Defense Policy and the Elections of 1984, 2010 and 2012

The comparison between the elections of 1982 and 2010 makes for an interesting contrast. In 1982 Ronald Reagan’s GOP lost 26 seats in the House but kept control of the Senate. The Republicans lost at a time of high unemployment and an inflation rate that seemed out of control. By 1984 the economy was looking better the jobless rate was falling and inflation was disappearing.

In 2010 as we know the Democrats lost more than 61 seats and kept control of the Senate. The jobless rate is now higher than at any time since the great depression and while inflation seems to be under control there are disturbing signs that it may come roaring back. The most obvious ones are the raising prices for gold, food and energy that show that inflation may be on its way up to levels not seen since the early 1980s. If President Obama wants to win a second term he is going to need an economy that is growing, creating jobs and where people are not afraid that inflation is going to eat their saving and ravage their paychecks.

There is however another factor that helped Reagan to overcome the setback that he and his party suffered in 1982. Throughout his presidency no one, friend or foe had any doubt that he would stand up to America’s enemies and, within reason, stand by its friends. On the international stage Reagan, like FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Ford never apologized for their country and while they may have pursued different strategies in the Cold War they never for a single moment gave the impression that they were ready to lose it to the USSR. LBJ and Carter showed weakness and America’s foes reacted accordingly.

While Americans punished the GOP for the economy in 1982, they did not lose their faith in Ronald Reagan. He stood up for America and in 1983 he was able to overcome a strong ‘peace’ movement in the US and Europe and proceed with the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe and launched the Missile Defense program know derisively as “Star Wars.” He also overthrew a nasty little communist dictatorship on the Caribbean Island of Grenada. Along with his sustained military build up, these were the decisive moves that allowed him to successfully confront Gorbachev during the second half of his Presidency.

Will President Obama be able to achieve anything similar to Reagan’s 1983 Cold War victories in 2011 ? The situation is not promising, first of all the President has never seriously spoken of victory, not in Iraq and not even in Afghanistan which he once called for a policy that would concentrate on “finishing the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Indeed in 2011 he plans to completely pull out of Iraq, following the timetable laid out by George W. Bush, but he also plans to begin pulling out of Afghanistan. As of November 2010, it is hard to see how he can paint either of these moves as a victory.

One problem is that his administration and the Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill is full of people who in 1983 fought Ronald Reagan tooth and nail over the European missile deployment and over Missile Defense. It is legitimate to ask if these men and women have the kind of mindset needed to push through any policy that could be described as an American victory? With the honorable exception of Defense Secretary Robert Gates who in 1983 was courageously arguing against the liberal consensus at the CIA, few members of the administration have a record of standing against the nation’s enemy or against the left wing establishment consensus.

Reagan’s supporters wanted to “Win One for the Gipper!” Somehow “Compromise One for The One!” lacks the same resonance.

So what kind of foreign and defense policy successes could President Obama hope for that would help him win in 2012 ? Arab Israeli peace treaties didn’t help Carter or Clinton. Arms Control agreements helped Nixon a bit in 1972, but since then they have either been a negative factor or a neutral one. The SALT 2 agreement that Carter signed with Brezhnev helped confirm his image as a weakling and the Reagan Gorbachev agreements on Nuclear arms reductions did little, if anything to help George H. W. Bush against Michael Dukakis. The New Start Treaty that Obama has signed with Russia has achieved the remarkable feat of being seen as both anachronistic and as a threat to America’s ability to defend itself.

So what else could President Obama do that would be enough of a victory over America’s enemies to get him re-elected? Killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden might do the trick, especially if they actually captured him. Some people, including Angelo Codevilla have made a strong, though not an airtight, case that Bin Laden died years ago, so the administration would have to prove that they had actually killed him. Also if he is in the northwest Pakistani province of Chitral, as one recent report has it, killing him there would upset the men who rule in Islamabad no end, and this would have consequences for our operations in Afghanistan.

Of course one option that the President is not at all likely to take, is to go all out against Iran. After all the Islamic regime has been at war with the US since 1979, hostage taking, murders, terrorism and nukes are the very essence of their foreign policy. If Obama wanted to he could rally America around a strong and comprehensive bombing campaign that would not only destroy every aspect of their nuclear weapons development program, but would also go after their air and sea power, the revolutionary guard, the prisons in which the dissidents are kept and key economic targets such as the Kharg Island oil terminal.

During such an attack, perhaps the Persian people would rally round the regime, but it is at least as likely that they would either passively complain about the way the government brought this on to them, or in the best case, there would be a coup or a revolution. In any case the government in Tehran would be humiliated and would be seriously weakened.

There may be other opportunities for the President to stand up to America’s foes. The constant tension on the Korean Peninsula could erupt and if he handled a crisis there successfully it would enhance his standing. While there are other places such as Yemen and Somalia where he could use force against Al Qaeda it is hard to see that the kinds of small scale operations that are now feasible would have the kind of political impact that Reagan saw after he overthrew Fidel Castro’s allies on Grenada.

As long as President Obama sticks to his belief that the US must ‘engage’ its foes and to his preference for carrots without sticks, he will continue to be seen as weak. If he wants to get re-elected the way Reagan did in 1984, he is going to have to begin treating our enemies like enemies.