Opportunities and Priorities for a Second Term
In his second inaugural address, President Obama laid out his vision for how the United States should lead in the world, with strength and justice together:
But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well. We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
In the face of partisan hostility at home and major challenges abroad, the Administration can begin now on its own to progress toward that vision in several key areas: cementing and internalizing a counterterrorism agenda that models operational effectiveness with transparent adherence to the rule of law; reforming our 20th-century national security infrastructure for the realities of the 21st century; putting more focus on our economic diplomacy, and pulling focus away from outdated nuclear weapons and targeting.
Sustaining counterterrorism successes while adhering to America’s core values. The decimation of al Qaeda central was one of the key achievements of the first term. The Administration’s multi-faceted approach has been proven successful. It must now be made sustainable by:
Bring greater transparency to standards for use of lethal force. Putting clear legal restraints and oversight around new lethal tools, such as drones, can be one of President Obama’s greatest legacies to his successors. The New York Times reports on the debate: “the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified… The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say. More broadly, the administration’s legal reasoning has not persuaded many other countries that the strikes are acceptable under international law.” [NY Times, 11/24/12]
Determining the endgame for the “war on terror.” Over a decade into the against al Qaeda, there remains the need to determine and declare a point at which al Qaeda and its close affiliates are no longer effective organizations and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force no longer applies. As the Pentagon’s former top lawyer Jeh Johnson recently said, “I do believe that on the present course, there will come a tipping point — a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that Al Qaeda as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed.” Counterterror operations that do not involve Al Qaeda and its close affiliates are also in urgent need of a legal architecture – and of outside oversight. [Jeh Johnson, 11/30/12]
Setting geo-economics as a foreign policy priority in the 21st century. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made a vision of economic statecraft a priority for U.S. diplomacy and strategy. As the secretary recently said in Singapore, “For the first time in modern history, nations are becoming major global powers without also becoming global military powers. So, to maintain our strategic leadership in the region, the United States is also strengthening our economic leadership. And we know very well that America’s economic strength at home and our leadership around the world are a package deal. Each reinforces and requires the other.” Specific efforts that can be made within this realm include:
Further liberalizing trade and travel restrictions with Cuba. The U.S. policy towards Cuba still carries an outdated Cold War-era approach. As Ted Piccone of the Brookings Institution writes in a memo to the president: “Your second term presents a rare opportunity to turn the page of history from an outdated Cold War approach to Cuba to a new era of constructive engagement that will encourage a process of reform already underway on the island. Cuba is changing, slowly but surely, as it struggles to adapt its outdated economic model to the 21st century while preserving one-party rule. Reforms that empower Cuban citizens to open their own businesses, buy and sell property, hire employees, own cell phones, and travel off the island offer new opportunities for engagement.” He specifically recommends asserting, “executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. This will help establish your legacy of rising above historical grievances, advance U.S. interests in a stable, prosperous and democratic Cuba, and pave the way for greater U.S. leadership in the region.” [Ted Piccone, 1/17/12]
Energizing Efforts around a Transatlantic Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said at the Brookings Institution, “We are discussing possible negotiations with the European Union for a comprehensive agreement that would increase trade and spur growth on both sides of the Atlantic.” As David Ignatius commented about the idea, “Combined with the North American Free Trade Agreement in Latin America and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Asia, this could create a global trading system that might be an enduring part of Obama’s legacy. What’s appealing in particular about the trans-Atlantic initiative is that it could be a big job creator for economies on both continents that are still recovering from the effects of the recession. It would enhance trade and investment flows that are already powerfully established. There’s an estimated $2.7 trillion in cross-investment between Europe and America, and trans-Atlantic trade in goods alone totaled an estimated $674 billion in 2010. Trade between the United States and Europe isn’t a matter of sweatshop competition; labor standards in Europe are, if anything, higher than in the United States.” [David Ignatius, 12/5/12]
Making the Prague Nuclear Agenda Pay Dividends. NSN’s Executive Director Heather Hurlburt writes in the Guardian: “Obama cannot count on much help from Moscow or Tehran or even the US Congress in reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US security policy. But there are steps he can take alone: accelerating US reductions under the New Start [arms limitation] treaty, reconsidering and reducing the number of warheads demanded by US nuclear targeting policy, making further cuts without waiting for Moscow.” [Heather Hurlburt, 1/20/13.]
Restructure the size of our deterrent. Terri Lodge of the American Security Project writes, “The growing consensus for a new nuclear strategy includes most former flag officers of STRATCOM, missile commands, and large commands, along with former national security officials. Some of these leaders are Republicans; some are Democrats. They may not agree on many national security issues, but they do agree that the U.S. can maintain a nuclear deterrent with far fewer than the 1,550 warheads allowed under the New START Treaty. The new nuclear consensus includes former STRATCOM Commander General James Cartwright, who chaired a bipartisan commission that recommended a nuclear force of 450 deployed and 450 non-deployed warheads. These military leaders are joined by policymakers like Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Senator Carl Levin, who notes that nuclear weapons are ‘totally useless.’”
Re-prioritize to meet current security needs, which nuclear weapons do not. As Colin Powell, former national security advisor and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while he was Secretary of State to George W. Bush: “We have every incentive to reduce the number. These [nuclear weapons] are expensive. They take away from soldier pay. They take away from O[perations] and M[aintenance] investments. They take away from lots of things. There is no incentive to keep more than you believe you need for the security of the Nation. [Terri Lodge, 7/16/12. Colin Powell, 7/9/02.]
Organizing the government to tackle 21st century national security issues. A balance of defense, diplomacy and development is crucial to America’s success on the global stage as is a strategic approach to tackling governance and foreign relations. There are management changes that can be done in a second term that can bring a more strategic approach to U.S. national security. Specifically the Administration should work to:
Enhance civilian long-term planning capacity. Policy makers often face the “tyranny of the inbox” that drives their day-to-day functions. A recent report from Leon Fuerth and endorsed by a long list of top national security practitioners including Madeleine K. Albright, Samuel R. Berger, Dennis C. Blair, William S. Cohen, Stephen J. Hadley, James L. Jones among many others, lays out the issues facing policy makers: “challenges presenting themselves today are increasingly fast- moving and complex: they involve concurrent interactions among events across multiple dimensions of governance; they have no regard for our customary jurisdictional and bureaucratic boundaries; they cannot be broken apart and solved piece by piece; and rather than stabilizing into permanent solutions, they morph into new problems that have to be continually managed.” The report seeks “to address this tension with upgrades to existing systems in the Executive Branch. It proposes three basic sets of changes: integrating foresight and policy, networking governance, and using feedback for applied learning.” [Leon Fuerth, 10/2012]
Rebalance national security budgeting and planning. A recent report from the Center for American Progress and the Institute for Policy Studies found, “In recent years, the State Department has developed a more systematic internal framework for planning and budgeting; it has also worked to integrate the planning and budgeting at the U.S. Agency for International Development into the new framework. Both State and USAID have added personnel with planning and budgeting expertise. Additional work is needed in these areas, however. One change of particular value would be to strengthen State’s internal capacity for the planning and budgeting of security assistance programs. Another would be to expand current training programs to include focuses on strategic planning, resource allocation, program development, program implementation, and evaluation.” [CAP/IPS, 10/12]
