THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410060430
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Retired Adm. Bobby R. Inman, 63, will assess today's national security issues in a changing world in an address at Old Dominion University.
Inman, who withdrew his name from consideration in January for the secretary of defense post, is the first naval intelligence specialist to attain the rank of a four-star admiral.
He is an adjunct professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Austin. He is on the board of directors of several companies, including Southwestern Bell and Xerox and is a consultant in the defense-related industry.
Following are excerpts from a conversation with Inman.
What is the biggest challenge for this administration in terms of national security?
Probably the single biggest challenge is to sort out our investment on the national security side. There is a great desire in the country to pull down the overall investment. How do you do it wisely and what is the pace with which you can do it that doesn't cause you to have forces that are not up for the job?
My worry here is that I am persuaded that you can cope with the problems we can not foresee with significantly smaller military forces and that we can retrain forces. But the issue is that it often costs money to get you there.
Do we have all of the friends in the places we need them right now - the allies?
I don't think we do. That is the difficult part. In NATO, are you going to get rid of the geographic boundaries of NATO which limited its ability to act in other places? We talk about partnership for peace. That offers some wistful hope to countries that were formerly in the Warsaw Pact that they will have some linkage that will be useful and protective to them. But it still doesn't do anything about the decision-making process in NATO.
Is NATO doing all it can to reach out to these countries?
I don't think so, not yet.
You have said the American public is not that concerned anymore about what is happening overseas. Could you expand on that?
From the polls I have seen, and even in the '92 election, the underlying theme from the people . . . was that it is time to spend our efforts working primarily on domestic problems. As I travel all over the country, I find that a recurrent theme. Isolationism isn't all that far from the surface in a lot of the country.
How dangerous is that?
I think it is quite dangerous. We could withdraw in the late 1940s and we might worry about what would happen to other countries. But we are now inescapably part of the international market. If we are going to try to hold on to our standard of living in this country, we have got to get better at being an exporting country, not weaker at that process. That says we've got to engage with the outside world. That doesn't mean we have to be unilaterall policemen.
Speaking of policemen, are we in a quagmire in Haiti?
That is one place that I am probably going to stay away from a lot of comment for a very specific reason. As an old retired guy, I have a sense that once troops are committed, the best role for old retirees is to keep their mouths shut until it is over.
Are we too quick to answer the 911 calls of this world?
Yes. Let's put it this way. It depends on what the nature of the 911 call is. Is it a fire or just an alarm? Our problems are to sort out both what are our real interests and then where do we believe we should use force and where should we not.
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW U.S. NAVY by CNB