The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (39 page)

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Authors: David Limbaugh

BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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Consider, for example, the prisoner swap that the Obama administration undertook with Russia in July 2010. In exchange for the U.S. freeing the Anna Chapman spy ring and sending them back to Russia, the Kremlin sent to the West four accused espionage agents. However, not all of the Kremlin’s prisoners were actually spies. For example, Igor Sutyagin was a researcher for the USA Canada Institute who had been in detention awaiting trial for over four years and then in prison for six years following his railroaded conviction. He had even been acquitted by a lower court, but was convicted by a higher court in Russia’s notoriously corrupt judicial system, a trial Amnesty International denounced for being politically motivated. Yet instead of referring to Sutyagin as a political prisoner, the Obama administration accepted Russia’s narrative in characterizing the deal as a spy swap.
95
Some have rightfully criticized this transaction as an illustration of the erroneous thinking behind Obama’s reset policy and, by extension, Obama’s entire approach to foreign policy. “The only thing releasing all of these deep-cover Russian intelligence officers within a matter of days is going to teach Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an old KGB officer, is that Obama is a pushover—overly focused on making sure not to offend Russia,” observed CNN’s Gene Coyle. “Aside from sending the wrong political message, the quick swap also tells the leadership of the Russian government and the SVR, its intelligence service, that there is really no downside to being caught carrying out espionage in America.”
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The hasty prisoner exchange was bad enough, but there is no better example of Obama’s relentless pandering to Russia than on the issue of arms control. On that topic, Obama has displayed unfettered enthusiasm for placating Russian demands even though, as former U.S. arms control official Paula DeSutter argues, the Russians “have violated every agreement we have ever had with them.”
97
This record casts a troubling light on our recent New START deal with Russia. The deal earned the cautious support of a number of conservatives, anxious to secure some kind of nuclear agreement with Russia and presumably weary of appearing to oppose Obama on every issue. Those reluctant supporters should have become suspicious when Obama tried to get the treaty ratified during the Senate’s lame-duck session in late 2010. He finally succeeded in getting it approved, effective February 2011.
In his typical crisis-mode style, Obama presented ratification as a matter of utmost urgency. He attempted to persuade Republican Senator Jon Kyl to withdraw his opposition by promising to spend an additional $4 billion on nuclear programs. But Kyl, realizing the promise was illusory—and indeed, Kyl later noted that Obama’s revised spending plans effectively eliminated that funding—didn’t take the bait.
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He and other opponents were concerned by the severe restrictions the agreement would place on U.S. missile defense and by the treaty’s weak verification measures. As Heritage Foundation nuclear arms and foreign policy experts noted, the treaty’s preamble is a vague “Trojan Horse” that links strategic offensive and defensive weapons and would allow the Russians to withdraw if they perceive the United States to be expanding its ballistic missile defenses.
99
While Russia had less negotiating leverage than the United States, the terms of the treaty gave it a decided advantage—permitting it to expand its nuclear arsenal while we agreed to downsize ours. Opponents concluded the treaty would leave Russia with a clear advantage in tactical nuclear weapons while gaining the United States little in exchange. And the deal was not just disadvantageous with respect to Russia; opponents also believed it was imprudent to engage in substantial disarmament at a time when rogue nations and terrorists could be getting closer to acquiring nuclear capabilities and other dangerous regimes already possess them.
In his anxiousness for Russia to agree to New START, Obama even agreed to share with the Russians sensitive information concerning the UK’s Trident submarines, which are an integral component of Britain’s strategic deterrent—this, despite Britain’s objections and the opinion of defense analysts that it would undermine Britain’s policy of strategic ambiguity about the size of its nuclear arsenal. Duncan Lennox, editor of
Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems
, said that Russia wants “to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”
100
This was not the administration’s first major concession to the Russians. On the seventieth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, it slapped Poland and the Czech Republic in the face by rolling over to Russian demands that we scrap Third Site missile defense plans in those countries. According to leaked WikiLeaks cables, Obama cancelled the anti-missile shield mainly in hopes of earning Russia’s support for UN sanctions against Iran.
101
Showing it was hardly satiated by the concessions in the New START treaty, in March 2011, Russia made the preposterous demand that it be provided “red button” rights to a new, scaled-down missile defense system the United States has proposed for Europe, essentially insisting on a joint role in operating our own system. “We insist on only one thing,” Russia’s deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov told Hillary Clinton, speaking about the missile system. “That we are an equal part of it. In practical terms, that means that our office will sit for example in Brussels and agree on a red-button push to launch an interceptor missile, regardless of whether the missile is launched from Poland, Russia or the UK.”
102
With this, Obama officials finally encountered a demand so outrageous that they rejected it. In November 2011, vindicating the prior warnings of the Heritage Foundation, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to withdraw Russia from the New START treaty if the United States proceeded with the anti-missile system, even threatening to deploy short-range missiles aimed at U.S. missile defenses sites in Europe. This dire warning, it should be noted, concerned a
defensive
missile shield focused on a threat from Iran, not Russia.
103
But it turns out Russia had nothing to worry about. In another accidental “hot mic” incident, Obama told Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on March 26, 2012, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin] to give me space…. This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
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So Obama wants the Kremlin to know that more “flexibility” is on the way, but since Americans will oppose it, he needs to wait until after his presumed reelection.
Obama gave Medvedev this assurance about a month after more news emerged sure to please the Kremlin: the Obama administration was weighing options to unilaterally cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal by up to 80 percent. At the height of the Cold War during the 1980s, our nuclear arms peaked with some 12,000 strategic warheads. Our numbers have since dropped below 5,000 in 2003, and our current treaty limit is 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. According to the Associated Press, Obama is considering three options: reducing the number of our deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,000 - 1,100, to 700 - 800, or to 300 - 400. That last option would reduce us to levels we haven’t had since 1950, during the early phase of the Cold War.
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Obama has not only compromised our missile defenses with New START and those of our allies around the globe, he would also curtail deployment of additional ground-based interceptors (GBIs) at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California—and he has already nixed ready-to-deploy missile defenses with the cancelation of the Air Force’s Airborne Laser program whereby converted 747s with high-intensity lasers could destroy enemy missiles in their “vulnerable boost phase.”
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All these concessions on arms control come on top of potentially devastating cuts to our conventional forces. At the beginning of 2012, Obama announced a new military strategy to include $487 billion in cuts over the next decade. Our military troop strength will be cut by 27,000 for the Army and 20,000 for the Marines, while our naval strength has already fallen from 429 ships in 1991 to 287 today.
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“This budget strategy is a road map of American decline,” columnist Charles Krauthammer argued. “It is going to reduce our capacity. It does exactly what the president had said he was not going to do, which is it will adapt our capacity and our strategies to fit a budget…. It will make it extremely hard to carry on the role we have for 70 years.”
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“A BACK DOOR” TO LIMITING MISSILE DEFENSE
Although Russia hasn’t been capable of rivaling the United States in space militarization—which is why the Kremlin has been determined ever since the Reagan era to keep us from developing our own space assets—we face increasing competition from China. According to investigative journalist Omri Ceren, Beijing has “no interest in even pretending to reciprocate limitations on space development.”
109
That is especially problematic considering the Obama administration is bent on foregoing our pursuit of space militarization irrespective of China’s activity. Eli Lake, an expert in geopolitics for the
Washington Times
, reported that the Obama administration is trying to establish international rules for space launches and satellite operations that skeptics warn will compromise our ability to deploy military systems to shield satellites from space weaponry being developed by China and other nations.
110
While the administration has so far been resistant to sign treaties with Russia or China limiting space weaponry, it has signaled a willingness to enter into agreements aimed at reducing space debris that could collide into satellites, including acceptance of the European Union’s draft Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. The administration insists this would not compromise our national interests in space or limit our research. Yet some fear it could unintentionally limit our deployment and development of satellites that track orbital debris and other satellites. Peter Marquez, former National Security Council director of space policy for President George W. Bush and for President Obama, said it could also lead other states to set limits on U.S. defenses in space. Additionally, “it leaves open the door… for the United States to be forced to disclose the nature of its intelligence collection activities and capabilities from orbit.”
111
Others, such as Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, are concerned that such deals do not adequately account for the Chinese threat to U.S. satellites. “One gets the impression from this document [a U.S.-French agreement to share space debris data] that the Obama administration simply wants to ignore the Chinese threat in hopes it will just go away,” said Fisher. “There is apparently no consideration for developing U.S. active defenses for space that would more effectively deter China.”
112
Republican officials are also dubious about the administration’s stated willingness to adopt the EU code of conduct for outer space activities. In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, thirty-seven Republican senators wrote, “We are deeply concerned that the administration sign the United States on to a multilateral commitment with a multitude of potentially highly damaging implications for sensitive military and intelligence programs (current, planned or otherwise) as well as a tremendous amount of commercial activity.” The senators pressed for an explanation as to what impact the code of conduct would have on “the research and development, testing and deployment of a kinetic defensive system in outer space that is capable of defeating an anti-satellite weapon, such as the one tested by the People’s Republic of China in 2007.”
113
The concern is that given his approach to arms control, Obama is moving forward with these seemingly innocuous agreements that could in fact severely restrict our anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) capabilities in lieu of entering into formal agreements that would require Senate approval. As one congressional staffer said, “There is a suspicion that this is a slippery slope to arms control for space-based weapons, anti-satellite weapons and a back door to potentially limiting missile defense.”
114
These developments should be of significant concern since China appears to be advancing its space arms and defense technology programs. In 2006, China reportedly used an ASAT that effectively blinded a U.S. satellite, and in 2007, used one to destroy one of their own satellites. These incidents, among others, prompted then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to conclude that China’s pursuit of ASATs was designed to enhance their power and marginalize ours. More worrisome, especially in view of our exploding national debt and increasingly vulnerable position with China as one of our principal creditors, is China’s clear unwillingness to reciprocate any commitments we might make to limit space arms exploration. While the State Department has been negotiating with the EU on language in the Code of Conduct, and the U.S. and Russia are at least discussing the prospect of framing some mutual understanding on space-based activities, China has reportedly declined even to discuss the issue.
115
Further, in 2010 alone, China launched fifteen satellites, marking the first time since the Cold War that any nation has equaled the number of American launches.
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And in November 2011, the China National Space Administration achieved an unmanned satellite rendezvous and docking with a prototype space station module. This docking marks a key step toward China’s goal of launching and operating a manned space station in Low-Earth Orbit.

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