"Serious threats to national security exist, and important decisions are being made without much input from Congress and the American people."
"Even though the nation is at peace, foreign problems are emerging that could endanger its future security and prosperity," warns Kim Holmes of the Heritage Foundation. "The country's military strength is declining to dangerously low levels," he continues. "Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are falling into the hands of various groups the world over. Rogue leaders like Saddam Hussein are becoming more menacing," Holmes contends, "despite the efforts of the Clinton Administration to work through the United Nations to control their adventurism. The leadership and credibility of the United States," he laments, "are now being questioned and challenged by both friends and enemies."
Holmes argues that "America must develop a foreign policy based on strength, freedom, and leadership -- the key principles of Ronald Reagan's great victory in the Cold War. The United States must be militarily strong," he affirms, "but it must also be free -- free from foreign domination, free from excessive constraints imposed by multilateral organizations, and free to trade and engage in commerce."
Holmes recommends reviving "a Reaganite definition of U.S. international engagement and leadership. Leadership," he emphasizes, "should not mean seeing where the UN wants to go and taking it there. It should mean defending and promoting U.S. interests, regardless of what the UN decides to do." Holmes also recommends restoring American military strength and implementing an effective missile defense system.
"The most dangerous security threat facing the United States today comes from long-range, nuclear-armed missiles that could reach U.S. soil from locations around the world," report Thomas Moore and Baker Spring, also of the Heritage Foundation. "The danger stems not only from the fact that these weapons are the most destructive man has ever created, but also from the decision by American leaders to adopt a posture of purposeful vulnerability to these weapons."
The threat is real, however, and growing daily. Moore and Spring point to "long-range missiles already in the possession of China and Russia. Aside from the possibility of intentional use by these countries," they observe, "there is the threat posed by the accidental or unauthorized launch of missiles toward U.S. territory." Moore and Spring also note that "some 20 Third World countries already have or may be developing both weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear weapons) and ballistic missile delivery systems." They cite "such hostile regimes as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea" and predict that "some of them will have weapons that can reach the United States within the next decade."
Moore and Spring insist that a missile defense system is both technologically and economically feasible. So, what are we waiting for? "The Clinton Administration has refused to commit to the deployment," they say, "and is throwing more impediments in the way of national missile defense programs by entering into agreements . . . to revive and broaden the scope of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty." What's more important: the future of our nation, or the terms of an obsolete treaty?
