December 12, 2001

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL

SUBJECT: Defense

Press coverage of yesterday’s speech by President Bush at the Citadel focused on military reform (“Broad Reform in the Military, And Fast, Is Bush’s Priority”-- The New York Times, December 12, A14). Press coverage of the president’s decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty stressed U.S.-Russian relations. Neither of these issues is unimportant. But one conclusion that underlies both the president’s ABM decision and his Citadel speech deserves more attention: Dealing with the threat of weapons of mass destruction in hostile hands is a central task of American foreign policy in the years ahead. And deterrence is no longer sufficient to deal with this problem.

Why do we need missile defense? Because, as the president explained at the Citadel, of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the fact that “states that sponsor terror” seek or have missiles. What Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press Sunday called the “increasing linkage, if you will, between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction” makes deterrence unreliable.

Terrorism provides a cut-out for the delivery of the weapons of mass destruction, one that could make it difficult to know the origin of the attack, and one that therefore vitiates the deterrent ability of the threat of massive retaliation. And states that deal in terror don’t have the kinds of leaders, or the requisite stability, to be safely counted on to be calmly deterred from killing Americans by the threat of retaliation. That’s why missile defense (along with other counter-proliferation measures) is urgent. That‘s why the concern about our relationship with Russia can’t be allowed to stand in the way of missile defense.

That’s also why the president is going to confront Saddam Hussein. As the president said, “almost every state that actively sponsors terror is known to be seeking weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them at longer and longer ranges.” Missile defense prepares for the possibility that more active counter-proliferation measures may fail. But it is, obviously, a last resort. If “preventing mass terror” is an urgent responsibility for American presidents, then nipping the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction in the bud is an urgent responsibility. That means export controls, diplomacy, sanctions and inspectors-but also, when necessary, regime change and pre-emption.

The president didn’t mention Iraq in Tuesday’s speech. But the vice president connected the dots on Meet the Press Sunday. One has to be concerned with Iraq not just because of “their past activity of harboring terrorists,” the vice president noted, but also because of Saddam’s “behavior over the years” and because of “his aggressive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.”

And what does the vice president say next? He doesn’t go on to discuss inspections, or sanctions, or diplomacy. He continues: “If we go back and we look at 1981, [Saddam] was pursuing nukes. The Israelis pre-empted when they hit the Osirak reactor and shut down the program.” The vice president then describes Saddam’s continuing attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He concludes by saying that while the president has yet to make a decision, we need “to make certain that the United States is not vulnerable” to a surprise attack using weapons of mass destruction.

In other words: On December 11, the president (helped by his vice president two days earlier) ushered the United States into a new era. In this new era, containment and deterrence will be supplemented by defense, regime change and pre-emption, in order to deal with the overwhelming threat now facing us -- terrorist-sponsoring regimes seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction.