CNSI Stands on Important National Security Issues

The primary purpose of the newly formed Center for the National Security Interest (CNSI) is to help ensure that America's national security interests are placed first and foremost in US policy. It is unique in that it is led and staffed in large part by veterans of the United States armed forces. CNSI supports all policies that serve to conserve and maintain America's national security strengths and its armed forces. CNSI opposes all measures and policies which have the effect of disarming, dismantling or dismembering US national military power be they attempts to disarm the nation of its strategic nuclear deterrent or its conventional military forces. CNSI opposes as a matter of principle the signing and ratification of all international treaties (such as the recently signed Treaty of Moscow) which seek to implement these policies and supports the addition of amendments to such treaties to lessen the impact of their harmful effects and make them less objectionable from a national security standpoint. CNSI strongly commends President Bush for having the courage to take the US out of the ABM Treaty, which imposed ludicrous constraints on the US ability to defend itself. CNSI wholeheartedly supports the President in his efforts to deploy a comprehensive national missile defense system based on the sea (on our 65 Aegis guided missile cruisers and destroyers) and in space as swiftly as possible.

Need to retain a strong Army

The Center believes that it is imperative to maintain strong, robust ground forces including a large force of tanks and tracked armor assets to ensure that America is prepared to fight and win large-scale wars in the future. Specifically, we strongly oppose efforts to reduce the size of the Army below its current level of ten active divisions and oppose the currently planned phased elimination of its “heavy” armored brigades. CNSI supports retention of our heavy brigades at least until a suitable tank replacement comes on line such as a revolutionary tracked variant of the planned Future Combat System. CNSI strongly supports the employment of Air-Mech-Strike ‘3D’ tracked armor assets to revolutionize the battlefield in assisting more conventional heavy units in defeating the enemy with maximum speed and effectiveness. The Center has been very concerned by the rise of voices in and outside the Pentagon who readily dismiss the critical value of concentrated landpower assets in winning our nation’s major wars. We note that no major war in world history has been won without the employment of major ground combat assets. In addition, no major war in the last 65 years has been won without the assistance of large armor assets and in particular tanks. Tanks of all sizes, light, medium and heavy, far from becoming obsolete have proven themselves indispensable to the achievement of a victorious outcome on the 21st century battlefield. Their decisive contribution was critical in successfully winning the ground war during Operation Desert Storm against a large well-armed opposing Army in a matter of a mere four days.

The War on Terrorism and the Planned Invasion of Iraq

The Center for the National Security Interest actively supports and applauds President Bush in continuing to prosecute America’s just war against Islamicist terrorists and fanatics and those nations that support them. CNSI supports the implementation of the tenets of the Weinburger Doctrine, which states that the US should only fight wars that are just and that further the US vital interest only after all reasonable alternatives have first been exhausted and with total national commitment including the support of a sizable majority of the US population. CNSI adds its voice to those of retired Generals Schwartzkopf, Zinni, Hoar, Clark, Scowcroft, Shalikashvili and many members of former President George H.W. Bush’s Gulf War cabinet including former Secretary of States Jim Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger, former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp and until recently, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell in urging the Administration to abandon its plans for an unnecessary and unprovoked invasion of Iraq fraught with potential negative consequences for US national security. CNSI believes that the expert opinions of retired and still serving general officers on this and other important issues have been given insufficient consideration by the President and his Secretary of Defense. We are disturbed by last month’s reports that the Secretary of Defense locked the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of planning for the war after trashing their plan to use 250,000 ground troops to invade Iraq.

CNSI considers the planned invasion of Iraq to be a risky and potentially dangerous diversion from America’s war on terror given the fact that it would likely lead to a widening of the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian terrorists, alienate and further radicalize the entire Arab world against the US leading to the toppling of current ‘pro-Western’ governments in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia by Islamicist radicals galvanizing the commission of further terrorist strikes against the US. Such an invasion could also prompt the employment of Chemical Biological Radiological (CBR) weapons by Saddam Hussein against our troops resulting in thousands being killed, tempting the Administration into an ill-considered response by ‘nuking’ Baghdad rather than retaliating in kind with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against Iraqi troops. In short an unprovoked invasion of Iraq would likely, in the words of General Scowcroft “turn the whole region into a cauldron and, thus, destroy the war on terrorism.” Such an ill-timed invasion could also result in a double-dip recession and potentially lead to President Bush’s defeat in the 2004 elections and his replacement by a President less committed to US national security. CNSI strongly condemns and opposes all those who have attempted to disparage these former generals, members of Congress and military veterans who have taken a principled stand against an unprovoked, and accordingly, unjust invasion of Iraq based on an objective realization that such an invasion would likely do far more to damage than to advance US national security interests.

It is not at all clear that the Administration has made a case on the need to invade Iraq, which has not engaged in any acts of international aggression for the past decade. Iraq poses a much smaller and far less immediate threat to the US than North Korea and the PRC which have publicly threatened the annihilation of US population centers with their nuclear-tipped ICBMs and Iran which along with Saudi Arabia served as the prime sponsor for the vile 9-11 suicide bombers responsible for the deaths of 3000 innocent American civilians. Given the above facts, CNSI does not believe that congressional authorization for the use of military force in what it believes would be an unnecessary invasion of Iraq is warranted at this time. CNSI believes, however, that if the Bush Administration persists in its determination to invade Iraq and if Congressional authorization is obtained in accordance with the US Constitution, the Administration should apply the Weinburger Doctrine and invade with overwhelming military force spearheaded by a contingent of no less than 250,000 ground troops to ensure a convincing victory and minimize the risk of unnecessary casualties. CNSI notes that, contrary to the statements of some Pentagon functionaries, the application of airpower and precision-guided munitions alone against an enemy has never sufficed to win a victory in a major war and could not do so in a planned US invasion of Iraq. CNSI proudly supports each and every just war that our great nation has ever fought including World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm and considers each and every man and woman who has ever served in the US military to be an unabashed American hero. CNSI is disturbed by the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, which goes against 225 years of proud American adherence to the just war tradition by past US presidents. Pre-emptive attacks, in the absence of some extreme necessity, are presumptively illegal under international law.

Abandoning the United Nations

CNSI does not believe that the President requires nor should he seek authorization by the United Nations Security Council to invade Iraq. CNSI does not recognize the UN, which has a history of being anti-American in outlook, as having any legitimate authority whatsoever over the sovereign right of its individual member states to self-determination including Iraq. CNSI does not believe that alleged violations of various UN Security Council resolutions should be utilized as justification for an invasion of Iraq. The UN is nothing more than a consultative body and has no utility beyond the limited purpose of consultation with our allies and building international support for US foreign policy initiatives. CNSI supports efforts to defund the UN and withdraw the US from membership in the UN such as the American Sovereignty Restoration Act sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). While CENSI recognizes the need for international support for a planned US invasion of Iraq, it does not believe UN approval is needed for the US to wage war against any nation since such authority resides with the US Congress.

Recently granted congressional authorization for the use of military force against Iraq is the only authority that President Bush requires under the US Constitution to wage war against Iraq. However, CNSI believes that Congress should not rubber-stamp the President’s request for a blank-check to use any and all military force against Iraq and does not support congressional authorization for war with Iraq at this time. Regardless, if Congressional authorization is granted and US troops are sent to invade Iraq, CNSI pledges its full support of the President in waging a conventional war against Iraq from the moment the first boots hit the ground in Iraq.

Proposed U.S. Military Missions and Deployments

CNSI supports proposals to withdraw US troops from all UN peacekeeping missions including most notably Kosovo and Bosnia since such missions rarely if ever have served the US interest. CNSI believes that US troops stationed abroad should be limited to one, not two divisions stationed in Germany to ensure continued US leadership in NATO, one heavy brigade in Kuwait to deter Iraqi or Iranian aggression against the Gulf states and one brigade in Afghanistan. In East Asia, CNSI proposes retaining one heavy division in South Korea repositioned far behind the frontlines to shield it from a potential decimating artillery and rocket attack by the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and 60,000 Marines in Japan to guard against potential aggression from either the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) against the Republic of Korea and against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) should they decide to move against Taiwan. CNSI believes that the US military forces withdrawn from Europe and to a lesser extent the Middle East should be redeployed along the US border with Mexico to help provide border security and interdict further terrorist infiltrators that might otherwise seek to repeat the tragic suicide bombing attacks of 9-11.

Need to cut wasteful programs

CNSI believes that certain wasteful, duplicative and unnecessarily expensive programs must be eliminated in order to free up badly-needed funding for the deployment of a national missile defense system to defend against nuclear missile attack based primarily on the sea and in space. CNSI also believes that the cancellation of these programs is necessary to provide funding for Army Transformation to fund a Future Combat System which should be tracked, not wheeled and which should supplement not replace existing ‘heavy’ forces. The wasteful programs that CNSI believes should be cancelled include the V-22 Osprey, the CVN(X), which is far too expensive at $10 billion per ship, the F-22 Raptor and additional B-2 Spirit bomber procurements. CNSI believes that the Navy Area Wide program should be restored in view of its importance to developing workable theater missile defenses for our armed forces deployed abroad. CNSI further believes that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter buy should be halved and limited to no more than 1600 airframes.

Enforce the Monroe Doctrine

The Center opposed the decision of the Carter and Clinton Administrations to withdraw from the Panama Canal and supports, as a central tenet of US foreign policy, the enforcement of a newly revitalized Monroe Doctrine aimed against Communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere by the Communist led states of Cuba, Venezuela and the People’s Republic of China against America’s allies in Latin America. We believe that the re-occupation of the Panama Canal and the forcible ejection of its current PRC administrators by US forces is an essential element of this new policy. CNSI has expressed particular concern at the seemingly imminent electoral victory of Brazilian presidential candidate and leader of a dangerous and vociferously anti-American Communist coalition, Luiz Ignacio “Lula” da Silva in Brazil’s October presidential elections and supports the implementation of measures by the Bush Administration designed to defeat and/or defend against such a disastrous development. Furthermore, CNSI believes that the US should re-implement the Reagan Doctrine and actively support all military and non-military anti-Communist resistance movements whether in southern Africa, Latin America or East Asia.

The Sino-Russian Alliance and the Russian Nuclear Threat

CNSI believes that the Administration’s early prognosis on the threat posed to the US by the ascension of Russian hardliner and former FSB (renamed KGB) director Vladimir Putin to the Presidency of Russia in 1999 was correct and encourages it to return to a more realistic outlook regarding Russian policies which seek to alternatively provide largely rhetorical support for US policies while opposing them with their own more stealthy policy initiatives. CNSI believes that President Putin, who recently announced his plans to retain Russia’s heavy SS-18 and SS-24 ‘monster’ missiles banned by the START II Treaty cannot be trusted to honor Russia’s arms control treaties. Russian nuclear weapons, which have been estimated by some to number as many as 40,000 as opposed to 8,000 for the US, will continue to pose a major threat to the US, both actual and in terms of the growing potential for blackmail as the US implements the disarmament of three-fourths of its strategic nuclear deterrent in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Moscow. The Sino-Russian military alliance, formalized in July 2001, will present an increasing challenge to US interests and that the Administration should employ any means possible to divide the alliance or alternatively employ economic sanctions and other measures to minimize its ability to threaten US vital interests. CNSI further believes that the decision to include Russia as a de-facto member of the NATO alliance was ill-considered given its newfound ability to veto all NATO decisions, but those effecting NATO expansion and potential renewed Russian aggression against any of its current or future member countries. CNSI encourages the Bush Administration to implement economic sanctions against Russia, Communist China and North Korea for their continuing proliferation of mass destruction to rogue states like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya, which are counted among America’s enemies.

Halt policies of appeasement of Communist Chinese and North Korean dictators

Furthermore, CNSI urges the Bush Administration to stop implementing Clinton holdover policies of appeasing Communist tyrants in regards to its support for permanent tax-payer subsidized most favored nation/normal trade relations status (PNTR) for the People’s Republic of China. PNTR taxpayer subsidized trade and US support for WTO membership for the PRC has served to reward Communist Chinese dictators for an ever worsening record of killing tens of thousands of its political and religious dissidents each and every year in the laogai death camps, exporting WMD and ballistic missile technology to rogue states which might one day be used against the United States, and its continuing attempts to influence US policy by buying influence with US policymakers. Furthermore, the illegitimate Communist regime in Beijing continues to perform tens of millions of forced abortions and infanticides each and every year. It has proclaimed the US as “the main enemy” and its military leaders have threatened US cities with nuclear annihilation.

There is absolutely no evidence that free trade with Communist China has served to undermine the Communist stranglehold on the country or resulted in any political freedoms being given to the PRC’s citizens. Quite the contrary, “free” trade with the PRC has served to strengthen Communism in China by enriching its leaders and providing additional funds to use to build up their military and fund their internal security repression apparatus. One example of what happens to a Communist country when it does not enjoy “free” trade with the West to help prop it up, as is does for the PRC, is North Korea whose disastrous economy and lack of foreign trade has served to starve the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang of badly needed cash to modernize its military. These Clinton China trade appeasement policies have contributed to a burgeoning $85 billion a year trade surplus (with the US), which it can use to buy high-tech Russian conventional and non-conventional armaments including missiles. CNSI further urges the Administration to ban further supercomputer sales to Communist China, since these supercomputers have been used by the PRC to make its nuclear missiles more accurate and more capable of destroying US population centers.

The Administration should, at a minimum, end PNTR status for the PRC and withhold it until its leadership agrees to disband the laogai death camps and free all political and religious prisoners, end its policies of mass genocide against its own people via forced abortions and infanticides and stop exporting weapons of mass destruction to America’s other rogue state enemies. The Administration should also work to bring a halt to other dual-use military technological transfers to the US by US-based companies.

With regards to North Korea, CNSI urges the Bush Administration to abandon the Clinton negotiated Framework agreement, under which the US agreed to provide several hundred million dollars in aid a year to North Korea and sponsor the construction of two large nuclear reactors which according to House Republican Policy Committee experts would enable North Korea to expand its nuclear warhead production to sixty warheads a year. The North Koreans have not complied with their part of the agreement by allowing IAEA inspections of its nuclear warhead producing facilities so the agreement has been of no benefit to the US and has only served to benefit the Stalinist regime in North Korea.

Implement Stronger Border Security measures

CNSI advocates the enforcement of existing US laws to guard our border against a massive ongoing influx of illegal immigrants now totaling some 8-11 million people, which threatens to balkanize our country over the next few decades. We propose that measures be taken to deport all known illegal immigrants and that procedures be instituted to facilitate citizen reporting to law enforcement in furtherance of this end. Further, CNSI supports the congressionally mandated reduction of legal immigration by 75% down to 250,000 a year down from current levels of 1,000,000 a year. Furthermore, immigration from terrorist and rogue states in the Middle East should be disallowed from henceforth excluding religious dissidents being persecuted for their faith.

Illegal immigration is not merely a drain on the national economy due to the fact that it illegal and legal immigrants take advantage of billions of dollars of free welfare, health care and educational benefits without paying income taxes, it has also contributed to rising crime rates and growing disrespect for our laws. Worse, it opens up the country to terrorist infiltration and greatly increases the prospects that the US will witness a repeat of the vile 9-11 terrorist assaults on our country. CNSI notes that were it not for our nation’s extremely lax legal immigration laws, the 9-11 terrorist suicide bombers could not have succeeded in entering out country and carrying out their murderous attacks. CNSI supports congressional legislation to deny educational, welfare, and health benefits excluding emergency care to illegal immigrants along the lines of the Proposition 187 referendum overwhelmingly passed in 1994 by California voters, but never enforced. Passage of such legislation would go far to both discourage and reduce further illegal immigration. CNSI also oppose any additional amnesties of illegal immigrants including the 245i exception renewal recently sponsored by the Bush Administration, but defeated in the US Senate.

Build a Comprehensive National Missile Defense System to Defend America From Nuclear Attack

The United States needs to strengthen its offensive nuclear and strategic defensive deterrent forces and pro-actively threaten the use of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons to deter aggression by rogue states abroad and in particular to repel enemy invasions. The US should construct a massive national missile defense system consisting of several thousand ABMs on land, on the sea and in space potent enough to shoot down the entire nuclear arsenal of all of our enemies if fired simultaneously and extend this nuclear umbrella not only to our troops and ships abroad, but to our allies as well. The US should set as its highest national priority the deployment of thousands of naval SM-3 Block IIs on our 65 Aegis cruisers and destroyers to provide us a national missile defense with a global reach to defend our allies and troops abroad as well.

Equally important, the US should retain the US strategic nuclear arsenal of 6000 deployed warheads at full readiness to deter nuclear war and preserve our superpower status. This is the most important element of our national security plan because without a credible nuclear deterrent capable of deterring a nuclear first strike against the US by the Russian Federation, the US will cease to be a superpower. In fact, this is exactly the outcome likely to result from the massive reductions in our strategic nuclear deterrent mandated by the Treaty of Moscow which will take the US nuclear arsenal below even the "minimum deterrence" levels long advocated by radical anti-nuke activists and far-left think-tanks down to a mere 1700 warheads by 2011, many of which are likely to be de-alerted. It is conceivable that the US could be faced with a Russian strategic arsenal of 5000 strategic nuclear warheads in 2011 and a PRC strategic arsenal of 1500 strategic nuclear warheads so Bush's unilateral nuclear disarmament plan is a very risky and dangerous one for US national security.

US strategy in dealing with international military aggressions and invasions should call for the 'first use' of battlefield tactical nukes to repel enemy attacks such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and a hypothetical North Korean invasion of the South. This would require the widespread redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to forward US military bases and ships. However, the US should not launch unprovoked first strikes using nuclear weapons in the absence of foreign aggression as the new Bush doctrine suggests it might do to unilaterally eliminate suspected rogue state WMD sites.