on with what General Harencak characterized as a holiday from history, or paying little serious attention to our military capability. North Korea marched toward nuclear weapons and long range missiles, Iran did the same, Russia rejected START II and China embarked on a hegemonic rise.
Then the third decade gave us what President George Bush called the global war on terror that began right after the 9-11 attacks. Terror attacks against the US started much earlier with the 1993 WTC bombing, the Khobar Towers bombings in the KSA, the African embassy bombings in 1997 and the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen at the end of the decade. Iran was in part behind three of these attacks, and the nephew of the architect of 9-11 bombed the WTC in 1993. Two wars were waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and though the initial military objectives were achieved in brilliant fashion, the United States lost sight of its objectives and eventually withdrew without a just or peaceful outcome. Russia embarked on an across the board nuclear modernization effort while China was admitted to the WTO and laid the groundwork for its own military buildup.
The fourth era starting in 2009 was an attempted reset, of a new red button strategy to be cashed in by Moscow and Washington, where we would cooperate against proliferation, climate change and terrorism. A new deal on nuclear arms with Moscow and a nuclear enrichment with Iran were concluded, all within the context of showing restraint and beginning a long march toward zero global nuclear weapons.
The 2017-2020 period reversed the prior security policies in part. While the US nuclear modernization continued, the decline in defense modernization was reversed overall. NATO was pushed hard to increase its resources devoted to defense. But Russia reneged on its INF legal requirements while Iran broke its JCPOA requirements. The US withdrew from both deals, while ending DPRK nuclear and long-range missile tests.
The fifth decade era began with the administration proposing to spend only 2.4% of GDP on defense, a lower effort than prior to WWII. Then followed a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and the removal of sanctions on Iran. Then came the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Going on in parallel was a “breathtaking” Chinese military buildup, as well as the accelerated proliferation of missiles and nuclear warhead developments in North Korea, advanced nuclear weapons fuel enrichment by Iran and Tehran’s accelerated terrorism against the US and Israel.
Now, looking forward from 2025, some half century since Reagan was elected, joined successfully by Thatcher, Pope John Paul and Kohl, taking down the USSR, the United States is facing all at once, four allied criminal enterprises, masquerading as nation states: (1)A militarized Russia; (2) A chief terrorist Iran; (3) A missile and nuclear proliferation agent in North Korea; and (4) An expansion seeking hegemonic China in the Pacific and the Middle East, Africa and in the Americas.
Having been challenged successively from 1981-2025 by the Soviet Cold War threat to Europe, the terrorism from Al Qaeda and Iran and their proxy agents, missile and nuclear proliferation threats from Pyongyang, and the economic and military rise of China, the United States now faces these same threats recreated simultaneously, and from these four nation-state criminal enterprises that are working together even as they seek more partners.
To meet these multiple challenges, the United States as the Posture Commission concluded, may have to rethink its needed capabilities and determine what lessons can be learned from the previous nearly five decades of US security policy that can guide us into the challenging future.
Lesson #1: The US having adopted peace through strength, did take down the USSR, irrespective of Max Boot’s blitheringly wrong-headed new book dismissing Reagan, Thatcher, and Pope John Paul as having anything to do with that outcome.
Lesson #2: Despite near two decades of unprecedented economic growth culminating with welfare reform and a balanced budget, we took a holiday from sustaining our defense deterrent while ignoring the gathering terrorism storm that culminated in the attacks of September 2001. Secretary of State Rice put it well: they were at war with us but we didn’t know it. And despite a heroic effort in taking down the Taliban and Al Qaeda and subsequently the Hussein regime in Iraq, we ended up 20 years later with the Taliban back in power and for a time Iraq/Syria being a center of the ISIS Caliphate.
Lesson #3: What may appear on the surface to be cooperative stances of our adversaries, it is dangerous for the United States to assume that is the case. Tyrannical or authoritative regimes have historically driven objectives that do not allow for a “win-win” outcome but seek results where their objective is that they win and we, the United States and the West, lose. As Admiral (Ret) Charles Richard has argued, along with Victor David Hanson, victory needs to be placed back into the US security narrative, and we might start with understanding what Israel has finally achieved, albeit after the horrors of October 2023.
Lesson #4:Neglect of our security loses time which you cannot get back. From 1986-1996, the United States lost over $1 trillion in purchasing power in the Department of Defense, even if assuming that all we needed during that period was a flat defense budget not even adjusted for inflation, With the collapse of the USSR and “end of the Cold War” we assumed an endless “peace dividend” pot of money was there for the spending.
Lesson #5: The bad guys get to vote and although facing their own serious economic and demographic conflicts, these four partners in mayhem—Iran, North Korea, China and Russia– are serious and ruthless.
Lesson #5: Putting together a sound security strategy takes time. Congress has to complete defense bills on time, irrespective of other spending bills. The annual DoD appropriations bill can no longer be held hostage to a broken budget process, as all appropriation bills have only been successfully completed four times since 1977.
Lesson #6: The West is in this together. And without everyone pulling their weight, we cannot succeed. Our allies should emulate the Republic of Korea, Israel, and Poland, for example, and step up in defending Western civilization, not the least of which also requires a halt to the massive largely unlawful migration including jihadis and criminal cartels into the West, both in Europe and the Americas.
Hopefully, as we look to re-establish deterrence, the United States should jettison what Israel missile defense expert Uzi Rubin has called “fortune cookie analysis” when putting together the country’s security policy. This will require getting the future right but also correctly explaining the past and the present.
For example, rollback, not “containment,” broke apart the USSR. China’s “rise” is not “peaceful.’ There is no “peace process” in the Middle East involving Iran or the “Palestinians.” “Denuclearization” or Nuclear global zero is not just a pipedream but it pushes the US and its allies down blind dead ends seeking deals that are simply not in the making. “Globalization” has seriously harmed American interests no matter how many rich folks claim the opposite at Davos each year. Keeping your nation totally “vulnerable” to missile strikes is not the “cornerstone” of US security. Islam and sharia law do not represent “a religion of peace.” There is no cooperate “climate and energy” road to travel with China given Xi is now building or approved for building 180 GW of coal fired power, more than the entirety the US now has in place. Similarly making energy scarce, expensive and hard to acquire doesn’t make sense when half of Africa has no access to electricity. Moving our jobs to China is not “free trade.”
Our future security policy will require choices, but it has always been so. Keeping our eye on the ball is job #1 and that requires a correct appraisal of the world. George Kennan, in his memoir, said the agreement at Yalta was very successful. He wrote: “Yalta, whatever the future may bring forth, will always stand out as a gigantic step forward toward the ultimate establishment of a peaceful and orderly world.” He continued: “The Russians don’t want to invade anyone. It’s not in their tradition.”
British Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart echoed these views: “The Russians will not invade Czechoslovakia. They have changed too much since Hungary in 1956.”And President James Carter: “It’s difficult to understand why the Soviets took this action.” Speaking to members of Congress in a White House briefing on Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan. ”I think they probably underestimated the adverse reaction from around the world.” And about Georgia, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concluded: “Everybody is now questioning Russia’s worthiness as a partner. They’ve come out of this badly. And I think it could help deter them from trying something like that again.
