On the Agenda: Hoyer Speech

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) gave a speech this morning on congressional Democrats' national security efforts. Some excerpts:

First, Democrats have aggressively stepped up the fight against terrorists. We’ve strengthened America’s military by funding its re-equipment after years of war, and we have put new and better weapons into the battlefield, including the body armor and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles our troops need, as well as more aerial drones. Under President Obama, the United States has killed or captured hundreds of terrorist leaders, including much of the top leadership of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, disrupting their ability to plot attacks on our Country. . . .

Second, though force is, at times, clearly necessary, we learned from the Cold War that force alone does not win ideological struggles. Then, it was the promise of a better life that led so many to abandon communism and its false promise of progress. Today, chronic lack of opportunity drives the appeal of the jihadism of Islamic extremists and its hatred of a modern world that seems to have left too many behind. Chronic oppression of women and girls condemns nations to poverty and abandons young men to extremist ideologies. And the failure of institutions in distant states, as we see from Somalia to Afghanistan, is a direct threat to our own people. So a strong development policy must be a pillar of our national security. . . .

Third, the Cold War taught us that democracy, human rights, and economic freedom are the most powerful weapons in an ideological struggle. Today's autocrats understand that, as well, as they carefully channel their own people’s frustration into rage against America. The eight years of the Bush Administration showed what we knew already: that democracy cannot be imposed by force; that elections alone do not equal democracy; that democratization and economic growth do not always go hand-in-hand; and that failing to lead by example weakens democracy around the world. But the trials of those years taught us that there are wiser ways to build democracy and respect for human rights in the world—not that that objective is out of keeping with our character as a nation. Indeed, it is an integral part of that character. . . .

Fourth and finally, every one of these policies comes with a cost; every choice rules out other choices. The deeper our Nation sinks into debt, the more our choices will be constrained—and the more our leadership will be challenged by nations, especially China, that hold our debt. As a matter of fact, on the path we’re on, the day will come, I fear, when our strength will be sapped by our debt. So it’s time to stop talking about fiscal discipline and national security threats as if they’re separate topics: debt is a national security threat. Unsustainable debt has a long history of toppling world powers. As financial historian Niall Ferguson writes, 'This is how empires decline: it begins with a debt explosion.'