Exceptional (28 page)

Their efforts in many of these areas are a result of a decades-long commitment to the development of technologies that exploit particular areas of American weakness. Some of these projects sound like the stuff of science fiction, but many of them are part of a larger effort known as
shashoujian
, or “Assassin's Mace,” a term derived from an ancient Chinese folktale. In the story, a weaker hero triumphs over a mighty adversary with a macelike weapon hidden in his sleeve. Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, explains the term in the military context: “Assassin's Mace refers to a set of asymmetric weapons that allows an inferior enemy to defeat a seemingly superior adversary by striking at an enemy's
weakest point.” China has been embarked upon an effort to develop Assassin's Mace weapons for use against the United States for the better part
of twenty years.

One central element of this effort is China's cyberwar against the United States. This has included massive targeting of both U.S. government and industry. In May 2013, the
Washington Post
reported that the Chinese had obtained designs for a number of America's most advanced weapons systems, and were undertaking aggressive efforts to steal intellectual property from the
U.S. private sector. In May 2015, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced that someone had hacked into their systems stealing personnel and security clearance information on U.S. government employees.
Twenty-two
million people may have been affected. The Chinese government, it is widely thought, is to blame. According to former director of the CIA and NSA General Michael Hayden, “The Chinese have pretty much had a freehand in American databases for the better part of a decade and the attacks fit their policy, their needs, their tactics
and their tools.”

In addition to cyberespionage, the Chinese have focused on developing electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons that could take down our power grid, destroy communications networks, and render military command-and-control centers inoperable. Until relatively recently, launching an EMP attack would require exploding a nuclear device several hundred miles above the wide area to be affected. The method the Chinese are focusing on achieves the same end but with none of the complications of a nuclear explosion—and it can be targeted. In his book,
The Hundred-Year Marathon
, Pillsbury points out that the Chinese see America's ever-increasing dependence on electronic technology as putting us particularly at risk. According to an official newspaper of the People's Liberation Army, “The United States is more vulnerable to attacks than any other
country in the world.”

China is matching its technological advances, military buildup, and cyberespionage programs with policies aimed at countering American influence globally. They have proliferated missile technology to rogue states like Iran, Libya, and Syria. They are expanding trade ties, weapons sales, and military cooperation with Russia, building a relationship based on challenging America's preeminence. “They see [America's] grip on the rest of the world rapidly loosening,” writes Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center:

Both Moscow and Beijing see the world going through an epochal change away from U.S. domination and toward a freer global
order that would give China more prominence and Russia more
freedom of action.

Neither China nor Russia, it is safe to say, plans to use these anticipated gains in prominence to further the cause of global freedom, security, or peace. Nor do they seem to agree with President Obama's assertion that the days when global power “was a zero-sum game” are over.

IN THE SEVENTY YEARS since World War II, no American president has done more damage to our nation's defenses than Barack Obama. His determination to cut defense spending and reduce the size of the U.S. military has served two of his fundamental objectives. He came to office determined to increase domestic spending, and cutting defense spending was a way of getting the resources to do it.

He also came into office determined to reduce America's role in the world. Bret Stephens of the
Wall Street Journal
described Obama's philosophy this way:

Above all, progressivism believes that the United States is a country that, in nearly every respect, treads too heavily on the Earth: environmentally, ideologically, militarily, and geopolitically. The goal, therefore, is to reduce America's footprint; to “retrench,” as the administration would like to think of it, or to retreat, as it
might more accurately be called.

Slashing the size, readiness, and equipment of our forces is a way of guaranteeing America will be unable to play a larger role in the world.

In what may turn out to be one of the tragedies of American history, President Obama has been aided in his misguided efforts by partisan gridlock in the U.S. Congress. Unable to reach agreement
on cuts in the federal budget, Congress has allowed sequestration to further devastate our defense capabilities.

The misguided cuts being made now will have long-lasting negative effects on the nation. Weapons systems take years—and dedicated assembly lines—to produce. Cuts of the magnitude we are seeing now gut our industrial capacity as well as our current war-fighting capability. A strong military force requires a consistent and long-term investment. Officers must be developed over multiyear careers. Adequate training requires time and money. Cutting the size of the force, reducing training budgets, and denying our men and women the equipment they need guarantee we will have a less capable, less ready force years down the line. We are also likely to be reminded that it is far costlier to rebuild a military than it is to maintain it.

If not reversed in the very near term, current defense budget cuts will significantly limit the ability of future presidents to defend the nation. Even today, twenty-seven years after Ronald Reagan left office, we are still benefiting from his defense buildup. Many of the most important weapons systems on which we rely were designed, procured, and built during the Reagan era. As former undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman has said, we have been “
eating the seed corn” that was laid down then. President Obama's legacy will be far different. It is hard to imagine anyone who succeeds him in the Oval Office looking back in gratitude for what he has done to our capacity to defend ourselves.

One can't help but wonder what some of President Obama's Democratic predecessors would have thought of his neglect of the nation's military power. In June 1941, when London was standing virtually alone against the Nazis, President Roosevelt sent a letter to a special convocation of Oxford University. He told the story of America's ambassador to England visiting the House of Commons and Westminster Abbey after they'd been bombed, and seeing the statue of
Abraham Lincoln, our Great Emancipator, still standing as a symbol and sentinel “in this great battle for freedom.” Roosevelt knew this was America's cause:

We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than
live on our knees.

President John F. Kennedy knew this, too. For our own sake, and for the sake of global peace and freedom, he believed America must always maintain “a national security position which is first, not ‘first, but'; not ‘first, if'; not ‘first, when';
but first.” America must, he warned, maintain a military power that is “second to none.” Everything else—
everything
—depends on this.

The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world. And we shall surely endanger the
welfare of this nation.

—HARRY S. TRUMAN, MARCH 12, 1947

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and
success of liberty.

—JOHN F. KENNEDY, INAUGURAL ADDRESS, JANUARY 20, 1961

P
residents Truman and Kennedy knew that neither America's freedom nor its security was self-sustaining. Each was guaranteed by American power. Both men were shaped by World War II: President Kennedy by his heroic Navy service and President Truman
by the duty he inherited and the leadership he provided in securing victory for the Allies. Neither man was naïve enough to think that America could be safe if we retreated behind our oceans. They had seen too much of the evil of our enemies and the powerful reach of their weapons to have been lulled by the false comfort of isolationism or appeasement.

Nor would either man have suggested that American unilateral disarmament would inspire the Soviets to follow suit. When Truman had to decide whether America should develop the hydrogen bomb, he asked one question: “Can the Soviets do it?” Told that they could, he ordered America's program to proceed. When Soviet premier Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall and threatened to cut off America's access to the western side of the city, Kennedy didn't offer American concessions. He instructed his deputy secretary of defense to announce publicly how far the American nuclear arsenal exceeded the Soviets' arsenal in size and capabilities. He wanted to be certain the Soviets were under no illusions about America's nuclear supremacy and the deadly costs of escalation. Both men had a clear understanding of the nature of America's adversaries, the magnitude of the threats we faced, the importance of our military power, and the indispensable role we played in the world.

Although they were Democrats, it is unlikely they would find much that is prudent—or even explicable—in the national security policies of the Democrat who inhabits the Oval Office today. It will be up to America's next president to look to the examples of men like Truman and Kennedy, Eisenhower and Reagan as he or she works to undo the significant damage that's been done.

The next president's top priority must be rebuilding America's military to ensure it has the personnel, resources, and equipment necessary to defend the nation in an environment of escalating and multiplying dangers. Not since before World War II have we faced a
situation of such disparity between the threats we face and our capability to defend against them. There will be no more important or urgent task for our next commander in chief than repairing the damage done by the Obama-era defense budget cuts.

Even before our next president is inaugurated:

• Congress should move immediately to repeal the Budget Control Act and end the sequestration cuts.
If Congress fails to act, two more rounds of sequestration cuts will go into effect before January 20, 2017, when the next president is inaugurated. Former general Jim Mattis described the damage these cuts are doing to our nation's defenses: “
No foe in the field can wreak such havoc on our security [as] mindless sequestration is achieving today.” They should be repealed immediately.

In addition, the next commander in chief should:

• Use the Gates fiscal 2012 budget as a minimum baseline on which to build in setting funding levels for the Department of Defense.
The Gates FY 2012 budget was the last defense budget prepared using the normal defense planning process, assessing the threats to the nation and the resources necessary to meet those threats. That budget requested
$661 billion for national defense for FY 2016. This FY 2012 budget was developed prior to the rise of ISIS, the collapse of the government in Iraq, the civil war in Syria, the fall of Libya to militant Islamists, the fall of Yemen to Iranian-backed rebels, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China's most recent aggressive actions in the South China Sea, and
the cyberattack on the U.S. government personnel systems for which the Chinese were apparently responsible. The FY 2012 budget should be supplemented to ensure sufficient resources in light of this increased threat environment.