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.

Here Come Those Guys--Again

In this case the "guys" are the government of Pakistan. And, shock of shock, they are coming with hands outstretched and mouths muttering dire warnings of unspecified but horrid things which will most certainly come to pass unless the outstretched hands are speedily filled with billions of dollars.

The cause for the current demand for money is the floods which have wracked the Indus valley with very ill effects for twenty or so million Pakistanis. A second motivation for the escalating cries for largess is the low turnout to date of governments and individuals willing and able to donate to the Pakistani Flood Relief Fund. Other than the US (which has reasons other than the altruistic and eleemosynary,) the UK (which has motives other than the humanitarian) and a few other countries such as Australia and Denmark, there have been few national donors.

The membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been conspicuous by its absence from the UN's list of donor countries. Regional allies such as Iran and China have not shown any particular eagerness to step up and start writing checks.

The Pakistani government is facing a very real, perhaps existential, crisis. The probability of Pakistan joining the ranks of collapsing states went up orders of magnitude as the flood waters washed down the Indus. A certain level of both panic and prevarication on the part of the government is expectable.

But, as has so often been the case in the past, the government figures go too far, way too far in their rhetorical overkill. The centerpiece of the Words From Islamabad has been the explicit threat of "extremism." The narrative reads simply, "Give us money, lots and lots of money, with no questions asked or accountability required, or there will be extremism beyond imagining in the days to come."

Even if there is a measure of truth to this equation, the blunt wording transmogrifies a request for humanitarian and economic aid into one more extortionate threat. While extortion works, particularly on the US, it is a limited tool. And, the Pakistani government is running up against the limits.

It is the realization that the old trick of your-money-or-your-life may be losing its magic which has driven some of the more risible bits of Pakistani official exaggeration. For example, the government trotted out one Salman Ahmad, a popular musician, who averred that Pakistan's one hundred million people under age 25 "feel abandoned by the world."

Get a grip, Salman, the vast majority of those hundred million, particularly the ones who live way up country on the banks of the Indus and the tributaries don't know squat about the "world" and wouldn't have the slightest notion as to whether or not they had been "abandoned by the world." Most of these anti-American, anti-Western, pro-Islamist, pro-Taliban, past or present inmates of madrassas lavishly funded by Saudi Arabia know no more of the world and its doings than permitted to by the imams and other clerics who control their lives.

It will not matter how much aid the US provides. It will not matter how many Pakistanis owe their lives to an American flown helicopter. It will not matter how many Pakistanis survive on MREs which meet the requirements of Islamic law. It will not matter how many Pakistanis recover from injury or disease due to the presence of American medics or medicine. When all is done, when all the money has been spent, when people total up their experiences, no lasting credit will be thrown in the direction of the US.

To put it bluntly, all our efforts, all our money, all our assistance will not buy any friends in Pakistan. Heck, it won't even rent us any. Ten days from now, or ten months, or even ten years hence, Pakistanis will still be overwhelmingly anti-American, anti-Western. Or, of course, there is always the strong possibility they will be even more willing to piss on Uncle Sam's face than they are today.

The role of Islam in the defining of the Pakistani nation and state assures that the US will always be right in there with Israel and India as the "main enemy." Particularly after the dictator Zia established his "Islamization " program with the aid of Saudi clerics and money, the orientation of Pakistanis generally, the views of young Pakistanis in particular, would be antithetical to the values, imperatives, and goals of the US and the rest of the West.

A little bit of money is not going to change that ground truth. The billions of aid haven't altered it in the slightest. The outpouring of aid, both governmental and private, following the Kashmir earthquake didn't erase a jot or tittle of the profound and pervasive anti-American sentiments of the Pakistanis. If Richard Holbrooke, Hillary Clinton, or President Obama really, really believe that more US aid now will alter the reality of the human terrain in Pakistan, they are badly out of touch with the real world.

Admittedly, the amount of cash promised by the US is a mere bagatelle compared to TARP or the "stimulus program," it is nonetheless a matter of tossing the money of the future down the rat hole of today's Pakistan. Best case a little bit of the oodles and gobs of borrowed (or simply created) money will go to some more or less useful purpose after the majority has stuck to the fingers of Pakistani governmental wallahs, the vested interests of the legions of NGOs, the get-a-little-for-yourself crowd at the UN, and hordes of middlemen, contractors, and assorted camp followers of disaster.

This may be a highly pessimistic view of a dystopian environment, but the weight of history is in favor of it. The Obama administration has already sent the money down the tubes; it will be followed by more, a lot more. Maybe something good will result.

Just don't bet the ranch on it.

Drawing A Line In The Water

After the Obama administration's dismal record of drawing lines in ever-shifting sands, as with the Iranian nuclear program, it was more than a bit refreshing to observe Secretary of State Clinton draw a line in water, specifically the South China Sea the other day. Overlooked in the brouhaha started by the Wikileaks Affair, Ms Clinton announced last Friday during the ASEAN meeting in Hanoi that the US had "a national interest" in seeking a mediated end to the dispute between China and other, much smaller Asian states over the Paracel and Spratly islands.

The myriad of very small islands, coral outcroppings, and reefs are unimportant in and of themselves. What is important, the only reason there has been a dispute between no fewer than six countries as to who owns what, is the documented presence of significant undersea oil deposits.

China, along with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei claim all or parts of the thousand or so dots on the map which constitute the land portion of the disputed undersea territory. China and Vietnam have exchanged shots over the islands. Both have attempted with varying degrees of success to establish a physical, military presence on at least some of the larger (more than one acre) islands. To date China has gotten the better in the confrontations.

Not surprisingly, the Trolls of Beijing were not pleased by the Clinton declaration. Already greatly perturbed by the recent displays of power projection undertaken by the US in waters close to China, the Trolls expressed great displeasure with the temerity of the US position.

It was bad enough when Ohio class Tomahawk equipped submarines popped up around the Chinese maritime periphery. Matters were worsened (from the perspective of the Trolls) when a major task group centered on the Nimitz class carrier George Washington hove over the horizon for joint exercises with the South Korean navy. Then the Americans had the unmitigated gall to aver that they had an interest in the resolution of the ongoing South China Sea contretemps.

The nerve of those Americans! Their role, their only role, is to borrow Chinese money and buy products made in China. Beyond that, the round-eyed, big nosed barbarians are supposed to keep quiet and at a great distance from the Center Empire and its sovereign interests.

Two American oil companies have signed agreements with Vietnam allowing exploratory drilling in the part of the South China Sea claimed by Hanoi. In their counterblast to the Clinton declaration, the Chinese warned against the drilling. Beijing sounded rather like Buenos Aires did as the drills started turning in the ocean near the Falkland Islands.

It does seem a tad counterintuitive that the Obama administration might be taking a position favorable to offshore oil drilling considering the evident distaste felt for such in the Gulf of Mexico. But, the fact remains that two American companies (among those of other nationalities) want to go after the oil of the South China Sea, and the American Secretary of State went on record as supporting a new form of maritime Open Door policy.

US companies have known of the South China Sea oil for years. Back during the heyday of antiwar protests during the late Sixties, demonstrators often accused the Johnson and Nixon administrations of waging war in Vietnam to protect the future interests of Big Oil. That charge was baseless.

It is less baseless to assert that the US desires to see a quick, mediated end to the Spratly and Parcel dispute in order that drills might spin and oil might flow. This would benefit the US and all other consumers of oil--including the Chinese. Of course, the Chinese would reap much greater benefits if the oil flowed from fields under their control. That is self-evident.

There is, of course, no reason why the US should be supine before the understandable Chinese desire for this benefit. There are, however, a number of reasons other than economic self-interest why the US would seek a regional settlement to this ownership dispute. Chief among these are regional stability and, as a necessary concomitant, establishing limits to Chinese hegemony.

The Trolls of Beijing have already alarmed the smaller states of ASEAN with the Chinese build-up of naval power. The ambitious Chinese naval developments are far in excess of any possible defense need but still insufficient to counter the American power projection capacity. One result of this is a sort of arms race in the region. In the past couple of years, navies have become fashionable with all parties seeking to upgrade theirs. As an example, consider Japan's decision to build a new generation of submarines, the first in thirty years.

The ASEAN states look to the US as a force for regional stability. The governments in the region are realistic enough to understand that stability rests upon military force and the credible political will to use the hardware.

The US Navy is long on hardware. But, given the disarray of what passes for foreign policy under Team Obama, there is grave doubts throughout the ASEAN community about American political will.

The stance taken by the US in the wake of the sinking of the Cheonan went some distance in allaying the concerns pervading ASEAN capitals. The joint US-South Korean exercises as well as other multi-national naval wargames involving Asian forces helped as well. Now, the surprising announcement by Secretary Clinton regarding the dispute has gone even further in convincing directly involved states that the Obama administration can find some backbone under some circumstances.

The key matter, of course, is how long will this newly discovered spine stay intact. Will the US line in the water prove any more lasting, any more real than the past lines in the sand? Or, should the Trolls of Beijing huff and puff a bit more, show a bit more rhetorical fang, will the fresh new Obama backbone find itself afflicted with political osteoporosis?

Time will answer that question as it has so many others over the past eighteen months. It can be hoped that the answer this time is more positive than its predecessors.