Biden’s Decades Of National Security Failures And Military Endangerment

October 23, 2023

Si vis bellum, projice infirmitate.*

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Hamas has given President Biden a chance for a “do over,” an opportunity to display leadership and courage in protecting our national security and world peace that has been absent from his past life. Whether he can rise to the occasion or not is unclear. But, if he fails, countless more lives will likely be sacrificed.

October 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the terrorist truck bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 American Marines, soldiers, and sailors. Given former Senator Biden’s prominent role in incentivizing that attack, which was typical of his long history of undermining American national security and endangering both our nation’s freedom and the lives of our military, this may be an appropriate occasion to review some of that dismal history.

Joe Biden became the youngest member of the United States Senate in January 1973. Later that year, I accepted a position as national security adviser to another member of the Foreign Relations Committee and, during the next five years, I averaged at least two hours most weeks in meetings that included Senator Biden. Like former Defense Secretary Robert Gates four decades later, I was appalled at how frequently he got issues wrong. He seemed truly clueless.

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Among many other key defense programs Biden tried to defund were the B1 and B2 strategic bombers, the MX missiles, Trident nuclear submarines, Abrams M1 tanks, various cruise missiles, and the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Biden declared the United States “must act forcefully.”

But when it came time to take part in the UN Security Council-authorized multinational force to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait (where they were torturing children by using power drills on their elbows and knees so their screams would compel their parents to provide information), Biden declared on the Senate floor “the principle of collective security” was not really “a vital interest” of the United States and proposed that, if we just left Saddam alone for six months, perhaps he might “be struck by lightning.” Thus, fifteen years ago this month, I coined the term “Biden Doctrine”: blind our intelligence services, gut our military, and when aggression inevitably erupts “pray for lightning.” In later years, Biden was the sole dissenter when the decision was made in the Obama White House to go after Osama bin Laden.

Image: A photo from the British peacekeeper compound showing a mushroom cloud over the Marine barracks. From the author’s collection.

He also was a notorious “leaker” of highly classified information. At one point, he bragged to a reporter that, while a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he had repeatedly blocked proposed Reagan administration covert operations by threatening to leak them if they were not canceled. Indeed, he voted to outlaw all covert operations and prohibit intelligence collection in foreign countries contrary to local laws. 

Typical of Biden’s record was his behavior on September 29, 1983, when the Senate took up a gratuitous resolution to authorize President Reagan to continue deploying U.S. Marines in Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping force involving the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy. The force was designed to maintain a secure environment, so various factions could attempt to negotiate peace.

I say “gratuitous” because this deployment had nothing to do with any congressional powers. The power to “declare war” was intended to be narrowly construed and, under international law, such declarations were only considered necessary for all-out aggressive wars, often called “perfect wars,” in which all the people of one country were at war with all of the people of another.

In theory, such conflicts were prohibited by the 1929 Kellogg-Briand Treaty, which was given some teeth when the United Nations was established in 1945. Quite properly, no country in the world had formally “declared war” between World War II and the recent (totally unnecessary) Israeli “declaration of war,” which technically does not count because Hamas is not a sovereign state.

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My late friend General P. X. Kelley was Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1983 and, in earlier testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, he pleaded that their partisan debate was endangering the Marines’ lives. During the highly partisan Senate floor debate that followed, Senator Biden noted that colleagues “on both sides of the aisle” had warned him that the partisan debate would encourage America’s enemies to attack the Marines. He then rather cavalierly declared, “My response to that is that may be true, but until we once invoke the War Powers Act…we are going to always be…beaten over the head by every administration that says 60 days is not enough time.”

The Syrian foreign minister soon announced that the Americans were “short of breath” and, a few days later, U.S. News & World Report disclosed U.S. intelligence had intercepted a message between two (pro-Iranian) militia groups declaring, “If we kill 15 Marines, the rest will leave.”

Two days later, a truck containing the equivalent of more than 12,000 pounds of TNT crashed through the base gate and killed 241 mostly sleeping Marines. It was the deadliest day for the Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima during World War II and the greatest loss of U.S. military personnel in a single day since the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Minutes later, a second truck attacked the French peacekeeper compound, killing another 58.

In fairness, I think Senator Biden learned from that experience. When I was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on war powers in January 1991—where serious people were discussing possibly impeaching President Bush for not getting congressional authorization to implement the Security Council’s resolution—I asked Chairman Biden whether he felt the President had thus far violated any law. Biden responded [@2 hr 6 min], “Well, I think arguably he’s violated the War Powers Act. But that’s another debate…and I happen to think the War Powers Act is not practically functional. So, therefore, I think it is an academic exercise to debate that.”

For the record, the issue of whether formal congressional authorization would be necessary for the president to implement a Security Council resolution calling for the use of force had been addressed in the 1945 Foreign Relations Committee report unanimously urging  Senate “advice and consent” to ratify the UN Charter and decided in the negative. Indeed, when the Senate debated the 1945 UN Participation Act later that year, there was a proposal that would have required legislative approval for the president to use force pursuant to a Security Council resolution.  It received fewer than 10 votes.

The world is now in crisis and, as our Commander-in-Chief, President Biden has an opportunity to lead in defending victims of armed aggression and, in so doing (we hope), to deter further aggression by Russia, China, and others. One can only hope and pray he rises to the occasion.

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*The Roman military writer Vegetius, in his 4th-century treatise Concerning Military Matters, wisely advised: Sī vīs pācem, parā bellum (“If you want peace, prepare for war.” My corollary translates, “If you want war, display weakness.”

In 2020, Prof. Turner retired as a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for National Security Law of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught for more than three decades. The author of two books specifically on the 1973 War Powers Resolution, he was the first president of the congressionally established United States Institute of Peace (1986-1987).

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