You are cordially invited to a webinar presentation on the topic:
The Dangers of False National Security Narratives
with
Mr. Peter Huessy
Wednesday, November 18th, 2020
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM ET
**This event will also be streamed live on Facebook.**
About the lecture: When we accept certain narratives on which national security policy rests, and those narratives are incorrect, we get ourselves into serious trouble.
One is reminded about a debate in the British parliament between Winston Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain, with the latter arguing that rearming Britain to take on Germany would probably result in a diminution of free trade with Nazi Germany. To which Winston Churchill said, “shouldn’t that be the idea?”
The United States in 1969-70 adopted detente and peaceful coexistence as descriptors of American security policy. At the end of World War II, we adopted the idea of containment of the USSR. We also adopted “Vietnam” to conjure up a quagmire to describe the feared end result of the use of American military force.
Today, we have adopted “peaceful rise“ as the way to describe the growing military and economic strength of China; we have long held out the idea that a successful foreign policy in the Middle East had to go through the “peace process”; and successful response to 9-11 required the USA to win the “global war on terror or GWOT”.
This lecture will examine how such narratives were developed and what political forces such narratives served. This lecture will also explore each of these narratives and what dead ends they led us to reach, or are still leading us, and compare them to President Reagan’s “peace through strength” strategy.
We will also discuss the current administration’s policy with respect to China, the Middle East, and Russia/NATO. Reagan’s peace through strength is often described —wrongly—as no more than simple bullying—a narrative we will also address. Part of this discussion will include my own part in these foreign policy fights over the 1975-2020 period.
About the speaker: Mr. Peter Huessy is President of his own defense consulting firm, GeoStrategic Analysis, founded in 1981, and since 2016, Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute on Aerospace Studies. He was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for 22 years. He was the National Security Fellow at the AFPC, and Senior Defense Consultant at the Air Force Association from 2011 Mr. Huessy has served as an expert defense and national security analyst for over 45 years, helping his clients cover congressional activities while monitoring budget and policy developments on terrorism, counter-terrorism, immigration, state-sponsored terrorism, missile defense, weapons of mass destruction, especially US-Israeli joint defense efforts, nuclear deterrence, arms control, proliferation, as well as tactical and strategic air, airlift, space, and nuclear matters and such state and non-state actors as North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda. This also includes monitoring activities of think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and other US government departments, as well as projecting future actions of Congress in this area. His specialty is developing and implementing public policy campaigns to secure support for important national security objectives.
He is on the Board of the InSeries Theater in Washington; EMPACT, the organization devoted to protecting the US from EMP threats; and MTA, the Maryland Taxpayers Association. He authored legislation calling for the divestment of US pensions from any company doing business with Iran and testified before a number of state legislatures on this subject and on counter-terror policy, including whether or not drivers licenses should be made available to those illegally in the US. He is also a member of Secure American Energy, an organization devoted to breaking the back of OPEC and providing the US with American sources of energy.
He has lectured around the world and across the USA on nuclear terrorism, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, homeland security, counter-terrorism policy, and strategic threats to the US and its allies including (1) leading a great power competition and nuclear workshop at the Louisiana Tech Research Institute in cooperation with USAF Global Strike Command, (2) speaking on China’s security threats to the US at the annual strategic conference in Omaha, Nebraska hosted by Strategic Command, (3) speaking annually at the Exchange Monitor Nuclear Summit, (4) lecturing at the Prague Security Institute in the Czech Republic, (5) teaching at Yonsei University in Seoul, ROK, (6) speaking to the Israeli MOD missile defense experts, (7) reviewing terrorist threats to the US for the California Public Policy Foundation, and (8) annually being a guest lecturer at the Naval Academy on the subject of the history of American nuclear deterrent policy.
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