Obama's Weak National Security Team from TPR: The Public Record

Sixteen years ago, President-elect Bill Clinton headed for Washington with a national security team that was unprepared for a new age of foreign policy marked by the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. Clinton proclaimed upon arrival that "foreign policy is not what I came here to do," and the weakness of his national security team confirmed his attitude.

Unlike his economic team, which was marked by such stars as Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin, Gene Sperling, and Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Clinton's foreign policy team was mediocre at best. Members of it were soon replaced. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin lasted less than a year; CIA director Jim Woolsey lasted less than two years; Secretary of State Warren Christopher and national security adviser Tony Lake lasted through Clinton's first term, but neither distinguished himself.

President-elect Barack Obama's appointments similarly demonstrate that his focus is on economic policy and that he is willing to put foreign policy on the backburner.  His economic team is star-studded and clearly prepared to take on the economic challenges we face. His national security team is comprised of disparate individuals with world views at odds with each other and with Obama. There appears to be no commitment to reverse the militarization of American foreign policy and no willingness to confront a Pentagon that the Bush administration has placed at the top of the decision-making ladder on foreign policy. The Bush legacy includes the weakening of the State Department and the militarization of the intelligence community, which finds nearly all of the intelligence departments and agencies led by active-duty and retired general officers.

Obama also has inherited a Clinton legacy marked by an unacceptable level of military influence over U.S. national security and foreign policy. Clinton capitulated to military opposition to agreements dealing with the International Criminal Court, a ban on landmines, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Chemical Warfare Convention. These decisions by Clinton need to be reversed. During the campaign, Obama took strong positions on stopping ethnic violence in Africa and elsewhere, but he should understand that the Pentagon opposes humanitarian missions for military force.  It dragged its heels on intervention in Bosnia to stop ethnic cleansing and advocated that the United States block U.N. efforts to stop the genocide in Rwanda. 

rest at http://www.pubrecord.org/commentary/566-obamas-weak-national-security-team.html