Last Friday, the White House released its National Security Strategy of 2015. It was overshadowed by ISIS video of the burning death of the Jordanian Air Force pilot and the backlash from Barack Obama’s comments at the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s just as well. The bullet points look good enough, but it’s all hot air, except for a very few points.
It starts, “The strategy sets out the principles and priorities that describe how America will lead the world toward greater peace and a new prosperity.” The truth is, under this administration, America will continue to lead from behind, requiring other countries to step up.
For example, even as this Administration struggles to declare that ISIS isn’t a radical Islamic terrorist group, the Jordanian King stepped up to denounce the group and backed it up with renewed and greatly bolstered airstrikes. They conducted 56 missions in three days, complete with mission videos. How long has it been since the media has shown video from our airstrikes?
As another example, this past weekend, Angela Merkel of Germany was meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. They were discussing Russian incursions into Ukraine. Monday, she was heading to Washington to brief Obama of the talks. If we were as strong as the administration implies, we wouldn’t need to be briefed; we’ would have been involved in the discussions. Come to that, if we had a strong leader, Russia might not even be acting the aggressor.
The strategy mentions our goal for a “world without nuclear weapons and insuring nuclear materials don’t fall into the hands of irresponsible states and violent non-state actors”. At the same time, this administration is conducting talks with Iran in regards to its nuclear ambitions. Reports state that our negotiations are giving Iran about 80% of what they want, leaving all of their centrifuges active. Apparently, no one in the administration deems Iran an irresponsible state.
From what I can see, the only truths in the strategy are the points concerning the war on climate change and the equality issues surrounding the LGBT community. Both of these are more social issues (if they are, in fact, issues) and don’t have a place in a National Security Strategy.
While the United States has the greatest military in the world and that military has some great generals, this adminstration continues to fritter away any advantage that force gives us. The name for this strategy could easily be “The Status Quo Continues”!
marjarhead1 