from National Security Council (Don) to Larry
4/23/92
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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
4/23
Larry --
NSC staff edits at paperclips. While some may appear as editorial, they are "conforming language" with some Presidential speeches planned for the next two months. The Middle East comments are burning issues. Thanks for the opportunity.
Don [illegible]
cc:
PP (Zal/Wade)
R&P (Dale/Dave)
Larry
Carol
SL (orig)
SECRET/NOFORN DRAFT
Defense Planning: Guidance. FY 1994-1999 (U)
(U) This Defense Planning Guidance addresses the fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union -- the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its Coalition allies over Iraqi aggression -- the first post-Cold War conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two great successes, there has been a less visible one, the integration of the leading democracies into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic "zone of peace."
(U) Our fundamental strategic position and choices ate therefore very different from those we have faced in the past. The policies that we adopt in this new situation will set the nation's direction for the next century. Guided by a fundamentally new defense strategy, we have today a compelling opportunity to meet our defense needs at lower cost. As we do so, we must not squander the position of security we achieved at great sacrifice through the Cold War, nor eliminate our ability to shape the future security environment in ways favorable to us and those who share our values.
I. DEFENSE POLICY GOALS ( U )
(U) The national security interests of the United States are enduring, as outlined in the President's 1991 National Security Strategy Report: the survival of the United States as a free and independent nation, with its fundamental values intact and its institutions and people secure; a healthy and-growing U.S. economy to ensure opportunity for individual prosperity and resources for national endeavors at home and abroad; healthy, cooperative and politically vigorous relations with allies and friendly nations; and a stable and secure world, where political and economic freedom, human rights and democratic institutions flourish.
(U) These national security interests can be translated into four mutually supportive strategic goals that guide our overall defense efforts:
• Our most fundamental goal is to deter or defeat attack from whatever source, against the United States, its citizens and forces, and to honor our historic and treaty commitments.
• The second goal is to strengthen and extend the system of defense arrangements that binds democratic and like-minded nations together in common defense against aggression, builds habits of cooperation, avoids the renationalization of security policies, and provides security at lower costs and with lower risks for all. Our preference for a collective response to preclude threats or, if necessary to deal with them is a key feature of our regional defense strategy.
• The third goal is to preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the reemergence of a global threat to the interests of the U.S. and our allies. These regions include Europe, East Asia, the Middle East/Persian Gulf, and Latin America. Consolidated, nondemocratic control of the resources of such a critical region could generate a significant threat to our security.
• The fourth goal is to reduce sources of regional instability and limit violence should conflict occur, by encouraging the spread and consolidation of democratic government and open economic systems, and discouraging the spread of destructive technology, particularly of weapons of mass destruction. To this end, we must encourage other nations to respect the rule of law and each other's economic, social, ethnic, and political interests.
(U) To reach these goals, the United States must show the leadership necessary to encourage sustained cooperation among major democratic powers. The alternative would be to leave our critical interests and the security of our friends dependent upon individual efforts that could be duplicative, competitive, or ineffective. We must also encourage and assist Russia, Ukraine, and the other new republics of the former Soviet Union in establishing democratic political systems and free markets so they too can join the democratic "zone of peace."
(U) A collective response will not always be timely and, in the absence of U.S. leadership, may not gel. While the United States cannot become the world's policeman and assume responsibility for solving every international security problem, neither can we allow our critical interests to depend solely on international mechanisms that can be blocked by countries whose interests may be very different from our own. Where our allies interests are directly affected, we must expect them to take an appropriate share of the responsibility, and in some cases play the leading role; but we must maintain the capabilities for addressing selectively those security problems that threaten our own interests. Such capabilities are essential to our ability to lead, and should international support prove sluggish or inadequate, to act independently, as necessary, to protect our critical interests. Moreover, history suggests that effective international, multilateral action is most likely to come about as a response to U.S. leadership, not as an alternative to it.
(U) We cannot lead if we fail to maintain the high quality of our forces as we reduce and restructure them. As a nation we have never before succeeded in pacing reductions without endangering our interests. We must proceed expeditiously, but at a pace that avoids breaking the force or sending misleading signals about our intentions to friends or potential aggressors. An effective reconstitution capability is important as well, since it signals that no potential rival could quickly or easily gain a predominant military position.
(U) At the end of World War I, and again to a lesser extent at the end of World War II, the United States as a nation made the mistake of believing that we had achieved a kind of permanent security, that a transformation of the security order achieved through extraordinary American sacrifice could be sustained without our leadership and significant American forces. Today, a great challenge has passed; but other threats endure, and new ones will arise. If we reduce our forces carefully, we will be left with a force capable of implementing the new defense strategy. We will have given ourselves the means to lead common efforts to meet future challenges and to shape the future environment in ways that will give us greater security at lower cost.
II. THE REGIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY (U)
A. Regional Focus (U)
(U) The demise of the global threat posed by Soviet Communism leaves America and its allies with an unprecedented opportunity to preserve with greater ease a security environment within which our democratic ideals can prosper. We can shift our defense planning from a focus on the global threat posed by the Warsaw Pact to a focus on the less demanding regional threats and challenges we are more likely to face in the future. In this way, we can work to shape the future environment and to preclude hostile nondemocratic powers from dominating regions critical to us. This same approach will also work to preclude the emergence of a hostile power that could present a global security threat comparable to the one the Soviet Union presented in the past. In so doing we can provide the underpinnings of a peaceful international order in which nations are able to pursue their legitimate interests without fear of military domination.
(U) In this more secure international environment there will be enhanced opportunities for political, economic, environmental, social, and security issues to be resolved through new or revitalized international organizations, including the United Nations, or regional arrangements. But the world remains unpredictable and well-armed, causes for conflict persist, and we have not eliminated age-old temptations for nondemocratic powers to turn to force or intimidation to achieve their ends. We must not stand back and allow a new global threat to emerge or leave a vacuum in a region critical to our interests. Such a vacuum could make countries there feel vulnerable, which in turn can lead to excessive military capabilities and an unsteady balance of one against another. If we do stand back it will be much harder to achieve the enhanced international cooperation for which we hope.
B. Underlying Strategic Concepts (U)
(U) The Department of Defense does not decide when our nation will commit force. However, decisions today about the size and characteristics of the forces we are building for tomorrow can influence whether threats to our interests emerge and, if they do emerge, whether we are able to decisively defeat them. Four concepts illustrate this relationship.
(U) Planning for Uncertainty. An unavoidable challenge for defense planners is that we must start development today of forces to counter threats still so distant into the future that they cannot be confidently predicted. Events of the last few years demonstrate concretely how quickly and unexpectedly political trends can reverse themselves. Our ability to predict becomes even worse as the time frame becomes longer.
(U) Yet decisions about military forces cannot be based on a short-term planning horizon. The military capabilities that we have today and the ones we will have for the next few years are largely the product of decisions made a decade ago. Much of the capability that we are eliminating now cannot be restored quickly, and cuts that are precipitous will do long-lasting damage even to the capabilities that remain. Thus, even if we had great confidence in our projections of the security environment for the next two or three years, we should not base defense planning on such a relatively short time horizon.
(U) We are building defense forces today for a future that is particularly uncertain, given the magnitude of recent changes in the security environment. Fundamentally, we are striving to provide a future President with the capabilities five, ten or fifteen years from now to counter threats or pursue interests that cannot be defined with precision today.
(U) Shaping the Future Security Environment. America cannot base its future security merely on a shaky record of prediction or even a prudent recognition of uncertainty. Sound defense planning seeks as well to help shape the future. Our strategy is designed to anticipate and to encourage trends that advance U.S. security objectives in the future. This is not simply within our means; it is critical to our future security.
(U) The containment strategy we pursued for the past forty years successfully shaped the world we see today. By our refusal to be intimidated by Soviet military power, we and our allies molded a world in which Communism was forced to confront its contradictions. Even as we and our allies carried the defense burden required in the Cold War, democracy was able to develop and flourish.
(U) One of the primary tasks we face today in shaping the future is carrying long standing alliances into the new era, and turning old enmities into new cooperative relationships. If we and other leading democracies continue to build a democratic security community, a much safer world is likely to emerge. If we act separately, many other problems could result. If we can assist former Warsaw Pact countries, including republics of the former Soviet Onion, particularly Russia and Ukraine, in choosing a steady course of democratic progress and reduced military forces subject to responsible, civilian democratic control, we will have successfully secured the fruits of forty years of effort. Our goal should be to bring a democratic Russia and the other new democracies into the defense community of democratic nations, so that they can become a force for peace not only in Europe but also in other critical regions of the world.
(U) Cooperative defense arrangements enhance security, while reducing the defense burden for everyone. In the absence of effective defense cooperation, regional rivalries could lead to tensions or even hostilities that would threaten to bring critical regions under hostile domination. It is not in our interest or those of the other democracies to return to earlier periods in which multiple military powers balanced one another off in what passed for security structures, while regional, or even global peace hung in the balance. As in the past, such struggles might eventually force the U.S. at much higher cost to protect its interests and counter the potential development of a new global threat.
(U) Maintaining highly capable forces is critical to sustaining the U.S. leadership with which we can shape the future. Such leadership supports collective defense arrangements and precludes hostile competitors from challenging our critical interests. Our fundamental belief in democracy and human rights gives other nations confidence that we will use our significant military power only as a force for peaceful democratic progress.
(U) Strategic Depth. America's strategic position. is stronger than it has been for decades. Today, there is no global challenger to a peaceful democratic order. There are no significant hostile alliances. To the contrary, the strongest and most capable countries in the world remain our friends. The threat of global, even nuclear war, once posed by massive Warsaw Pact forces poised at the inner German border, first receded hundreds of miles east and has since transformed into the promise of a new era of strategic cooperation.
(U) Not only has our position improved markedly with respect to the passing of a global challenge, but our strategic position has improved in regional contexts as well. Today, no region of the world critical to our interests is under hostile, nondemocratic domination. Near-term threats in critical regions are small, relative to our capabilities and those of our friends and allies. Soviet Communism no longer exacerbates local conflicts, and we need no longer be concerned that an otherwise remote problem could affect the balance of power between us and a hostile global challenger. We have won great depth for our strategic position.
(U) In this regard, it is important to note the effect on our strategy of the fact that the international system is no longer characterized by Cold War bi-polarity. The Cold War required the United States and its allies to be prepared to contain the spread of Soviet power on a global basis. Developments in even remote areas could affect the United States' relative position in the world, and therefore often required a U.S. response. The United States remains a nation with global interests, but we must reexamine in light of the new defense strategy whether and to what extent particular challenges engage our interests. These changes and the growing strength of our friends and allies will allow us to be more selective in determining the extent to which U.S. forces must be committed to safeguard shared interests.
(U) The first major conflict of the post-Cold War era preserved our strategic position in one of the regions of the world critical to our interests. Our success in organizing an international coalition in the Persian Gulf against Saddam Hussein kept a critical region from the control of a ruthless dictator bent on developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and harming Western interests. Instead of a more radical Middle East/Persian Gulf region under Saddam's influence, Saddam struggles to retain control in Iraq, Iraq's dangerous military has been greatly damaged, our ties with moderate states are stronger, oil flows in adequate amounts at reasonable prices, and Arabs and Israelis have for the first time in many years met to discuss peace.
(U) Our strategy is designed to preserve this position by keeping our alliances strong and our threats small. Our tools include political and economic measures and others such as security assistance, military-to-military contacts, humanitarian aid and intelligence assistance, as well as security measures to prevent the emergence of a nondemocratic aggressor in critical regions. We bring to this task our considerable moral influence as the world's leading democracy. We can provide more security at a reduced cost. If a hostile power sought to present a regional challenge again, or if a new, antagonistic global threat or alliance emerged in the future, we would have the ability to counter it. But the investments required to maintain the strategic depth that we won through forty years of the Cold War are much smaller than those it took to secure this strategic depth or those that would be required if we lost it.
(U) Continued U.S. Leadership. U.S. leadership, essential for the successful resolution of the Cold War, remains critical to achieving our long-term goals in this new era. The United States continues to prefer to address hostile, nondemocratic threats to our interests wherever possible through collective security efforts that take advantage of the strength of our allies and friends. However, sustained U.S. leadership will be essential for maintaining those alliances and for otherwise protecting our interests.
(U) The sense that regional aggression could be opposed by the U.S. will be an important factor in inducing nations to work together to stabilize crises and resist or defeat aggression. For most countries, a general interest in international stability and security will not be enough to induce them to put themselves at risk simply in the hope that others will join them. Only a nation that is strong enough to act decisively can provide the leadership needed to encourage others to resist aggression. Collective security failed in the 1930s because no strong power was willing to provide the leadership behind which less powerful countries could rally against Fascism. It worked in the Gulf because the United States was willing and able to provide that leadership. Thus, even when a broad potential coalition exists, leadership will be necessary to actualize it.
(U) The perceived capability of the U.S. to act independently, if necessary, is thus an important factor even in those cases where we do not actually do so. It will not always be incumbent upon us to assume a leadership role. In some cases, we will promote the assumption of leadership by others, such as the United Nations or regional organizations. But we will not ignore the need to be prepared to protect our critical interests and honor our commitments with only limited additional help, or even alone, if necessary. A future President will thus need to have options that will allow him to lead and, where the international reaction proves sluggish or inadequate, to act to protect our critical interests. In the end, there is no contradiction between US leadership and multilateral action; history shows it is precisely US leadership is the necessary prerequisite for effective international action.
(U) As a nation, we have paid dearly in the past for letting our capabilities fall and our will be questioned. There is a moment in time when a smaller, ready force can preclude an arms race, a hostile move or a conflict. Once lost, that moment cannot be recaptured by many thousands of soldiers poised on the edge of combat. Our efforts to rearm and to understand our danger before World War II came too late to spare us and others a global conflagration. Five years after our resounding global victory in World War II, we were nearly pushed off the Korean peninsula by a third rate power. We erred in the past when we failed to plan forces befitting our role in the world. And we paid dearly for our error.
(U) Our defense program for FY 1994-1999 must provide the ready forces, the mobility, the forward presence and strength to launch remains and may actually increase through this decade. The new technology embodied in the SDI program has made ballistic missile defense capability a realistic, achievable, and affordable concept. We need to deploy missile defenses not only to protect ourselves and our forward deployed forces, but also to have the ability to extend protection to others. Like "extended deterrence" provided by our nuclear forces, defenses can contribute to a regime of "extended protection" for friends and allies and further strengthen a democratic security community. This is why, with the support of Congress, as reflected in the Missile Defense Act of 1991, we are seeking to move toward the day when defenses will protect the community of nations embracing democratic values from international outlaws armed with ballistic missiles, who cannot necessarily be deterred by offensive forces alone.
(U) Limited deployment of defenses against limited strikes will also be an integral element of our efforts to curtail ballistic missile proliferation. Defenses undermine the military utility and thus the cost effectiveness of such systems and should serve to dampen the incentive to acquire ballistic missiles.
(U) In the decade ahead, we must adopt the right combination of deterrent forces, tactical and strategic, while creating the proper balance between offense and active defense to mitigate risk from weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, whatever the source. For now this requires retaining ready forces for a secure nuclear deterrent, including tactical forces. In addition, we must complete needed offensive modernization and upgrades. These offensive forces need to be complemented with early introduction of ballistic missile defenses against limited strikes.
(U) Forward Presence. Our forward presence helps to shape the evolving security environment. We will continue to rely on forward presence of U.S. forces to show U.S. commitment and lend credibility to our alliances, to deter aggression, enhance regional stability, promote U.S. influence and access, and, when necessary, provide an initial crisis response capability. Forward presence is vital to the maintenance of the system of collective defense by which the United States has been able to work with our friends and allies to protect our security interests, while minimizing the burden of defense spending and of unnecessary arms competition. The role that forward presence plays in the regional defense strategy is outlined in the paragraphs below. Regionally-specific policy issues are treated in detail in Part III, "Regional Goals and Challenges." Programmatic guidance on the subject is given in Part IV.
(U) We should plan to continue a wide range of forward presence activities, including not only overseas basing of forces, but prepositioning and periodic deployments, exercises, exchanges or visits. Forward basing of forces and the prepositioning of equipment facilitate rapid reinforcement and enhance the capability to project forces into vital strategic areas.
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We will continue to encourage
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in particular to assume greater responsibility sharing, urging both to increase prudently their defensive capabilities to deal with threats they face and to assume a greater share of financial support for U.S. forward deployed forces that contribute to their security.
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contributions in securing maritime approaches is one example. We will also persist in efforts to ensure an equitable, two-way flow of technology in our security cooperation with advanced allies such
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We must plan to continue to safeguard critical SLOCs linking us to our allies and trading partners.
(U) The East Asia Strategy Initiative of April 1990 remains the framework for adjustments to our forward-deployed forces in the region. Because our Pacific friends and allies are assuming greater responsibility for their defense, we can restructure our forces and reduce the number of ground and support forces forward deployed there. As Phase I of our planned withdrawals we anticipate that more than 25,000 troops will be withdrawn from bases in East Asia by December 1992. This includes the withdrawal from the Philippines. Plans to remove additional forces from
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have been suspended while we address the problem posed by the
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In time we will look to implement Phases II and III of the East Asia Strategy Initiative, with the objective of keeping substantial forces forward deployed in Asia for the foreseeable future.
(C) Despite recent positive trends toward political liberalization and market-oriented economic reforms, the East Asia and Pacific region continues to be burdened by several legacies of the Cold War: the Soviet annexation of the Northern Territories of Japan, the division of the
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The end of Communism in Europe is likely to bring pressure on remaining Communist regimes with unknown consequences for regional stability. We should continue to pursue the opening
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but also should ensure that
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has the modernized armaments needed to defend itself as provided by the
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(C) Our most active regional security concern remains the conventional military threat posed by North Korea to our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea. Our concerns are intensified by North Korea's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems. Although we have begun some reductions in our forces as part of shifting greater responsibility to our ally, we must maintain sufficient military capabilities together with the Republic of Korea to deter aggression by the North or to defeat it should deterrence fail. Our overall objective with regard to the Korean peninsula is to support its peaceful unification on terms acceptable to the Korean people. We should plan to maintain an alliance relationship with a unified democratic Korea.
(U) The emergence of ASEAN as an increasingly influential regional actor has been an important positive development.
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will increase our presence compared to the pre-crisis period. We will want to have the capability to return forces quickly to the region should that ever be necessary. This will entail increased prepositioning of equipment and material
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improved in-theater command, control, and communications; and a robust naval presence. We will also strengthen our bilateral security ties and encourage active regional collective defense.
(C) We can strengthen stability throughout the region by sustaining and improving the self-defense capabilities of
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other regional friends. The United States is committed to the
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and to maintaining the qualitative edge that is critical to
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confidence in its security and
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strategic cooperation contribute to the stability of the entire region; as demonstrated once again during the Persian Gulf war. At the same time, our assistance to our
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to defend themselves against aggression also strengthens security throughout the region, including for
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(U) We can help our friends meet their legitimate defensive needs with U.S. foreign military sales without jeopardizing power balances in the region. We will tailor our security assistance programs to enable our friends to bear better the burden of defense and to facilitate standardization and interoperability of recipient country forces with our own. We must focus these programs to enable our regional friends to modernize their forces, upgrade their defense doctrines and planning, and acquire essential defensive capabilities.
(C) We will build on existing bilateral ties and negotiate multilateral agreements to enhance military access and prepositioning arrangements and other types of defense cooperation. These protocols will strength and broaden the individual and collective defense of friendly states.
(U) The infusion of new and improved conventional arms and the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction during the past decade have dramatically increased offensive capabilities and the potential danger from future wars throughout the region. We will continue to work with all regional states to reduce military expenditures for offensive weapons and reverse the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and long-range missiles. Here the Regional Security and Arms Control Working Group established in Moscow offers a valuable venue. We also continue to work with the leading suppliers of conventional weapons to the region (as in the President's 1991 Middle East arms control initiative) to prevent the transfer of militarily significant technology and resources to states which might threaten U.S. friends or upset the regional balance of power.
(C) We will seek constructive, cooperative relations with
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strive to moderate tensions between them and endeavor to prevent the further development of weapons of mass destruction on the subcontinent. In this regard, we should work in South Asia as elsewhere to have all countries adhere to the NPT, to place their nuclear energy facilities under IAEA safeguards, and to adopt confidence building and other measures designed to reduce pressures that lead to arms races or the actual use of arms.
(U) The presence of drug production and trafficking and instances of international terrorism complicates our relations with regional countries. We will contribute to U.S. counter-terrorism initiatives and support the efforts of U.S. counter-narcotics agencies in the region in their mission to curtail the drug trade.
D. Latin America and the Caribbean (U)
(U) In Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States seeks ~ to sustain the extraordinary democratic progress of the last decade and maintain a stable security environment. As in the past, the focus of U.S. security policy is assisting democratic consolidation and the efforts of the democratic nations in the region to defend themselves against the threat posed by insurgency and terrorism and foster democratic consolidation. In addition, the United States must assist its neighbors in combating the instability engendered by illicit drugs, as well as continuing efforts to prevent illegal drugs from entering the United States.
(C) Absent a change in regime, Cuba will pose an area of special concern for the United States throughout the 1990s. Despite Cuba's rapid economic decline, Castro will retain the hostile intent that has for decades sought to undermine democratic progress in Central and South America and a disproportionately large military which, despite declining readiness, could threaten regional stability. Cuba's growing domestic crisis holds out the prospect for positive change, but over the near-to mid-term, Cuba's tenuous internal situation could generate new challenges to U.S. policy.
(C) The situation in Central America will remain a concern. In El Salvador, we seek the successful implementation of the agreement reached by the Salvadoran government and the FMLN. We also seek peaceful resolution of the conflict in Guatemala. In Panama, we seek to strengthen their democratic institutions. Our programs there must also provide the capabilities to meet U.S. responsibilities under the panama Canal Treaties, including defense of the Canal after 1999.
(C) The small island-states of the eastern Caribbean remain vulnerable to destabilization. We should explore ways of strengthening the Eastern Caribbean Regional Security system and assist it in improving
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(U) We will face new difficulties maintaining a ground presence in Latin America. Following implementation of the Panama Canal treaty, we will have no permanent bases on the Latin America mainland. The general trend toward democratization and peace in
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