An Agenda of Strength

Heritage Policy Recommendations Focus on National Defense, Foreign Policy, and Domestic Issues

By JAMES D. HESSMAN, Editor in Chief

The recent-year increases in defense spending "must be sustained for many years." The newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should develop and deploy its own information-technology infrastructure "to link and fuse" the nation's intelligence and law-enforcement terrorism databases. The Bush administration should take whatever actions are needed to "accelerate" the building and deployment of a national missile defense system. The United States should continue to "relentlessly attack the al Qaeda [terrorist] network on as many fronts as possible," and should "lead an international effort" to replace "rogue regimes" that provide sanctuaries and support for terrorist groups.

Those are but a few of the numerous policy recommendations developed by Heritage Foundation scholars and analysts that are included in the conservative think tank's latest "roadmap" for U.S. decision makers in the executive and legislative branches of government. Agenda 2003: Shaping America's Future offers 124 specific--and, in some instances, controversial--recommendations for action in fields ranging from foreign aid and welfare reform to health insurance, taxes, and U.S. national security.

"The 108th Congress faces a choice," said Michael Franc, the foundation's vice president for government relations. "It can follow the example of the last Congress and get stuck in a holding pattern on many vital issues. Or it can be bold--make concrete policy changes that boost our security, safeguard our freedoms, [and] unleash our economic potential."

The 28-chapter policy roadmap starts with a booming broadside, on the domestic front, aimed at the administration as well as Congress. The federal government, Heritage says, "is on a historic spending spree" that will make 2000-2003 "the highest-spending four-year period in American history, with the exception of World War II." The solution recommended by Brian M. Riedl is simple, succinctly stated, and politically painful: "Freeze non-defense discretionary spending" and use the savings to increase defense spending and fight the war on terrorism.

Also included in the 12 Domestic Policy chapters of Agenda 2003 are a broad spectrum of policy recommendations and legislative proposals on such major national issues as Tax Relief and Reform, Medicare (increase the choices available and improve the care provided), Welfare Reform (intensify and expand the successes already achieved "by promoting work, strengthening marriage, and expanding abstinence education"), Social Security (permit personal retirement accounts), Education, Energy (implement a long-term plan that balances supply and demand and ensures a reliable and affordable supply in the future), Technology Policy, and the U.S. Postal Service.

The major strength of the Agenda 2003 document, however, is in the 16 chapters of the Foreign Policy section, which starts, appropriately, with Homeland Security, allocates nine chapters devoted to regional defense, economic, and political issues (e.g., Europe and NATO; Russia and Eurasia; Asian Security; and The Middle East), and includes several chapters on such "umbrella" topics as Trade Policy, Missile Defense, and International Terrorism.

The Homeland Security chapter, by Michael Scardaville, briefly reviews "What Happened in 2002"--the signing of the Homeland Security Act, primarily--and then suggests "What To Do in 2003." Here, Heritage recommends that: (a) Congress and the President work together to "fully merge" any "overlapping and redundant programs" or agencies (the Customs Service and the Border Patrol, for example) transferred to the DHS; (b) the congressional committee system on homeland security be revised and reorganized (there are now 88 committees and subcommittees exercising jurisdiction over various aspects of homeland-security policy); and (c) DHS develop and deploy its own information-techology infrastructure "to ensure that all federal, state, and local officials with antiterrorism ... [responsibilities] have access to the information they need."

"Congress, which has wasted the nation's budget surplus on special-interest projects that have nothing to do with the war on terrorism ... must make a long-term commitment to provide adequate defense spending for the future security of the nation," says Jack Spencer in his chapter on Defense ("Maintaining U.S. Military Strength"). Spencer praises both Congress and the administration for eliminating some wasteful practices (and for cutting certain "outdated" weapon systems), but says that much more can and should be done--starting with large additional increases in defense spending. "The nation can easily afford to spend 4 percent (approximately $450 billion) of its gross domestic product ... on defense," Spencer says "This is well below historical levels and sufficient to fill all of the nation's defense needs. Currently, the nation spends scarcely over 3 percent of its GDP for defense."

Unneeded military bases should be closed, Heritage also says, the deployment of U.S. forces to areas (the Balkans, for example), and on missions, that do not affect America's "vital interests" should be discontinued, and the headquarters staffs "of many higher-ranking military officials" should be reduced.

In his Missile Defense chapter, Baker Spring says that Congress and the President should take action "as soon as possible" to protect U.S. territory and U.S. friends and allies from ballistic-missile attacks by funding a national missile-defense program that would, among other things, "discourage rogue leaders from considering the use of ballistic missiles to rain terror on any of their target countries.

"Every day that the United States and its allies do not have even a limited defense ... [against ballistic missiles] is another day," Spring says, "that regimes and terrorist groups hostile to America have an opportunity to exploit the glaring vulnerability [that now exists]."

James Phillips, author of the Agenda chapter on International Terrorism ("Winning the War Against Terrorists and the States That Support Them") is even more emphatic in his recommendations. Specifically, he says that the United States and its allies should "Relentlessly uproot the global al Qaeda terrorist network, raise the cost of state-sponsored terrorism to pressure rogue regimes to halt terrorism, and be prepared to seek the overthrow of regimes that do not cooperate."

The disarming and dismantling of the Saddam Hussein regime is the principal focus of the Iraq chapter (by James Phillips), who asserts that the United States should continue pressuring Iraq "to comply with all U.N. Security Council resolutions" requiring Baghdad to destroy its weapons of mass destruction. If that approach fails, Phillips says, the United States must be prepared "to lead a coalition of states willing to go to war to destroy the prohibited weapons ... and to oust Saddam Hussein's outlaw regime."

The Heritage authors retained the organization's traditional global focus, and made numerous recommendations (relevant to the areas or regions indicated) related to U.S. economic, political, and military interests in other areas of the world. In Europe, for example, the United States should work to "rebuild NATO" into an alliance that is more attuned to the new global-security environment and "at least marginally interoperable" so that U.S. allies "have the technical ability to fight together at roughly the same operational level, with the Europeans contributing more to the effort."

In Russia and Eurasia, Heritage said, the U.S. goals must be to "strengthen the developing strategic partnership for the war on terrorism," to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) "and the sale of dual-use technology to rogue nations," and to improve energy cooperation "and enhance democracy, human rights, and free markets."

John J. Tkacik Jr. took a firm stand in his discussion of U.S. relations with Taiwan, on the one hand, and China on the other. Taiwan "has evolved," he pointed out, "to become one of Asia's most robust capitalist economies as well as its most vibrant democracy." Taiwan also has made "significant contributions," he said, to the war on terrorism. In contrast, China has suppressed religion, exported nuclear weapons materials and technology, and continued the "rapid modernization" of its military.

The United States should recognize the differences between what used to be called "the two Chinas," Tkacik suggested, and act accordingly--by, for example, making appropriate defense technology and services available to Taiwan, working with Taiwan "in the development of a U.S. theater missile-defense network for the Western Pacific," and continuing to support Taiwan's involvement in such organizations as the Asian Development Bank and the World Trade Organization.

In its relations with China, though, the United States should maintain a clear focus on human rights issues, discourage China's proliferation of WMD technology and delivery systems, and ensure that U.S. goods and services "gain the kind of access to China's markets that Chinese goods have in U.S. markets."

North Korea poses "a serious security threat to the entire region," Balbina Y. Hwang says in the Agenda chapter on Northeast Asian Security. The United States and its allies "must not allow North Korea to ... [blackmail] the international community to secure handouts," Hwang says, but must instead: (a) work to ensure that Pyongyang ends "its proliferation of WMDs and its nuclear program"; and (b) "coordinate U.S. policy with ... Japan and South Korea to prevent the [current] nuclear standoff from escalating into a military crisis." *

Agenda 2003 and the book's individual chapters are available online at www.heritage.org/agenda. For additional information about Heritage write: The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, D.C. 20002.