James Clapper Has Problems With Words

Yesterday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Director Of National Intelligence, James Clapper, made a series of blunt statements which perturbed the senators massively.  The remarks regarding the possibility of Gaddafi prevailing in the current insurgency were bad enough apparently.  Even worse was Clapper's contention that Russia and China presented the greatest "mortal threats" to the US.

The Clapper testimony coming as it did on top of his earlier contention that the Muslim Brotherhood had become a primarily secular organization sent at least one powerful Republican senator, Lindsey Graham (SC), into high Earth orbit level dudgeon.  The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the antediluvian Democrat from Michigan, Carl Levin, confessed himself nonplussed, saying that Iran and North Korea came to mind far ahead of Russia and China.  With its usual courage and eagerness to defend honestly held and expressed conclusions, the White House dispatched National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to declare Clapper off the reservation and damn his interpretation of events in Libya as too static and having failed to take into account the fluid, dynamics of the situation.

A less impassioned view of the Clapper comments shows that the DNI was not being overly pessimistic.  Nor does it show the man to be somehow demented or terminally out to lunch.  Rather, the larger context indicates that Clapper, a man with nearly a half century in the intelligence racket, was providing an assessment based on capacities without regard to intentions.

The Geek has never been a fan of the Office of National Intelligence.  He saw it (and sees it) as an unnecessary complication in the already overly complex US intelligence community.  The ONI arguably is an artifact of Congress, a disfiguring carbuncle created by poorly informed politicians in response to an overly rapid and superficial analysis undertaken in the panic ridden aftermath of 9/11.  The gestation of ONI was the consequence not so much of a documented need for such an addition but rather the result of the usual politician's need to appear to able to take charge and move out, to do something, anything, so as to reassure We the People that someone, somewhere, is taking care of the store.

The ONI and its Director are presumably the tip of the Great American Intelligence Community Pyramid.  It is to be presumed that the DNI has the best analyses available predicated upon the totality of the best catch.  So, what is wrong?  Why are the senators--and some representatives--so torqued off with Clapper that they want his head detached from the rest of his body?  Is Clapper's view so out of touch with the facts and the analyses that his comments merit only contempt?

Or does the retired Air Force general simply have a problem with words?  Does he choose to speak too bluntly?  Would he be better off if he were to have shaded his assessments, qualified them with appropriate covers of vagueness, and expressed them with well nuanced euphemisms?

Well, let's step back and take a closer look at what Clapper said and what predicates support his views.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a many faceted creature.  As testimony before Representative King's subcommittee brought forth yesterday, the vast majority of Muslim terror plots in the US can be traced in one way or another to some faction or personality in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Homegrown terror appears to develop best if provided with foreign fertilizer.

At the same time, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has had to learn to deal with the real world's real problems in realistic ways during its years of operating an impressive array of social and educational services throughout the country.  It is not surprising that the Brotherhood has discovered the strictures and duties of the Koran do not provide all, or even most, of the solutions which must be constructed to meet the real and pressing needs of Egypt's massive impoverished population.  This has provided a significant impetus to adopting secular answers to the challenges confronting the Egyptians.

The tension between these two poles of the Brotherhood has existed for some years.  It has grown in recent months and weeks.  The uprising in Egypt and the consequent removal of Hosni Mubarak have accelerated the growth of the tension.

This implies strongly that Clapper was not wrong in his assessment but did not express it in a way which properly noted that while tensions exist, it is too early to say with certainty that the Brotherhood would tilt more and more to the secular side of the continuum as the outflow from the Mubarak overthrow continues.  He would have been far better off to have noted the foundations of the tensions, the results to date, and the range of most probable outcomes over the next few months.

In short, Clapper wasn't so much wrong as he was inarticulate.

In his assessment of Gaddafi's potential for success in the insurgency, Clapper was on solid ground.  Gaddafi has billions of dollars worth of cash stashed in and around Tripoli.  He has sufficient money to keep his mercenaries well paid.  He has sufficient cash on hand to hire more.  He has more than enough of the old vigorish to pay off his indigenous supporters.  He even has enough bread to get more weapons and munitions on the black market where cash is king and ethics totally situational.

Given that Gaddafi has no safe harbor (other than, perhaps, Venezuela) as well as a world class case of megalomania, it is certain that he has the political will to continue the war.  The US and the rest of the West have stiffened this political will by the threats of criminal prosecution.  (Way to go, guys!)

At the same time, the insurgents have a number of very serious problems.  Compared to the "elite" battalions of the Libyan army commanded by Gaddafi's kids, the rebels are untrained, poorly armed, badly organized, and overstretched in the logistics area.  While they have many reasons to keep on fighting, the coherent political will required for protracted insurgency has not had time enough to develop.  Also, compared to Gaddafi, the insurgents lack financial resources.  This, in and of itself, is a major, major disadvantage.

Overall, the correlation of forces is such as to favor Gaddafi greatly over the longer term.  The rebels failed to take the country by assault.  Now the war is rather like a siege.  There are serious reasons to doubt the capacity of the insurgents to maintain coherence and will as the siege drags on.

Neither the Senate nor the White House might have liked to hear Clapper's contentions.  That does not make the DNI wrong.  He would have been better off had he been vague, superficial, and hewed to the official White House line.  Of course, this ignores the reality that intelligence officers are presumed to have the intellectual and moral courage necessary to tell it as they see it regardless of the reaction up the chain of command.  In short, Clapper did his job.

Russia and China, "mortal threats" or not?  James Clapper was asked to rate threats.  He concluded, after having touched on Iran, North Korea, and violent political Islam, that Russia and China constituted the only "mortal threats" to the US.  This assessment sent Graham into his high Earth orbit.  This position nonplussed Levin.  Clapper's words will also disturb the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing, who will use the characterization as being "Cold War rhetoric" and similar shopworn slogans.

Clapper based his contention on perceptions of capability.  This is a well established and conservative way to measure threats.  There can be no doubt but in current and near term potential capabilities, only Russia and China present a genuine threat to the US as well as its national and strategic interests.  Both countries have impressive conventional and nuclear forces today.  Both are committed to major upgrades in both the conventional and nuclear areas.  In either case, but more so with respect to China than Russia, the proposed procurement plans will result in forces far in excess of those necessary for purely defensive measures.

Both countries, again China more than Russia, are current threats with the capacity to deal a mortal blow to CONUS.  Given the upgrades both are undertaking, each will be even more of a potentially "mortal threat" in a very few years.

It is true that the US has requested "clarification" from the Trolls of Beijing and the Boys in the Kremlin regarding current and future intentions.  Neither have responded in unambiguous fashion.  This is how it should be.  No self-respecting nation-state would believe itself to be obligated to justify its military expenditures to another nation-state.  (It boggles the mind that the Obama administration actually believed it had the right to ask let alone expect an honest answer from either county.)

Historically, intelligence agencies, military services, and governments have used perceptions of capability to equate with perceptions of intent.  While Clapper did not directly address intent, his accurate assessment of capabilities demands close attention be paid to probable intents in both the Kremlin and Forbidden City.  No one in Congress or the White House wants to do this.

If one takes Clapper's assessment to its logical conclusion, the US would have no choice but to assume the intentions of either or both the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing are not beneficent toward the US.  One would have no choice but to conclude that at the least either or both governments want to challenge US national and strategic interests.  This would require the US to invest more in its own military capabilities both conventional and nuclear (as well as newer critical arenas such as space and cyberwarfare.)

Spending more on defense (to use the polite euphemism) is not a popular notion today.  Ideology and fiscal constraints conspire to put defense on the slow track.

This is a tough matter.  On the one hand, there is a strong impetus not to spend more on the military.  On the other, the DNI honestly and too bluntly identified the "mortal threats" facing the US.  So, the best answer is to do the equivalent of shooting the messenger.  Denial is cheaper and ideologically more satisfying than facing a highly unpleasant and most inconvenient truth.

And, when the balloon does go up, when the US wakes up to find itself outclassed by one or two countries that have an agenda opposing our own, the politicians of both parties have an easy out.  They will point fingers and claim with one united voice, "Intelligence failure!"   Then they will create yet one more senior intelligence office.