Threats should drive responses

I’m not big on Administration testimony in Congress, as it tends to the soporific.  But I enjoyed skimming Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s testimony Tuesday in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  This “Worldwide Threat Assessment” is worth a glance.

First the obvious caveats:  this is unclassified testimony lacking in vital details.  Clapper would not want to tip our policy hand by saying too much about Iran, China, Al Qaeda or any number of other challenges.  This is testimony meant to give a broad picture of many challenges, not a deep dive into even the top priorities.  The fact that the media has focused principally on its mention of the possibility of Iranian terrorist acts in the U.S. tells us more about the U.S. media than about Clapper’s view of the threats.

His introductory remarks give a hint of where he is going:

Although I believe that counterterrorism, counterproliferation, cybersecurity, and counterintelligence are at the immediate forefront of our security concerns, it is virtually impossible to rank—in terms of long-term importance—the numerous, potential threats to US national security. The United States no longer faces—as in the Cold War—one dominant threat. Rather, it is the multiplicity and interconnectedness of potential threats—and the actors behind them—that constitute our biggest challenge. Indeed, even the four categories noted above are also inextricably linked, reflecting a quickly changing international environment of rising new powers, rapid diffusion of power to nonstate actors and ever greater access by individuals and small groups to lethal technologies.

It is nevertheless striking that many threats have receded and others have developed more slowly than many of us imagined they might.  According to Clapper, global jihad is fragmenting, a mass casualty attack in the U.S. is unlikely, Al Qaeda central is in decline, Iran and North Korea are not imminent nuclear threats, Afghanistan faces problems that arise as much from its own government as from the Taliban…   Of course the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, as the sign in our high school coaches’ room said, but this is not the worst of all possible worlds.

It behooves us to use this respite well.  It won’t last.  The odds are for trouble with Iran this year, and there is no ruling out a successful terrorist attack, no matter how weak Al Qaeda gets.  Clapper is remarkably silent on Pakistan and even China–I imagine that most of what he had to say is classified.  Either one could cause serious difficulty, Pakistan by continuing to exploit the Taliban inside Afghanistan and China by challenging U.S. efforts to contain its growing military and political presence in the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

In the meanwhile, it would be wise to prepare well for the priorities Clapper cites.  Their distinguishing characteristic is that none of them are amenable to purely military solutions.  Terrorism, proliferation, cybersecurity and counterintelligence all fall in the unconventional warfare box.  They are far more amenable to policing, diplomacy, strategic communications, and cooperation with allies than the more conventional military threats.

This is the context in which we should be evaluating the Defense, State and intelligence community budgets.  The civilian side of the budget equation should be strengthened, in the name of national security.  The military side should be maintained and even improved in important respects, but the notion that current cuts in personnel and hi-tech conventional weaponry are sufficient is not likely to hold.  Fighter aircraft are just not very useful in dealing with the main threats, and the improved performance of the new ones is bought at a very high price.

What we need to do is begin considering the defense budget in a broader context.  What can the weapons we are buying do to counter the threats we are facing?  This is such an obvious question it is almost embarassing to ask it.  But threats should indeed drive responses.