Next Conservatism #16: The Next Conservatism and National Defense

By Paul M. Weyrich
October 31, 2005

Conservatives have always been for a strong national defense. America’s victory in the Cold War showed we were right on that point. Unfortunately, the world has not become a safer place since the Cold War ended. That means the next conservatism will also need to make a strong national defense part of its program.

However, conservatives need to recognize that the nature of the threats we face is changing. In the past, threats came from other states that were hostile to us - - Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union. But the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the events of 9/11, was not launched by any other state. It came from a non-state organization, al Qaeda. The next conservatism’s defense policy must take account of this fact. America must be prepared to defend itself against very serious threats that come from non-state organizations.

Let me add that what happened on 9/11 was only a beginning. Some people in Washington seem to think that we are now safe, because we have created a Department of Homeland Security and passed the so-called “Patriot Act.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are going to get hit again, only harder. It may be with a nuclear weapon, smuggled inside a shipping container. It may be with something that could be even worse, a genetically-engineered plague. Creating new bureaucracies in Washington won’t stop terrorism, at least so long as we insist on poking our nose into every quarrel in the world.

The fact that our country faces a new kind of threat has two important implications. First, it may be possible to re-create a national consensus on defense, like that we had early in the Cold War. I am not certain that will be possible, but the next conservatism should at least try. It would be better for our country if conservatives and liberals could agree on maintaining a strong national defense. Personally, I don’t know any liberals who want suitcase nukes going off in American cities. The next conservatism should make clear that our door is open to liberals who want to put national defense above politics. We should prefer consensus, so long as it is the right consensus, over seeking partisan advantage on this issue. It is just too important to play politics with.

Second, I think conservatives need to reconsider how we approach building a strong national defense. In the past, during the Cold War, we accepted the idea that so long as we spent enough money for defense, our defenses would be strong. From what I see in Washington, I don’t think that is true anymore - - if it ever was.

History warns us that you can spend heaps of money on defense and still be weak, if you buy the wrong kinds of things. France spent billions on the Maginot Line between the World Wars, but the Germans just went around it.

Today, America spends more for defense than all the rest of the countries in the world put together. But that does not seem to make us more secure. Most of the $500 billion we spend for defense every year seems to go for weapons and strategies that may be outdated. We still keep hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in places like Europe and South Korea, long after the Cold War ended. We keep buying the kinds of tanks, planes and ships that may have made sense for fighting the Soviet armed forces but have little if any use in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. At the same time, our troops in those places go without basic gear they need to stay alive.

The next conservatism needs to recognize that the Pentagon is a government bureaucracy like any other government bureaucracy. Bureaucrats who wear uniforms behave the same way as other bureaucrats. They do what benefits their bureaucracy, not necessarily what works in the outside world. Conservatives need to be both supporters of a strong national defense and skeptics about the Pentagon, if the money America spends for defense is really to buy security against the new threats we face.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a bi-partisan group of Senators and Congressmen put together something called the Military Reform Movement. I supported that effort, and I think it may be time to start it up again. The next conservatism should recognize that military reform is necessary for a strong defense, not opposed to it.

My colleague Bill Lind is an internationally-recognized expert on military theory and doctrine. I have asked him to write the next column in this series, to explain in more detail the changes in war the next conservatism must address.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.