For more than three decades, the politics of war and peace have exposed deep fissures in the Democratic Party. The public has shown greater confidence in Republicans to keep America strong and confront security threats, a pattern President George W. Bush is counting on to put him over the top in 2004. But in Sen. John Kerry, Democrats may finally have found a champion who can close the national security gap.
Kerry has a historic opportunity to do for Democrats on national security what Bill Clinton did for his party on domestic policy: jettison old ideological baggage, embrace innovation and reform, and occupy the vital center of American politics. By returning to his party's first principles -- a strong defense, consistent support for economic and political freedom around the world, and energetic U.S.
leadership for collective security -- Kerry can lead Democrats out of a 30-year funk of ambivalence and restore them to their rightful role as stewards of an America that is both strong and respected.
Little wonder the Bush campaign is spending millions to convince Americans that Kerry is a "Massachusetts liberal," which, among other things, is code for "soft on defense." The Massachusetts politician Kerry resembles most, however, is not Michael Dukakis or Ted Kennedy, but
John F. Kennedy. As young Naval officers, both men distinguished themselves by valor in war and both later specialized in foreign affairs in the U.S. Senate. The chief difference, of course, was that Kennedy served in World War II, the "good war," while Kerry fought in the discordant
Vietnam War, then came home and became a prominent figure in the anti-war movement.
It is this double-edged experience that enables Kerry to speak with unique authority to both sides of the schism that Vietnam opened among
Democrats and that continues to weaken them to this day.
The conflict in Iraq, of course, has brought the old tensions between the party's hawks and doves back to the fore. Kerry and other "Blair Democrats" backed the Iraq war resolution to strengthen Bush's hand in
pressing the United Nations to enforce its mandates against Saddam Hussein. But Howard Dean vaulted to an early lead in the primaries when he attacked Democrats for supporting "George Bush's unilateral war." In the end, though, Dean's campaign fizzled, as even liberal anti-war voters in Iowa and New Hampshire saw Kerry as a more credible challenger to Bush.
Still, some unresolved questions were left lingering in the air: At bottom, are Democrats the anti-war party -- the McGovern party -- or are they the party of muscular internationalists like John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman? Do they have coherent plans for making America safer, or do they really care only about domestic issues? So far, the old tensions have been submerged by the powerful antipathy toward Bush that unites all wings of the Democratic Party. But the rift over Iraq -- and the underlying lack of consensus about the uses of U.S. power that it reflects -- expose the party's soft political underbelly.
Kerry's political challenge is to convince Americans that he and his party are tough enough to face down our enemies and wield the nation's military might effectively, without driving anti-war Democrats into the outstretched arms of Ralph Nader. To Republicans, Kerry's balancing act is just another straddle, another example of his alleged tendency to take both sides of every issue. But considering how Bush's black-and-white certitudes have led America astray in Iraq, the United States may be ready for a leader who has grappled seriously with the moral complexities of counter-insurgency and war. In fact, Democrats should dare Republicans to argue that a supple and searching intellect is a disqualification for the White House.
Before examining Kerry's challenge in greater detail, it is worth a quick glance back in time to see how the national security gap came to be.
How we got here. Democrats historically have not been an anti-war party. Bob Dole was roundly criticized when, during his 1976 vice-presidential debate with Walter Mondale, he lashed out at "Democrat wars." But he had a point. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt led the United States in two world wars and another Democrat, Harry Truman, dispatched U.S. troops to the "police action" in Korea and created NATO, the CIA, and other key pillars of America's Cold War strategy. Another liberal Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, escalated America's involvement in Vietnam.
Vietnam proved to be the fulcrum that broke the Democratic consensus on liberal internationalism. Coverage of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago portrayed a party convulsed by irreconcilable differences over the war. In 1972, young antiwar activists sparked Sen. George McGovern's insurgent campaign, with its neo-isolationist slogan, "Come Home, America." But even though most Americans had by then soured on the war and favored withdrawing U.S. troops, public opinion also had hardened against student radicalism and countercultural excesses. With Republicans excoriating Democrats as the party of "acid, amnesty, and abortion," President Richard Nixon won re-election in a 49-state blowout, with McGovern carrying only Massachusetts.
In a historical footnote, another casualty of the 1972 backlash was 28-year-old John Kerry. He lost his bid for a House seat in Massachusetts when his opponent and the local newspaper branded him an unpatriotic radical.
The war that split the Democrats was the formative experience of Kerry's life and political career. First he earned distinction in combat, then he won nationwide recognition as a leader of Vietnam Veterans to End the War. As a senator, arguably his greatest achievement was his work with Sen. John McCain on resolving the thorny question of Americans missing or still held prisoner in Vietnam, thereby paving the way toward normalizing relations with Hanoi.
Like many of his privileged contemporaries, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who avoided military service with a raft of student deferments,
Kerry could have found a way to get out of Vietnam. But as a diplomat's son with a finely honed sense of duty, he instead enlisted in the Navy after graduating from Yale in 1966. Two years later, Kerry was in the thick of the fray, commanding a Swift boat in the Mekong Delta. In five intense months of combat, Lt. John Kerry would be wounded three times and earn the Bronze Star and the Silver Star, the Navy's third-highest decoration. He won a reputation as a capable and aggressive leader determined to take the fight to the enemy -- along with the undying loyalty of the men who served under him.
But the war was a deeply disillusioning experience for Kerry. The Nixon administration's dissembling about the war's progress and obsessive efforts to discredit its opponents; the lives wasted on missions that made no military sense; and the carpet bombing, napalm, and "free-fire zones" that took a fearsome toll on Vietnamese civilians outraged Kerry and fed a growing conviction that true patriotism compelled him to speak out against the war, not blindly defend it. He left the Navy, became a poised and eloquent spokesman for veterans demanding an end to the war, and, in riveting 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, posed the haunting question, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Closing the National Security Gap. According to public opinion surveys, the confidence gap between the two parties on national security seems to have opened right around that same time. In the 30 years since, Republicans have enjoyed large advantages -- often 20 to 30 percentage points -- when voters are asked which party they trust to keep America strong or to handle foreign affairs. Sometimes, as in the early 1980s, the gap narrowed, only to widen again toward the end of the decade. It persisted throughout the 1990s, but mattered less because security concerns were rarely uppermost in voters' minds during the relatively tranquil interlude between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Sept. 11, 2001.
After the terrorist attacks, the gap became a chasm, as some polls showed Bush and the Republicans with 40- and 50-point advantages on fighting terrorism or protecting the homeland -- a margin they exploited ruthlessly in the 2002 midterm elections. After last spring's upsurge in violence and the prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq, the GOP edge shrank significantly, but as of June, it still hovered around 15 percent.
How can John Kerry close, or at least drastically reduce, the national security confidence gap? At the very least, the courage and martial spirit
Kerry displayed in Vietnam will complicate Republican efforts to characterize him as a milquetoast liberal or cultural elitist who actually -- gasp -- speaks foreign languages.
Nothing levels social distinctions like war, and Kerry can walk into any veterans' post, firehouse, or union hall in America knowing that he has paid his dues. So far, GOP attempts to diminish his war record have succeeded mainly in angering Vietnam vets, while drawing unflattering contrasts with Bush's fitful service in the National Guard.
Kerry's anti-war activities, on the other hand, have furnished more promising fodder for GOP attack artists. His blunt candor about G.I. atrocities in Vietnam, pictures of him on the same stage as "Hanoi" Jane Fonda, and the fact that he threw away his campaign ribbons (but not his medals) to protest the war earned him the enmity of some conservative veterans. But more important has been the coterie of vets Kerry served with who have repeatedly come to his defense at difficult moments throughout his political career.
Late last year, for example, as Kerry lagged far behind Dean in Iowa, Jim Rassmann, a soldier Kerry fished out of a river during a fierce firefight in 1969 and had not seen since then, flew to Iowa to vouch for the man who had saved his life. The emotional bond Kerry forged with his Vietnam "band of brothers" made it easier for voters to warm to the otherwise grave and reserved senator and helped to spark his come-from-behind victory.
Kerry's status as a decorated war hero will win him a hearing from voters, especially white males likely to see Democrats as soft on national defense. But while it can open doors, it will not be enough to close the deal -- to persuade Americans to change their commander in chief while their country is under attack. To do that, Kerry will have to ease public doubts about Democrats' toughness and offer a smarter strategy than Bush's for winning the war on terror.
Kerry has avoided one huge pitfall, simply by talking frequently about national security. In the past, Democrats often have appeared anxious to change the subject to domestic politics, as in 2002, when they tried to shift the focus of the midterm election debate from national security to Social Security. Not only did that gambit fail miserably, it reinforced the impression that Republicans somehow "own" what has become the most important issue in American politics.
In this campaign, however, Kerry has made it clear he will not cede national strength and security to the Republicans. He has challenged Bush's handling of Afghanistan and Iraq, saying the administration's refusal to put more troops on the ground allowed Osama bin Laden to slip from our grasp and failed to provide the basic security necessary to stabilize post-war Iraq. He's lambasted Bush's failure to plug big gaps in homeland security and revamp America's disjointed intelligence services. In a series of major speeches on national security, Kerry has spelled out concrete ideas for enlarging and transforming the U.S. military, for redoubling U.S. efforts to halt the spread of mass destruction weapons and materials, and for repairing America's frayed relations with the world.
Notwithstanding GOP attempts to distort his Senate voting record, Kerry has consistently supported a strong national defense, as well as an overhaul of America's Cold War-vintage intelligence agencies. In the Senate, in fact, Kerry has more often nested with the hawks than with the doves, backing U.S. military interventions in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. And, while he voted against the 1991 Gulf War, Kerry joined 24 other Democratic senators in 2002 in voting for the Iraq war resolution.
That vote marked a distinct evolution in Democrats' views on the utility of force. During the 1990s, the Clinton administration pioneered a new kind of military interventionism in response to a new security challenge -- conflicts arising from unraveling or failed states like Yugoslavia. For a brief, disingenuous moment, Republicans became the anti-war party, with House Whip Tom Delay calling Kosovo "Clinton's war," while other conservatives complained that the United States had no business committing its armed forces to "nation-building."
But Democrats, including Kerry, argued that amid the disintegrative tendencies of the post-Cold War world, only the United States could spur the international community to confront new dangers emerging from failed or rogue states: terrorism, proliferation, and "ethnic cleansing," or genocide. This shift signaled a Democratic Party coming to terms with America's inescapable pre-eminence and global responsibilities, overcoming its reflexive aversion to military intervention, and being willing to use U.S. power to reinvigorate the idea of collective security.
Many liberals learned this lesson from Bosnia and Kosovo: Multilateral diplomacy will not solve tough security problems unless it is backed by the credible threat and judicious use of force. Many conservatives are learning the opposite lesson from Iraq: The United States cannot achieve its security goals by military force alone. We are stronger when we act with allies and through a framework of international cooperation and legitimacy than when we try to go it alone.
Striking the right balance between force and diplomacy is a recurrent theme in Kerry's thinking on foreign affairs. It is what led him to back the Iraq war resolution, while lambasting Bush's halfhearted and ultimately futile effort to build a broader coalition for disarming Saddam Hussein. Republicans say Kerry is trying to have it both ways, but, in fact, his stance puts him much closer than Bush's to the majority opinion on Iraq. Most Americans are instinctive internationalists. They favor a tough policy toward rogue dictators like Saddam, but they also grasp the strategic value of strong alliances. Kerry's task is to reassure them that what his opponents call a case of terminal equivocation is actually an approach to defending America that is tough and smart rather than tough and dumb.
To anti-war Democrats, Kerry can offer reassurance of a different kind.
Having witnessed first hand America's blunders and excesses in Vietnam, it is highly unlikely a President Kerry would turn out to be a chest-beating chauvinist or mindless cheerleader for military adventurism. Without shying from the use of force, he would undoubtedly set the bar higher than the Bush administration has for committing U.S. forces abroad. Tempered by his Vietnam experience, Kerry would insist that our forces observe strict rules of conduct, work harder to win international backing and legitimacy for our policies, and recognize the limits of military force, as well as the vital role U.S. "soft power" plays in amplifying our influence around the world.
Arguing that nations with accountable governments are less likely to foment internal violence or external aggression, Democrats also have made expanding the community of democracies a strategic imperative. Bush has appropriated the democracy rationale in a bid to shore up faltering public support for his Iraq policy. Rather than criticize him for overreaching and counsel more "realistic" goals, as Kerry has done, a better tack would be to argue that it is too late for Bush to be a credible champion of democracy. Democrats should not cede values to the Republicans any more than they should cede toughness and resolve in confronting external threats.
Iraq remains the biggest barrier to Democratic unity on national security, and, for the most part, Kerry has handled the crisis deftly. By holding steady in his commitment to American success in Iraq, while resisting demands from the left that the United States essentially declare defeat and bring its troops home, Kerry has put the national interest over partisan advantage. Yet he has offered a cogent criticism of the White House's rush to war, its lack of candor on weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and al Qaeda, and its failure to win more international support. Bush, in fact, has grudgingly moved to adopt Kerry's calls for more troops to provide greater security for Iraqis and a larger role for the international community in managing Iraq's return to self-government.
Having been proven right on Iraq, Kerry is in a strong position both to persuade anti-war Democrats that abandoning the country to civil war and terrorism would be a strategic calamity for the United States, and to argue to independent and undecided voters that the Bush administration lacks the credibility to restore America's tarnished moral standing and win international cooperation.
Kerry's big challenge now is to fit Iraq within a broader vision for making
Americans safer. For Democrats, the best way to close the national security gap that has bedeviled them for too long is to forge a better strategy for winning the war on terror and Islamic extremism. Primarily a clash of ideas and values, that war will not be won on any battlefield. Ultimately, we will win by offering the moderate majority of Muslims an alternative to jihadi terror.
Just as Truman did at the beginning of the Cold War, Kerry and the Democrats should fashion a comprehensive strategy that transforms our military to better fight terrorism and prevent proliferation, that opens markets throughout the wider Middle East to stimulate trade and jobs, that ties development aid to accountable governance, and that puts America squarely and consistently on the side of human rights and democratic reforms, not a spurious "stability."
In short, Democrats do not need to reinvent the wheel; they need only to rediscover their best traditions. The tough-minded internationalism of
Truman and Kennedy, and now Kerry, updated to the new realities of the post-Cold War world, can succeed where conservative unilateralism has failed.
