Skip to content

National Security Strategy 2000

building measures and arms control agreements that address the legitimate security concerns of all parties, and continue efforts to thwart and roll back Iran’s development of WMD and long-range missiles, and Iraq’s efforts to reconstitute its WMD programs. In South Asia, we seek to persuade India and Pakistan to refrain from weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons, testing or deploying missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, as well as to adhere fully to international nonproliferation standards and to sign and ratify the CTBT.
Over the past three years, the United States has worked to ensure that the landmark 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty remains a cornerstone of European peace, security and stability into the twenty-first century. On November 19, 1999, we joined the other 29 CFE States Parties in signing an Adaptation Agreement that eliminates obsolete bloc-to-bloc limits and replaces them with nationally based ceilings. It will also enhance transparency through more information and inspections, strengthen requirements for host nation consent to the presence of foreign forces, and open the treaty to accession by other European nations. The accompanying CFE Final Act reflects a number of important political commitments, including agreements on the complete withdrawal of Russian armed forces from Moldova and partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia. President Clinton has stated that he will only submit the CFE Adaptation Agreement to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification when Russian forces have been reduced to the flank levels set forth in the adapted Treaty.
President Clinton is committed to ending the threat to innocent civilians from anti-personnel landmines (APLs). The United States has already taken major steps toward this goal while ensuring our ability to meet international obligations and provide for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform. President Clinton has directed the Defense Department to end the use of all APLs, including self-destructing APLs, outside Korea by 2003 and to pursue aggressively the objective of having APL alternatives ready for Korea by 2006. We will also aggressively pursue alternatives to our mixed antitank systems that contain anti-personnel submunitions. We have made clear that the United States will sign the Ottawa Convention by 2006 if by then we have succeeded in identifying and fielding suitable alternatives to our self-destructing APLs and mixed anti-tank systems.
In May 1999, we gained Senate advice and consent to ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. This agreement addresses the worldwide humanitarian problem caused by APLs by banning the use of non-detectable APLs and severely limiting the use of long-duration APLs to clearly marked and monitored fields that effectively keep out civilians. We have established a permanent ban on APL exports and are seeking to universalize an export ban through the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. We are supporting humanitarian demining programs worldwide through engagement with mine-afflicted nations and the international community, and through our “Demining 2010” initiative have challenged the world to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of removing landmines that threaten civilians.

Military Activities
The U.S. military plays a crucial role in shaping the international security environment in ways that protect and promote U.S. interests, but is not a substitute for other forms of engagement, such as diplomatic, economic, scientific, technological, cultural and educational activities. Through overseas presence and peacetime engagement activities such as defense cooperation, security assistance, and training and exercises with allies and friends, our Armed Forces help to deter aggression and coercion, build coalitions, promote regional stability and serve as role models for militaries in emerging democracies. With countries that are neither staunch friends nor known foes, military cooperation can serve as a positive means of building security relationships today that will contribute to improved relations tomorrow. At the same time, we remain firmly committed to human rights and we will continue to ensure that we do not train or assist known human rights abusers.
Maintaining our overseas presence promotes regional stability, giving substance to our security commitments, helping to prevent the development of power vacuums and instability, and contributing to deterrence by demonstrating our determination to defend U.S., allied, and friendly interests in critical regions. Having credible combat forces forward deployed in peacetime also better positions the United States to respond rapidly to crises. Equally essential is effective global power projection, which is key to the flexibility demanded of our forces and provides options for responding to potential crises and conflicts even when we have no permanent presence or a limited infrastructure in a region.
Strategic mobility is a key element of our strategy. It is critical for allowing the United States to be first on the scene with assistance in many domestic or international crises, and is a key to successful American leadership and engagement. Deployment and sustainment of U.S. and multinational forces requires maintaining and ensuring access to sufficient fleets of aircraft, ships, vehicles and trains, as well as bases, ports, pre-positioned equipment and other infrastructure.
Although military activities are an important pillar of our effort to shape the global security environment, we must always be mindful that the primary mission of our Armed Forces is to deter and, if necessary, to fight and win conflicts in which our vital interests are threatened.
Just as American engagement overall must be selective—focusing on the threats and opportunities most relevant to our interests and applying our resources where we can make the greatest difference—so must our use of the Armed Forces for engagement be selective. Engagement activities must be carefully managed to prevent erosion of our military’s current and long-term readiness. The Defense Department’s theater engagement planning process, which was approved by the President in 1997, helps ensure that military engagement activities are prioritized within and across theaters, and balanced against available resources. In short, we must prioritize military engagement activities to ensure the readiness of our Armed Forces to carry out crisis response and warfighting missions, as well as to ensure that we can sustain an appropriate level of engagement activities over the long term.
Our ability to deter potential adversaries in peacetime rests on several factors, particularly on our demonstrated will and ability to uphold our security commitments when they are challenged. We have earned this reputation through both our declaratory policy, which clearly communicates costs to potential adversaries, and our credible warfighting capability. This capability is embodied in ready forces and equipment strategically stationed or deployed forward, in forces in the United States at the appropriate level of readiness to deploy when needed, in our ability to gain timely access to critical regions and infrastructure overseas, and in our demonstrated ability to form and lead effective military coalitions. Because terrorist organizations may not be deterred by traditional means, we must ensure a robust capability to accurately attribute the source of attacks against the United States or its citizens, and to respond effectively and decisively to protect our national interests.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29