by Dick Cheney
• Recommit the United States to abiding by its obligations under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia committed to upholding Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine’s agreement to send its nuclear arsenal to Moscow. Recognize that failure to uphold this agreement diminishes the value of guarantees the United States gives in the future to encourage nuclear weapons states to give up their weapons.
• Provide additional military assistance to Ukraine.
• Impose additional sanctions on Russia if they don’t halt their military action in Ukraine.
• Lift current U.S. restrictions on energy exports and begin providing oil and natural gas to Europe to diminish Russia’s ability to use energy as a weapon. Build a liquefied natural gas export terminal on the East Coast of the United States to facilitate these shipments. Former national security advisor Steve Hadley and former secretary of defense Leon Panetta have advocated this approach, noting that as the United States has long been “the arsenal of democracy,” we should now also become “the great arsenal of energy.”
• Recognize that the New START Treaty does not further America’s security interests and allow it to expire in 2021. The treaty restricts our missile defense capabilities and limits our deployed launchers to 700, below the number that the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy determined was necessary for purposes of deterrence. The treaty should be allowed to expire when it ends in 2021.
• In light of Russian cheating on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States should allocate funds for research and development for the Pershing III intermediate-range ballistic missile. The president should also instruct the Department of Defense to conduct a review of America’s likely long-term requirements for missiles, both conventional and nuclear, in the intermediate range. Neither of these actions violates the treaty, and they are prudent in light of Russian deception.
THE NEXT PRESIDENT SHOULD take steps to limit the potential spread of nuclear weapons and minimize the threat that expanded proliferation poses to the United States. The risk from the proliferation of nuclear weapons is increasing, as the Iranians pursue a nuclear weapons program, the North Koreans and Pakistanis expand their arsenals, the Russians and Chinese improve, modernize, and enlarge theirs, and terrorist organizations seek access to nuclear weapons. The next president must:
• Reestablish the primacy of America’s nuclear arsenal. Discard the Obama-era fallacy that cutting America’s arsenal will encourage rogue nations to abandon their nuclear programs or ambitions. President Obama’s policies, which have cut our arsenal and limited our ability to modernize what remains, have increased, not decreased, the risk of war. Recognize that America’s security requires that we maintain a nuclear arsenal that is, in the words of John F. Kennedy, “second to none.” Restore the credibility and deterrence effect of America’s nuclear umbrella by maintaining, modernizing, and extending our nuclear arsenal.
• Develop and build an effective missile defense system to defend ourselves and our allies. According to former undersecretary of defense Eric Edelman and former undersecretary of state Robert Joseph, “President Obama has canceled or reduced every program to protect the United States from ballistic-missile attack.” In the current threat environment this must be reversed.
• Recommit the United States to enforcing the international arms control regime. Despite the fact that President Obama claims nuclear nonproliferation is his top national security priority, his actions have significantly weakened the international nonproliferation regime. Allowing Iran to continue to enrich uranium, ignoring their ongoing IAEA violations, giving up key verification provisions in New START, and seeking further arms treaties with Moscow without insisting Russia stop cheating on the INF Treaty are among the most damaging steps he has taken. The next president should make it a priority to restore the strength of the international arms controls system.
• Work with our allies to update and improve the international regime. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nearly all the world’s nations have signed, has been perhaps the most effective arms control treaty in history. It has likely prevented a much larger expansion in the numbers of nuclear weapons states. However, if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon and others in the Middle East follow, that may be a tipping point that renders the NPT increasingly ineffective. The United States should develop, on an urgent basis, a strategy to update and improve the existing regime, in light of the increasingly likely possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.
• Use Ronald Reagan’s playbook in effective arms control negotiations. Reagan knew what he was willing to concede and what he wasn’t. He was prepared to walk away from the table or have the Russians walk away rather than compromise America’s security. While negotiating, he also built up America’s conventional forces, undertook a massive program to modernize our nuclear forces, and launched the Strategic Defense Initiative to protect us from attack. It would not have occurred to Reagan to negotiate from a position of weakness.
• Invest in America’s intelligence capabilities with respect to the detection of nuclear weapons programs. Our history is not impressive in this regard. The United States has been surprised by the development of many of the world’s nuclear weapons programs. We need to improve our collection and analysis capability in this area.
• Recognize that the realistic and credible threat of military force gives substance and meaning to our diplomacy. Rogue nations and state sponsors of terror attempting to acquire nuclear weapons must believe that the United States is serious when it says “all options are on the table.” History has shown the effectiveness of military action in deterring or stopping nuclear programs. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program was destroyed in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the reactor at Osirak. He reconstituted his program and it was destroyed again in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. In 2003, when the United States and our coalition partners invaded Iraq, the Iranians temporarily halted at least a portion of their program. Five days after we captured Saddam Hussein in December 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi announced he was surrendering his nuclear materials, including weapons design, centrifuges, and uranium feedstock. In the aftermath of Qaddafi giving up his program, the United States was able to dismantle the nuclear black market operation of A. Q. Khan. Khan, father of the Pakistani bomb, was selling centrifuge technology and feedstock to nations in the Middle East and Asia. Military action was also effective in 2007 when the Israelis took action to destroy a North Korean–built nuclear reactor in the Syrian Desert. In light of this history, if rogue nations recognize that the cost of pursuing nuclear weapons programs may be significant and may include the use of military force, they may be less likely to choose that path.
THE CHALLENGES FACING OUR next president will be significant and complex. We have discussed only a handful here, intentionally focusing on those that represent the most significant threats and will require the most urgent action.
In some instances, the U.S. Congress should act immediately. Delay in repealing the Budget Control Act, improving America’s offensive and defensive cyber-capabilities, or hardening American targets against the potential of an EMP attack, would leave America more vulnerable and would be highly irresponsible. Congress bears a solemn obligation to improve, not diminish, America’s defense and intelligence capabilities. We would note that a Congress that fails to repeal the Budget Control Act or pass cybersecurity legislation while devoting hundreds of hours to limiting America’s cyber-capabilities—through the USA Freedom Act—needs to reassess its priorities.
One common thread running through all we must do to meet these threats is the importance of leadership—American leadership and presidential leadership.
Our next president must be committed to restoring America’s power and strength.
Our security and the survival of freedom depend upon it.
EPILOGUE
The Last, Best Hope of
Earth
On December 1, 1862, facing the gravest threat to the survival of the Republic in our history, Abraham Lincoln delivered his annual written message to the U.S. Congress. This “state of the union” message, required by the U.S. Constitution, opened with detailed reports, including information about the nation’s accounts, our relations with foreign powers, the operation of the post office, the conditions of the public lands, and the status of the Indian tribes. Then Lincoln turned to the war and spoke to the American people of the responsibility that was theirs, of the burden they carried, the precious burden of preserving this nation, which was, he said, “the last, best hope of earth.”
The responsibility remains with us today to sustain and perpetuate America as a model for all those who aspire to live in freedom, but we are also now something more. Since World War II, we have been “the last, best hope of earth” because we are freedom’s defender, not just for ourselves, but also for millions around the world. We do this because it is right, because it is necessary, because our security depends upon it, and because there is no other who can.
This duty comes with a tremendous cost, but we must never forget that the cost of inaction is higher. Imagine a world where the rules are set not by America and the allies of freedom, but by Iran or Russia or China. Imagine a world where militant Islam, unchallenged, spreads its venomous ideology and control over ever-expanding swaths of the globe. What if America continues its retreat from the Middle East, leaving Iran, al Qaeda, and ISIS to fill the void? How long until Iran gets a nuclear weapon? How long until others do? How long after that until one is used? What if China is allowed to dominate Asia, developing military capability targeted specifically at the United States? Imagine Europe controlled by Putin, free nations enslaved, and NATO in tatters. These are the costs of inaction.
Some choose to ignore the threats or to blame America. We are the problem, they say, and if we would just retreat, the threats would diminish. Such an assertion requires a willful disregard of the truth. Ignoring dangers did not bring us through World War II or the Cold War. Confronting them did.
Conceived in liberty, we were founded by men of uncommon courage, willing to risk all for the cause of freedom. Through the fire of a great civil war, we were sustained by Abraham Lincoln, who knew that, “The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.” Threatened by the depraved tyranny of fascism, we were roused by Franklin Roosevelt to become “the arsenal of democracy,” our forces mobilized and commanded by George C. Marshall, who secured the greatest military victory in history—in defense of freedom. Confronted with the soul-killing evil of communism, America’s might was marshaled once again by men like Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, who knew we had to be “the watchmen on the walls of freedom,” and by Ronald Reagan, who understood that “war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, it is when they are weak that tyrants are tempted.”
This is one of the themes of America’s great story, but many, President Obama prominent among them, want us to take a different view, want us to see the United States as having had and continuing to have a malign role in the world. This fashionable ideology, which would have us retreat and deliberately diminish our power, plays a part not only in our politics, but in the larger culture—and increasingly in education. In the books they are assigned, in the tests they take, and in the instruction they receive, our children and grandchildren are too often being told that the legacy they have inherited is a shameful one.
Neither we nor our children and grandchildren should be uncritical of our country. Despite the self-evident truth that “all men are created equal,” slavery continued after we declared our independence. The Constitution, signed in 1787, failed to end the system of slavery, nor did it address the oppression of women. Among the wonders of this country, however, is that that document, our constitution, was the instrument for remedying our failures, for abolishing slavery, granting women the right to vote, and working to ensure equality of opportunity for all. That we are a resilient country, able to correct wrongs, is among the lessons we should embrace and our children should learn. We have worked to make ourselves better—and we have succeeded. No nation has ever been freer or more prosperous. No nation has ever worked so successfully to extend freedom to others. No nation, in the history of mankind, has ever been such a force for good.
As we have written this book, we have sometimes been dispirited. The damage that Barack Obama has done to our ability to defend ourselves is appalling. It is without historical precedent. He has set us on a path of decline so steep that reversing direction will not be easy. But then we call to mind America’s resilience and the historical fact that great leaders have rallied us before and surely will again.
Great leaders have called us together to perform hard and noble tasks in large measure by reminding us that we are, as Lincoln said, “the last, best hope of earth.” We are not just one more nation, one more indistinguishable entity on the world stage. We have been essential to the preservation and progress of freedom, and those who lead us in the years ahead must remind us, as Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan did, of the special role we play. Neither they nor we should ever forget that we are, in fact, exceptional.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Lynne Cheney, whose contributions to this book and to our lives are beyond measure, as is our love for her. This book could not have happened without her. Her involvement touched every aspect of its production, including substance, style, editing, writing, and punctuation. We are deeply grateful—and any misplaced commas are entirely the responsibility of the authors. We would also like to thank our friend Kara Ahern, whose input to this project—ranging from substantive advice, to research, to PR and marketing, to hauling horses—has been incomparable. This is the third Cheney book that Jim Steen, a dear friend and colleague for more than forty years, has worked on with us. He has spent hours reading, editing, and fact-checking the manuscript, making key suggestions about content, and catching our mistakes. Any that remain are ours, not Jim’s.
We are indebted to Ambassador Eric Edelman, General Jack Keane, Michael Doran, Robert Karem, John Hannah, Scooter Libby, David Addington, Juan Zarate, and Marc Thiessen for their suggestions and input on key portions of the manuscript. We have traveled many miles over the years with our friend Gamal Helal. His advice and analysis of U.S. policy, and of events across the Middle East, continue to be invaluable.
We consulted hundreds of articles, books, newspapers, and websites in the preparation of this book and are particularly grateful for the extraordinary analysis, research, scholarship, and reporting of Steve Hayes, Tom Joscelyn, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Robert Joseph, Bret Stephens, Reuel Gerecht, Andrew McCarthy, Jennifer Rubin, Catherine Herridge, Lee Smith, Mark Dubowitz, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Omri Ceren, Bill Gertz, and, the incomparable Charles Krauthammer. Elizabeth Perry, our daughter and granddaughter, was a first-rate intern and research assistant.
Terry O’Donnell skillfully represented us and provided outstanding advice and guidance throughout this process. We would also like to thank the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster, beginning with CEO Carolyn Reidy and Threshold Editions publisher Louise Burke. They were a joy to work with once again, as was our terrific editor, Mitchell Ivers. Mitchell provided crucial perspective and editorial comment through many drafts and changing world events. We are grateful to the entire Simon & Schuster team: Natasha Simons, Jean Anne Rose, Jennifer Robinson, Jennifer Long, Felice Javit, Al Madocs, Susan Rella, Lisa Litwack, Tom Pitoniak, Jaime Putorti, and Liz Psaltis. The production of the audio book was made possible by the skill and patience of Tara Thomas and George Morris.
We are grateful to Kris Koch, Gus Anies, Sarah Eaton, Debbie Heiden, Juana Gonzales, Jodi and Brian Edwards, and Abbey and Rob Hardeman for their support, assistance, friendship, and good humor as we wrote this book.
Liz Cheney would like to express her deepest gratitude and love to her husband, Phil Perry, and
their children, Kate, Elizabeth, Grace, Philip, and Richard. They were supportive throughout this project, tolerant of the long hours she spent buried in research and writing, and finally learned to quit asking “Isn’t that book done yet?”
DICK CHENEY, the 46th vice president of the United States (2001–2009), served as secretary of defense from 1989 to 1993, as Wyoming’s representative in Congress from 1979 to 1989, and as White House chief of staff from 1975 to 1977. He also served as Chairman and CEO of the Halliburton Company. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In My Time and, with Dr. Jonathan Reiner, of Heart. He and his wife, Lynne, have two daughters and seven grandchildren.
LIZ CHENEY, an attorney and specialist in U.S. Middle East policy, served as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under President George W. Bush, and at the Agency for International Development and in the State Department in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. She practiced law with White & Case, LLP, and at the International Finance Corporation. She is a Fox News contributor and the founder, with Vice President Cheney, of the Alliance for a Strong America, an education and advocacy nonprofit organization dedicated to a strong national defense. She and her husband, Phil Perry, have five children.
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