Gates Doubles Down On NATO

NATO--the US has a hard time living with it but believes it cannot live without it.  For better than sixty years now we have been in a relationship with a tedious bunch which was not sought by us.  The treaty which ties the US to a couple of dozen other states was and remains a form of shotgun marriage--compelled by force of circumstance and, presumably, preferable to the alternative.

Nearly every secretary of defense has been frustrated by the pervasive unwillingness or inability of the member states to carry their fair share of the alliance's water.  Yesterday, Robert Gates, feeling free with his impending departure from the Pentagon, let it all hang out as he reamed the group for its collective failures of political will and military capacity.

His words were not particularly harsh.  Neither were they the petulant complaints.  His assessments were not even new.  Each and every one of the criticisms mentioned in his speech have been said before.  Often.  What made the Gates Warning substantially different was that it came in public.  The words were not murmured behind closed doors, minister to minister.  No.  These came in public for all to hear.  And, that sort of thing is just not done, don't you know.

Stripped to the essentials, the Gates Warning was simple and blunt.  As the cold war faded as even a memory, the American people and their representatives were decreasingly willing to spend ever more scarce resources underwriting the defense needs of countries unwilling to shoulder their own responsibilities.  Pointedly, Gates noted, the US carried roughly half the aggregate NATO military budget just before the Berlin Wall crumbled soon to followed by the Soviet Union.  He added the kicker: Currently the US staggers under three quarters of the total NATO military budget.

This one metric suggests strongly that something is amiss in NATO.  In case anyone missed the point, Gates commented that only four countries (the UK, France, Greece and Albania[!]) joined the US in spending more than the target two percent of GDP on defense.  The target figure of two percent was not established by some sort of fiat out of Washington but rather by consensus of all NATO members.  Nor is it some fossil of the cold war having been established long after the collapse of the Vanguard of the Proletariat.

More than a few of the assembled Dignitaries and Deep Thinkers must have squirmed when Gates not only acknowledged an awareness and appreciation of the budget crises enveloping most of the NATO members but went on to demonstrate how some (very) small countries were "punching well above their weight" by having used their defense money in an intelligent, forward looking, and combat focused way.  He singled out the Libyan efforts of Norway and Denmark in this regard.  By so doing Gates obviated the cringing and whining response offered by such European apologists as Daniel Korski, a senior fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations.  Or, for that matter, the spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry who protested that Germany was pulling an awesome amount of freight in Afghanistan.

The reality of NATO is as it has been for many, many years.  That reality is simply the belief on the part of chancelleries throughout Europe that the US would always be there to pick up whatever burdens were necessary to guarantee European security.  The view has been the US has no alternative but to do so as Europe was the frontline of American defense.  As a consequence for three generations now the several old members of the alliance have shirked in defense so as to underwrite the extensive programs of social benefits and security which have long been the distinguishing characteristic of post-World War II Europe.

The majority of the old members of NATO have ridden in great comfort on the alliance's gravy train while the made-in-America locomotive pulled the freight.  The new, post-cold war members, the former Warsaw Pact states which have joined the alliance, have been quite willing to do the same--while complaining that the US is not doing enough to deter and inhibit the Russians in their efforts to reestablish some form of suzerainty over the Eastern European glacis.

NATO was challenged with the end of the cold war.  The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the reason for the alliance's existence.  More than ever it became obvious that the organization was an ill-assorted array of bed fellows who had little, if anything, in common beyond apprehension regarding Soviet ambitions in the West.  Not even geography tied the group together given that it spread from Turkey to Canada, Norway to Italy and Spain.  The very term, "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" had no rigorous meaning.  Arguably only one word, "treaty," was factual.  All the rest was well-intended diplomatic fiction.

The big question of 1991-2 which was never really asked let alone answered was, "What is NATO's justification now?"  The pseudo-answer focused on some critter called "out-of-theater operations."  That term is one of those phrases which is every bit as portentous rolling off a diplomat's lips as it is empty of actual substance.

The first "out-of-theater" NATO mission was not particularly "out-of-theater" if one defines NATO's area of responsibility to be Europe.  Specifically, it was the confused peace imposition operation in Kosovo.  That meant it was an R2P campaign without the term.  The US as always carried the majority of the burden despite the very compelling fact that no salient American interest was in play in the ruins of Yugoslavia.  Insofar as any state or states had interests in play, those states were all European.  NATO was invoked simply because the directly effected states (can we say, "Germany?") were unwilling to act.

The next "out-of-theater" operation was the ongoing mess in Afghanistan.  NATO with a rush and a flourish invoked its famous an-attack-on-one-is-an-attack-on-all article for the very first time while the smoke still hung heavy in the air over lower Manhattan.  What came out of this demonstration of one for all, all for one solidarity was the unfortunate applicability of the alternative meaning for the abbreviation ISAF.  To many Americans who have fought in the place the abbreviation does not mean International Security Assistance Force but I Saw Americans Fighting.

While some NATO contingents such as those from the UK, Canada and, shockingly, France have actually taken the war to the bad guys, others, (can we say, "Germany?") have done everything possible to avoid, evade, and ignore even the most remote chance of actually encountering the enemy.  Leaving aside the responsibility which must be assigned to the Bush/Cheney administration in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and the alienation of allies attendant upon the invasion of Iraq, the residual actuality on the ground in Afghanistan is simply that NATO as an organization has done all too little relative to its capacities.

Now NATO is engaged in yet one more "out-of-theater" operation.  This time, unlike the previous efforts, the US has been a major non-participant.  Indeed, we would be even less involved if NATO had sufficient assets in critical areas such as overhead surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting, mid-air refueling, and electronic warfare.  Secretary Gates as much as said this as he detailed the glaring deficiencies in the NATO effort.  He also underscored that the engaged NATO contingents had already run short of critical munitions thus requiring urgent American restocking.  This, he stated, was the foreseeable consequence of not properly spending even limited defense money.

In its post-cold war missions, NATO has shown itself to be a coalition of the unwilling and unready.  This reality is not mitigated by the excellent performance of some national contingents in each and every of the three "out-of-theater" endeavors.  Nor can it be lessened by pointing to budgetary matters.  Neither can the situation be expected to improve any.  In his optimism, limited as it was, Dr Gates is being entirely too kind, too considerate of ruffled diplomatic and political feathers within the alliance's membership.

(In connection with this it is of more than passing interest that the Obama White House attempted mightily to put blue sky between Secretary Gates' position and its own.  An unidentified White House "official" took the stance that the Secretary was either speaking solely for the Pentagon or was expressing his personal frustration with some NATO states.  The most the white-feathered crew at the White House was willing to grant was that Gates had raised "legitimate issues."  A fine bunch of courageous statesmen and women in and near the Oval, don't you think?)

Dr Gates warned NATO that the day would soon come when post-cold war Americans would cease funding Europe's defense needs.  That day may be far closer than the secretary indicated.  The dismal record compiled by NATO in its post-cold war actions shows rather conclusively that it has no reason to keep on keeping on.

The concept of "out-of-theater" operations is intellectually bankrupt, ethically suspect, and diplomatically useless.  Beyond that, it is a military nullity marked with asymmetry of effort, confusion of command, vagueness and contradiction politically.  NATO is a broken tool without any real purpose other than inhibiting Russian ambitions should such exist with respect to Central and Eastern Europe.

The US would be far better served by assembling an ad hoc coalition of states with coinciding national interests when interventions of whatsoever nature might be required.  The diplomacy of George H. W. Bush in the run-up to the First Gulf War is paradigmatic in this regard.  Ad hoc coalitions might be a bit difficult to put together, but no more so than achieving consensus within the councils of NATO.  Should it be necessary for the US to carry the overwhelming majority of the water in a coalition, there is at least the advantage that such groups are short duration (provided the war is fought with an appropriate doctrine and force package.)

The time has come to say to NATO, "Thanks for the memories."

What Kind Of War Will We Be Fighting?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently called for an evaluation of the role, mission, and configuration of the Marine Corps. At roughly the same time he suggested the Navy needed to reconsider its needs and, presumably, its role in future wars. While being less direct (in recent weeks) regarding both Army and Air Force, the soon to be outgoing SecDef has clearly questioned the current postures and mission orientation of both services.

The subtext of Dr Gates' push to reconfiguration consists of two questions. What kind(s) of war will the US be fighting in the next couple of decades? What is the current and projected state of play regarding the relative supremacy of offense and defense?

No aspect of human endeavor better fits the Hegelian dialectic then does the relation of offense and defense in warfare. Every new thesis of offense calls an antithesis of defense into existence. And, the new defense summons a synthesis of offense. So the wheel turns.

The celebration of the defense got a boost recently with the widespread and breathless discussion of the new Chinese wonder weapon, a highly accurate anti-ship ballistic missile. The couch potato admirals, not all of whom were Chinese, gleefully decided the new, untested missile would make US naval force projection utterly impossible within a thousand klicks or so of the Chinese landmass.

Any number of pundits who have never heard a shot fired in anger weighed in with a pornographically precise description of just how the new system would neutralize the Nimitz class carriers should any make so bold as to come over to the Chinese half of the Pacific Ocean. The first incoming conventional warhead would "kill" the Nimitz class as a weapons system by wrecking its capacity for air operations. The second would nail the ship's propulsive system turning the monumentally expensive and complex ship into a umpteen thousand ton hulk. Then, missile number three would speedily dispatch the hulk to Davy Jones' locker.

Badda-bing! That's all she wrote. End of the US as the number one maritime power. Might as well surrender to the Trolls of Beijing now and avoid the mess later.

Of course this dystopian view depends upon a number of assumptions--all of them quite questionable.

The first is that the US Navy knows utterly nothing about how to play hide-and-seek in the vast expanses of the ocean. Next, the it's-all-over-with crowd seems to believe that there is no way the US could possibly exploit any of the numerous opportunities to perturb, spoof, spiel, or otherwise degrade the extensive C4ISR system(s) which would be required to support the missile. Finally, the proponents of imminent American naval defeat ignore the demonstrated ABM and ASAT capacities of the Aegis supported Standard missile as well as the improvement curve expected over the next few years.

(Oh, yes, they also failed to note the status of directed energy weapon research, development, and deployment as if that is somehow less relevant than the still far from IOC ready Chinese ship-killer.)

The saga of the Chinese super-weapon or at least its portrayal in assorted American and foreign media should be seen as an excellent illustration of an important ground truth. The Hegelian dialectic, the yin and yang of offense and defense is never a finished process. It is always the big wheel that keeps on moving.

The same is true with respect to amphibious forcible entry. In his assessment of the Marine Corps need for a review of its main missions, Dr Gates contended that the days of storming the beach were over. The secretary averred improvements in anti-ship missile technology assured that an invasion force would have to "away all boats" forty or more miles offshore. This, of course, was an order of magnitude greater distance than required during WW II or, sixty years ago next month, the last great amphibious operation in US history, the one at Inchon, Korea.

To Dr Gates the takeaway was self-evident. The distance, and the time required to transit it would be too great. In the future, large scale operations across a contested beach would be impossible at any acceptable loss rate.

Surely with his vast experience, Dr Gates knows better. He has both seen enough and, in all probability, studied enough to understand that there is no such critter as a stasis imposed by the unconquerable defense or the irresistible offense.

Being a contemporary of the Geek, the secretary must recall, for example, the confident expressions by experts of high rank and great experience of a belief that the helicopter was too slow, too low flying, too fragile to survive in a combat zone. He should remember the pronouncements to the effect that the Marine's doctrine of "vertical envelopment" would prove impossible at any acceptable loss rate.

The experts were wrong as battlefields from Vietnam to Afghanistan have shown. The great wheel of offense versus defense rolled on. Improvements in one drove improvements in the other. There is no reason to believe this dynamic will suddenly and abruptly change.

History is filled with other examples, very well known examples. The combination of artillery, machine guns, field fortifications, and barbed wire made ground offensives impossible. Sure, until the armored fighting vehicles were developed. The battleship was supreme. Sure, until the airplane and submarine proved otherwise.

Submarines were queens of the sea. You bet. Until effective technologies of detection and engagement were developed. The bomber would get through. Yes, until radar, controlled figher interception, and surface to air missiles arrived on the scene.

Technological lurches in and off themselves are not necessary and sufficient reasons to demand a review and reconfiguration of missions and mission postures. The only truly necessary and sufficient reason for this to occur is found in the nature of the wars most likely to be fought in the next few years, say the next couple of decades.

Way back when, well, at least before 9/11, a faculty member at the National War College challenged the Geek to make one of his (in)famous "fearless predictions." The Geek obliged, opining that the most probable type of war for the US over the next generation or two would be that of an interventionary nature. The kind of war now called "overseas contingency operations."

While the probability of a peer-to-peer conflict with, say, China could not be ruled zero, such was diminishingly small. Rather it was likely to highly likely that the US would find it necessary to involve itself in messy little, frustratingly inconclusive interventions ranging from the punitive to the humanitarian to the stability enhancing to the counterinsurgent. Nasty little wars of policy which would be critical to national and strategic interests but not in themselves existential or total.

To date the prediction has been borne out. Further, there is no reason to see the situation altering in any fundamental fashion for the next two decades. Not even an attack on Iran would result in a total war of national survival for the US. The probability of a peer-to-peer mid- to high-intensity war with China or Russia is no more probable today than it was fifteen years ago. Nor, absent some form of unilateral disarmament is such going to loom larger in the real world over the next two decades.

This global reality does demand a more effective configuration of American forces: Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force. The necessity and desirability of such a reconfiguration has gained greater salience from the experiences of the past ten years. Further stimulus comes from the only partially acknowledged fact that the advocates of violent political Islam have not lost their appetite for armed confrontation with the US and other civilized states nor their ability for horizontal escalation.

The Marine Corps can be employed as an example of the necessary reconfiguration of doctrine, force structure, and posture. It should be recognized that the Marines are quite unlikely to be engaging in amphibious forcible entries in the next few years. This assertion is based not on changes in anti-ship missile technology or the increasing availability of inexpensive, effective anti-ship missiles but rather on the nature of likely wars.

In this context it is necessary to remember that the Marine Corps has a wide, extensive, and highly successful experience with interventionary operations, particularly counterinsurgency. For most of the past one hundred years, the Marines have been more often employed in low intensity interventionary operations than in assaulting heavily defended beaches. To put it in perspective, the USMC spent less than three years seizing beaches during WW II and Korea while Marines fought for six years in South Vietnam and nearly that long in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan as in the earlier "Banana Wars" of the Twenties and Thirties, the Marine Corps demonstrated the value of its tightly disciplined, flexible, down and forward approach to leadership in counterinsurgency. In all these deployments the Marines demonstrated a very rapid learning curve, a high degree of innovation, and a genuine competence at working with indigenous forces. The Marines have often exasperated higher command with their independence ("hell, the Marines are fighting their own war out there,"), but none have questioned their effectiveness.

In other interventionary operations, the Marine Corps' combination of high discipline, unit coherence, and integrated air and ground capabilities provided the necessary combination of lethality and restraint to accomplish difficult missions. (In this context it is helpful to remember the Marine operation in Lebanon in 1957.)

Had a Marine force been tasked with the neutralization of Somalian warlords in 1993, there would have been no possibility of the mission destroying "Blackhawk down" debacle. The very nature of Marine force posture and doctrine would have prevented the mounting of such a poorly planned and inadequately supported operation as that undertaken by Special Forces personnel at that time. (All that is necessary to keep in mind is that the Marines have organic armor, rotary wing and fixed wing as well as the necessary integrated command, control, and communication capabilities.)

In short, the Marine Corps brings to the table all the features and capacities necessary for short, sharp, constrained lethality operations. For humanitarian relief operations when risk of armed opposition exists, (bare in mind that Pakistani Taliban has threatened attack on relief personnel during the current flood) or a punitive expedition (such as the invasion of Afghanistan should have been) or stability enhancement deployments such as Lebanon in 1957 (or, absent the critical mistakes of mission definition and rules of engagement, Lebanon in 1982), the Marine Corps should be the lead force.

True, leaning on the Corps would violate the totem of "jointness" which has ruled supreme for the past several decades. If Dr Gates is serious he should kick start a review on "joint and combined operations" with a goal of eliminating those which are not genuinely required by the nature of the operation. He knows, (it is flatly impossible that he doesn't) the "joint and combined" fetish is driven not by any real strategic, operational, or tactical requirements but rather by the budgetary process.

And, that, bucko, is a very, very poor way to plan and conduct military operations.

While the Deep Thinkers of the national security community are at it, they might consider the need for reconfiguring the American special and black operations capacities. As events of recent vintage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and North or Northwest Africa have shown, there is an increasingly blurred line between the operational divisions of CIA and the blacker portions of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Complicating this is a corollary merging of the intelligence collection functions of CIA's HUMINT component and the equivalents in SOCOM.

Blurring, merging, overlapping between black or paramilitary operations and HUMINT collection is both dangerous and counterproductive. Almost as bad is the insensible, unplanned and reactive melding of the Agency's paramilitary or black operations capacities with any similar capacities in SOCOM. Clear lines of command, responsibility and tasking are necessary for effectiveness. So also is common doctrine, shared mindset and world view.

The separation with careful coordination between intelligence collection and operational execution is also utterly essential. As the record of WW II in Europe demonstrates convincingly, a carefully orchestrated and coordinated separation of intelligence and operations is utterly essential. Otherwise the spooks and the black ops types not only step on each others cloaks, but get stabbed with one another's daggers.

There are many other areas where our forces doctrines, structures, orientations and postures can be and should be re-evaluated and reconfigured. Dr Gates is definitely on the side of the angels when he urges such.

However, it is mission critical that any review, any reconfiguration, any structure, posture and doctrine changes be based not on changes in technologies, new turns on the wheel of offense and defense but on a realistic understanding of the nature of the wars we will be fighting in the years to come. To suggest otherwise is to assure an ultimate failure in the process.

The bitch of it all is the failure will not be evident until too many body bags come home in a war not yet fought. And, by then, it is way too late.

ADMIN NOTE: Comments are invited, welcomed and will be posted but due to spam comments the Geek has been forced to take defensive measures. He apologizes for any inconvenience or frustration.

Gates Gets It Right--Why Can't Anyone Else?

It is good to know that there is one mature, realistic, and plain speaking person in the Obama administration. Amid all the amateur strategists, self-proclaimed experts in geopolitics, and other assorted talk-without-thinking, speak-without-knowledge folks, Robert Gates stands out as the voice of both accuracy and rationality.

This time the secretary was on CNN responding to the WikiLeaks "revelations," particularly those dealing with the collaboration between the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Taliban. Predictably, he did play down the current closeness between ISI and the insurgents. As a needed balance he did bring the historical dimension of that cooperation into sharp focus. In this he is unique among the flurry of pontification, viewing-with-alarm, and all around hand-wringing which has characterized both politicians and the mainstream media.

Gates said, " we walked out on Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1989 and left them basically holding the bag. And there is always the fear that we will do that again. And I believe that's the reason there's a certain hedge." The Geek can say only, "Amen." (Of course, with his usual modesty the Geek points out that he has made the same point several times in posts over the past three years.)

The unthinking way in which the administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush walked away from the morass in Afghanistan not only "left them basically holding the bag" but paved the way for the emergence of Taliban. The senior decision makers of both administrations were warned in a timely manner as to the dangers of handing the Afghan brief over to Islamabad generally and the ISI particularly. But the warnings came from people far down the food chain in the bureaucracies in Langley, Foggy Bottom, and the Pentagon. And, the folks topside had bigger fish to fry as well as a very short term view of the future.

In recent years the short-term vision of the Reagan and H.W. Bush days has been mirrored by the short memories of the W. Bush and Obama administrations. The people breathing the rarefied air around the Oval (as well as journalists and politicians generally) have forgotten the experiences of our earlier activities in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. (This statement presupposes that the minds of today have ever been cluttered by any knowledge of the past, even the very recent and quite critical past.)

When the Americans went to Afghanistan nine plus years ago, their plans were in no way based upon the vast experience collected during the long years of the anti-Soviet proxy war or the years of Pakistani-Taliban collaboration which followed. It is was this willful and easily cured ignorance which both allowed and encouraged the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld bunch to fail to properly define the goal of the invasion as being purely punitive. Or, to use the less offensive term invented during the Obama administration, "counter-terrorism."

Rather than putting the most narrow focus on the goal of the invasion, the W. Bush administration opted for a hazy and attractive view of somehow building a modern Western style nation-state in the rocky and sterile soil of Afghanistan. At the same time neocon ninnies of the Bush/Cheney days were scared silly by the prospect of somehow angering, alienating, even slightly annoying the military junta which ran Pakistan.

As a result the Americans stood by as the ISI assisted any number of Taliban and al-Qaeda heavyweights to flee the new boots on the ground for the hospitable lands of the FATA--and Pakistan proper. This gross blunder assured that two unpleasant realities would come to pass in the fullness of time. Taliban along with the Haqqani network and other, smaller adherents of armed political Islam would recover their strength; ISI and other components of the Pakistani military and government would continue to provide support and assistance.

When Taliban and the others were ready, they returned to the fight in Afghanistan. The reentry was done with the full support of ISI and understanding of other parts of the Pakistani military and government. There is no doubt but ISI and others depended upon two eventualities coming to pass so as to secure Pakistani goals and reduce any risks to Islamabad.

The first of this was the existence within the US of sufficient war weariness to limit the American will and capacity to counter the new, stronger Taliban. Along with this, the planners of ISI assumed the armed political Islamists of Taliban, et al would be focused sufficiently upon gaining victory in Afghanistan to be willing to refrain from attacks against Pakistan.

In both assumptions ISI was proven wrong. To their consternation, the new, ever-so-peaceful, ever-ready-to-reach-out President Obama was willing to take the risk of sending more troops as well as a competent commander to Afghanistan. And, the LeT was quite willing and able to present an existential challenge to Islamabad in the FATA and elsewhere.

In response to the (unplanned for if not completely unexpected) ramping up of the Islamist political challenge as well as the violence which accompanied it, the government and armed forces of Pakistan had no choice but to wage war against LeT and other groups. The campaigns in Swat and portions of the FATA have been slow motion, fought primarily by the second string of paramilitary forces or the low risk, low effectiveness means of air and artillery strikes and have been conducted in a way assuring minimum losses to the "bad guys," particularly the command echelons.

The Pakistanis have been somewhat more forthcoming in assistance to the US in its conduct of the Predator targeted killing program. The actionable intelligence flow has increased along with the tempo of Predator operations. This has benefited the Pakistanis by eliminating key hostile personnel without any political risk.

If the remarks of Secretary Gates regarding the improvement in Pakistani cooperation are restricted to this area, they are completely correct. At the same time it is critical to note that the collaboration of Islamabad in such matters as impairing the Haqqani network have remained unchanged month to month for years now.

The mention of targeted killings opens the door to the question of just which strategy is the US now following in Afghanistan--counterinsurgency with nation-building or a punitive counter-terrorism approach? At root this constitutes a distinction without a difference. However, since there are some contemporary Great Captains such as Vice-president Joe Biden and the New York Times for which it is critical, a general comment is required.

Both Joe (If-I-Feel-It-I-Say-It) Biden and the NYT are of the view that targeted killing is the hallmark of punitive counter-terrorism but is totally unsuited to counterinsurgency. The V-P and the NYT see the recent higher volume use of both air and ground strikes against identified commanders of Taliban and other groups as being the refutation of the protect the civilians emphasis of General McChrystal.

They are as wrong as a soup sandwich. Organizational disruption is equally important in a genuine counterinsurgent strategy as it is in a pure effort at counter-terrorism. Any success in a counterinsurgent effort requires mobilizing support from the uncommitted majority of the civilian population to the government at the expense of the insurgent. Any success in a counter-insurgent campaign also demands a progressive reduction of the organizational coherence of the insurgents.

In short, successful counterinsurgency requires protecting those who need protection, converting the insurgents who are open to conversion, and killing those insurgents who are immune to any compromise, any power sharing agreement, any alternative less than total victory. For the hard core leadership of Taliban et al, the war is existential in nature. This means they must be killed. Period.

When a commando team on the ground or a UAV delivered Hellfire kills a Taliban heavyweight, it is both a success in counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency. Killing these people is both a necessity and a good thing. Period.

The difference between punitive oriented counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency comes in the other measures taken. Insofar as an emphasis is placed upon all the areas falling under the rubric "nation-building" the outside intervenor as well as the host government is waging a counterinsurgent effort.

The nature of the human terrain in Afghanistan militates against nation-building if such is defined as the creation of a Western style nation-state in Afghanistan. This reality does not allow the US and its partners an easy way out however. The domestic political realities as well as the mindset of American and Western European elites will not allow a simple refocus on the eminently realistic policy of punitively oriented counter-terrorism.

It is necessary for reasons endemic to the politics and values of the West to make a good show of nation-building in Afghanistan even if such provides an endstate far less than wished. There is no way in which most Western elitfes would be satisfied if, when the shooting stops, Afghanistan is a medieval feudal theocracy--even if that is precisely what most Afghans are most comfortable with.

The next time Secretary Gates is on TV it would be nice if he could turn his highly realistic and vastly experienced brain loose on that matter. On the matter of explaining just why there can be no nation-building possible in Afghanistan without a severe redefinition of the term.

Obama Steps On His Dick With Golf Shoes

To nobody's great surprise but to the total dismay of any American who cares whether the US fails in Afghanistan or not, the Very Thin Skinned and Shallow Minded man who currently occupies the Oval fired (or, technically speaking, "accepted the resignation of") General Stanley McChrystal today. The president is scheduled to do the impossible--explain and justify his decision later today, as soon as the TelePrompter can be loaded with the appropriate platitudes.

Mr Obama has dual hatted General Petraeus to serve as commander in Afghanistan in addition to his current job as CINCENTCOM. (Well, it does simplify the chain of command as Petraeus is now his own boss.) General Petraeus did an adequate job as commander in Iraq and, is well thought of by Republicans. Most importantly from the perspective of the Oval Office Inmates, General Petraeus has spent most of his career in billets requiring a nuanced interaction with journalists and politicians.

General McChrystal, as is shown by the ill-advised remarks so eagerly seized upon and quoted by the writer of the Rolling Stone piece, is by background, training, experience, and orientation a warfighter, a special operator. Men of this variety as the Geek can attest from much personal experience, are given to blunt honesty, eschewing the finely nuanced speech so beloved by politicians, journalists, and academics. In short, General McChrystal calls it as he sees it to the best of knowledge and belief.

Blunt honesty and the integrity which sustains and permits honesty constitute an anathema to politicians and others who must make deals regardless of actual cost. One may be certain that General Petraeus will never rock any administration boat, insult any civilian lamebrain, or perturb the sleep of even the unjust.

Whether General Petraeus can win the military portion of the war in Afghanistan is a more open question. While there are never any certainties in war--other than men will die--the informed, impartial observer would have been reasonably sure of backing a winner with McChrystal and his radically different approach to the war in Afghanistan. That degree of confidence can no longer be said to exist, if for no other reason than the impact of the McChrystal sacking on the morale of American forces and on the willingness of the Karzai regime to put a high degree of trust and confidence in the will and ability of the Americans to win.

Another very real impact of the Obama decision to rid himself of the troubling general resides with the enemy. There is no doubt but the Taliban and others of its ilk will be encouraged in their will to resist by the removal of the only senior American commander to have bested the black hats in both the military and political arenas of war.

Where the McChrystal strategy and operational doctrine focused in large measure on disrupting the organizational integrity of the insurgents, the Obama action has been to disrupt, perhaps fatally, the American organization. Where McChrystal had taken great pains to demoralize the senior echelons of Taliban et al, the Obama action has done the same to the good guys--to us and our allies including the Afghan National Forces.

In the forthcoming rationalization there is a high likelihood that Mr Obama will echo the words of all too many writers of editorials and others of the pundit class. He will aver, or at the least, imply, that General McChrystal was both insulting and insubordinate in his words and the words of his staff.

This justification is, at best, a crock of caca.

The characterizations offered of Joe Biden, and Messrs Eikenberry and Holebrook to say nothing of the other "wimps" in and around the White House may have been ill-chosen but they were accurate in the extreme. With the exception of SecDef Gates and SecState Clinton (exceptions that were made explicitly by General McChrystal and his staff), the members of "Team Obama" have demonstrated repeatedly that they were incapable of understanding and appreciating the realities on the ground in Afghanistan. If not evil counselors, these worthies have shown themselves as inept counselors. They merit the disapprobation heaped upon them by the general and members of his staff.

The truth, particularly when presented in a very blunt way, may be both inconvenient and painful, but that does not make it any less of the truth. The president had put on the combat boot of the general's words and loudly announced by his action that the boot both fits and pinches.

As for the insinuation that the general was being in any way insubordinate or rejecting of civilian supremacy, that accusation is utterly specious. It has utterly no validity. If one wants to witness insubordination in action he need only revisit the Affair of General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur.

Dugout Doug directly and repeatedly violated explicit orders given him by the president of the United States, Harry Truman. For that, General MacArthur well deserved being fired as he was by President Truman.

Nothing said by General McChrystal is in the same universe with what MacArthur did. General McChrystal violated no orders. Nor would he. A man of the background and experience of McChrystal would obey any lawful order he was given. Or, if obedience would violate his greater oath to the Constitution or his responsibility to and for the lives of the men under his command, then General McChrystal would do the honorable thing--he would resign his commission.

The Geek has heard men say far worse words concerning their superiors both uniformed and in mufti than anything attributed to General McChrystal or his staff. Heck, the Geek has said far worse during the stress of a war ill-fought and the sight of men dying without useful outcome. But, the Geek and others like him were fortunate that they were of low rank--and that they had no rat of a journalist pretending collegiality while in their midst.

It is a personal misfortune for General McChrystal and a national tragedy for all Americans that the general was not similarly situated and thus able to speak openly, honestly, and candidly about people of high station who by their actions betray the trust which had been placed in them.

Mr Obama--This Isn't The Time To Kick Ass!

Rolling Stone magazine living up to its founding tradition as a pillar of the counterculture and deep opponent of the US War in Vietnam is bringing out an article on General Stanley McChrystal which has caused the overly sensitive Nice Young Man From Chicago and his henchmen to go ballistic. As a result General McChrystal has been forced to apologize for saying unkind words about various Team Obama heavyweights and has been recalled to Washington to explain his remarks to SecDef Gates and, presumably, the thin-skinned Obama.

Worse than this recall--which at the least serves to undercut McChrystal's moral authority in theater--the POTUS may well fire the man who has the best chance of pulling something less than total defeat out of the Afghanistan morass. Should Mr Obama take this action either directly or using a safe cut-out such as Secretary Gates or Admiral Mullen, it would constitute a self-inflicted wound with potentially fatal consequences.

In the upcoming profile style article, General McChrystal and his staff are reported to have made less than flattering comments about (1) Vice President Biden, (2) Obama Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke and (3) US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Others high in the ranks of Team Obama may have been skewered as well, since only Hilary Clinton was reputedly unscathed. (It is to be hoped that had Mr Gates been the target of a barb or two that his vast experience in Washington has served to cushion their impact.)

The foundation for the critical comments made by either McChrystal or members of his staff resides in the events of last Fall during the unnecessarily prolonged pseudo-debate over the correct American strategy for Afghanistan and the number of additional troops which would be needed to execute that strategy effectively. The Obama orchestrated exercise in foot-dragging was marked by leaked memos, rumors, counter-rumors, and other sorts of typically mean and petty bureaucratic infighting.

It was at this time that Ambassador Eikenberry leaked documents which were critical of McChrystal's request for extra men as well as casting aspersions on both the character and election of Hamid Karzai. To infer that Eikenberry's CYA oriented exercise torqued off General McChrystal and others genuinely seeking a path other than defeat by which to exit Afghanistan would be an exercise in accuracy.

It deserves mention that Ambassador Eikenberry's most undiplomatic excoriation of Afghanistan's president not only hindered General McChrystal but also marked the beginning of the steep and slippery downward slope of Afghan-US relations which has continued to date. The ventilation of frustration and anger with Eikenberry's self-serving act in the presence of a journalist was most unwise, most unfortunate, and most regrettable. But, the basis of the charge was both accurate and fair.

McChrystal and others have been frustrated and angered by Special Envoy Holbrooke as well. Mr Holbrooke has made the mistake of reading and believing his own press releases with the result that he considers himself to be The World's Leading Expert on Hostilities Termination and Conflict Resolution. This preposterously inflated self-assessment is based upon Mr Holbrook's role in brokering the Dayton Peace Accords, which played a less than considerable part in helping bring the ethnic and religiously based violence scarring former Yugoslavia to an end. The hosannas sung to Mr Holbrooke by press and Bill Clinton's White House do not merit Mr Holbrooke's conclusion that he Knows Everything Worth Knowing about both the political and military aspects of interventionary operations. If Mr Holbrooke's emails drip the same smugness and rectitude his remarks on camera and before Congress do, it is easy to see why General McChrystal and his staff are more than a tad annoyed to receive them.

Vice-President Biden is, of course, a cretin. Joe (The Biggest Mouth This Side Of Hugo Chavez) made his intellectually challenged position abundantly clear during the "debate" over AfPak strategy when he seriously proposed that the US withdraw from Afghanistan. At the same time we would cover Pakistan or at least the FATA with horizon-to-horizon swarms of Predators and Reapers so as to snipe al-Qaeda members at very low risk to ourselves.

The fact that this ludicrous idea was not met immediately with gales of derisive laughter but rather was given what appeared to be a respectful hearing in the corridors of power speaks volumes as to the level of strategic and operational thinking (that word used generically only) in the Obama administration. If General McChrystal was called upon to explain to the Policy Level wallahs just what was wrong with War According To Joe, full justification for any number of statements of jocose persiflage is to be found.

Gates and Mullen have engaged in preemptive damage limitation. Both men have severely chastised General McChrystal. This was done, not because the general deserved it but rather in the hopes it might head off some disastrous presidential act of pique.

The word on the street is President Obama likes everything "nicey-nicey" around him. Only the POTUS is allowed to have a temper tantrum, to show outrage, or, even, to be pissed off. We all know that Mr Obama has been looking for some "ass" to kick.

If the president is not in a hurry to be in the Oval while the US loses the war in Afghanistan, he had best decide that General McChrystal does not possess an ass worthy of kicking.

What A Shock! The US Doesn't Have A Policy

The biggest yawner of the news cycle is the "revelation" by the NYT of a "secret" memo by SecDef Robert Gates in which the blunt former spook informed the White House that we have no policy, no strategy for dealing with a nuclear capable Iran. Gee whilikers, who would have thought?

The memo was written shortly after the Iranians successfully ignored yet one more of the lines in the sand so often drawn by President Obama. Of course, it is legitimate to ask whatever possessed the administration to believe the mullahs and their verbose front men would actually agree to surrender their uranium stockpile and otherwise live according to the worldviews of the US, the West, the IAEA, and other assemblages of foreign infidels?

As unsurprising as the contents of the Gates Memo was the response from the White House. National Security Advisor, (former) Marine General James Jones, took the predictable route of assuring the masses that the administration has really, really been on top of the policy planning thing each and every one of the past fifteen months.

The general went on to make his key point. The US strategy was not a public document. We had to trust the older?, wiser? heads in and near the Oval. Effective action, the general wanted us to believe would be taken when, how, and if appropriate.

Duh.

The problem comes in determining the actual state of Iran's nuclear capability. The most probable goal of the mullahs is to assemble all the components of a nuclear weapon but not put the final package together in a deliverable form. This would not only allow the transgressor state to keep within technical compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty but immeasurably complicate the task of assessing capability. And the degree of threat.

(It deserves recalling that the US would have been in compliance with today's NPT when the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded on board the B-29s. Final assembly occurred only after the bombers were airborne. Only then did the US possess weapons as defined by the NPT.)

Implicit in the Gates Memo is the most basic question: Is the US prepared to accept a nuclear capable Iran, particularly one which has an off-the-shelf arsenal?

The president and his secretary of state have worn out their vocal cords saying, "No way." Yet the nature of the failed policies on the ground have given credibility to the opposite. We are willing to see Iran join the Nuclear Club (virtual division.)

The Gates Memo also demands a clear cut demonstration of political will in the (rather unlikely) event the administration is seriously committed to a No-Nuclear-Iran policy. Diplomacy requires credible political will as its foundation if it is to have any effect.

The Iranians have no reason to believe that the US will take any real risks to compel Tehran's compliance with our requirements. The soft sanctions which have been enforced with even greater tenderness have not shown that the US and its "allies" are truly serious about forcing the Iranians to abandon the nuclear weapons quest. The unfortunate combination of soft actions and "hard" words, words which have been lessened in their effect by the hearty admixture of kind, gentle, open handed presidential remarks, has combined to assure the mullahs that no icky-poo consequences will ensue over their attaining nuclear status.

It would not be surprising if the Iranian regime has concluded that its robust pursuit of the nuclear goal has been responsible in large measure for the Obama administration's radical shift in policy toward Israel. Considering that the regime's hold on the political and diplomatic context operating on the Israel-Arab matter is tenuous at best and its sense of self-importance borders on the grandiose, it is not out to lunch to infer that the Bearded Lads of Tehran see that their having hung tough in the face of American "pressure" has had the result of forcing the administration to back down in its support of Israel. That is a very important factor in Iranian policy thinking.

Achieving a breakout capacity covered with the same fog of ambiguity which has typified the Israeli nuclear program for fifty years would give Tehran an unaccustomed degree of regional and global influence. The self-evident lack of a well defined, well presented policy on the part of the US, particularly one which includes a credible degree of direct military threat, has not only furthered Iranian influence, it has lessened that possessed by the US. In the region and throughout the world, the loud talk and ineffective action of the Obama administration has done much to erode the American capacity to be taken seriously.

In a similar vein the bumbling actions of the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan for so many years went a long, a very long way to eroding the fear with which many countries once viewed our military capacity. The sheer ineptitude of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years of "shock and awe" in these two wars did nothing to enhance the credibility of the American military as a Big Stick. It must be remembered that all diplomacy other than that between countries with the greatest number of coinciding national interests rests in large part on the "military option." Certainly all diplomacy of the coercive sort, the kind we are engaged in with respect to Iran, rests on the perceived will and ability to employ force in support of policy.

The Iranians have concluded, perhaps quite accurately, that the US lacks the will and ability to use its military against the Revolutionary Republic. Thus it is safe for Ahmadinejad to boast of Iran's military being too "mighty" for any foreign state to consider attacking the country. It is a boast that he believes will never be put to the test.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has recently sent a memo around which reminded all hands of the need for a range of options to be both prepared and refined so that the administration will have the military means available immediately should it conclude that diplomacy has failed and the Iranian nuclear nuisance must be abated. This is a necessary step. But it is not both necessary and sufficient.

As the ancient recipe for rabbit stew starts, "First, catch your rabbit," the first step is to have a definite policy. The Obama administration which means Obama himself, must decide whether or not to declare defeat and proceed to some sort of containment policy directed against a nuclear capable Iran or, with the failure of unsupported diplomacy, to use the long taboo "military option." Given the record of delay, of hesitation, of combining hard words with soft mood music, and the unwillingness of key players such as Russia and China to see the potential threats in a way similar to that of the US, France, and the UK, the choice must come soon and must be made both public and compelling.

War is undesirable, to put it mildly. The consequences of a military strike would be of "world historical" importance. The same may be said of the Iran-Bested-Us alternative. A nuclear capable Iran would be certain to be a severe game changer both in the region and around the world.

Tough choices, it may be inferred from the Gates Memo, do not become any easier with the passage of time. They become both harder and starker. To be blunt, the Obama administration has fiddled while the Iranian centrifuges have spun. The fiddling must stop before the centrifuges have scored a clear cut victory over the Civilized States of the world.

This may mean that Mr Obama will have to act as if he had morphed into George W. Bush. The US may have to act as a Great Power pursuing its national interest whether Brazil or even China likes the idea. Mr Obama may have to run against type, against his own sense of self. But, that sort of thing comes with being in the Oval.

Is Uncle Sam Now A Nuclear Wimp?

The Obama administration released the long discussed, long speculated upon Nuclear Posture Review in a blare of public relations speechifying suitable for a political campaign rally. Not only did the president hail his accomplishment in approving a revision of the intentionally ambiguous and thus controversial product of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and assorted other heavies broke their collective arms in an orgy of back patting.

Almost before the press releases hit in-boxes around the virtual world, the voices of criticism bayed long and loud. From the Right came the expectable viewing-with-alarm. On the Left heads wagged over one-more-opportunity-missed.

Both Left and Right practiced the fine art of reductionism with exuberance, which assured that each reduced matters to the point of absurdity. The Right was apparently of the view that by not promising the possibility of nuclear retaliation for any attack on the US employing a weapon more deadly than a .18 caliber airgun, Obama has opened us to any number of vile assaults by any number of evil actors. The Left evidently convinced itself that by not renouncing any first use--or perhaps, any use--of nuclear weapons the president has not only abandoned his quest for the unicorn inhabited world-without-nuclear-arms but has left the door to proliferation wide open.

The Earth shaking imaginings of both Left and Right are not borne out by the text of the NPR. A more or less close reading of this document along with its predecessor shows that little of substance has been altered. Arguably those features which constitute a change from the Bush era Review represent a change for the better.

Perhaps more importantly the changes show an understanding of the potency of the latest generation of conventional munitions along with their delivery systems. It also demonstrates a conservative estimate as to the direction and magnitude of projected future improvements in this genera of weapons.

The new NPR also reflects a realistic appreciation of the limits of nuclear utility. It is refreshing to see an explicit recognition that the nuclear arsenal has a very narrowly circumscribed area of efficacy. Other than mutual deterrence among nuclear opponents these very expensive devices and their means of delivery are fundamentally useless.

This is not to say nukes can't kill people and break things in horridly large lots but rather to acknowledge that this quality represents the basis of their uselessness. There is a point where retaliation has effects far worse than those of the initial attack. This point can be marked by a nuclear strike in response to a limited impact attack by, say, chemical or radiological means.

While nuclear munitions have been made in relatively small yields and the delivery systems tweaked greatly in their accuracy, the collateral damage from even a very small, very carefully targeted retaliatory strike would cause such massive deaths and destruction downrange as to cause diplomatic and political consequences of major dimension and nearly infinite duration.

The ruling out of a nuclear usage against a non-nuclear state which was in full compliance with its non-proliferation obligations even if that state launched or facilitated a chemical, radiological, or cybersystem attack is, to use one of George H.W. Bush's favorite words, "prudent." It is equally prudent to give ourselves an exception should the attack be of a biological nature.

BW may be a "weapon of mass destruction" by legal definition but this category of munitions has not yet reached a level of development likely to produce casualties on a scale equivalent to those inflicted by a nuclear weapon. The future of BW is impossible to predict with detailed accuracy, but it is safe to assume the field is open to development, probably rapid development. A declaratory policy which did not explicitly recognize the duty of the US government to evaluate the non-use of nuclear retaliation would be unconscionably vapid.

The new NPR gives the Obama administration at least some of the moral authority it needs coming into the Monster Rally For Non-Proliferation which goes down in a few weeks. In this context it is important to note that the NPR does put an emphasis upon the dangers of proliferation and the necessity for stronger measures to buck up proliferation inhibiting policies and systems as well as better control of all fissionable materials.

When the four dozen or so heads of state or government meet in Washington, the new NPR particularly when linked to the ReSTART with Russia, will position the US well to achieve real agreement on specific, real-world methods to enhance the physical security of nuclear materials and buff up the still too weak systems controlling the movement of dual use technology, particularly to rogue or failing states. The presence of more robust systems monitoring and, when necessary, interdicting the sale of sensitive nuclear related technology a few years ago would have gone a very long way to strangling the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs in the cradle.

These two rogue states have not been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card by the new NPR as has been made abundantly clear by SecDef Gates. While not specifically referenced by Gates, the same applies to India, Pakistan--and Israel. This is a wrinkle of the NPR which deserves close attention as to its implications, particularly as applied to a hypothetical future, Islamist Pakistani government.

No NPR is perfect. This one is most assuredly imperfect in its apparent rejection of any improvement in the aging American nuclear stockpile. Any explicit or implicit renouncing of upgrading nuclear weapons particularly as regards yield, explosive effect focusing, or reliability and security does not serve our national and strategic interests. This is all the more true when both China and Russia are expending significant efforts to improve and modernize their weapons. While the risk of nuclear exchange with either country is and is likely to remain small, the erosion of our capacities which would result necessarily from not seeking improvements in our own serves to weaken the deterrent effect of both our policy and the systems on which it depends.

To answer the question which topped this post: Uncle Sam is not a nuclear wimp--yet. But, any refraining from continued questing for small, more focused, more survivable, more accurate, better secured, enhanced reliability weapons will make sure that the old guy in practice will become just that in a very few years.

From The Sky-Is-Blue Department

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has finally gone public on an elephant in the john which has been present but unacknowledged all too long. On the road in India the SecDef made a long overdue reference to the strategy of al-Qaeda. Quite specifically he commented to the reporters present that al-Qaeda is working with Taliban of Afghanistan, Taliban of Pakistan, and the gang behind last year's Mumbai attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to provoke war between Pakistan and India.

This option is both too obvious and too attractive not to have captured the attention of the leadership echelon of al-Qaeda. Not only have India and Pakistan gone to war several times before, both countries (Pakistan far more than India under its present government) are willing to stage another rematch. All that is needed is a proper inciting incident or maybe two if the Indians are in a particularly cautious mood.

Had it not been for India's "restraint" and "statesmanlike" behavior, as Gates correctly characterized matters, the attack on Mumbai would have been sufficient. The lack of a robust response by India undoubtedly perturbed both the heavyweights of Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda. Even the foot dragging and irresolute response on the part of Pakistan's government to the Indian demands that Islamabad haul its freight in both investigating and prosecuting the LeT leaders down home in Pakistan did not end India's policy of restraint.

A year ago some outside observers (including the Geek) expected an Islamist "second strike." It was unimportant just which group of the many available undertook the second attack as long as one occurred. No Indian government could have survived politically had it not taken strong retaliatory measures.

Gates observed that Indian patience and restraint was not unlimited in the face of future attacks on a scale rivaling the one on Mumbai. The Secretary's words were both diplomatic and quite blunt.

Their bluntness implies that the Indian government had made it abundantly clear that the next attack would not pass by unanswered. A further implication is that the Indians would be unwilling (or politically unable) to accept any US counsel to the effect that they be patient, that they show restraint, that they turn the other cheek in the event of another outrage committed by Islamist jihadists with a documented or even probable connection to Pakistan.

The Indian military has a wide range of retaliatory capabilities at its disposal. In highest probability the use of the most circumspect method would recommend itself. The most probable response would be carried out by Indian domestic manufacture cruise missiles against known terrorist training centers in Pakistan. This approach would limit collateral damage while allowing for an escalation should such prove necessary for either legitimate security reasons or compelling domestic political requirements.

Any Indian response even one as low profile as a single cruise missile strike on remotely located camps would carry risks. Additionally, it would have to be very carefully calibrated. The Indians would need to consider--and to avoid if at all possible--stimulating either of two probable Pakistani reactions. There is no desire in India for Pakistan's population to rally monolithically behind its government let alone the Islamists of LeT and Taliban. Neither would the Indian government (or the US) hope to see a Pakistan further weakened internally so as to assure an Islamist victory in that country.

Whether the Indian government and military are capable of so perfectly calibrating any hypothetical retaliatory strike is questionable at best. What Gates said hints strongly at the reality that the Indians are less concerned about that aspect of life than they are about motivating the Pakistani government to get off the dime and work far more sedulously at the task of eradicating both Taliban in Pakistan and the leader of the "syndicate of terror," al-Qaeda.

The US is just as interested in motivating Pakistan to do more in the war for its government's survival. Gates correctly called the conflict with al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan "existential" in nature. Regardless of the hopes and delusions of those Islamists in the government, military, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, the contest between Taliban et al and the current regime is a zero sum game. There is only room at the top for one winner be it the status quo or the Islamist jihadists.

For just over two decades now the Pakistani military and ISI have fostered, nurtured, supported, guided, and protected both Taliban and al-Qaeda. Throughout this long period and process it has been the hope of ISI and others in the power elite that someday in someway the Islamist jihadists would provide the winning element in the future war with India. Whether through the provision of strategic depth in Afghanistan or the means of creating a fifth column in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, the Pakistanis have seen Islamist jihadists as a key weapon for future success against the hated Hindu rival.

In a set of very real ways India has already won the future war. Not only is the Indian military far more competent than its Pakistani rival, the Indian decision to invest heavily in human capital has given the country a vast advantage economically and in terms of social coherence. In addition the landmass of India compared to that of Pakistan implies strongly that the former country can survive a limited nuclear attack far better than the latter.

The great equalizer of nuclear weapons does not exist as regards the Indian-Pakistani calculus. The population and economic infrastructure of Pakistan is simply too concentrated to survive even a very limited (one to five weapons of twenty kilotons yield) nuclear attack. Sheer geographic propinquity assures that even a conscientiously counter-force strike would be a major counter-value attack.

The same situation does not apply to nearly the same extent in India. The country could survive a mid-sized attack (twenty to fifty weapons of up to fifty kiloton yield) without being existentially impaired.

In short, reality behooves Islamabad even more than it does New Delhi to take firm, effective, and rapid action to end the "syndicate of terror" before the syndicate can bring its strategic vision into effect. Should the syndicate succeed, the results will be far more disastrous for Pakistan than India.

And that, bucko, was the crucial sub-text of Secretary Gates' remarks to the press. One can only hope they read the papers in Islamabad.

It's About Time For An Obama Foreign Policy

The (to use one of the Geek's favorite old Soviet phrases) correlation of forces is pushing the president and his administration into belatedly doing something they should have done right out of the box--crafting a coherent schemata of foreign relations based on a realistic view of the type of world the US can flourish in and what we can do to bring that vision into existence.

So far what passes for foreign policy in the current administration seems to be composed in equal measure of "We ain't the same as those Bush guys," and "Gee, we sure are sorry about _____." In addition the Obama simulacrum of foreign policy consists of bootless pressure against states with which the US is allied or which are very much on the periphery of policy concerns.

Proclaiming a desire to see the world free of nuclear weapons is a fine exercise in frothy high mindedness but it does not constitute a policy, a basis for diplomacy. Neither is repeating the assertion, "give peace a chance."

Foreign policy and military affairs are areas of governance which are not amenable to pure oratory. No one is impressed at all by the capacity to speak softly or well while holding either a very small stick or none at all.

While Secretary of Defense Gates is undoubtedly well aware of the vast gulf between words and the deeds which make the words real--and effective--there is little evidence that this has penetrated either the President or his Secretary of State. It must since the combination of Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor cannot formulate let alone execute the totality of American foreign policy.

At one time the US could afford the luxury of not having a foreign policy. Calvin Coolidge didn't bother with much beyond the borders of the US. Neither did Herbert Hoover.

Arguably, after the hash the idealistic (that sounds nicer than ideologically blinded) Woodrow Wilson made at Versailles, the US was better off without a foreign policy. However, that luxury did not extend past the first administration of FDR--a reality he dimly glimpsed even though We the People did not.

From 1937 on through the end of the Cold War, the US faced a series of existential threats--or at the least perceived this to be the case. The cold forces of global circumstances compelled us to abandon the long decades of American Splendid Isolation, much as the same had done to England during the Edwardian period. Whether We the People liked the idea or not (and in the main we didn't) the realities of world politics made us a Great Power.

We conducted World War II as a Great Power (in the Pacific as the one and only Great Power). The US responded to the (mis)perception of Soviet ambitions at war's end as the only non-Communist Great Power standing. The costs in both life and treasure of this involuntary and increasingly far from universally approved Great Power period were not insignificant.

The end of the Cold War was met with a great sigh of relief by many in the US as it seemed certain that now we could stop behaving as a Great Power. That we could now lay down the never really desired burden of leadership, enjoy the "peace benefit," and generally stop and smell the roses of a good life, la dolce vita, American style.

History shows that a country has never resigned Great Power status. Great Powerdom may be lost, taken away, even frittered away in meaningless exercises in coercion, but never has it been voluntarily abandoned. In the years following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the rest of the world did not let the US quit the field as the one and only Great Power around.

Bill Clinton must have wished otherwise. But even he had to respond to the challenges of the day. Sure, he responded poorly, ineptly. His neo-liberal focus on globalization was filled with foreseeable but ignored invocations of the Law of Unintended Consequences for both the US and the globe generally. His opening of "free trade" with China may have benefited the American consumer's love of a bargain, but it gave undue muscle to a country inherently hostile to much which the US wants to see in the world. And, his bootless responses to the provocations of al-Qaeda and other Islamist jihadist crews did much to assure that they would only strengthen.

The "New American Century" of George W. Bush's unilateralism was not the correct way to exercise our Great Power status. It was too crude, too blunt, too unconcerned with the national egos of other powers such as Russia. The Bush/Cheney approach to foreign relations might have made the neocons of the country feel buff as all get out, but it made the cliched bull in a china shop look both mild mannered and nondestructive in comparison.

Admittedly, the Great Recession has put an inevitable crimp in the possibilities for American foreign policy as has the pervasive war weariness of the American public. But, neither imply that the best road to American leadership as a Great Power--arguably the Greatest Power given the unique mixture of hard and soft power tools at our possession--is paved by cringing genuflections before the alter of multi-lateralism, the UN, the EU, or the congeries of sand dune ridden oil sheikdoms, and other Arab despotates.

Consultation with allies is fine. It is necessary. It can lead to much better policy decisions and implementations. We should have consulting modalities as a centrality to the policy process at both the front and back ends. But, we must not make a fetish of it. Inevitably there will be times--such as the Iranian Question--where complete, effective consensus is not possible considering the vastly differing national interests in play.

Indeed, the only effective base for foreign policy is a rigorous definition of American national and strategic interests. Everything arises from this soil. All countries great and small play the Game of Nations with this rule uppermost in mind. The Obama administration had best get this straight--US national and strategic interests first, foremost, and forever.

It is the understanding of core national and strategic interests which provide the schemata from which compelling issues can be addressed effectively. What purely American interest is at play in Iran? Afghanistan and Pakistan? The Mideast? Mexico? What purely American interests are in play regarding US relations with China? Russia? The European Union states? Latin America?

How would core American national and strategic interests be advanced or retarded by proposed policies in energy, global economic reform, anthropogenic climate change? Would US interests be harmed or helped by the ending of the dollar as the reserve currency? Can the global warming pseudo-crisis be employed to use an "oil weapon" in reverse? Would, for example, a crash program on alternative energy, carbon capture from coal fired plants, the construction of standard design risk reduction designed nuclear weapons enhance our leverage on Mideast and other oil producing states?

How can the US best employ its innovations in the new technologies, including biotechnologies, as a soft power tool? An economic asset? What about the role of our first rank educational and research institutions? Are they being used to the maximum in the "battle for minds?"

What about the "war on drugs?" Is its continued pursuit to our national advantage or not? Would controlled legalization help or hurt our relations with other states? Could the foreign aid provided under its cover be better employed in other ways? The manpower?

More immediately, can the US survive? Flourish? Accept? Adjust to? a world in which Iran has a nuclear weapon arsenal? How about North Korea? If the answer is "no," what can? should? we do when and if the combination of diplomatic negotiations and sanctions fails? Try the nuclear deterrent ploy? Launch a full scale war? Kick the can down the road?

None of these core matters have been addressed to date by the Obama administration. Or so it appears to a reasonably well-informed observer. Since resignation from Great Power status is not a viable option much as the "progressives" behind the "Transformational Agenda" might wish, we have to answer these questions and others. Quickly.

Diplomacy and foreign relations are like time chess. The clock never stops. There is no time for long contemplation, no room for naval gazing, no allowance for inexperience.

The Nice Young Man From Chicago is a lawyer. It is long overdue for him and his lawyer Secretary of State to recall a phrase much loved by lawyers, "Time is of the essence."

Mr Obama--It May Not Be A Cold War, But--

The reality of US-Russian relations in recent years has been one of at least a "Chilly War." Much of the responsibility may be given to the Bush/Cheney administration with its alternating stances of hectoring and ignoring the Kremlin. But, even more belongs to the Russians, particularly Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir The Bare Chested has repeatedly played the nationalist card with both supreme skill and a very heavy hand. It was the nationalist card which brought him to prominence and has kept him there as the latest incarnation of the "Good Czar." Mr Putin well understands the fundamental nature of the Russian collective mind. Its feelings of chronic inferiority vis a vis the West. Its need to believe that Russia is great, powerful, and respected.

Putin knows the heart, mind, and soul of Russia as can be seen by the carefully staged and posed political photos taken a couple of months ago. His skill as a Russian politician can also be seen concretely in the strongly nationalistic posture taken over the past several years with respect to what the Russians have consistently referred to as the "near abroad."

It was this focus on Russia's privileges and special interests in the "near abroad" which resulted in the ongoing contretemps concerning the missile defense system proposed by the US for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the Russians continually maintained that the limited ABM system constituted a clear threat to its security by eroding its strategic missile capacity and thus its deterrent effect, no one really, really believed this either in the Kremlin or in Washington. The ABM system was credibly directed against Iran, and the Kremlin darn well knew that.

To Putin and Company the value--and the threat--of the proposed system was its status as an emblem of US involvement in and protection of elements of the "near abroad." The implementation of the system meant to the Russians that their special position in relation to both the countries of the former Warsaw Pact and the new nations carved out of the carcass of the old Soviet Union such as the Ukraine and Georgia was being eroded, perhaps fatally.

The decision by the Obama administration to replace the land based missiles and fire control radars with ship borne and mobile systems may well be fully justifiable on sound technological grounds. The replacement of the Bush era concept by the new one may be the better military choice at least in the near- to mid-term. Certainly SecDef Gates, who is not noted for his capacity to play the role of political tool, thinks so.

Outside of purely military and technological considerations, it may be argued that the Obama administration's decision is not the best. It may, for example, be asserted that the seeming genuflection to the desires and fears of the Kremlin will result in the Russians becoming even more assertive regarding their presumed "rights" in the "near abroad." The apparent capitulation by the Obama administration may serve to erode the pro-Western orientation of the shaky governments of the Ukraine and Georgia. It might undercut the confidence in the US and the EU in the Baltic States, which are inconveniently close to the ambitious Bear.

On the other hand it might be asserted, as it has been by Obama supporters such as Nancy Pelosi, that this gesture will result in greater Russian cooperation as regards Iran. This is a comforting notion with a reality akin to whistling in the graveyard at midnight on Halloween.

Today, in the immediate wake of the Obama administration's abandonment of the ABM system, the Russian ForMin reversed the hint given yesterday by President Medvedev. The Foreign Minister stated categorically that any new, tougher sanctions would prevent a solution to the Iranian question evolving through diplomatic engagement. Once again the Russian leadership is giving the impression of a right and left hand disconnect. The dichotomous statements of president and foreign minister also implies a Putin-Medvedev split, the seriousness of which cannot be judged but might well be growing given Vladimir's hints at running for president again in 2012.

Russia wants and needs to be treated as a Great Power. From the perspective of the Kremlin--and most Russians on the street--their country has the prerequisites of Great Power status including rich reserves of oil, an army in the first steps of long overdue modernization, and, of course, a nuclear capacity of sizable nature. To a Great Power of a continental nature as Russia always has been, and particularly a continental power without natural borders, the control of adjacent territory as a glacis against invasion has always been paramount.

Russia's history demands a glacis. It is a continental power. It does not have natural feature defined borders. It has a long record of having been invaded. From the Russian perspective, these realities coupled with its Great Power status give full justification for its demands of special "rights" in the "near abroad."

The US is and always has been a maritime power. Our experience has been one of force projection by sea. Our borders have, in the main, been secured by the combination of sea and fleet. Thus we are rather bemused, uncomprehending even, when faced by the Russian demands and the fears behind them. It is a difference in historical experience which assures that now in the "Chilly War" as back in the Cold War the two governments have talked past each other most of the time.

What makes the effect of the Obama administration policy change on the Central European based ABM system on Russia difficult to assess at the moment is the instability within Russia itself. Russia's leadership is caught in a very real conundrum.

On the one hand it is very, very hard to represent Russia as a genuine Great Power when it is faced with a festering and rapidly recrudescent insurgency in the North Caucasus. On the other hand it is the existence of the insurgency and the Kremlin's fumbling attempts to counter it which demand an assertion of external power for purposes of regime maintenance.

The North Caucasus insurgency makes the Russian Bear both more temperamental and touchy in its external assertions. When coupled with the ongoing and severe economic conditions in Russia, which have been exacerbated by the fall in global oil consumption and thus prices, the temptation to the men in the Kremlin to become more extreme in their foreign affairs will be very hard to resist.

Given the way in which past American administrations have been unable to properly couple the internal and external affairs of the Russian government, it seems likely that the Obama administration's recent decision has likewise been blind to the dilemma facing Russia. To the Kremlin's need to show potency in the face of the insurgency one way or another and thus meet the Russian collective need to believe in their country as a great one, a world leader, feared and respected around the world.

Every decision made in the Kremlin is powerfully conditioned by the Russian history as a continental power without clear natural borders of long existence and with a record of having been invaded repeatedly. It is also conditioned by the long standing Russian feeling of general inferiority to the West. Similarly, decisions in the Kremlin of late have been influenced to a great extent by the insurgency in the North Caucasus and the potential for the expansion of this instability to other parts of Russia--a far from homogeneous nation.

Any decision made by the US which has an effect on its relations with Russia must take these intangible but very real factors into account. If not, the effects are likely to be both negative and non-linear.

It seems that the decision to strike the Bush plan of a land-based ABM system did not consider the implications of the Russian way of thinking, of the Kremlin's unique calculus. As a result the outcome is probably going to be far less positive than President Obama, SecDef Gates, and the others might wish.

As the Chinese toast runs: "May you live in interesting times." Once more we do.

Gates And Mullen Talk Afghanistan

The equally experienced and realistic SecDef Robert Gates along with the ever-so-diplomatic Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, held a Washington ceremony today. They held a joint press conference. There were no surprises.

Both men belabored the self-evident with the pro forma vigor of beating a dead horse. You betcha, things are far from good in Afghan Land. You betcha, the US won't lose (we think.) You betcha, there may be a need for more boots on the ground even though all the boots (and loafers for the civilian "surge") authorized by the President have not arrived yet.

And, the deadest horse of all: We have only started an effective effort in the past few weeks. Right you are, Chief. No one bothered to call the blunders of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years an "economy of force" approach. That, at least, was refreshing.

Far less refreshing was the unwillingness or inability of the two men to acknowledge a reality every bit as evident and even more compelling than those which they dilated upon. That troublesome reality is the nature of the Karzai regime, or, for that matter, any central government, even one which is everything the Karzai bunch is not.

As has been demonstrated in previous posts, the place for troops and aid alike is out in the boonies. Out with the tribals and the villagers. Out among the real Afghans who know what is needed for them to feel and believe two important things: That the Americans are not pursuing an imperial interest alone but are willing and able to insulate the locals from the destruction and death of war; and the Americans will follow the local's guidance regarding the requirements for a viable, dynamically stable, self-organizing community.

Karzai, his government and the civilian advisors to that corrupt Kabul based Frankenstein are not directly relevant to the announced goal of obliterating al-Qaeda and by implication Taliban as well as convincing future Afghan governments not to make the mistake of offering harbor to Islamist jihadists. In Afghanistan history, demography and culture alike combine to insist that any genuine, legitimate government in Kabul be the result of the interactions among local, self-organizing communities.

Anything else will be brushed with the tar of foreign imposition. This reality has doomed past Afghan central governments, most recently in the years following 1979.

If either Mr Gates or Admiral Mullen had made that observation and commitment to the dictates of realpolitik, it would have transformed their little ceremony into something really important. A real news event with the headline: Administration Officials Get A Grip.

Obama Gets Something Right

Of late the excoriations and praise poured over the head of the Nice Young Man From Chicago have focused on domestic matters alone. Few of We the People pay much attention to the President's conduct of foreign affairs.

This is perhaps good considering the nature, quality, and effectiveness of whatever passes for foreign policy in the Obama White House and administration generally. If there is one area where Mr Obama and most of his henchmen (and women) lack competence, it is that of foreign policy and its close associate, military policy.

However, on occasion the President gets it right. On those rare moments the Geek is both willing and happy to acknowledge the fact.

A few days ago President Obama termed the war in Afghanistan to be a "war of necessity" while addressing the VFW annual convention. In this appraisal he was absolutely correct.

Later the President averred in response to the declining public acceptance and support of the war that it had not been underway for nearly eight years but rather for only those few months which have gone by since he approved the modest (17,000 personnel) increase in deployed US combat forces and appointed a new commander, General Stanley McChrystal. In this contention the President was absolutely correct.

The only point in then Senator Obama's record with which the Geek agreed a year and more ago was his opposition to the war in Iraq based on the view the Iraq effort diverted the US from the main goal of eradicating al-Qaeda and akin groups. While that is certainly not sufficient reason to elect a man president, it at least indicated that Mr Obama could be properly oriented as to time and place at least some of the time.

Afghanistan was and is a necessary war. The Taliban gave refuge and support to al-Qaeda including its jefe grande and refused to give him over following the 9/11 attacks. American and other diplomats placed all possible pressure on the Islamist jihadist regime to no avail. This meant that there was no meaningful option beyond invading the place.

There can be little doubt that Taliban and al-Qaeda of all ranks was shocked that the US would and did actually invade the sanctuary of Afghanistan. Previously our responses to outrageous attacks had been limited to ineffectual cruise missile strikes.

(Although, had Osama bin Laden not received a last second warning from a source in Pakistan on 20 August 98 there is a better than excellent chance he would have been caught by the incoming Tomahawks and the world would have been spared the rest of his handiwork. Osama's son, Omar recounts the tale in his new book thereby confirming what the Two Shops have long suspected.)

As the Geek has argued many times before in this blog as well as many other fora, had the Bush/Cheney administration waited a few weeks longer, brought more combat troops to the theater, and not depended so much on the locals from the Northern Alliance while at the same time giving the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence wallahs time and opportunity to spirit their Taliban clients and others out of harm's way, the "war of necessity" would have been over with both expeditiousness and full success. For reasons which may be adduced but defy both reason and logic, the administration opted to fight the war on the cheap, to send too few men and allow success to trickle away between their outstretched fingers.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mullen, is both polite and politic enough to describe the effort in Afghanistan on the Bush/Cheney watch as being one of "an economy of force" nature. The Admiral undoubtedly knows full well that "economy of force" tactics are employed on the defensive--and only the defensive. The notion of "economy of force" in waging offensive missions is oxymoronic--and moronic.

Of course we well know that the neocon ninnies (or should that be morons) of the Bush/Cheney regime were cranking up for the main event--to quote Omar Bradley's famed comment on MacArthur's desire to go to war with China--"the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong enemy." The Bush/Cheney adventure in regime change in Iraq demonstrates in the most profound way possible (with the exception of Woodrow Wilson's performance at Versailles at the end of WW I) the ease with which ideologically driven True Believers can drag the US (and much of the world) over the cliff of blunder into the abyss.

(President Obama who has shown definite signs of being afflicted with the pathology of True Belief should take heed--and warning. But, history shows that True Believers are rarely, if ever, disabused of their ideologically based misapprehensions concerning how the real world works.)

The consequence of the previous administration's pathetic decision making and worse war fighting assured that the US never really fought a war in Afghanistan. Rather, it played at fighting with insufficient manpower, deficient material resources, an overly ambitious set of nation building goals, and commanders who reeked of the conventional war fighting mentality rather than that necessary to prosecute successful counterinsurgency in a large and rugged area populated by people long used to fighting against, not alongside, foreigners.

The results, which have been seen both on the ground and in the erosion of American political will to continue the war, are self-evident. The resurgence of both Taliban and to a lesser extent, al-Qaeda, were both predictable--and probably were.

Importantly, the growth of Taliban has made its destruction along with that of al-Qaeda more necessary than ever. The slightest indication that either or both have been or will be able to fight the US to a standstill will do nothing but assure the continued growth and horizontal escalation of Islamist jihadist entities around the world. Today, even more than on 9/12 it is utterly essential for American national and strategic interests that the US prove militarily superior to the Islamist jihadists in a clear and unmistakable way.

Anything less than a convincing military defeat of Taliban and al-Qaeda will place the US and other countries at far greater risk in the future. Anything less means that we will be fighting another war in another place in the not distant future with greater costs than those that will be incurred in Afghanistan.

Recently it has been reported that General McChrystal is going to recommend that somewhere between fifteen and forty-five thousand additional troops be deployed in country. If this report is accurate, and the Doctrine of Inherent Military Probability supports it, the Pentagon and President should approve it without delay.

Senator John McCain called for doubling the number of Marines in country from three to six battalions, that is from nine to eighteen thousand jarheads. This would be a good down payment on what is needed to clear and hold the Taliban dominated border regions.

The escalation for which President Obama takes the credit (or the blame) was probably the result of urgings by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor James Jones. There is a high probability that these two experienced and monumentally realistic men would give the thumbs up to General McChrystal's request when it arrives formally next month.

Both Gates and Jones have been around the block often enough to know in their bones that counterinsurgency is a manpower intensive form of war. They both know that technology is no replacement for boots on the ground no matter how much it make those wearing the boots safer and more effective.

The US does not have much time to visibly reverse the tide of battle in Afghanistan. SecDef Gates opined a couple of weeks back that the American public would demand a pullout within no more than eighteen months. That estimate is, if anything, on the sanguine side. A very real change must be evident in less than twelve months. And, the only way to do that is by sending a lot more troops to the conflict.

The progressive base of the Democratic party will howl and protest mightily. Balancing this, the Republican party in Congress will have no choice except backing the escalation as well as the inevitable hike in casualties. Obama will have at least his right flank protected and, who knows, might even be able to demand some sort of Republican "pro quo" for the presidential "quid" of taking the heat for bailing out the Bush inspired failure in Afghanistan.

Some Europeans may wail in protest as well. But, you know who won't protest at all? Who will give tacit support including extending the new, liberal overflight policy?

That's right, bucko. Russia. Putin,, Medvedev, and Company, who face their own problems with Islamist jihadists, know perfectly well that any Islamist jihadist success anywhere, at any time, emboldens all Islamist jihadists. And, they are entirely too aware of this brutal fact to wish the Americans and their allies anything other than a complete victory in Afghanistan.