Defending Democracy
Courter, Jim
R epresentative Jim Courter, a New Jersey Republican beginning his fifth term, is emerging as the House counterpart of Sam Nunn, the resident expert in the Senate on questions of national security....
...The prose sometimes grinds by like box cars on a slow freight train...
...He is among the first to call attention to a problem only recently becoming apparent—congressional "micro-management" of the Pentagon...
...The subject of terrorism is a case in point...
...Courter concludes about the Defense Department's problems: "the enemy is us'!- -a...
...But for now the word is no go...
...Courter believes the idea that trumps Marxism is "that all human beings are naturally equal and free in their right to govern themselves...
...Courter does, however, perform some timely work in discussing the reasons why the ABM treaty should not stand as an obstacle to SDI development and deployment...
...Courter also speaks with considerable authority about strategic defense, for here too he is right in the middle of the debate...
...There is always an earnestness in Courter's style, not surprising in someone who has chosen to build his career around mastery of the sobering facts of U.S...
...He is one of a group of Republican congressmen known as the "Gang of Five"—the others are Senators Malcolm Wallop, Dan Quayle, and Pete Wilson, and Rep...
...Given Courter's unusual interest in opinion journalism and constant efforts to air his views in the nation's commentary pages—of which he makes as good use as anyone in Congress—you can rest assured that the nation will be hearing a lot more from him...
...Defending Democracy is a compilation of Courter's speeches and op-ed pieces covering a wide range of defense matters...
...military reform...
...For example, the THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 43 Reagan from the right, Courter took the President to task for speaking out of both sides of his mouth on Soviet aggression, and for continuing to give diplomatic recognition to the Sandinistas while funding an attempt to overthrow them...
...The detail gives needed weight and credibility to the oft-repeated assertions of U.S...
...and public diplomacy and international democracy...
...Liberal democracy is the political form the idea of natural equality takes...
...The rhetoric by itself has come to seem empty, but to read Courter is to realize something can be done...
...number of reports required of the Pentagon by Congress increased by 1,172 percent between 1970 and 1984...
...This is the intellectual labor now confronting the Reagan Administration as it gets its ducks in a row on SDI, and no one will prove an abler ally in Congress than Courter...
...regional aspects of Soviet expansionism...
...Courter might have thought a little harder in his introductory remarks, which attempt to identify reasons for the inherent superiority of Western democracy to Marxist totalitarianism...
...If the Administration expects to project a coherent policy toward the Soviets, it should be consistent in its rhetoric...
...Some of the most interesting insights are to be gleaned from the section on military reform, a process that Courter has been in the middle of for several years...
...44 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987...
...The problems the Administration now faces in getting Congress to go along with scrapping the ABM treaty are exacerbated by its puzzling refusal on different occasions to release information about Soviet violations of the treaty...
...After lobbying for a position on the Armed Services Committee in order to champion New Jersey's Picatinny Arsenal, Courter soon found himself drawn irresistibly by the panoply of strategic issues...
...strategic considerations, and he sees it whole...
...This "over-oversight," resulting from the solons' conspicuous efforts to sleuth out $750 toilet seats, has added substantially to the Defense Department's red tape problems...
...There is speculation that Courter may try to join Nunn in the Senate next year...
...He divides the speeches and essays, Gordon Jackson is a writer living in Alexandria, Virginia...
...In a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference, a group receptive to criticisms of DEFENDING DEMOCRACY Jim Courter/American Studies Center/$16.95...
...It is difficult to find anything to crit- icize in this collection other than trifles...
...His views generally coincide with what are perceived as the Administration's, but the Courter prescriptions are more fleshed out than the Reagan policies...
...ending the balance of terror...
...An undistinguished first-term Democrat, Frank Lautenberg, defends the seat, and Courter has some obvious political assets that include unqualified support of the hugely popular governor, Thomas Kean, and an issue, strategic defense, that should play well with New Jersey's many blue-collar Democrats...
...In a fascinating piece that ran in Policy Review, Courter examines in detail the methods of anti-terrorism and the surprising record of successes...
...Nor, on the evidence of this book, has he yet become a phrase-maker of the first rank...
...strategic requirements and who apparently has long felt called to serious public service...
...Wherever his career takes him, he deserves the attention of conservatives...
...resolve to resist terrorism...
...Courter is not reluctant to criticize the Administration when the logic of his positions dictates he do so, although he appears to be judicious in selecting appropriate forums for breaking ranks...
...Courter has looked hard at the world through the lens of U.S...
...His resume includes stints with the Peace Corps and Legal Services, organizations not noted for producing conservative Republican congressmen...
...The SDI program, which he has enthusiastically supported from its inception, is now commonly linked with his name...
...Courter has a valid point...
...He is hardly the first pol to dance over this question with a bit of boilerplate about equality and freedom, but it will take more compelling arguments to put to rout the notion of U.S.-Soviet moral equivalence, which is one of Courter's aims...
...His emergence as in-House expert on the subject gives the Republican party a voice potentially as influential as Sam Nunn's if not more so...
...None of the selections in this book is current enough to address the recent technological advances in SDI that warrant enthusiasm for early deployment...
...But that's an easy one for the dialecticians, who would argue that the only meaningful equality is economic, and civil liberties such as the right to voteare merely sops to keep the economically oppressed proletariat pacified...
...A better formulation, dealing perhaps with different moral conceptions of the universe and meeting squarely the question of religious belief, would have cost Courter a little more effort...
...courageous position, given his indictment of Congress along with the usual suspects of bureaucratic excrescence, inter-service rivalry, and inadequate accountability within DOD...
...Central America...
...terrorism...
...W hile Courter is not precisely in the eye of the storm on the book's other topics, his position on the House Armed Services Committee involves him in all defense-related issues...
...Courter's frank acknowledgement that he is a conservative Republican means that he can be more forthrightand forceful than Nunn, who always must accommodate the views of the McGovernite wing of his party, as in his recent about-face on SDI deployment...
...It deserves a wide readership, including laymen looking for a good primer on defense issues and conservatives who would answer the charge that Reaganites have no coherent foreign policy...
...Jack Kemp—who are laboring strenuously to forge a coalition in support of near-term deployment...
...6.95 paper Gordon Jackson most of which run about 1,000-2,000 words, into seven broad categories: arms control and strategic modernization...
...The Courter approach would be to regard arms control as one component of national security, but to proceed with it only in the light of unflinching candor about Soviet behavior...
...Look for these names to pop up often as SDI becomes the centerpiece of the Reagan agenda during the Administration's last eighteen months...
...Courter thinks he's having a strong impact on defense policy where he is, and is reluctant to jeopardize that hard-won influence...
Vol. 20 • April 1987 • No. 4
