James Clapper Has Problems With Words

Yesterday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Director Of National Intelligence, James Clapper, made a series of blunt statements which perturbed the senators massively.  The remarks regarding the possibility of Gaddafi prevailing in the current insurgency were bad enough apparently.  Even worse was Clapper's contention that Russia and China presented the greatest "mortal threats" to the US.

The Clapper testimony coming as it did on top of his earlier contention that the Muslim Brotherhood had become a primarily secular organization sent at least one powerful Republican senator, Lindsey Graham (SC), into high Earth orbit level dudgeon.  The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the antediluvian Democrat from Michigan, Carl Levin, confessed himself nonplussed, saying that Iran and North Korea came to mind far ahead of Russia and China.  With its usual courage and eagerness to defend honestly held and expressed conclusions, the White House dispatched National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to declare Clapper off the reservation and damn his interpretation of events in Libya as too static and having failed to take into account the fluid, dynamics of the situation.

A less impassioned view of the Clapper comments shows that the DNI was not being overly pessimistic.  Nor does it show the man to be somehow demented or terminally out to lunch.  Rather, the larger context indicates that Clapper, a man with nearly a half century in the intelligence racket, was providing an assessment based on capacities without regard to intentions.

The Geek has never been a fan of the Office of National Intelligence.  He saw it (and sees it) as an unnecessary complication in the already overly complex US intelligence community.  The ONI arguably is an artifact of Congress, a disfiguring carbuncle created by poorly informed politicians in response to an overly rapid and superficial analysis undertaken in the panic ridden aftermath of 9/11.  The gestation of ONI was the consequence not so much of a documented need for such an addition but rather the result of the usual politician's need to appear to able to take charge and move out, to do something, anything, so as to reassure We the People that someone, somewhere, is taking care of the store.

The ONI and its Director are presumably the tip of the Great American Intelligence Community Pyramid.  It is to be presumed that the DNI has the best analyses available predicated upon the totality of the best catch.  So, what is wrong?  Why are the senators--and some representatives--so torqued off with Clapper that they want his head detached from the rest of his body?  Is Clapper's view so out of touch with the facts and the analyses that his comments merit only contempt?

Or does the retired Air Force general simply have a problem with words?  Does he choose to speak too bluntly?  Would he be better off if he were to have shaded his assessments, qualified them with appropriate covers of vagueness, and expressed them with well nuanced euphemisms?

Well, let's step back and take a closer look at what Clapper said and what predicates support his views.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a many faceted creature.  As testimony before Representative King's subcommittee brought forth yesterday, the vast majority of Muslim terror plots in the US can be traced in one way or another to some faction or personality in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Homegrown terror appears to develop best if provided with foreign fertilizer.

At the same time, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has had to learn to deal with the real world's real problems in realistic ways during its years of operating an impressive array of social and educational services throughout the country.  It is not surprising that the Brotherhood has discovered the strictures and duties of the Koran do not provide all, or even most, of the solutions which must be constructed to meet the real and pressing needs of Egypt's massive impoverished population.  This has provided a significant impetus to adopting secular answers to the challenges confronting the Egyptians.

The tension between these two poles of the Brotherhood has existed for some years.  It has grown in recent months and weeks.  The uprising in Egypt and the consequent removal of Hosni Mubarak have accelerated the growth of the tension.

This implies strongly that Clapper was not wrong in his assessment but did not express it in a way which properly noted that while tensions exist, it is too early to say with certainty that the Brotherhood would tilt more and more to the secular side of the continuum as the outflow from the Mubarak overthrow continues.  He would have been far better off to have noted the foundations of the tensions, the results to date, and the range of most probable outcomes over the next few months.

In short, Clapper wasn't so much wrong as he was inarticulate.

In his assessment of Gaddafi's potential for success in the insurgency, Clapper was on solid ground.  Gaddafi has billions of dollars worth of cash stashed in and around Tripoli.  He has sufficient money to keep his mercenaries well paid.  He has sufficient cash on hand to hire more.  He has more than enough of the old vigorish to pay off his indigenous supporters.  He even has enough bread to get more weapons and munitions on the black market where cash is king and ethics totally situational.

Given that Gaddafi has no safe harbor (other than, perhaps, Venezuela) as well as a world class case of megalomania, it is certain that he has the political will to continue the war.  The US and the rest of the West have stiffened this political will by the threats of criminal prosecution.  (Way to go, guys!)

At the same time, the insurgents have a number of very serious problems.  Compared to the "elite" battalions of the Libyan army commanded by Gaddafi's kids, the rebels are untrained, poorly armed, badly organized, and overstretched in the logistics area.  While they have many reasons to keep on fighting, the coherent political will required for protracted insurgency has not had time enough to develop.  Also, compared to Gaddafi, the insurgents lack financial resources.  This, in and of itself, is a major, major disadvantage.

Overall, the correlation of forces is such as to favor Gaddafi greatly over the longer term.  The rebels failed to take the country by assault.  Now the war is rather like a siege.  There are serious reasons to doubt the capacity of the insurgents to maintain coherence and will as the siege drags on.

Neither the Senate nor the White House might have liked to hear Clapper's contentions.  That does not make the DNI wrong.  He would have been better off had he been vague, superficial, and hewed to the official White House line.  Of course, this ignores the reality that intelligence officers are presumed to have the intellectual and moral courage necessary to tell it as they see it regardless of the reaction up the chain of command.  In short, Clapper did his job.

Russia and China, "mortal threats" or not?  James Clapper was asked to rate threats.  He concluded, after having touched on Iran, North Korea, and violent political Islam, that Russia and China constituted the only "mortal threats" to the US.  This assessment sent Graham into his high Earth orbit.  This position nonplussed Levin.  Clapper's words will also disturb the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing, who will use the characterization as being "Cold War rhetoric" and similar shopworn slogans.

Clapper based his contention on perceptions of capability.  This is a well established and conservative way to measure threats.  There can be no doubt but in current and near term potential capabilities, only Russia and China present a genuine threat to the US as well as its national and strategic interests.  Both countries have impressive conventional and nuclear forces today.  Both are committed to major upgrades in both the conventional and nuclear areas.  In either case, but more so with respect to China than Russia, the proposed procurement plans will result in forces far in excess of those necessary for purely defensive measures.

Both countries, again China more than Russia, are current threats with the capacity to deal a mortal blow to CONUS.  Given the upgrades both are undertaking, each will be even more of a potentially "mortal threat" in a very few years.

It is true that the US has requested "clarification" from the Trolls of Beijing and the Boys in the Kremlin regarding current and future intentions.  Neither have responded in unambiguous fashion.  This is how it should be.  No self-respecting nation-state would believe itself to be obligated to justify its military expenditures to another nation-state.  (It boggles the mind that the Obama administration actually believed it had the right to ask let alone expect an honest answer from either county.)

Historically, intelligence agencies, military services, and governments have used perceptions of capability to equate with perceptions of intent.  While Clapper did not directly address intent, his accurate assessment of capabilities demands close attention be paid to probable intents in both the Kremlin and Forbidden City.  No one in Congress or the White House wants to do this.

If one takes Clapper's assessment to its logical conclusion, the US would have no choice but to assume the intentions of either or both the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing are not beneficent toward the US.  One would have no choice but to conclude that at the least either or both governments want to challenge US national and strategic interests.  This would require the US to invest more in its own military capabilities both conventional and nuclear (as well as newer critical arenas such as space and cyberwarfare.)

Spending more on defense (to use the polite euphemism) is not a popular notion today.  Ideology and fiscal constraints conspire to put defense on the slow track.

This is a tough matter.  On the one hand, there is a strong impetus not to spend more on the military.  On the other, the DNI honestly and too bluntly identified the "mortal threats" facing the US.  So, the best answer is to do the equivalent of shooting the messenger.  Denial is cheaper and ideologically more satisfying than facing a highly unpleasant and most inconvenient truth.

And, when the balloon does go up, when the US wakes up to find itself outclassed by one or two countries that have an agenda opposing our own, the politicians of both parties have an easy out.  They will point fingers and claim with one united voice, "Intelligence failure!"   Then they will create yet one more senior intelligence office.

Partners In Seeking Defeat--Levin And bin Laden

The aging but quite powerful Democratic Senator from Michigan is now linked in his (indirect) call for an American defeat in Afghanistan with the direct call from the reclusive but still influential icon of Islamist jihad, Osama bin Laden. While politics is well known for making strange bedfellows, this combination is rather unusual.

Levin, who for reasons which quite elude rational explanation, is considered a real heavyweight on military affairs in the Senate. His opposition to increased deployments of American trigger-pullers to Afghanistan represents a towering challenge to President Obama. Having successfully evaded any connection to the war in Vietnam either as a fighter or a politician, Levin demonstrated his anti-war propensities with a justifiable opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

While the senator might have been on the side of the angels in voting against the totally misguided Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld adventure in regime change in Iraq, he has abandoned the angels to join with Osama bin Ladin in his insistence that the Afghan national forces be increased and properly trained before any additional American combat troops be sent there.

The Senator has made his opposition to further combat troop deployment quite clear for some while now, so his sharp response to Admiral Mullen's testimony on the subject today comes as no shock. Levin has been joined in his (indirect) demand for American failure by such other luminaries in the area of military affairs as Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha.

Mr Murtha, who is best known for his capacity at earmarking money and adept procurement of pork, makes much of his tour in Vietnam. On the basis of that experience he has concluded that US troops will not make any difference in the outcome of the war in Afghanistan. This, of course, is the same argument advanced by Osama bin Ladin.

The reality which quite obviously eludes all these profound strategists--to say nothing of some media outlets such as the San Francisco Chronicle last week--is that Afghanistan and the war there is not analogous to Vietnam and the American war there. President Obama is correct in rejecting the comparison of Vietnam and Afghanistan.

The American goals and methods in both wars are dissimilar. The nature of the opponent is also quite different.

In the American war in Vietnam there was never a well defined goal. Neither was there a relevant definition of victory so that progress to or from the goal could be assessed. Further, the US theory of warfighting was not relevant to the realities on the ground. As if these features--any one of which on its own would have all but assured failure--were not sufficient, American political and military decision makers never understood the nature and character of the enemies (plural) in the war.

The US faced what might accurately be termed a "mixed-state" set of opponents in Vietnam. There were North Vietnamese regulars fighting a moderate intensity conventional war. There were the Main Force Viet Cong who were classic partisan fighters capable of both mid- and low-intensity operations. And, there were the local Viet Cong units which were of the pure insurgent variety waging unconventional war.

Further complicating matters for the US was the insistence from the senior levels of government that while fighting three types of war against three types of enemy the Americans also build a modern western-style nation-state in South Vietnam. Adding this final feature constituted what President Obama warned against as being "over reach."

The pressure placed upon both military and civilian commanders in South Vietnam coupled with the inherent inefficiency of the indigenous military and governmental entities to produce an American take-over of the war. This was, arguably, the single greatest mistake of the entire US effort in Vietnam.

When the Americans shoved the South Vietnamese forces aside and took over the main burden of the war, the US lost its ultimate leverage on the South Vietnamese government--a credible capacity to decommit. It is the believable capacity to leave which gives an interventionary force and the government behind it the real power to enforce necessary changes in the local structures of politics and social or economic organization. We tossed that lever aside with the result that highly beneficial and quite necessary reforms were not undertaken by the Saigon regimes.

At first sight it is tempting to say that Senator Levin and others of his ilk are seeking to protect the source of American leverage on Karzai and company by retaining a credible capacity to de-commit. The temptation can be overcome without effort as none of these Strategic Deep Thinkers has shown in the past the slightest understanding of what constitutes effective leverage on a series of self-organizing groups such as those which jointly constitute Afghanistan and its government.

A second reason for rejecting the kindest possible interpretation of Levin's stance is that the time for developing and demonstrating a credible capacity to de-commit has come and gone. Too much has been invested in Afghanistan for the US simply to up and leave without at the same time acknowledging that it has been defeated by the Islamist jihadists of Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The realities on the ground and in the human terrain which constitutes Afghanistan and its people has been recognized by General McChrystal. His emphasis upon protecting the uncommitted majority of the civilian population from harm at the hands of either the Islamist jihadists or the well-meaning forces of the US and its International Security Assistance Forces represents the sine qua non of successful counterinsurgency.

McChrystal's insistence on carrying the war up close and personal to the strongholds of Islamist jihadism is the second sine qua non of successful counterinsurgency. His approach shows that he understands that counterinsurgency rests on presence--being there, on the ground, up close and persona; persistence--being there over time; and patience--the willingness to accept that there are no easy or certain measurements of success. Clearly, General McChrystal knows and understands the historically valid precepts of successful counterinsurgency.

Since this knowledge and its application have come to the game only quite recently and only after years of improper approaches undertaken by undermanned and under supplied forces, it is to be expected that results will not come quickly, easily, nor cheaply. However, results will come more easily (if not cheaply) now with both a proper theory of war fighting in place and the defining of a clear goal by President Obama--the destruction of the Islamist jihadist groups in Afghanistan.

Provided that President Obama can do three things, there is every reason to conclude that the US will achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of not losing within the next eighteen to twenty-four months. The three requirements for Mr Obama are: Keep to the simple, achievable and relevant goal; drop all the "nation-building" projects and allow the self-organizing dynamic of the Afghan people free reign; keep the members of the Democratic Party like Senator Levin, Speaker Pelosi, and porkbarrel champ Murtha on your reservation.

If the President can accomplish these three objectives, then there is a good chance that the US will avoid the looming analogy between the war in Vietnam and the one in Afghanistan. For the one true analogy can yet come to pass as the congressional ship of fools is blown onto the reef of defeat by the fickle but strong winds of public opinion.

We the People finally turned against the war in Vietnam in the early Seventies. Eight years, a death toll approaching seventy thousand, and no victory in sight deflated support for the war with a sickening suddenness.

The same is happening now with respect to Afghanistan even though the death count to date is barely over one percent of that in Vietnam. We the People do not have the stomach for a seemingly endless war without any prospect of a victory parade in even distant sight. Our disenchantment is evident and rising almost by the week--and even though a successful approach to warfighting has just been put in place.

The fonctionaires in Congress--particularly those of the "Progressive Caucus" who desire to save money in a war so it can be applied to any number of well-intended exercises in expanding public space--will ride the changing winds of the Vox Populi right out of Afghanistan and into the future wars with the emboldened Islamist jihadists of the world. By so doing they will impose a defeat upon both the US and the non-Islamists of Afghanistan identical to that imposed upon the Americans and South Vietnamese thirty-five years ago.

Go to the historical videotape, bucko. When the Saigon regime finally awoke to the reality that the US was pulling out, its army and the government generally became efficient and dedicated to fighting the war effectively for the first time. The irony came in that the Americans had trained the South Vietnamese forces to fight an American style war. A war which was heavy in firepower, mobility, and logistics.

The Nixon administration had promised the South Vietnamese that should push come to shove, we would provide the requisite firepower, logistics, and mobility support. But, when push did come to shove it was Congress which precluded the honoring of the promise. When the North Vietnamese did invade openly as everyone knew they would, the South was left high and dry without the promised support.

When the South shot its last round (which did not take long considering that each artillery piece had only five rounds per gun), its forces broke and ran. The South fell in a matter of days, not because it lacked the will to fight or the support of its people as was alleged by so many members of Congress, but because it lacked the means to fight. The means which we had promised but failed to deliver due to the same Members of Congress.

At the end of the game it was Congress which forced defeat on the South Vietnamese. Now it is Congress--or at least the "Progressive Caucus" in Congress--which seems hell-bent on doing the same in and for Afghanistan. That is the analogy yet to happen. It is the analogy which Osama bin Ladin wishes to see occur.

It is the analogy which Senator Levin and others of his ideological ilk wish to see happen. Worse, it is the one which they, and they alone, can perpetrate.

They will say with the straightest of straight faces that they are only doing the Peoples' Will. That they are only recognizing the reality that the US was in a war which it could not win. That they are only cutting the losses in American lives. That they are only doing the right thing.

This will be base prevarication. The real deal is that Senator Levin and his ideological soulmates are inflicting a defeat on the US, casting the bodies of the Americans who died in Afghanistan on the same garbage heap as those of the Vietnam War, consigning the Afghans to the less than tender mercies of the Taliban. And, far worse, letting loose the dogs of Islamist jihadism on the world for decades to come.

We could afford to lose in Vietnam. The real stakes were not that high. We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan. The stakes there are higher than most of us suppose.