October 17,
2000
The Honorable Dov S. Zakheim,
Corporate Vice President of System Planning
Corporation, and former Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense in the Pentagon.
The well-known national security
expert, former Deputy Assistant Secretary
Dov S. Zakheim gave a
detailed analysis of the present status of our
military engagements in the world. He described
negatively the Clinton administration’s security
policy. He emphasized that presently our military in
foreign countries are engaged in so-called "nation
building" which is not the mandate of the U.S. armed
forces. As examples, Secretary Zakheim enumerated that
our military units in Africa are fighting AIDS, and
protecting Serbs in Kosovo, despite the fact that the
US helped the Albanian forces to win the war, and now
the Clinton administration is supporting the losers.
Zakheim spoke at great length about the negative
effects of our dependence from the United Nation
Security Council in military matters. He underlined
the need to plan for the future and not go back to the
past. In this regard he emphasized that on the one
hand we are not building missile defense and on the
other we are defenseless against other hostile
countries’ missile attacks.. The Secretary considered
China the major security threat of the United States,
where Beijing leadership is modernizing its army at a
fast pace. He concluded that the United States should
not be spreading our troops all around the world.
Instead it should concentrate on safeguarding
America’s real national interests.
