Webb pushes for clearly defined national security policy

DES MOINES - If elected president in 2016, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said Tuesday he would clearly define a national security policy that would spell out America's response to international and cyber terrorism that threaten U.S. vital interests.

Webb, 69, a former U.S. Navy secretary, journalist and one-term senator who is eyeing a 2016 Democratic presidential bid, said U.S. foreign policy has become too 'situational” in recent years. That, he said, has led to 'blunders,” such as the Iraqi invasion and military involvement in Libya, that have destabilized already volatile areas of the world.

'One of the things that we need as a national government is a clear articulation of what our foreign policy goals and objectives are,” Webb told members of the Greater Des Moines Committee on Foreign Relations during a lunch-hour meeting. 'We really haven't had that since the end of the Cold War in 1993.

'Before that, it was very clear how we could articulate our larger strategic objectives as we were in a continuous state of tension with the Soviet Union and these other issues sort of gathered around that.

'Since then, we've gone through different variations of how we define our national security policy,”WW he continued. 'After 9/11, we have basically become situational in terms of how we define where we are going to get involved around the world - situational rather than implementing a specific, understood foreign policy and doctrine.”

That policy needs to clearly signal to the rest of the world that America will respond to international terrorism and cyber warfare, honor its treaty alliances, support its allies and its 'non-treaty” allies, and promote nuclear non-proliferation among the international community, Webb said.

Also, he said, the U.S. military should be reshaped to reflect that national strategy.

'When there is a terrorist threat that is directed at our national security, we have the right to take it out,” Webb said.

Webb said his years of military service in Vietnam, his law studies and his assignments working in journalism, in the Pentagon as a military planner, in the Department of the Navy, and in the U.S. Senate have given in a common-sense, reality view of U.S. foreign policy and how to define American national interests 'from the bottom looking up and pretty near the top looking down.”

Webb said he has concerns about the use of military force as an occupying power in situations that don't serve American national security objectives or where U.S. vital interests are not threatened, but also the downsizing of strategic assets such as the U.S. naval fleet while nations like China build military muscle and encroach on outside territories. He also advocated for improved intelligence in tracking terrorist threats and upgrading the military's special operations capabilities to meet evolving international challenges.