In bringing the "National Security Revitalization Act" to the House floor today, House Republicans will have fulfilled one plank in their Contract with America. Wisely, they never promised passage. It is a misconceived bill that would accomplish the opposite of its title. Its worst features were sufficiently diluted in committee so it is not as bad as it seems to say, but that is the best that can be said for it.
The intent of the bill is to substitute congressional dictation for the presidential command of the armed forces set forth in the Constitution. It would prohibit the president from putting U.S. troops under foreign command, unless a U.N. deployment is necessary to U.S. security. In an age of collective security, presidents have from time to time put troops under a chain of operational command including allied officers. It would be folly to forbid that by law, even in U.N. peace-keeping.
Reluctance to place U.S. troops under a foreign officer for any purpose is widely felt. The president as commander-in-chief will always share that reluctance, and would need good cause to agree to such a chain of command. That is the proper protection. A blanket law forbidding it, with a loophole allowing it, is no improvement.
The bill would deduct costs of unilateral U.S. actions from whatever the U.S. was going to pay for U.N. peace-keeping. In fiscal 1994, the U.S. paid half again more for unilateral operations (as in Haiti, Iraq and Korea) than for U.N. peace-keeping. So the effect would be to end U.S. payments for peace-keeping operations, all of which were set up by the U.N. Security Council subject to U.S. veto -- that is, with U.S. approval. The bill would render inoperative an important tool of foreign policy by indirect influence that has been used by every president since Harry Truman.
The bill requires the defense secretary to deploy an anti-missile defense system against no known present danger, busting deficit reduction and distorting the Pentagon's own priorities for weapons development. But it qualifies that imperative by the word "practical," meaning the secretary doesn't really have to do it. It also establishes a commission to assess combat-readiness and funding, although the administration and Congress are supposed always to be doing that.
And the bill calls for admitting Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into NATO before century's end. That's a conceivable goal, but ignores the requirements that applicants pursue economic and political reforms to qualify. It would seem to confirm the worst fears of Russia's xenophobes. The pace and scope of NATO enlargement are best left to active diplomacy.
One thing this bill would never do, and that is revitalize national security.