Smart(?) Power In Action

The other day Hilary Clinton and Leon Panetta were on stage at the National Defense University.  In the course of the action Ms Clinton bragged on the use of "smart power" by her boss, The Nice Young Man From Chicago, with respect to the Syrian conundrum.  She went on to imply strongly that the graduated escalation of economic and diplomatic sanctions in support of the anti-government demonstrators was both without precedent in American diplomatic history and (drum roll, please) constituted a paradigm for the future.

This multi-tier exercise in pure idiocy would normally provide grounds for a Bugs Bunny Memorial "What a Maroon!" Award but as the Secretary of State just received one of these highly coveted tributes only a week or so ago, she was (temporarily) ineligible.  Instead Ms Clinton will be given an Honorable Mention in the Rampant Distortions of History and Reality For Base Political Purposes.

While the term "smart power" must mean something else in the Clinton lexicon, to the disinterested observer it can only signify an exercise in simulated policy covering hesitation, irresolution, hemming and hawing to say nothing of the lack of a clear focus on American national interest and an inability to understand the limits of coercive diplomacy.  "Smart power" also serves to obscure if not hide completely the utter failure of the Obama administration to properly calibrate the relation between policy and the mechanisms by which policy might be implemented effectively.

Years ago, way back when the current president was blathering on constitutional law and plotting radical change in the parlors of such as Bernadine Dohrn and her co-revolutionist, Bill Ayers, and Ms Clinton was in Little Rock, President George H.W. Bush showed just how "smart power" is supposed to work in the real world of enemies, partial enemies, allies, pseudo-allies, and the usually uncommitted states-in-the-middle as he patiently assembled an ad hoc coalition under US leadership to eject the Iraq of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

In the past, Ms Clinton has characterized "smart power" as the process of coalition building with the goal of meshing diplomatic, economic, and military assets into an effective package to counter a given threat or meet an unexpected contingency.  In principle, her understanding is correct.  It should be--it was taken directly from the record of the H.W. Bush administration.

The response of the H.W. Bush administration to the unexpected Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 is the practical expression of "smart power."  All any successor administration has had to do is read the book that Dad Bush wrote and follow its guidance.

Leaving aside one very embarrassing factor basic to the Iraqi invasion--the US diplomatic misstep which seemed to Saddam to have given him a clear signal of any lack of American interest in the readjustment of the Iraqi border--the Iraqi attack and occupation of Kuwait came as both a surprise and a major challenge to the US.  Long standing American policy opposed any single state gaining hegemony over the oil states of the Persian Gulf.  It was for this reason that the Nixon administration provided military assistance to the Iran of the Shah as well as to Saudi Arabia.  It was for this reason that the US established and expanded its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The Iraqi occupation of Kuwait would have violated this policy.  Certainly the notion of Saddam Hussein controlling so much of the oil reserves in the region was against American interests.  And, worst of all, the prospect of Iraq either pushing on into Saudi Arabia or exercising an oppressive influence upon the Kingdom was both destabilizing for the region and against American strategic interests.

The decision to roll back the Iraqis was not difficult to make.  Far more demanding was the process of doing so.  Unilateral action would have been unacceptable given the political dynamics not only of the region but also in the rapidly changing international political environment following the collapse of the old Soviet Union.  The status and sensitivity of the Kremlin was a major consideration as the new Confederation of Independent States tried to assemble itself out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union.  Also exercising great influence on the problem of rolling the Iraqis back was the tenuous nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict.  These major factors along with a host of lesser issues meant the US could not act hastily or without the broadest possible base of international political support.

Military considerations were also an important limiter on the rapidity of American action.  The rolling back of the Iraqis from Kuwait could not be accomplished by air and naval power alone.  Sure, the US could obliterate the Kuwaiti (and Iraqi) oil fields and their supporting infrastructure.  Certainly, the US could inflict great devastation on the Iraqi military and government.  It could even 'bomb Iraq back to the stone age' without resorting to nuclear weapons.  However, none of these alternatives would be effective in that each would cause counterproductive levels of destruction.  Winning a rubble field covered by a pall of smoke from ever burning oil wells is not a good definition of victory.

A ground war would be necessary.  To be successful, a ground war would of necessity have to be of short duration and very limited casualties.  A long war or an inconclusive one or one which resulted in too many Americans coming home in body bags would be politically insupportable at home.  To assure the war came to a speedy conclusion with an absolute minimum number of fatalities, a very large force would be necessary.  In order to assure a maximum degree of international support, the US would have to assemble a vast coalition of military contingents from countries lacking any real history of warlike cooperation.

These two foundation truths along with the diplomatic requisites took time.  And they took great effort, personal effort from the president and his most senior people.  Adding to the time requirements was the decision to refrain from using any established multilateral institution other than the UN in the assembling of both the diplomatic and military coalitions.

The use of the UN Security Council was a necessary preliminary.  Not only was gaining the proper authorization from the Security Council a proper preliminary to coalition building, it was essential for securing universal political support domestically.  The Americans like the use of the UN baby blue flag as a figleaf covering the policy genitalia of the US.

The long months of the Fall and Winter of 1990 were well spent in assembling the coalition, transporting the very, very massive American military forces to the theater of operations, and integrating contingents from traditional American allies as well as assorted countries better known for opposing the US than cooperating with it.  The diplomatic and military preparations were highly visible thus giving Saddam ample time to reconsider his position and repent the error made.  (This period of reflection was, in and of itself, an important factor often overlooked at the time by critics and equally ignored by post-conflict writers.)

The war itself was conducted in a manner which well meets the requirements of "smart power."  The early, overly muscular, and unsubtle operational plans of the theater commander were rejected and replaced by a much better thought out use of American mobility and firepower.  The president ignored his critics who bayed for a quicker commencement of hostilities and who chaffed under the seemingly unnecessary delay of a very long preparatory period of aerial bombardment.

The final plan focused on the necessary--the ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait--and a limited incursion into Iraq itself.  This perturbed critics greatly as there were many who wanted the US to go all the way and eliminate Saddam for once and all.  The decision of the H.W. Bush administration not to go all the way, to resist the pernicious virus of the "victory disease' was proper.  The realities of both the domestic and international political scene militated against a total war.  A drive to Baghdad would have resulted in ever stiffening Iraqi resistance and a commensurate body count among friendly forces.  Further, the removal of Saddam would have saddled the US with the problems of post-conflict occupation and the specters of a crumbling coalition and a dissolving Iraqi society.

While there are grounds to criticize the post-truce American policy, on balance the end of the war was as good as could be expected at costs which were politically and economically acceptable.  It was an exercise in "smart power."

By comparison the Obama administration approach to the problems of Libya and Syria were demonstrations of "dumb power."  First and foremost, the administration did not choose the right battle against the right enemy.  Libya and Gadaffi were, at best, a nuisance, an annoyance.  Syria is an adversary of consequence.  As the US has not been able to influence Israel in the direction of returning the Golan Heights to Damascus which, of course, had the potential of prying Syria loose from the embrace of Tehran and ending Syrian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, the alternative is the removal of Bashir al-Assad with the hope that the new regime would be less threatening to both Israel and the West.  (Admittedly a weak hope given the potency of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups espousing violent political Islam.)

Had the US opposed the delusions in London and Paris, there would have been some bloodletting in Libya but less than has accrued to date.  More importantly, the administration could have focused on the very difficult task of gaining support for strong action against Syria.  The difficulty of the task given the long standing relationship between Russia and Syria would have been extreme but not beyond the realm of plausibility.  It is not unthinkable that Moscow could have been persuaded to abstain in the Security Council and as a result Beijing would have done the same rather than be seen as the sole protector of a very unpleasant regime.

The months of diplomacy along with the necessary and highly visible redeployment of US and other forces would have given Assad pause and time for thought.  The lengthy preparations would have provided impetus for the Baathists to have found a face saving way out of the dilemma which came about more by accident and miscalculation than malicious aforethought.  The diplomatic ramp up to war could have made the war itself unnecessary.

This, bucko, would have been "smart power."  Sure, it would have required a level of political courage to prepare for yet one more war with a well armed, well prepared adversary in the face of opposition from the Obama political base.  And, political courage is not this administration's long suit.  It would have taken a high degree of diplomatic finesse along with patient persuasion to build a coalition.  Both of these have been qualities conspicuously absent of late.

"Smart power" ain't easy as the Gulf War demonstrated.  It is, however, far preferable to the hopeless, feckless series of spastic blunders which have scarred our diplomacy in the Mideast in recent months (and years.)

Madam Secretary, get it right.  Saying that something is "smart" doesn't make it so.

Too Good For Our Own Good

Over the past century or so the primary characteristic of American foreign policy has been the tension between realism and ideology. While there has been some seesawing back and forth between the extremes of realpolitik and idealism run rampant, the overall trend has been toward the ideological pole.

Ideals have a very real place in the making and executing of foreign policy. Even ideology in and of itself is not necessarily bad. When, however, the dictates of ideology--any ideology--suppress a careful calculation of the realities resident in a situation, the consequences are most likely going to be poor, even disastrous.

In this context it is utterly essential to remember that governments are not moral beings like individual humans. Governments are impersonal constructs which function as agents on behalf of the nation, the society, or, more properly, that component of society which functions as the polity. It is the polity which sets the pace. The polity determines the nature of national interest. The government functions as the agency which seeks to advance or protect the national interest.

Government is to polity as a lawyer is to the client. That analogy is not precise but it is close enough to the reality of global life to serve as a quick guide.

National interest is composed of concerns or values widely shared within the polity. Some of these are long-lived, virtually permanent features on the national landscape. Others are evanescent, driven into existence by a high profile event, acted upon and then flicker out as new events, new concerns flash across the horizon of the polity's awareness. Still others, arguably the most filled with potential disaster, are the result of a specific ideology.

Stepping back in time a bit, for the first century and more of its existence, the US had little in the way of foreign relations. The men who founded this country were practical politicians and realists. Their view was simply that the US had only one true, compelling national interest--survival. They realized that this new nation was a very small fish in a large ocean populated by sharks with long, sharp teeth.

Despite some horrid miscalculations early in the Nineteenth century, which included almost getting into simultaneous wars with both England and France, the US played a cautious, highly conservative, and ideologically flat role in the world through and beyond the War Between the States. Even our advance into the colonial adventure at the bitter end of the Mauve Decade was justified as conservative--a defensive action needed to assure that our long standing national interest of open, free maritime commerce and access to foreign markets remained intact in the Pacific and Asia.

The first real excursion into an ideologically driven policy came at the bitter end of the Nineteenth century when John Hay announced the famed "Open Door" policy with respect to China. This policy was of the declaratory sort which meant it had neither legal standing nor an inbuilt capacity for enforcement. It is doubtful that any country among the collection of raptors who regarded China with appraising eyes saw any need to heed the new US policy--including the US itself.

On occasion, declaratory policy is harmless, a kind of feel-good move in keeping with the prevalent opinion within an influential segment of the polity. The Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact is one example. No one took this measure seriously beyond a few really sincere peace advocates. Others such as the Open Door policy or the Monroe Doctrine come to be enshrined as national interests worthy of implementing unilaterally if necessary--by force of arms if that is required.

We got away with the Monroe Doctrine in largest measure because the British saw no profit in challenging it. We did not escape unscathed from the Open Door because the Japanese saw great profit in challenging it. So embedded had the Open Door become that the US had no wiggle room for negotiation when the Japanese started to close the door--firmly and permanently. The result was in all the media a few years back. It was called World War II in the Pacific.

Ideology went front and center in both the definition of national interest and the conduct of foreign relations during the years of Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson was a Christian man, a very Christian one, who had strong views on international morality. He saw nations as being bound by the same moral codes as operated on individual people. And, just as a person who violates the moral code may be subject to either punishment or some other form of correction, so should a state which he saw as a bad actor.

Acting on a moral base and totally overlooking the reality that governments are agents not principles, Wilson sought to "teach the Mexicans to elect good men," using Marines and, later, the Army as instructors. Horrified at the submarine's necessary sneakiness and apparently believing that the presence of an American civilian on a British ship (even one which was legally a warship) rendered that boat immune from attack, Wilson worked with vigor and effect to guide the US into war only months after he had been re-elected on a "he kept us out of war" platform.

It is always important to keep in mind that the US had no national interest, nothing which directly, substantially, and materially affected its status in the world, its prosperity, its security in issue on the battlefields of the war. Further, at the time Wilson was spinning his moral distaste with the submarine and the Kaiser for whom they sailed into a full-bore crusade to "make the world safe for democracy," and to wage a "war to end wars," the belligerents on both sides of No Mans Land were on the ropes, approaching collapse economically and psychologically.

A peace of exhaustion was in the offing. This peace would have come even allowing for the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent offensive on the Western Front. The German offensive ran out of human steam well short of a meaningful end. It was not a war-winner let alone an attack defeated by the efforts and losses of the recently arriving American "doughboys."

Had the US stayed on the sidelines, the war would have ended in mutual exhaustion. Arguably the peace would have proven both more equitable and much longer lasting than did the one hammered out (to the accompaniment of the disillusionment of Wilsonian ideals) at Versailles.

Wilson's ideals--including the League of Nations--were ideologically driven pure and simple. While they were momentarily popular with the common folk of Europe, they foundered not only on the cynicism of European leaders, but more importantly, on the bedrock of nationalism throughout the continent--and in the US. The outcome of the ideologically predicated, completely unnecessary American involvement in WW I and the peace process was highly negative to all parties. Its effects linger on even today to the continued vexation of US interests in the Mideast.

In a rational world, the lessons of the Wilson misadventure would have resounded loudly down through the years. This world being marked by an absence of rationality, they did not.

The aftermath of WW II which was called into existence by the unintended by well neigh onto certain merging of the effects of the Open Door and the Versailles Treaty was marked by another burst of idealism and ideology.

The UN was FDR's genuflection before the alter of Wilson. The systemic flaw--that the architects of the UN deemed any and all "nations" to be fully functional "nation-states" in which the large and the small, the mature and the juvenile, the democracies and the autocracies were all seen as equal--constituted a fatal flaw. This flaw was joined by a second. The misplaced belief that the US and the USSR possessed a broad spectrum of coinciding national interests regardless of the vast gulf of history, values, and sense of security which existed between them.

Then there was the Cold War and the concomitant militarization of the doctrine of containment. The Soviet Union represented a massive political threat to Western Europe, particularly France and Italy in the closing years of the Forties, but it was no military threat. Nor would it become one for many, many years--if ever. The US in particular mis-read the blustering rhetoric of the Stalin regime and constructed a bogeyman of gargantuan proportions.

The false image of Soviet military expansion linked with the rise of domestic anti-Communism to create an atmosphere in which the ideology of opposing Communism, assumed to be a global conspiracy of super-human brilliance and persistence became the defining American foreign policy force. This, in turn, produced NSC-68 and the resulting arms race which was, unsurprisingly, mirror imaged in the Soviet Union.

There is not sufficient space here to trace the several historical trajectories and political agendas which resulted in this ideological dynamic. But, you can trust the Geek; he is a doctor. Suffice it to say, the Soviet Union was a hostile entity; it held no brief for the US; it would seek political advantage anywhere in the world where it could do so without running any real risk of a direct, military confrontation with the US which it (correctly) saw as technologically, economically, and culturally superior to itself.

But, rather than playing the Game of Nations as it was, rather than defining our national interests realistically and narrowly, we chose to play the game as our defining ideology feared it might be. This meant that we had to involve ourselves directly and substantially in the affairs of countries in which we had no genuine national interest in play. It also meant we fought a long, and, finally, lost war which was neither necessary nor in our interests.

While the game which we played during the Cold War had some good outcomes such as the success of Apollo in 1969, overall the consequences were far from beneficial to our longer term interests. One of those fields which suffered during the Cold War with results which still detain us at length is found in the incorporation of ideologically derived features into the overall definition of national interest.

Consider democracy. Consider the infinitely amorphous area termed, "human rights." Both have become permanent, central features whenever US policy and national interests are discussed. Such was not the case in past years, way back in the distant decade of the Seventies, remember them? Disco, gas shortages, stagflation, Jimmy Carter? Yeah that was the Decade From Hell.

It is also the decade when the US discovered support of democracy, and focusing on human rights to be central to our national interests. Before the epiphany of that time the US had mouthed much on democracy and done little. We had been content to cozy up with any dictator even the most unseemly if that regime gave the appearance of short-term order (which we cheerfully and quite improperly interpreted to be the equivalent of long-term stability) so as to keep the commies out.

Similarly we were remarkably indifferent to human rights (whatever the term might mean in any given context.) This unengaged attitude applied not only to the actions of "our" dictators but operated with respect to Moscow or Beijing as well. We were silent to all but the most egregious Soviet acts unless there was immediate propaganda hay to be made as in the case of the Berlin Wall, the crushing of the Hungarians in 1956, or the Prague "Spring" eleven years later.

All this changed when the tsunami comprised by Watergate, the debacle in Vietnam, the revelations of the Church and Pike committees, and the revulsion over the Pinochet coup in Chile rolled over the domestic political landscape. Politicians as dissimilar as Scoop Jackson (the senator from Boeing) and Jimmy Carter waved the banner of "human rights" as the Europeans held a mighty convention which gave forth a document on human rights signed by all, including the Soviets, which promised a new day for humanity not unlike the Soviet Constitution of 1937--and was equally a dead letter before the ink was dry.

The Reagan administration raised high the battle flag of democracy--at least rhetorically and joined in the human rights hymn. So well was the imagery of democracy and human rights portrayed that almost no one questioned the relevance of either to the requirements of American national interest. After all, who could be against either?

Both are good in principle, in the abstract. But, neither necessarily protects or advances our national interests such as global stability, open commerce, an absence of war, or economic success. And, each brought with it the potential for ideologically driven interference in venues both remote and tangential to national interests. Further, both carry with them automatically the potential for expansiveness of application which violates the constraints of realism.

The fact that democracy in and of itself brings no guarantee of either stability or peace is seen in the blunt fact that Hitler came to power via an election which met the tests of transparency, fairness, and inclusiveness used even today by Jimmy Carter and others of the election-fairness community. The reality that democracy does not bring leaders agreeable to American national interests is seen right now in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The reality that democracy does not lead to the sort of stability best for the US is dramatically apparent in Iraq.

Basing any aspect of foreign policy on human rights is to base it on the most slippery of slopes. There may be a Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all the member countries of the UN, but there is no one universally accepted protocol for defining, let alone enforcing this international version of declaratory policy. There is no practical mechanism for holding each and every country to a single standard in any area of human rights. That is self-evident in the differing fashions in which women are treated in Muslim as compared with non-Muslim countries or the vast gulf in the free exchange of ideas between China on the one hand and the US on the other or the exploitation of children in both industry and warfare.

Human rights and democracy are matters of aesthetics or sensibilities; they are not national interests. The same may be said regarding "humanitarian crises."

Consider Somalia in December 1992. Starvation was real, widespread in that geographical expression. International food aid through either the UN or the plethora of non-governmental organizations concerned with such matters was impeded or stolen by assorted gangs of thugs, various gunslinging bands of diverse warlords. It was not getting to the starving people clustered in camps.

This was disturbing to say the least. It made for images of compelling anguish on the TV screens of the developed world. It was a macabre spectacle of the best sort. But, was it a matter of such compelling US national interest that it merited the deployment of American troops?

George H.W. Bush thought so. For whatsoever constellation of reasons the recently defeated president sent the Marines ashore. He assured We the People the mission would be short, successful and, above all, the right-thing-to-do. Of course, it was longer, bloody, unsuccessful and set the stage for both the emboldenment of al-Qaeda and the concomitant hesitant policy of the Clinton administration in meeting the jihadist challenge.

Overall, the Somalia deployment was a bad thing for American national interests. But, it was neither the last nor the worst conflation of the ideological or the idealistic with the realistic requirements of American national interest.

That point came with George W. Bush. Flagrant idealism caused the mission leap in Afghanistan from a punitive expedition clearly in American national interest to the goal of "nation-building"--a clear impossibility given the history, demographics, and culture of that place. Worse, pure, unadulterated ideology aiming at the chimera of planting democracy in the Arab Mideast caused the invasion of Iraq. This action above all others taken by the US in the past quarter century if not more was the most harmful to US national interests both in the region and around the world which can be seen in the historical record. It was as if Dick Cheney took his famed shotgun and blasted the face clean off Uncle Sam.

Now, as has been noted in many, many posts, the post-modern, multi-cultural, community organizing on a grand scale ideology of President Obama is with us. So far the results have been as can be expected from history--a failure harmful to the real world interests of the US. Once again events are proving that when realpolitik is kicked aside in the interests of ideology, only disaster can be expected.

The question is this. Will the disaster be on the scale of Bush in Somalia or Woodrow Wilson in and after World War I? Well, bucko, only time will tell.

Personal Relations Do Matter, Mr Obama

Once upon a time a man was elected president. He was by nature cool, aloof, passionate in a detached, controlled fashion. This new president was an academic, a specialist in the American constitution. He focused on great themes, lofty ideals, the power of an informed and rational population. And, he eschewed the personal. The very notion of enduring, intimate contact leading to trust and confidence between individuals, including individual leaders, was outside his purview of understanding.

The man's name was Woodrow Wilson, not Barack Obama. However, Mr Obama has been giving the impression of having been channeling the spirit of Wilson in his conduct of foreign affairs--with one notable and troubling difference to be considered a bit later.

President Obama, like his predecessor of nearly a century ago, has focused rhetorically on very lofty, idealistic themes. Also, like the Princeton political science professor turned politician, Obama has sought to reach over the heads of government and state to strum the sentiments of the public at large.

Again like Wilson, Mr Obama has made the grave error of misinterpreting public applause and media approval as meaning that influence over the policies and actions of foreign governments had been achieved.

Wilson, for example, sincerely believed that the public huzzahs which greeted his arrival in Europe for the Versailles Peace Conference, the crowds lining the roads and railroad tracks, the flowers cast before his processions, the naming of streets, squares, and children after him, assured that his view of a perfect peace would be actualized regardless of the hostile positions taken by European leaders.

Wilson was as wrong. Desperately wrong. Ultimately disastrously wrong as proven by World War II.

Obama apparently drew a Wilsonian conclusion during his Great European Tour of 2008. This conclusion was evidently reinforced by public acclaim and media cheers not only with his Cairo Address but also during and subsequent to his other declamations in Europe, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Obama has been wrong. Desperately wrong. Fortunately, it is still early enough for him to see that he had been disastrously wrong. For this all one can write is, "Timing is everything."

Wilson's delusion and its failure came too late in his presidency, too late in his life to allow for corrective action, for a mid-course change. Obama has made his blunder early enough--and obviously enough--to not only allow but demand a change in direction.

Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and even the often maligned George W. Bush made very real, quite sincere, and often highly effective efforts to both understand and establish firm personal relations with their foreign counterparts. It was this aspect of foreign relations far more than the details of policy or the dynamic of day-to-day diplomacy which provided the basis of so much of the foreign policy successes of all three administrations.

Other presidents such as Jimmy Carter and even Bill Clinton (who had a fine capacity for projecting the political in personal terms on the campaign trail) did not establish the personal chemistry which typified the three Republican presidents. (To demonstrate that Republicans can make the same failure to personalize diplomacy at the highest levels, one need only consider the grave deficiencies in this area demonstrated by Richard Nixon.)

Lest one object that overly personalized, too friendly relations with a foreign leader would hinder an American president in conducting national policy it is only appropriate to recall that Dwight Eisenhower had a close relation with Anthony Eden which extended back to the early days of World War II. That in no way impaired Ike's capacity to personally tear a strip off Eden's backside when England joined co-conspirators France and Israel in the Suez War of 1956. Ike reportedly demonstrated his mastery of the profane, scatological, and obscene during his phone conversation with Eden over the ill-advised nature of the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion.

The shoe fits the other foot as well. The warm relations between Maggie Thatcher and George H.W. Bush did not prevent her making the famed, "Don't go all wobbly on me, George," comment during the run-up to the Gulf War in 1991. A strong argument can be made for the proposition that only the friendship which extended back to Bush's years as Reagan's veep allowed the comment to be both made and heeded.

Foreign relations are both made and executed by human beings. They are not the abstract product of soulless processes conducted by remote entities devoid of emotions, likes, and dislikes, and all the other myriad irrationalities which serve as the basis of human perceptions, beliefs, and actions. Nor are foreign relations conducted between mass abstracts such as "peoples."

Policy is made and executed by humans whether the worker bees low in an embassy's table of organization or as highly placed as the POTUS. Contact, understanding, even smelling the "emotional air" of the interlocutor are critical to gaining influence on the perceptions and actions of the other guy.

The abbreviated meeting between Hamid Karzai and the American president was not only important in its own right but also because it demonstrates that Obama may be coming to the slow realization that personal contact, face time, is critical to either the success or failure of US policy. So also may be his dinner tete a tete with Nicholas Sarkozy.

When Mr Obama was in Paris a few months ago he stiffed Sarkozy when invited to dine at the French president's residence. The reason given was Obama's need for a private night on the town with his wife.

Sarkozy did not appreciate being "Gordon Browned" by Obama and has wasted no opportunity over the subsequent months letting Washington know about his displeasure. Now Mr Obama is making amends--just as he did in Kabul when the "disinvitation" delivered to Karzai for a state visit to Washington was cancelled.

If President Obama is now in the amend making business he has a number of others to address. The list may be led by the name of the British prime minister. It was, after all, the shabby treatment afforded Mr Brown during his state visit shortly after the inauguration which gave first warning of the Obama indifference to personal relations.

The dissing of Brown looped with other, earlier indications to put Europe on notice of the major difference between Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama. The latter in no way shared with the former a focus on Europe. Indeed Obama often seemed totally uninterested in Europe as if it had already been cast into the waste heap labeled "The Past."

The malign indifference with which Mr Obama treated Europe on the personal level was rapidly mirrored by diplomatic disdain as evidenced by the blundering way in which the administration handled the change from land based ABM to a sea based equivalent in an apparent effort at truckling to Russian demands. That this resulted in a general growth of a "what-is-this?-I-thought-we-were-friends-or-at-least-allies" syndrome in the chancelleries of Europe is both understandable and fully expectable.

While cozying up with hostile regimes whether in Moscow, Beijing, Caracas, or even Tehran has it place, that place does not necessitate shoving long standing allies into the deepest diplomatic shadows. Leaving aside the irony that Mr Obama and his fellow progressives appear bent on turning the US into a clone of Western European democratic socialism, the fact remains that the US needs the wholehearted understanding and cooperation of Europe if any of its foreign policy goals are to be achieved. We and they and a handful of other states constitute what a former head of French intelligence brilliantly termed, "The League of Civilized States." We cannot forget that ground truth save at our peril--and theirs.

Obama needs a friend, a friend of the Maggie Thatcher sort, to tell him just that. Perhaps, just perhaps, the notably blunt spoken Sarkozy will prove to be the friend Obama so needs. That would make the dinner affair something beyond a mere fashion show featuring the two most shining examples of First Lady going today.

H.W. Bush Created A Test--And Flunked It

As posted previously, presidents are more often than not faced by unanticipated tests thrown in their faces by the dynamics of global politics--not necessarily the machinations of persons of evil intent. On occasion presidents become essential co-conspirators in the making of the test.

An excellent example of this is LBJ and the decision to escalate the US involvement in the Vietnamese War. He did this by authorizing Operation Rolling Thunder, the air campaign against North Vietnam.

There was no need for the operation. Intelligence had shown clearly that the flow of weapons and other materiel from North to South was of no moment to the Viet Cong capacity and will to conduct offensive operations successfully. Intelligence also demonstrated clearly that there were no US national or strategic interests at stake in the region. Indeed, the often cited "Domino Theory" had been shown to have no basis.

The air campaign had two easily foreseen if unintended consequences.

The first, in the words of a perceptive historian of the period was, "In an effort to end a problem which did not exist--infiltration of men and supplies from North to South, the US created a problem which could not be solved--the infiltration of men and supplies North to South."

The second effect of Operation Rolling Thunder was the investment of American political prestige and potency. Air operations are not stealthy. They announce to the world that an area has become of great importance to the US. Thus the potential for de-commitment from the area is greatly impaired.

The continued deterioration of the military situation in South Vietnam left LBJ with a test. To cut our losses before they became politically and diplomatically unacceptable or to escalate the American commitment by introducing ground combat forces. The President opted for the latter.

The results we know. All too well.

George H.W. Bush was more than a co-conspirator in the greatest foreign policy test which he faced. Arguably, he created the test which he ultimately failed with consequences which remain with us today.

H. W. was not inexperienced in the summer of 1990. Rarely had a man come to the Oval with a more impressive resume. He had foreign policy experience out the ying-yang. He knew his way around the corridors of international politics well enough to navigate them blindfolded.

The President and the senior members of his administration that summer must have been aware of the long festering dispute between Iraq and Kuwait over the latter country's slant drilling under the hazily marked border and tapping oil reserves which Saddam Hussein believed in all sincerity were Iraqi. They must have been situationally aware regarding Iraq's need for money in the wake of the long and very costly war with Iran.

These two factors taken together strongly indicated that the new US ambassador to Iraq should receive very carefully drafted and detailed instructions on US policy regarding the Iraq-Kuwait dispute. Instead the instructions both written and oral were vague.

As a result Ms Glaspie conveyed the impression of US indifference to the manner in which Saddam solved his problem with Kuwait. The Iraqi dictator concluded that the US saw the problem as an Iraqi internal matter.

Saddam's conclusion was not irrational. Nor was it unjustified. He interpreted the American vagueness in an Iraqi historical context. This context defined Kuwait as a "lost" Iraqi province based upon the political nature of the Ottoman Empire and the consequences of the Franco-British dismantlement of that empire following WW I. The context also contained the recent US "tilt" toward Iraq during the recently concluded war with Iran.

In short, Saddam took the hazy American stance as an operational green light to seize Kuwait.

The posture of the Iraqi Army during and immediately after the crossing of the Kuwait border showed that there was no intention on the part of Baghdad to continue military operations into Saudi Arabia. The quick and decisive blitz of Kuwait was the limit of Saddam's ambitions.

Given the American surveillance and reconnaissance assets extent at the time there is no doubt that we were quite well apprised of the Iraqi intentions and capacities. This did not stop the Bush Administration from flatly lying to the Saudi regime regarding the threat to it.

The manufacturing of this "test" of US resolve and power projection capacity did not end with pouring duplicity upon the House of Saud in super-tanker quantities. The same sort of duplicity was poured all over the world as well as within the US.

Even a few months into the build-up phase of the war, the cynic (which is to say the realpolitik oriented historian) had the clear impression that the exercise had been intentional, provoked and desired. It was not a crisis forced upon the US and the world by the ambitions of a single dictator.

In short, the Gulf War was one that was wanted by Washington (and arguably a number of other capitals around the world.) A short, successful war against Iraq would serve long-term US policy interests such as assuring that no single state would have the potential to dominate the Persian Gulf region. A crippled Iraq would not pose a threat to the Gulf, the Mideast (read Israel) or the stability of regional oil production and prices.

As in a more recent US war in Iraq, the real failure of the test came the day after conventionally defined military victory had been achieved.

While we will not know until some day in the distant future when the relevant documents are finally declassified it may well be that the Deep Thinkers of H.W.'s administration didn't realise until the guns fell silent that Saddam would remain in power and Iraq would become the classic "wounded enemy." It may well be that not until the 100 hour blitz ended with worn machines and exhausted troops that unless one of two equally distasteful and risky actions were taken, the Saddamites would remain in power leaving us with a long duration, low-grade crisis.

As the war ended with US troops on the outskirts of Basra and dramatic pictures of the "Highway to Hell" on our television screens, the administration had to bite the cliched bullet. The guys in and around the Oval had three choices. They were all bad.

The first was to continue the war. Drive on to Baghdad. This would mean more time, more troops and, most compellingly, a hell of a lot more bodies in bags coming into Dover AFB. We knew from observing the Iran-Iraq War that the Iraqi Army had a great capacity for resistance. We also knew that the best components of the Iraqi Army had been withdrawn from harm's way in a prudent and timely fashion. It could be a long, long and very bloody slog.

The second choice was arming and equipping (and probably directly supporting) Shiite insurgents. This implied a strong possibility of inviting Iranian sub rosa elements into the affair. Any benefit to Iran would violate the US policy requirement of assuring no one state emerged paramount in the area. It would also mean having to somehow contain the obnoxious Tehran regime. Also implicit in the calculus was the probable impact upon Saudi Arabia of seeing Shiites gain bloody hegemony over the Sunni minority.

The third option was the one we took. Pressure intended to spark a military coup against the Saddamite regime. The third option marked the failure.

It is one thing to manufacture a "crisis." It is another to manipulate the outcome of the "crisis" so that a meaningful policy success is achieved.

The administration of H.W. Bush succeeded in creating a test for itself. It failed the test of its own making.

In so doing the father provided the ground for the son. W. Bush created a test with the invasion of Iraq, an invasion intended in pertinent part to finish the uncompleted work of H.W. Like the father, the son failed the test of his own devising.

The lessons from H.W.'s failure, from W.'s failure are the same as that of LBJ's failure. Before creating a "crisis" either in whole or in part (or for that matter responding to a genuine crisis) an administration must have both the wit and the will to do three things.

First, there must, absolutely must, be an awareness of the historical context in which one is and will be operating. This means an awareness of the history, both objective and subjective of the human terrain upon which we will be operating.

The second is to be fully attuned to the universality of the Law of Unintended Consequences. This can best be understood as being the full-bore application of Clausewitz's small caliber dictum "no plan survives first contact with the enemy."

Finally, when the use of military force is considered, an administration and its military commanders must focus not so much on the achievement of mere military victory. No. They have to focus on the days after the victory parade.

After all the purpose of war is to produce a better state of peace.