A Bad Day For (American) Politicians On TV

Two politicians, one Democratic--President Obama--and the other a Republican presidential wannabe--Rick Santorum--embarrassed themselves and, in so doing, tossed a pie in the faces of many Americans.  Of course, it is a bit unfair to equate the two as one is a member in good standing of a large but still fringe group of We the People and the other is the chief executive of a country which is still a Great Power even in its self-inflicted decline.

Santorum, in his bid for commemoration in the Hall of Exceptional Bad Taste In Politics was assisted by members of the audience present for the Fox/Google Debate in Florida.  A large portion of the audience was comprised of the same sort of self-destructive Republicans as had made noteworthy performances in two previous debates.  These people constitute the slavering red meat eaters of the intellectually challenged segment of the Party of Elephants whose most evident characteristics are a lack of good taste, a deficiency in empathy, and, most importantly a strong unconscious desire to lose elections.

The former senator from Pennsylvania and champion of the farther Right shores of the badly misnamed "social conservative" wing of the GOP was goaded into a profound demonstration of deep ignorance regarding the realities of military life particularly during wartime by a question posed by a gay soldier currently stationed in Iraq.  The question had to do with the deletion of "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) so that homosexuals can serve openly in the US armed forces.

Needless to detail at length, Mr Santorum is against the current policy.  He would seek to turn the calender back to the years of DADT with the accompanying demand that non-heterosexuals engage in a combination of deceit and denial.  Leaving aside the political impossibility (and ignoring the boos issuing from the oral cavities of the denizens of the Very Very Right) suffice it to note that Santorum's stated desire to emulate Dr Who or Mr Peabody constituted the lesser part of his exceptional ignorance of military life.

The peak of Santorum's idiocy and lack of knowledge came when he stated, "any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military."

That observation is a show stopper for sure.  As any and everyone who has spent time in any of the armed forces knows, sex is a constant and highly favored activity often bordering on obsession.  So it has been since Achilles was a private.  So it will be as long as young people are found in a military service.  Even years hence when combat is delegated to machines, it is highly probable that the people monitoring the killbots will have a hard time keeping their utilities buttoned tightly.

Not since the anti-sex campaigns of World Wars I and II when the American morality police pretended that our troops were so pure of heart and mind that they must be protected from the evils of prostitutes both amateur and professional has anyone betrayed the degree of out-to-lunchness exhibited by Mr Santorum.  If, indeed, he really does believe what he said, then he has disqualified himself from serious consideration for any office of trust and confidence under the Constitution by virtue of pure, unadulterated ignorance and irremediable stupidity (or ideological blindness.)

A far more important bit of televised damage was inflicted on the US by President Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly.  It was more than enough to make a person squirm in raw and unrelieved embarrassment as the POTUS delivered a set of remarks which could have been written by the execrable foreign minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman.  The kindest explanation for the presidential exhibition of seriously pathetic policy arises from the overarching Obama need to be reelected--and the crucial relation between that goal and the Israel Lobby.

As the recent by-election in New York demonstrated, there is a strong current of unhappiness with Obama's stance on Israel within the American Jewish community.  Shoring up support in this portion of the eroding Democratic base is an urgent matter.  Not surprisingly, more than a few political analysts both here and abroad have identified this as the prime mover behind the Obama position, which constituted a nearly complete reversal of policy (such as it was) a year ago.

The problem with this explanation even if it is as accurate as appears, is that international politics is a more unforgiving arena than the domestic sort.  Very real lives are at stake.  Very real countries with equally real interests are in play.  The issue of an Israel-Palestinian settlement is inherently existential in nature and does not allow for the flexibility or retakes common in domestic affairs.

The president threw away the good offices stature once enjoyed by the US.  The strident tones and relatively extreme nature of his position taken in the context of past stances undercut any possibility of Washington being seen as an honest broker seeking a fair and equitable solution to the several seemingly intractable problems besetting the Israelis and their Palestinian interlocutors.

This leaves the task to such as the European Union or the Quartet with the US playing a marginal role at best. Mr Obama's "approved by AIPAC" speech also eroded to the point of nonexistence any influence Washington might have had with the Palestinian Authority or its Mideast state supporters.  Worse, the president appeared to put the US squarely in opposition to the majority of the "Arab Spring" movers and shakers.

This last consideration is arguably the most critical of all.  While the US would see its influence reduced in any event as the groups espousing austere, politically oriented Islam will be the power either in or behind the throne in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and elsewhere, there was and remains no need to reduce influence all the more.  The status of the Palestinians ranks high as a motivator on much of the "Arab street."  While it is more than a bit hypocritical that this was not the case in the ancient days when Jordan "occupied" the West Bank and Egyptian troops held the supreme hand in the Gaza Strip, it is a reality today which must be recognized and addressed by American policymakers.

Obama's Mideast policy (to use the term generically only) has been and remains an area deserving of the attentions and ministrations of FEMA.  He and his "team" have done the seemingly impossible--gotten each and every aspect wrong for more than two and a half years.  Far more than even George W. Bush, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has managed to alienate every stakeholder in each and every Arab state as well as non-Arab countries such as Turkey.  The UNGA address was the final nail in the coffin of American presence in the Mideast.

Santorum (with the able aid of the boo happy bunch) humiliated the Republican Party in the eyes of all but the most avid of elephants.  Mr Obama did much more.  The president managed--without assistance--to put the US firmly behind the eight ball throughout the rapidly changing Mideast.

No American president has done that before.  No American president in search of reelection has ever degraded the influence of his country in pursuit of votes.  Finally, Mr Obama has something real to apologize for.

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.

A Suggestion For Republican Presidential Aspirants

The next election is going to be decided primarily but not exclusively on the matter of jobs and who has the better ideas for creating them.  Other matters such as the deficit, national security, and foreign policy will be (much?) further down the list of voter concerns.  Of course, a terrorist outrage will change the priorities rather rapidly.

The reality is that jobs and the deficit are linked directly and materially to both national security and foreign policy.  There are a lot of people who may not like that linkage, may even argue that it doesn't exist today any more than it did in the good old days of the cold war.  Wishful thinking, for the world and its politics to say nothing of its economic dynamics have shifted markedly since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union faded away.

The short period of apparent American unipolar dominance has ended.  The globalization phenomena have continued.  And, the threat of violent political Islam remains upon us.  All of these provide links between jobs, the deficit, national security, and foreign policy.  Given that no serious contender on the GOP side has put forth any excuse for a foreign and national security policy beyond traditional boilerplate and bromides, the Geek being public spirited has taken it upon himself to provide some ideas for the so far empty Republican platitudes.

Any viable foreign policy for the future must be predicated upon a few clear cut predicates which are both in our national interest and comport reasonably well with our historical values and norms.  Fortunately, it is not hard to have a policy which is true to our roots while protecting and advancing our future.  The matter is actually so simple that even a politician can grasp it.

The first principle of American foreign policy must be that of non-intervention.  By this, it is meant that the US will not intervene in the purely internal affairs of a sovereign state.  We may deplore and rhetorically condemn a state for what it does to its citizens.  We may deny it any cooperation, assistance, or support, but we will not use any method to seek regime change.  Unless.  Unless a state harbors, facilitates, or engages in the direct or indirect use of force against our interests, our citizens, or, under carefully circumscribed circumstances, those of states with which the US has a close and ongoing relationship.  Unless a state infringes on this bright and shining line, it and its leaders are safe from our kinetic capacities.

The US should get out of the foreign aid game except for humanitarian needs and then only in conjunction with ad hoc coalitions of states and NGOs having a shared concern in the specific need.  It is particularly critical that the US not provide any direct aid to any Muslim majority state so as to preclude the usage of that aid as "proof" that the US is paying jizya.  All too often Muslim clerics have taken the public position that the foreign aid provided by the US to, say, Egypt, is not aid but rather the protection money paid to Muslims under the doctrine of infidel submission to Muslim protection.

In a similar way, the US should ramp down its payments to the UN both for direct operating expenses and peacekeeping until they reach a level that the American per capita payment is no more than the average per capita contribution from the General Assembly's aggregate membership.  The UN is not particularly useful nor effective in meeting the needs of now and the future.  Far better are ad hoc coalitions brought together by coinciding national interest.  These coalitions have been far more effective from the days of the First Gulf War until now than has either the UN or regional organizations.

The US must also get out of the arms transfer game.  No more free weapons to anyone.  While direct military sales should remain intact, the long standing program of providing free or cut rate weapons to "friendly" states has long outlived its usefulness.  Over the decades, this approach has done much to perpetuate in power an array of highly distasteful dictatorships to no real advantage of the US and many disadvantages.

The time has come to dismantle the web of overseas military bases which are a no longer needed legacy of the cold war.  A few, small joint tenancy bases for rapid reaction and special operation forces must be retained but major overseas deployments and basing of heavy American units is not a strategic advantage any longer given the changes in the nature of future threats and defense technology generally.

Now for something radical.  The time is on us to furl the nuclear umbrella.  It is not credible any longer given the changes in the makeup of the nuclear club in recent years.  While the US must retain a finite deterrent oriented nuclear capability, the reality of now and the future is that regional balances of nuclear deterrence is more likely to be more credible to those smaller powers most tempted to go to war over long standing frictions or ambitions.  While this necessarily implies nuclear proliferation, this consequence will not make the globe less safe, rather it extends the dynamic of high risk equals high stability which was the hallmark of the cold war to potential regional conflicts.

This proposal does not mean an end to conflict but rather makes the world safe for war.  Conflicts will have to be carried on in ways which decouple the potential of escalation across the nuclear threshold.  With the possible exception of an eschatological regime, states are not given to mutual suicide pacts.  This in turn implies that most future wars--at least those between nuclear capable states--will be conducted by proxy, terror, targeted killings, or will occur in cyberspace.  Not pretty to be sure but without the globe rocking impact of even a very limited nuclear exchange.

This radical proposal is not radical so much as it is an honest acknowledgement that the nuclear control regime as well as the missile technology control counterpart sought by the status quo powers of the US, the USSR, and China has failed substantially.  States for reasons which are sufficient to themselves have violated the agreements which they have signed and transferred or allowed to have transferred prohibited knowledge and materials to non-nuclear, non-missile states.  This will continue with or without a clear abandonment by the US of the failed agreements and dependent regimes.

Knowledge is the key word here.  Not simply for nuclear and related matters but as a prime, perhaps the prime criterion for defining American relationship with other states.  Given that invention, innovation, and the pursuing of new knowledge is the key to a better, more prosperous and perhaps more stable and secure global future, it is imperative that the US guide its foreign relations on the principle of commitment to open and free inquiry and expression in all fields of discourse without exception or limit.

Our closest, broadest, and most profound relations must be with states which show a total dedication of some duration to free and open inquiry, expression, and exchange of information.  While relations with states which limit freedom of inquiry and expression are both possible and necessary, these must be both ad hoc and based simply on specific coinciding interests.  The most intimate relations the US can have are those with states which share the value of untrammeled inquiry and expression.

The more restrictive a state is of free inquiry and expression, the more arm's length the relation with the US should, must be.  This will work to the disadvantage of the restrictive state over time as will its very restrictiveness.  Indeed, a viable national security strategy is to cooperate with the restriction of information flow to the restrictive state.  This will hurt the restrictor far more than it will the US and its collaborators in this form of intellectual blockade.

Even though the US must retain a nuclear arsenal of finite deterrent orientation, our emphasis must be on approaches suitable for the post-nuclear environment.  This means further development of post-nuclear weapons systems whether hyperbaric explosives, smart nails, or similar projectiles and means of delivery.  It also means a much greater capacity in special operations including those of a lethal and black nature.  And, above all, it means a focus on cyberspace in both defensive and offensive ways.

The day of the massive naval fleet, the floating sovereignty of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier battle group, are ending.  This also applies to heavy armored forces which demand forward deployment or a long build-up period.  Arguably, the day of the manned bomber is also over or nearly so given the rapid improvements in the technology of UAVs.  On the budget front, this is a mix of good and bad news: less money for force maintenance but a lot more bucks for research, development, and procurement.  Such is life--no peace dividend.

This cursory view of the national security and foreign policy waterfront is meant to be indicative not a prescription.  The real deal on which to get a grip is simply that the world has changed and is changing more and much faster than the Romney-Gingrich-Palin-Huntsman-or whoever group appears to recognize.  It has changed more and much faster and in directions quite foreign to the mind of Professor Obama.  Someone out there needs to understand this and make some detailed policy statements that show they are actually well oriented in time and place.

It won't happen of course.  But one can hope for a change.  It is our future which is at risk.

Fighting Wars And Building Nations

The Republicans in the House of Representatives are cranked up to cut the American foreign aid budge with a particular emphasis on payments to the UN.  To say the Obama administration and the UN high command are opposed to the idea is to state the obvious.

Today, even as the greatly feared shutdown looms, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was on the Hill making his case for the US not to cut funding to the organization.  He reportedly met with a solid Republican wall of opposition.  Even Ban's statement that he had ordered his "managers" to take a whopping three percent cut in operating budgets gained no traction with the stony faced elephants.  No surprise there, given the willingness of some Republicans to take a much bigger whack out of domestic programs.

By and large it is difficult to justify the enormous amount of money paid over to the UN by the American taxpayer, present and future.  Most of the bucks are provided without any strings or even the pretense of effective oversight and accounting.  Many of the dead presidents are spent to the advantage of countries and programs antithetical to US interests.  More are simply siphoned away in the great morass of inefficiency, graft, corruption, and general misfeasance which has characterized so many UN programs for decades.

The money expended on so-called "peacekeeping" activities is wasted at the least.  Few if any of these actions have protected those most in need.  Few have actually kept peace.  Even fewer have imposed peace where such was the greatest necessity next to oxygen in keeping people alive.  With the general exception of Western forces deployed under blue helmets, many of the UN contingents are best noted for their ability to loot, plunder, rape, and contribute to the atmosphere of fear which permeates all combat zones.

Overall, American contributions to the UN should, like foreign aid programs generally, contribute to the achievement of US national interests and policy goals.  To do otherwise is simply stupid.  The Republicans are correct in historical terms by insisting a direct and material link between foreign aid, including UN payments, and our national and strategic interests.

Of course, it can be difficult to the point of impossibility to determine if any given foreign aid program is actually facilitating US interests.  For example, have the billions of bucks extorted from Uncle Sam by one Pakistani government after another really done much to advance critical American interests in the region?  Or, have the billions of tribute served by nightfall to destabilize the sub-continent, further the growth of the Pakistani nuclear program, and served to multiply the internal frictions of the Pakistani public?

The difficulties attendant upon assessing the benefits of direct, bi-lateral aid are multiplied when considering programs administered by the UN which are partially funded by the US.  The several semi-autonomous or completely independent subsidiary bodies of the UN along with the many programs run under the auspices of the Secretariat serve to further complicate the task of evaluating the diplomatic bang purchased by the taxpayer buck.

This is not to state that the Republican notion of treating the UN as a cafeteria where we would pay for what we approved of or what best served our short-term interests while ignoring the rest constitutes the best or most effective solution to the current problem.  Nor does it imply that an exercise in tying UN reforms to the amount of American funding would improve the situation significantly.

There is, however, a very important reason for the US to keep money flowing to the UN.  The reason allows for the creation of more effective and appropriate means of measuring success--and consistency with larger US national interests and policy goals.  It might even allow for saving money over in the Pentagon budget.

The evaluation of what the UN can do better than the US acting alone or in partnership with a limited number of associated states must start with a ground truth.  This is simply that there is a vast gulf between fighting wars and building nations.

When the US under both George W. Bush and the current administration failed to make the necessary distinction in the Afghan context, the result has been, if not failure, then an incomplete success at best.  As a well presented piece in RCP underscores, the American military services exist to fight wars--not build nations or states.  On the other hand the UN along with relevant regional entities is perfectly situated to engage in the long duration mission of trying to build a functioning nation and, ultimately, nation-state from the rubble of a failed state or a tribal agglutination which never quite reached nation status.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Army and Marine Corps have spent entirely too much time, energy, and money on providing governance to the locals.  Rather than concentrating with total intensity on the mission of defeating the enemy, a task which requires some limited excursions into the sphere of governmental services, the ground combat forces have been tasked with addressing the full ambit of governance needs and aspirations until the indigenous regime has been able to take over.

The diversion of effort along with the inevitable frustrations when the foreigners could not provide all that the locals might wish for have crippled the war fighting effort severely.  From the moment the very first American boot hit the ground in Afghanistan (or Iraq) the tasks of governing, of providing essential services other than physical security, should have devolved on some agency other than the US military.  Whether this agency should have been part of the US State Department acting solo or the US acting in tandem with a coalition is open to debate.  What is not open to debate is the requirement for an entity outside the Pentagon to undertake the manifold tasks of nation-building.

The Republicans would be very well advised to stop and think about just how the UN could participate or even take the lead in the nation-building tasks of today and into the future.  That the endless chore of building or rebuilding states will be with us for a long time to come is as evident as the headlines from Libya or the Ivory Coast or Yemen.

There is an ironic symmetry in the idea of the UN being the lead agency in global nation-building missions.  It is rather like placing an impossible task in front of an entity which can do very little, if anything, well or quickly.  But, the record of attempts at building nations by outside actors hints at the probability of a bungling, slow moving, and contradiction riddled agency such as the UN being more successful at the task than would be a fast acting, take-charge-and-move-out model of efficiency.

Military forces are intended to move fast, strike hard, to kill people and break things with minimum losses to themselves.  The UN and other international agencies along with NGOs are infinitely better suited to the long term and often futile jobs such as trying to build a functioning nation-state from unpromising materials.  It would be in the best interests of the US--and the Republicans--to understand this and provide the necessary support to the UN and others.

In a similar calculus, the use of money in bi-lateral aid with the intent of keeping a nation-state viable is a lot cheaper in both treasure and lives than waiting for implosion and its consequences.  It is also far preferable to spend foreign aid dollars in the effort to keep a moderate Muslim state intact and developing than it is to wait for the advocates of violent political Islam to make their play for power.  To update an ancient cliche: A few millions of bucks worth of prevention is far better than billions of bucks of cure.

This orientation--prevention of instability or hostility by promoting development in a moderate political context--implies that at least some of the more chest-thumping Republicans would be very well advised to rethink the emphasis on foreign military aid as opposed to money spent on civilian projects.  It is hard to see where any military aid expended since the end of the Cold War has furthered American interests and accomplished meaningful policy goals.

The same may be said of some of the very big ticket items in the category of development assistance.  All too often the US aid dollars have gone to glitzy projects much beloved of the recipient regime's elite but of no utility to the average citizen.  At the same time major benefits may have accrued to American businesses but few have gone to the local hoi polloi.

This dreary but all too accurate picture implies that the best use of American foreign aid money is to be found either in regional development efforts or in small scale but carefully targeted projects which can be sustained by the locals and will directly and obviously benefit the same locals.  This sort of project is never big ticket and lacks glitz and glamor.  It does have the upside of actually advancing the overarching American interest in stability and evolution in the recipient society and its polity.

Stable and predictable evolution in an economy, a society, and its polity means the probability of either state failure or the takeover of the state by an extreme ideology is minimal to nonexistent.  That, in turn, means wars which will remain unfought, interventions that will be forever unnecessary, and exercises in nation-rebuilding which will never occur.  Whether undertaken bi-laterally or through a regional organization or even by the UN, this approach would mean that over the long-term, the US saves money and accomplishes interest based policy goals.

And, that, bucko, is far better than the Nancy Reagan alternative--"Just say no," currently espoused by the House Republicans.  It is also far better than the Obama administration's approach of, "Shut up and give over the money."

Internal War--Neocons And The Tea Party

Like the shambling corpses in the classic black and white version of Night of the Living Dead, the neocon ninnies have been resurrected by the fragrant miasma surrounding the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions.  Eliot Abrams and Joshua Muravchik having been baying in the van, eager for a faster, harder intervention in Libya and chomping after the chance to depose Bashir Assad.

Back east (from the Geek's perspective) in the soon-to-be-wilds of caucus Iowa, the redoubtable neocon hawk John Bolton, in the context of a conservative Republican cattle call, not only lambasted the Obama view of foreign policy, he advised the GOP to add foreign policy to its current two arrow quiver.  The nonpareil unilateralist and one time UN ambassador is obviously of the view that foreign affairs will be an ever larger component of the domestic political scene--and all the Republican front runners were monumentally deficient in this aspect of the presidential job description.

Bolton's understanding both of the increasing importance of American foreign relations and the lack of both experience and talent in this area represented within the Republican front bench may be accurate, but it is far from unchallenged within the ranks of the elephants.  The Tea Party movement, or at least its favorites which gained election this past November, does not constitute a cheering section for US engagement with the rest of the world.

Senator Rand Paul has staked out an isolationist position which makes the (in)famous isolationists of the Thirties seem almost like globalists in comparison.  Other Republicans--not just Senator Paul's dad, Ron--are all for slicing and dicing foreign aid in all its myriad forms.  There seems to be a near universal consensus among those on the right of the aisle to stop paying dues or other assessments to the UN.

At the same time the standard issue defense conservatives of the GOP seek to keep as much money as possible flowing to the Pentagon, regardless of all other considerations.  It does not seem to be "more bang for the buck" so much as "more bucks for more bangs."

As if all these different and contradictory currents were not confusing enough, Republicans in Congress are simultaneously for and against the Obama intervention in Libya.  They are for it in the sense of feeling good because Made in the USA bombs and missiles are macerating goodly numbers of Gaddafi thugs.  They are against it because (a) Obama treated Congress like a collection of mushrooms, (2) the US isn't running the show, (3) the administration dithered too much, too long, (4) because it looks as if the US is dancing to a French tune.

The picture of Republican foreign policy is more disjointed and disjarring than one of Jackson Pollock's exercises in random splattering.  By comparison the Obama understanding of how to conduct the nation's international business appears almost rational, well considered, and tightly braided.

As the line on Monty Python ran, "Stop this sketch!  This sketch is silly."

The Republicans had best get a grip on a very inconvenient truth: The Man With The Moustache is probably right--foreign affairs will be far more central to American presidential (and congressional) politics a year hence than it is today.  At the same time both the neocons and the isolationist tilted members of the GOP and Tea Party movement are as wrong as a soup sandwich.

This set of contentions does not mean nor imply that the Obama hyper-multilateralist, apologetic, deferential way of dealing with the world is right.  It is not.  It is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

There are a couple of ground truths involved which render Obama as well as the neocons and the neo-isolationists wrong.

The first of these is simply that the US is a Great Power.  It is not simply first among equals.  It stands alone in its mixture of hard and soft power capacities.  There is an implicit but quite evident corollary to this.  The rest of the world is not only comfortable with this but expects the concomitant American leadership when unpleasant bumps occur in the global night.  (OK, to err on the side of accuracy, there are some states which are quite unhappy with the status quo, examples include Iran, Venezuela, and the two rivals, China and Russia.)

The second and equally critical foundational truth is this: The only sure guide to a state's foreign policy and diplomatic relations is national interest.  True, principles, that is, national norms, values, ideals, and aspirations as well as the inducements and constraints of domestic politics are an important component of the process by which national interest is defined, but they are not the sole determinants of this interest.

This positive statement is accompanied by a negative.  The worst, the absolutely worst basis for determining either national interest or foreign policy is ideology.  Ideologically driven approaches lead to blunders as in Iraq.  This is why the neocon approach is doomed to counterproductive failure.  As history has demonstrated times beyond counting, institutions cannot be transplanted to new and strange environments by force of arms.

The inapposite nature of ideologically predicated foreign policy is also why the unquestioningly multilateralist stance of the Obama administration is wrong.  The same can be applied to the neo-isolationist understanding of the Pauls and their soulmates in and out of Congress.  No Great Power has ever resigned its status.  The other countries just won't allow it without imposing very large and quite unacceptable costs.  Unless, of course, one considers the cost in lives and treasure extracted by World War II to have been just fine.

Looking ahead, it is necessary to ask a question: Have the events of the so-called "Arab Spring" been an earthquake or simply a foreshock?  A year from now will the world be shaking to aftershocks or will the real earthquake, a temblor of ten on the global political Richter scale?

Consider what might plausibly occur over the next six to twelve months in the Mideast alone.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may gain political dominance through the much celebrated "democratic process" and, having done so, drop its secular cover and revert to its base: violent political Islam.  The MB has the advantage of tight organization, a well established hierarchy, a long developed agenda, and a large amount of perceived legitimacy.  Also, there is no reason to conclude that it has abandoned its core definer of commitment to political Islam including,where necessary, that of the violent sort.

If the Assad regime is overthrown, the most likely outcome will be a Sunni regime dominated by advocates of violent political Islam with any number of domestic and regional scores to settle and goals to accomplish.  Or, if hard pressed, the Assad government might choose to unite its restive population with the time honored technique of an external war.  Or, as a wrinkle to this, Hezbollah may be turned loose by its two sponsors, Syria and Iran, with predictable consequences for the region.

Libya may well turn out as a stalemate, a divided entity caught in a slow motion semi-internal war.  It is equally possible that the post-Gaddafi country will be one in which the Sufi inclined majority falls under the control of the Salifist derived advocates of violent political Islam who are quite thick on the ground of Eastern Libya, Cyrenaica.  This would give AQIM a secure and wealthy base of operations.  It would also mean for the majority of Libyans that they have simply exchanged a secular authoritarian regime for one of a Koran waving nature.

There is a better than excellent chance Yemen will collapse into a welter of feuding regions and tribes in which the single greatest "winner" will be AQAP.  In this regard it is well to recall that Secretary Gates this past weekend termed AQAP the largest threat confronting the West from all the assorted franchises of bin Laden's group.  Saudi Arabia would be put square in the crosshairs of AQAP should it emerge as the most potent faction in the riven remnants of Yemen.

Then, of course, there is Iran.  There is always Iran.  The mullahs will be a year closer to the goal of the "Mahdi Bomb."  The Iranian government will have had more months to cultivate and spread influence among the Shia of Iraq, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.  (Recall that the Eastern Province is majority Shia as well as the most prolific producer of oil in the kingdom.)

The Israeli-Palestinian Question will not be answered in the next few months.  The resumption of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza points in a dangerous direction.  So does the restart of IED attacks mounted in all probability from the West Bank of the Palestinian Authority.  Once again the dead and the fearful will direct policy on both sides.  This implies the cycle of strike and counterstrike will escalate slowly but inexorably over the next year--unless a more dramatic war intervenes on the Northern Front of Israel.

This set of seismic shocks yet to come has been restricted to the Mideast.  The rest of the world has been ignored intentionally but this in no way should be taken to imply the rest of the globe--North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, even Latin America will be monuments to peace, love, and flower power, sections of the globe where overage diplomats and military officers can be safely put out to pasture, free to rusticate without unpleasant demands placed upon them.

John Bolton was right.  And, it would be good for the Herd of Elephants to pay attention to him.  Foreign matters will come closer and closer to center stage.  This will be the case to an even greater degree if We the People become more optimistic about the economy over the next year and if, (unlikely as this may be) Congress addresses the deficit to more than a symbolic degree.

The US has suffered through eighteen years of ideologically driven, situationally naive presidents.  We have at least two more years of this enervating situation yet to go.  Is it too much to hope that the days of True Belief will come to an end--along with the decline of American influence and status in the world--in 2012?

Unfortunately it is.  That is unless either Obama bows out or the Republicans come up with a person capable of being a president who is not out of his depth when he must play his role on the world stage.

And, make no mistake about it, the next president will have to play a great role--for the earthquake is yet to come.

Russia Chooses A Side

While it is not a surprise, the decision of Vladimir Putin's regime to join China in the support of North Korea (or, if not precisely that, in opposition to the South Koreans and thus the US) must be a disappointment to the Obama administration.  If the vaunted "Team of Rivals" which constitutes the Obama inner circle had a realpolitik view of life, the sharp turn against Seoul and Washington would not be a disappointing further rejection of the "Reset Button" policy.

In calling for an emergency closed door UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Korean Peninsula, the Russians were doing the expectable.  In the Russian condemnation of the US for not immediately convening the emergency meeting in its role as this month's chair, Moscow was doing the predictable.  When Moscow called for the cancellation of the impending South Korean live fire exercises on Yeonpyeong Island, the Masters of the Kremlin went over the edge.  No longer could they maintain the pretense of evenhandedness; the characterization of the military exercises as a "dangerous aggravation" demonstrates clear partisan orientation.

In so closely associating itself with China, the Russians have embarked on a risky course of diplomacy, a course with one intention which may well result in a defeat on another, far more important diplomatic front.

The Russian move is linked to the ratification of the new START pending in the Senate.  As the Russians have no bull in the Korean herd unlike Beijing, the goal of their demarche in the UNSC must be that of demonstrating to the Obama administration the consequences of a failure on the part of the "US side" to ratify the treaty without further delay or modification.  The Kremlin is flexing its trouble making muscles in a high profile venue to show unmistakably that there will be a price to be paid should the Republicans stall the ratification process or insist upon modifications which would necessitate reopening the entire negotiation effort.

In the present Korean context, the North Koreans continue to be very much in the wrong.  Their actions, whether sinking a South Korean warship or bombarding an island located to the south of the Northern Limit Line, Pyongyang has acted contrary to the provisions of the 1953 Armistice as well as relevant international law.  The South Korean responses to date including the live fire exercises have been both "restrained" (to use the favorite word of both Beijing and, now, Moscow) and completely within its rights as a sovereign state.  No observer unless blinded by the requirements of ulterior motives and objectives can deny that.

In its support of South Korea, which includes a refusal to engage in a re-run of the Six Power Talks without Pyongyang making serious and severe concessions in advance, the Obama administration is on the side of the angels.  To hold talks with the Hermits of the North without the Hermits first demonstrating a genuine repentance would be to reward aggression, submit to extortion, and unduly reinforce the foundations of a regime facing a possible succession crisis.  It would be, in short, counterproductive and self-defeating.

The Russian leadership is not comprised of situationally naive people.  Putin, Medvedev and company well understand that the US position is both realistic and justified by regional political dynamics.  More than most governments, that of Russia understands the political and diplomatic games of extortion from both sides of the relationship.

So there is no direct rationale for the Russian effort to muck about in the Korean swamp.  There is, however, a very powerful indirect one.  The Kremlin wants the new START ratified quickly and cleanly.  The Boys at the Top understand that there is a potent opposition to the new treaty within the Republicans of the Senate.  Thus they are hopeful that a bit of pressure might somehow, someway, push the Obama administration into doing something to pull the Republican fangs.

It is even possible that Putin, et al may even entertain the notion that the Republicans in the Senate might get the message, might come to understand what is at risk should the new START not be ratified.  If this is the case, the Geek fears they have vastly overestimated the mentality of the Republican opposition.  The current exhibition of Russian intransigence is more likely to stimulate left over Cold War apprehensions regarding the intentions of the Kremlin than to serve as an example of what might be expected absent START ratification.

The proposed treaty is not perfect from the American perspective particularly with respect to force modernization and anti-ballistic missile system development.  Objections in these areas are not figments of feverish Republican imaginations, nor are they baseless renewals of Cold War fears.

Even with the asymmetries built into the treaty, it deserves ratification.  There are benefits to the US.  The most important of these is the reestablishment of the inspection regime which lapsed with the expiry of the former treaty.  The reduction in (to use the old Soviet term) "nuclear charges" is to the advantage of the US as well given the expense of maintaining the larger number of active and reserve "charges" and delivery systems.  Provided that the current or some future administration does not use the new START as a cover for an unwillingness to pay the economic and political price of force modernization, that feature of the treaty should not serve as an obstacle.

This leaves the objections centering on ABM research, development, and deployment as a legitimate point.  This point along with the very ticklish problem of theater or tactical nuclear weapons can be put to one side for the moment without the US suffering any real disadvantage over time.

This implies that most of the Republican objections are not so much rooted in the language of START as they are in a general distrust or dislike of the Russian government today.  While superficially resembling the so-called "Cold War mentality" so often invoked by rhetoricians in both Beijing and Moscow, it is not the same.  The distrust and dislike of Russia's government stems instead from the highly nationalistic behavior of that government coupled with the perception that the Russian government is, in fact, a non-democratic regime tainted with corrupt authoritarianism.

These perceptions are accurate.  Russia is not and never has been a democracy.  It is not and never has been noted for honest, transparent governance.  Russia is not and never has been free of a strong authoritarian bent.

So what?

It matters not that Vladimir of the Bare Chest cannot live up to the requirements of the Boy Scout Oath.  It matters not that a Russian election is not open, fair, honest.  It is utterly irrelevant that corruption is rampant.  It is of no consequence that the rule of law consists of whatever the Person in Charge says it is.

All that really matters is the ground truth that Russia is what it always has been--a country strongly motivated by nationalism, by the unqualified pursuit of national interest.  The very fact that Russia is nationalistic to an extent that few in the American elite can comprehend is the greatest single reason in favor of ratifying START.  A new treaty puts some verifiable limits on Russian expansion in the nuclear arena.  It places a ring fence around nuclear deployment and the size of the ready use nuclear arsenal.

To put it in very simple words: The more nationalistic a government is, the more vital it is to put limits, verifiable limits on its actions.

While imperfect, this is what START does.  It is all it does.  And, doing so is very much in US interests.

This is why the Russian posture on Korea is so troublesome.  By its unnecessary skewing in favor of the Chinese defined line and totally unjustifiable tilt against South Korea exercising its sovereign rights, the Kremlin may have strengthened the opposition to START.  It may even have provided a political impetus or at least cover for some conservative Democrats to break with Obama administration and vote against the treaty.

If this assessment of Russian motives and goals is close to accurate, it implies something larger and more important about the current Russian leadership.  The implication is both simple and alarming.  The Kremlin Boys, or at least the one who counts most, Vladimir Putin, has no clear understanding of how American politics operate or how Americans at the top of the political pyramid think.

Of course, with its emphasis on the fiction of a "Rest Button," the Obama administration generally and the president in particular have done nothing to educate the Russians topside in the whys and ways of US politics.  If anything the administration and president have convinced the ever-so-muscular Putin that the US has gone soft, flabby, and irresolute, and, thus, is suitable for a bit of creative bullying.

If that is the case, the Kremlin has made another serious miscalculation.  One mile of bad diplomatic road almost always leads to another.

The Elephant In The House (And Senate)

The Constitution may give pride of place in the conduct of foreign relations and military affairs to the president, but Congress is anything but a nullity when the messy details of policy implementation are involved.  The predicted Republican ascendancy will change the way in which foreign and military policies are executed and will have many, perhaps indirect, effects on their formulation as well.

The prospects for change are already bothering many in the European elite, which group seems to be convinced that the results of Tuesday's vote will be a form of Cheney on steroids.  There is a notion over there to the effect that the new, Tea Party powered Republicans will constitute a triumph of the paleologues with all that implies in the area of looking for countries to invade and individuals to kidnap preparatory to waterboarding.

While these overblown flights of nightmarish fancy will not come to pass for reasons too self-evident to deserve comment, the shifts in emphasis and goals will be real--and not necessarily negative.  They will, however, be discomfiting not only to European elites but to President Obama as well.

The Republicans, with very few exceptions, are far from sold on the basic tenets of anthropogenic climate change.  They are even less given to believing in the necessity of heroic measures such as "cap-and-trade" or other economy distorting mandated reductions in carbon output.  This reality means that the upcoming Great Festival Of Alarm in Cancun is likely to be less productive of the sort of results favored by Al Gore and company than was last year's Festival of Urgent Anxiety in Copenhagen.

The inevitable consequence will be a eagerness on the part of countries great and small to blame the US for the lack of results to say nothing of any unusual weather event anywhere in the world in the months and years to come.  China in particular will seek (with high probability of success) to enhance its position with both the advocates of putting the US economy in a straitjacket and the legion of states which want a handout from Uncle Sam to offset the horrid impact of global warming upon their citizens.

Absent comprehensive legislation, the Obama administration will seek to use administrative measures and regulation to reach the same outcome.  The resultant brouhaha will be both unedifying and without use in the diplomatic conflicts sure to come on the heels of "failure" in Cancun.

The enlarged Republican minority in the Senate will prove to be resistant to the apparent appeal of the new START signed by Obama and Medvedev.  While the new agreement does not spell the end of American national security as has been alleged by some on the farther shore of rationality, it can be portrayed with some legitimacy as favoring the Russians over the US.  Well founded questions regarding the ability of the US to modernize its nuclear arsenal exist.  There are questions as well regarding any wink-and-nod deals between the American team and its Russian counterpart regarding the further development and deployment of American anti-ballistic missile systems.  These two areas alone give a good basis for those Republicans who oppose the treaty.

The consequence of delay not to mention a failure to ratify the agreement will be a Russian finger on the (in)famous "reset" button.  The dynamic duo in the Kremlin, particularly Vladimir The Horseman, have set Russia firmly on course to reestablish its existence as a Great Power.  It is to be expected that the two would take full advantage of a seeming rebuff by the Senate as a cause for greater assertiveness on the global stage.  This would not make the conduct of US foreign policy any easier.

Republicans have long shown a particular distaste for foreign aid.  Provided this distaste can be shown without damaging the interests of Israel, many from the Tribe of the Elephant would take cheerful advantage of the current budget constrained environment to cut foreign assistance, or, more probably, tie such assistance very tightly to specific US interests and oversight.  The current minority whip has already promised to take aid to Israel out of the State Department budget and put it into that of Defense.  Need one know more?

The Geek takes a jaundiced view of foreign aid generally as history has shown few successes and many failures.  The capacity of well intended but poorly advised or supervised aid to wreak unintended harm on the recipient state is well established.  So is the record of corruption, graft, and akin shenanigans.  Still, there is a place and need for foreign aid provided it is tied to definable US interests, properly monitored, and its success or failure accurately measured.

Even in the most constrained environment, the cost of foreign aid is minor but the results can be maximal.  In addition, the provision of humanitarian relief aid is a mitzvah, an obligation imposed by a decent regard for the ethical basis of life.  Realism and idealism alike require foreign aid; a tight fisted Republican hand on the money valve might go a good way to assuring the money is spent wisely and well.

The Republicans may not be so easy going on the Iranian Question as Mr Obama has been.  Come to think of it, that is a foregone conclusion.  Even though there is powerful evidence for the proposition that Iran's nuclear program has so many internal, inherent problems that its still a couple of years at the least from achieving a break out capacity, there are more than a few Republicans who not so secretly share the John McCain idea seen during the 2008 campaign, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

Should the more or less upcoming next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 turn out to be one more go around of the same old, same old, there will be great sentiment among the Elephants to be far more robust--particularly in pressuring companies located in allied states to cease all truck with the mullahs.  That would be useful as the sanctions are far from complete in their application.  The Republicans would also be less hesitant than Mr Obama in the matter of supporting the "Greens" in Iran.  This also has the potential to be useful in seeking modification of Iranian behavior but is no magic bullet.

Republicans will complicate Mr Obama's announced intent of starting the draw down in American combat forces in Afghanistan in mid-2011.  There is a high likelihood that the president (or some of those near the Oval) have realized the deadline was a very poor idea and the Republican opposition in the next Congress would provide welcome political cover for the reality of war.  Advantage can be taken from a strong Republican posture on the withdrawal issue as it would undercut any belief on the part of either Taliban or the Men In The Shadows Of Islamabad that all that need be done to achieve ultimate victory is keeping on keeping on until the Americans start leaving in less than a year.

If Anwar al-Awlaki and other Americans who have shifted allegiances from the US to the cause of violent political Islam are as smart as so many think them to be or as knowledgeable of US politics as claimed, they will call off the terror campaign as it targets the US.  The Republican presence in Congress is more likely to promote a very robust response to any outrage traceable to Yemen.

The corrupt and indecisive cabal purportedly the government of Yemen had best realize this as well.  Unless the Yemenis can show themselves not only rhetorically ready but physically capable of squashing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they will be facing a level of US involvement far transcending fifty or so Special Forces members and a drone or two.

The government of Pakistan should also wake up and smell not the coffee but the Tea.  Many of the Republican "young guns" are not cut from the same cloth as previous generations of Republicans.  They will be far more suspicious of Pakistan as a "valued ally" in the "joint" war on Taliban and similar groups.  If the new Chairs of the relevant committees are true to their protestations, the money valve may go to "off" very fast regardless of Mr Obama's promises.

On the matter of the Defense budget, the Republicans will lose their juice rapidly if they seek to exempt the Pentagon from necessary austerity.  The new leadership would be well advised to back Secretary Gates in his efforts to hold down military expenses, particularly in the big ticket area of procurement.  Lots of gee whiz new gadgets will have to be left to wither on the vine if the war fighting capabilities of the US forces is to be maintained along with the commitment to lower the deficit and not raise taxes.

The Republicans would also be well advised not to to on an orgy of investigations into foreign and national security policy.  This sort of activity may be emotionally satisfying given the closed nature of the administration and may generate some politically useful headlines, but will not help in the cause of forcing the administration to drop its more obnoxious addictions to ideologically driven love affairs with hostile governments or ineffective and anti-American international bodies.  Searching for concealed dead bodies as events of the Nineties showed do not result in necessary changes in policy direction.

Equally unproductive, equally damaging to US national and strategic interests would be some sort of retreat into neo-neo isolationism.  Some of the Tea Party movement supported Republican candidates seem to have flirted with this sort of retrenching.  They are wrong as a cat barking.  The world will not let the US retire to the sidelines without invoking costs of a damaging nature to We the People and our descendants.

In short, while foreign and military affairs have played no measurable role in the campaign, the reality is simply that for Congress as for President the next two years will be years of foreign policy and national security challenge.  And, it does no good to restore jobs, to bring the economy back from the brink of deflation if the loudest noises heard are not cheers of thanksgiving but the explosion of Muslim detonated bombs--or the orders of the Trolls of Beijing.

What Kind Of World Can We Live In---And Will It Exist?

For much of the last century--ever since Theodore Roosevelt dragged us, kicking and screaming, onto the world stage--the US has been a major player in global affairs.  With the exception of the periods of disillusionment and loss of confidence in ourselves and our institutions, the dull and dismal years when the Isolationists reigned supreme in the Twenties and Thirties or the hand-wringing decade of thinking small which followed our defeat in Vietnam, the US has been a major player, at times the major player in world affairs.

When we have been engaged with the world, our focus has been the preservation of democracy.  When we have retreated from the global stage, the loser has always been democracy.

One of the most compelling lessons of Twentieth Century history is that provided by the results of our twenty year love affair with isolationism.  The roots of this disastrous lurch were readily apparent then and now.  The outcome of World War I was not, as we had been promised by the highly idealistic President Wilson, an end to war and a world safe for democracy.  This unfortunate split between promise and consequence made it very easy to surrender to the appealing message of George Washington's Farewell Address and recoil from not only "entangling alliances" but any non-commercial relationship with any country beyond our borders.

The seductive nature of "minding our own business" was enhanced by a strong strain of nativism which ran through American society as reflected by the increasingly restrictive immigration laws of the post-World War I period.  Keeping to ourselves seemed to assure maintaining our purity.  The notion of foreigners and foreign ideas polluting us was reflected as well by the resolute policy of non-recognition regarding those evil commies of the new Soviet Union.

The consequences of our willful retreat from the world were not only drearily predictable, they were highly and immediately visible.  The iron jaws of authoritarian rule clamped hard and fast on Italy and, a few years later, Germany.  These ideologically propelled regimes formed two thirds of a new anti-democratic steel triangle.  The final component was the military dominated government of Japan.

All three anti-democratic, authoritarian regimes were expansionist.  In each case the expansionism was predicated largely upon artifacts of mythology which rivaled religion in their attractiveness and pervasiveness.  In these features the ideological/mythological bases of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Shinto/Imperial Japan were rivaled by the Marxist-Leninist faith of the Soviet Union.

The democracies of Western Europe never went "officially" isolationist, but, led by Great Britain and France, all had lost belief in the power of their own polities and societies in the mud and blood of the World War I trenches.  The self-confidence, the belief in national values, the assurance that one's way of life deserved protection even at the cost of millions killed had all perished in the vast slaughters of what was called, "the Great War."

Had the US not embraced the false security of retreat behind its own borders, it is arguable that not only would Hitler and his counterparts in Rome and Tokyo have had to take account of the US in pursuing ambitions, but the political will of the European democracies would have been reinforced as well.  The absence of the US, the almost literal rejection of the world by Americans, made certain that the wobbly democracies of Europe would wobble all the more--and the ambitions of ideological frenzy stoked.

When the US was finally given no choice--bombs on Pearl Harbor being an invitation that could not be declined--it entered the war with one paramount goal.  The goal was that of making the world safe for us by making it decidedly unsafe for dictators.

Stripped of cant and other rhetorical trappings, the goal of the US during the long, frustrating, and occasionally down right terrifying years of the Cold War was the same--self defense by preserving democracy against the threat of expansionist, ideologically committed authoritarian regimes.  While the monolithic global communist menace never existed in realty, and the Soviet Union often quite conservative, cautious in pursuing its goals, the fact remained that democracy--and its adjunct, state regulated capitalism--were under real, ongoing threat from the Kremlin, from the Forbidden City, from numerous other regimes which embraced Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Looking back at the half century of the Cold War it is evident that the single greatest category of errors committed by the US was that of counting as allies countries which were not democratic but merely "anti-communist."  By confusing means with ends we often were our own worse enemy.  Democracy cannot be preserved, let alone expanded, by authoritarian governments.

In hindsight the errors of relying on totalitarian regimes in the defense of democracy are in high relief.  No one can miss them-or their harmful effects.

There is a cliche which relates to this reality quite well: To be forewarned is to be forearmed.  The same cliche applies to the latest threat confronting democracy  both here and abroad.  We have been forewarned about both the threat posed by violent political Islam and the danger of reposing defense of democracy in regimes which are not democratic.

The US is at a tipping point.  The elections of 2010 and 2012 will go a long way in determining how--or even if--the US will seek to preserve and defend democracy against its latest adversary.

It doesn't matter that the most recent incarnation of anti-democratic, expansionist authoritarianism comes in the guise of religion or, at the least, religiously based ideology.  Quoting sacred literature, waving copies of a sacred book, invoking religious sensibilities does not make violent (or non-violent) political Islam any less of a threat to our democratic center than were those presented by secular ideologies.  As any number of contemporary Muslim clerics, scholars of jurisprudence, and governmental figures have made abundantly clear, there is no compromise possible between political Islam and democracy.

The threat is real.  It is here and now.  It will continue.  If successful, political Islam will result in a world in which the US is less secure, less influential, less comfortable.  If successful, political Islam will result in a world order in which the US is more isolated, more confined, more ill at ease.

The argument for confronting political Islam, by armed force if necessary, is identical in all respects to the one adduced to justify our opposition to the totalitarian regimes and their ideologies of the past century.  Stripped down to the essentials, it is defending the US by defending democracy throughout the world.  Their defense, the preservation of democracy over there is to defend ourselves, to preserve our core values.

The question confronting We the People is not so much "should we" as it is "who will?"  That means who, what group, which party, will have the best ideas, the greatest political will, the orientation necessary to adequately and effectively preserve democracy both here and abroad?

It has become painfully obvious that the current president not only has no clear vision of the nature of the enemy, he has no real commitment to the idea that the US deserves to be preserved even in the most basic feature of democracy.  Despite his recurrent mention of democracy in his speech to the UN General Assembly, one listens or reads Mr Obama's remarks with the uneasy feeling that he sees the US as being in some ineffable way inferior to the rest of the world.

In this Mr Obama is representing the strain of belief which permeated the American academy in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate period.  This period was the second outbreak of isolationism in the US.  Unlike the first go-around during which Americans disengaged on the principle that the rest of the world was irredeemably inferior to the US, the second period, the one which was so influential on Mr Obama's world view as it has been the world views of so many others of the American hoi oligoi, grew from the warped notion that the US was inferior to the rest of the world.

It is the impact of the "blame America first" school of belief which is responsible not only for Mr Obama's hesitancy in defending American interests or even acknowledging that our interests and values are under attack by foreign exponents of political Islam but the identical attitude on the part of so many in the American political, media, and academic "elites."  These individuals sincerely believe that the US is so impeached by its past and present record of discrimination, exploitation, racism, environmental destruction that it is exceptional only in the evil which it has wrought on the "less fortunate" in the world.

This is not to imply that the neo-isolationists reside only in the big tent of the Democratic Party.  The advocates of disengagement are to be found in the ranks of the Republicans--and the Tea Party--as well.  In these contexts, the proponents of "mind our own business" are not throwbacks to the first generation of isolationists.  They, even the Ron and Rand Paul sort, are not atavistic in their arguments or conclusions.

Nor are they simple minded folk who equate our foreign involvements with the motives and goals of jihadists. They do not blame the US and the policies of administrations over the past sixty years for the attacks upon us by al-Qaeda and all the deadly others.

Their arguments and conclusions are based on the budgetary constraints operating on the US today.  Correctly, they contend these constraints will not evaporate in the near future.  As a result they are of the view that the US cannot afford either an ambitious foreign policy or the military forces which may (will?) be essential if we are going to preserve democracy.  They contend the US must cut its foreign and national security policies to fit the financial cloth available.

This is not an irrational position.  Nor is it irrational to view the American defense establishment and its collaborator, the foreign policy community, as vast money sumps in which dollars almost literally beyond counting can disappear without visible--or at least, useful--result.  Every detached observer of the Pentagon, including the current Secretary of Defense, agrees this is and has been the case all too often.

Wars are expensive.  But the wars we are currently fighting are on the cheap side of expensive costing less than either the Korean or Vietnam wars when expressed as a percentage of the GDP.  Using the same method--percentage of GDP--our current defense expenditures including those of the foreign policy and intelligence communities are half of what they were in the days of Ike. (Back then they ran about ten percent and today a little under five.)

Too much of a reduction, arguably, any reduction in our defense and foreign policies would be a false economy of the worst sort.  A retreat to our own borders might seem attractive not only for reasons of costs but also because our efforts seem so purposeless.  (Take a dekko at Pakistan for complete justification of the latter contention.)

We have traveled that road before.  Twice.  In the first case, the retreat ultimately cost us much more not only in dollars, but, infinitely more importantly, in lives.  In the second, the consequences were not so great, but that was due to an intelligent decision by We the People which aborted the second flirtation with withdrawal before the results became inordinately costly.

Given the state of play today with nuclear weapons available in Pakistan and soon to be such in Iran, the existence and growth of powerfully motivated groups adhering to violent political Islam, the existence of groups such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League, and states willing to support these entities in pursuit of national interest, it takes very little time for the costs to reach the unacceptable level.  This means we do not have the luxury of time.  If We the People do not decide quickly that our best means of preserving our democracy and all that arises from that is through an effective and robust foreign policy backed by a highly competent armed force so that democracy can be preserved wherever it exists, the consequences will be both irrevocable and unpleasant.

It's real simple, bucko.  Democracy is worth preserving because we are worth preserving.  To paraphrase a famed American admiral during the Civil War, David Porter, "Damn the expense!  Full speed ahead!"

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Going Out To Lunch With The Republicans

The other day a bunch of Republican congressional wallahs and governors launched a new outfit with the pretentious name of The National Council For A New America. The Geek will ignore his first response which was a question: Just what is wrong with the Old America?" The Geek will even set to one side his doubts concerning the capacity of a motley collection of Representatives and governors, both past and present, to discover the nature of this mythical "New America."

Instead the Geek will restrain himself to considering one of the five agenda items listed by the group as being a suitable topic for discussing in the search for the Land of Newness. The item is captioned, National Security. It comes in dead last after the economy, health care reform, education, and energy policy. Here is the NCNA understanding of national security--

The threats posed to our nation are more varied and evolving more than perhaps at any other time in our history. Modern communications, technology and the proliferation of weapons of all types have empowered our enemies and those who support them. Our national security policy must reflect these realities while allowing us to maintain technological superiority, support the most well-trained and well-equipped military in the world and have the intelligence capabilities to uncover and prevent attacks before they occur.

Sounds like it was recycled from a few hundred pieces of campaign pap left over from past lost elections to the Geek. How about you?

Now history does not lead the Geek or any other half-way aware individual to place a great amount of faith in the perceptiveness of congress wallahs or governors in the matter of defining either American national and security interests or determining the best ways to advance, protect and defend them.

It is sufficient to note that four of the five presidents preceding the present incumbent were governors before planting their rumps in the Oval. Of these only one, the much maligned (and overpraised) Reagan had some real measure of success in the foreign affairs arena. The others, from Carter to W. Bush presided over disasters ranging from the minor to the unbelievably major.

If the records of the non-governors are added to the mix the picture becomes no less bleak. JFK and his overly muscular "pragmatists" brought us the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the start of the Great Vietnam Misadventure. LBJ continued the pattern with his escalation of the Vietnam War thus giving the US the first of its two unnecessary, unsuccessful and arguably counterproductive military adventures. (The other, of course, was the invasion of Iraq.)

The assorted Republicans show no more ability than either the war drum thumpers of late 2002 or their long ago Congressional precursors in 1964-5. The dire threats are either undefined or overdrawn. The military response is given pride of place. No understanding of the military as an instrument of national power is exhibited. A faint odor of blood pervades the entire issue of national security. Worst of all, national security is seen as some sort of stand-alone without links to any or all other features of policy.

It is commonplace that the expenses of each of the two unnecessary wars had profound, negative impact on the overall health of the American economy.

The infamous "stagflation" of the Seventies was a direct product of the Johnson Administration's decision to fight a war without curtailing other categories of expenditure. In this decision the administration was joined at the hip and shoulder by the Democrats of congress.

More recently, the Great Adventure in Regime Change was undertaken in the context of a tax cut and continued, escalating appropriations for all categories of governmental expense. It is not realistic, no matter how politically attractive, to divorce the current economic debacle from the deficits driven by the war in Iraq.

Money blown on unnecessary wars is not available for other purposes such as development of alternative energy sources and technologies. It, and the money spent to fund the deficit, is not there for use in education or health care reforms. Both, self-evidently, will take thwacking amounts of money both public and private. If the money isn't there because it went to war or the associated costs of war which echo for decades after the guns go silent, the plans, no matter how High Minded or worthy, go for nought. Or the economy and the pockets of each of us suffer damage that otherwise might have been avoided.

Now that some of the crucial preliminaries have been (partially) addressed, the Geek wants to get down to it.

Listen up, Republican fonctionnaires and aspirants to Deep Thinking status and get a grip on a couple of basic realities of national security life.

Remember the ancient recipe for rabbit stew which starts, "First, catch your rabbit." Before you run off at the mouth blabbing about the "best trained" and "best equipped" military in the world or prattle about "proliferating" threats, define the threat. Also define how the presumed or perceived threat directly, substantially and materially affects national and security interests.

Is the threat some slippery critter called "terrorism?" Or, is it a political ideology rooted in carefully selected and interpreted features of religious doctrine, such as Islamist jihadism? Does the threat come from all failed or failing states or just some? If the latter, what are the necessities for determining the existence of an actual or potential threat? Do China or Russia present a threat? If so, to what degree and in what manner? Is all nuclear proliferation equally threatening? If not, what are the criteria for determining the degree and immediacy of the threat?

Sure, there are other rabbits to catch, but this list gives a helpful start.

Next, Lads, (the male term is correct judging from both the pictures and names on the NCNA webpage) stop and think about another basic question. What is the nature and character of the military?

That's right, boys, it is an instrument of national power. The instrument of last resort. The ultimate argument of politics in the international arena. It is a tool. As a tool it must be used only for the right job in the right way.

A military, no matter how well trained and equipped is limited in its usage by the nature of both its equipment and doctrine. In the Great Vietnam Misadventure we attempted to use a military which was trained and equipped to fight a high intensity war on a putatively nuclear battlefield against an enemy similarly trained and equipped. Then, in an attempt akin to using a hammer to tighten a bolt, we sent it off to fight a semi-unconventional war where constraint of lethal force and similar concern for the well-being and perceptions of the uncommitted civilian majority was paramount.

We lost.

Our well trained and equipped armed forces were sent to Afghanistan. They accomplished in part the original mission. But, then, in a manner not unlike using a quarter inch ratchet to drive a one inch bolt, the military was told to "build a nation" from the feudal fragments of a rarely cohesive society.

The same tale was told in the wastelands of Iraq. The Americans had no trouble quickly dispatching the conventional forces of Saddam. Then, the day after victory was declared, the real war started. Yes, the Americans learned, or more properly, relearned the lessons of counterinsurgency and ultimately we achieved the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not losing."

Have you political types learned the most important lesson of the wars of America over the past fifty or so years? Have you learned that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all military force, no matter how "well trained" and "well equipped?"

A military must fight with the doctrine to which it has trained and for which it has been equipped if it is to succeed quickly and at a cost in lives which is acceptable to the American public. This means that the military must have guidance as to the nature of the threats it is expected to counter. It must know what sort of wars it will be expected to fight in the near- to mid-term.

In our system that sort of decision is not up to the uniformed people in the Pentagon alone. It is a political view to which the senior civilian leadership must give informed input. Similarly, political decisions determine the relation of the military to all other instruments of national power. That's right, all other instruments.

The military does not operate in a vacuum. It supports the conduct of foreign policy. It supports diplomacy. Its actions, whether warlike or limited to non-violent actions such as humanitarian relief or in-country training, are dictated by the overarching political policy of an administration--and a congress.

The same dynamics are at work with the intelligence and clandestine services of the United States. It is all well and good to aver that the nation needs an intelligence capacity to detect threats before they manifest themselves in dramatic and bloody fashion.

That sort of sentiment is not enough. Not by a Texas mile or two. Intelligence services need guidance as to what the powers-that-be think is a threat. Is it the policy du jour to see drug traffickers as a national security threat? Or, perhaps, purported environmental degradation in Brazil? Do we keep an eye on one country or region or ideology in preference to another?

Money, personnel, computer processing time, must all be prioritised. There is no such thing in the real world of spooks as the all-seeing eye. It is the politicians, the president in particular, who sets the agenda for observation and analysis. It is the politicians who determine the limits of acceptable intelligence and clandestine service methods.

Remember, it was politicians who precluded the use of unsavory foreign nationals as sources. Then it was politicians who damned the intelligence services for not having properly detected and warned against threats. It was the political leadership who demanded robust methods be employed to develop actionable intelligence. And, then damned those who carried out the dictates of the decision makers.

If you stalwarts of the fading Grand Old Party are going to re-invent and re-launch the party (let alone discover this chimera, a "New America") you must first catch a number of rabbits.

To do that you must as a prerequisite drop the addiction to glittering, meaningless generalities. This is hard for politicians whose stock in trade is saying things which sound good but mean nothing. Without considering national interest and national security in cold, concrete and historically valid terms, you are just one more puff of smoke in the strong, cold gales of the real world.