A continually expanding concept of national security is not viable for America's future

by John Prados


The following is excerpted from John Prados' 11,000 word essay Rethinking National Security available for e-Readers through Now and Then Reader.

America today stands at a crossroads. Beset by economic woes, driven to attempt reform that might enable the nation to regain a sense of honor and purpose, and seeking desperately to identify what actions are needed, Americans are searching for a way forward. But there is an elephant in the room that blocks the way: what we call “national security.” Few observers have paid much attention to national security. Citizens have long deferred to government and allowed it full sway in the defense of the land. But our present crisis is too great, and our resources too strained, to continue with business as usual. America’s myriad difficulties cannot be overcome without dealing with the issue of national security.

As presently conceived, national security is a trap. Left untouched, pursuit of it will continue to cripple our country. In the essay that follows I try to show how national security evolved, why in its present form it ensnares the nation, what would be the consequences of failure to correct the situation, and what a new approach might look like. I also argue that a solution to this problem is urgent: escaping the national security trap may be the critical issue of our era.

During his presidential campaign Barack Obama made many promises, some of them concerning foreign policy and defense. His ideas resonated with Americans. Candidate Obama promised to end the war in Iraq; close the notorious detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; stop torture and renditions; move away from the nuclear standoff that still exists with Russia; ratify the comprehensive test-ban treaty; end regulations that oppress gay Americans serving in the military; strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency; and place U.S. diplomacy on a broader foundation. Mr. Obama foresaw a global fair deal in which the United States would multiply assistance to the Third World, forgive the debts of underdeveloped countries, and reduce foreign hostility by means of transparent policies and frank answers to critics of America. Candidate Obama believed in strengthening common security by investing in the common humanity of all peoples.

Four years on, much of this agenda remains unfulfilled. Case in point: the day after his inauguration, President Obama issued an executive order providing that the Guantanamo prison be closed within a year. He was not able to enforce that directive. Objections from politicians, officials, and citizens over the relocation or release of detainees comprised a mounting wave of resistance that stalled the program. The administration’s initiative to move the trial of admitted terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the architects of the attacks of September 11, 2001, to a civilian court—and thus end the gravely flawed military tribunals created by the Bush administration—then failed. The collapse of this effort effectively ended the president’s entire program for detainees.

Obama had also advocated a variety of steps to reset U.S. relations with Russia and eradicate the vestiges of the nuclear balance of terror, disturbingly persistent even after the end of the Cold War. Final ratification of a comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty, making new designs for nuclear weapons more difficult, and reaching a fresh agreement with Moscow on further reductions in existing weapons stockpiles were among these initiatives. But Senate fears of weakening the nation’s defenses put the final nails in the coffin of ratification. When Obama went ahead and canceled design of a new generation of weapons, senators made the program’s continuation a condition for their ratification of the arms-reduction agreement.

To reduce the danger of accidental nuclear war, the Obama administration suggested that both the United States and Russia modify the command control of their long-range missiles so that targets in the other nation would not be preset into the rockets’ guidance systems. Meanwhile a different initiative held over from the Bush administration called for an anti-ballistic-missile defense system that requires placing early-detection radars on the territory of nations contiguous to Russia. Moscow considers this an aggressive action aimed at Russia, but Obama officials continued the program. The Russians responded with actions of their own, including the rejection of the measure to reduce the danger of accidental war.

One campaign promise that President Obama fulfilled was his commitment to end the oppressive treatment of gay Americans by the military in the form of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” regulations, under which admitted homosexuals were dismissed from the armed forces. When the White House mandated cancellation of this regimen, a procession of generals and admirals—and powerful politicians—resisted by arguing that permitting gays to serve openly in the military would reduce the effectiveness of U.S. forces. Obama won through, and legislation ending the obsolete regulations was enacted into law.

In each of these situations involving foreign policy and defense, a common thread may be found in behind-the-scenes maneuvering and policy debates: the single concept of “national security.” Unremarked by nearly everyone, the idea of national security has expanded to the point where today it has acquired a quasi-mystical meaning. Almost anything that relates remotely to the nation’s well-being is declared within the realm of national security. As a candidate Barack Obama subscribed to many forward-thinking ideas. As president many of his campaign commitments remain in limbo precisely because of the demands of national security. But the president is not merely a prisoner of aggressive national security stalwarts. In important ways he himself believes in its precepts.

The central problem is not an individual—even a president—and not a cohort of advocates. America’s crisis today hinges in large part on an overweening and outmoded concept of national security. Left over from Cold War days, it has ballooned far beyond its original meaning. And this has happened without serious consideration by American citizens. If it is not curbed, national security will drive the decline of the very state it aims to preserve. Traditional national security is a trap.

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John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He is the author of more than twenty books in the field, including 'Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA;' 'Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975;' 'Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of U.S. Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II;' and 'Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush.' He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.


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The complete essay 'Rethinking National Security' is available to purchase for $2.99 Kindle and iPad through Amazon and iTunes.

A Letter to Elias Khoury from Jeremy Bernstein

A letter from Jeremy Bernstein, the author of our latest release "How Iran Got the Bomb" to Lebanese writer Elias Khoury:

Dear Elias Khoury;

First let me express my appreciation for the talk you gave at NYU last Friday. It was the most lucid discussion of the Arab spring that I have heard. I did want to raise some issues about the Iranian nuclear program but decided that that was not the venue. Hence this note.               

First a note about myself. I am a theoretical physicist. While I have never worked on nuclear weapons I have had contact with many people who have. I did spend some time at Los Alamos and in the summer of 1957 witnessed two nuclear tests. This brings up an important point. The number of people who have actually witnessed nuclear explosions diminishes all the time. On the one hand this is good, but it means that even to the decision makers nuclear weapons become more and more of an abstraction. I was a friend of Stanley Kubrick and he told me that one of the reasons he made Doctor Strangelove was exactly his concern about this abstraction  which he felt was analogous to our psychological denial of our mortality. 

Over the years I have written a good deal about nuclear weapons including several blogs in the New York Review of Books. The last of these  about Iran was a couple of weeks ago. As I am sure you know the response to these blogs is vigorous and over the years I have received dozens. I can now classify the response to my Iran blogs into three categories, a,b and c. 

a.   The Iranian program is entirely peaceful and the fact that you claim otherwise proves that you are part of the Zionist conspiracy.

b.    The Iranian program will end up with the production of a nuclear weapon, but the Iranians are entitled to do this as a matter of self-defense.

c.    The Iranians must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon even if this means employing force to stop it.

I thought that you were b’ish while I am more c’ish. Let me now adumbrate beginning with a. 

Leaving out the matter of the Zionist conspiracy I think that people who espouse this simply do not know what they are talking about. They have not or will not consider the evidence. I will make only two points in the service of brevity although they are long enough. 

The Iranians bought the same package from A.Q.Khan as the Libyans did. We know what was in that package because the Libyans gave it to us. There was the prototype material for constructing a centrifuge and there were the Chinese plans for a nuclear weapon. This was a uranium device and it or something like it was used in the first Chinese test. This is what the Iranians have. Then there is the matter of enrichment. To make a nuclear device you need some quantity of what it known as “fissile” material. Plutonium is an example and so it the isotope of uranium-uranium-235. But the uranium that comes from a mine has a concentration of  about 99% uranium-238. Hence the 235 must be separated from the 238-hence the centrifuges. A nuclear weapon requires a concentration of about 90%. What then do we know about the Iranians? 

As far as we know they have two centrifuge centers. One is at Natanz and the other near Qum. These centers have several thousand operating centrifuges. They have produced two different concentrations. Most of the material is about 4% enriched and some is about 20% enriched. Twenty percent is the line between low enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium. The Iranians are entitled to enrich up to 20% staying within international norms. The 4% enriched uranium is what it used in power reactors. But the one that is operating uses Russian fuel so what use is there for the 4% enriched uranium? More interesting is the 20% enriched uranium. The Iranians claim that this is for medical isotopes. These isotopes are made in the Teheran Research Reactor which uses 20% enriched uranium and needs to have its fuel elements updated. As far as I can see the Iranians have already made more than enough 20% enriched uranium for the TRR. Why make more? It is known to everyone in this business that it is less costly in centrifuge separation power to go from 20% to 90% than from 1% to 20%. You can draw you own conclusions. I also highly recommend the most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency where more reasons to be concerned are given. Now to b.

People who adopt b-that is accept the fact that Iran is going to get nuclear weapons and learn to live with it, give various arguments. One common one is that the Isrealis have probably hundreds so Iran is certainly entitled to a few. Another is that the Iranians are not crazy and they must realize that if they use one their country will be set back to the stone age. On the first, the Israelis have not said in pronouncements from their government that Iran is a “cancer” which must be cut out. The Isrealis view the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat. On the second I am not sure that the Iranians fully understand this. This goes back to what I was saying above. What do these people really understand about the effects of nuclear weapons? In any event there is the issue of proliferation. The North Koreans provide an instructive example. They were helping the Syrians make a reactor which could be used for making plutonium when the Israelis bombed it out of commission. What would things look like if the Syrians  had made a nuclear weapon? The Saudis have said that if the Iranians get one they will get one too. They do not have the infrastructure to do this but they can certainly buy what they need from somewhere. And the terrorists? 

So we come to c. I do not think that sanctions will work. There is no opposition in Iran to the nuclear program. On the contrary and I think sanctions which are imperfect will  not change this. Note that the Indians say that they will continue to buy Iranian oil since their refineries are set up for it. A line in the sand must be drawn. If, for example the IAEA inspectors are kicked out or if there is evidence that the Iranians are enriching above 20% then the Isrealis for one will not sit still. I am not sure how they will go about it and the retaliation will be terrible but they will go about it. Maybe the Iranians will come to their senses before it is too late, but I am not betting on it. 

- Jeremy Bernstein

Jeremy Bernstein's essay "How Iran Got The Bomb: The Twisted Path to a Nuclear Weapon" can be purchased for Kindle, Nook and iPad through Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble.