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02 October 2000
Addressing an audience at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) October 2, Defense Secretary Cohen said the biggest
challenges facing future administrations in terms of foreign policy
and defense policy will be how to deal with Russia, China, and the
threat of weapons of mass destruction from "two dozen countries who
either have developed or are in the process of developing" such
weapons.
He said the United States must deal with Russia "as a major power to
contend with; not necessarily as a superpower, but as a country of
great size, of great natural resources, that covers 11 time zones,"
and decide "how we manage that relationship with them and what we will
do in terms of continuing our relationship to reduce the level of
nuclear weapons."
Cohen lamented the fact that the United States seems to be the only
country volunteering in the effort "to help Russia dismantle and
dispose of their large stocks of nuclear weapons under the START I and
START II treaties."
On the issue of China and Taiwan, Cohen said he "saw a change in both
the tonality and also what was said during my visit to China. A year
ago or less, China was talking about the possibility of their
resorting to warfare" but in July "they said that they did not give up
the right to use force, but they had no intent to use force."
He said there is a way to breach their differences "if people of good
will and creativity take advantage of the opportunity to find ways of
bridging that peacefully."
With regard to weapons of mass destruction, Cohen stressed the
importance of gaining control over their proliferation. "If you recall
the words of the poet Auden, he talked about a 'man clutching a little
case who walks out briskly to infect a city whose terrible future may
have just arrived.'"
Following is the transcript of Cohen's remarks as delivered, from the
Defense Department web site:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Remarks by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
Washington, DC,
Monday, October 2, 2000
As delivered
John Hamre, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for
Strategic International Studies and former Deputy Secretary of
Defense], thank you very much. By now, I think most of you are
familiar that I am often handed a speech shortly before I walk up to
the platform. And take a look. It's 25 pages long. And I say that even
I cannot inflict this kind of cruel and unusual punishment upon you
late this afternoon. [Laughter.]
I do thank John Hamre for inviting me. I've known John a long time. We
worked together many, many years on Capitol Hill and then over in the
Secretary of Defense's office. And I know that you at CSIS have come
to appreciate not only his intellect, but his great insight and
especially his humor. On many occasions, when things seemed to be
getting a little bit too heavy and the problems seemed to be a bit
complex, John would lighten things up by saying, "This is like putting
socks on an octopus." [Laughter.] Or, "This is like putting panty hose
on a mountain lion."
And inevitably he was correct in diagnosing the difficulty of
achieving any goal. But I must say that he was always very
straightforward. He was blunt, honest, candid. And if you asked him to
be anything but that, I would say it would be like trying to get an
elephant to do needlepoint. [Laughter.] In any event, I thank you for
inviting me, John, and I hope that I will be able to contribute. Kurt
[Campbell, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia &
Pacific Affairs], good to see you over here as well. Kurt Campbell did
so much for us in the department in our relations with Asia. Great to
see you over here, Kurt.
But John asked me to sort of paint my vision of the future in a broad
presentation. He said, "It doesn't have to be that deep. It could be
sort of a light version of Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence:
500 Years of Western Culture. And, of course, I hadn't read it, so it
sent me scurrying over the weekend to pick up a copy of the book. And
I came across an interesting quote, John, in Barzun's book. He said,
"There are a great number of noblemen among you that are themselves as
idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labor, on the labor of
their tenants, whom, to raise their own resources, they pare to the
quick. Besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle
fellows who never learn any trade by which they may gain a living, and
then, as soon as their lord dies, have turned out of doors. Those
turned out of doors grow keen, and they rob no less keenly, for what
else can they do?"
Now, I'm not sure why that caught my eye. [Laughter.] But as I look
toward my departure from the Secretary of Defense's position, perhaps
[as] the traveler who was talking to [Sir Thomas] More [author of the
previous quote] in Utopia, it had more than a subliminal message for
me.
It has been said that whom the gods destroy, they first make
prophetic. And I will try not to tempt that destruction aspect of it
at least, but try to at least look at where we have been in the
Defense Department and where we are today and where we're likely to go
tomorrow. I think it's a fair statement for me to say that in terms of
training and technology, versatility, mobility, lethality, education,
and leadership, there is no peer, there is no peer to the United
States military. And there is unlikely to be a peer to the U.S.
military for the foreseeable future.
We have the best officer and noncommissioned officer corps. We have
put the premium on our people, recognizing that even as we celebrate
the capability of our technology, that that technology is rather
useless unless we have the people who are capable of understanding it
and utilizing it in the most effective and efficient fashion. So we
focused upon our people. And as all of you know, it's a very hard
market out there for us to either recruit and then to retain the very
best and the brightest in our society because of the strength of our
economy and the fact that that private sector looks to the Department
of Defense for some of its very best talent.
And so when John was Deputy Secretary of Defense, we decided that we
had to do whatever we could to increase pay. And as you know, we
increased pay with the largest pay raise in the past generation. We
changed the retirement benefits from 40 percent to 50 percent. We
changed the so-called pay table reforms so we could target additional
pay raises to those in their mid-career level to make sure that we did
everything that we could to provide the kind of incentives for the
best and the brightest to stay.
And we achieved the goal that was set out for us a few years ago.
Perhaps Pat Towell [senior writer for Congressional Quarterly] recalls
from covering so many Senate hearings [recalls the challenge] of
achieving $60 billion in procurement. When I took over about three and
a half years ago, we were down around $43 billion in procurement, and
the goal had always been this elusive $60 billion. I made a pledge
when I was sworn in that we would arrive at that $60 billion mark by
2001, which we have, in fact, done. And we'll increase the procurement
budget in the next four years up to $70 billion. In all likelihood, it
will have to go even higher.
So we have done a good deal to focus on the quality of our personnel,
understanding that we're in a very competitive situation. It went
without much notoriety, I might say, that last week we held a major
press conference, supported by the Secretary of the Army [Louis
Caldera], and pointed out for the first time in the past three years
all three services met their recruitment goals. I don't think any of
you saw that in the Washington press. I think it appeared in one of
the Texas newspapers [laughter] but it did not appear in any other
publication that I'm aware of.
But that was big news. That was big news because we had been reading
about the fact that we have been unable to meet our recruitment goals.
Well, we've met them this year, for a variety of reasons. We met them
because we decided to really put an emphasis on recruitment, to put
our best people out in the field, to change our advertising techniques
and to really make an effort to get out there and compete with the
private sector for these young people. So that was good news, and I
think there'll be more good news in terms of our retention efforts
yielding good dividends as well.
But there's a mantra that you've heard me repeat so many times shape,
respond, prepare. The key has been the preparation. And I recall
reading that George Marshall, when he was General Marshall, used to go
out and ride a large chestnut horse on the banks of the Potomac. And
you would think that he would do that for relaxation, to get away from
the demands of his office. And when he was asked what he should call
the horse, he said, "Call it Prepare." And that's precisely what we in
the Pentagon have had to do in terms of looking at our readiness and
reform programs.
Readiness and reform are not something that achieves any static state
of perfection. We are always in the process of trying to get ready,
and also trying to reform ourselves, to stay contemporary and
future-leaning. It requires constant attention.
The Navy, for example, is making great strides with its Fleet Battle
Experiments. The Marines have been engaged in their exercises
involving urban warfare. The Air Force, as you know, has restructured
itself into an air expeditionary force in order to get more planning
and more stability in their forces as far as predicting where they
will be and when they will go. And, of course, the Army is in the
midst of its transformation efforts to become lighter, more lethal,
and at the same time remain survivable.
We've also seen the integration of the Guard and Reserve into the
Total Force. I can tell you it wasn't there three years ago. I can
tell you that there was a point when the Guard would not even meet
with our military, saying that, "We are treated as second cousins or
less." And now they are an integral part of the Total Force.
So we've made great strides during the past three and a half years.
Just a few years ago there was no lead agency for experimentation and
development of joint doctrine and training. We now have a Joint Forces
Command. Thanks to the leadership of John Hamre, we have something
called the DRI [Defense Reform Initiative]. And as a result of that
DRI, we are reforming our institutions and we have a Joint Electronic
Commerce Program Office [to ensure electronic commerce in the Defense
Department].
We're changing the way in which we do business as well. We now are
acquiring things electronically. We're moving toward paperless
systems. We have put an emphasis on jointness. We have a Joint Task
Force for Civil Support [to advise and assist cities and communities
in the event of a chemical or biological attacks on U.S. soil]. Some
of you may recall it became somewhat controversial when it was
suggested that perhaps we needed a CINC [Commander-in-Chief; a
military combatant commander] for homeland defense, a
commander-in-chief for homeland defense. And immediately there were
questions being raised as to whether or not this would intrude upon
the constitutional prohibitions of getting our military involved in
domestic affairs as such.
And so we have a Joint Task Force for Civil Support for dealing with
weapons of mass destruction, something that I want to talk about in
just a moment. We have a Defense Threat Reduction Agency consolidating
some of our agencies to make them much more efficient and effective
[in our counter-proliferation efforts]. We have focused on cyber
warfare, and we have that integrated approach now at Space Command.
All of that has been designed to transform the military, stepping away
from the 20th Century into the 21st. And I think we've made tremendous
strides in that effort.
Last year had a chance to listen to a professor by the name of Clayton
Christensen. Most of you have probably heard of him. He wrote an
interesting book called, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New
Technologies Cause Great Firms To Fail. And he talked at length in
this book and in that presentation about disruptive technologies and
pointed historically to the case where you take some of the major
companies in this country of ours who are doing everything right. They
had top personnel. They had great leadership. They had great flow of
revenue. They were investing in research and development. They were
trying to anticipate what their customers wanted. And yet they failed.
And he talked about the need to anticipate how new technology or how
disruptive technology can come in, not at the top end, but at the low
end of the marketplace. And suddenly you have companies like Honda or
Intel or Sony, when it first started out, suddenly taking over and
dominating the marketplace.
And I thought this was important. This was an important book and an
important presentation, and so I invited him to come to the Pentagon.
We sat down with the members of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff], service
secretaries and other policy people, and we spent three hours, almost
four hours together, as he made a presentation. And I think that that
was very instructive for all of the military leadership because we
have to think forward [and] look into the future and say, "Who is it
who's going to challenge us directly? Should we be looking for some
disruptive technologies, looking for somebody to come in at the low
end of things to take the United States on?"
In terms of looking at the Internet, it may come as a surprise, but
the Pentagon has something to do with the Internet. [Laughter.] But if
you think about the Internet, it's mostly English in content today.
But one year from now, the number of Asians will surpass all of the
Americans online. What does that mean in terms of the implication for
a technological lead? So we're trying to peer into that opaque window
into the future. We take great pride in our superiority as far as
technology is concerned, but we have to take care that that pride
doesn't become or turn into a sense of triumphalism or that we succumb
to what I would say is the gravitational pull of the status quo.
I think of Desert Storm and Kosovo, two of the most recent battles in
which we were clearly triumphant. We overwhelmed the Iraqi opposition
in Desert Storm. We were enormously successful during Kosovo, where we
had a 78-day air campaign with over 38,000 sorties that were flown,
with two planes lost and no pilots lost in battle, a remarkable
display of technology and professionalism. But at the same time, we
should not be complacent. If you think about the fact that we fought
Desert Storm on an open, flat desert plain, as such, and that we
fought Kosovo in a mountainous and largely rural area. But if you take
a look at the demographics, by 2020, 60 to 70 percent of the world's
population will live in urban areas. And seven out of 10 of all of
those urban areas will be on our coastlines or shores. That will
change the nature of warfare and conflict in the future.
All of which brings me to the subject matter that John Hamre, I think,
wanted me to talk about. I think, looking at our military today,
again, we're the best in the world. We certainly have some more
challenges we have to address. You've heard the Joint Chiefs testify
up on Capitol Hill in terms of where the shortages are. But you have
to take into account where we were just three and a half years ago,
when I became secretary of Defense.
I was handed a budget, and the highest number [for defense spending]
that was agreed between the president and the Congress was $250
billion. And I was told, "This is what you're likely to have for the
foreseeable future, and you'll have to make it work." And we tried to
make it work. And then 18 months later, I said, "We can't continue to
carry out our responsibilities unless we have a substantial increase."
The chiefs indicated that they needed roughly $148 [billion], $154
billion, if you include national missile defense and some of the other
intelligence matters. And at the minimum, we said we needed at least
$112 [billion]. And the president agreed to an increase of $112
billion over the future years defense budget.
So we started a very major swing up. And over that period of time,
between Congress and the executive branch, we actually went up to
about $170 [billion], $180 [billion]. So we have had a major increase
in our defense spending, and so we are now at $296 billion, three and
a half years later. So we have come from a level of defense spending
that needed to go up, that has had the support of the president to go
up, and we need to go even further, and we will. Whoever takes over
the White House, there will be increases coming in the future.
But what I thought I would talk about just very briefly this afternoon
I said briefly, [but] I'm already 20 minutes into my presentation and
I haven't gotten to the point that I wanted to make yet. That's my
senatorial training. [Laughter.] Russia, China, and weapons of mass
destruction.
I think the biggest challenges facing the next administration and the
administration after that, in terms of foreign policy and defense
policy -- and the two should, of course, be coherent and integrated --
will be this: how we deal with Russia as a major power to contend
with; not necessarily as a superpower, but as a country of great size,
of great natural resources, that covers 11 time zones. We will have to
contend with [Russia] and [decide] how we manage that relationship
with them, and what we will do in terms of continuing our relationship
to reduce the level of nuclear weapons.
We have something called the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the
so-called Nunn-Lugar program. And yet I always find it somewhat
stressing, or distressing, I should say, to hear it asked, "Why is it
only the United States that's concerned about reducing the nuclear
weapons with Russia? Why haven't other countries, other nuclear
powers, volunteered to share in that effort to help Russia dismantle
and dispose of their large stocks of nuclear weapons under the START I
and START II treaties?"
We seem to be the only ones who are prepared to step forward to do
that. And while other countries have complained about national missile
defense in terms of the United States seeking to protect itself
against a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it seems the
United States has been left to largely bear the burden as far as
dismantling and getting rid of nuclear weapons. But how we manage that
relationship with Russia is going to be very important and very
challenging, whoever is elected to the White House.
There is China. I just returned from China this July. And after a year
hiatus in our relationship for -- as what they said, obvious reasons
-- China wants to get back on a solid track with the United States. I
had a very good meeting with the Chinese leadership, and they want to
establish good military-to-military relations. And it's important for
us that we do this.
It's also important how we manage the situation in Taiwan. Going back
over history, many of you are familiar with Patrick Tyler's book, no
doubt, about a Great Wall and how every president since Richard Nixon
has had to contend with the Chinese leadership over the issue of
Taiwan. And it still remains a major subject of debate. They are
intensely interested in the subject matter. I can tell you, if someone
asked me, "What was on the agenda?" I would say, "Three items: Taiwan,
Taiwan and Taiwan." That's exaggerating a bit, but it is something
that they feel passionately about. And we have to deal with that issue
and will continue to deal with that, hopefully in a constructive way.
I will tell you that I saw a change in both the tonality and also what
was said during my visit to China. A year ago or less, China was
talking about the possibility of their resorting to warfare, using
arms, setting a deadline in terms of when these negotiations or
discussions would be completed or else they may be forced to use
military force. When I was there in July, they said something that was
different. They said that they did not give up the right to use force,
but they had no intent to use force. Now, some may say that's a
distinction without a distinction, without much of a difference, but I
think it was quite a significant difference in both the tone and the
content of that message.
Secondly, I found that if you look at what is being said in China and
Taiwan, the Chinese leadership will say, "It's one China, two
systems." And if you listen to the new Taiwanese president, he has
said, "One China, two interpretations." Somehow there is a way to
breach that difference if people of good will and creativity take
advantage of the opportunity to find ways of bridging that peacefully.
In the meantime, we maintain our posture. We have a one-China policy.
We believe in the Three [Communiques], and support the Three
Communiques. But we also support the Taiwan Relations Act. That's hard
for the Chinese leadership to reconcile, because, on the one hand,
we're supporting the one-China policy. On the other, they believe that
by supporting Taiwan or the Taiwan Relations Act, we're undercutting
the policy. But nonetheless, we've tried to make it very clear that we
expect those tensions to be resolved peacefully and not through the
use of arms and force. And that will continue to be our policy.
With regard to weapons of mass destruction, we are now seeing at least
20, 24 countries let's call it two dozen countries who either have
developed or are in the process of developing weapons of mass
destruction. That's a word that doesn't mean a lot, I suppose, to most
people who hear it. And that's the reason why, when I went on
television a couple of years ago, I held up that five-pound bag of
sugar, because it loses its meaning when you use that phraseology. If
you take a five-pound bag of sugar and you say, assuming this were
filled with, let's say, anthrax instead of sugar and you spread that
with the right kind of temperatures and right kind of wind over a city
the size of Washington DC, you could wipe out almost 70 percent of the
population just with five pounds. There are tons of anthrax in
existence. There are tons that have been manufactured. And so this is
just one element that we have to contend with for the future. How do
we gain control over these weapons of mass destruction, which are
proliferating and will continue to proliferate? If you recall the
words of the poet Auden, he talked about a "man clutching a little
case who walks out briskly to infect a city whose terrible future may
have just arrived."
Those are the kinds of challenges that we will have to face in the
future, as well as the threat of cyber-terrorism. We have a number of
countries who are now not turning to amateurs or teenagers and
hackers, but dedicated professional cells, who are training in ways to
disrupt our financial systems, our communication systems, our
infrastructure, our power system.
You saw the fear that we had during the Y2K turnover. Thanks to John
Hamre, by the way, there were no tragedies. Some in the media asked,
what was the big fuss all about? Why did we spend all of that money?
And you can imagine what would have happened if one plane went down or
if we had any kind of a tragedy involving multiple casualties, where
the fingers would have been pointing. But John Hamre, working with the
executive branch, I would say, largely took that issue in hand. And we
were able to make that transition with no casualties. So that is
something that we have to be worried about for the future in terms of
whether a country or group can shut down or cause Wall Street to
certainly crash, whether you suddenly pick up your stock portfolio and
find it says, "Zero. Thank you very much, but [your investment] is
somewhere in the Bahamas" or the Cayman Islands or maybe in a Swiss
bank, but you don't have it anymore. Those are the kinds of critical
infrastructure that we will have to protect. And again, John was in
the forefront of our effort to protect the critical infrastructure of
this country.
So those are, I think, the major challenges, in addition to reforming
our military to make it more agile, flexible, easily deployable, more
rapidly deployable, and survivable. Doing all of that takes some time,
but I think that we have passed that point where we are now reaching
sort of a critical mass of innovation where we now have really
integrated and ingrained jointness in our training and our doctrine.
And you will now see that start to multiply with, I think, greater and
greater efficiency.
Let me conclude here, because now I have exceeded my time allotment,
and we're going to have some questions, if not answers. [Laughter.] I
will tell you a story that has always stayed in my mind because I read
it many years ago. It is in a book written by Stuart Alsop, and it was
called Stay of Execution. In that account of Alsop's battle with
cancer, he talked about a meeting he had with Winston Churchill. They
had dined together that evening. And they had consumed, I assume,
considerable amounts of good wine, perhaps some brandy as well, and
[were] enjoying cigars at the end of the evening. And Churchill looked
over at Alsop and he said, "America, America, a good and strong
country, like a workhorse pulling the rest of the world up out of the
slough of despond and despair." And then he looked very accusingly at
Alsop and he said, "But will America stay the course? Will it stay the
course?"
I am here to say that, more than 50 years later, we have certainly
stayed the course. And with the continued leadership that we have had
in the Pentagon, with people like John, Dave Abshire [President,
Center for the Study of the Presidency; former President; CSIS] and so
many of you who are here, we will continue to stay the course. Thank
you. [Applause.]
And I would like unanimous consent to insert my original text as if it
appeared in the record as being fully read. [Laughter.]
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State.)
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