April 17, 1996
Last Saturday -- half-a-century after her distinguished predecessor in the post of British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, delivered one of the most momentous addresses of the Twentieth Century -- Lady Margaret Thatcher performed a similar feat in the same forum
In 1946, Sir Winston aroused the somnolent nations of the West to the danger posed by Josef Stalin's hegemonic communism. His speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri brilliantly identified the "Iron Curtain" that would dominate the Cold War period, depriving the people of Central and Eastern Europe of their liberties -- and threatening those of the rest of the world. Churchill's Fulton address has been widely credited, moreover, with helping to mobilize appropriate Western responses to Soviet imperialism, including the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
For her part, Lady Thatcher has in 1996 issued a no-less-clarion call about the dangers emerging in the post-Cold War world. She also offered concrete suggestions about specific responses that are now in order. With regard to the former, she told another audience gathered at Westminister College on 9 March:
"...The world remains a very dangerous place, indeed one menaced by more unstable and complex threats than a decade ago. But because the risk of total nuclear annihilation has been removed, we in the West have lapsed into an alarming complacency about the risks that remain. We have run down our defenses and relaxed our guard. And to comfort ourselves that we were doing the right thing, we have increasingly placed our trust in international institutions to safeguard our future. But international bodies have not generally performed well. Indeed, we have learned that they cannot perform well unless we refrain from utopian aims, give them practical tasks and provide them with the means and backing to carry them out."
"Given the intellectual climate in the West today, it is probably unrealistic to expect military intervention to remove the source of the threat, as for example against North Korea -- except perhaps when the offender invites us to do so by invading a small neighboring country. Even then, as we now know, our success in destroying Saddam's nuclear and chemical weapons capability was limited.The "Iron Lady" then proceeded to lay out what would be required to respond to the threat posed by ballistic missile-delivered weapons of mass destruction:"And we cannot be sure that the efforts by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to prevent Saddam putting civil nuclear power to military uses have been any more successful; indeed, we may reasonably suspect that they have not."
"What can we do? There is no mysterious diplomatic means to disarm a state which is not willing to be disarmed. As Frederick the Great mordantly observed: `Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.' Arms control and non-proliferation measures have a role in restraining rogue states, but only when combined with other measures."If America and its allies cannot deal with the problem directly by preemptive military means, they must at least diminish the incentives for the Saddams, the Gaddafis and others to acquire new weapons in the first place. That means the West must install effective ballistic missile defenses which would protect us and our armed forces, reduce or even nullify the rogue state's arsenal and enable us to retaliate."
"First, and most obviously, it promises the possibility of protection if deterrence fails, or if there is a limited and unauthorized use of nuclear missiles.""Second, it would also preserve the capability of the West to project its power overseas."
"Third, it would diminish the dangers of one country overturning the regional balance of power by acquiring these weapons."
"Fourth, it would strengthen our existing deterrent against a hostile nuclear super- power by preserving the West's powers of retaliation."
"And fifth, it would enhance diplomacy's power to restrain proliferation by diminishing the utility of offensive systems."
"If, however, the United States is to build this global ballistic defense system with its allies, it needs the assurance that the Alliance is a permanent one resting on the solid foundations of American leadership. That raises, in my view, very serious doubts about the currently fashionable idea of a separate European `defense identity' within the alliance."[This idea] contains the seeds of a major future transatlantic rift. And...it has no military rationale or benefits. Indeed, it has potentially severe military drawbacks. Even a French general admitted that during the Gulf War, the U.S. forces were the `eyes and ears' of the French troops. Without America, NATO is a political talking shop, not a military force."
Recent ballistic missile attacks by the People's Republic of China against the trade, economy and national psyche -- if not, as yet, the actual territory -- of the Republic of China on Taiwan underscores Lady Thatcher's dire warning. Those in the Clinton Administration and in the legislative branch who have not exhibited the necessary "forethought" and who have tenaciously staved off "wise preparation" for global ballistic missile defenses will bear no small measure of responsibility for the loss of life that may ensue if China does, in fact, attack Taiwan proper. Needless to say their burden will be all the greater if, as threatened by the Chinese leadership, the China-Taiwan conflict results in attacks on Los Angeles, as well. It is to be earnestly hoped that Prime Minister Thatcher's Fulton speech will be heeded by such individuals, and the West more generally, with the same sort of salutary effect as met her predecessor's clarion call fifty years before.