Last week, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter gave a major speech at the 2015 Reagan National Defense Forum outlining the Obama administration’s new strategies to respond to Russia and China.
While it is certainly clear that the United States is in need of new strategies to respond to these two countries—who seem to be outmaneuvering the United States and our allies around the globe—Carter delivered absolutely nothing new in his remarks.
Ash Carter talked tough on Russia but didn’t announce anything new, just recap of things we are already doing. #RNDF
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 7, 2015
Carter started his speech by talking about President Reagan’s “bold, innovative moves” to strengthen America’s position against the Soviets and mentioned Reagan’s investments in missile defense and his decision to roll back Soviet advances, while at the same time he remained willing to negotiate with the Soviets when it would help.
While Reagan certainly did bring a new strategy against the Soviets and implemented a “strong and balanced” foreign policy, to use Carter’s phrase, nothing that followed in Carter’s speech was at all Reaganesque. Instead, it was a continuation of the weak and imbalanced Obama foreign policy.
On Russia, Carter said that the U.S. is modernizing our nuclear arsenal, investing in new technologies, updating our operational plans, and “leveraging other U.S. government capabilities” like information campaigns and focused sanctions.
Carter also mentioned the need to update NATO’s playbook and the variety of military exercises that the U.S. is conducting in Europe. All of these are relatively good things, but none of them is new or innovative.
Unlike President Reagan’s investment in missile defense, or his strategic decision to push back against the Soviets, none of the efforts outlined by Carter is new or particularly likely to improve the strategic situation.
Later, in response to a question about Russian involvement in Syria, Carter said, “Putin hasn’t thought through very thoroughly what he’s doing in Syria.”
This line of criticism has been used repeatedly by the Obama administration, and it is deeply revealing of the hubris of the Obama foreign policy.
Does anyone really believe that Vladimir Putin hasn’t “thought through very thoroughly” what he is doing in Syria? The guy who has played the U.S. and NATO like a fiddle in Ukraine? Many would argue that Putin has been doing a lot more strategic thinking than President Obama and his foreign policy team.
China
On China, Carter similarly failed to discuss anything new. He outlined things we have heard before, like America’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific and the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Carter mentioned the importance of allies, partners, and multilateral organizations. And Carter addressed the tension in the South China Sea, including the recent transit of a U.S. destroyer through water claimed by China. Once again, these may all be good things, but not one of them is anything new or likely to particularly improve the strategic posture of the United States or do much to deter Chinese aggression.
Carter did say one thing that rang particularly true:
It’s said that security is like oxygen; when you have enough of it, you pay no attention to it. But when you don’t have enough, you can think of nothing else.
Unfortunately, nothing in this speech contributed anything new to the effort of protecting America’s security.
How Much of a Threat Are Russia and China?
Recently, the new edition of Heritage’s Index of U.S. Military Strength rated threats from China and Russia as “high” and the U.S. military as “marginal.” New strategies and operational concepts are needed to address the changing global security environment and to protect the United States and her interests. However, repeating the same old thing and calling it new does not help.
Perhaps the Pentagon is developing new strategies in secret, and perhaps Obama will support them, but as Carter’s comment on oxygen indicates, America can’t hold her breath forever.
Secretary Carter said nice things about President Reagan’s “bold, innovative moves” and “strong and balanced” foreign policy, but bold, innovative, strong, and balanced are not things that can be said of this speech. If Carter hadn’t begun by promising something new, this speech would have been boring and normal. However, by promising something new and failing to deliver, Carter only highlighted yet again the weak and imbalanced foreign policy of Obama.