Stephen J. Hadley
Advisor to Governor George W. Bush
AFA Convention
Washington, DC
September 11, 2000

 It is a real pleasure to be here and to be able to spend a little time with you. I am going to tell you first what I am not going to do – I am not going to try to give a campaign speech. Having watched both Secretary Cheney and Governor Bush do it, they do it best and if you want to see a campaign speech, tune in because they are great. That is not really what I do.

What I thought I would try to do briefly is outline some of the themes and directions that I think would characterize national security and defense policy under a Bush-Cheney administration. At the end I am going to focus a little bit on what to expect in the areas of procurement and research and development and as much as I can, give you this out of the governor’s own words drawing on speeches he has made on the subject.

Let me give you a little bit of a overview of what you might expect on foreign and defense policy from a Bush-Cheney administration. If you listen to the governor and secretary on this subject, they all start with the need for strong American leadership in the world. They talk about shaping the future in ways that will advance U.S. interests but also preserve and extend the peace. There is a tone, I think, of how that leadership will be exercised that you can hear in the governor’s speeches. It is in phrases like, I would like to see power exercised without swagger, influence to sway without bluster. The modesty of true strength, the humility of real greatness. Leading, not lecturing, I think, would be the hallmark of what he would try to do.

He has also said that leadership begins with strong defense. I have heard him say many times, the first responsibility of government is to provide for the common defense and the most important responsibility of the president is his constitutional responsibility as commander-in-chief.

He has said, a number of times, that defense is the foundation for our diplomacy, indeed, for all our interactions overseas. So, he begins with a strong, capable and modern military as the foundation of peace. He then moves very quickly to the importance of ties with U.S. friends and allies. He has said many times that our relationships overseas are the foundation of our leadership in the world. If America is going to be strong, its relationships with its friends and allies need to be strong. He has talked about close consultation, shared strategy, joint execution, but at the same time, the willingness to act alone if necessary to defense U.S. interests. That would be the dominant theme you would hear in a Bush-Cheney administration.

The third point he’s talked about is the need to get the big things right. And that is, of course, why he put that emphasis on relations with friends and allies. But it is also why he is talking in speeches about getting the right strategy with respect to Russia, China. He has talked about supporters of India as an emerging power in Asia. He has said one of his priorities is to get these relationships right for America and avoid having time taken away for second-order issues – not that these issues are not important – but sometimes our focus on Haiti(s) and Somalia(s) takes away from focus on these primary relationships. The governor is sensitive to that.

He has also talked about giving a priority to the western hemisphere. I think that is an area that you will see. Texas is one of the few states that actually has a foreign policy because of the close relationship between Texas and Mexico and the governor has been very active in that relationship. And he believes this is important because it is critical for the United States to, in his view, encourage democracy and economic reform to our south, in part because it is the right thing to do and in part because it is essential to stability on our borders.

He has also talked about the importance of expanding U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The governor has a strong commitment to free trade. For him, it is a very simple equation – trade can be a force for change in the world that moves the world to America’s values. He believes that trade is the engine of growth, but the private sector is the engine of growth for a market economy and a market economy is an essential element of living in a democracy. He believes that very strongly. He believes that Americans are not threatened by free trade, but that in fact, America will thrive in a free trade environment and that has been his experience in Texas.

He and Secretary Cheney have talked a lot about a prudent use of U.S. military force abroad. There has been some concern that military force for operations overseas has been over used in a time of declining defense resources and that has results in concerns about morale, readiness problems among the armed forces. He feels very strongly about that and one of the things he has called for is a review under a Bush-Cheney administration of our deployments overseas. He is very sensitive about our historical commitments in Europe and Asia. He is not talking about cutting and running from those two continents in any way. But looking at the day-to-day deployments that we have overseas in operations – and are they really serving American interests. And then secondly, are we resourcing them as we send them overseas?

The governor laid out a number of these themes in a speech he gave in September of 1999, a speech I think has not gotten the attention it deserves. He talked there about three goals of defense policy under Bush-Cheney administration. He talked about the renewing the bond of trust between the American president and the American people. He talked about defending the American people against missiles – ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and terrorists. And he talked about creating the military of the new century. I want to spend the rest of the time I’ve got, talking a little bit about what he said on that third subject because I think it is important to this audience here.

In his speech of September a year ago, he talked about the tremendous opportunity presented to America by the revolution in the technology of war that we are already beginning to see. There is a prospect of fielding a force for the challenges of tomorrow that will be highly mobile – more mobile than today’s – able to deploy quickly in days and weeks, rather than months – lighter, but at the same time more lethal, able to strike at longer ranges, able to operate with unprecedented information about battle space and with reduced need for logistical support. He sees very much with that vision and feels he cannot move fast enough from a military optimized for the Cold War to a military optimized to exploit the benefits of these technologies. One of the things he said is that – when he is elected president – he will order an immediate comprehensive review of our military: What does the world look like? What should be our military strategy? What should be our military force structure and what procurement priorities that will bring us over time to that force structure? He will give that assignment to his secretary of defense to develop a blue print for change for the administration, for the Congress, and for the public.

He said – and I think this is important – we will modernize some existing weapons and equipment necessary for our forces. He is not going to let down the men and women in uniform now. He is going to give them what they need to do the jobs they have now. He is setting a goal for himself and a goal for the country to initiate the new programs that are required to exploit new technologies and strategies to move to the kind of force that we talked about just a minute ago.

There are really two tasks in this agenda. One is to replace aging equipment that is coming to the end of its useful life and that is now increasingly expensive to maintain and we have a phenomenon of demand for O&M dollars pushing out the dollars we really need for modernization. Secondly, is using those procurement dollars as well to begin to transform the military toward the force we need.

To move in that direction, he has talked about specifically two things, not as the sum total of his program, but as a down payment, if you will, an indication of the direction he would like to move. He said he would ear mark at least 20 percent of the procurement budget for acquisition programs that move America ahead in the military technology can lead us to the force of the future. He has also talked about committing an additional $20 billion to R&D from the time he takes office and 2006 to again enhance our ability to exploit these technologies.

He has talked a little bit about the Congress – the need to bring reforms to the Congress along with his vision and his plan for the military. He said that he will reach out to fair-minded members of the Congress, particularly to overturn laws and regulations that discourage the kinds of business practices that are required for the future. He has also said that once a new strategy is clear, "I will confront Congress when it uses the Defense budget as a resource for pork or patronage." He is really talking about a blue print for where the armed forces go for the next five to ten years and then trying to build consensus in the country and in Congress for that blue print.

I’ll tell you one anecdote and then I’ll move to some questions. When we talked about this issue of Defense in the spring of 1999, we were involved in a number of things he could do. "Well, governor, the way to do this is to set out your vision for a future world, you set out your national security strategy and then you talk about Defense." He said, I am not going to do it that way. I think Defense is the number one issue and I want my first speech on national security to be on Defense." So we all took down ideas on what he wanted to say in that speech. Again, in that conversation, a number of us cautioned him about avoiding specifics, you start picking particular weapon systems and there are a hundred within the Beltway saying you don’t know what you are talking about. His answer was: I am telling you this, if I am elected president, and I have not raised this issue in the campaign and I go to the chiefs and say, I am going to transform the military. You will only get one response. But if I go to the American people and prove Defense is an issue on the agenda and tell the American people what I think is needed and I am elected, I then go to the chiefs, that gives me a mandate, and leadership is about mandates and priorities. That is what I want to do. Now will you guys please go and write a Defense speech and that is what we did.

That is my take on what to expect from a Bush-Cheney administration in terms of national security and defense policy and I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.

Q: How does Governor Bush view space and national missile defense?

Mr. Hadley: I think my answer is close to what the governor said, information technologies are to be a feature of the military and space is going to be important. It has a great feature in the military. He has not gotten into specifics on that. One of the things I know that this Rumsfeld panel is looking at that very issue and Secretary Rumsfeld is somebody who has talked to the governor a number of times on missile defense. Again, one of the charters he is going to give to the secretary of Defense is to look at space as a real opportunity.

Q: Will you comment on the Governor’s comment to skip a generation of technologies?

Mr. Hadley: That was something the governor said in September of 1999 and I had some sense that it was a little out of context. What he said is something like I’ve tried to say here, that we of course can’t provide for the defense of the current forces. We’ve got equipment that is too old and getting older and needs to be replaced. But he has also said at the same time that to do that, we simply cannot replace the equipment with what we’ve got now. We’ve got to try to look ahead and begin to deal with that equipment of the new technologies of the future. There has got to be a balance there.

Another thing I will say quite candidly--this speech was done in September of 1999, and right in that period of time a lot begin to surface about the evidence of problems in the defense industrial base and the defense industry. That is something that there will be a lot more comment on subsequent. One of the things I think I need to make sure you know is that the governor understands that issue and he is thinking about what he wants to do with the military, only if there is a strong industrial base supporting whatever plans he has come up with. The bottom line is, we need a balance between giving the current force what it needs to do its job, but at the same time, we need to spend money to move the force to the future to meet the challenges.

He is going to selectively replace those equipment that we need to do now but also seize opportunities to begin to exploit new technologies to begin to bring in the force and I think you are going to need things that are going to be lighter, more accurate, more mobile and the rest. It has got to be a balance.

Q: Can you revisit your comments on missile defense?

Mr. Hadley: The governor has been very clear that he wants to get in the business of defending the country against ballistic missiles with the best available technology at the earliest possible date. He has said that more times than probably anything else he has said on defense issues. At the same time, and clearly a lot of the elements of the administration’s program are going to be elements that we later on come up with. At the same time, there has been a lot of discussion recently about whether that program that the administration is pursuing is the right program. Is it adequate to defend even the territory of the United States? Of course, it does nothing to defense our allies. One of the things the governor has made clear is we can’t have a situation where we are defended against threats and our allies are not. That is not American leadership. That is not how we do things. There has also been discussion though about possible sea-based alternatives both in mid-course and in the boost phase when it opens up early on after the missile has launch. I think whomever is the next president, you are going to see a review of the program. It is a question of making sure we’ve got the right architecture, making sure that there aren’t some things that we can do more rapidly to get an initial capability into the force, bringing our allies forward. I was in Europe three weeks ago for a week talking to our allies on this issue. This is a new issue to them but they are ready for a sustained dialog with the United States. We need to be engaged with our allies. We need to engage with the Russians and Chinese as well. I think it is going to be a balance between the governor’s stated desire to get a defense of America at the earliest possible date with the best available technology. But also at the same time exploit some of these new opportunities to enhance our defense and that of our allies.

Q: The Governor has been quoted as saying one of the first things he intends to do is reverse the Clinton decision not to go forward on national missile defense. Is that what you’re saying.

Mr. Hadley: I am not saying that. Again, you are going to have to take a look at this issue, but it may be that this issue will be made that the right thing to do is to proceed with a land-based. But that is not a decision the governor is going to make now. There are a number of competing technologies that would work and he is going to take a look at them and put together a program that protects the country while offering protection for our allies, gets it out in the field as soon as we can, but does the job right. His concern has been that the administration’s proposal does not do the job right and it doesn’t reflect a real commitment to missile defense. What he has said is, this is an administration that has delayed on that issue and is not moving as fast as he thinks we could.

Q: Will Governor Bush be less to use military forces in the ways they are being used today.

Mr. Hadley: ...Everybody knows that force is being used more in operations now than it was during the Cold War. And that is having a negative impact in terms of separation from families, morale, retention, recruiting all those other things. It has another dimension – spending money for housing, etc., for keeping those people happy who have those kinds of pressures. That is a short-term readiness problem and it is a problem, I need to tell you people that. Talk to the captains and majors who are getting out of the service. What people fail to give enough attention to – and that is why I emphasize it here in a speech the governor gave in September of 1999 – when he said there is a long-term readiness problem and that is the issue of--is the force ready to fight given the challenges we have in the future? That is an issue of modernization, which we talked about but it also means to transform the military to where it needs to be and can be if it takes advantage of these technologies in the next decade. So, it is a short-term readiness for today, it is a long-term readiness for tomorrow and to keep faith with the men and women in uniform, you have to come out right on both.

Q: What overseas commitments would Governor Bush not support?

Mr. Hadley: He has some things to say publicly about that and one of the things he said is the kinds of things he would look at are things like Haiti where we put men and women in uniform, spend a lot of money, brought them home and it doesn’t seem we made a real difference. Somalia is another case where we put forces in a humanitarian mission and asked them to do some things that they really weren’t planned. Those are the things he wants to end. He says let’s not forget, the first responsibility of the military is to win the nation’s wars. When you have to go into military combat, we want to win and we want to win decisively and with minimum casualties for our men and women in uniform. When he is asked to deploy forces for a mission that is humanitarian or something else, he is going to ask his first question, what is the impact on the readiness on the force – because there are these other things we can’t afford to lose. Secondly, he feels strongly that there is a covenant between the president and the mothers and fathers of America. That when the commander in chief sends out men and women in uniform overseas, they are going to have the best available equipment. It is going to be a mission that the military can perform, they are going to have rules of engagement that allow them to perform that mission safely. We are going to have a strategy for success, keep the casualties down, but recognize that casualties are a part of war, and as soon as we can, bring the forces home. It is an issue of when to use it and it is an issue of how to use it and that is the kind of framework that if you listen to these statements, he’s been developing as to how he is going to make those specific decisions of deployment solution.

Q: So will he approve every deployment?

Mr. Hadley: Again, what he said is, he is going to take a look at those and I can use the right words – deployments rather than commitments. Long-standing deployments he will respect, but he is going to take a look at where we have forces and is it right. Do we have a clear, defined mission. If not, let’s sharpen up the mission. If there are other ways we can do the job, and do the job with allies, then look at those as well. But let’s not send the force out there and then forget. Let’s be re-looking at these things and making sure we are making the best use of our resources.

Q: Why percentage of GDP will he put toward Defense increases.

Mr. Hadley: He hasn’t picked a percentage of GDP. What he has said is, we’ve got to go spend more and spend more wisely. He said both of those things. The numbers I gave you are not the sum total of what he has done. How much it is going to cost is going to be the product of that review that the secretary of defense is going to have to conduct once the governor is in office. The downward figures, like the R&D that I mentioned, are basically down payments on future and indications of corrections which I think the governor thinks the country has to move in.