Richard Perle And History - Two Strangers

Before I take on Richard Perle's op-ed in today's Washington Post, I think it is important to note some background on the man dubbed, along with Robert Novak, the "Prince of Darkness". In the late 1970's, Perle was the founder of an organization called The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). It saw itself as a counter-point to the real politique of the Council on Foreign Relations, which advocated continued detente and engagement with the Soviet Union. CPD consisted of many prominent anti-communist liberals who were becoming more and more conservative in their approach to foreign policy (Perle had begun his policy life as an aide to the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the drooling anti-Soviet hero of many of today's neo-conservatives). Convinced we were at war with a world-dominating power that would stop at nothing to destroy our way of life (you see how these ideas get recycled?), CPD demanded ever-larger defense budgets, a brinksmanship policy towards the Soviet Union, and the contemplation of limited nuclear bombardment when the possibility of no strike on US soil seemed at least within the limits of reason. Most of the early Reagan foreign policy - from the huge defense department budget increases through the shrill rhetoric ("Evil Empire") to a DoD White Paper that came to light in 1982 in which then Sec. of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote of developing a policy towards limited nuclear exchange in the face of Soviet adventurism - was rooted in CPD fantasies and paranoia.

Some of the members of CPD first came together during the Ford years, after Ford rejected a CIA threat assessment of the Soviet Union. This was the now-infamous "Team A" versus "Team B" reports. Team A was the group CIA assembled to analyze everything from Soviet grain production through their strategic planning and troop military deployments. Their conclusion was simple - while the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was a threat to the US mainland, their economic and social infrastructure was such that it could not sustain such a military behemoth for long. Further, Soviet forces were poorly trained conscripts, stationed in occupied territories that were hostile to their presence, straining morale. The Soviet economy was such that, the necessary spending to even keep pace with American defense spending would bankrupt the country.

Team B came along because Ford was convinced by hawks in the Republican party (including then former governor Ronald Reagan who was making a serious bid to boot Ford off the ticket in 1976) that the scenario painted by Team A was wrong in all aspects. Team B, led by George H. W. Bush and including a younger Richard Perle on its research staff, concluded that the Soviet Union, led by hard-line ideologues bent on world domination, had a defense budget that, hidden in other areas of Soviet expenditure, was nearly twice the US defense budget. They assumed the Soviets had a nuclear war-fighting policy, and demanded the Americans develop one as well. They argued that, while a conscripted force, the Red Army being twice as large as the American army would overwhelm the latter in an overwhelming Blitzkrieg-style attack.

As the 1980's unfolded, it became pretty clear that Team A had it right not just in general, but in detail as well. Yet, Richard Perle has developed a reputation as "an expert" on issues of foreign policy despite being, like most neo-conservatives, wrong about pretty much everything. Today he writes in the Post the following:

Despite a near universal belief to the contrary, the "action-reaction-upward-spiraling strategic weapons race" of the Cold War never really happened. . . .

But as is often the case with conventional wisdom, little serious research was done to establish whether it was true. The most important exception was the work of the late Albert Wohlstetter, America's preeminent strategic thinker, who approached the subject with his customary rigor. In a 1976 article -- "Racing Forward? Or Ambling Back?" -- Wohlstetter demonstrated that U.S. and Soviet strategic weapons programs were largely independent of each other and that the number, explosive power and cost of American nuclear weapons had peaked 15 years earlier (under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara) and had been declining ever since, even as Soviet programs had expanded significantly.

Here he is, re-writing history in which he was a participant. For those of us old enough to remember these times, I find it hard to imagine anyone could type the words above with a straight face or clear conscience. Whether it was upgrading to the MX missile - including developing a mobile launch platform for them - the B-1B bomber, stealth technology for ships and aircraft (yes, we have stealth ships, and have had for close to two decades), or the deployment of medium-range, nuclear armed missiles to Europe specifically to counter the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles to Warsaw Pact countries - the United States had an on-going strategic mind-set of countering every Soviet movement with a counter-movement. Further the "significant" expansion of Soviet programs was an updating of their own technology to meet the far-better technology of the United States, something they never achieved.

In other words, the premise of Perle's entire article is a bunch of hokum, bunk, nonsense, folderol, and bushwah. Sadly, Perle believes he is right - which I believe is far more frightening than the ideas themselves. Further, that such nonsense appears on some of the most coveted opinion space in the American news media shows how far we still have to go to fight the delusions of the right.