WASHINGTON, DC — Chairman John F. Tierney’s (D-MA) Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs held a hearing entitled, “Six Years Later (Part II): ‘Smart Power’ and the US Strategy for Security in a Post 9/11 World.” This hearing is the second in a series of hearings examining long-term U.S. national security strategy six years after 9/11 and features top experts and innovative proposals for protecting U.S. national security interests. This immediate hearing featured the co-chairs of a report that was issued today which focused on how America can become a “smarter” power.

A copy of Chairman Tierney’s opening statement as prepared for delivery is below:

Statement of Chairman John F. Tierney
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
“Six Years Later (Part II): ‘Smart Power’ and the U.S. Strategy for Security in a Post-9/11 World”
As Prepared for Delivery
November 6, 2007

Welcome, and thank you all for attending this important discussion.

Today, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs conducts our second hearing in a series focused on long-term U.S. national security strategy six years after 9/11.

We are very fortunate today to engage in what I hope will be a robust and thought-provoking discussion with Secretary Armitage and Dean Nye. Thank you gentlemen for being with us.

Thank you also to all the members of the CSIS Commission on “Smart Power” – including Subcommittee Member Betty McCollum, and our guest, Representative Mac Thornberry – for the talents and experiences you poured into the report that is being issued today.

This was truly an august commission comprised of leaders from all three branches of the government, non-profits, academia, and the business community. I found your report to be insightful, and it will serve as the jumping-off point for our discussion today.

And in the interests of spending as much time engaging in this robust discussion as possible, I’m going to keep my opening comments brief.

As I noted during the first hearing in this series, even with the amazing amount of money and energy expended – and more importantly lives lost – so far on military engagements, homeland security, and intelligence since September 11, 2001, there remains an inescapable sense that ours is a national security policy adrift.

Unfortunately, I can’t report progress in the intervening weeks since that first hearing. In fact, the world, more than ever, seems to be slipping away from our influence:

A nuclear and extremist-infected Pakistan is in full-blown crisis. Its “path” toward democracy has been barricaded by military rule, suspension of the Pakistani Constitution, and the suppression of civil institutions capable of dissent.

U.S. / Iran relations are at a nadir, and the Bush Administration has ratcheted up its saber-rattling rhetoric – an issue that, tomorrow, this Subcommittee will continue to explore in-depth in our series: “Iran: Reality, Options, and Consequences.”

The prospect of a Turkish invasion into the Kurdish region of northern Iraq conjures disastrous images of Turkish, U.S., and Iraqi forces, at cross purposes, on a single battlefield.

In the words of a panelist from our first hearing, we have yet to act with the “burst of creativity” that was the trademark of the United States at the beginning of the Cold War.

Secretary Armitage and Dean Nye, the report you are issuing today will, I hope, help fill-in this void.

The 9/11 Commission rightly concluded, and I quote, “long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power.” Not only does your report offer concrete and innovative ways to do just that, it also does something else I think is incredibly helpful.

Your report spells out the path for our country to get back on the offensive, and I don’t mean that in a military sense. You note in the very first paragraph of the Executive Summary that, and I quote, “the United States must move from eliciting fear and anger to inspiring optimism and hope.”

In the words of CSIS President and CEO, John Hamre, this means going back to the root of what makes America great – the fact that we are a country of both “big ideas and common sense;” that our country has a “unique blend of optimism and pragmatism.”

These are the ideals that I think have made our country as great as it is today; the ideals that make Americans proud to be Americans; and the ideals that cause the rest of the world to want to follow us. And, Secretary Armitage and Dean Nye, as you rightly point out, these are the ideals – when pragmatically implemented – that will, in the long-term, best secure the safety of our nation – for us, for our children, and for our grandchildren.

We live in a dangerous world desperate for positive U.S. leadership – leadership borne of a coherent, effective and honorable national security strategy. And I have no doubt that, at our core, the American people have the heart, fortitude and imagination to overcome our current challenges.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us of the “fierce urgency of now.” It is well past time we heed that call.

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