Condoleezza Rice voices concerns about defense preparedness at Economic Club luncheon

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke Tuesday afternoon to the Economic Club of Indiana in a conversation with former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. (Lesley Weidenbener / IBJ Photo)

Condoleezza Rice, who served as U.S. secretary of state from 2005 to 2009, said Tuesday that she would prioritize her foreign policy efforts on the Middle East and Iran, Venezuela and Russia if she were still in her former position.

And, she’s worried about whether the U.S. is prepared for all the situations presented by those three trouble spots. 

Wearing an Indiana Fever pin during a visit to Indianapolis, Rice spoke to the Economic Club of Indiana in a lunch conversation with former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels primarily focused on current issues in foreign policy. 

Rice served as the 66th secretary of state after several roles in both Bush administrations. She currently works at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank, as the Tad and Dianne Taube director and a senior public policy fellow. She also is a global business and economy professor at Stanford’s graduate school.

She also spoke downtown at a memorial and statue unveiling Tuesday morning honoring late U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar. 

“We have real work to do at the very basic fundamentals of getting our defenses in place,” she said.

The capability of the defense industry is not where it should be, Rice said, evidenced by its inability to produce enough ammunition for Ukraine. Department of Defense funding needs a boost, she said, but is weighed down by infighting in Congress leading to cutbacks and a lack of new initiatives. Except for the Marines Corps, U.S. military services are coming up short of their goals in recruiting a volunteer base. 

Rice said small companies and innovative industries are necessary to the future of defense, but the Pentagon moves too slowly to finance them. Incorporating more new technologies “accelerate our ability to rebuild our military,” she said.

Despite those shortcomings, the United States still has the strongest military in the world, she said.

“If we can just steady our defense industry; if we can continue to mobilize our allies; if we can continue to have a volunteer force that is full,” she said. “I think we’ll be fine.”

Daniels peppered Rice with several questions about the Middle East, especially about the Israel-Hamas war as it approaches a year since the Oct. 7 attacks.

Iran is a key instigator, she said. The country is close to having enough fuel, the bomb design and a delivery vehicle that would make nuclear weaponry a possibility, she said. The bright side, she added, is it is really difficult to accomplish those three steps to create a reliable nuclear weapon. 

Rice said the U.S. should always be sending the message to Iran to steer away from nuclear testing and buildup. 

“They are further away than we sometimes think,” she said. “The main thing is to try to keep the Iranians from marrying all of the pieces together.”

Rice added that she disagrees with the Biden administration’s potential deal to unfreeze Iranian funds and instead supports an effort to put stress on the country’s economy. That could motivate the Iranian people to remove this regime from power, she said.

As for Russia, President Vladimir Putin made a mistake in thinking Ukrainians are “little Russians,” Rice said. He has lost the war his country is fighting, she said, but will continue to fight it with massive numbers of largely untrained citizens. 

She supports continuing to send financial support to help Ukraine fight off Russian attacks to make Putin “pay a price.” However, Ukraine will need to determine what they are willing to sacrifice in the process. 

The next year will pose an opportunity for conversations to ensure Ukraine will continue to exist, she said.

“You have to start to talk to the Ukrainians about how much blood and treasure they want to sacrifice over every inch of Ukrainian land,” Rice said. “That is a decision for them, not us, but it’s a conversation that we need to be having.”

One country she didn’t include on her priority list (for now) is China.

“Those three would be top of mind because they’re hotter conflicts,” she said. “Although China is threatening to become one.”

China’s ambiguity with potential conflict in that region, she said, creates a general feeling that something might happen. While there has been significant concern domestically over whether China would invade Taiwan, that is not likely, she said, comparing the scenario to  “D-Day plus 100.” However, the country has demonstrated other actions that are challenging in other territories, including the Philippines and Vietnam and in the South and East China Seas. 

The U.S. has “exquisite” plans with Russia to avoid an accidental nuclear war, she said. However, it has nothing of the sort with China, which opens up the country to the unknown of their operations and potentially rising tensions.  

“We need to find some conflict-mitigation measures with the Chinese,” Rice said. “We don’t want to have an accidental war break out.”

As concern grows about social media tampering by foreign adversaries, the U.S. needs systems in place to deal with it, Rice said. There are vulnerabilities in all social media, not just TikTok, she said, and the country’s widening political polarization is making it easier for adversaries to exploit that division. 

“The first time; it’s a surprise. The second time, it’s ‘Oh, that happened again,’” she said. “The third time, it’s your fault.”

Rice also spoke about issues dominating national headlines. 

She believes that the victory lap celebrating the economy’s so-called soft landing and the end to inflation is premature. It’s likely inflation will remain an issue, she said, because the “kitchen table” impact is still a reality for most people.

Rice voiced continued support for school choice and vouchers, saying it’s a “civil rights issue.” She said vouchers give poor parents more choices, allowing them to keep up with wealthier families who can afford to move to a new system or send their children to a private school.

Public schools, Rice said, need to adopt high standards to encourage students to achieve more. She also said she advocates for paying “good teachers, not all teachers” as much as possible and giving principals more freedom.  

“The public schools have got to be more intentional about excellence, and the school choice has to give parents further choices,” she said. “We can’t just keep being a nation at risk. … If you don’t have a quality education, you’re really going to be punished in the economy that we now face.”