ZenPundit
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
YOU CAN SPEAK SOFTLY BUT MONEY TALKS
Beltway based Pundita observes:
"The US is fighting a war in a region where we've been very hostile to two countries bordering the war zone. Pundita is of the mind that the top priority is to win the war, and for that we need all the help we can get.
Right now Syria's government is overwhelmed with looking after refugees from Iraq. So I would try offering Syria considerable help in exchange for vigilance with foreign travelers.
When it comes to asking Iran and Syria for help with Iraq, I see too much halfhearted trying from the US, then waving of hands and saying, 'See, they won't deal.' Try harder."
I agree. Iran and Syria are nasty regimes whose actions we must often oppose but where they are willing to cut some fair deals we should get down to business. Freezing Castro in the diplomatic equivalent of absolute zero has only served to help preserve his Communist- caudillo regime until the dictator's old age while irritating most of our allies and trading partners. Do we really want a 92 year old Bashar Assad still in power someday ?
Beltway based Pundita observes:
"The US is fighting a war in a region where we've been very hostile to two countries bordering the war zone. Pundita is of the mind that the top priority is to win the war, and for that we need all the help we can get.
Right now Syria's government is overwhelmed with looking after refugees from Iraq. So I would try offering Syria considerable help in exchange for vigilance with foreign travelers.
When it comes to asking Iran and Syria for help with Iraq, I see too much halfhearted trying from the US, then waving of hands and saying, 'See, they won't deal.' Try harder."
I agree. Iran and Syria are nasty regimes whose actions we must often oppose but where they are willing to cut some fair deals we should get down to business. Freezing Castro in the diplomatic equivalent of absolute zero has only served to help preserve his Communist- caudillo regime until the dictator's old age while irritating most of our allies and trading partners. Do we really want a 92 year old Bashar Assad still in power someday ?
Labels: diplomacy, foreign policy, iran, iraq, mideast, pundita, strategy, syria
¶ 9:55 AM 3 comments
Friday, August 17, 2007
DETERRENCE AND IRAN
A set of papers from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled "Deterring the Ayatollahs: Complications in Applying Cold War Strategy to Iran".
Hat tip to Jedburgh of The Small Wars Council.
A set of papers from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled "Deterring the Ayatollahs: Complications in Applying Cold War Strategy to Iran".
Hat tip to Jedburgh of The Small Wars Council.
Labels: deterrence, diplomacy, foreign policy, iran, mideast, national security, nuclear, small wars council, strategy
¶ 8:00 PM 0 comments
Thursday, August 16, 2007
YOU CAN BLEED THEM WHILE YOU NEGOTIATE WITH THEM
When Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, retired from government service after the end of the first Bush administration, he wrote a memoir , From the Shadows, in which he described the no-nonsense, George Schultz as " the toughest Secretary of State I ever knew" who " saw no contradiction" in bleeding the Soviets in one part of the world while negotiating with them in another. Secretary Schultz, whose opinion of the CIA on a 1 to 10 scale hovered in the negative integers, was not nearly as complimentary to Robert Gates in his own, ponderously unreadable, memoirs, but that is a story for another day.
I bring this anecdote of a less complex era up because of the furor over the Bush administration classifying the Pasdaran ( the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) as a terrorist organization in order to take action against those business enterprises that are connected to the Pasdaran. The objections to this move appear to be two-fold: first, that it hypothetically puts American military personnel at risk of maltreatment and, secondly, that it could disrupt negotiations with Iran on a range of bilateral and international issues, most importantly, Iraq.
The critics are incorrect. It is a move a quarter-century overdue.
In the first instance, correctly identifying the Pasdaran as a state sponsor of international terrorism, which as a matter of historical record, it clearly is, does not prevent treating it's uniformed personnel as POWs in case of an armed conflict between Iran and the United States. The Pasdaran, by contrast, has already tortured two Americans to death - Beirut CIA station chief William Buckley and USMC Colonel William Higgins - at a time of peace between Iran and the United States.
Cry me no river of tears for Pasdaran agents in Iraq being held captive by the U.S. military or who are being whacked in some alleyway by Sunni tribals in our employ. The Iranians knew the risks, from the inception, of the rules they chose to operate under, violating the most basic precepts of international law. It did not have to be that way - even the CIA and the KGB came to a rough modus vivendi during the Cold War that prevented most escalatory incidents - Teheran though has chosen to play rough. Let them enjoy the bed they have made for themselves.
Secondly, until we have an agreement with Iran we do not have any agreement and the regime should be squeezed at every point until we do. I'm all for negotiating in earnest, making the realistic, even generous, concessions that we can easily afford, finding areas of common interest and ( eventually) normalizing relations. We should scrupulously keep our word and demonstrate to the Iranians through actions that we will deliver exactly what we promise. But until that point in time, Teheran should get no favors, no breathing space, no economic freebies of any kind until we come to an arrangement.
The leadership of Iran is a nasty and brutal group. Within that circle, Ahmadinejad represents some of the regime's worst elements but, as a whole, the Iranians do not seem irrational, simply adversarial. We can cut a deal with them but we should proceed without any illusions.
IRGC STORY LINKS:
Thomas P.M. Barnett
The Newshoggers
Counterterrorism Blog
The Glittering Eye
Pundita
Right Wing Nuthouse
When Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, retired from government service after the end of the first Bush administration, he wrote a memoir , From the Shadows, in which he described the no-nonsense, George Schultz as " the toughest Secretary of State I ever knew" who " saw no contradiction" in bleeding the Soviets in one part of the world while negotiating with them in another. Secretary Schultz, whose opinion of the CIA on a 1 to 10 scale hovered in the negative integers, was not nearly as complimentary to Robert Gates in his own, ponderously unreadable, memoirs, but that is a story for another day.
I bring this anecdote of a less complex era up because of the furor over the Bush administration classifying the Pasdaran ( the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) as a terrorist organization in order to take action against those business enterprises that are connected to the Pasdaran. The objections to this move appear to be two-fold: first, that it hypothetically puts American military personnel at risk of maltreatment and, secondly, that it could disrupt negotiations with Iran on a range of bilateral and international issues, most importantly, Iraq.
The critics are incorrect. It is a move a quarter-century overdue.
In the first instance, correctly identifying the Pasdaran as a state sponsor of international terrorism, which as a matter of historical record, it clearly is, does not prevent treating it's uniformed personnel as POWs in case of an armed conflict between Iran and the United States. The Pasdaran, by contrast, has already tortured two Americans to death - Beirut CIA station chief William Buckley and USMC Colonel William Higgins - at a time of peace between Iran and the United States.
Cry me no river of tears for Pasdaran agents in Iraq being held captive by the U.S. military or who are being whacked in some alleyway by Sunni tribals in our employ. The Iranians knew the risks, from the inception, of the rules they chose to operate under, violating the most basic precepts of international law. It did not have to be that way - even the CIA and the KGB came to a rough modus vivendi during the Cold War that prevented most escalatory incidents - Teheran though has chosen to play rough. Let them enjoy the bed they have made for themselves.
Secondly, until we have an agreement with Iran we do not have any agreement and the regime should be squeezed at every point until we do. I'm all for negotiating in earnest, making the realistic, even generous, concessions that we can easily afford, finding areas of common interest and ( eventually) normalizing relations. We should scrupulously keep our word and demonstrate to the Iranians through actions that we will deliver exactly what we promise. But until that point in time, Teheran should get no favors, no breathing space, no economic freebies of any kind until we come to an arrangement.
The leadership of Iran is a nasty and brutal group. Within that circle, Ahmadinejad represents some of the regime's worst elements but, as a whole, the Iranians do not seem irrational, simply adversarial. We can cut a deal with them but we should proceed without any illusions.
IRGC STORY LINKS:
Thomas P.M. Barnett
The Newshoggers
Counterterrorism Blog
The Glittering Eye
Pundita
Right Wing Nuthouse
Labels: bush, diplomacy, foreign policy, international law, iran, mideast, terrorism
¶ 8:30 PM 5 comments
Sunday, August 12, 2007
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND LEGACY MENTALITIES
"It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."
- John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
"Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."
-Osama bin Laden, "amir" of al Qaida
Both the Soviet Union and the United States amassed immense nuclear arsenals during the Cold War of approximately 50,000 warheads of various sizes and a range of systems with which to deliver these terrifying weapons. A number of other second and third tier states later joined "the nuclear club", seeking a hedge against regional enemies or desiring the totemic status in international relations brought by possession of nuclear arms.
None of these states, not even Israel which is reputed to have up to 200 nuclear bombs, ever developed a nuclear weapons capability that remotely matched that of the superpowers. A number of nuclear-capable states have either eschewed building nuclear weapons (Germany, Japan, Taiwan) or have been persuaded to disarm those that they had inherited or assembled ( Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and South Africa).
So lopsided are the throw-weight ratios between countries with small yield or primitive atomic weapons and the stockpiles retained by the U.S. and Russia that most of the nuclear club have arsenals that are useful only for deterring a military attack from their immediate non-nuclear neighbors or a nuclear peer. Pakistan's nuclear status was of no help in warding off American demands after 9/11; had Islamabad attempted to brandish, much less use, nuclear weapons in defense of their Taliban clients, it would have surely invited Pakistan's immediate destruction.
Cheryl Rofer of Whirledview, had a post "The Necessity of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent: A White Paper" that analyzed a recent quasi-official document “White Paper on the Necessity of the U. S. Nuclear Deterrent” authored by a cluster of national security VIPs, including several past CIA directors and current advisers to the US Strategic Command. The paper summarizes many obvious points about American nuclear deterrence and calls for a " debate". Cheryl found the paper to be lacking:
"No real threat assessment is offered, just vaguely threatening words about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. For a group of folks trying to move out of the Cold War mindset, that’s an interesting ordering of countries.
....Is the white paper saying that US nuclear policy is only about deterrence? Nothing about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its obligations? Nothing about the uselessness of deterrence against mobile subnational groups with no territory to defend? The only thing that is important to our allies is US security assurances, backed up by the threat of nuclear warfare?
....This white paper is stuck in the the Cold War, circa 1969. "
I think the white paper authors are correct that the perceived credibility of American nuclear guarantees dampen down potential nuclear arms races among third parties, notably in Northern Asia. Cheryl however, is correct on the larger point that the analytical assumptions of the paper are shot through with Cold War legacy mentalities.
Arguably, the white paper does not even match the Cold War era in terms of nuanced thinking. In 1958, in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger wrote:
"It is the task of strategic doctrine to strike a balance between the physical and the psychological aspects of deterrence, between the desire to pose a maximum threat and the reality that no threat is stronger than the belief of the opponent that it will in fact be used. A strategy which poses alternatives that policy-makers are unwilling to confront will induce either inaction or improvisation. A strategy which establishes a superior balance between power and will may then gain a crucial advantage, because it permits initiative and shifts to the other side the risks inherent in making countermoves" (Kissinger, 175)
CKR aptly pointed out the obvious alternative of non-state and subnational actors with nuclear weapons that the white paper's authors were " unwilling to confront" in their state-centric focus.
Here are a few others that would relate to the state of American deterrence, enhancing or undermining it:
* Potential, novel, weaponization of of aspects of nuclear particle research outside classic uranium 235 and plutonium bombs.
* The need for more effective controls and tracking of trade in esoteric, dual-use, technologies of weaponization that make nuclear devices useful militarily. Increasing transparency level of same.
*Identifying non-nuclear technologies that could result in weapons of a comparable order of magnitude of destruction or loss of life as with low-level nuclear weapons.
* Strengthening and expanding the inspections regime under which NPT signatories are permitted access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Addition of automatic penalties if NPT signatories are caught cheating, subject to removal or waiver by the UNSC ( putting the burden on the accused proliferator to come clean instead of on the IAEA or UNSC states to get any meaningful sanctions applied).
* De-escalating the potential for future conflict between nuclear and nuclear capable states by instituting new regional diplomatic and security structures.
* International nuclear convention regarding the security of nuclear materials and command and control by the nuclear weapons states.
* Moral-political-legal campaigns that degrade the credibility of American deterrence by ratcheting upward the "unthinkability" of nuclear weapons use, thus tempting potential adversaries to risk the very brinksmanship scenarios ( war, apocalyptic terrorism) that would make the use of nuclear weapons possible or likely.
* Avoiding "nuclear weapons deflation" as an unintended consequence of arms control. Striking a balance between reducing large American and Russian arsenals and unduly increasing the military value of small ones and the temptation to increase them in order to reach "parity" with America and Russia ( "linkage" for all nuclear club arsenals). Or worse, the temptation to sell or use them.
* Removal of strategic nuclear materials from the global black market by vastly accelerating certified destruction or reprocessing of obsolete national stocks.
* Developing new models of deterrence that would be concurrently perceived as credible by states, non-state actors and subnational/ transnational networks who may all be within an interdependent nexus of responsibility for a catastrophic WMD attack.
* Identifying and categorizing non-state network threats to American security with potential WMD capacity.
* Understanding the parameters of the possible in terms of private networks and WMD capabilities, through intellectually honest red team exercises.
* Examining the balance of utility between emphasizing clarity and uncertainty in American nuclear response and deterrence policy in a multi-polar and non-state actor era.
Many of my variables are not new but they are of at least more recent vintage and of a broader horizon than what the white paper has considered. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts as well.
"It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."
- John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
"Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."
-Osama bin Laden, "amir" of al Qaida
Both the Soviet Union and the United States amassed immense nuclear arsenals during the Cold War of approximately 50,000 warheads of various sizes and a range of systems with which to deliver these terrifying weapons. A number of other second and third tier states later joined "the nuclear club", seeking a hedge against regional enemies or desiring the totemic status in international relations brought by possession of nuclear arms.
None of these states, not even Israel which is reputed to have up to 200 nuclear bombs, ever developed a nuclear weapons capability that remotely matched that of the superpowers. A number of nuclear-capable states have either eschewed building nuclear weapons (Germany, Japan, Taiwan) or have been persuaded to disarm those that they had inherited or assembled ( Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and South Africa).
So lopsided are the throw-weight ratios between countries with small yield or primitive atomic weapons and the stockpiles retained by the U.S. and Russia that most of the nuclear club have arsenals that are useful only for deterring a military attack from their immediate non-nuclear neighbors or a nuclear peer. Pakistan's nuclear status was of no help in warding off American demands after 9/11; had Islamabad attempted to brandish, much less use, nuclear weapons in defense of their Taliban clients, it would have surely invited Pakistan's immediate destruction.
Cheryl Rofer of Whirledview, had a post "The Necessity of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent: A White Paper" that analyzed a recent quasi-official document “White Paper on the Necessity of the U. S. Nuclear Deterrent” authored by a cluster of national security VIPs, including several past CIA directors and current advisers to the US Strategic Command. The paper summarizes many obvious points about American nuclear deterrence and calls for a " debate". Cheryl found the paper to be lacking:
"No real threat assessment is offered, just vaguely threatening words about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. For a group of folks trying to move out of the Cold War mindset, that’s an interesting ordering of countries.
....Is the white paper saying that US nuclear policy is only about deterrence? Nothing about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its obligations? Nothing about the uselessness of deterrence against mobile subnational groups with no territory to defend? The only thing that is important to our allies is US security assurances, backed up by the threat of nuclear warfare?
....This white paper is stuck in the the Cold War, circa 1969. "
I think the white paper authors are correct that the perceived credibility of American nuclear guarantees dampen down potential nuclear arms races among third parties, notably in Northern Asia. Cheryl however, is correct on the larger point that the analytical assumptions of the paper are shot through with Cold War legacy mentalities.
Arguably, the white paper does not even match the Cold War era in terms of nuanced thinking. In 1958, in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger wrote:
"It is the task of strategic doctrine to strike a balance between the physical and the psychological aspects of deterrence, between the desire to pose a maximum threat and the reality that no threat is stronger than the belief of the opponent that it will in fact be used. A strategy which poses alternatives that policy-makers are unwilling to confront will induce either inaction or improvisation. A strategy which establishes a superior balance between power and will may then gain a crucial advantage, because it permits initiative and shifts to the other side the risks inherent in making countermoves" (Kissinger, 175)
CKR aptly pointed out the obvious alternative of non-state and subnational actors with nuclear weapons that the white paper's authors were " unwilling to confront" in their state-centric focus.
Here are a few others that would relate to the state of American deterrence, enhancing or undermining it:
* Potential, novel, weaponization of of aspects of nuclear particle research outside classic uranium 235 and plutonium bombs.
* The need for more effective controls and tracking of trade in esoteric, dual-use, technologies of weaponization that make nuclear devices useful militarily. Increasing transparency level of same.
*Identifying non-nuclear technologies that could result in weapons of a comparable order of magnitude of destruction or loss of life as with low-level nuclear weapons.
* Strengthening and expanding the inspections regime under which NPT signatories are permitted access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Addition of automatic penalties if NPT signatories are caught cheating, subject to removal or waiver by the UNSC ( putting the burden on the accused proliferator to come clean instead of on the IAEA or UNSC states to get any meaningful sanctions applied).
* De-escalating the potential for future conflict between nuclear and nuclear capable states by instituting new regional diplomatic and security structures.
* International nuclear convention regarding the security of nuclear materials and command and control by the nuclear weapons states.
* Moral-political-legal campaigns that degrade the credibility of American deterrence by ratcheting upward the "unthinkability" of nuclear weapons use, thus tempting potential adversaries to risk the very brinksmanship scenarios ( war, apocalyptic terrorism) that would make the use of nuclear weapons possible or likely.
* Avoiding "nuclear weapons deflation" as an unintended consequence of arms control. Striking a balance between reducing large American and Russian arsenals and unduly increasing the military value of small ones and the temptation to increase them in order to reach "parity" with America and Russia ( "linkage" for all nuclear club arsenals). Or worse, the temptation to sell or use them.
* Removal of strategic nuclear materials from the global black market by vastly accelerating certified destruction or reprocessing of obsolete national stocks.
* Developing new models of deterrence that would be concurrently perceived as credible by states, non-state actors and subnational/ transnational networks who may all be within an interdependent nexus of responsibility for a catastrophic WMD attack.
* Identifying and categorizing non-state network threats to American security with potential WMD capacity.
* Understanding the parameters of the possible in terms of private networks and WMD capabilities, through intellectually honest red team exercises.
* Examining the balance of utility between emphasizing clarity and uncertainty in American nuclear response and deterrence policy in a multi-polar and non-state actor era.
Many of my variables are not new but they are of at least more recent vintage and of a broader horizon than what the white paper has considered. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts as well.
Labels: 21st century, al qaida, America, arms control, CKR, deterrence, diplomacy, military, networks, nuclear, terrorism, war, whirledview, youtube
¶ 12:38 PM 7 comments
Friday, August 10, 2007
A GLITTERING EYE ON RICHARDSON'S NEW REALISM
Dave Schuler has a superb examination about Governor Bill Richardson's major foreign policy essay in the Harvard International Review.
I can applaud the serious effort by Richardson, a former high level diplomat, to address foreign policy in a thoughtful way, even though I agree with Dave that many of Richardson's proposed solutions do not logically address the strategic trends he identifies ( thought they probably appeal to regular, middle-class, Democratic activists if not the wackiest of the wingnuts).
Dave Schuler has a superb examination about Governor Bill Richardson's major foreign policy essay in the Harvard International Review.
I can applaud the serious effort by Richardson, a former high level diplomat, to address foreign policy in a thoughtful way, even though I agree with Dave that many of Richardson's proposed solutions do not logically address the strategic trends he identifies ( thought they probably appeal to regular, middle-class, Democratic activists if not the wackiest of the wingnuts).
Labels: 2008, bill richardson, diplomacy, foreign policy, glittering eye, international law, national security, terrorism, war
¶ 8:58 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
THE STRATEGIC THOUGHT DEFICIT
Dr. Barnett, opining yesterday on the recent NYT op-ed on Kennan:
"The dearth of strategic thinking reaches a new low, or maybe this is just a Kennan scholar pre-hawking his new book.
Now we get the out-of-time argument that containment is the answer on radical Islam.
It's not much of an argument, but rather a decent rehashing of Kennan's thinking on the Sovs. The problem here, of course, is that al-Qaida doesn't translate well to an authoritarian empire already in existence.
Another problem, which I flayed at length in PNM, is that global historical forces are moving in a direction very different from that of the late 1940s and early 1950s. We're not in some bilat standoff of camps with little dynamic interchange between them. We're watching a consolidation period unfold following a massive expansion of globalization, one that's simultaneously accompanied by its further expansion thanks to the huge resource draw from rising Asia. "
We have a severe shortage of Kennans these days. While of course, there was only one Kennan writing the Long Telegram there were also the Stimsons, Marshalls, Achesons, Nitzes, Forrestals, Vandenbergs, Lovetts, Dulles', McCloys, Wohlstetters, Kahns and many others who came before and after Kennan who made their own contributions to the development of the Containment strategy. Our diplomatic and national security bench was deep in those days and often, these statesmen brought real experience in international finance, logistics and linguistics to the table ( Wohlstetter and Kahn were the cutting edge of the academic -strategist wave that replaced the Wall Street and Railroad company lawyer generation).
Today, we see most of our big picture and thinkers outside of government and often academia as well, writing books, giving speeches or building private sector companies. Tellingly, the most innovative policy of Bush's second term was developed not by a White House aide or a Cabinet secretary but by General David Petraeus - and his counterinsurgency strategy for Iraq was only accepted by the powers that be out of political and military desperation. The Democrats are no better, having had essentially no new policy ideas in almost two generations and a deep desire to ignore the existence of foreign policy altogether.
In part, this is a generational problem. Not only are the Boomers an amazingly self-centered lot, endlessly obsessing on ( and trying to re-live) the political traumas of their now distant youth, but the statesmen among them cut their teeth on the Cold War, bipolar, pre-Globalization, rigidly hierarchical world and are, for the most part, unwilling to revisit their anachronistic assumptions. There are exceptions but these people are usually outliers in some way, personally or professionally.
We may need to construct our defenses for the 21st century by retooling civil society to become more resilient, adaptive and dynamic - for the short term, our governing class may be a lost cause.
Dr. Barnett, opining yesterday on the recent NYT op-ed on Kennan:
"The dearth of strategic thinking reaches a new low, or maybe this is just a Kennan scholar pre-hawking his new book.
Now we get the out-of-time argument that containment is the answer on radical Islam.
It's not much of an argument, but rather a decent rehashing of Kennan's thinking on the Sovs. The problem here, of course, is that al-Qaida doesn't translate well to an authoritarian empire already in existence.
Another problem, which I flayed at length in PNM, is that global historical forces are moving in a direction very different from that of the late 1940s and early 1950s. We're not in some bilat standoff of camps with little dynamic interchange between them. We're watching a consolidation period unfold following a massive expansion of globalization, one that's simultaneously accompanied by its further expansion thanks to the huge resource draw from rising Asia. "
We have a severe shortage of Kennans these days. While of course, there was only one Kennan writing the Long Telegram there were also the Stimsons, Marshalls, Achesons, Nitzes, Forrestals, Vandenbergs, Lovetts, Dulles', McCloys, Wohlstetters, Kahns and many others who came before and after Kennan who made their own contributions to the development of the Containment strategy. Our diplomatic and national security bench was deep in those days and often, these statesmen brought real experience in international finance, logistics and linguistics to the table ( Wohlstetter and Kahn were the cutting edge of the academic -strategist wave that replaced the Wall Street and Railroad company lawyer generation).
Today, we see most of our big picture and thinkers outside of government and often academia as well, writing books, giving speeches or building private sector companies. Tellingly, the most innovative policy of Bush's second term was developed not by a White House aide or a Cabinet secretary but by General David Petraeus - and his counterinsurgency strategy for Iraq was only accepted by the powers that be out of political and military desperation. The Democrats are no better, having had essentially no new policy ideas in almost two generations and a deep desire to ignore the existence of foreign policy altogether.
In part, this is a generational problem. Not only are the Boomers an amazingly self-centered lot, endlessly obsessing on ( and trying to re-live) the political traumas of their now distant youth, but the statesmen among them cut their teeth on the Cold War, bipolar, pre-Globalization, rigidly hierarchical world and are, for the most part, unwilling to revisit their anachronistic assumptions. There are exceptions but these people are usually outliers in some way, personally or professionally.
We may need to construct our defenses for the 21st century by retooling civil society to become more resilient, adaptive and dynamic - for the short term, our governing class may be a lost cause.
Labels: 20th century, 21st century, barnett, diplomacy, foreign policy, george kennan, history, national security, society, strategy
¶ 7:18 PM 11 comments
Sunday, July 29, 2007
MOUNTAINRUNNER ON KENNAN'S LESSONS
Matt at MountainRunner has a fine post on lessons that can be drawn from George Kennan's "Long Telegram".
"For those who frame the modern conflict in Cold War images, it might be useful to remember the real designs and purposes of early Cold War policies. For those who think public diplomacy is simply a beauty contest to hopefully "win hearts", should go back to the aggressive "five-dollar, five syllable" foundation of public diplomacy as a psychological struggle for minds and wills against an enemy who understood perception management."
Kennan's two volume memoirs make for some interesting reading, as does his work Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, though it helps to have some of the period's diplomatic historiography under your belt to better read between the lines of Kennan's prose. If we have any George Kennan equivalents today, they are probably employed by the Defense Department or have been, which says a great deal about the intellectual and political decline of the State Department since Kennan's time.
KENNAN ADDENDUM:
"America and the Russian Future (1951)" by George F. Kennan
"More reflections on George Kennan" by Dave Schuler
"LET HISTORY JUDGE THE FATHER OF CONTAINMENT " - Zenpundit
"George Kennan Speaks to the War on Terror" and "Tipping Points" by CKR
Matt at MountainRunner has a fine post on lessons that can be drawn from George Kennan's "Long Telegram".
"For those who frame the modern conflict in Cold War images, it might be useful to remember the real designs and purposes of early Cold War policies. For those who think public diplomacy is simply a beauty contest to hopefully "win hearts", should go back to the aggressive "five-dollar, five syllable" foundation of public diplomacy as a psychological struggle for minds and wills against an enemy who understood perception management."
Kennan's two volume memoirs make for some interesting reading, as does his work Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, though it helps to have some of the period's diplomatic historiography under your belt to better read between the lines of Kennan's prose. If we have any George Kennan equivalents today, they are probably employed by the Defense Department or have been, which says a great deal about the intellectual and political decline of the State Department since Kennan's time.
KENNAN ADDENDUM:
"America and the Russian Future (1951)" by George F. Kennan
"More reflections on George Kennan" by Dave Schuler
"LET HISTORY JUDGE THE FATHER OF CONTAINMENT " - Zenpundit
"George Kennan Speaks to the War on Terror" and "Tipping Points" by CKR
Labels: America, cold war, Communism, diplomacy, diplomatic history, george kennan, mountainrunner, national security, strategy, war
¶ 2:05 PM 11 comments
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
OBAMA'S LACK OF SEA-LEGS IN FOREIGN POLICY
Or the politics of foreign policy. Senator Barack Obama is being blistered by his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination:
" Barack Obama's offer to meet without precondition with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran touched off a war of words, with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton calling him naive and Obama linking her to President Bush's diplomacy.
Older politicians in both parties questioned the wisdom of such a course, while Obama's supporters characterized it as a repudiation of Bush policies of refusing to engage with certain adversaries.
It triggered a round of competing memos and statements Tuesday between the chief Democratic presidential rivals. Obama's team portrayed it as a bold stroke; Clinton supporters saw it as a gaffe that underscored the freshman senator's lack of foreign policy experience.
"I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive," Clinton was quoted in an interview with the Quad-City Times that was posted on the Iowa newspaper's Web site on Tuesday."
As a tactical diplomatic move, a change of administrations is a good time to quietly investigate de-escalating conflicts with adversaries or improving frigid relations with important partners or allies. In principle, it makes more sense than a blanket refusal to ever negotiate. An early, high profile volte-face in relations with previously hostile countries, provided there are substantive achievments with which to point as well, can be a very important signal to the rest of the world for a new president.
On the other hand, giving out something as valuable as presidential face-time, across the board to some of the world's worst state actors, in exchange for nothing, is stupid. It diminishes the value of a presidential summit, undercuts our diplomats and demoralizes our friends while giving our enemies all the wrong incentives. If I were to guess, I'd say this empty, photo-op, gesture was the brainchild of Tony Lake, a fountainhead of bad national security analysis for four decades and currently Obama's top foreign policy guru.
I could be wrong. Lake may have had little to do with Obama's statement but the political fallout at least would have been easy to predict if it had been widely discussed on the Obama team. My two cents is that Obama should broaden his advisory circle, or avail himself of the experience available to him as a Senator in the form of staffers, elder statesmen and thought leaders. The questions are only going to become harder and sharper from this point on.
Or the politics of foreign policy. Senator Barack Obama is being blistered by his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination:
" Barack Obama's offer to meet without precondition with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran touched off a war of words, with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton calling him naive and Obama linking her to President Bush's diplomacy.
Older politicians in both parties questioned the wisdom of such a course, while Obama's supporters characterized it as a repudiation of Bush policies of refusing to engage with certain adversaries.
It triggered a round of competing memos and statements Tuesday between the chief Democratic presidential rivals. Obama's team portrayed it as a bold stroke; Clinton supporters saw it as a gaffe that underscored the freshman senator's lack of foreign policy experience.
"I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive," Clinton was quoted in an interview with the Quad-City Times that was posted on the Iowa newspaper's Web site on Tuesday."
As a tactical diplomatic move, a change of administrations is a good time to quietly investigate de-escalating conflicts with adversaries or improving frigid relations with important partners or allies. In principle, it makes more sense than a blanket refusal to ever negotiate. An early, high profile volte-face in relations with previously hostile countries, provided there are substantive achievments with which to point as well, can be a very important signal to the rest of the world for a new president.
On the other hand, giving out something as valuable as presidential face-time, across the board to some of the world's worst state actors, in exchange for nothing, is stupid. It diminishes the value of a presidential summit, undercuts our diplomats and demoralizes our friends while giving our enemies all the wrong incentives. If I were to guess, I'd say this empty, photo-op, gesture was the brainchild of Tony Lake, a fountainhead of bad national security analysis for four decades and currently Obama's top foreign policy guru.
I could be wrong. Lake may have had little to do with Obama's statement but the political fallout at least would have been easy to predict if it had been widely discussed on the Obama team. My two cents is that Obama should broaden his advisory circle, or avail himself of the experience available to him as a Senator in the form of staffers, elder statesmen and thought leaders. The questions are only going to become harder and sharper from this point on.
Labels: 2008, democratic party, diplomacy, elections, foreign policy, national security, obama
¶ 4:01 PM 11 comments
Sunday, July 22, 2007
THE TRIBAL COIN OF THE REALM
[ed. note - entry corrected, my apologies to Colonel McCallister and thanks to Dave for the clarification]
Dave Dilegge, editor of The Small Wars Journal has an excellent post up at The SWJ Blog entitled "COIN in a Tribal Society", relaying the contents of an email from Colonel William (Mac) McCallister (USA Ret.), currently an adivser with II MEF in Iraq. A very rich bibilographic entry, McCallister hits hard at the point of our general failure to communicate our words and deeds in a culturally relevant and comprehensible frame:
"The design and execution of a counterinsurgency campaign in tribal society must reflect the opponent’s cultural realities, his social norms and conventions of war and peacemaking. The fight in Anbar province is a “clash of martial cultures” and reflects two divergent concepts of victory and defeat and “rules of play”. The conventions of war and peace for both sides are based on unique historical and social experience and are expressed in each side’s stylized way of fighting and peacemaking. The central tenet in the design and execution of counterinsurgency operations is that it must take into consideration an opponent’s cultural realities so as to effectively communicate intent.
The study of the “tribal terrain” is a challenge. The reason - comprehensive research materials on Iraqi tribal organization, tribal diplomacy, and the art of tribal war and peacemaking are sparse. The majority of reading materials therefore are general and regional in nature and require “reading between the lines” to gain an appreciation for tribal organizing principles, cultural operating codes, and the tribal art of war and peace. The material is intended to assist the student of the tribal art of war and peace in developing an analytic structure for assessing personal experiences, observations and unit after action reports. The ultimate objective is to assist the warfighter in assessing the effectiveness of counterinsurgency tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and cultural criteria to determine why certain approaches succeed or fail."
I will go one better; the United States government has not come to grips with the need to craft our diplomatic and strategic inititives with a multi-tiered and interactively complex set of audiences in mind. Too often, our leaders are playing primarily to the domestic American audience and then secondarily - and arguably a very distant second - a narrow and westernized foreign elite.
Radical transparency created by the internet and information technologies are breaking down the ability to compartmentalize messages and signals - the amplitude is higher and "broadcasting" can now take place far down the chain with strategic corporals in dusty villages instead of UN ambassadors across polished tables. The rules of the game are changing and we must change with it.
ADDENDUM:
Colonel W. Patrick Lang " How to Work With Tribesmen" (PDF)
David Ronfeldt -"In Search of How Societies Work: Tribes, the First and Forever Form"(PDF)
[ed. note - entry corrected, my apologies to Colonel McCallister and thanks to Dave for the clarification]
Dave Dilegge, editor of The Small Wars Journal has an excellent post up at The SWJ Blog entitled "COIN in a Tribal Society", relaying the contents of an email from Colonel William (Mac) McCallister (USA Ret.), currently an adivser with II MEF in Iraq. A very rich bibilographic entry, McCallister hits hard at the point of our general failure to communicate our words and deeds in a culturally relevant and comprehensible frame:
"The design and execution of a counterinsurgency campaign in tribal society must reflect the opponent’s cultural realities, his social norms and conventions of war and peacemaking. The fight in Anbar province is a “clash of martial cultures” and reflects two divergent concepts of victory and defeat and “rules of play”. The conventions of war and peace for both sides are based on unique historical and social experience and are expressed in each side’s stylized way of fighting and peacemaking. The central tenet in the design and execution of counterinsurgency operations is that it must take into consideration an opponent’s cultural realities so as to effectively communicate intent.
The study of the “tribal terrain” is a challenge. The reason - comprehensive research materials on Iraqi tribal organization, tribal diplomacy, and the art of tribal war and peacemaking are sparse. The majority of reading materials therefore are general and regional in nature and require “reading between the lines” to gain an appreciation for tribal organizing principles, cultural operating codes, and the tribal art of war and peace. The material is intended to assist the student of the tribal art of war and peace in developing an analytic structure for assessing personal experiences, observations and unit after action reports. The ultimate objective is to assist the warfighter in assessing the effectiveness of counterinsurgency tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and cultural criteria to determine why certain approaches succeed or fail."
I will go one better; the United States government has not come to grips with the need to craft our diplomatic and strategic inititives with a multi-tiered and interactively complex set of audiences in mind. Too often, our leaders are playing primarily to the domestic American audience and then secondarily - and arguably a very distant second - a narrow and westernized foreign elite.
Radical transparency created by the internet and information technologies are breaking down the ability to compartmentalize messages and signals - the amplitude is higher and "broadcasting" can now take place far down the chain with strategic corporals in dusty villages instead of UN ambassadors across polished tables. The rules of the game are changing and we must change with it.
ADDENDUM:
Colonel W. Patrick Lang " How to Work With Tribesmen" (PDF)
David Ronfeldt -"In Search of How Societies Work: Tribes, the First and Forever Form"(PDF)
Labels: COIN, counterinsurgency, dilegge, diplomacy, iraq, radical transparency, small wars journal, swj blog
¶ 6:59 PM 3 comments
Thursday, April 12, 2007
ZENPUNDIT GUEST POST AT DEMOCRACY PROJECT
Through the kind invitation of my friend, columnist and former FPRI analyst, Bruce Kesler, the well-regarded blog, Democracy Project, is running a guest post "Modern Foreign Policy Execution" by your humble host, subtitled "Instead of Crowning a New Czar, Bush Should Ignite A Revolution", where I offer some suggestions for changing the decidedly broken interagency process for foreign policy. A brief excerpt:
"Secretary Rice rattled cages at Foggy Bottom by prioritizing Iraq assignments over the “old boy” network and PC concerns that dominated past FSO assignments, making official the informal practice that prevailed under Secretary Powell. Resistance by diplomats and bureaucrats to working in dangerous locales that are critical national security priorities remains unacceptably high. This is partly due to reasonable safety concerns but also stems from political opposition to administration policy and simple resistance to a synergistic mindset that requires housing “other agencies” in “their” embassies. Even the DIA has been credibly accused of holding back Arabic linguists from Iraq duty and of having managers who retaliate against analysts with Arabic skills who volunteer for Baghdad duty and of enforcing a “groupthink” company line in analysis. Frankly, this is no way to run a foreign policy in a time of peace, much less one of war. "
Read the rest here.
A personal aside: Bruce is a veteran of the Vietnam War and he has both an interest and some healthy skepticism toward the many newer military theories. One of those is 4GW, which I believe has utility for analysts, historians and statesmen as well as for military professionals. While I write about 4GW with some frequency, it is properly associated with William Lind, Martin van Creveld, Chet Richards, Thomas X. Hammes, "Fabius Maximus" and other writers featured at the excellent and always thought-provoking Defense and the National Interest.
Through the kind invitation of my friend, columnist and former FPRI analyst, Bruce Kesler, the well-regarded blog, Democracy Project, is running a guest post "Modern Foreign Policy Execution" by your humble host, subtitled "Instead of Crowning a New Czar, Bush Should Ignite A Revolution", where I offer some suggestions for changing the decidedly broken interagency process for foreign policy. A brief excerpt:
"Secretary Rice rattled cages at Foggy Bottom by prioritizing Iraq assignments over the “old boy” network and PC concerns that dominated past FSO assignments, making official the informal practice that prevailed under Secretary Powell. Resistance by diplomats and bureaucrats to working in dangerous locales that are critical national security priorities remains unacceptably high. This is partly due to reasonable safety concerns but also stems from political opposition to administration policy and simple resistance to a synergistic mindset that requires housing “other agencies” in “their” embassies. Even the DIA has been credibly accused of holding back Arabic linguists from Iraq duty and of having managers who retaliate against analysts with Arabic skills who volunteer for Baghdad duty and of enforcing a “groupthink” company line in analysis. Frankly, this is no way to run a foreign policy in a time of peace, much less one of war. "
Read the rest here.
A personal aside: Bruce is a veteran of the Vietnam War and he has both an interest and some healthy skepticism toward the many newer military theories. One of those is 4GW, which I believe has utility for analysts, historians and statesmen as well as for military professionals. While I write about 4GW with some frequency, it is properly associated with William Lind, Martin van Creveld, Chet Richards, Thomas X. Hammes, "Fabius Maximus" and other writers featured at the excellent and always thought-provoking Defense and the National Interest.
Labels: bush, Democacy Project, diplomacy, foreign policy, intelligence, kesler, military, national security, networks, state department
¶ 7:59 PM 3 comments
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
WORTH A LOOK
A few days ago, I did a focused skim British Army General Rupert Smith's memoir , The Utility of Force. Smith deals in detail with scenarios that readers here would recognize as "System Administration" and "4GW", though Smith uses neither of those terms. Smith also understands that war is no longer compartmentalized but is part of a seamless arc of conflict going on at multiple levels. Interview video clip of General Smith talking to Jon Stewart here.
A few days ago, I did a focused skim British Army General Rupert Smith's memoir , The Utility of Force. Smith deals in detail with scenarios that readers here would recognize as "System Administration" and "4GW", though Smith uses neither of those terms. Smith also understands that war is no longer compartmentalized but is part of a seamless arc of conflict going on at multiple levels. Interview video clip of General Smith talking to Jon Stewart here.
Labels: 4GW, diplomacy, military, Rupert Smith, system administration, war
¶ 8:38 AM 2 comments
Sunday, February 25, 2007
ON PUTIN AND HIS IMAGE ABROAD: THE RUSSIAN GEORGE W. BUSH ?
President Vladimir Putin of Russia is under increasingly critical western scrutiny these days. Drum roll please....:
"Post-Putin" By Steven Lee Myers -NYT Magazine
"The Putin Era in Historical Perspective" (PDF) -National Intelligence Council report
"Kremlin Inc. Why are Vladimir Putin's opponents dying?" - Michael Specter, The New Yorker
"Who's killing Putin's enemies? -Part I" and "Part II" - Michael Specter, The Guardian Observer Magazine
"Seven Questions: Russia’s Cloaks and Daggers " -Foreign Policy
"Europe wary after Putin tirade" - The Daily Telegraph
"Russia’s Managed Democracy" by Perry Anderson - London Review of Books
The Russians have expressed some concern on how Putin's recent speech in Munich has been portrayed:
"One Cold War Was Enough" - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -Washington Post
They should be concerned.
Russia's siloviki political system is a carrot and stick machine for quiet, minimalist, authoritarianism that seeks to keep the masses of the Russian public complacently supportive while neutralizing intelligentsia critics (unpopular with the masses anyway), neutering the free press and preventing the emergence of any serious (or semi-serious) power blocs or public figures who might challenge the interests of the regime.
Normally, Russian hamfisted behavior at home and abroad raises more hackles than this but at the moment, much of the world's intellectuals and political literati are obssessed with George W. Bush. The Bush administration soaks up a great deal of negative rhetoric and political energy both here at home and overseas. But as Bush's term wears on and certainly by the time he leaves office, this enormous global resentment and capacity for selective outrage will begin casting about for new "villains". This is not to say Putin's regime is a good one or that Russia can be regarded as a democracy; it can't. These are real issues to be addressed and not swept under the rug. But if you become highly exercised over Vladimir Putin, while being conspicuously silent over Robert Mugabe or Dar Fur, your moral calculus is in disarray
Putin will clearly be in that bulls-eye at that time and there will be a media stampede to push the already poor state of U.S.-Russian and EU-Russian relations over a cliff.
Hat tips to Dr. Diane Labrosse of H-Diplo and Stan Reber of the SWC
President Vladimir Putin of Russia is under increasingly critical western scrutiny these days. Drum roll please....:
"Post-Putin" By Steven Lee Myers -NYT Magazine
"The Putin Era in Historical Perspective" (PDF) -National Intelligence Council report
"Kremlin Inc. Why are Vladimir Putin's opponents dying?" - Michael Specter, The New Yorker
"Who's killing Putin's enemies? -Part I" and "Part II" - Michael Specter, The Guardian Observer Magazine
"Seven Questions: Russia’s Cloaks and Daggers " -Foreign Policy
"Europe wary after Putin tirade" - The Daily Telegraph
"Russia’s Managed Democracy" by Perry Anderson - London Review of Books
The Russians have expressed some concern on how Putin's recent speech in Munich has been portrayed:
"One Cold War Was Enough" - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -Washington Post
They should be concerned.
Russia's siloviki political system is a carrot and stick machine for quiet, minimalist, authoritarianism that seeks to keep the masses of the Russian public complacently supportive while neutralizing intelligentsia critics (unpopular with the masses anyway), neutering the free press and preventing the emergence of any serious (or semi-serious) power blocs or public figures who might challenge the interests of the regime.
Normally, Russian hamfisted behavior at home and abroad raises more hackles than this but at the moment, much of the world's intellectuals and political literati are obssessed with George W. Bush. The Bush administration soaks up a great deal of negative rhetoric and political energy both here at home and overseas. But as Bush's term wears on and certainly by the time he leaves office, this enormous global resentment and capacity for selective outrage will begin casting about for new "villains". This is not to say Putin's regime is a good one or that Russia can be regarded as a democracy; it can't. These are real issues to be addressed and not swept under the rug. But if you become highly exercised over Vladimir Putin, while being conspicuously silent over Robert Mugabe or Dar Fur, your moral calculus is in disarray
Putin will clearly be in that bulls-eye at that time and there will be a media stampede to push the already poor state of U.S.-Russian and EU-Russian relations over a cliff.
Hat tips to Dr. Diane Labrosse of H-Diplo and Stan Reber of the SWC
Labels: bush, diplomacy, foreign policy, media, putin, russia, siloviki
¶ 9:04 AM 4 comments
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
NORTH KOREAN NUKE DEAL
Hard to say that the Bush administration's recently negotiated deal with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program isn't a positive step. Cautious optimism and use of the agreement as a platform on which to build toward removing nuclear materials and technology from North Korea is about the best we can hope for, short of launching a major war for regime change ( which we are not placed to do and no one would support, short of some reckless military action by Pyongyang). A few seeds placed in the working groups section of the agreement from which a larger, regional, security structure, perhaps an " East Asian NATO", can grow.
A good round-up of links by CKR of Whirledview and sensible commentary by Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye. Nice pre-deal analysis by Dr. Barnett.
Hard to say that the Bush administration's recently negotiated deal with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program isn't a positive step. Cautious optimism and use of the agreement as a platform on which to build toward removing nuclear materials and technology from North Korea is about the best we can hope for, short of launching a major war for regime change ( which we are not placed to do and no one would support, short of some reckless military action by Pyongyang). A few seeds placed in the working groups section of the agreement from which a larger, regional, security structure, perhaps an " East Asian NATO", can grow.
A good round-up of links by CKR of Whirledview and sensible commentary by Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye. Nice pre-deal analysis by Dr. Barnett.
Labels: asia, barnett, bush, diplomacy, east asian nato, foreign policy, glittering eye, new york times, north korea, nuclear, washington post, whirledview
¶ 9:17 AM 1 comments
