The issue of national security is one of many to divide the two Presidential candidates in this, the most contentious of election campaigns.
During Monday night’s first debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, those divisions were readily apparent. The last 30 minutes provided some animated discussion about a number of key national security issues: cybersecurity, ISIS, the Iran nuclear deal, and U.S. relations with its allies.
The Cipher Brief asked five of our Network members, who previously represented the military, the intelligence community, and diplomacy, to assess the candidate’s responses. We spoke with former CIA Director and NSA Director Mike Hayden, former U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey, retired General Jack Keane, former CIA officer John Sipher, and retired Lieutenant General Guy Swan, and asked them all the same three questions.
The Cipher Brief: Did the candidates demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of each of the key national security issues discussed: cybersecurity, ISIS, the Iran nuclear deal and U.S. relations with its allies?
Michael Hayden: This went to Secretary Clinton who is simply more conversant about everyone of the issues you just raised. She had a challenge though because in essence, she was defending the incumbent. So it was pretty easy for Mr. Trump to say it’s all messed up, and it’s all your fault. Whereas she had and was able to get into the specifics.
On cyber, she gave a decent answer, not great. His was incoherent. I actually read a transcript of it, and there was no there, there. I was really struck by what I think (debate moderator) was Lester Holt’s best moment when he simply put a question out there, about how the Obama Administration was debating the first strike doctrine, eliminating the possibility of first strike, without any elaboration. And I don’t think Mr. Trump knew the details of that, which I think is really a fairly high doctrinal issue. He immediately launched into attacking North Korea and then in the same breath, said he would not do first strike and he would not take anything off the table, which demonstrates he did not have a lot of detail.
James Jeffrey: Clinton was, as expected for a former Senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee and Secretary of State, highly knowledgeable on the foreign policy issues that arose, although there were very limited discussions of detailed policy by her or Trump. Trump did not appear well versed on nuclear issues, the threat from Russia, or his own views on Iraq in 2003.
Jack Keane: I would say given the breadth of those subjects, on ISIS, they probably had the most understanding, at least based on what they said. I thought that there was another issue; it dealt with the question (moderator) Lester Holt asked Donald Trump surrounding the first strike issue in terms of the use of nuclear weapons which President Obama is considering changing. Donald Trump’s answer to that was, ‘I would certainly not do first strike,” and a sentence or two later he said, ‘I would not take anything off the table.” First strike is part of nuclear deterrence, and to be credible, one must have capability and intent. Trump, by saying he would not conduct a first strike, took away intent. What that would mean is that Trump would not preempt an adversary from conducting a nuclear attack against the U.S., and as such, we have lost our deterrence to prevent an attack.
I don’t know if Trump understands the implications of what he said, when he said ‘I would never use nuclear weapons as a first strike.’ The only way you can stop anyone from attacking is that they have to believe that you would do it and that, in fact, is the deterrence and the Intent. And he removed the Intent, which is dangerous to the national security of the United States. We also would want to be able to conduct a first strike against a terrorist organization that was about to launch a WMD strike, which could only be stopped by a limited nuclear strike.
John Sipher: I think Hillary Clinton did in the sense she discussed the importance of honoring our treaties, respecting our allies and reminding them that they can rely on us, which to me suggests that she is clearly thinking beyond just this election. She’s thinking more globally.
I didn’t see that from Mr. Trump. It’s pretty clear to me that he doesn’t really understand those issues—ISIS, Iran. He uses them as sort of blunt bats to hit at Secretary Clinton, but I don’t see that he has any knowledge of foreign policy. And worse for me, he doesn’t really show any interest in learning about it. It’s been months now, and he’s still saying exactly the same sort of simple things: ‘take the oil, we just need to win.’ There’s no sense of nuance. There’s no suggestion or hint that he has intellectual interest in these things and is trying to learn about them.
As a practitioner who worked in the trenches of foreign policy for all these years in the intelligence community, the hardest thing to do is how do you talk sensibly about all of this when Donald Trump essentially is just a spray of disconnected words and unfinished thoughts that he says. It’s really impossible to seriously evaluate his policies and plans. To suggest that he has them, that if you actually try to put those words together, they don’t go together in any kind of way. There’s no puzzle to put together there. It ends up being sort of a work of modern art. Who knows what he is saying? He could afterwards say that he said anything. It wasn’t clear his words go together.
Guy Swan: In my view, generally, yes. They did understand (the issues). They both approached them from a different perspective as expected, no doubt about it.
The Cipher Brief: Did the candidates offer a realistic solution or path forward on them?
Hayden: They spent so much time talking about themselves, frankly, defending themselves, you really didn’t get a sense of going forward. Mrs. Clinton was a little bit more coherent on cyber than he was, but not so much that you could say, ah, that’s going to be different. That pretty much applied to all of the issues. There really wasn’t a whole lot of debate about the way ahead.
Jeffrey: Neither candidate offered detailed 'roadmaps,' in part because the debate was not focused on foreign affairs. Clinton referred to her 'plan' for destroying ISIS on her website but did not provide details.
Keane: Our cyber defense is inadequate and no-one really detailed why it’s inadequate – our critical infrastructure is truly not defended properly. What we have been unwilling to do in any consequential way is punish the nations that are conducting espionage against us by stealing out intellectual property and secrets at an alarming rate. I think the way to do that is to respond publicly and in a very strong condemnatory way and respond also with covert cyberattacks. No one really discussed that; they certainly did not offer realistic solutions.
On ISIS, that was probably the strongest thing – both of them have ideas about what to do about the ISIS caliphate, Iraq and Syria, which is just a portion of what ISIS is. One part of the strategy is to destroy the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Clinton’s plan for that is pretty similar to what the President is executing now, except she indicated she would increase the use of air power – that air power has not been recently constrained – it’s a question of what targets are available.
Trump alluded to the fact that this is a more comprehensive problem than what ISIS represents in its Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, but he had no real thought process on what to do about ISIS that has expanded into 30 countries. I thought that he revealed for the first time last night that he would bring NATO forces in to destroy ISIS; he didn’t say on the ground but that’s what he likely meant. Clinton is only going to use the available forces that are there, which are inadequate.
Sipher: One of the problems with these debates is the short answers, You’re dealing with a wide audience who often doesn’t understand the issues in depth, so its hard to get too wonky and explain things. Mrs. Clinton tried to at least put a little bit of information and understanding around issues like the Iran deal, the importance of dealing with allies. I didn’t see that from Mr. Trump. He would just sort of spew things about how she has been fighting ISIS her whole life, which didn’t make any sense, because ISIS didn’t exist her whole life. There was no real understanding of the history of ISIS. But frankly, the way it (the debate) is set up, if they were doing one of these Sunday shows and actually had time to sit and explain what they are talking about, it would be easier to comment on how valuable it is. But she, given the situation, I think did a fair job. I have no confidence he has any idea what he is talking about.
Swan: The biggest one there that caught my eye was the way they looked at cyber security. In Donald Trump’s case, I was interested that he was less concerned about what we would call attribution. He was less concerned whether it was Russian or Chinese or Iranians and more about the effects of what cyberattacks mean. That was interesting. Secretary Clinton was more focused on the perpetrators and targeting.
On ISIS, they stuck to their standard positions that we’ve heard before; the Secretary touting her plan, which is essentially an extension of the Obama plan, which has had some success, and Mr. Trump being a little more evasive in his response, falling back on his position that ‘I don’t want to tip my hand to adversaries and let them know what we’re planning.
On allies, again, Secretary Clinton tended to focus on the value of alliances to our own national security, which is somewhat of a traditional way we look at allies, that allies are an integral part of our own security. Mr. Trump focused on burden sharing. As a student of foreign policy and national security issues, that’s always a challenge, more so for Republicans it seems than for Democrats. But burden sharing – you’ve heard him (Trump) say allies are not pulling their fair share, we’re providing their security. In the case of allies, they both had a firm understanding but came at it from two different directions.
The Cipher Brief: Did their responses reflect an understanding of how military alliances, intelligence, and diplomacy work?
Hayden: When you get down to a couple pretty staple Trump positions—they got to pay and we should have kept the oil—no. Number one, it doesn’t reflect reality when you say we should have kept the oil. What in the world does that mean? And the follow on question is simply, how many thousands of American troops are you willing to commit in perpetuity to keep the oil? There is no good answer to that.
The other one with regard to alliances, he coldly stated that he approaches them as a businessman, that it is bottom line, pay as you go, and not even a whiff of suggestion that he understands the strategic nature of the alliances. And frankly, even at the level of a businessman, he doesn’t get it. The Japanese and the Koreans pay an extraordinary amount for the presence of U.S. forces in their countries. And if we brought those forces back home, we probably would have to disband them, because we couldn’t afford them, to keep them here on U.S. soil. So again, advantage Clinton. But she has the challenge of defending a record where he did not.
Jeffrey: Clinton's responses, again as expected and as is natural for one with her background, did to the superficial degree these subjects were reviewed. Trump largely avoided any details; thus while one could safely conclude that he did not show such an understanding in an affirmative sense, his comments were so sparse and general that one could not conclude that he is ignorant of these important issues.
Keane: I think that was probably their strongest differentiator in the debate. Secretary Clinton is pretty much advocating continuing alliances as they currently are, with the same diplomatic effort which she believes has been successful. Mr. Trump believes the alliances are not as successful as they should be. He points to NATO as an example, that the 28-member nations, save a few, are not paying their fair share. He also believes that NATO should be involved in counterterrorism operations, and I believe he’s right about that. Five NATO nations have been attacked by ISIS inspired followers over 15 times.
The differentiation is that Clinton pretty much wants to continue the current relationships and diplomatic effort, and I gather from Trump, he wants to change the nature of these alliances to get better performance out of them.
Sipher: Clinton’s responses did because she has been doing it a long time. I have dealt with her, I have friends who have dealt with her and she’s been in the fight for many years, has been overseas, and has dealt with all of of these leaders and countries and complicated issues.
Trump’s answers suggest that none of these things are complicated, and he can just solve them. To him, it’s as if foreign policy is all about a deal. As we know, foreign policy is a lot larger and more complicated than that. It’s not just about your temperament and doing deals, being tough. I don’t get a sense that he has any sense of what’s in store for him if he wins the election.
Swan: While Mr. Trump has his own unique way of articulating these things—I think that’s clear to everyone – he does have a fundamental understanding, perhaps not as sophisticated as Secretary Clinton, but I think they both have a reasonable understanding of those issues.
Pam Benson is managing editor at The Cipher Brief.
Fionnuala Sweeney is vice president and executive editor at The Cipher Brief.
