Twenty-five years ago today, Condoleezza Rice, then-National Security Adviser for President Bush, delivered the Rostov Lecture at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In that speech, Rice laid out the defining vision of President Bush’s foreign policy: a robust missile defense system.
Rice foreshadowed her speech on Meet the Press two days earlier, arguing that the threat of ballistic missiles was not one Bush could afford to ignore. She was refused by Senator Joe Biden, who was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and argued that missile defense “will not protect us from cruise missiles. It will not protect us from something being smuggled in. … It will not protect us from anthrax … which the Defense Department says are much more likely threats than somebody sending an ICBM with a return address on it” (Nussbaum 234).
The speech was important for a few reasons.
Bush’s popularity was on the decline, with Americans already turning against his tax cut agenda, and Republicans on the Hill feeling as though the president lacked a coherent vision for his foreign policy.
The advancement of the missile defense system was also unpopular with Americans. More Americans felt the US was better protected by treaties that restricted developing new arms than by the development of a missile defense system. And most Americans – 77% in fact – seemed to share Senator Biden’s assessment that America was at greater risk from a terrorist bringing a weapon into the country than by a missile attack from an unfriendly nation or rogue actor.
But Rice’s position had been popular within the Republican establishment for decades, dating back to the Reagan administration’s infamous Star Wars proposal.
Though her speech achieved one aim – clearly staking out the Bush administration’s foreign policy – it was shortsighted. Weeks later, an Anthrax attack on prominent Americans struck fear in Americans and proved Biden was eerily prescient. Biden then began a full-court press arguing that the Bush administration was woefully unprepared to address the realities of America’s national security concerns.
Ahead of the 2002 midterm elections, the Senate killed Bush’s missile defense system – a major political win for Biden. Any hopes of future success were dashed by the rout Republicans faced in the 2002 midterm elections.
When Al Qaeda launched a series of terrorist attacks within the United States throughout 2003, the Bush campaign was again painted as inept. Though the president initially benefitted from a rally around the flag effect, questions about his administration’s priorities persisted. His foreign policy was a critical factor in his defeat to Biden in the 2004 election.
What Really Happened?
In his book, Undelivered, Jeff Nussbaum talks about the speech Rice had been slated to deliver on September 11, 2001. Of course, the events of that day not only postponed the speech but required it be rewritten.
The Bush administration’s preoccupation with the missile defense system betrays an administration that did not understand the emerging threats America faced heading into the 21st century.
And, of course, the tragedy of 9/11 continues to hang over our country. I especially encourage you to watch the PBS Documentary that frames our current political moment in the context of 9/11’s shadow: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/america-after-9-11/.
Sources
Nussbaum, Jeff, Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History. Flatiron Books, 2022.
Leave a comment