Secretary of State Clinton has admitted that the US not only has been engaged in "limited" contacts with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood but intends to continue doing so, perhaps on a significantly expanded basis. These contacts have been described as "official" by some unnamed sources but are more accurately seen as "informal" or "unofficial" so as to avoid both political and legal embarrassment.
In any event and under whatsoever term, the contacts with the MB will prove controversial. Whether they will turn out as useful remains to be seen.
Not surprisingly, assorted bloggers on the Right have picked up cudgels to pound the current administration into so much jelly. Individuals such as the redoubtable defender of Israel, Barry Rubin, have alleged the Obama administration is once again demonstrating its typical, ill-informed, and counterproductive genuflection before the political totems of the Islamists. Certainly, this US policy lends itself to this interpretation given the context of Obama's apparent hostility to the government of Israel, at least as presently constituted.
It is possible to see the continued and perhaps expanding dialogue between the US and the MB as a pragmatic ploy given the political dynamics within Egypt today and into the near future. The MB in the land of its origin is a very real, very potent political player. Even with self-imposed limitations on the number of parliamentary seats and seeking the presidency, the MB is and will remain the most critical political force in Egypt--the power behind the throne even if a secular rump fills the exalted seat itself. Beyond that consideration, which is non-trivial to say the least, a constructive relation with the MB would assist the US in gaining a degree of rapprochement with other groups in the region which espouse political Islam.
The inducements for the US to have contact with the present senior leadership of the MB is not reduced by the very evident generational split within the Brotherhood. The "Young Turks" of the Egyptian Brotherhood may be quite annoyed with their elders, particularly with the ukase tossing any Brother out of the hood should he break the ban on running for the presidency or join a party other than the official MB organ. The split is real, but its effects are easy to exaggerate.
Also easy to exaggerate is the purported differences between those Brothers who emphasize practical programs aimed at solving the numerous and almost overwhelming social and economic problems currently besetting Egypt and those Brothers for whom the establishment of an Islamic state based on all Shariah all the time is the goal. There is a difference not so much in basic views and understandings separating these two wings of the MB as there is a disparity of tactics, of priorities, and of means.
Neither the "Young Turks" nor the "Old Guard" of the Brotherhood, neither the "practicalists" nor the "idealists" differ on a single basic and highly critical point. Even if this one point is all that binds together the assorted sub-groups within the Brotherhood it would be sufficient to make the MB a potent threat looming over the future of Egypt and the region. Here is the point: No member of the Brotherhood has any more regard for the nature of democracy as understood in the West than Ron Paul has for the Federal Reserve System.
Of course there are a plethora of points upon which all Brothers agree. Israel must go is one. Another is that the sway of Islam must be extended over the House of War. Still another is the debased, evil, and threatening nature of the US. There are others, but you get the drift from this very short list.
The mere fact that the Muslim Brotherhood not only in Egypt but around the world would like to see Israel expunged as the deity laughed with delight or the population of the US boiled in the pit for all eternity as the blessed of the faith watched from the gallery thoughtfully provided in Paradise for the amusement of the Muslim saint is no bar to talking with the Brothers. In past years the various administrations and their diplomats have talked both officially and otherwise with any number of people who sought our defeat. Talking with those who oppose you is one of the most, arguably the most, important aspects of diplomatic work.
Given that the MB in Egypt is a very real fact on the political ground and will remain such for some time to come, it is critical that we convey to them the limits of acceptable conduct. It is even more critical that the Brotherhood's leaders come to understand not only the limits but become convinced that the US will exact a price for any violation of these limits. In this context "contacts" does not imply a dialogue between equals but rather the transmission of facts to an auditor.
If the contacts are limited to the task of delivering a clear understanding of the limits of acceptable conduct as well as the range of possible penalties, the exercise is worth the effort. It is important that the contacts do not fall prey to mission creep. Whenever conversations, particularly those of an allegedly "informal" or "unofficial" nature, take place, the temptation to expand, make official, or otherwise raise the importance and status of the talks exists. This temptation must be resisted. Regardless of any impressions to the contrary, there is no more chance that the Brotherhood or any significant sub-group within the MB will accept American views of proper governance, proper social and political equality, proper policy regarding Israel than there is the Tea Party embracing Obamacare.
The folks on the Right and other reflexive defenders of all things Israeli ought to get a grip and stand down from their ramparts of indignation. The time to man those ramparts will come when and if the Obama administration and its diplomatic personnel get off the track of squaring away the MB on what US policy will allow and what it will not, wandering instead into the bottomless morass of palaver about democracy, transparency, the rule of law and similar (to the mind of a Brother) fables.
After all, Mr Rubin and all you others, it is not possible to draw a line in the sand without talking to the opposition. For the benefit of the Egyptians, the Americans, and, yes, the Israelis, it is rather important that the US draw a line and tell the Brothers of all stripes where the line is and what will happen should they be so ill-advised as to cross it.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The Otherworldly Realism of T-Paw
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is stuck in the second tier of Republican hopefuls despite a strenuous effort to break to daylight. He has already taken a definite stand on matters economic with strong support from the media and no palpable result in the public polling. Now he is trying to do the same in the area of foreign affairs, putting distance between himself and the neo-isolationists of the GOP on the one hand and the neocons of the George W. Bush days on the other.
T-paw's essay in self-definition came yesterday n a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations. While represented as a tour of the horizon, the candidate focused on the Mideast, Israel, and Obama's failures of policy in the region.
There is little doubt but the Obama approach to affairs in the Mideast specifically and the world generally have been marked by far more failure than success. The primary reason for this is to be found in the world view of the Nice Young Man From Chicago with its blame-America-first core. Being a perfect academic, Mr Obama is given to avoiding action in favor of words whenever possible. Then as a matter of personality, the Clueless Guy in the Oval resembles a Pearson's Puppeteer.
(For those of you who do not read science fiction, the Pearson Puppeteer was an alien species created by the fertile mind of Larry Niven. The species is characterized by a degree of caution which surpasses the merely cowardly. The "leader" of the Puppeteers is called the Hindmost--which rather resembles in concept the idea of "leading from behind" offered recently by a member of the administration in admiring tribute to Obama's presumed statesmanship in the Libyan Affair.)
The characterization of Mr Obama's approach(es) to the "Arab Spring" and the Israeli-Palestinian Question offered by Governor Pawlenty are unexceptional. So also is his emphasis on the importance of Israel to US national interests.
Where T-paw misses the cliched bus is in his fervently expressed belief in the ability of the US to act effectively in the creation of freedom and democracy in the Mideast in the wake of the recent and ongoing tumult. He is of the view that authentic democracy, genuine freedom, real Western style government with full fledged protections of minorities including women and non-Muslims can be created and maintained over time with the assistance and support of the US.
It would be very nice if the Pawlenty vision was accurate. It is not. Whether dealing with the environment of post-authoritarian Egypt or Tunisia, or contemplating how "reforms" might be facilitated by American efforts in kingdoms such as Jordan, Morocco or, most importantly of all, Saudi Arabia, Mr Pawlenty discounts the force and universality of Islam, particularly the form of Islam embraced and promoted by Salifists and Wahhibists.
The well-meaning Pawlenty (or his advisers and speechwriters) ignore the fundamental realities of Islamic thought which focus upon the deity as the source of all legitimate law. Also overlooked is the oft-repeated meme that neither democracy nor liberty as understood in the West is compatible with the dictates of the deity contained in the sacred literature as interpreted by generations of scholars of Islamic jurisprudence. The Pawlenty stance also overlooks the fundamental orientation of Islam on the duties of the believer. Not to put an inaccurately fine point on the matter, Islam elevates duty, duty to the deity over any and all personal rights. In short there is no concept of individual rights which equates in any way with the prevalent definitions of rights and responsibilities in the US or the West generally.
The failure to comprehend accurately the impact of faith and its all-inclusive nature constitutes the rock on which Mr Pawlenty's ideas of constructive engagement with the new forces of the Arab states must founder. While the people oriented toward secular concerns and world view dominated and continue to dominate the media coverage of events in the Arab states, these folk are a minority, even an endangered species. Many of the more secular minded are quite aware of this aspect of the post-authoritarian dynamic as is seen with the repeated calls in Egypt for a delay in the elections so as to allow the secularists to organize well enough to take on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist political groups.
Mr Pawlenty's call for the next president to motivate the Saudi royal house to take the path of reform is also quite otherworldly. The House of Saud exists today because of the bargain made generations ago to link its fortunes with those of the Wahhibists. There is no way on this Earth that the austere world view of Wahhibism would continence let alone participate in any sort of reform such as mentioned by T-paw. There is no chance that the Wahhibist theology is about to go along with extending any rights to non-Muslims or see the error of Mohammad's ways regarding the status of women.
In his remarks Mr Pawlenty warns against the elections which produce results antithetical to genuine democracy, authentic freedom. He may have had Iran in mind when he said this as there is no better example of a people committing political suicide at the ballot box than that. It will take far more than support for the "reform" movement of 2009 for the verdict of self-destruction by vote to be reversed. The Iranians willingly and to the later regret of some surrendered all vestiges of political autonomy to the dictates of theology. The same may happen in at least some of the Arab states celebrated as having sounded the tocsin of freedom by Mr Pawlenty.
A central point made by the presidential aspirant deserved more emphasis. The reality of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam will be with us for many, many years to come. As long as that reality existss the US will be the major target of its hate and violence. This status will not be removed even if the US were to unilaterally withdraw from every last member state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference--or even if the US were to vote for the dissolution of Israel.
The necessary conclusion is the US must not retreat to some sort of Fortress America. Surrender to violent political Islam is not an option simply because surrender will not work. It will not immunize the US against future attacks, future terror, future war. Nothing short of every last American--all 312 million of us--facing east and banging our foreheads on the floor would grant immunity from the hatred of the groups dedicated to violent political Islam.
The US may have, as Mr Pawlenty suggested, one political party which argues for American decline, withdrawal, disengagement and isolation. He thinks that there is no need for a second. He is right. He would have been even more on target had he said that one such party is one too many.
T-paw's essay in self-definition came yesterday n a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations. While represented as a tour of the horizon, the candidate focused on the Mideast, Israel, and Obama's failures of policy in the region.
There is little doubt but the Obama approach to affairs in the Mideast specifically and the world generally have been marked by far more failure than success. The primary reason for this is to be found in the world view of the Nice Young Man From Chicago with its blame-America-first core. Being a perfect academic, Mr Obama is given to avoiding action in favor of words whenever possible. Then as a matter of personality, the Clueless Guy in the Oval resembles a Pearson's Puppeteer.
(For those of you who do not read science fiction, the Pearson Puppeteer was an alien species created by the fertile mind of Larry Niven. The species is characterized by a degree of caution which surpasses the merely cowardly. The "leader" of the Puppeteers is called the Hindmost--which rather resembles in concept the idea of "leading from behind" offered recently by a member of the administration in admiring tribute to Obama's presumed statesmanship in the Libyan Affair.)
The characterization of Mr Obama's approach(es) to the "Arab Spring" and the Israeli-Palestinian Question offered by Governor Pawlenty are unexceptional. So also is his emphasis on the importance of Israel to US national interests.
Where T-paw misses the cliched bus is in his fervently expressed belief in the ability of the US to act effectively in the creation of freedom and democracy in the Mideast in the wake of the recent and ongoing tumult. He is of the view that authentic democracy, genuine freedom, real Western style government with full fledged protections of minorities including women and non-Muslims can be created and maintained over time with the assistance and support of the US.
It would be very nice if the Pawlenty vision was accurate. It is not. Whether dealing with the environment of post-authoritarian Egypt or Tunisia, or contemplating how "reforms" might be facilitated by American efforts in kingdoms such as Jordan, Morocco or, most importantly of all, Saudi Arabia, Mr Pawlenty discounts the force and universality of Islam, particularly the form of Islam embraced and promoted by Salifists and Wahhibists.
The well-meaning Pawlenty (or his advisers and speechwriters) ignore the fundamental realities of Islamic thought which focus upon the deity as the source of all legitimate law. Also overlooked is the oft-repeated meme that neither democracy nor liberty as understood in the West is compatible with the dictates of the deity contained in the sacred literature as interpreted by generations of scholars of Islamic jurisprudence. The Pawlenty stance also overlooks the fundamental orientation of Islam on the duties of the believer. Not to put an inaccurately fine point on the matter, Islam elevates duty, duty to the deity over any and all personal rights. In short there is no concept of individual rights which equates in any way with the prevalent definitions of rights and responsibilities in the US or the West generally.
The failure to comprehend accurately the impact of faith and its all-inclusive nature constitutes the rock on which Mr Pawlenty's ideas of constructive engagement with the new forces of the Arab states must founder. While the people oriented toward secular concerns and world view dominated and continue to dominate the media coverage of events in the Arab states, these folk are a minority, even an endangered species. Many of the more secular minded are quite aware of this aspect of the post-authoritarian dynamic as is seen with the repeated calls in Egypt for a delay in the elections so as to allow the secularists to organize well enough to take on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist political groups.
Mr Pawlenty's call for the next president to motivate the Saudi royal house to take the path of reform is also quite otherworldly. The House of Saud exists today because of the bargain made generations ago to link its fortunes with those of the Wahhibists. There is no way on this Earth that the austere world view of Wahhibism would continence let alone participate in any sort of reform such as mentioned by T-paw. There is no chance that the Wahhibist theology is about to go along with extending any rights to non-Muslims or see the error of Mohammad's ways regarding the status of women.
In his remarks Mr Pawlenty warns against the elections which produce results antithetical to genuine democracy, authentic freedom. He may have had Iran in mind when he said this as there is no better example of a people committing political suicide at the ballot box than that. It will take far more than support for the "reform" movement of 2009 for the verdict of self-destruction by vote to be reversed. The Iranians willingly and to the later regret of some surrendered all vestiges of political autonomy to the dictates of theology. The same may happen in at least some of the Arab states celebrated as having sounded the tocsin of freedom by Mr Pawlenty.
A central point made by the presidential aspirant deserved more emphasis. The reality of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam will be with us for many, many years to come. As long as that reality existss the US will be the major target of its hate and violence. This status will not be removed even if the US were to unilaterally withdraw from every last member state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference--or even if the US were to vote for the dissolution of Israel.
The necessary conclusion is the US must not retreat to some sort of Fortress America. Surrender to violent political Islam is not an option simply because surrender will not work. It will not immunize the US against future attacks, future terror, future war. Nothing short of every last American--all 312 million of us--facing east and banging our foreheads on the floor would grant immunity from the hatred of the groups dedicated to violent political Islam.
The US may have, as Mr Pawlenty suggested, one political party which argues for American decline, withdrawal, disengagement and isolation. He thinks that there is no need for a second. He is right. He would have been even more on target had he said that one such party is one too many.
Monday, June 27, 2011
A Manic-Depressive Polity
In the individual the states of mania and depression can cycle in a matter of weeks or days, even hours. The collection of individuals known as a society, or as a political actor, a polity, being larger takes longer. Still the result is the same, a cycling from the peaks of mania to the depths of depressive despair. Ten years represents the cycle length for We the People.
Ten years ago the majority of We the People were exploring the delightful high country of collective mania. The dot com bust having been weathered with surprisingly little broad gauge effects, a sense of hyper confidence in both today and tomorrow had taken hold. It may not have been the unlimited sort of let-the-good-times-roll mood which typified the highest point of the Sixties, but it ran a close second. The economy was not just sound, it was rip-roaringly good. The impact of outsourcing had not yet spread through the ranks of potentially unemployed. The housing bubble was inflating rapidly driven by a mix of ill-advised governmental actions and the nice, old fashioned greed of financial institutions. Jobs, money, liquidity, the notion of one's home as an ATM with two bathrooms were all abroad in the land.
The US was at peace. Or so we thought, being tone deaf regarding the hostile religious music tooting through sections of the Mideast. Islam was simply one more religion, not the source of terror and war it would become. The president, George W. Bush, promised a foreign policy based upon both American leadership and strength and a concomitant "humility." Strong but meek constituted a view of our role in global affairs which rang well and true with most of We the People.
American preeminence, American leadership, and American restraint were seen as both appropriate and laudable by the majority of us. There was no question regarding the truth of "American exceptionalism." We were on a roll both globally and at home. There were no problems we could not solve. No challenges we could not meet almost without effort.
Flash forward a decade. Actually it is necessary to move the calender only eight years. The euphoria of mania was gone. Instead of the high of confidence, certainty, the sense of being divinely protected, divinely motivated, We the People now wallowed in the slough of despair. We were beaten, defeated, and broke.
The bubble of economic confidence had shattered into even more pieces than had the housing bubble. Net worth plummeted for many. An unconscionable number were unemployed, many having become so discouraged by prospects that they had surrendered the task of seeking employment, leaving the jobless job market completely. Two long wars had come to nothing. There was no sense of victory as there had been no reality of success in either Iraq or Afghanistan. At the same time, the institutional reaction to the very real threats of Islamic terrorism had created a permanent empire of fear.
A trip to the airport had become for many a visit to hell's anteroom. Security warnings, the loudly announced arrests of yet another wannabe Muslim martyr, the periodic successes of those who shout "Allahu akbar" as they pulled the trigger or pushed the clicker, the pervasive awareness of terror's dark shadow blocked the sunny nature of American society to a significant extent.
Then there was our domestic elite. You know the legions of our self-appointed best and brightest, the shining lights of politics, the media, academia. The constant refrain from all these fine folks--including the president of the United States, a academic and political elitist of the first water--was that We the People and our country were in decline, a deserved decline. We were told by both word and deed that if there was such a thing as "American exceptionalism" it was only negative.
Our "betters" of the hoi olligoi assured us that other cultures were every bit as good and meritorious as our own. We were told that Islam--a religion where there was authority for the stoning of women, the murder of homosexuals, the existence of a permanent state of war with all infidels, the use of lies to mislead those who were not Muslim--was every bit as moral as all other belief systems. Against the evidence of the senses and logic, our "betters" hectored us to the effect that those Muslims who bombed, who stoned, who flew jet airliners into buildings, who used eight year olds as bomb mules, were not really, really Islamic but rather "misunderstanders" or 'hijackers" of the faith.
The economy was in the tank. The combination of outsourcing, of moving manufacturing offshore to, primus inter pares, China, very poorly conceived and executed government programs and policies, and, not least, the inability or unwillingness of many within We the People to answer creatively a single question, "how much is enough?" put the domestic economy down for the count.
Years of practicing the very politics of self-destruction, governments of both parties had competed in bribing the polity with federal give aways subsidies, and tax cuts. The combination was, as had been predicted by not only practitioners of the dismal science--economics--but all those of relatively clear vision, fatal to the federal budget and provided the killing deficit. Financial collapse bred economic collapse which in turn made the deficit crunch lurch to the very verge of terminal collapse.
And still the wars lingered on. By the end of the decade which started on 9/11/01 the US was by and large out of Iraq--although this June has been the most deadly for our forces in over two years. We know that the sacrifices of irreplaceable lives and hundreds of billions of (hopefully) recoverable dollars has bought nothing worth the price. Iraq is caught in ever increasing sectarian violence with Shiites killing Sunnis in wholesale lots in Anbar province. Bombs and snipers compete for attention in Baghdad. The government is caught in stasis, a stasis of sectarianism and personal rivalry. The only point where the majority agree is that Americans are bad and Iranians are good.
In Afghanistan the strategic morass had resolved itself sufficiently to show that the combination of nocturnal raids and constant pressure was working on the military level to progressively reduce the will and ability of Taliban and the Haqqani network to wage war. At the same time all of the nation-building efforts have proven a failure. The government and its security forces remain inept, corrupt, and monuments to inefficiency and illegitimacy. What Taliban and the rest are losing on the battlefield, they are recouping with interest on the governmental level.
The totality of the Afghanistan GDP less three percent is provided by American and other foreign origin military and economic aid. The vast tsunami of money coupled with a lack of financial oversight has given the endemic culture of corruption a massive boost. This, in turn, has reduced the appeal of both the central government and its foreign sponsors to the average Afghan--particularly if he has not been able to grasp a handful of the goodies as they flowed by.
Last week President Obama delivered the most sickening speech ever heard or read by the Geek. His we-have-been-bested in Afghanistan remarks were a potpourri of lies and half truths which beggar description and surpass imagination. Even though he has committed the US to withdrawing its forces prematurely, this was not enough for others within his elite company. Nancy Pelosi, a not inconsiderable presence even after last November's election, has demanded an even faster schedule of pull out. In this she has been joined by a number of deficit hawk Republicans.
There is no doubt that the majority of We the People want out of Afghanistan ASAP! The absence of success, even the absence of a plausible reason for our continued presence could have no other effect. The Obama administration like its predecessor has never articulated a plausible, rational, understandable set of reasons for our continued efforts in Afghanistan. Often proclaimed the "good war" or the "necessary war," the US and its allies have never stated a clear goal for our operations, instead producing loads of fine sounding but vapid mood music about democracy, good government, stability, and human rights.
The mood music about Afghanistan as was the case with the identical sounds regarding Iraq have never been believable to or believed by many, even most, of We the People. Without saying so in a direct, blunt way, it is clear that We the People have not and do not trust the so-called elite to be honest with us concerning intentions and results in these wars. The distrust felt by so many of us came forth regarding a military commitment in Libya. We may have been quite sympathetic with the rebels and their goal of ridding their country of the noxious Gaddafi family, but there was no way we would put our people in harm's way on the behalf of the rebels.
Had Obama or his predecessor been true leaders, they would have put forth believable reasons for our efforts in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya. The failure of each to undertake this basic presidential task successfully joined with the shocks of economic collapse and the reality of the never ending threat of terror to erode the manic mood of decade's beginning.
There is one more reason for the awesome mood shift of the past ten years. The result of the years of indoctrination in the American educational system from pre-school to grad school. The blame-America-first generation which emerged from the Sixties has controlled the public educational system for two decades and more now. The repeated message, built into curricula and handbooks of instructions is and has been profoundly anti-American in its orientation. The end result is a large and growing segment of We the People is predisposed to think the worst about their country, their government, and the actions of both, past and present alike.
Millions of minds have been conditioned by twelve and more years of education to believe the US had much to apologize for. The same minds believe the US is not capable of doing good for itself or others in the world. At the same time they have been oriented to reject the notions of national or cultural exceptionalism--or even superiority. The US is simply one country among many, no better than any--and worse, much worse than most. In a real and basic sense there are millions in our midst who have been raised to believe that we deserve nothing but failure and defeat as redress for our earlier sins, our previous arrogance, our long standing exploitation of others.
The synergy between elite and the common folk is perfect. The elite, a product of the same blame-America-first orientation as their slightly younger non-elite fellow citizens has preached and lectured, exhorted and hectored on the subject of American wrong doing, American unexceptionalism, American exploitation, the beauties of the multicultural and multilateral, the evils of going it alone, of acting to protect and advance national interest. The success achieved over the past years is attributable not to the persuasiveness or inherent truth of the message but rather to the propensity of the auditors, the children of the past thirty or forty years to believe what they hear and read.
The US and We the People have faced threats and challenges equaling or surpassing those today. In the past we have not surrendered to either. We have not succumbed to depression before. It is different today simply because the "kids" of the Sixties particularly those who were activists of one sort or another became successful beyond their wildest dreams when they took over the educational system of the US over the course of twenty years. Because of this success, the victory of the blame-America-first ideology, We the People now have lost confidence not only in our institutions and actions but in our very selves. We no longer trust ourselves and our ability to handle life's challenges and threats.
When looking at the palpable decline of the US, at the national nadir of depression, the old saying of Pogo is more true than ever before--"We have met the enemy and he is us."
Ten years ago the majority of We the People were exploring the delightful high country of collective mania. The dot com bust having been weathered with surprisingly little broad gauge effects, a sense of hyper confidence in both today and tomorrow had taken hold. It may not have been the unlimited sort of let-the-good-times-roll mood which typified the highest point of the Sixties, but it ran a close second. The economy was not just sound, it was rip-roaringly good. The impact of outsourcing had not yet spread through the ranks of potentially unemployed. The housing bubble was inflating rapidly driven by a mix of ill-advised governmental actions and the nice, old fashioned greed of financial institutions. Jobs, money, liquidity, the notion of one's home as an ATM with two bathrooms were all abroad in the land.
The US was at peace. Or so we thought, being tone deaf regarding the hostile religious music tooting through sections of the Mideast. Islam was simply one more religion, not the source of terror and war it would become. The president, George W. Bush, promised a foreign policy based upon both American leadership and strength and a concomitant "humility." Strong but meek constituted a view of our role in global affairs which rang well and true with most of We the People.
American preeminence, American leadership, and American restraint were seen as both appropriate and laudable by the majority of us. There was no question regarding the truth of "American exceptionalism." We were on a roll both globally and at home. There were no problems we could not solve. No challenges we could not meet almost without effort.
Flash forward a decade. Actually it is necessary to move the calender only eight years. The euphoria of mania was gone. Instead of the high of confidence, certainty, the sense of being divinely protected, divinely motivated, We the People now wallowed in the slough of despair. We were beaten, defeated, and broke.
The bubble of economic confidence had shattered into even more pieces than had the housing bubble. Net worth plummeted for many. An unconscionable number were unemployed, many having become so discouraged by prospects that they had surrendered the task of seeking employment, leaving the jobless job market completely. Two long wars had come to nothing. There was no sense of victory as there had been no reality of success in either Iraq or Afghanistan. At the same time, the institutional reaction to the very real threats of Islamic terrorism had created a permanent empire of fear.
A trip to the airport had become for many a visit to hell's anteroom. Security warnings, the loudly announced arrests of yet another wannabe Muslim martyr, the periodic successes of those who shout "Allahu akbar" as they pulled the trigger or pushed the clicker, the pervasive awareness of terror's dark shadow blocked the sunny nature of American society to a significant extent.
Then there was our domestic elite. You know the legions of our self-appointed best and brightest, the shining lights of politics, the media, academia. The constant refrain from all these fine folks--including the president of the United States, a academic and political elitist of the first water--was that We the People and our country were in decline, a deserved decline. We were told by both word and deed that if there was such a thing as "American exceptionalism" it was only negative.
Our "betters" of the hoi olligoi assured us that other cultures were every bit as good and meritorious as our own. We were told that Islam--a religion where there was authority for the stoning of women, the murder of homosexuals, the existence of a permanent state of war with all infidels, the use of lies to mislead those who were not Muslim--was every bit as moral as all other belief systems. Against the evidence of the senses and logic, our "betters" hectored us to the effect that those Muslims who bombed, who stoned, who flew jet airliners into buildings, who used eight year olds as bomb mules, were not really, really Islamic but rather "misunderstanders" or 'hijackers" of the faith.
The economy was in the tank. The combination of outsourcing, of moving manufacturing offshore to, primus inter pares, China, very poorly conceived and executed government programs and policies, and, not least, the inability or unwillingness of many within We the People to answer creatively a single question, "how much is enough?" put the domestic economy down for the count.
Years of practicing the very politics of self-destruction, governments of both parties had competed in bribing the polity with federal give aways subsidies, and tax cuts. The combination was, as had been predicted by not only practitioners of the dismal science--economics--but all those of relatively clear vision, fatal to the federal budget and provided the killing deficit. Financial collapse bred economic collapse which in turn made the deficit crunch lurch to the very verge of terminal collapse.
And still the wars lingered on. By the end of the decade which started on 9/11/01 the US was by and large out of Iraq--although this June has been the most deadly for our forces in over two years. We know that the sacrifices of irreplaceable lives and hundreds of billions of (hopefully) recoverable dollars has bought nothing worth the price. Iraq is caught in ever increasing sectarian violence with Shiites killing Sunnis in wholesale lots in Anbar province. Bombs and snipers compete for attention in Baghdad. The government is caught in stasis, a stasis of sectarianism and personal rivalry. The only point where the majority agree is that Americans are bad and Iranians are good.
In Afghanistan the strategic morass had resolved itself sufficiently to show that the combination of nocturnal raids and constant pressure was working on the military level to progressively reduce the will and ability of Taliban and the Haqqani network to wage war. At the same time all of the nation-building efforts have proven a failure. The government and its security forces remain inept, corrupt, and monuments to inefficiency and illegitimacy. What Taliban and the rest are losing on the battlefield, they are recouping with interest on the governmental level.
The totality of the Afghanistan GDP less three percent is provided by American and other foreign origin military and economic aid. The vast tsunami of money coupled with a lack of financial oversight has given the endemic culture of corruption a massive boost. This, in turn, has reduced the appeal of both the central government and its foreign sponsors to the average Afghan--particularly if he has not been able to grasp a handful of the goodies as they flowed by.
Last week President Obama delivered the most sickening speech ever heard or read by the Geek. His we-have-been-bested in Afghanistan remarks were a potpourri of lies and half truths which beggar description and surpass imagination. Even though he has committed the US to withdrawing its forces prematurely, this was not enough for others within his elite company. Nancy Pelosi, a not inconsiderable presence even after last November's election, has demanded an even faster schedule of pull out. In this she has been joined by a number of deficit hawk Republicans.
There is no doubt that the majority of We the People want out of Afghanistan ASAP! The absence of success, even the absence of a plausible reason for our continued presence could have no other effect. The Obama administration like its predecessor has never articulated a plausible, rational, understandable set of reasons for our continued efforts in Afghanistan. Often proclaimed the "good war" or the "necessary war," the US and its allies have never stated a clear goal for our operations, instead producing loads of fine sounding but vapid mood music about democracy, good government, stability, and human rights.
The mood music about Afghanistan as was the case with the identical sounds regarding Iraq have never been believable to or believed by many, even most, of We the People. Without saying so in a direct, blunt way, it is clear that We the People have not and do not trust the so-called elite to be honest with us concerning intentions and results in these wars. The distrust felt by so many of us came forth regarding a military commitment in Libya. We may have been quite sympathetic with the rebels and their goal of ridding their country of the noxious Gaddafi family, but there was no way we would put our people in harm's way on the behalf of the rebels.
Had Obama or his predecessor been true leaders, they would have put forth believable reasons for our efforts in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya. The failure of each to undertake this basic presidential task successfully joined with the shocks of economic collapse and the reality of the never ending threat of terror to erode the manic mood of decade's beginning.
There is one more reason for the awesome mood shift of the past ten years. The result of the years of indoctrination in the American educational system from pre-school to grad school. The blame-America-first generation which emerged from the Sixties has controlled the public educational system for two decades and more now. The repeated message, built into curricula and handbooks of instructions is and has been profoundly anti-American in its orientation. The end result is a large and growing segment of We the People is predisposed to think the worst about their country, their government, and the actions of both, past and present alike.
Millions of minds have been conditioned by twelve and more years of education to believe the US had much to apologize for. The same minds believe the US is not capable of doing good for itself or others in the world. At the same time they have been oriented to reject the notions of national or cultural exceptionalism--or even superiority. The US is simply one country among many, no better than any--and worse, much worse than most. In a real and basic sense there are millions in our midst who have been raised to believe that we deserve nothing but failure and defeat as redress for our earlier sins, our previous arrogance, our long standing exploitation of others.
The synergy between elite and the common folk is perfect. The elite, a product of the same blame-America-first orientation as their slightly younger non-elite fellow citizens has preached and lectured, exhorted and hectored on the subject of American wrong doing, American unexceptionalism, American exploitation, the beauties of the multicultural and multilateral, the evils of going it alone, of acting to protect and advance national interest. The success achieved over the past years is attributable not to the persuasiveness or inherent truth of the message but rather to the propensity of the auditors, the children of the past thirty or forty years to believe what they hear and read.
The US and We the People have faced threats and challenges equaling or surpassing those today. In the past we have not surrendered to either. We have not succumbed to depression before. It is different today simply because the "kids" of the Sixties particularly those who were activists of one sort or another became successful beyond their wildest dreams when they took over the educational system of the US over the course of twenty years. Because of this success, the victory of the blame-America-first ideology, We the People now have lost confidence not only in our institutions and actions but in our very selves. We no longer trust ourselves and our ability to handle life's challenges and threats.
When looking at the palpable decline of the US, at the national nadir of depression, the old saying of Pogo is more true than ever before--"We have met the enemy and he is us."
Sunday, June 26, 2011
What A Difference A Word Makes
Ten years ago in an exercise of free association the challenge "terrorist" or "terrorism" would have brought an instant and automatic response from the lips of most Americans: "Arab." Nowadays the same challenge words would bring a different reaction. Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration and other devotees of the high minded and lofty thinking school of politically correct multiculturalism, the words "terror" or "terrorist" would result in the reply of "Muslim."
Why this change considering that way back in the salad days of international terrorism the vast majority of the Arab perpetrators were at least nominally adherents of Islam? A close examination of the curricula vitae of the assorted leaders of the numerous groups who bombed, shot, and garroted their way into the Mideast datelines of the Seventies, Eighties, and most of the Nineties shows that none were Christian let alone Jewish. They were, without exception, Muslims. Yet, the description "Arab" always prevailed.
There are several reasons for the change in both nomenclature and its underlying implications.
At the top of the list is the fact that the terrorists of the earlier, "Arab" age were pursuing a goal which was rational even if not realistic. The master bombmakers, the hijackers of aircraft, the killers of Olympic athletes, the shooters of tourists and Jewish civilians were doing their dastardly deeds in the quest to roll back the verdict of conventional war. More specifically, from the time that Yassir Arafat of late and unlamented memory created Fatah and dedicated it to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the goal of all the alphabet soup of terrorist groups was to reverse the outcome of the Six Day War of 1967 and the Wars of Independence from almost twenty years earlier.
The use of terror tactics might have been ethically reprehensible, but the goal was understandable, rational because it was political. A pretender to statehood was employing the only tactical concept available to it as it sought to become a state at the expense of a far stronger, far better organized, and (at the time) far more widely supported state. As the apologists for "Arab" terrorism stated repeatedly at the time, Arafat and his imitators (more correctly, competitors) were using the only means available to the dispossessed, the marginalized, the politically and militarily debilitated.
Even the use of "Arab" terrorist groups by states as proxies not only against Israel but against each other was rational. In the inter-Arab disputes which constituted a hallmark of regional politics during the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and beyond, the use of terrorists as weapons served to decouple rivalry from the potential of regionally destructive escalation. The Baathists of Syria and Iraq were not only willing but almost eager to use one sponsored group or another not only against the mutual enemy of Israel but as a means of settling the never ending quarrel between the two wings of the Baathist movement. Syria was a master at using its sponsored terrorists as a wedge to destabilize Lebanon so as to provide the necessary excuse to intervene in Lebanese affairs--to provide stability and protect civilian life, don't you know?
The employment of state-sponsored and facilitated terrorist groups as a matter of state policy might have been abhorrent to the norms of conflict and diplomacy, but it was rational. It did provide options seen as necessary by most in the region while maintaining the fiction of regional, ethnic, and religious harmony. The technique also had the benefit of allowing sufficient plausible deniablity to prevent an effective coordinated response by the "international community" or even individual states--including the US. In a sense "Arab" terror flew under the radar of global political mechanisms even while attracting global media attention.
It was the global media attention which gave "Arab" terrorism both its power and its utility as a rational tool of state. The fear and loathing caused by "Arab" terrorist outrages was presumed by its creators and sponsors to result in the end effect of compelling Israel to relinquish the territory occupied in the wake of the Six Day War. At the same time, the focus on high profile events and personalities in the "Arab" terrorist escapades served as a sort of squid's ink--a cloud behind which state sponsors could conceal their intentions and degree of involvement alike.
It should never be forgotten that the many different groups of the "Arab" terrorist days were avowedly secular. The politics of most involved whether as leaders or low level operators were a combination of nationalism and socialism. There was very little if any reference to Islam in either the programs or statements of the many different members of the movement. Yassir Arafat, for example, made no reference to Islam in his very high profile appearance at the podium of the UN General Assembly. From the documents he allegedly wrote or the speeches he made, one can get no impression that the Fatah chairman was a Muslim. The same applied to all the other media stars of the "Arab" terrorist movement.
It was only after the nature and outcome of the Iranian Islamic Revolution percolated through the Arab population that there was any shift from the secular focus to one which admitted religion. The long lag time between the toppling of the Shah and the emergence of Islam to the public consciousness of the nascent "Islamic" terrorist movement was in part the result of two simple facts. The Iranian Islamic Revolution was (1) non-Arab and (2) non-Sunni.
The barrier to the influence of the Iranian Islamic Revolution becoming a model for a new generation of Mideast terrorists was broken by events in one more non-Arab country. That country was Afghanistan.
The anti-Soviet fighters of Afghanistan were avowedly and devoutly Muslim in the majority of cases. Since the only core definer of the Afghan identity which transcended tribal affiliations and loyalties was religion, this is not surprising. The power of Islam did come as a surprise to many of the Arab volunteers who entered the Afghan conflict at and after its midpoint. The Arab influx was a byproduct of the strong relation which had developed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The Pakistani dictator, Zia, had put a program emphasizing Islam in place with the goal of unifying the population in the forever war with India. Zia had enlisted the support of Saudi Arabia in this "Islamization" campaign. Saudi Arabia had provided the money and clerical manpower necessary to establish an extensive network of Wahhibist mosques and madrassas. It was as inevitable as a displaced rock rolling downhill that this campaign would have ramifications. Among these was an introduction of Arab Peninsula youth via Pakistan to the "holy war" against the Red Army.
The Afghans and their Arab emulators gave unalloyed thanks to the deity for success against the Soviets. They also used the language of the Koran to describe the fighters, those killed in action, and the blessings of the deity as a means of increasing and maintaining morale during the long, bloody years of war. More than a few of the Arabs involved saw the power resident in their religion to offset the material and technological advantages enjoyed by infidel and apostate enemies. A new vow was soon to be heard from many of the Arabs having experience in Afghanistan. No longer would the power of belief of the One True Faith sleep unused in the pages of the Koran and other sacred writings. Now this power would be tapped to assure victory over the long triumphant infidels and their apostate local satraps.
Osama bin Laden was the best known, the most notorious of these Arab exponents of the new, far more militant view of the commands of the Koran, the orders of Allah. There were many others. What separated bin Laden from the rest was his willingness to announce where he stood and demand that others of faith stand with him. His success in gaining recruits and developing an organization rapidly during the early and mid-Nineties was the result not so much of his charisma and communication skills but rather that so many were already of like mind.
The shift from "Arab" to "Muslim" terror predated the (in)famous bin Laden declaration of war on the US by more than a decade. For those who like the idea of a specific defining event or date, the day of the truck bombing of the World Trade Center serves the purpose. This event was a self-conscious act taken on behalf not only of an "Arab" goal--the ending of American support for Israel--but also as a shot in the global holy war which (if the deity wills) would end with the establishment of a worldwide caliphate.
It would have been appropriate for the Clinton administration to acknowledge that the US was facing a new threat--religiously based terror. But, the administration in common with the majority of the media and academia, seized on the political portion of the motive while ignoring the fact that in the mind and words of the men who planned and executed the attack, politics was totally and inseparably connected with religion albeit in a subordinate role.
The administration made the same fundamental error when further attacks ensued. These--the strike on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the simultaneous bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the boat borne IED which nearly sank the USS Cole--were all manifestations of the Osama bin Laden concept of "Muslim" terror. Yes, there was a political goal involved, but that goal was both inherent with and subordinate to the dictates of Islamic belief. By narrowly focusing on the political aspect of the goal, the Clinton administration missed the perfect chance to define the enemy properly and direct US responses more accurately and effectively.
A more accurate definition of the enemy, his overarching goals, the foundations of his motives, the strengths and weaknesses of the appeals for support which must be predicated on the underlying beliefs, would have allowed the US to mount a better counter challenge. More importantly, by defining the enemy correctly, it would have been possible for Americans to know what they stood for as well as what they were standing against.
The initial error made by the Clinton administration has been continued by both the Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations. This is to be regretted. The nature of any war against "Arab" terrorism and that of the "Muslim" variety must be different as the two expressions of terror are substantially different in both goal and motive.
Get a grip on this.
"Arab" terrorism was rational. It sought defined and rather narrow political goals. Terror was a tactic pure and simple. If the tactic did not work, it could be altered or even abandoned without any loss of status or identity by so doing.
"Muslim" terror is irrational. While it may incorporate narrow and definable political goals, these are subordinate to matters of faith. The suicide bomber is not so much seeking a political goal as he is performing an act of faith. Because the "martyrdom" operation is rooted in deeply held beliefs derived from the sacred writings of Islam, tactical reliance on terror cannot be abandoned without damage to the strength of the faith.
The "Arab" terrorist could be deterred or defeated. He could be convinced by failure to abandon terrorism when the costs outweighed the benefits. He was in most essential respects a rational actor subject to the same inducements and constraints as combatants using other forms of tactics.
The "Muslim" terrorist cannot be deterred and can be defeated only by being killed. Mere opprobrium or failure in his operations will not necessarily cause him to seek a tactical alternative to terrorism. As his act is one of faith and not politics as such, he will not change his ways simply because the aggregate of costs is greater than the benefits. As a person committing an act of faith, a testament to personal strength of belief and willingness to obey the presumed demands of the deity, the "Muslim" terrorist is not a rational actor. He is not subject to the same inducements and constraints as other combatants, including terrorists of the "Arab" sort.
In short, the "Muslim" terrorist is a far harder target than was his "Arab" cousin. He is hard to kill and possessed of a mind impossible to change. This implies that the US and other civilized states will have a much harder time dealing with the "Muslim" terrorist than was first thought (and still is) by those who mistake the political gloss for the religious center of the act of faith we call terrorism.
Terrorism is a tactic of war. The "Arab" practitioner of the craft knew this. He knew the rules which defined success and failure in the use of any tactic, terror included. The "Muslim" may pay lip service to the notion that terror is a tactic, but he really believes it to be the strongest possible confession of faith that the individual believer might make.
When you think about it for a bit, it makes you recollect the years of shadowy groups known usually by their initials as having been the good old days. And, so they were.
Why this change considering that way back in the salad days of international terrorism the vast majority of the Arab perpetrators were at least nominally adherents of Islam? A close examination of the curricula vitae of the assorted leaders of the numerous groups who bombed, shot, and garroted their way into the Mideast datelines of the Seventies, Eighties, and most of the Nineties shows that none were Christian let alone Jewish. They were, without exception, Muslims. Yet, the description "Arab" always prevailed.
There are several reasons for the change in both nomenclature and its underlying implications.
At the top of the list is the fact that the terrorists of the earlier, "Arab" age were pursuing a goal which was rational even if not realistic. The master bombmakers, the hijackers of aircraft, the killers of Olympic athletes, the shooters of tourists and Jewish civilians were doing their dastardly deeds in the quest to roll back the verdict of conventional war. More specifically, from the time that Yassir Arafat of late and unlamented memory created Fatah and dedicated it to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the goal of all the alphabet soup of terrorist groups was to reverse the outcome of the Six Day War of 1967 and the Wars of Independence from almost twenty years earlier.
The use of terror tactics might have been ethically reprehensible, but the goal was understandable, rational because it was political. A pretender to statehood was employing the only tactical concept available to it as it sought to become a state at the expense of a far stronger, far better organized, and (at the time) far more widely supported state. As the apologists for "Arab" terrorism stated repeatedly at the time, Arafat and his imitators (more correctly, competitors) were using the only means available to the dispossessed, the marginalized, the politically and militarily debilitated.
Even the use of "Arab" terrorist groups by states as proxies not only against Israel but against each other was rational. In the inter-Arab disputes which constituted a hallmark of regional politics during the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and beyond, the use of terrorists as weapons served to decouple rivalry from the potential of regionally destructive escalation. The Baathists of Syria and Iraq were not only willing but almost eager to use one sponsored group or another not only against the mutual enemy of Israel but as a means of settling the never ending quarrel between the two wings of the Baathist movement. Syria was a master at using its sponsored terrorists as a wedge to destabilize Lebanon so as to provide the necessary excuse to intervene in Lebanese affairs--to provide stability and protect civilian life, don't you know?
The employment of state-sponsored and facilitated terrorist groups as a matter of state policy might have been abhorrent to the norms of conflict and diplomacy, but it was rational. It did provide options seen as necessary by most in the region while maintaining the fiction of regional, ethnic, and religious harmony. The technique also had the benefit of allowing sufficient plausible deniablity to prevent an effective coordinated response by the "international community" or even individual states--including the US. In a sense "Arab" terror flew under the radar of global political mechanisms even while attracting global media attention.
It was the global media attention which gave "Arab" terrorism both its power and its utility as a rational tool of state. The fear and loathing caused by "Arab" terrorist outrages was presumed by its creators and sponsors to result in the end effect of compelling Israel to relinquish the territory occupied in the wake of the Six Day War. At the same time, the focus on high profile events and personalities in the "Arab" terrorist escapades served as a sort of squid's ink--a cloud behind which state sponsors could conceal their intentions and degree of involvement alike.
It should never be forgotten that the many different groups of the "Arab" terrorist days were avowedly secular. The politics of most involved whether as leaders or low level operators were a combination of nationalism and socialism. There was very little if any reference to Islam in either the programs or statements of the many different members of the movement. Yassir Arafat, for example, made no reference to Islam in his very high profile appearance at the podium of the UN General Assembly. From the documents he allegedly wrote or the speeches he made, one can get no impression that the Fatah chairman was a Muslim. The same applied to all the other media stars of the "Arab" terrorist movement.
It was only after the nature and outcome of the Iranian Islamic Revolution percolated through the Arab population that there was any shift from the secular focus to one which admitted religion. The long lag time between the toppling of the Shah and the emergence of Islam to the public consciousness of the nascent "Islamic" terrorist movement was in part the result of two simple facts. The Iranian Islamic Revolution was (1) non-Arab and (2) non-Sunni.
The barrier to the influence of the Iranian Islamic Revolution becoming a model for a new generation of Mideast terrorists was broken by events in one more non-Arab country. That country was Afghanistan.
The anti-Soviet fighters of Afghanistan were avowedly and devoutly Muslim in the majority of cases. Since the only core definer of the Afghan identity which transcended tribal affiliations and loyalties was religion, this is not surprising. The power of Islam did come as a surprise to many of the Arab volunteers who entered the Afghan conflict at and after its midpoint. The Arab influx was a byproduct of the strong relation which had developed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The Pakistani dictator, Zia, had put a program emphasizing Islam in place with the goal of unifying the population in the forever war with India. Zia had enlisted the support of Saudi Arabia in this "Islamization" campaign. Saudi Arabia had provided the money and clerical manpower necessary to establish an extensive network of Wahhibist mosques and madrassas. It was as inevitable as a displaced rock rolling downhill that this campaign would have ramifications. Among these was an introduction of Arab Peninsula youth via Pakistan to the "holy war" against the Red Army.
The Afghans and their Arab emulators gave unalloyed thanks to the deity for success against the Soviets. They also used the language of the Koran to describe the fighters, those killed in action, and the blessings of the deity as a means of increasing and maintaining morale during the long, bloody years of war. More than a few of the Arabs involved saw the power resident in their religion to offset the material and technological advantages enjoyed by infidel and apostate enemies. A new vow was soon to be heard from many of the Arabs having experience in Afghanistan. No longer would the power of belief of the One True Faith sleep unused in the pages of the Koran and other sacred writings. Now this power would be tapped to assure victory over the long triumphant infidels and their apostate local satraps.
Osama bin Laden was the best known, the most notorious of these Arab exponents of the new, far more militant view of the commands of the Koran, the orders of Allah. There were many others. What separated bin Laden from the rest was his willingness to announce where he stood and demand that others of faith stand with him. His success in gaining recruits and developing an organization rapidly during the early and mid-Nineties was the result not so much of his charisma and communication skills but rather that so many were already of like mind.
The shift from "Arab" to "Muslim" terror predated the (in)famous bin Laden declaration of war on the US by more than a decade. For those who like the idea of a specific defining event or date, the day of the truck bombing of the World Trade Center serves the purpose. This event was a self-conscious act taken on behalf not only of an "Arab" goal--the ending of American support for Israel--but also as a shot in the global holy war which (if the deity wills) would end with the establishment of a worldwide caliphate.
It would have been appropriate for the Clinton administration to acknowledge that the US was facing a new threat--religiously based terror. But, the administration in common with the majority of the media and academia, seized on the political portion of the motive while ignoring the fact that in the mind and words of the men who planned and executed the attack, politics was totally and inseparably connected with religion albeit in a subordinate role.
The administration made the same fundamental error when further attacks ensued. These--the strike on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the simultaneous bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the boat borne IED which nearly sank the USS Cole--were all manifestations of the Osama bin Laden concept of "Muslim" terror. Yes, there was a political goal involved, but that goal was both inherent with and subordinate to the dictates of Islamic belief. By narrowly focusing on the political aspect of the goal, the Clinton administration missed the perfect chance to define the enemy properly and direct US responses more accurately and effectively.
A more accurate definition of the enemy, his overarching goals, the foundations of his motives, the strengths and weaknesses of the appeals for support which must be predicated on the underlying beliefs, would have allowed the US to mount a better counter challenge. More importantly, by defining the enemy correctly, it would have been possible for Americans to know what they stood for as well as what they were standing against.
The initial error made by the Clinton administration has been continued by both the Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations. This is to be regretted. The nature of any war against "Arab" terrorism and that of the "Muslim" variety must be different as the two expressions of terror are substantially different in both goal and motive.
Get a grip on this.
"Arab" terrorism was rational. It sought defined and rather narrow political goals. Terror was a tactic pure and simple. If the tactic did not work, it could be altered or even abandoned without any loss of status or identity by so doing.
"Muslim" terror is irrational. While it may incorporate narrow and definable political goals, these are subordinate to matters of faith. The suicide bomber is not so much seeking a political goal as he is performing an act of faith. Because the "martyrdom" operation is rooted in deeply held beliefs derived from the sacred writings of Islam, tactical reliance on terror cannot be abandoned without damage to the strength of the faith.
The "Arab" terrorist could be deterred or defeated. He could be convinced by failure to abandon terrorism when the costs outweighed the benefits. He was in most essential respects a rational actor subject to the same inducements and constraints as combatants using other forms of tactics.
The "Muslim" terrorist cannot be deterred and can be defeated only by being killed. Mere opprobrium or failure in his operations will not necessarily cause him to seek a tactical alternative to terrorism. As his act is one of faith and not politics as such, he will not change his ways simply because the aggregate of costs is greater than the benefits. As a person committing an act of faith, a testament to personal strength of belief and willingness to obey the presumed demands of the deity, the "Muslim" terrorist is not a rational actor. He is not subject to the same inducements and constraints as other combatants, including terrorists of the "Arab" sort.
In short, the "Muslim" terrorist is a far harder target than was his "Arab" cousin. He is hard to kill and possessed of a mind impossible to change. This implies that the US and other civilized states will have a much harder time dealing with the "Muslim" terrorist than was first thought (and still is) by those who mistake the political gloss for the religious center of the act of faith we call terrorism.
Terrorism is a tactic of war. The "Arab" practitioner of the craft knew this. He knew the rules which defined success and failure in the use of any tactic, terror included. The "Muslim" may pay lip service to the notion that terror is a tactic, but he really believes it to be the strongest possible confession of faith that the individual believer might make.
When you think about it for a bit, it makes you recollect the years of shadowy groups known usually by their initials as having been the good old days. And, so they were.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The End Of The Big Battalions
Ten years ago the concept of unmanned combat systems (UCS) existed more in the pages of science fiction yarns than on the battlefields of the real world. As the ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq rolled along, the UCS intruded more and more into the plans and actions of the American military. The evolution of both aerial and terrestrial UCS has been rapid. It will become more so in the next few years.
Arguably, the UCS in all its many forms--air, land, and on as well as under the water--have the potential to change human conflict at least as much as did the arrival of gunpowder weapons nearly a thousand years ago. There can be no doubt that the UCS far outstrips such game changers as the aircraft carrier, armored combat vehicle, submarine, and high speed aircraft in its impact on the nature and character of military operations. The high probability that the majority of warfare in the near- to mid-term will be of the asymmetrical sort increases the impact of the UCS all the more.
The UCS fits perfectly with the American way of war as such has existed and evolved since the horrifying joint losses of the War Between the States. Ever since then, the US has been willing to expend any amount of materiel, money, and technology in order to save American lives. All of our wars have been materiel and technology heavy--and casualty light. In the context of the counterinsurgent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this strong imperative of saving American lives gave an additional impetus to the development and deployment of UCS.
The use of such systems--whether UAVs like the Predator, the Reaper, and their smaller tactical kindred or the various ground systems suitable for bomb neutralizing or entering fortified structures ahead of the troops--has proven successful beyond even the most optimistic initial projections. The success has served to breed more UCS research, development, and deployment.
One cannot help but have noticed the proliferation of posts dealing with the ethics and legality of UCS employment. The assorted ethical arguments against the UCS are specious. There is nothing unethical in employing UCS when there is a human operator in the loop. The presence of the human in the loop makes the system no more "robotic" than a tank or artillery piece or manned bomber. True, the operator of a UCS is quite out of range, immune to the dangers which might exist for the tanker, the artilleryman, the pilot, but the absence of risk does not make a weapon system somehow ethically suspect.
The human in the loop also defeats objections from a lawerly perspective. The operator and his command structure are just as responsible to the strictures of the laws of land warfare as any other military institution. The same criminal liability exists when operating a Predator as when flying an F-16.
Ethical and legal objections might have some validity if and when UCS are capable of operating totally autonomously with no human in the loop. The rapid evolution of the necessary technology will allow for autonomous operation in the very near future, but the probability of allowing more than routine, non-contact environment, autonomous operation is slight at the present time. Operating agencies will demand a good deal of experience with any given UCS before risking autonomous operation in a combat environment. When that happens, the question will (or should) be straightforward: Does the autonomous UCS resemble a landmine or not? That is, does it represent a danger for civilians who happen upon it by accident after active combat has ceased in a given area? Or, does the presence of an autonomously operating UCS represent a clear and unacceptably high degree of threat to any civilian who finds himself wandering around a combat zone during periods of active combat?
The expense of a system as sophisticated as a UCS capable of autonomous operation militates against the system being left behind after combat has ceased. It is not a fire-and-forget device like a cluster munition. Nor is it a plant-and-forget expendable like the landmine. Programming solutions exist for the challenge presented by the apparent civilian found in an active combat zone. Presumably pattern recognition software coupled with contingent algorithm based decision making could prevent instant lethal action while permitting either non-lethal detention or the summoning of a human to the loop. In either broad case, the ethical and legal questions can be addressed fully and effectively.
The loudest and most vociferous denunciations of UCS will come as they have already not simply from civilian organizations dedicated to the most extreme understandings of civilian immunity but from those countries which are and will be inferior in the development and fielding of UCS. It is to be expected that states hostile to the US in particular will take the lead in seeking international conventions prohibiting the use of UCS. The historical record shows the pervasive but ultimately unsuccessful deep rooted desire of have-not states to shackle the have states to the lowest level.
The most silly objection to the further development and deployment of UCS is that these systems will make war not only more "thinkable" but far more likely. There are two, mutually incompatible components to this idea. One is the removal of the threat to friendly forces by providing the bravery of being out of range removes a powerful inhibition to the resort to war on the part of states such as the US. The other is the reduction in collateral civilian losses reduces the horror of war to the party inflicting the damage.
There is no doubt that reduction of friendly losses is critical to decision making in the US and other civilized states. War does become a bit less repulsive when there is little if any chance of soldiers coming home either in body bags or on stretchers. But other potent inhibitory factors are not removed by the use of UCS. Some of these, particularly diplomatic complications and the enhancement of enemy political will, can actually be enhanced by the employment of UCS. This has already been seen in the Predator strikes in the FATA of Pakistan.
The reduction of collateral civilian deaths and physical destruction made possible by the further development of UCS should be welcomed by human rights organizations. Increased accuracy in the delivery of lethal munitions allows the use of lower potency ordnance. There is no need to use a Hellfire missile with its impressively large bang down range if one can accurately deliver a "smart spike" which puts a large hole in the intended target without disturbing the dandruff of the person standing next to him. As has been demonstrated most recently in Libya, the concrete bomb can obliterate an antiaircraft gun mounted in a small courtyard without even breaking windows a couple of meters away. Evolution to greater accuracy has been and will continue to be rapid with life saving effects increasing accordingly.
The UCS operated by a man under no pressure of combat aided by technology oriented toward the utmost of precision can kill the person in need of killing without any collateral damage. The lofty thinking and tender hearted must remember that the purpose of war is to gain political dominance over an enemy in order to establish a better state of peace. This means there are people who need to be killed. The concept of the operation is to kill those who must be killed and not kill or injure anyone else. The UCS provides a much better means of doing this.
Another objection that has been raised in opposition to the UCS is the capacity resident in such systems to vastly expand the area of combat operations. This is one more risible example of a totally specious objection. While some military operations can be confined to a tidily defined geographic area, others, such as the neutralizing of groups practicing violent political Islam, cannot. Such groups by their very nature are diffuse in location and critical nodes of command and control. The practitioners of violent political Islam have defined their area of operations to be regional at the least and global at the most. The UCS provides the capacity to attack the noxious practitioner wherever he exists. The choice has been his, and the response is not a voluntary expansion of the military theater of operations but a realistic appreciation of the enemy's nature, character, and intentions.
While the UCS has much to recommend it and will have even more in the years to come, there is no way that the UCS can by itself win wars, that is impose one's political will upon the other. The UCS is and will remain a force multiplier, a way of doing much more with fewer active combatants involved in theater. There will be fewer boots on the ground, but those fewer boots will be all the more important.
There are several reasons why the boots will be there and be important in their presence.
One reason is purely psychological: Only human presence is truly intimidating. Being there, being in the enemy's face nearly every time he turns around, has the effect over time of undercutting his will to continue. Importantly, the surveillance capabilities provided by UCS allow the forces on the ground to be deployed more effectively, to be in the enemy's face more efficiently, and thus to undercut his will to resist faster with less actual blood being shed in the process.
A second reason is political. The presence of men on the ground is an easily understood signal of political will. Since all wars, but the asymmetrical form in particular, are contests of political will, the presence of boots on the ground is essential if the enemy is to be convinced that the US, for example, has the political will to fight on until victory. The UCS plays a role here. The casualty reducing capacities of the UCS assures that American political will remains intact for a longer period of time. Even the frustrating war in Afghanistan retained support for years in largest measure because so few US personnel were killed there.
A third reason is found in the intelligence area. Contact between friendly and hostile forces constitutes an important source of intelligence. Only contact and the resulting firefight can give a useful indicator regarding the enemy's will to combat as well as on his capacity to make good his losses in manpower and equipment. Perhaps the most important indicator of enemy morale, of his will to fight, is found in how eagerly he seeks contact, how he reacts to contact, how well he fights, and how prolonged is his resistance. This is an area, a very important area, in which the UCS is of little or no assistance. There are and will be some things in war which only humans can do.
The progress in the development of UCS has been revolutionary. Absent a real shooting war, the future evolution of the systems will be slower, more hesitant, and liable to interruption due to budgetary or political concerns. On the upside, we can be quite sure the believers in violent political Islam will make every effort to keep the war going. As the war goes on, so also will the development of the UCS. And, that, bucko, is a very fine thing.
Arguably, the UCS in all its many forms--air, land, and on as well as under the water--have the potential to change human conflict at least as much as did the arrival of gunpowder weapons nearly a thousand years ago. There can be no doubt that the UCS far outstrips such game changers as the aircraft carrier, armored combat vehicle, submarine, and high speed aircraft in its impact on the nature and character of military operations. The high probability that the majority of warfare in the near- to mid-term will be of the asymmetrical sort increases the impact of the UCS all the more.
The UCS fits perfectly with the American way of war as such has existed and evolved since the horrifying joint losses of the War Between the States. Ever since then, the US has been willing to expend any amount of materiel, money, and technology in order to save American lives. All of our wars have been materiel and technology heavy--and casualty light. In the context of the counterinsurgent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this strong imperative of saving American lives gave an additional impetus to the development and deployment of UCS.
The use of such systems--whether UAVs like the Predator, the Reaper, and their smaller tactical kindred or the various ground systems suitable for bomb neutralizing or entering fortified structures ahead of the troops--has proven successful beyond even the most optimistic initial projections. The success has served to breed more UCS research, development, and deployment.
One cannot help but have noticed the proliferation of posts dealing with the ethics and legality of UCS employment. The assorted ethical arguments against the UCS are specious. There is nothing unethical in employing UCS when there is a human operator in the loop. The presence of the human in the loop makes the system no more "robotic" than a tank or artillery piece or manned bomber. True, the operator of a UCS is quite out of range, immune to the dangers which might exist for the tanker, the artilleryman, the pilot, but the absence of risk does not make a weapon system somehow ethically suspect.
The human in the loop also defeats objections from a lawerly perspective. The operator and his command structure are just as responsible to the strictures of the laws of land warfare as any other military institution. The same criminal liability exists when operating a Predator as when flying an F-16.
Ethical and legal objections might have some validity if and when UCS are capable of operating totally autonomously with no human in the loop. The rapid evolution of the necessary technology will allow for autonomous operation in the very near future, but the probability of allowing more than routine, non-contact environment, autonomous operation is slight at the present time. Operating agencies will demand a good deal of experience with any given UCS before risking autonomous operation in a combat environment. When that happens, the question will (or should) be straightforward: Does the autonomous UCS resemble a landmine or not? That is, does it represent a danger for civilians who happen upon it by accident after active combat has ceased in a given area? Or, does the presence of an autonomously operating UCS represent a clear and unacceptably high degree of threat to any civilian who finds himself wandering around a combat zone during periods of active combat?
The expense of a system as sophisticated as a UCS capable of autonomous operation militates against the system being left behind after combat has ceased. It is not a fire-and-forget device like a cluster munition. Nor is it a plant-and-forget expendable like the landmine. Programming solutions exist for the challenge presented by the apparent civilian found in an active combat zone. Presumably pattern recognition software coupled with contingent algorithm based decision making could prevent instant lethal action while permitting either non-lethal detention or the summoning of a human to the loop. In either broad case, the ethical and legal questions can be addressed fully and effectively.
The loudest and most vociferous denunciations of UCS will come as they have already not simply from civilian organizations dedicated to the most extreme understandings of civilian immunity but from those countries which are and will be inferior in the development and fielding of UCS. It is to be expected that states hostile to the US in particular will take the lead in seeking international conventions prohibiting the use of UCS. The historical record shows the pervasive but ultimately unsuccessful deep rooted desire of have-not states to shackle the have states to the lowest level.
The most silly objection to the further development and deployment of UCS is that these systems will make war not only more "thinkable" but far more likely. There are two, mutually incompatible components to this idea. One is the removal of the threat to friendly forces by providing the bravery of being out of range removes a powerful inhibition to the resort to war on the part of states such as the US. The other is the reduction in collateral civilian losses reduces the horror of war to the party inflicting the damage.
There is no doubt that reduction of friendly losses is critical to decision making in the US and other civilized states. War does become a bit less repulsive when there is little if any chance of soldiers coming home either in body bags or on stretchers. But other potent inhibitory factors are not removed by the use of UCS. Some of these, particularly diplomatic complications and the enhancement of enemy political will, can actually be enhanced by the employment of UCS. This has already been seen in the Predator strikes in the FATA of Pakistan.
The reduction of collateral civilian deaths and physical destruction made possible by the further development of UCS should be welcomed by human rights organizations. Increased accuracy in the delivery of lethal munitions allows the use of lower potency ordnance. There is no need to use a Hellfire missile with its impressively large bang down range if one can accurately deliver a "smart spike" which puts a large hole in the intended target without disturbing the dandruff of the person standing next to him. As has been demonstrated most recently in Libya, the concrete bomb can obliterate an antiaircraft gun mounted in a small courtyard without even breaking windows a couple of meters away. Evolution to greater accuracy has been and will continue to be rapid with life saving effects increasing accordingly.
The UCS operated by a man under no pressure of combat aided by technology oriented toward the utmost of precision can kill the person in need of killing without any collateral damage. The lofty thinking and tender hearted must remember that the purpose of war is to gain political dominance over an enemy in order to establish a better state of peace. This means there are people who need to be killed. The concept of the operation is to kill those who must be killed and not kill or injure anyone else. The UCS provides a much better means of doing this.
Another objection that has been raised in opposition to the UCS is the capacity resident in such systems to vastly expand the area of combat operations. This is one more risible example of a totally specious objection. While some military operations can be confined to a tidily defined geographic area, others, such as the neutralizing of groups practicing violent political Islam, cannot. Such groups by their very nature are diffuse in location and critical nodes of command and control. The practitioners of violent political Islam have defined their area of operations to be regional at the least and global at the most. The UCS provides the capacity to attack the noxious practitioner wherever he exists. The choice has been his, and the response is not a voluntary expansion of the military theater of operations but a realistic appreciation of the enemy's nature, character, and intentions.
While the UCS has much to recommend it and will have even more in the years to come, there is no way that the UCS can by itself win wars, that is impose one's political will upon the other. The UCS is and will remain a force multiplier, a way of doing much more with fewer active combatants involved in theater. There will be fewer boots on the ground, but those fewer boots will be all the more important.
There are several reasons why the boots will be there and be important in their presence.
One reason is purely psychological: Only human presence is truly intimidating. Being there, being in the enemy's face nearly every time he turns around, has the effect over time of undercutting his will to continue. Importantly, the surveillance capabilities provided by UCS allow the forces on the ground to be deployed more effectively, to be in the enemy's face more efficiently, and thus to undercut his will to resist faster with less actual blood being shed in the process.
A second reason is political. The presence of men on the ground is an easily understood signal of political will. Since all wars, but the asymmetrical form in particular, are contests of political will, the presence of boots on the ground is essential if the enemy is to be convinced that the US, for example, has the political will to fight on until victory. The UCS plays a role here. The casualty reducing capacities of the UCS assures that American political will remains intact for a longer period of time. Even the frustrating war in Afghanistan retained support for years in largest measure because so few US personnel were killed there.
A third reason is found in the intelligence area. Contact between friendly and hostile forces constitutes an important source of intelligence. Only contact and the resulting firefight can give a useful indicator regarding the enemy's will to combat as well as on his capacity to make good his losses in manpower and equipment. Perhaps the most important indicator of enemy morale, of his will to fight, is found in how eagerly he seeks contact, how he reacts to contact, how well he fights, and how prolonged is his resistance. This is an area, a very important area, in which the UCS is of little or no assistance. There are and will be some things in war which only humans can do.
The progress in the development of UCS has been revolutionary. Absent a real shooting war, the future evolution of the systems will be slower, more hesitant, and liable to interruption due to budgetary or political concerns. On the upside, we can be quite sure the believers in violent political Islam will make every effort to keep the war going. As the war goes on, so also will the development of the UCS. And, that, bucko, is a very fine thing.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Down With The Nation-State!
The end of the cold war was marked by more than merely the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact "empire." The unfreezing of the bipolar icecap which had put a heavy and quite repressive hand on global politics as well as the internal politics of the component parts of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact subordinates started a series of escalating attacks upon the nation-state generally. After centuries of unquestioned dominance as the basic unit of international relations, the seemingly eternal nation-state was under threat on two fronts.
One axis of attack was both predictable and fully expected by observers of global affairs: the internationalists, particularly those of the Western European and American elite. Some sang the praises of supra-national organizations both regional and global. Others gave one shout-out after another on behalf of transnational business entities. Both groups damned the narrow, parochial focus of the nation-state with its preoccupation concerning national and strategic interests.
With far more joy than sorrow, infinitely greater anticipation than regret, members of the several elites drawn from both the Left and the Right consigned the nation-state to the status of museum curio while anticipating that the new age of globalization and supra-national organizations would mean a better future for all people everywhere. Abandoning the nation-state for new, bigger, better forms of organization would, it was repeated, usher in a world of peace and plenty, of prosperity and environmental purity.
Slightly less than ten years ago, the presumably unilateral George W. Bush did his not inconsiderable bit to further the cause of the supra-nationalist camp. Far from being a robust adherent of the go-it-alone school of international relations, George W. Bush showed himself to be squarely in the middle of the American version of multilateralism.
It would have been politically and diplomatically possible, arguably even preferable, to have declined the offer of assistance given by NATO in the wake of 9/11 and dealt with Afghanistan, Taliban, and al-Qaeda with purely American means. The later seeking of a UN figleaf to cover the policy genitalia of the Bush/Cheney administration with respect to regime change in Iraq did the US no useful service while holding the American effort ultimately hostage to the views, policies, and politics of other countries.
By seeking the support and agreement of supra-national organizations, the Bush/Cheney administration stood solidly in the diplomatic tradition of Harry Truman and LBJ far more than in the footsteps of his father who relied on a US constructed ad hoc coalition when he went to war a decade earlier. By so doing, the allegedly unilateralist George W. acted to lessen the future freedom of the US to act as a fully sovereign nation-state.
George W. Bush shared the common view of the American and Western European elites that the nation-state should be lessened in the exercise of untrammeled sovereignty. Regardless of his sometimes less than temperate rhetoric, this President Bush had a faith in the ability of supra-national institutions to restrain the nation-state from pursuing its national interest regardless of the costs imposed on others. He was also a deep believer in the capacity of transnational business to increase stability and real wealth. In essence, he stood on the Right but leaned to the Left.
Over the past decade the view of the nation-state as being an obstacle to creating solutions to global problems has grown greatly. Whether the problem at hand is one of keeping the peace, protecting the environment, creating greater economic stability, assuring access to food and clean water, providing employment and fairly distributing wealth, or assuring human rights, the default position has been to seek the proper supra-national organization, public, or private.
During the past decade, the UN has constantly sought to extend its reach. Along with its subordinate agencies, the UN has looked for ways by which it can intervene in the domestic affairs of member states. There have always been good intentions in play: protecting refugees, protecting civilians against repressive acts by their governments, assuring human rights. Typified by the convention based on the doctrine termed "responsibility to protect," the UN's reach has far extended beyond its practical grasp.
In the years since the end of the cold war, there has been a proliferation of defensive insurgencies by ethnic and religious communities chaffing under the governance of majorities coming from different groups or beliefs. What has been observed ever since the blood letting in the wreckage of the artificial nation-state once called "Yugoslavia" has been a real world application of the self-determination of nations, a doctrine first given form by Woodrow Wilson nearly a century ago.
From Kosovo to the Northern Caucasus to Darfur and South Sudan, defensive insurgencies (aka separatist movements) have resulted not only in massive loss of life and even more massive refugee streams but military interventions or the calls for such interventions. In all cases the calls have been directed to and answered by supra-national organizations ranging from the UN to NATO to the African Union. There is no indication that the trajectory of defensive insurgency has reached its apogee yet. This means there will be more demands for more international intervention in the future.
In recent months, offensive insurgencies (revolutions) have joined with the defensive sort as a very popular pastime. This has resulted in one more outpouring of demands for outside intervention by the "international community." The demand has been answered in Libya by a combination of three supra-national organizations, the Arab League, the UN and NATO. Similar demands with regard to Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria have yet gone unanswered.
The single greatest reason the latter three states have been given a "pass" and left unmolested by missiles and bombs delivered by aircraft operated by governments responsive to the doctrine of R2P is the existence of two countries which do not share the negative view of the nation-state so prevalent in the West. These two countries are Russia and China. Neither accept the proposition that the nation-state is either evil or obsolete (or both.) Neither go along with the belief that countries have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of another if given the OK by the UN or some other supra-national organization.
But all the foot dragging on well-intended, forceful interventions is not confined to the Boys in the Kremlin or the Trolls of Beijing. Nor are the Boys and the Trolls the only people who reject the negative view of the nation-state. In a delightful irony the views put forth in the Kremlin and the Forbidden City are shared by the common folk, the hoi polloi in both the US and the countries of Western Europe. Blinded by an arrogant certainty in the correctness of their own multilateral, multinational, multicultural beliefs, the political, media, and academic elites of the US and Western Europe do not understand that their view of the nation-state is rejected completely by their own fellow citizens.
As recent elections in Europe have shown, there is a strong rejectionist current running among the European citizenry. "Populist" right wing parties have done very very well at the polls in large part due to their rejection of the primacy of supra-national organizations. While not yet tested in an election in the US, there are strong hints that We the People are not ready to embrace the notion that American sovereignty should be ceded in part to supra-national organizations.
The number of challenges to the nation-state by defensive insurgencies will probably continue to grow in the nest few years. It is also to be expected that there will be an ever increasing call for international intervention not only in the case of defensive insurgencies but also under the doctrine of R2P. At least some of these demands will be answered by one supra-national organization or another. Even if the UN Security Council does not heed the call due to the ever present Russian or Chinese veto, some other entity will pick up the slack.
Even in the event no structured supra-national organization does take responsibility to intervene, one or another of the oft maligned and purportedly obsolete nation-states will do so--if its interests require. From this it is legitimate to infer that the number of nasty little wars of peace imposition will grow in the years to come. Practically speaking this means the number of asymmetric wars will grow apace.
Against the backdrop of asymmetrical wars it becomes conceivable, even desirable, for states to use proxy conflicts as an instrument of policy. This will go beyond the past practice of governments such as the Syrian to use terrorist groups as instruments of state policy.
Not too pretty a scene to contemplate, eh, bucko? Makes you wish for the good old days of the cold war when affairs might have been risky, but the world was remarkably stable. Looking ahead, the only thing which gives grounds for thanks is that the elites have been wrong. Tomorrow more than ever it will be the self-interested nation-state which serves as the bulwark against raging instability and war.
In a world full of candidates for devolution, the only genuine force for stability, peace, and some semblance of prosperity is the self-centered nation-state. It and not the supra-national organization is and remains the last, best hope of human kind.
It is time the elites and their iconic figures such as President Obama and Secretary Clinton get a grip on that defining reality. Otherwise, their delusions of a UN inspired heaven on Earth will be the death of us all.
One axis of attack was both predictable and fully expected by observers of global affairs: the internationalists, particularly those of the Western European and American elite. Some sang the praises of supra-national organizations both regional and global. Others gave one shout-out after another on behalf of transnational business entities. Both groups damned the narrow, parochial focus of the nation-state with its preoccupation concerning national and strategic interests.
With far more joy than sorrow, infinitely greater anticipation than regret, members of the several elites drawn from both the Left and the Right consigned the nation-state to the status of museum curio while anticipating that the new age of globalization and supra-national organizations would mean a better future for all people everywhere. Abandoning the nation-state for new, bigger, better forms of organization would, it was repeated, usher in a world of peace and plenty, of prosperity and environmental purity.
Slightly less than ten years ago, the presumably unilateral George W. Bush did his not inconsiderable bit to further the cause of the supra-nationalist camp. Far from being a robust adherent of the go-it-alone school of international relations, George W. Bush showed himself to be squarely in the middle of the American version of multilateralism.
It would have been politically and diplomatically possible, arguably even preferable, to have declined the offer of assistance given by NATO in the wake of 9/11 and dealt with Afghanistan, Taliban, and al-Qaeda with purely American means. The later seeking of a UN figleaf to cover the policy genitalia of the Bush/Cheney administration with respect to regime change in Iraq did the US no useful service while holding the American effort ultimately hostage to the views, policies, and politics of other countries.
By seeking the support and agreement of supra-national organizations, the Bush/Cheney administration stood solidly in the diplomatic tradition of Harry Truman and LBJ far more than in the footsteps of his father who relied on a US constructed ad hoc coalition when he went to war a decade earlier. By so doing, the allegedly unilateralist George W. acted to lessen the future freedom of the US to act as a fully sovereign nation-state.
George W. Bush shared the common view of the American and Western European elites that the nation-state should be lessened in the exercise of untrammeled sovereignty. Regardless of his sometimes less than temperate rhetoric, this President Bush had a faith in the ability of supra-national institutions to restrain the nation-state from pursuing its national interest regardless of the costs imposed on others. He was also a deep believer in the capacity of transnational business to increase stability and real wealth. In essence, he stood on the Right but leaned to the Left.
Over the past decade the view of the nation-state as being an obstacle to creating solutions to global problems has grown greatly. Whether the problem at hand is one of keeping the peace, protecting the environment, creating greater economic stability, assuring access to food and clean water, providing employment and fairly distributing wealth, or assuring human rights, the default position has been to seek the proper supra-national organization, public, or private.
During the past decade, the UN has constantly sought to extend its reach. Along with its subordinate agencies, the UN has looked for ways by which it can intervene in the domestic affairs of member states. There have always been good intentions in play: protecting refugees, protecting civilians against repressive acts by their governments, assuring human rights. Typified by the convention based on the doctrine termed "responsibility to protect," the UN's reach has far extended beyond its practical grasp.
In the years since the end of the cold war, there has been a proliferation of defensive insurgencies by ethnic and religious communities chaffing under the governance of majorities coming from different groups or beliefs. What has been observed ever since the blood letting in the wreckage of the artificial nation-state once called "Yugoslavia" has been a real world application of the self-determination of nations, a doctrine first given form by Woodrow Wilson nearly a century ago.
From Kosovo to the Northern Caucasus to Darfur and South Sudan, defensive insurgencies (aka separatist movements) have resulted not only in massive loss of life and even more massive refugee streams but military interventions or the calls for such interventions. In all cases the calls have been directed to and answered by supra-national organizations ranging from the UN to NATO to the African Union. There is no indication that the trajectory of defensive insurgency has reached its apogee yet. This means there will be more demands for more international intervention in the future.
In recent months, offensive insurgencies (revolutions) have joined with the defensive sort as a very popular pastime. This has resulted in one more outpouring of demands for outside intervention by the "international community." The demand has been answered in Libya by a combination of three supra-national organizations, the Arab League, the UN and NATO. Similar demands with regard to Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria have yet gone unanswered.
The single greatest reason the latter three states have been given a "pass" and left unmolested by missiles and bombs delivered by aircraft operated by governments responsive to the doctrine of R2P is the existence of two countries which do not share the negative view of the nation-state so prevalent in the West. These two countries are Russia and China. Neither accept the proposition that the nation-state is either evil or obsolete (or both.) Neither go along with the belief that countries have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of another if given the OK by the UN or some other supra-national organization.
But all the foot dragging on well-intended, forceful interventions is not confined to the Boys in the Kremlin or the Trolls of Beijing. Nor are the Boys and the Trolls the only people who reject the negative view of the nation-state. In a delightful irony the views put forth in the Kremlin and the Forbidden City are shared by the common folk, the hoi polloi in both the US and the countries of Western Europe. Blinded by an arrogant certainty in the correctness of their own multilateral, multinational, multicultural beliefs, the political, media, and academic elites of the US and Western Europe do not understand that their view of the nation-state is rejected completely by their own fellow citizens.
As recent elections in Europe have shown, there is a strong rejectionist current running among the European citizenry. "Populist" right wing parties have done very very well at the polls in large part due to their rejection of the primacy of supra-national organizations. While not yet tested in an election in the US, there are strong hints that We the People are not ready to embrace the notion that American sovereignty should be ceded in part to supra-national organizations.
The number of challenges to the nation-state by defensive insurgencies will probably continue to grow in the nest few years. It is also to be expected that there will be an ever increasing call for international intervention not only in the case of defensive insurgencies but also under the doctrine of R2P. At least some of these demands will be answered by one supra-national organization or another. Even if the UN Security Council does not heed the call due to the ever present Russian or Chinese veto, some other entity will pick up the slack.
Even in the event no structured supra-national organization does take responsibility to intervene, one or another of the oft maligned and purportedly obsolete nation-states will do so--if its interests require. From this it is legitimate to infer that the number of nasty little wars of peace imposition will grow in the years to come. Practically speaking this means the number of asymmetric wars will grow apace.
Against the backdrop of asymmetrical wars it becomes conceivable, even desirable, for states to use proxy conflicts as an instrument of policy. This will go beyond the past practice of governments such as the Syrian to use terrorist groups as instruments of state policy.
Not too pretty a scene to contemplate, eh, bucko? Makes you wish for the good old days of the cold war when affairs might have been risky, but the world was remarkably stable. Looking ahead, the only thing which gives grounds for thanks is that the elites have been wrong. Tomorrow more than ever it will be the self-interested nation-state which serves as the bulwark against raging instability and war.
In a world full of candidates for devolution, the only genuine force for stability, peace, and some semblance of prosperity is the self-centered nation-state. It and not the supra-national organization is and remains the last, best hope of human kind.
It is time the elites and their iconic figures such as President Obama and Secretary Clinton get a grip on that defining reality. Otherwise, their delusions of a UN inspired heaven on Earth will be the death of us all.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Beauty Of Asymmetrical War
Last night in his announcement of his intended draw down of American forces in Afghanistan, President Obama underscored the beauty, the appeal of asymmetrical war for those who put their strategic fortunes in its ample basket. Stripped of its camouflage, cover, and concealment the president's words conveyed the simple appeal of asymmetrical war--it works.
Asymmetrical war worked in Afghanistan. That is obvious. The US has lost. And announced that defeat in the verbiage of declaring victory. The president made all the expected genuflections before the alter of economic necessity. He took the position that now was the time for "nation-building" here in the US. But, under this convenient shelter, the reality remains. The reality is blunt. The US, We the People, the government which purports to represent us and seek to protect our national interests abroad, has lost the political will to continue the war.
This, my friends, is the goal in all asymmetrical wars. Defeat the numerically and technologically superior enemy by progressively exhausting his political will to continue. Taliban, the Haqqani network, even the not-quite-pathetic remnants of al-Qaeda as well as their supporters and sponsors in Pakistan have succeeded in so enervating the political will of the US that we are tossing in the sponge even as we teeter on the edge of military success.
The announcement does nothing to advance the progress of the very tentative talks with Taliban representatives. History in both the Korean and Vietnamese wars shows that diplomacy of talking depends for progress let alone success upon the diplomacy of the gun. The battlefield and negotiating table are connected head, shoulder, and hip. Only the continued demonstration of political will in combat serves to convince the talkers at the table that they had best make the best deal possible as quickly as possible lest they lose everything on the bullet raked fields of battle.
Given that the only campaign of vital interest to President Obama is Campaign 2012, his decision to undercut the efforts of the past two years in Afghanistan and declare the losses of dollars (replaceable) and hundreds of lives (irreplaceable) to be written off in fact if not in rhetoric was to be expected. He would have announced an even faster pull out, such as that demanded by his progressive base, if that move would not have simultaneously cost him potential votes among the rest of the electorate. As it was, his decision was informed far more by the polls showing the escalating war weariness among We the People than the expert advice of the commanders on the ground.
Ten years ago the thought that the US would suffer one more defeat in an asymmetrical war was almost unthinkable. Within the military there was a widespread belief that the phrase "no more Vietnams" meant or at least implied that the US would never again engage in an intervention or, if we did, it would be of the very limited sort typified by the operations in Kosovo. Overall, the men in uniform thought that the so-called Powell Doctrine would prevail. No significant military commitment absent an overwhelming force and full domestic support.
The small number of people both in and out of uniform who had spent the decades of the Eighties and Nineties studying asymmetrical war under its several different names--unconventional war, interventionary operations, limited war, counterinsurgency--were not so optimistic. The end of the cold war had liberated a number of pressures which would result in small, nasty wars some of which would put American interests in peril. At the same time the effects of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the ongoing Arab-Israeli war served to promote the growth of violent political Islam. The net result was the conclusion that the US would be in an asymmetrical conflict with an Islamist adversary within the next ten years--and, neither the military nor the civilian government would be ready to fight that inevitable war.
The past ten years have shown, as the Geek adumbrated in yesterday's post, the power of asymmetrical war in a way both dramatic and unmistakable. Now that the power of that sort of war has been underscored by President Obama's message of American defeat, asymmetrical conflict will be more common around the world at the same time as the US will be decreasingly willing to take up the challenge.
Now, like the coach sez, "let's get back to basics."
One basic about asymmetrical war is that it is nothing new. Over the sanguine centuries of warfare--defined as the centrally directed, organized application of violence to a political goal by a state, a pretender to statehood or a non-state actor--asymmetrical wars have been as numerous as peer-to-peer conflicts. Insurgencies, both offensive (revolutionary) and defensive (separatist,) have been and continue to be asymmetrical in nature. All peacekeeping or peace imposition (stability) operations are inherently asymmetrical. The increasing use of proxies, the growth in sponsored transnational terrorism, the rise of narco-warfare, all of these constitute sub-sets of asymmetrical wars. All will be common in the future for reasons to be considered in later posts.
A second basic about asymmetrical war is that it is identical to conventional peer-to-peer conflicts in one essential respect. The intent is to bring about a better state of peace by bending the enemy to your political will. The difference, a very critical one, between the peer-to-peer war and its asymmetrical kin is found in the means of bending the enemy to your will. The side initiating the asymmetrical conflict seeks to attack and progressively reduce the target's political will and social cohesiveness by imposing costs which are politically and economically unacceptable while remaining tolerable to the attacker.
Here is the takeaway, the nitty-gritty which was not understood ten years ago but is blindingly apparent today: The goal of al-Qaeda and similar entities was to inflict such politically and economically unacceptable costs on the US employing means which capitalized on strengths inherent to Muslims such as to compel the US to accede to a set of political demands. Based upon the American responses to earlier attacks, the expectation that the attacks of 9/11 would be sufficient to force the US to bend to Arab political will was not lunatic in nature.
The weak and ineffective responses by the US to the series of terror strikes on American targets both overseas and domestically convinced Osama bin Laden and others (including some holding positions of authority in Pakistani agencies) that the proposed 9/11 attacks would be effective at low risk for retaliation. While the Clinton administration was correct to have responded to the truck bomb attack on the World Trade Center as a law enforcement matter, its limp wristed reactions to later attacks, Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the water borne hit on the USS Cole were not only too little, too late, they were de facto admissions of impotency. Each demonstrated the power resident in asymmetry. It was only logical to anticipate the same sort of non-linearity when nineteen good Muslims converted commercial aircraft into manned cruise missiles.
Bin Laden and company blew it. They had misjudged the American character. They didn't understand the Pearl Harbor syndrome and its potency in the collective American mind. Instead of the expected flight of easily evaded cruise missiles, the Mighty Men of the Great Sheik got a reasonable imitation of a military full court press.
Now comes one of the most, perhaps the most, thoroughly delicious ironies known to the Geek (a devoted collector of historical ironies.) The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny administration blew their phase of the asymmetrical war as much or more than bin Laden blew his. They failed to understand what previous leaders had discovered. In the counter strike period of an asymmetrical war, one uses overwhelming force quickly and decisively. The superior force must be employed so as to bring the speedy and complete destruction of the inferior.
The archaic, politically impolite but quite accurate term for this counter strike is "punitive expedition." The goal is to demonstrate political will as well as military supremacy by obliterating the enemy who mounted the attack while "punishing" what and whomsoever supported, facilitated, or gave safe haven to the attacker. The purpose of the exercise is not judicial in nature.
One is not interested in bringing an alleged offender before the bar of justice, but to eliminate him. With respect to those who aid, abet, and protect the enemy, the purpose is to inflict an unacceptable level of economic, social, and political damage upon him. The superior force uses his capacities to squash the offensive but inferior one in a manner akin to the Monty Python giant foot descending irresistibly from the clouds.
The response of the attacked but superior target is quick, brutal, and decisive. The word "brutal" may be offensive to today's hyper-sensitive ears but in the final analysis it is a far more humane approach than would be the ineffective efforts at "nation-building" embarked upon by the clueless bunch in the Bush/Cheney White House and continued until last night by the successor Obama administration.
Afghanistan has been termed the "graveyard of empires" not because the empires lacked the means to successfully defeat and occupy the land and people of the region but rather because the "empires", British, Russian, and American, have lost their political will in the face of the rugged physical and, even more, the spiky human terrain of the place. All, and, most particularly, the American, efforts have foundered because the invader has lacked the political will necessary or the correct strategic and operational concepts to prevail.
The takeaway here is simple. When entering an asymmetrical war, the US must not only employ sufficient means quickly and firmly, it must limit its goals to those which can be achieved by purely military means. These goals are few and easily defined. Military force can topple a regime, but it cannot build one. It can impose a peace but it cannot create stability. It can punish a malefactor but it cannot rehabilitate one. It can back the diplomacy of talk, but it cannot replace it. Most importantly, military force can terminate hostilities, but it cannot resolve the underlying conflict which resulted in the outbreak of hostilities.
Whether any of us like the idea or not, there will be future challenges in the area of asymmetrical war. The specter of transnational terror has not left the world. Nor has the threat posed by violent political Islam. Even if peace breaks out in Afghanistan, there are plenty of other locations where asymmetrical attacks might be planned and mounted. There is Yemen. There is Somalia. There is Sudan. There is Pakistan. Any or all of these might become necessary targets of an American counter strike. So also might a number of other failed or failing states.
There is more to be learned from a defeat resolutely and honestly studied than a victory celebrated. Now that the president has announced an American defeat (or, if it makes you feel better, an incomplete success) in Afghanistan, the time has come to take a very long, very hard, and very honest look at what was done wrong--and right--in Afghanistan. We must be prepared to do the job right the next time out, for there will be a next time regardless of the wishes of any of us.
Or, there is an alternative. We can build a very high and very thick wall around the US and pretend the rest of the world isn't out there.
Asymmetrical war worked in Afghanistan. That is obvious. The US has lost. And announced that defeat in the verbiage of declaring victory. The president made all the expected genuflections before the alter of economic necessity. He took the position that now was the time for "nation-building" here in the US. But, under this convenient shelter, the reality remains. The reality is blunt. The US, We the People, the government which purports to represent us and seek to protect our national interests abroad, has lost the political will to continue the war.
This, my friends, is the goal in all asymmetrical wars. Defeat the numerically and technologically superior enemy by progressively exhausting his political will to continue. Taliban, the Haqqani network, even the not-quite-pathetic remnants of al-Qaeda as well as their supporters and sponsors in Pakistan have succeeded in so enervating the political will of the US that we are tossing in the sponge even as we teeter on the edge of military success.
The announcement does nothing to advance the progress of the very tentative talks with Taliban representatives. History in both the Korean and Vietnamese wars shows that diplomacy of talking depends for progress let alone success upon the diplomacy of the gun. The battlefield and negotiating table are connected head, shoulder, and hip. Only the continued demonstration of political will in combat serves to convince the talkers at the table that they had best make the best deal possible as quickly as possible lest they lose everything on the bullet raked fields of battle.
Given that the only campaign of vital interest to President Obama is Campaign 2012, his decision to undercut the efforts of the past two years in Afghanistan and declare the losses of dollars (replaceable) and hundreds of lives (irreplaceable) to be written off in fact if not in rhetoric was to be expected. He would have announced an even faster pull out, such as that demanded by his progressive base, if that move would not have simultaneously cost him potential votes among the rest of the electorate. As it was, his decision was informed far more by the polls showing the escalating war weariness among We the People than the expert advice of the commanders on the ground.
Ten years ago the thought that the US would suffer one more defeat in an asymmetrical war was almost unthinkable. Within the military there was a widespread belief that the phrase "no more Vietnams" meant or at least implied that the US would never again engage in an intervention or, if we did, it would be of the very limited sort typified by the operations in Kosovo. Overall, the men in uniform thought that the so-called Powell Doctrine would prevail. No significant military commitment absent an overwhelming force and full domestic support.
The small number of people both in and out of uniform who had spent the decades of the Eighties and Nineties studying asymmetrical war under its several different names--unconventional war, interventionary operations, limited war, counterinsurgency--were not so optimistic. The end of the cold war had liberated a number of pressures which would result in small, nasty wars some of which would put American interests in peril. At the same time the effects of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the ongoing Arab-Israeli war served to promote the growth of violent political Islam. The net result was the conclusion that the US would be in an asymmetrical conflict with an Islamist adversary within the next ten years--and, neither the military nor the civilian government would be ready to fight that inevitable war.
The past ten years have shown, as the Geek adumbrated in yesterday's post, the power of asymmetrical war in a way both dramatic and unmistakable. Now that the power of that sort of war has been underscored by President Obama's message of American defeat, asymmetrical conflict will be more common around the world at the same time as the US will be decreasingly willing to take up the challenge.
Now, like the coach sez, "let's get back to basics."
One basic about asymmetrical war is that it is nothing new. Over the sanguine centuries of warfare--defined as the centrally directed, organized application of violence to a political goal by a state, a pretender to statehood or a non-state actor--asymmetrical wars have been as numerous as peer-to-peer conflicts. Insurgencies, both offensive (revolutionary) and defensive (separatist,) have been and continue to be asymmetrical in nature. All peacekeeping or peace imposition (stability) operations are inherently asymmetrical. The increasing use of proxies, the growth in sponsored transnational terrorism, the rise of narco-warfare, all of these constitute sub-sets of asymmetrical wars. All will be common in the future for reasons to be considered in later posts.
A second basic about asymmetrical war is that it is identical to conventional peer-to-peer conflicts in one essential respect. The intent is to bring about a better state of peace by bending the enemy to your political will. The difference, a very critical one, between the peer-to-peer war and its asymmetrical kin is found in the means of bending the enemy to your will. The side initiating the asymmetrical conflict seeks to attack and progressively reduce the target's political will and social cohesiveness by imposing costs which are politically and economically unacceptable while remaining tolerable to the attacker.
Here is the takeaway, the nitty-gritty which was not understood ten years ago but is blindingly apparent today: The goal of al-Qaeda and similar entities was to inflict such politically and economically unacceptable costs on the US employing means which capitalized on strengths inherent to Muslims such as to compel the US to accede to a set of political demands. Based upon the American responses to earlier attacks, the expectation that the attacks of 9/11 would be sufficient to force the US to bend to Arab political will was not lunatic in nature.
The weak and ineffective responses by the US to the series of terror strikes on American targets both overseas and domestically convinced Osama bin Laden and others (including some holding positions of authority in Pakistani agencies) that the proposed 9/11 attacks would be effective at low risk for retaliation. While the Clinton administration was correct to have responded to the truck bomb attack on the World Trade Center as a law enforcement matter, its limp wristed reactions to later attacks, Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the water borne hit on the USS Cole were not only too little, too late, they were de facto admissions of impotency. Each demonstrated the power resident in asymmetry. It was only logical to anticipate the same sort of non-linearity when nineteen good Muslims converted commercial aircraft into manned cruise missiles.
Bin Laden and company blew it. They had misjudged the American character. They didn't understand the Pearl Harbor syndrome and its potency in the collective American mind. Instead of the expected flight of easily evaded cruise missiles, the Mighty Men of the Great Sheik got a reasonable imitation of a military full court press.
Now comes one of the most, perhaps the most, thoroughly delicious ironies known to the Geek (a devoted collector of historical ironies.) The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny administration blew their phase of the asymmetrical war as much or more than bin Laden blew his. They failed to understand what previous leaders had discovered. In the counter strike period of an asymmetrical war, one uses overwhelming force quickly and decisively. The superior force must be employed so as to bring the speedy and complete destruction of the inferior.
The archaic, politically impolite but quite accurate term for this counter strike is "punitive expedition." The goal is to demonstrate political will as well as military supremacy by obliterating the enemy who mounted the attack while "punishing" what and whomsoever supported, facilitated, or gave safe haven to the attacker. The purpose of the exercise is not judicial in nature.
One is not interested in bringing an alleged offender before the bar of justice, but to eliminate him. With respect to those who aid, abet, and protect the enemy, the purpose is to inflict an unacceptable level of economic, social, and political damage upon him. The superior force uses his capacities to squash the offensive but inferior one in a manner akin to the Monty Python giant foot descending irresistibly from the clouds.
The response of the attacked but superior target is quick, brutal, and decisive. The word "brutal" may be offensive to today's hyper-sensitive ears but in the final analysis it is a far more humane approach than would be the ineffective efforts at "nation-building" embarked upon by the clueless bunch in the Bush/Cheney White House and continued until last night by the successor Obama administration.
Afghanistan has been termed the "graveyard of empires" not because the empires lacked the means to successfully defeat and occupy the land and people of the region but rather because the "empires", British, Russian, and American, have lost their political will in the face of the rugged physical and, even more, the spiky human terrain of the place. All, and, most particularly, the American, efforts have foundered because the invader has lacked the political will necessary or the correct strategic and operational concepts to prevail.
The takeaway here is simple. When entering an asymmetrical war, the US must not only employ sufficient means quickly and firmly, it must limit its goals to those which can be achieved by purely military means. These goals are few and easily defined. Military force can topple a regime, but it cannot build one. It can impose a peace but it cannot create stability. It can punish a malefactor but it cannot rehabilitate one. It can back the diplomacy of talk, but it cannot replace it. Most importantly, military force can terminate hostilities, but it cannot resolve the underlying conflict which resulted in the outbreak of hostilities.
Whether any of us like the idea or not, there will be future challenges in the area of asymmetrical war. The specter of transnational terror has not left the world. Nor has the threat posed by violent political Islam. Even if peace breaks out in Afghanistan, there are plenty of other locations where asymmetrical attacks might be planned and mounted. There is Yemen. There is Somalia. There is Sudan. There is Pakistan. Any or all of these might become necessary targets of an American counter strike. So also might a number of other failed or failing states.
There is more to be learned from a defeat resolutely and honestly studied than a victory celebrated. Now that the president has announced an American defeat (or, if it makes you feel better, an incomplete success) in Afghanistan, the time has come to take a very long, very hard, and very honest look at what was done wrong--and right--in Afghanistan. We must be prepared to do the job right the next time out, for there will be a next time regardless of the wishes of any of us.
Or, there is an alternative. We can build a very high and very thick wall around the US and pretend the rest of the world isn't out there.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
What A Difference A Decade Makes
Ten years ago a group of nineteen men primarily from Saudi Arabia were in the last stages of preparing for their dramatic exit from this world. In the US the major political news revolved around the Social Security "lockbox" and dire warnings of dark conspiracy afoot with Vice-President Cheney's energy task force meeting behind locked doors. The most recently completed Quadrennial Defense Review was silent on asymmetrical warfare and made little mention of unmanned combat systems (UCS.) The "Gang of Five Hundred" had reached a quick consensus on George W. Bush being a one-term president.
And, the US was rolling in bucks. The federal budget was running an embarrassingly large surplus. There was so much loot in Uncle Sam's pockets that tax cuts were agreed by one and all to be a very good idea. There was also a wide consensus on the desirability of increased spending on education and health care for senior citizens. Americans were feeling almost guilty about all that money littering the floors and vaults of the Treasury Department.
The overall American mood was optimistic. There was a degree of buoyancy within We the People that even the boom days of the early and mid-sixties seemed grey and dismal in comparison. The "go-go" years of that famed decade paled into dimness compared with the confidence, even exuberance, seen on Wall Street and Main Street alike. The Summer of '01 was very much a period of "let the good times roll!"
The US was the globe's only superpower. The economy was booming in all sectors--even housing and real estate. Jobs were plentiful. There were no real enemies abroad in the world, only a handful of annoying Arab terrorists such as those who attacked the USS Cole and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Hardly enough to worry about, right?
We now know that the Summer of '01 was the last season of the ancien regime. We know now that the past decade has been the opening period of several rather revolutionary dynamics in national security and foreign affairs.
The concept of asymmetrical warfare has come front and center. The US and other civilized states now must prepare to deter or defeat opponents at any point on a conflict spectrum which runs from the use of terror to the employment of missile delivered nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.
The introduction and very rapid evolution of unmanned combat systems (UCS) whether in the air, on land, or in and under the sea indicates that the new technology bodes well to be a game changer equivalent in impact to the introduction of gunpowder weapons. There can be no doubt that even in this early stage of development, the UCS far surpasses in impact both current and near term potential of the submarine, the aircraft carrier, or aircraft themselves.
The nation-state which has served to define global politics for the past five hundred years is now threatened on two fronts. One of these is the supra-national organization. The other can be best seen as sub-national or, to use a longer term, national entities living uneasily within the confines of a state dominated by a different and larger nation.
Another feature which has come to the center of global politics is the latest restatement of a very long standing conflict. It is a conflict which has emerged many times over the centuries. The defining foundation of this very ancient and basic tension is between philosophies of life which center on the individual and views which put the priority upon the community and see the individual as important only insofar as he contributes to the common good of the community.
The tension between individualism and communitarianism dates back to the time when agriculture emerged as a rival to the far more ancient hunting and gathering way of life. To be successful the agriculture based approach to life requires stable communities in which land and labor can be monitored, controlled, guaranteed. The hunting and gathering economy depends upon the voluntary cooperation of individuals so that every person's strengths can be utilized and their weaknesses offset. Agriculture requires both the subordination of the individual to the needs of the community and a hierarchy to assure this subordination.
The individualistically oriented view of life emphasizes the rights of the individual while properly linking these rights with concomitant duties. The communitarian understanding puts a great weight on the duties of the individual--often to the point of ignoring the concept of "rights" completely. The polities which tend to the individualistic end of the spectrum are open and democratic to a significant degree. Polities which lean in the communitarian direction are authoritarian, even autocratic.
In the past, the conflict between the individualistic and communitarian has been seen in the wars between Western democracies and authoritarian ideologically driven states such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It was the conflict of world views and understandings which hid under the term, "the Cold War." Today it exists as the struggle between civilized states and the exponents of violent political Islam.
Running as a connecting thread between all of these several substantial and rapid changes in the practice of global politics is the equally fast and major transformation of the technologies of information transmission and communication. As a means for facilitating the organization of ad hoc constituencies or as a tool for perception manipulation or as a political force multiplier, the Internet, the cellphone, and their dependencies such as social media have only begun to demonstrate their power and potential quite recently.
Then there is the change in the way in which We the People see ourselves, the world, and our future. In a very important sense, the change in mood and perception during the past decade is also a revolution. Perhaps it is the most important revolution of all. This contention is predicated on a commonplace: The perceptions, attitudes, and, thus, actions of the American public place very real and powerful inducements and constraints on decision and policy makers. In short, the mood of Americans generally is the context in which all national security and foreign policy actions are taken (or not taken.)
(It has gotten too bloody hot to go on for now--105 degrees F here at the computer. Please indulge the Geek and let him go and cool off secure in the knowledge that he will go on with this "thought piece" on the morrow when it might be a tad cooler.)
And, the US was rolling in bucks. The federal budget was running an embarrassingly large surplus. There was so much loot in Uncle Sam's pockets that tax cuts were agreed by one and all to be a very good idea. There was also a wide consensus on the desirability of increased spending on education and health care for senior citizens. Americans were feeling almost guilty about all that money littering the floors and vaults of the Treasury Department.
The overall American mood was optimistic. There was a degree of buoyancy within We the People that even the boom days of the early and mid-sixties seemed grey and dismal in comparison. The "go-go" years of that famed decade paled into dimness compared with the confidence, even exuberance, seen on Wall Street and Main Street alike. The Summer of '01 was very much a period of "let the good times roll!"
The US was the globe's only superpower. The economy was booming in all sectors--even housing and real estate. Jobs were plentiful. There were no real enemies abroad in the world, only a handful of annoying Arab terrorists such as those who attacked the USS Cole and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Hardly enough to worry about, right?
We now know that the Summer of '01 was the last season of the ancien regime. We know now that the past decade has been the opening period of several rather revolutionary dynamics in national security and foreign affairs.
The concept of asymmetrical warfare has come front and center. The US and other civilized states now must prepare to deter or defeat opponents at any point on a conflict spectrum which runs from the use of terror to the employment of missile delivered nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.
The introduction and very rapid evolution of unmanned combat systems (UCS) whether in the air, on land, or in and under the sea indicates that the new technology bodes well to be a game changer equivalent in impact to the introduction of gunpowder weapons. There can be no doubt that even in this early stage of development, the UCS far surpasses in impact both current and near term potential of the submarine, the aircraft carrier, or aircraft themselves.
The nation-state which has served to define global politics for the past five hundred years is now threatened on two fronts. One of these is the supra-national organization. The other can be best seen as sub-national or, to use a longer term, national entities living uneasily within the confines of a state dominated by a different and larger nation.
Another feature which has come to the center of global politics is the latest restatement of a very long standing conflict. It is a conflict which has emerged many times over the centuries. The defining foundation of this very ancient and basic tension is between philosophies of life which center on the individual and views which put the priority upon the community and see the individual as important only insofar as he contributes to the common good of the community.
The tension between individualism and communitarianism dates back to the time when agriculture emerged as a rival to the far more ancient hunting and gathering way of life. To be successful the agriculture based approach to life requires stable communities in which land and labor can be monitored, controlled, guaranteed. The hunting and gathering economy depends upon the voluntary cooperation of individuals so that every person's strengths can be utilized and their weaknesses offset. Agriculture requires both the subordination of the individual to the needs of the community and a hierarchy to assure this subordination.
The individualistically oriented view of life emphasizes the rights of the individual while properly linking these rights with concomitant duties. The communitarian understanding puts a great weight on the duties of the individual--often to the point of ignoring the concept of "rights" completely. The polities which tend to the individualistic end of the spectrum are open and democratic to a significant degree. Polities which lean in the communitarian direction are authoritarian, even autocratic.
In the past, the conflict between the individualistic and communitarian has been seen in the wars between Western democracies and authoritarian ideologically driven states such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It was the conflict of world views and understandings which hid under the term, "the Cold War." Today it exists as the struggle between civilized states and the exponents of violent political Islam.
Running as a connecting thread between all of these several substantial and rapid changes in the practice of global politics is the equally fast and major transformation of the technologies of information transmission and communication. As a means for facilitating the organization of ad hoc constituencies or as a tool for perception manipulation or as a political force multiplier, the Internet, the cellphone, and their dependencies such as social media have only begun to demonstrate their power and potential quite recently.
Then there is the change in the way in which We the People see ourselves, the world, and our future. In a very important sense, the change in mood and perception during the past decade is also a revolution. Perhaps it is the most important revolution of all. This contention is predicated on a commonplace: The perceptions, attitudes, and, thus, actions of the American public place very real and powerful inducements and constraints on decision and policy makers. In short, the mood of Americans generally is the context in which all national security and foreign policy actions are taken (or not taken.)
(It has gotten too bloody hot to go on for now--105 degrees F here at the computer. Please indulge the Geek and let him go and cool off secure in the knowledge that he will go on with this "thought piece" on the morrow when it might be a tad cooler.)
Monday, June 20, 2011
The GOP And A (False) Forced Choice
Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives, and most particularly the GOP members of the House, have twisted their panties over the propriety, or, at least, the legality of the ongoing American operation in Libya. The knot in the elephant's knickers is, of course, the War Powers Act. The Republicans have been huffing and puffing mightily over the Obama administration's purported failure to abide by the requirements of this act, an act, it deserves reminding ourselves, the Republicans have often and loudly decried as unconstitutional.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago in no way helped his position when he declared that the US was not engaged in "hostilities" as such might be construed in the context of the War Powers Resolution. This was an utterly preposterous notion which could only have been conceived by an academic with a potent lust for power. The president took an unworthy stance. By so doing he insulted the intelligence not only of the House Republicans but of Americans generally. As an example of legal pettifoggery, the presidential assertion was on a par with the similar legalistic parsing engaged in by Bill Clinton to prove that getting one's knob polished in the environs of the Oval was not engaging in sexual activity.
Now the hypocrites in Congress are locked in a face off with the hypocrite in the Oval. Regardless of which prevails in this imitation mano a mano exercise, the loser will be the United States. What is at stake in this affray is the ability of the US to operate effectively on the global stage in forthcoming years.
The bent-out-of-shape Republicans in the House along with their liberal Democratic colleagues are seeking not simply the humiliation of Obama or the further clipping of the imperial presidency's extensive wingspan or seeking to economize in parlous financial times but rather the forcing of a false choice between an isolationist stance on the part of the US or the continuation of "wars of choice' as defined by the president.
The Republican "deficit hawks" along with their very strange bedfellows, progressive Democrats, are forcing a clear and ongoing limitation on the ability of presidents to wage what has been called "wars of choice." The House leadership as well as most of the current Republican contenders for the Oval have been channeling the ghost of Robert Taft, the "Mr Republican" of sixty and more years ago. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio defined more than any other single man the concept of isolationism. More than other noted congressional proponents of this philosophy of total withdrawal from the political challenges of the world, Taft opposed any and all foreign "entanglements" and "adventures." In support of his position he advanced economic arguments as well as contending without end that not only would our overseas activities end in failure, they would produce more enemies than friends.
The soi dissant conservatives on the Red side of the aisle have been making the same Taft type contentions. Our overseas adventures whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Libya have ended in failure or will do so unless wound down speedily and completely. Our overseas adventures have made us far more enemies than they have created friends. And, certainly neither last nor least, our overseas adventures have been far too costly and can no longer be afforded.
The particular species of overseas adventure which has reigned supreme in the narratives of both progressive Democrat and deficit hawk Republican has been that of "wars of choice." This is a fine term. It gives the clear impression that presidents of both parties search the world from time to time looking for a war in which to involve ourselves. This is a specious notion but like all truly preposterous ideas it contains a small but critical measure of truth.
Considering all of the military interventions in which the US has participated since the Reagan administration there have been some which were clearly optional in the sense the US had no critical national interests at stake in the conflict. George H.W. Bush's humanitarian intervention in Somalia rests in the "optional" category. So does his adventure in regime change, Operation Just Cause in Panama. But the US response to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait is of the "mandatory" sort. Key US national and strategic interests were in play in that war.
Bill Clinton's expansion of the Somalian operation fell in the "war of choice" column. The same is true with respect to the American operations in former Yugoslavia. The US had no bull in the herd in Somalia. The bloody implosion of what had once been the totally artificial state of Yugoslavia was of concern to Europe but not to the US, pace the recently deceased Larry Eagleburger.
The invasion of Afghanistan, if that use of force had been confined to the original mission statement, was mandatory, a justifiable exercise in retaliation to an attack on the US. However, George W.'s invasion of Iraq fell clearly in the "war of choice" category. It was an ideologically driven "build it and they will come" sort which produced if not a debacle certainly a bloody and expensive tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, people who will be dealing with the aftershocks for decades if not generations to come.
The ideologically propelled "mission leap" in Afghanistan along with the "war of choice" in Iraq are the ghosts at the political banquet now being served over Libya. There is a delicious irony at the banquet. That irony resides in the main course of the meal--the War Powers Resolution.
The War Powers Resolution was passed by the Democratic Party controlled Congress as a reaction to the Vietnam War which was seen by the Democrats as having been a "war of choice" waged by imperial presidents. The Democrats who so loudly demanded limitations be placed on the president's capacity to wage war cheerfully ignored reality as they voted. The American entrance into the Vietnamese war was seen by both the Democratic presidents (JKF and LBJ) as well as the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress to have been "mandatory."
If anything the documents show the congressional Democrats were far more willing and eager to go to war then either JFK or LBJ. The Democrats along with the Republicans understood our commitment to the South Vietnamese to be central to our guarantee of the global status quo during a very frigid period of the cold war. Support for the introduction of combat troops, the commencement of the air war against North Vietnam, and the central decision to escalate our forces in country were all monolithically supported by the Democratic Party. It was only after the war seemed (incorrectly) to have devolved to an unwinnable stalemate during the administration of the detested Richard Nixon that sentiment on the Blue side shifted so as to produce the War Powers Resolution.
Now the Republicans motivated by their political calculus are willing to invoke both the War Powers Resolution and the power of the purse to limit or end the Obama policy in Libya. Standing in opposition to the efforts of the deficit hawk Republicans and progressive Democrats to end the minimal American presence in the Libyan "war of choice" is the neocon outfit, The Foreign Policy Initiative," which authored an open letter to the House leadership imploring a rejection of the proposed strictures and urging an expansion of US efforts in the Libyan Affair.
The neocons are no more correct than are the wing clippers in the House. The answer to the problems of "wars of choice" is to be found in a more effective means of determining the nature of US interests in play in any given potential area of intervention. The critical difference between "mandatory" and "optional" wars is to be found in the answer to one question: What key national and strategic interests are to be served and to what degree by this proposed intervention?
Had this question been both posed and accurately answered, the US would have not invaded Iraq. It would not have expanded the mission in Afghanistan to include the impossibility of nation-building. And, the US would have sat out Libya as it did conflicts even more bloody elsewhere in Africa. The "wars of choice" all share a common feature--they were driven by ideology. True, the ideology might have been clothed attractively in American values, norms, aspirations. The motive might have been expressed in pleasant words regarding democracy, transparency, or the evil nature of repressive regimes. The matter of refugees might have been adduced in support as well as concealment of the underlying ideological imperatives.
There is only one reason to go to war--when there is no realistic alternative way by which a better state of peace as defined by American national and strategic interests exists. There is one large reason not to go to war--when the motive is one of ideology, of belief, of personal or collective vision.
How to parse between the two is the only effective way to assure the US does not waste blood and treasure in pursuit of impossible dreams. And, parsing between the two is the only way to assure that when war in the national interest is necessary, we have the way and will to do so with success.
Of course, Congress being what it is, there is no chance the Deep Thinkers in that body any more than the Great Strategists in and near the Oval will consider this matter, the only matter which genuinely counts for more than a few votes more or less in some future election.
The Nice Young Man From Chicago in no way helped his position when he declared that the US was not engaged in "hostilities" as such might be construed in the context of the War Powers Resolution. This was an utterly preposterous notion which could only have been conceived by an academic with a potent lust for power. The president took an unworthy stance. By so doing he insulted the intelligence not only of the House Republicans but of Americans generally. As an example of legal pettifoggery, the presidential assertion was on a par with the similar legalistic parsing engaged in by Bill Clinton to prove that getting one's knob polished in the environs of the Oval was not engaging in sexual activity.
Now the hypocrites in Congress are locked in a face off with the hypocrite in the Oval. Regardless of which prevails in this imitation mano a mano exercise, the loser will be the United States. What is at stake in this affray is the ability of the US to operate effectively on the global stage in forthcoming years.
The bent-out-of-shape Republicans in the House along with their liberal Democratic colleagues are seeking not simply the humiliation of Obama or the further clipping of the imperial presidency's extensive wingspan or seeking to economize in parlous financial times but rather the forcing of a false choice between an isolationist stance on the part of the US or the continuation of "wars of choice' as defined by the president.
The Republican "deficit hawks" along with their very strange bedfellows, progressive Democrats, are forcing a clear and ongoing limitation on the ability of presidents to wage what has been called "wars of choice." The House leadership as well as most of the current Republican contenders for the Oval have been channeling the ghost of Robert Taft, the "Mr Republican" of sixty and more years ago. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio defined more than any other single man the concept of isolationism. More than other noted congressional proponents of this philosophy of total withdrawal from the political challenges of the world, Taft opposed any and all foreign "entanglements" and "adventures." In support of his position he advanced economic arguments as well as contending without end that not only would our overseas activities end in failure, they would produce more enemies than friends.
The soi dissant conservatives on the Red side of the aisle have been making the same Taft type contentions. Our overseas adventures whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Libya have ended in failure or will do so unless wound down speedily and completely. Our overseas adventures have made us far more enemies than they have created friends. And, certainly neither last nor least, our overseas adventures have been far too costly and can no longer be afforded.
The particular species of overseas adventure which has reigned supreme in the narratives of both progressive Democrat and deficit hawk Republican has been that of "wars of choice." This is a fine term. It gives the clear impression that presidents of both parties search the world from time to time looking for a war in which to involve ourselves. This is a specious notion but like all truly preposterous ideas it contains a small but critical measure of truth.
Considering all of the military interventions in which the US has participated since the Reagan administration there have been some which were clearly optional in the sense the US had no critical national interests at stake in the conflict. George H.W. Bush's humanitarian intervention in Somalia rests in the "optional" category. So does his adventure in regime change, Operation Just Cause in Panama. But the US response to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait is of the "mandatory" sort. Key US national and strategic interests were in play in that war.
Bill Clinton's expansion of the Somalian operation fell in the "war of choice" column. The same is true with respect to the American operations in former Yugoslavia. The US had no bull in the herd in Somalia. The bloody implosion of what had once been the totally artificial state of Yugoslavia was of concern to Europe but not to the US, pace the recently deceased Larry Eagleburger.
The invasion of Afghanistan, if that use of force had been confined to the original mission statement, was mandatory, a justifiable exercise in retaliation to an attack on the US. However, George W.'s invasion of Iraq fell clearly in the "war of choice" category. It was an ideologically driven "build it and they will come" sort which produced if not a debacle certainly a bloody and expensive tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, people who will be dealing with the aftershocks for decades if not generations to come.
The ideologically propelled "mission leap" in Afghanistan along with the "war of choice" in Iraq are the ghosts at the political banquet now being served over Libya. There is a delicious irony at the banquet. That irony resides in the main course of the meal--the War Powers Resolution.
The War Powers Resolution was passed by the Democratic Party controlled Congress as a reaction to the Vietnam War which was seen by the Democrats as having been a "war of choice" waged by imperial presidents. The Democrats who so loudly demanded limitations be placed on the president's capacity to wage war cheerfully ignored reality as they voted. The American entrance into the Vietnamese war was seen by both the Democratic presidents (JKF and LBJ) as well as the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress to have been "mandatory."
If anything the documents show the congressional Democrats were far more willing and eager to go to war then either JFK or LBJ. The Democrats along with the Republicans understood our commitment to the South Vietnamese to be central to our guarantee of the global status quo during a very frigid period of the cold war. Support for the introduction of combat troops, the commencement of the air war against North Vietnam, and the central decision to escalate our forces in country were all monolithically supported by the Democratic Party. It was only after the war seemed (incorrectly) to have devolved to an unwinnable stalemate during the administration of the detested Richard Nixon that sentiment on the Blue side shifted so as to produce the War Powers Resolution.
Now the Republicans motivated by their political calculus are willing to invoke both the War Powers Resolution and the power of the purse to limit or end the Obama policy in Libya. Standing in opposition to the efforts of the deficit hawk Republicans and progressive Democrats to end the minimal American presence in the Libyan "war of choice" is the neocon outfit, The Foreign Policy Initiative," which authored an open letter to the House leadership imploring a rejection of the proposed strictures and urging an expansion of US efforts in the Libyan Affair.
The neocons are no more correct than are the wing clippers in the House. The answer to the problems of "wars of choice" is to be found in a more effective means of determining the nature of US interests in play in any given potential area of intervention. The critical difference between "mandatory" and "optional" wars is to be found in the answer to one question: What key national and strategic interests are to be served and to what degree by this proposed intervention?
Had this question been both posed and accurately answered, the US would have not invaded Iraq. It would not have expanded the mission in Afghanistan to include the impossibility of nation-building. And, the US would have sat out Libya as it did conflicts even more bloody elsewhere in Africa. The "wars of choice" all share a common feature--they were driven by ideology. True, the ideology might have been clothed attractively in American values, norms, aspirations. The motive might have been expressed in pleasant words regarding democracy, transparency, or the evil nature of repressive regimes. The matter of refugees might have been adduced in support as well as concealment of the underlying ideological imperatives.
There is only one reason to go to war--when there is no realistic alternative way by which a better state of peace as defined by American national and strategic interests exists. There is one large reason not to go to war--when the motive is one of ideology, of belief, of personal or collective vision.
How to parse between the two is the only effective way to assure the US does not waste blood and treasure in pursuit of impossible dreams. And, parsing between the two is the only way to assure that when war in the national interest is necessary, we have the way and will to do so with success.
Of course, Congress being what it is, there is no chance the Deep Thinkers in that body any more than the Great Strategists in and near the Oval will consider this matter, the only matter which genuinely counts for more than a few votes more or less in some future election.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The Decline Of A Regional Troublemaker
Hugo Chavez is recovering in a Havana hospital. He was operated upon for an abscess on his pelvic bone. The operation was a success as is attested to by a photo of the Paratrooper Turned Socialist Revolutionary standing next to his semi-senescent spiritual mentor, Fidel Castro, and the not-quite-drooling Raul. There has been no word as to whether or not the Soviet trained Cuban surgeons operated on Hugo's larger and more deadly abscess, the one located in his brain housing group.
Sr Chavez is probably not in too much of a hurry to get back home to Caracas, a city so deadly as to make Juarez appear as peaceful and tranquil as, say, Geneva, Switzerland. Not only are the bullets flying in greater number than antisemitic slurs in a Cairo mosque on Friday but the economy of Venezuela is heading down the tubes at an ever greater approximation of warp speed. Further, the grand ambitions of the one-time sergeant to be the Mr Grande of South America are resting in ruins, crushed by the always victorious treads of the ultimate panjandrum--reality.
The oil powered, bribe based diplomacy of Sr Chavez has been ended by the declining production of his country's aging and poorly maintained production fields and infrastructure. With the ending of the financial inducements has come the ending of Chavez's influence outside of a handful of ideological kinsmen: Ortega, Morales, Correa, and Cristina Fernandez.
While relations with Columbia have improved, this is no fault of Sr Chavez. The Bolivarian dictator, however, does bear responsibility for the deterioration of relations between Brazil and Venezuela. Even Peru's new president, who was widely seen prior to his election as a natural ally of Chavez, has repented of his enthusiasm for the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution. The meltdown of the Peruvian stock market in the immediate wake of his election convinced Ollanta Humala to recast himself instantly as a fan of former Brazilian president Lula de Silva's pro-business philosophy. (Of course the change may prove to be short-lived, rhetorical, and cosmetic.)
Perhaps, most critically, a recent public opinion poll covering eighteen Latin American countries shows Chavez with the second lowest favorable rating. (In the coveted position of most unfavorably viewed, one finds Fidel.) The most recent poll gives Chavez the lowest rating to date of the twelve years he has been running and ruining Venezuela.
Ruining seems almost too kind a word. Venezuela has an official inflation rate of twenty-three percent. Its government debt is rising at a rate compared to which the record of the Obama administration appears to be one of pronounced fiscal restraint. As if those numbers were not bad enough, unemployment runs at a minimum of fifteen percent--double that among youth aged fifteen to twenty-five.
Then there is electricity. Or, more properly, the lack of electricity. Venezuela is a green energy heaven with very significant hydro capacity. Due to the usual suspects--deferred maintenance and inept management--the country now has rolling blackouts and periodic unannounced and unscheduled power outages. The applied ideology of Chavez and his cronies is solely responsible for this lamentable fact.
The same applies to the flight of capital--both financial and human--from Venezuela to neighboring countries, most commonly Panama. The middle class, the techocrats, the skilled managers, the small to middling men of commerce and business have left Venezuela in ever increasing droves for the past several years. Short of building a Berlin Wall around the country, Chavez and his fellow Bolivarians have no means of stopping the crippling losses of money and talent.
Chavez faces reelection in 2012. Having failed in his repeated attempts to change the constitution so as to allow him to become president-for-life, the Little Man On Horseback must seek another term in office courtesy of the much abused Venezuelan citizenry. Of course, the man may seek to short-circuit the demands of constitution and democratic process alike. He has a paramilitary force not unlike the Iranian Bands of Thugs. He has used this capacity previously to silence dissent and prevent opposition to implementation of his policies, opposition which has come from his own "base" and not the "counterrevolutionary elements." There is no doubt but his running buddy, Ahmedinejad, has counselled this approach.
The redoubtable dictator has renewed his call for a purely Latin American counterpart to the OAS which would exclude the US and Canada. This move can be seen as a centerpiece for a nationalistically focused reelection campaign. Chavez will portray himself as the embattled foe of the American run imperialistic neo-colonialism. He will invoke the specters of globalization and the IMF, multinational corporations and the World Bank, Yanqui imperialism and economic exploitation. All the usual villains will be enlisted to aid Chavez.
The US should pay a bit more attention to South America as Ms Clinton has suggested. However, there should be rational limits to our attempts to cozen our way back to influence in the region. We should not, for example, sacrifice our relations with the UK to flatter Ms Fernandez's grand ambition to gain the Falkland Islands. This still leaves a wide scope for new demarches including a retraction from the Era of Globalization and Privatization lingering on from the time of Bill Clinton.
Retracting from the excesses of globalization along with a new, due regard for the status of the original inhabitants of South America would go a very long way to lowering the appeal of the Bolivarian Revolution and, thus, its emblems such as Hugo Chavez. We might even make him wish to return to the hospitality of Fidel's own hospital.
Sr Chavez is probably not in too much of a hurry to get back home to Caracas, a city so deadly as to make Juarez appear as peaceful and tranquil as, say, Geneva, Switzerland. Not only are the bullets flying in greater number than antisemitic slurs in a Cairo mosque on Friday but the economy of Venezuela is heading down the tubes at an ever greater approximation of warp speed. Further, the grand ambitions of the one-time sergeant to be the Mr Grande of South America are resting in ruins, crushed by the always victorious treads of the ultimate panjandrum--reality.
The oil powered, bribe based diplomacy of Sr Chavez has been ended by the declining production of his country's aging and poorly maintained production fields and infrastructure. With the ending of the financial inducements has come the ending of Chavez's influence outside of a handful of ideological kinsmen: Ortega, Morales, Correa, and Cristina Fernandez.
While relations with Columbia have improved, this is no fault of Sr Chavez. The Bolivarian dictator, however, does bear responsibility for the deterioration of relations between Brazil and Venezuela. Even Peru's new president, who was widely seen prior to his election as a natural ally of Chavez, has repented of his enthusiasm for the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution. The meltdown of the Peruvian stock market in the immediate wake of his election convinced Ollanta Humala to recast himself instantly as a fan of former Brazilian president Lula de Silva's pro-business philosophy. (Of course the change may prove to be short-lived, rhetorical, and cosmetic.)
Perhaps, most critically, a recent public opinion poll covering eighteen Latin American countries shows Chavez with the second lowest favorable rating. (In the coveted position of most unfavorably viewed, one finds Fidel.) The most recent poll gives Chavez the lowest rating to date of the twelve years he has been running and ruining Venezuela.
Ruining seems almost too kind a word. Venezuela has an official inflation rate of twenty-three percent. Its government debt is rising at a rate compared to which the record of the Obama administration appears to be one of pronounced fiscal restraint. As if those numbers were not bad enough, unemployment runs at a minimum of fifteen percent--double that among youth aged fifteen to twenty-five.
Then there is electricity. Or, more properly, the lack of electricity. Venezuela is a green energy heaven with very significant hydro capacity. Due to the usual suspects--deferred maintenance and inept management--the country now has rolling blackouts and periodic unannounced and unscheduled power outages. The applied ideology of Chavez and his cronies is solely responsible for this lamentable fact.
The same applies to the flight of capital--both financial and human--from Venezuela to neighboring countries, most commonly Panama. The middle class, the techocrats, the skilled managers, the small to middling men of commerce and business have left Venezuela in ever increasing droves for the past several years. Short of building a Berlin Wall around the country, Chavez and his fellow Bolivarians have no means of stopping the crippling losses of money and talent.
Chavez faces reelection in 2012. Having failed in his repeated attempts to change the constitution so as to allow him to become president-for-life, the Little Man On Horseback must seek another term in office courtesy of the much abused Venezuelan citizenry. Of course, the man may seek to short-circuit the demands of constitution and democratic process alike. He has a paramilitary force not unlike the Iranian Bands of Thugs. He has used this capacity previously to silence dissent and prevent opposition to implementation of his policies, opposition which has come from his own "base" and not the "counterrevolutionary elements." There is no doubt but his running buddy, Ahmedinejad, has counselled this approach.
The redoubtable dictator has renewed his call for a purely Latin American counterpart to the OAS which would exclude the US and Canada. This move can be seen as a centerpiece for a nationalistically focused reelection campaign. Chavez will portray himself as the embattled foe of the American run imperialistic neo-colonialism. He will invoke the specters of globalization and the IMF, multinational corporations and the World Bank, Yanqui imperialism and economic exploitation. All the usual villains will be enlisted to aid Chavez.
The US should pay a bit more attention to South America as Ms Clinton has suggested. However, there should be rational limits to our attempts to cozen our way back to influence in the region. We should not, for example, sacrifice our relations with the UK to flatter Ms Fernandez's grand ambition to gain the Falkland Islands. This still leaves a wide scope for new demarches including a retraction from the Era of Globalization and Privatization lingering on from the time of Bill Clinton.
Retracting from the excesses of globalization along with a new, due regard for the status of the original inhabitants of South America would go a very long way to lowering the appeal of the Bolivarian Revolution and, thus, its emblems such as Hugo Chavez. We might even make him wish to return to the hospitality of Fidel's own hospital.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Cranking Up A (Too) Rapid Pull Out From Afghanistan
Reportedly the Obama administration is ginning up a public relations effort oriented at justifying a very rapid withdrawal of significant combat forces from Afghanistan. Jerking out a giant posse of grunts from the Land Of Karzai will not only meet with widespread approval within the war weary American public, it will be greeted with hosannas on the part of Obama's base, particularly the congressional contingent where a very other worldly congresswoman has demanded that fifty thousand trigger pullers be brought back to CONUS ASAP.
The thought of a faster withdrawal will not only fit with the recently revealed conversations between the US and representatives of Mullah Omar but also with the latest expression of distaste for the presence of the "foreign forces" delivered by Hamid Karzai. The US should be talking with Taliban. The participation of this group in a comprehensive peace agreement is fundamental. Given that Mullah Omar has long repented of his ill-advised extension of "Muslim hospitality" to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, there is strong reason to conclude that the old leadership of the group is ready to exchange the politics of the AK-47 for a less robust means of acquiring and exercising power.
Karzai is comfortable with Taliban as he and they share language and cultural ties as well as religion. Taliban without the al-Qaeda dimension is no threat to Pushtu dominance. The other ethnic and cultural groups which make up the Afghan mosaic are not so sure. And, considering the memories of Taliban's repressive regime, there is no reason for women to support any role for Taliban in the future. However, it is probable that Mullah Omar and his generational colleagues learned some key lessons in the limits of theocracy and may well be less objectionable in their attitudes and actions regarding women, education, and popular culture. In any event, the US is well advised to abandon the hopelessly misguided Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny notion of creating a modern Western style nation-state in Afghanistan.
The necessity of a political solution including Taliban is recognized and has been so for years by all observers well oriented in time and place. The administration's new add-on in justifying a rapid and steep draw down in US combat forces centers on the effectiveness to date of our efforts to destroy al-Qaeda's organizational integrity and efficiency. There is no doubt but the Predator strikes in the FATA along with special forces operations including but not limited to the Great Abbottabad Raid have severely degraded al-Qaeda's upper and mid-level management. The organization has been disrupted severely.
This does not mean al-Qaeda no longer exists. It does. Nor does it mean that al-Qaeda no longer represents a threat to the US or other civilized states. It does. Rather, the point of the administration's argument is simply that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan no longer is central to the panoply of threats presented by assorted advocates of violent political Islam. This is true.
It is also far less relevant than the administration would have any of us believe.
There are two ramifications of an overly rapid, overly steep withdrawal which the administration does not credit. The first is the recuperative power of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan given the ready availability of support from Pakistan and the unwillingness of the Pakistani military or intelligence service to block that support. The second is the power of history.
The US must not cut and run in a way which will allow the advocates of violent political Islam and their supporters or apologists to write a narrative in which the centerpiece is the assertion that the Mighty Warriors of the One True Faith defeated the infidel crusaders. It was the willingness and ability of Osama bin Laden and others to claim victory over the Soviet forces which provided the original legitimacy for al-Qaeda and other similar groups--including the Taliban of Mullah Omar.
The Islamist version of history is not only specious, it is a total fabrication giving credit to Arab fighters which was and is totally undeserved. Insofar as anyone defeated the Red Army, it was the Afghans--and the support they received from the US. Afghan courage, blood, and endurance along with American technology defeated the Soviets--as much as they were defeated by external pressures. The down and dirty truth was that the Soviets were not defeated. They simply gave up. This loss of political will was the made-in-the-Kremlin equivalent of the American self-inflicted defeat in Vietnam. In a very real sense, the Afghan fighters simply had to keep on fighting, refuse to admit defeat until the Soviets packed it in. This, of course, is the basic cause of any insurgent's success right on back to the patriot "victory" in the American War of Independence.
The Arab hijacking of reality in the according-to-Osama interpretation of history was a work of fiction which prevailed simply because nobody challenged it at the time. The cause driven bin Laden invented a tale and kept telling it to all who would listen until one fine day it was taken, at least in the Arabian Peninsula, as the gospel truth. The tale-telling sheik told his tale of faith and fighting so well and so often that the money and recruits flowed in. Osama's version of history may not have been a Big Lie as Dr Goebbels understood the term, but it turned out to be a Great Lie, the greatest lie of the last decades of the Twentieth Century.
The bin Laden approach to creative fiction as history recommends itself to any and all advocates of violent political Islam today--and into the future. If the American forces are withdrawn hastily and in too great a number, the next bin Laden will claim that the infidels were militarily defeated by the Holy Fighters Of The Koran.
It will not be a true and accurate history to be sure. That does not and will not matter. It will be the history that many Muslims will want to believe. It will be history as they deeply wish it to have been. There is no Islamic concept of history as we in the West understand the concept. Rather, all history is in Muslim eyes a record of great men doing great deeds on behalf of the faith and in the pure name of the faith. Thus the defeat of the infidel crusaders by the followers of Islam, the followers of the "martyred" Great and Learned Osama bin Laden will be believed eagerly and fervently by many future recruits to the cause of violent political Islam.
This powerful ground truth is not and will not be accepted by the Deep Thinkers in and around the Oval. Yet it exists as a reality, a reality as potent and long lasting in effect as the American deficit and the war weariness of We the People. In the contest between a work of fiction, a myth on the one hand, and mere facts, mind numbing statistics, the aggregate of countless after action reports, the first will defeat the second--particularly when the myth meets the needs of people who perceive themselves to have been exploited, marginalized, trivialized even though they are the members of a community promised global dominance by the deity and his prophet.
Wars are ultimately won and lost not on the physical battlefield but on the ineffable terrain of the human mind. It is this foundation truth that gave the Osama bin Laden fictional history of how the Arab true believers defeated the Red Army its power and persistence. It is this foundation truth which will give some future myth maker vast potency when he creates the fiction holding the infidel Americans were defeated by the blood, courage, and conviction of the Men of Islam.
Contrary to a prevalent American belief, history does matter. It matters far, far more than money and elections--even the reelection of Barack Obama.
The thought of a faster withdrawal will not only fit with the recently revealed conversations between the US and representatives of Mullah Omar but also with the latest expression of distaste for the presence of the "foreign forces" delivered by Hamid Karzai. The US should be talking with Taliban. The participation of this group in a comprehensive peace agreement is fundamental. Given that Mullah Omar has long repented of his ill-advised extension of "Muslim hospitality" to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, there is strong reason to conclude that the old leadership of the group is ready to exchange the politics of the AK-47 for a less robust means of acquiring and exercising power.
Karzai is comfortable with Taliban as he and they share language and cultural ties as well as religion. Taliban without the al-Qaeda dimension is no threat to Pushtu dominance. The other ethnic and cultural groups which make up the Afghan mosaic are not so sure. And, considering the memories of Taliban's repressive regime, there is no reason for women to support any role for Taliban in the future. However, it is probable that Mullah Omar and his generational colleagues learned some key lessons in the limits of theocracy and may well be less objectionable in their attitudes and actions regarding women, education, and popular culture. In any event, the US is well advised to abandon the hopelessly misguided Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny notion of creating a modern Western style nation-state in Afghanistan.
The necessity of a political solution including Taliban is recognized and has been so for years by all observers well oriented in time and place. The administration's new add-on in justifying a rapid and steep draw down in US combat forces centers on the effectiveness to date of our efforts to destroy al-Qaeda's organizational integrity and efficiency. There is no doubt but the Predator strikes in the FATA along with special forces operations including but not limited to the Great Abbottabad Raid have severely degraded al-Qaeda's upper and mid-level management. The organization has been disrupted severely.
This does not mean al-Qaeda no longer exists. It does. Nor does it mean that al-Qaeda no longer represents a threat to the US or other civilized states. It does. Rather, the point of the administration's argument is simply that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan no longer is central to the panoply of threats presented by assorted advocates of violent political Islam. This is true.
It is also far less relevant than the administration would have any of us believe.
There are two ramifications of an overly rapid, overly steep withdrawal which the administration does not credit. The first is the recuperative power of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan given the ready availability of support from Pakistan and the unwillingness of the Pakistani military or intelligence service to block that support. The second is the power of history.
The US must not cut and run in a way which will allow the advocates of violent political Islam and their supporters or apologists to write a narrative in which the centerpiece is the assertion that the Mighty Warriors of the One True Faith defeated the infidel crusaders. It was the willingness and ability of Osama bin Laden and others to claim victory over the Soviet forces which provided the original legitimacy for al-Qaeda and other similar groups--including the Taliban of Mullah Omar.
The Islamist version of history is not only specious, it is a total fabrication giving credit to Arab fighters which was and is totally undeserved. Insofar as anyone defeated the Red Army, it was the Afghans--and the support they received from the US. Afghan courage, blood, and endurance along with American technology defeated the Soviets--as much as they were defeated by external pressures. The down and dirty truth was that the Soviets were not defeated. They simply gave up. This loss of political will was the made-in-the-Kremlin equivalent of the American self-inflicted defeat in Vietnam. In a very real sense, the Afghan fighters simply had to keep on fighting, refuse to admit defeat until the Soviets packed it in. This, of course, is the basic cause of any insurgent's success right on back to the patriot "victory" in the American War of Independence.
The Arab hijacking of reality in the according-to-Osama interpretation of history was a work of fiction which prevailed simply because nobody challenged it at the time. The cause driven bin Laden invented a tale and kept telling it to all who would listen until one fine day it was taken, at least in the Arabian Peninsula, as the gospel truth. The tale-telling sheik told his tale of faith and fighting so well and so often that the money and recruits flowed in. Osama's version of history may not have been a Big Lie as Dr Goebbels understood the term, but it turned out to be a Great Lie, the greatest lie of the last decades of the Twentieth Century.
The bin Laden approach to creative fiction as history recommends itself to any and all advocates of violent political Islam today--and into the future. If the American forces are withdrawn hastily and in too great a number, the next bin Laden will claim that the infidels were militarily defeated by the Holy Fighters Of The Koran.
It will not be a true and accurate history to be sure. That does not and will not matter. It will be the history that many Muslims will want to believe. It will be history as they deeply wish it to have been. There is no Islamic concept of history as we in the West understand the concept. Rather, all history is in Muslim eyes a record of great men doing great deeds on behalf of the faith and in the pure name of the faith. Thus the defeat of the infidel crusaders by the followers of Islam, the followers of the "martyred" Great and Learned Osama bin Laden will be believed eagerly and fervently by many future recruits to the cause of violent political Islam.
This powerful ground truth is not and will not be accepted by the Deep Thinkers in and around the Oval. Yet it exists as a reality, a reality as potent and long lasting in effect as the American deficit and the war weariness of We the People. In the contest between a work of fiction, a myth on the one hand, and mere facts, mind numbing statistics, the aggregate of countless after action reports, the first will defeat the second--particularly when the myth meets the needs of people who perceive themselves to have been exploited, marginalized, trivialized even though they are the members of a community promised global dominance by the deity and his prophet.
Wars are ultimately won and lost not on the physical battlefield but on the ineffable terrain of the human mind. It is this foundation truth that gave the Osama bin Laden fictional history of how the Arab true believers defeated the Red Army its power and persistence. It is this foundation truth which will give some future myth maker vast potency when he creates the fiction holding the infidel Americans were defeated by the blood, courage, and conviction of the Men of Islam.
Contrary to a prevalent American belief, history does matter. It matters far, far more than money and elections--even the reelection of Barack Obama.
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