The Non-Return of Isolationism Posted by Michael Cohen

So over the Atlantic I'm beating the isolationist drum again . . . and when I saw beating the drum I mean pointing out that charges of incipient isolationism are a giant canard:

Seemingly everyone in Washington is being characterized as an isolationist. That the word has apparently become such a slur is revealing, largely because most of those accused of "isolationism" appear to be anything but. Aside from Ron Paul, who has unashamedly called for ending America's military engagements, disbanding NATO, pulling out of the United Nations, and slashing "hundreds of billions" out of the "military-industrial complex," it's next to impossible to find a single prominent U.S. politician who is calling for the country to reduce its preeminent role on the world stage.

No major political figure and certainly no presidential aspirant is calling for the U.S. to end its membership NATO or other international institutions; none are suggesting that the U.S. bring troops home from East Asia, where more than 60,000 US troops are stationed, predominately in South Korea and Japan; and few are talking about closing down overseas U.S. military bases. Even in a time of economic uncertainty, calls for greater protectionism or an end to trade agreements are few and far between. If anything, expanding trade seems to be one area where Congressional Republicans and the White House are on the same page.

When it comes to the defense budget, few political leaders are pushing for military spending to be cut. Republicans balked at Obama's call for $400 billion in Pentagon savings over ten years, accusing him of insufficient fortitude in maintaining American defenses. Just last week, the House, with only 12 dissenting GOP voices, passed a defense spending bill that would increase the Pentagon budget by $17 billion. There seem to be more warnings today about incipient isolationism than actual examples.

Read the whole thing here

The Bombs that Will Bring Us Together? Posted by Eric Martin

Recent polling data casts doubt on claims by advocates of military intervention in Libya that our participation would improve perceptions of the U.S. in the region.  Proponents of intervention claimed that this would be achieved, in part, by dispelling notions that the U.S. supports anti-democratic despots that suit U.S. interests. 

According to the polls, conducted in six Arab countries by James Zogby's Arab American Institute Foundation (via Adam Serwer), the United States' favorability rating now is "lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings."  Of particular relevance:

The U.S. role in establishing a no-fly zone over Libya receives a positive rating only in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, but, as an issue, it is the lowest priority.

As previously argued, the notion that our military intervention against a despotic regime (that we had never supported to begin with) would somehow convince the Arab street that we don't back non-democratic regimes in the region when convenient, was a highly dubious contention.  After all, even if we did intervene in Libya on the side of anti-regime elements, we would be continuing our support for often brutal, non-democratic regimes in places like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Yemen - with the jury still out on how Egypt tacks. 

The Arab street seems to have noticed the lack of consistency, and come away unimpressed (at least in the nations polled). 

Like Iraq, our involvement in Libya was susceptible to being viewed, not as a principled defense of democracy and freedom, but rather as a selective, opportunistic attempt to target a regime that was, at various intervals, unfriendly and highly problematic - thus reinforcing our image as a country intent on pursuing its interests above and beyond other considerations.

Even when looked at as a stand-alone policy, in which we acted on the "right" side of a given conflict even if not to convince the local populations of some new U.S. alignment vis-a-vis monarchs and despots in the region, its impact in terms of improving our image has been minuscule, overwhelmed by the real drivers of public opinion in the region. 

War-as-public relations is a tool of extremely limited efficacy, especially in this context, where other issues deemed vastly more important by the region's inhabitants remain unresolved if not entirely unaddressed.

China, Democracy and Making Government Work Posted by Jacob Stokes

I’m late to this, but over at Democracy in America, there’s a well-informed and balanced discussion about whether China’s growing wealth will push the country’s political system towards democracy and what this means for the relative competitiveness of democracy vs. Chinese-style authoritarianism. The piece is worth the time, and it contains a strong message towards the end about what’s needed for the democratic model, not only to continue to best China’s authoritarian model, but also to continue to be distinct from it (i.e. complex debates being decided by accountable, democratic institutions rather an unaccountable bodies of technocrats). This message that has special resonance in the context of today’s deficit debate. Key paragraphs below:

Democracy is supposed to build public legitimacy for governance. I think there's a legitimacy deficit because of the way communications work nowadays. Democracy is also supposed to communicate problems to government so that government can respond. I think the constant crisis-atmosphere contrarianism of the current media and internet environment overwhelms the signal-to-noise ratio there, and preoccupies government with addressing blaring non-issues. And I think this has all weakened the advantage that democracies have generally enjoyed over autocracies in addressing real problems and in generating public support for fixing them. I think the result of that could well be that an increasing number of important policymaking issues are gradually shifted to non-democratic institutions, while political democracy increasingly devolves into a form of reality-TV contest.

Or maybe I'm just contributing to the blaring non-issue alarmism here. Thailand has recently taken a strong turn back towards democracy; maybe the Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt years were just growing pains, no worse than what France went through on its way to democracy in the 19th century, and a lot less bloody. The Arab world has just seen a bunch of autocratic regimes fall, and if some of those countries move towards democracy while others don't, that'll be par for the historical course. Here in America, well, if we throw away a perfectly good 200-year-old credit rating, that'll be pretty dumb, but nobody's killing each other yet. And American politics were often mean and stupid in the old days too, long before the internet arrived. But what I would say is that we should not be comfortably sure of anything. We're not in an era when fascism is on the march, but we are in an era when democracy is not generally showing its best governing face. What that means, I think, is that people who believe in democracy on moral grounds should make the case, again, on moral grounds, rather than relying on a comfortable assumption that countries will naturally go democratic as they get richer. And I think the fact that autocracies sometimes enjoy real advantages in policymaking should remind us of the need to behave responsibly in democratic activity and to make sure that our representative institutions are actually capable of governing, and are not paralysed by political brinksmanship.

Ahmed Wali Karzai: Embodiment of a Flawed System Posted by Jacob Stokes

There’s a lot of good commentary out today on Ahmed Wali Karzai, most of which seeks to answer the question: Is this good or bad for the U.S. mission to stabilize the country?

Brian Katulis takes a crack:

Although it is too early to assess what impact his assassination will have on the rough-and-tumble politics of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai’s killing and the role he played in recent years serves as a reminder of how one wields power in Afghanistan and what it means when people talk about sharing power and using terms like reconciliation. In today’s Afghanistan, these words mean who will control the guns and money. And for all of the talk about “smart power” and civilian surges, the big money in Afghanistan today is still wrapped up in running criminal networks, drug trafficking, and controlling the shipping networks.

And Josh Foust has searing indictment of AWK:

Whatever his influence as a political stabilizer, though, Ahmed Wali was also an economic and political nightmare. He would, in essence, hold court at his many offices and mansions around Kandahar city, circumventing the "legitimate" government and doling out to his supplicants handfuls of cash everyone whispered were gained through smuggling opium. From a business perspective, AWK was a mafia don, controlling his own business interests with an iron fist and, the rumors go, violently attacking anyone who posed too much competition… When your entire modus operandi is based on friendly local strongmen, you rise and fall on their backs.

Ahmed Rashid explains how the U.S. relied on AWK:

However much Ahmed Wali Karzai was loved or loathed, his death leaves a huge political vacuum for the Americans and President Karzai at a critical moment for three efforts — the war against the Taliban, the start of the drawing down of American forces, and American efforts to talk to the Taliban and forge a peace agreement.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was involved in all three. He had forged tribal alliances to defend his half brother’s presidency and extend the central government’s rule outside Kabul. He openly helped American and British forces with strategic advice and knowledge of the tribes, and ran a clandestine Afghan special operations team for the C.I.A. And, as early as 2007, he was the first prominent Afghan leader to start talks with the Taliban in a bid to end the war.

Reading these, the obvious lesson for ISAF seems to be the hardest to learn: When you build political strategy around a single man or family – AWK, Hamid Karzai, whoever – you’re not only giving them great power which will likely result in abuse. (The money line in Rashid’s piece: “His tribal politics often led his rivals to join the Taliban.”) But you’re also ensuring that the system is tied to their heartbeat. Once it stops, so does the system.

So let’s not let the death of AWK go to waste. It’s time to focus on building a political system that can outlast our temporary partners. If we can't find a way to do that given the huge amounts of resources dedicated to the war, then we should remove those resources.

Photo Credit: The Guardian

Sudan Split Is Far From a Guarantee for Peace Posted by The Editors

The following post is from Amanda Hsiao who blogs on Sudan for the Enough Project. 

This Saturday, South Sudanese around the world will exuberantly celebrate the birth of the new country of South Sudan. Concerted international diplomacy, including the robust efforts of the Obama administration, helped pave the way for this moment, the culmination of a 2005 peace agreement brokered by the international community between the Sudanese government and what was then the southern rebel movement, the SPLM/A, to end two decades of war. But even as the arrival of South Sudan on the world stage is evidence of a diplomatic success, the insecurity that has proliferated in both the North and the South is a sharp reminder of the need for a comprehensive (US) approach to the multiple Sudanese conflicts.

In early June, violence broke out between Sudanese government forces and fighters in South Kordofan, a region that sits atop the North-South Sudan border. Reports trickling out from the ground describe government forces targeting civilians based on political sympathies and ethnic affiliations, searching house-to-house for opposition, and indiscriminately bombing large areas. “These acts could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity,” said U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in remarks at a Security Council briefing. Government authorities continue to deny access to international humanitarians, even coercing displaced populations to leave the refuge of U.N.-monitored areas. Untold numbers of civilians are dead, and at least 73,000 are displaced Violent management of dissent is not a new strategy for the regime in Khartoum, the same one that oversaw the devastation in Darfur, a region that today continues to be plagued by insecurity; just this year, the government has bombed Darfur 80 times. But unlike South Sudan, which experienced years of war with Khartoum to finally secede this weekend, the restive regions of South Kordofan and Darfur will still be part of Sudan come Saturday. The U.S. cannot overlook the chronic instability of Sudan which secession does not address. 

Hostilities between North and South Sudan may not be over either. In May, the Sudanese government sent its troops to forcibly take over Abyei, a border area claimed by constituencies on both sides, even though negotiations over its status were ongoing. Peacekeepers are arriving to secure the area, but how the South Sudanese government will respond once it has acquired sovereignty, is unclear. The two governments have not agreed on how they will split oil revenues after separation. Most of the oil lies in the South, but the infrastructure for exporting the oil lies in the North, an interdependence that should demand cooperation and peace between the two states. 

The host of unsettled issues means that the two parties may ramp up military aggressions, proxy violence, or manipulations of other sorts to strengthen their bargaining position at the negotiating table. In recent months, a blockade along the North-South border, stemming the usual traffic of goods, has exponentially raised the prices of key commodities in South Sudan; southern officials blame Khartoum. The African Union panel that is facilitating negotiations has shown almost no concrete progress for its year-long efforts to secure an agreement.   

South Sudan itself faces myriad challenges, whether it be the dearth of basic infrastructure or capacity in the country, or the proliferation of militias within its borders. The way the government has managed diversity, dissent, and expectations within its population so far do not bode well for the future of the state. The U.S. can play an influential role in nudging the government toward inclusive politics and in supporting the professionalization of the South Sudanese army, an institution that has at times targeted, rather than protected, its own civilians in the name of security. 

Going forward, the U.S. government must stay deeply engaged with efforts to stabilize both South Sudan and Sudan. In the South, the U.S. must wield the significant leverage it has to convince leaders to take the necessary steps toward peace. With Sudan, the relationship is much more hostile, and complicated by a deep distrust on the part of Khartoum. What is clear though, is that the graduated path of incentives leading to normalization offered by the U.S. last year was not enough to convince the regime away from military actions and the breaking of peace pacts. 

With the independence of the South, its time for the U.S. to rethink its approach to Sudan. New pressure points need to be identified in coordination with international partners, whether they be the expansion of sanctions, the halting of international debt relief talks, or more robust efforts to reach international actors who hold Sudan’s purse strings. U.S.  diplomatic efforts to resolve Sudan’s conflicts should shift from its current piecemeal approach—separate negotiations and peacekeeping missions for each individual crisis—to a holistic strategy that reflects the fact that behind the scenes, it’s the same regime pulling the same strings. 

The Right’s Rigid Response to Warsame Posted by James Lamond

A lot has been made over the handling of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame. Warsame, was arrested in April held by in U.S. custody for two months.  He was interrogated by the High-Value Interrogation Group – in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This is reported to have yielded significant intelligence, including information establishing a stronger connection between the Somali-based al Shabaab and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) than previously thought. Over the weekend, he was transferred to the Southern District of New York, and was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and AQAP. The Southern District of New York has the most terrorism convictions of any of the over 200 convictions in federal courts since 9/11 – considerably more than the six in a military commission.  

But taking a terrorist off the battlefield, collecting valuable intelligence and placing him in the venue most likely to put him behind bars was not enough to make conservatives happy.

Senate Majority Mitch McConnell responded saying: 

“This ideological rigidity being displayed by the Administration is harming the national security of the United States of America….The administration’s actions are inexplicable, create unnecessary risks here at home, and do nothing to increase the security of the United States.”  

Senator Lindsay Graham similarly stated: 

“They are so afraid to use Gitmo that they are basically making decisions around not having to use Gitmo, rather than what’s best for the country… What’s best for the nation is to treat these foreign fighters as enemy combatants.”

Senator Susan Collins, said:

"A foreign national who fought on behalf of al-Shabaab in Somalia – and who was captured by our military overseas – should be tried in a military commission, not a federal civilian court in New York or anywhere else in our country." 

And Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon said that: 

“The transfer of this terrorist detainee directly contradicts Congressional intent and the will of the American people. Congress has spoken clearly multiple times — including explicitly in pending legislation — of the perils of bringing terrorists onto U.S. soil."

To summarize: The right thinks the Obama administration is wrong because with its “ideological rigidity” the administration is not making the decisions that are best for the country, which creates risk at home and undermines the will of Congress.

But the ideological rigidity is clearly coming from the other direction. Conservatives in Congress have two responses to anything terror-related: Obama got it wrong and how can we use military commissions/Guantanamo more. 

Ken Gude at CAP rightly points out, this case “has provoked the now-typical reaction from conservatives who reflexively oppose every Obama administration action as a radical departure from U.S. norms that threatens the security of the nation.” Every time there is either a terrorism case, or a policy decision that is in line with what has been done over past adminstrations from both parties the right acts as if it is some radical departure from the norm. For example, it was never considered controversial to read terrorism suspects their Miranda rights.  After all it was done under the Bush administration in cases including Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber.” Yet when a nearly identical case occurred in December of 2009 and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the “underwear bomber” was read his Miranda Rights, the right was up in arms.  Similar outcries came a few months later with the Times Square case. 

But besides the political ideology of “Obama has it wrong” there is also an ideology on the policy. There is consistently a move towards a more extreme policy of why we should use Guantanamo more – even though almost all national security experts agree and the Bush adminstration stated it should be closed – and that we need to use military commissions – despite the fact that they have been drastically less effective than their civilian counterparts. There is pending legislation, introduced in the House by Rep. Buck McKeon, that would require military detention or military commissions for terrorism suspects.  Even Ben Wittes, a proponent of the legitimacy of military commissions, responded conservatives’ comments on the use of military commissions that: “They are not the only tools. And in many cases, they will not be the best tools.” What remains most astonishing is that civilian courts have proven time and again to be more effective than military commissions, yet conservatives continue advocate on their behalf.  

Talk about ideological rigidity. 

Obama Nuclear Arms Reduction Blamed for Proliferation Threat Posted by David Shorr

The world faces mounting threats of nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and potentially Saudi Arabia. Do you want to know why? Well according to Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation, one major cause is the US administration's own nuclear arms control policy. (Hat tip to Nonproliferation Review editor Stephen Schwartz.) Peter connects the dots for us in his lead paragraph:

President Obama's "lead by example" nuclear-nonproliferation policy of strategic-weapons cuts and treaties (such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia) isn't having the desired effect. In fact, the "fallout" is quite the opposite: All the news points toward a more nuclear world.

Brookes' New York Post column goes on to catalogue a number of worrisome developments and prospects. What's missing from the piece, though, is an explanation of how reductions in US and Russian arsenals of thousands of n-weapons worsens matters in the Mideast or Northeast Asia. All Brookes offers is this breezy observation:

So, while Team Obama spends its time focusing on downsizing our strategic forces and future, others are upsizing theirs. Coincidence? Probably not.

What's the nonproliferation strategy here? If the United States kept all of our nuclear weapons, then Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia wouldn't pursue military nuclear programs? Does nuclear nonproliferation hinge on America's ability to incinerate adversaries 50 times over rather than, say, merely 10? Or is Brookes saying that the administration needs to spend less time on arms control and more on nonproliferation. Last time I checked, the Obama administration has been doggedly cajoling other governments to impose heightened unilateral sanctions against Iran -- after lining up votes for multilateral sanctions, that is (on the latter, ditto North Korea).

Brookes' seems to take the radical and naive view that the size of America's nuclear arsenal will in itself prevent new countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. It's a hyper-realist idea, I guess, that with enough military power we can cow others into submission. It doesn't help explain why North Korea made it's most dramatic nuclear arms progress during the previous administration, but I digress.

Where Brookes computes the raw balance of military forces, the policy and political mainstream view it as a matter of the international community's standards of acceptable behavior. Fortunately, nuclear nonproliferation isn't merely a question of doing what America says; the taboo against nuclear weapons was established in the 1970 Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) and is a pillar of the international order.

But the United States can't have it both ways. Along with the requirement for non-nuclear weapon nations to remain that way, the NPT called on the world's nuclear "haves" to disarm. In the decades since the NPT was adopted, the US, Russia, and other nuclear powers have made modest progress in reducing their arsenals. They could get away with it because the treaty's nonoproliferation provisions are more specific than those on disarmament, but ultimately there is a classic problem of hypocrisy faced by the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do posture Peter seems to recommend. Bottom line: meaningful nuclear arms reductions are the price the United States must pay to maintain our international credibility, moral authority, and support. 

Looking back at last December's Senate debate on ratification of the US-Russian New START treaty, I'm glad to say that Peter's approach represents the far-Right rather than the sober conservative view within the GOP. Tennessee's Senator Bob Corker endorsed the treaty's importance for nonproliferation, and Senator George Voinovich of Ohio specifically highlighted the need for Russia's help in multilateral pressure on Iran.

Photo: John Uhles

Ninety Years On, Communism in China Posted by Jacob Stokes

Today the Chinese Communist Party celebrates 90 years of existence (the China Digital Times has a good roundup here). FP’s Christina Larson reports that every public TV in the country is tuned into the festivities, whether people are watching or not.

This begs the obvious question: Is it still Mao’s party? The consensus seems to be, no, the Party’s fundamental nature has shifted from an organization focused on protecting ideology to one focused on keeping power.

Minxin Pei of the Brookings Institution explains: 

Yet if asked, “What does the Communist Party stand for,” few Chinese leaders today could give a coherent or honest answer. 

This much we know: It no longer stands for a utopian ideology. If there is one ideology that the party represents, it is the ideology of power. The sole justification for the party’s rule is the imperative to stay in power. 

Nor does the party stand for China’s masses. Despite efforts to broaden its social base and make it more connected with China’s dynamic and diverse society, the party today has evolved into a self-serving, bureaucratized political patronage machine. It is undeniably an elitist party, with more than 70 percent of its members recruited from government officials, the military, college graduates, businessmen and professionals.

Attempts to shroud the power-keeping motive have taken several forms in recent years, most famously as an ongoing competition between Maoist ideology and a resurgence of Confucian values. Jeffery Wasserstrom of UC-Irvine argues that it all boils down to the same thing (he also presents a very balanced view of the CPC’s record in FP here): 

There is nothing new about China being led by authoritarian modernizers who think that invoking “traditional values” can help them convince the masses that they believe in something greater than simply maintaining their positions in power. What is novel is that, at present, it seems to make little difference whether the “tradition” invoked is Confucian yellow, Maoist red, or a curious mashup of the two.

The Chinese people aren’t fooled. There's been progress, but it's largely unequal and riddled with corruption. That has the Party scared, writes David Shambaugh of Brookings: 

Instead of being secure and confident, [the Party] is seemingly frozen in fear of the future, unsure about its grip over ethnic regions (Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia), afraid of rising social unrest and ad hoc demonstrations, worried about the macro-economy and foreign relations, and on the cusp of a major leadership transition in 2012… China’s Communist Party at 90 is a bit like many 90-year-olds: increasingly infirm, fearful, experimenting with ways to prolong life, but overwhelmed by the complexities of managing it. 

This is not to say the Party sits on the verge of collapse. But it should put into perspective the China-as-ten-feet-tall narrative we’re likely to hear in the coming election.

Photo: China Daily

Douglas Feith and American Narcissism Posted by David Shorr

The other day I argued we should rename the debate over American exceptionalism. Let's refer to the Republican candidates' ideology as American infallibility, since it's distinguished by unwavering belief in the inherent justness of American cause. Think of it as the Superman Doctrine, fighting the heroic "never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way" (these three things being synonymous, of course). 

Now that I've seen Douglas Feith and Seth Cropsey's new "Obama Doctrine Defined" piece in Commentary, we can say that the hardest of the hard-core critiques of Obama foreign policy is actually American Narcissism. According to Feith and Cropsey, President Obama has committed the cardinal sins of exercising self-restraint, showing a degree of self-awareness, and factoring the views non-Americans into his foreign policy. For them, the main imperative for America's foreign policy is that it must not hold back or show discretion:

American interests, rather than global interests, should predominate in U.S. policymaking. American leadership, as traditionally defined, is indispensible to promoting the interests of the United States and our key partners, who are our fellow democracies. American power is generally a force for good in the world. And, as important as international cooperation can be, the U.S. president should cherish American sovereignty and defend his ability to act independently to protect the American people and their interests.

Translation: job #1 is to ensure that other countries never keep America from exerting our power. Their argument is so wrapped up in self-regard that the rest of the world seems like an afterthought. They fret so nervously about preserving maximum freedom of action that they neglect to explain how their approach will actually achieve our national interests. Here's what I want to know: what does all this unapologetic assertiveness get you? Feith and Cropsey are incensed with President Obama and his advisers over the idea that America has been too much of a bully, yet they offer virtually no argument showing how their hyper-nationalist approach will yield results for US interests. 

There's one especially sleazy element of Feith and Cropsey's critique that I should flag. Right after noting that President Obama actually defied their caricature of him by winding down gradually in Iraq and building up our military presence in Afghanistan, the authors add this qualifier:

But those compromises reflect the president’s pragmatic judgment about the art of the possible, not his conviction about what kind of country America should ultimately become.

In other words, whenever Obama takes forceful action on behalf of national security, that's not the "real" Obama. He's only burnishing his post-partisan image as a moderate, which serves as a decoy. How convenient to be able to claim that the operation against Osama bin Laden or the predator drone strikes are separate from President Obama's true policy aims -- never mind the fact that he previewed the attacks in Pakistan early in his presidential campaign.

Only in an America with severe amnesia could American Narcissism be considered a credible alternative to the current policy. In the first paragraph I quote above, the passing reference to the importance of international cooperation is belied by the rest of the article, which heaps scorn on the things needed in order to gain cooperation. Having help from other nations is indeed important for the pursuit of common interests, and sometimes indeed to promote narrower national self-interests.

But more to the point, it is difficult to accomplish very much at all when a global superpower confronts widespread international suspicion or resistance -- something we should know from recent experience (thank you, Douglas Feith). Given this reality, I'll take self-awareness and self-restraint over self-involvement and self-regard.

Isn't It Possible that Our Military Operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan Are Actually Destabilizing Pakistan? Posted by Eric Martin

There is widely accepted (though largely unexamined) conventional wisdom in US national security circles which holds that our military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are serving to stabilize the Pakistani state.  Or, as it is more commonly construed, that the withdrawal of a large portion of our armed forces, and recalibration of our strategic objectives, would destabilize Pakistan and, as a result, put that country's nuclear arsenal in jeopardy of being seized by militant groups. 

What's odd is that this presumed dynamic runs counter to what are the most common effects of wars, generally speaking.  To state a series of truisms, wars have a tendency to destabilize regions, breed conflict, radicalize populations, empower warlords and militants, create huge refugee flows, give impetus to small arms proliferation that can perpetuate conflict, disrupt society's day-to-day ongoings and give rise to myriad other maladies that sow turmoil, rather than stability.

So why would our war be having an opposite, beneficial impact on the stability of Pakistan? The short answer is, it isn't.  One would be hard-pressed to argue that Pakistan is more stable now, than when we first invaded Afghanistan. The reasons are manifold.

Our continued military operations targeting a highly valued proxy of Pakistan's national security state (the Taliban), while shifting the balance of influence in Afghanistan away from Pakistan and toward a more India-friendly regime (Karzai's), is creating real divisions, anxiety and conflict within Pakistan.  That is true in terms of its political/military elites, as well as with smaller indigenous factions and groups becoming more radicalized and militarized in response to crackdowns and a perceived loss of sovereignty in the face of US demands.

Along these lines, we have been continuously pressuring Pakistani political leaders to cooperate with our goals and policy objectives, which have included both allowing us to strike individuals/groups on Pakistani soil, as well as to encourage the Pakistani military to undertake campaigns to root out various home-grown and foreign militant groups.  While these types of controversial, fraught policies would be a hard sell to a Pakistani public struggling with inequality and economic stagnation under even ideal circumstances, that these policies are seen as originating with the US government at a time when America is wildly unpopular, and our "interference" is viewed with the most nefarious assumptions, makes them political poison.

To sum it up, our military operations are roiling Pakistan's elites, giving rise to more anti-Americanism and radicalizing/mobilizing militant groups to act against the Pakistani state. Not to mention, greatly straining US/Pakistani relations.  That's not exactly a stability cocktail.

Nevertheless, there is a commonly held assumption that should we withdraw our forces, Pakistan would be further destabilized (without acknowledging the potential ameliorative effects) - with a particular emphasis on the possibility that Pakistani militants would use Afghanistan as a redoubt from which to wage war on the Pakistani state and, according to those warning of dire consequences, possibly overrun state facilities and seize nuclear material.

Joshua Rovner and Austin Long do an excellent job of puncturing this and other "strategic myths" commonplace in arguments for continuing the war in Afghanistan as it currently comprised. Here is a sample:

UPDATED: [AUDIO] Experts Comment on Pawlenty's Foreign Policy Approach, GOP Divide Posted by The Editors

In response to GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty's major foreign policy speech addressing the Arab Spring at the Council on Foreign Relations, which only exposed the deepening divisions among conservatives on national security, the Center for American Progress and the National Security Network held a press call today with Dr. Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Ken Gude, Managing Director of the National Security and International Policy Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund; Peter Juul, Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund; and Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director of the National Security Network.

Listen to the call here.

Eager to eschew the label of neoconservative, but unable to come to terms with the disastrous legacy of the Bush-Cheney-McCain foreign policy, today Pawlenty chastised his fellow candidates for flirting with isolationism but only offered a confused and incoherent mix of attacks on President Obama that betrayed his lack of national security experience.  As the experts on today's call discussed, Tim Pawlenty's plan and his approach to U.S. foreign policy, as laid out in his speech, are indicative of a larger cleavage in the Right's approach to foreign policy.

Highlights from the call:

• NSN’s Heather Hurlburt likened the current GOP disarray on foreign policy to Democrats in 1968 when they abandoned their party’s foreign policy establishment.
• CAP Action’s Ken Gude: "When you dig into the details of Tim Pawlenty's speech here today, you really get a stark assessment of what [Republicans] are trying to do—and it's pretty much a shambles."
• Former Reagan administration Defense official Larry Korb, noting that he was “the last living Eisenhower Republican," said: “Pawlenty doesn’t even understand the Republican party history…he is confusing isolationism with realism.”

Several National Security Network reports and op-eds -including "Results vs Distractions," "Should Congress Shut Up?: 2012 and the Foreign Policy Debate" and NSN Special Advisor Maj. Gen. (ret.) Paul D. Eaton's "The Conservative Defense Myth"- as well as the Center for American Progress report, "Conservatives Crack Up on Foreign Policy," similarly explore the widening rift among conservative elites as the prospective presidential grope for a coherent policy framework. Given the conservative foreign policy establishment's aggressive policing of wayward statements from the candidates, it is likely that conservatives are heading into an even bigger fight over the nature and scope of their ideological coalition's foreign policy as the campaign season heats up.

*This post was updated to include call highlights and a newly posted NSN report, "Results vs Distractions."

Debating Afghanistan With Daniel Serwer Posted by Michael Cohen

So this past Friday afternoon Daniel Serwer and I had nothing better to do so we decided to spend about 50 minutes debating Afghanistand and Obama's Wednesday speech - and it just happened that we recorded it. Except for the fact that my lighting stinks, I kept blowing my nose and my hair is doing weird things . . . it's kind of an interesting conversation. Check it out.

 

 

A Light At the End of the Tunnel? Posted by Michael Cohen

So I have a piece up in the Atlantic today on Obama's speech and long-time DA readers will be surprised to find that I'm feeling pretty upbeat about it:

Reporter Bob Woodward's 2010 book-length account of the Obama administration's decision to escalate in Afghanistan shows Obama siding with Petraeus in 2009, but only ambivalently and conditionally, and in a way that suggested he was willing to give the counterinsurgency strategy a chance but was not convinced of its success. If there is one overriding takeaway from Obama's speech tonight, it is that the same President who 18 months ago was led by his generals into an escalation that he didn't appear to fully support has now taken back control of his policy in Afghanistan. Right now, that means leading U.S. strategy down the path of de-escalation. As Obama said, this not the end of the war in Afghanistan, but it's certainly the beginning of America's effort to "wind down the war." 

. . . Obama's decision to resolutely shift U.S. strategy is a critical recognition that the war in Afghanistan must begin to come to an end -- and offers a potential path for accomplishing that objective. While many will likely quibble over Obama's statement that the U.S. is "meeting our goals" in Afghanistan, perhaps a victory lap is the cover that the President feels he needs to begin the process of de-escalation. Tragically, U.S. soldiers, Afghan security forces, and Afghan civilians will continue to be maimed and to perish in Afghanistan. But, for the first time in ten years, the light at the end of the tunnel of the U.S. war there is suddenly visible.

Read the whole thing here; but I did want to touch on one point that I failed to explore in the Atlantic piece. For the past several months the US has been discussing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan that would maintain a long-term US military presence in the country well past 2014.

Spencer thinks the problem here is that, "the U.S. is simultaneously asking the Taliban to end its insurgency while asking Karzai to let it stay in perpetuity for a shadow war against the Taliban’s longtime allies." I think that's overstating the point. The US, by seeking to negotiate a long-term security partnership with the Karzai government, is a) hedging its bets in case political reconciliation goes nowhere b) providing themselves with a political negotiating chit in talks with the Taliban and c) furthering the US interest in maintaining US drone capabilities in the region, which is particularly important if a) happens. So in the end, I don't think the SPA is quite as significant a deal-breaker as Spencer does.

Actually the problem last night was that Obama didn't mention the SPA. It was a glaring and dangerous omission in his remarks.

The result, I fear, is that the Taliban may infer that the US commitment to Afghan security is fleeting and thus the Taliban can simply wait for the Americans to leave. While that perception is almost certainly wrong it may in the near term lead the Taliban to avoid political negotiations, further delaying the reconciliation process. It would be wise for the Administration to clarify this issue and restate its commitment to maintaining a long-term presence - even if they don't mean it, such a clarification would actually help not hinder the process of political reconciliation.

Military Advice to the President - Public or Private? Posted by David Shorr

From my perch at care2, I've added some questions to those raised by Michael re: Kori Schake's ideas about the role of military advice in the public debate over presidents' war policies. And then one further thought that I omitted. If you look at Kori's post alongside her fellow Shadow Government bloggers, the "arbitrary deadlines" trope is all the rage. I suppose in the first couple years of a military intervention, a fixed end point might be a bit artificial. After a full decade of fighting, though, it's not arbitrary -- it's setting a reasonable limit and keeping the mission from dragging on year after year on the weight of its own momentum. 

UPDATED: I just posted a reaction to the speech over at care2.

Kori Schake's Unique Take on Civ-Mil Relations Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Shadow Government, Kori Schake is surprisingly happy with President Obama's umpteenth review of Afghanistan policy, but believes that if he goes against the military's advice he needs to explain why:

The president has the right to choose policies contrary to their (the military) advice; it's his job as Commander in Chief to weigh the broader costs and trade-offs associated with governing our country. 

. . .  It's the president's choice. That's what he gets elected for.  He does not, however, get to make his choices without having to explain why he disregarded military advice. There may be compelling reasons; in the case of Afghanistan that would be difficult to square with the president's own earlier statements about the importance of the war.  If President Obama chooses to disregard our military and civilian defense leadership's counsel on Afghanistan, he will owe them -- and us -- an explanation.

This is grade-A silliness. Actually maybe I'm wrong; excuse me while I peruse my copy of the Constitution to find the section that explains how the duly elected commander-in-chief has to politely explain to his military commanders that he likes them a lot, but he's just not ready to commit. Oops, I can't find it.

Indeed, I don't remember when George W. Bush explained to the American people how he was disregarding his generals about the US having too few troops to invade Iraq; or FDR had a heart-to-heart with his generals about how the Allies were going to push off the invasion of France for a few years or focus on the European theater rather than the Pacific.

The President has no responsibility whatsoever to explain to the military as to why he ignored or disregarded their advice. Indeed, does he have a responsibility to explain why he ignored Joe Biden's advice in 2009? Or if the President rejected the advice of other civilian advisors does he have a responsibility to explain why their counsel was rejected? Of course not, and no one would suggest otherwise. But as it is in all facets of our national life, somehow the military resides on some different plain where the civilian leadership must be deeply solicitous of their concerns (even when their military and strategic advice is, as has been the case in Afghanistan, consistently wrong). Every once in a while it's worth remembering who actually is in charge here.

David Brooks' Shot at Foreign Aid Posted by David Shorr

In his trademark fashion, David Brooks crams a lot of issues into his critique today of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan: ambitious government initiatives, social engineering, the poverty-violence link (known in the trade as "greed v. grievance"), the (in)effectiveness of foreign aid, and smart power foreign policy. Whew. Your humble blogger won't attempt to tackle all of these subjects -- nor even offer a verdict on the stabilization efforts in Afghanistan. But I do want to address the question of effectiveness, and its implications for smart power.

On that issue, we have a problem of how we look at / talk about foreign aid, and Brooks' wide-roaming critique is symptomatic. Just look at the different rubrics he mentions in his assessment of Afghanistan: health, education, economic growth, stability, violence, employment of the most highly educated, and corruption / governance. Apart from any assumptions about links between quality of life and instability -- Brooks' main line of criticism -- to judge aid effectiveness fairly we need to distinguish among the varied objectives of different aid efforts, and overcome our tendency to lump them together.

So when Brooks laments over the vain efforts "to learn from past foreign aid disappointments" and the "discouraging results," he needs to know that some of the lessons learned by aid professionals tend to be obscured by the way pundits elide the different categories and objectives of aid.

David Brooks, meet Jean Arkedis, author of a Center for Global Development paper that summarizes practitioners' concerns over the tangled mandates and purposes of aid:

Most commentators recognize that aid is used as a tool to advance development, to promote strategic interests, and to address humanitarian needs, but they often fail to recognize how and where these interests are at odds and where they may be mutually reinforcing.

It's true, there is a certain sloppiness to the debate over aid effectiveness. Foreign aid is a matter of matching goals to local realities and choosing among objectives that involve trade-offs. All too often, the critique of aid effectiveness is disconnected from those choices. As a long-time proponent of the smart power idea of combining development, diplomacy, and defense (known in the trade as "3-D security"), I found the Arkedis paper instructive in pointing out that foreign aid -- far from being focused principally on economic development -- is spread across all three of the "Ds." Indeed, one result of being more rigorous in distinguishing categories and purposes of aid is to show what portion of aid is aimed at development, versus relief, stabilization, health, education, military professionalization, or good relations with a strategically important country.

So where does this leave the smart power approach to foreign policy? Brooks is correct that progress in other countries proceeds along different tracks and time lines. But for every time Secretary Clinton has talked about the varied tools in the smart power tool box, she has also highlighted the challenge of working simultaneously on "the urgent, the important, and the long-term."

We don't even need to be quite so patient as Brooks indicates, when he talks about development requiring not merely years or decades, but generations. Just look at the progress achieved in South Korea or China within the span of a single generation or in Brazil or India within less than a decade's time. We need patience, yes, but clarity even more.

Photo credit: USAID / Jhpiego

Still Confused About Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

About two years ago when I first started writing about Afghanistan here at Democracy Arsenal I wrote a blog post titled "Confused in Afghanistan." Since then my confusion has only grown and this week as I watch from afar the White House debate on Afghanistan it seems to have hit "peak befuddlement" point. 

I can't, for the life of me, understand how there is even a serious debate about troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. That we are debating 'barely any withdrawal' versus a 'smaller withdrawal of about 10,00-15,000 troops' rather than the latter and a much larger withdrawal or a shift in strategy toward a more counter-terrorism oriented approach is baffling to me. This is as close to a political and strategic no-brainer as you are ever going to find.

Look at the evidence. Recent military gains notwithstanding, we know that the current strategy is failing badly. Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan remain unmolested (at the same that the US-Pakistan relations havve hit probably their lowest point since September 11th); the Afghan government remains as corrupt and feckless as ever, with little apparent inclination to initiate much needed governance reforms; and the ASNF and police appear no closer to being given major security responsibilities, particularly in insecure areas. While the
Taliban is clearly on its heels it's also relatively obvious that they remain a resilient insurgent force able to operate effectively across broad swaths of the country.

In short, there is precious little evidence that the much touted military gains that we've seen over the past six months can be sustained; and there is even less evidence that the Pakistani government or our Afghan allies (when they are not killing American soldiers) share the same interests and objectives that we do.

A lack of progress on these strategic inputs should hardly be a huge surprise (they were relatively obvious 18 months ago); but it's worth noting that the same people advising the President on what to do next were confidently predicting success in the Fall of 2009. Remember this conversation:

Inside the Oval Office, Obama asked Petraeus, “David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?”

“Sir, I’m confident we can train and hand over to the ANA [Afghan National Army] in that time frame,” Petraeus replied.

“Good. No problem,” the president said. “If you can’t do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?”

“Yes, sir, in agreement,” Petraeus said.

“Yes, sir,” Mullen said.

It's also worth keeping in mind that back in the summer of 2009, Stanley McChrystal (and his enablers in the think tank world) went to great lengths to argue that the current metrics being used to tout success in Afghanistan, body counts and dead Taliban commanders, should be de-emphasized. Rather, as the argument went, civilian casualties were the single most important metric for success - and reducing them must be the focal point of US efforts in Afghanistan. That May 2011 was the single deadliest month for Afghan civilians since the UN began keeping track of such numbers is another reminder of how much we should trust and/or listen to earlier proponents of escalation in Afghanistan about what next steps should be taken today (short answer: not much).

But let's put aside the obvious evidence of military stalemate and strategic failure - how about the politics of the war? In just the past week, 27 Senators of the President's own party have signed a letter urging "sizable" troops withdrawals from Afghanistan; this follows on a vote in the House in which all but 8 Democratic Congressmen voted for an amendment calling for the same thing. And even the Republicans are jumping ship: on Monday human political weather vane Mitt Romney called for a quicker drawdown of US troops from the fight. This dovetails with public opinion polling, which suggests that most Americans are tired of the war and want the troops to start coming home. If there is a political constituency anywhere outside the US military for continuing this fight I'm at a loss to think of one. Finally, this entire debate is taking place a mere month or so after the United States killed Osama bin Laden, which gave the President a rare political opportunity to pursue a policy of de-escalation in the war on terrorism.

You throw all these data points into the mix and what is the takeaway: that it would be strategic and political malpractice to throw good money after bad and continue with a policy that is both failing and is deeply unpopular across the political spectrum. The notion that the President would give the military six months or more to pursue the current policy is a hair short of insanity. (Here is a much better way to proceed, Mr. President).

He does that and we may need to start calling our President, 'Barack Baines Obama.'

The Debate on American Infallibility, Not Exceptionalism Posted by David Shorr

Glad to see Roger Cohen's critique of the emerging 2012 foreign policy debate in this morning's International Herald Tribune. As Cohen points out, the Republican candidates are all peddling the same caricature:

They're trying to cast Barack Obama as a president who has sold America short, an impostor who has ditched the mystical belief in the unique calling of the United States that is American exceptionalism.

The real problem is the mislabeling of this debate. It's the idea of American infallibility, not exceptionalism, that divides the president and his critics. The Republican party line is that America knows best, and the only thing our foreign policy needs is to be firmer, more resolute, uncompromising, unwavering, resolute, and insistent. More like we really mean it. To my ears, the GOP leaders all sound like they're flattering themselves with the fantasy of being the Winston Churchills of our time -- courageously resisting evil forces.

American exceptionalism is the proposition that the United States is more than just another nation among 192, that we have constructive or even crucial leadership to offer. President Obama and his challengers are on the same side of that issue. American infallibility, on the other hand, rests on a moral clarity that sweeps aside any need to solicit others' support, understand other perspectives, or reach compromises.

As it's so often the case, you only need Stephen Colbert's brilliant satire to know how disconnected this is from reality. When Donald Trump withdrew from the 2012 race, Colbert fretted over the loss for foreign policy: "Who's gonna tell OPEC the fun is over? Who's gonna tell China to go f*** themselves?"

As I argued before Trump's withdrawal, he was merely voicing a cruder version of the same superficial, self-righteous, out-of-touch foreign policy approach as the others. Roger Cohen quoted Bruce Jentleson in his column and so will I, the following passage from Bruce and Steve Weber's excellent End of Arrogance book:

In a complex and rapidly changing environment it does not work well to repeatedly reinforce who we are and what we stand for. We know those things, and we know how they shape what we do, how we act, how we respond. Strategy is ultimately about how we influence what others do.

This is my test of seriousness for those who aspire to be commander in chief. And I'm still waiting to hear a candidate take the challenge of real-world effectiveness any more seriously than Donald Trump.

 

Curbing “Unwarranted Influence” Posted by Jacob Stokes

Fellow DA’er Heather Hurlburt has a piece out in the new issue of the journal Democracy entitled, “Peace Is Our Profession.” It reviews James Ledbetter’s “Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex” and William Hartung’s “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.”

In it, she lays out state-of-play on the defense budget conversation:

“The most audacious proposals to cut U.S. government spending, such as Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan announced in early April, pass off reductions in the rate of increase in Pentagon spending as spending cuts. While conservative and center-left budget hawks circulate plans and counterplans to save money on domestic entitlement spending, and debate the value and necessity of spending on everything from Head Start to foreign assistance to family planning, there is simply no serious debate on our military spending. The discussion and promulgation of options is left to a small group of libertarian, left, and left-er critics whose proposals are greeted with resounding silence.”

Then, after brief explanations of the books’ narrative arcs and main themes, Hurlburt looks at the way forward and offers a small but seemingly effective first step:

"U.S. military spending has been cut significantly three times in the last 60 years—after World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. Each time, these authors suggest, the military-industrial complex has roared back stronger, and fundamental problems of efficiency and effectiveness have not been addressed. What attempts at reform have worked? Can they be repeated?

And perhaps the most important question, which both authors edge right up to but do not quite address: Is it possible to imagine a defense sector that operated differently? And, if so, what would be the policy steps to move toward creating it? Do other countries with technologically advanced weapons industries and militaries succeed in managing this process better? 

…The French National Assembly can vote up or down only on the overall military budget, not on specific programs or weapons systems. It is worth noting here that President Obama’s deficit reduction commission floated the idea of a non-partisan commission to make recommendations on 'terminating major weapons systems' that could be accepted by Congress with only an up-or-down vote, like the highly successful base-reduction commission of decades past—a suggestion that has been met with resounding silence from all sides."

Hurlburt is right about that final idea. Before we even discuss changing mission sets and choosing between competing priorities, as Secretary Gates has suggested, we first need to fix our procurement process so that – at the very least – the Pentagon and Congress can work together to build what Pentagon leaders say we need. In that spirit, Lawrence Korb of CAP and I published an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun yesterday calling for a “weapons BRAC." Here’s the basic thesis:

“A similar process should be adopted for weapons systems — we'll call it a ‘weapons BRAC.’ Instituting such a process would produce several benefits. First, it would provide the right incentive for Congress to fund systems that military and national security experts say the country needs, instead of pet projects favored by influential members of Congress.

A weapons BRAC would also increase pressure on defense contractors to provide more accurate cost estimates, meet project deadlines and achieve performance standards, lest they be recommended for termination in the commission's report.”

Read the whole Democracy piece here and the rest of Baltimore Sun op-ed here. Because as Hurlburt writes, “the need for a change – for our economy, for the health of twenty-first century society, and indeed, for the military itself – has never been greater.”

Photo Credit: F-35B, via Lockheed Martin Flickr Account

The Isolationism Canard Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Foreign Policy I have a new article looking at the emerging fault lines on foreign policy in the 2012 election - and surprisingly enough they seem to suggest that there may be a new wave of national security realism sweeping the ranks of Republican presidential aspirants

Republican realism made an unexpected comeback at the debate as the GOP field sought to offer an alternative to President Barack Obama's military escalations amid growing public concerns about the costs of U.S. global leadership. If anyone three years ago had predicted that this would be the emerging division on foreign policy for Obama's reelection campaign they would have been laughed out of the room.

Are we seeing a newly realist Republican Party? Or is this a momentary search for political opportunity? Only time will tell, but if Monday's debate is any indication, the fault lines for Campaign 2012 might not be as predictable as once imagined.

You can read the whole thing here. But interestingly Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times had a similar take this morning noting that the "hawkish consensus on national security that has dominated Republican foreign policy for the last decade is giving way to a more nuanced view."

But then Zeleny goes a step too far, "The evolution also highlights a renewed streak of isolationism among Republicans, which has been influenced by the rise of the Tea Party movement and a growing sense that the United States can no longer afford to intervene in clashes everywhere."

Now to be sure Ron Paul is definitely an isolationist, but that word simply cannot accurately be used to describe any of the other Republicans seeking the presidency.  To characterize the view that the US "can no longer afford to intervene in clashes everywhere" or that interests should take precedence over values in national security decision-making as "isolationism" is not only wrong, it's borderline mendacious.

Mitt Romney's talk about bringing troops out of Afghanistan "as soon as we possibly can" is not altogether different from the position taken by President Obama. Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain saying that the Libya war is not actually in the "vital national interest" of the United States is not isolationism - it's actually, sort of correct. These are completely reasonable policy positions to take; and they are firmly within a realist tradition in American foreign policy. In addition, it should be noted that Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum adopted a relatively expansive view of American power and Pawlenty, in particular, rejected Ron Paul's argument that attacking terrorist targets is not in the national security interests of the United States.

Indeed, it's even more out of kilter to argue that the American people are moving in an isolationist direction. Recent polling suggests that while most Americans would rather see the US play a minor, rather than leading role in global affairs a majority (50%) wants to see the US play a major, but not leading role. That's not a turn toward isolationism; in fact, it might be more accurately described as a turn against the DC consensus that views American interests and global capabilities as practically limitless.

To this point, it's worth looking at the recent survey results of voter attitudes about foreign policy from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. It shows that voters continue to want to see the United States play an active role in global affairs, "exert strong leadership in world affairs" and maintain "superior power worldwide." However, at the same time, they would prefer more selective engagement, a lighter U.S. military footprint, and more support for multilateral institutions to share the burden of managing global affairs. 

Again, there is nothing isolationist about these views; indeed they seem more reasonable about US power and capabilities than much of what passes for foreign policy thinking in Washington.

Ignoring the Obvious: When Pondering Engaging in Armed Conflict, We Look Past the Basics Posted by Eric Martin

To state a seemingly obvious point, and one that requires no great revelatory insight or spark of genius to concoct, wars and other armed conflicts are unpredictable, lead to unintended consequences and usually exceed expected parameters in terms of duration, cost and scope.  Make this rather pedestrian observation aloud in informed company, however, and expect to be met with rolled eyes and the gentle pats of condescending assurance: "Yes, yes, everybody knows this already."

Yet this truism has reached that bizarre stage of being so widely known, so accepted, so hum-drum as to be frequently disregarded when making policy - particularly, policy that involves the initiation of (or intervention in) armed conflict.

The NATO intervention in Libya is only the most recent example.  This exchange between Elliot Abrams and Micah Zenko provides an instance of the unbridled optimism that pervaded the pro-intervention camp. Abrams, who was by no means the most effusive pollyana, prescribed the following:

So how do we achieve that goal of getting Qaddafi out? We use a combination of means, which may include UN resolutions, Arab League and other Arab and Muslim actions, sanctions, freezes of his oil income, recognition of an alternative government, meetings with opposition leaders, broadcasting against the regime, and on to more forceful actions. These could include arming the opposition and/or preventing Qaddafi from using the military strength he retains to win this civil war. Preventing him from using air power is a possible part of the mix, and that might be achieved from NATO air bases in Italy or ships in the Mediterranean.

Such steps would constitute military intervention despite the fact that no American or NATO soldier would set foot in Libya. [emphasis added]

Despite what everybody knows is the unwieldy, unruly, unpredictable nature of armed conflict (and with what are certainly superfluous daily reminders emanating from Iraq and Afghanistan), proponents of intervention were unabashed in their rosy predictions.  They were almost entirely remiss in acknowledging the possibility, nay likelihood, that this effort would morph into something much larger, more time consuming, more expensive than advertised, and take on other unknown, and unwanted, permutations.  

Predictably, things aren't going as planned (they rarely do, but you knew that already).  A campaign that was slated to last "days not weeks" has entered its third month, with no end to Qaddafi's regime in sight (Note: the Libya mission has already exceeded the duration of NATO's operations in Kosovo). 

While the imposition of the No-Fly-Zone by NATO forces completely neutralized the Libyan regime's airpower (limited as it was), stagnation on the battlefield has led NATO to shift tactics.  NATO is now targeting regime leaders, as well as military equipment and assets, with greater frequency. However, these looser rules of engagement are in possible violation of the UNSC resolution under whose imprimatur the mission is being carried out.  Apparently, the utility of that authorization didn't survive long past first contact with the enemy.

In addition, Great Britain and France have begun deploying attack helicopters in theater, a weapons platform that allows for more precision targetting and, more importantly, eases the burden on each nation's rapidly dwindling stockpiles of JDAMs.  These nations were amongst the most vocal proponents of military intervention, but their capacity to engage in any type of protracted conflict using these guided munitions was extremely limited.

It's almost as if they assumed that this war would be neat, by-the-book and short, and made policy based on those expectations despite war's notoriously uncooperative nature.  Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman had an interesting piece in Foreign Policy a couple of weeks back that discusses, in greater detail, some of the reasons why these types of conflicts tend to drag on and lead to unsatisfying outcomes.  

But if everybody knows that armed conflicts exhibit these tendencies generally speaking, shouldn't the presumption tilt heavily against those that forecast a cakewalk - even absent the specifics provided by the likes of Byman and Waxman?

To be clear, Qaddafi could be ousted tomorrow. However, the next phase of the conflict could be even more taxing on participating NATO members. Despite the fraught nature of the post-Qaddafi aftermath, there don't seem to be clearly thought out plans for which organizations and groups (rebel and foreign) will be participating in that transition period and under what rules.

But who needs contingency plans to cover various less-than-ideal possible outcomes? These things tend to sort themselves out, right?

(Photo Credit: Ben Wedeman, CNN)

A Sensible Way Forward for the US in Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

Today in the Los Angeles Times, fellow DA blogger Michael Hanna and I have a new piece on Afghanistan the lays out the need for the Obama Administration to adopt a viable political strategy for Afghanistan - and one that operates in concert with our ongoing military strategy:

As President Obama's July deadline to begin drawing down troops from Afghanistan approaches, the debate in Washington is focused almost exclusively on how rapidly the U.S. military presence should be reduced. But the emphasis on troop levels ignores the more important question of what the administration's political strategy should be for ending the war.

There is no question that the U.S. must leave Afghanistan eventually. But withdrawal must be done in a way that prevents chaos and ensures that America's interests in the region are protected. Current U.S. military tactics, however, are often operating at cross-purposes to the establishment of an effective political strategy for ending the war — a political strategy that to date has been poorly constructed.

Supporters of the current approach argue that the military campaign is putting increased pressure on the Taliban, and that with just a little more force, we can push insurgents to the negotiating table. But this is a dubious assumption, and the U.S. does not have the luxury to see if it's correct.

Although the Taliban presence has lessened in certain areas of the country, its members still enjoy protection in havens across the border in Pakistan. It remains a resilient fighting force able to launch sophisticated military operations, and the predatory behavior of the Afghan government continues to push a steady stream of recruits into the arms of the insurgency. Meanwhile, the Afghan army and police are nowhere near ready to independently take over security responsibilities.

Each of these strategic impediments means that the military's recent gains on the battlefield are simply not sustainable. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has noted that the situation in Afghanistan cannot be resolved by military might alone. Yet the U.S. military remains committed to a policy that relies far too heavily on the stick rather than on the carrot.

Even though the administration has reportedly initiated secret, serious high-level contacts with representatives of the Taliban and has touted nuanced shifts in diplomatic language (such as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's February speech that seemed to discard preconditions for negotiations with the Taliban), far less consideration has been given to how the United States can encourage a shift in the Taliban's perceptions and behavior. For too long the U.S. has acted as if force is the only effective means for communicating with the Taliban.

Fighting must continue, but talking and engagement are even more urgent. Although recent exploratory talks with credible Taliban leaders represent an encouraging breakthrough, these openings could be for naught if the military campaign is not waged in concert with this political initiative.

Read the whole thing here

How NATO is Like A Boyfriend/Girlfriend That Won't Commit Posted by Michael Cohen

So you ever know those couples where one of the two really wants to get married, settle down and have kids and the other one just refuses to commit and is evasive about the future of the relationship . . . I think this is a good descriptor of the US-NATO alliance today.

Allow me to explain. Yesterday in Brussels, Bob Gates gave a rather incendiary set of remarks that basically attacked NATO allies for not holding up their end of the military bargain in the alliance.

In the past, I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance between members who specialize in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions -- between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership, be they security guarantees or headquarters billets, but don’t want to share the risks and the costs,” the secretary said.

This is no longer a hypothetical worry. We are there today. And it is unacceptable.

According to Gates, our NATO allies are not willing to increase defense spending for their militaries, are not willing to commit their troops to long-term military conflicts like Afghanistan and Libya and are putting a significant burden for these fights on the United States. 

The thing is he's right. But then again we've known for years that Europe's commitment to defense spending and to foreign wars was shaky at best. We've known that they perceive their national interests and global commitments in less fulsome terms than the United States does. Indeed, Gates actually said this yesterday, "I am the latest in a string of U.S. defense secretaries who have urged allies privately and publicly, often with exasperation, to meet agreed-upon NATO benchmarks for defense spending."

So here's my question - why don't we take a hint? Instead of browbeating Europeans into doing something they don't want to do, why not fold their obvious reluctance to be a better ally into US national security decision-making? 

For example, if we know that non-US NATO countries have demonstrated little stomach for the fight in Afghanistan, that they are itching to drawdown their foreign military commitments and they lack the resources and capabilities to be an effective US war-fighting partner . . . why then did we launch a war in Libya based on an assumption of steadfast and committed NATO support?

It can't be a huge surprise to Gates or any US leader that NATO commitment to the war there was constricted? So why are we blaming them for not coming through (no matter how legitimate a critique it might be) and not blaming ourselves for assuming that this commitment actually existed? We had a similar scenario in 2009 when the initial McChrystal review assumed a level of NATO support for the mission in Afghanistan that likely didn't exist? 

So to come back to my analogy, NATO, like a commitment-phobic mate. They've gotten used to the relationship and they're not really interested in taking the next step no matter how much their significant other tries to get them to do it. They want the alliance to exist on their narrow terms.

I would humbly note that US policymakers, no matter how fair their criticism of NATO allies might be, should probably accept the fact that NATO countries are uncertain and wavering allies for long-term military commitments. And instead of publicly attacking those countries for not doing what we want them to do . . . take for granted that US cajoling isn't going to change this and respond accordingly. It might actually lead to the conclusion that NATO, as the cornerstone of our global security alliances has, perhaps, outlived its usefulness or is being asked to do evolve in ways (like fight non-European wars) that it isn't capable of doing.

So our choice is either break-up or accept the status quo; but the assumption that NATO is going to change . . . it simply isn't going to happen.

George Kennan’s Advice on Afghanistan Posted by Jacob Stokes

As President Obama decides the size of the July 2011 troop drawdown, he’ll need to take a step back and think big-picture strategy. He'll need to balance the realities of the conflict, as well as America’s current posture, with American priorities worldwide and at home. In short, he’ll have to ask: Is the current strategy for battling transnational terrorism and ensuring stability in South Asia achieving our goals at a reasonable cost?

My colleague Michael Cohen has written eloquently about the need for more big-picture strategic thinking in American government. So I thought I’d look back at what George Kennan, legendary State Department director of policy planning and author the containment strategy that won the Cold War, might have advised. Nicholas Thompson’s outstanding “The Hawk and The Dove” pulls some thoughts that Kennan had on the Vietnam war which apply here: 

On prolonging a conflict to prevent a blow to American prestige, Kennan said: “There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.”

On getting native populations to fight for themselves: “if [host populations’] morale is so shaky that without an offensive strategy on our part they are simply going to give up the fight, I do not think they are worth helping anyway. And, as for the question of our having a moral obligation to them, they have had enormous help from us to date. I mean, goodness, they have help in the billions and billions of dollars. How many countries are you going to give such a claim on our resources and on our help? If they cannot really do the trick with this, I feel strongly that the trouble lies somewhere with them and not with us.”

(Photo Credit: Middlebury College)

Tactician, Plan Thyself Posted by Eric Martin

Given my oft-stated concern about what a potential post-Qaddafi period will look like (would there be purges/an insurgency, would it require a peacekeeping/nation building mission, overseen by which groups/nations, etc.), these paragraphs from a recent New York Times piece on the conflict in Libya stood out:

...Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, returning from a brief visit to the rebel headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, hinted at concern in Western capitals about what might come after the toppling of Colonel Qaddafi. Mr. Hague said he had pressed the rebel leaders to make early progress on a more detailed plan for a post-Qaddafi government that would include sharing power with some of Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists.

In particular, Mr. Hague said, the rebels should learn from Iraq’s experience, in which a mass purge of former Saddam Hussein loyalists occurred under the American-backed program of “de-Baathification,” and shun any similar undertaking. The reference was to a policy that many analysts believe helped to propel years of insurgency in Iraq by stripping tens of thousands of officials of jobs.[...]

He said Britain was encouraging them “to put more flesh on their proposed transition — to lay out in more detail this coming week what would happen on the day that Qaddafi went, who would be running what, how would a new government be formed in Tripoli?” Pressing the point about Qaddafi loyalists, he said the Benghazi leaders were “learning” from Iraq. “No de-Baathification!” he said, before adding, “They now need to publicize that more effectively, to be able to convince members of the current regime that that is something that would work.”

While it is encouraging to see Hague making these entreaties, it would have been nice had there been a clearer vision of post-Qaddafi Libya prior to commiting military assets to the cause of toppling him. Further, it is not only the rebel groups that should be fleshing out their plans for the post-Qaddafi era: NATO and other regional/multilateral organizations need to come up with their own proposals for which groups/nations will fill which roles during any transition period.

It is also worth noting the lack of leverage that NATO has should the rebels fail to make the progress needed in terms of fleshing out a plan, or, for one reason or another, failing to implement the established way forward.  As the United States can attest - pointing to recent experiences with our putative allies in Iraq and Afghanistan - even lavish amounts of aid, military support and boots on the ground cannot compel local actors to embrace forbearance, forgiveness or respect for human rights.

Ultimately, local factions will place their own grievances, imperatives and interests ahead of the norms and pleas of outside powers - even where those outside powers are their sole and necessary benefactors.

If rebel groups opt to take actions that create or exacerbate insurgencies and other internal conflicts, NATO (or whatever group/nations lead the transition period) will have little choice but to buckle up and go along for the ride. Which would prove extremely costly and time consuming - if not unfamiliar.

(Photo credit: Mohammed Salem/Reuters)