Arms and influence

No victory, no defeat

IN THE NEWS
Senator Chuck Hagel turns the denatured phrase "sectarian conflict" into something real:

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

In other words, once Iraqi leaders are more focused on fighting amongst themselves, instead of defeating a motley collection of insurgent groups, there's no "Iraqi government" with whom the United States can deal.

Kimstock 2007

IN THE NEWS
Rock on, international proletariat opposed to American imperialism and adventurism! The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (better known as North Korea, or by its stage name, N-Kay) is sponsoring its own version of Woodstock. And, as you have to say after many news items out of the DPRK, "No, we are not kidding."

The good news: at least Ronny Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd won't be appearing. It's not clear why. If I were organizing the concert, I wouldn't want the guy who wrote the anthem of the un-Reconstructed, anti-Civil Rights, Nixon-loving South, "Sweet Home Alabama,' on my stage, either. I can't say if Kim Jong Il felt the same way or not. Here are the official ways you'll get banned from this career-ending gig:

The lyrics should not contain admirations on war, sex, violence, murder, drug, rape, non-governmental society, imperialism, colonialism, racism, anti-DPRK, and anti-socialism.

Uhhh, OK. No "admirations on war" will probably nix Lee Greenwood's appearance. No sex? Well, that eliminates at least half of every living music act, from Jerry Lee Lewis to the joke band Tenacious D. No murder or drugs? Practically every rap or hip-hop artist is off the list. Rape shouldn't be a problem, except for the music company executives in the crowd...Non-governmental society, whatever the hell that is, check...Imperialism and colonialism eliminate anyone who has done a commercial for Walmart, and the official band for the Coldstream Guards...As for racism, it'll be a contest to see who's the most anti-racist...I can't think of anyone who has written a marching song for the destruction of North Korea...As for anti-socialism, North Korea-style, that excludes a lot of musicians from Eastern Europe, since they had first-hand experience of communism. 

I think we're left with Dolly Parton, R.E.M., Coldplay (because they're freaking everywhere), Andrea Bocelli, and the ghost of Ray Charles. I might travel to North Korea to see that show, but only if someone digs up a copy of Coldplay's early unpublished song, "I Wanna Stick It To You The Way  King Leopold Raped The Belgian Congo." I really can't stand Coldplay--they'd ruin the show.

[The great graphic for this post is from WFMU's Beware of the Blog.]

What now? (2)

[For the first part of this discussion, click here.]

IN THE NEWS
Now that the midterm elections have placed US foreign policy in flux for the first time since the 9/11 attacks, it's time for a long-overdue reconsideration of priorities. Mental inertia has propelled American actions abroad for several years, to the point where the basic questions--what is important, and why?--almost never get asked.

Before getting anywhere near the Iraq mess, let's start with the fundamentals. Is counterterrorism the number one US national security priority? One could argue that, with the fragmentation of Al Qaeda, the main terrorist threat is effectively contained. Not only have there not been any follow-up attacks since 2001, but there is no evidence of serious plots against targets within the United States.

Unfortunately, the terrorist threat always had more than one dimension. Americans traveling abroad, US allies who might be intimidated by terrorists, terrorists working in league with criminal syndicates--even before 9/11, there were always more things to worry about than a direct attack on American soil. Terrorists also had many faces, from the Egyptian Salafist to the paranoid from Idaho. However, as soon as you subtracted attacks on the scale of 9/11 or Oklahoma City, you were left with a disparate set of minor threats, nothing worth promoting to the top of the list of US national security concerns.

With no evidence of militant Islamist groups organizing within the United States, the risk of another 9/11 seems low. It is not beyond the realm of possibility, but it seems distant. Al Qaeda no longer organizes and executes operations directly; instead, it provides support to local terrorist organizations within countries of interest. The American equivalent of the Islamist cells in Europe, Asia, and Africa do not seem to exist, and Al Qaeda is far less equipped to support them if a serious home-grown threat did emerge. Therefore, it's important to be vigilant, but not hysterical, about foreign-backed terrorist attacks within the United States.

Unfortunately, the other dimensions of the foreign terrorist threat have increased. An increasing number of places are dangerous for American citizens to visit. Native terrorist cells--from the second generation Middle Eastern immigrants in Europe, to the alienated Islamic populations in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines--are quite real, and as recent history shows, eager to carry out attacks whenever possible. The breeding grounds of terrorism in the Middle East and Central Asia, such as Iraq and Pakistan, have complicated American relations with governments in these regions. This important facet of counterterrorism has grown more challenging, in part because it is more indirect.

Once again, there is an urgent need to speak clearly, honestly, and compellingly to the American public about the terrorist threat. Pretending that it does not exist would be just as counterproductive as the vague, unsubstantiated warnings from the Department of Homeland Security that have symbolized the last five years of US foreign policy. The Bush Administration and the Congressional Republicans worked hard to create an atmosphere of free-floating anxiety that, in November 2006, clearly backfired on them. However, battle fatigue might easily carry the American public too far in the opposite direction, ignoring the terrorist threats that still merit attention.

The best approach might be to abandon our sense of American exceptionalism--and certainly our sense that the 9/11 attacks created a unique national agony that the rest of the world can never understand. European countries, such as Italy, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, have had their own raft of direct terrorist attacks on their citizens, and indirect terrorist threats to their interests. Counterterrorism is, for Europeans, very serious business--but not something wholly out of proportion to other national priorities.

Best wishes for Basra

IN THE NEWS
After reading that the British government is considering handing over responsibility for Basra to Iraqi security forces by early 2007, I had to fight a sudden rush of cynicism. This announcement might just be a trial balloon to see how the British public would respond to any sort of withdrawal, large or small. On the other hand, affairs in Basra might be in better shape than I thought.

One way to settle this issue is to review the recent news from Basra:

• November 24: Insurgents kill a British soldier participating in a sweep of a Basra neighborhood.
• November 23: The Iraqi government temporarily closes the airports in Baghdad and Basra.
• November 13: A bomb blast in Basra kills four British soldiers, and wounds three more.
• October 30: After a mortar attack, the UK government evacuates most of the civilian staff in the British consulate in Basra.
• October 29: Insurgents kidnap and kill 17 Iraqi policemen near Basra.

Oooo-kay. I think the little devil of pessimism on my left shoulder is having a good laugh at the expense of the little angel of optimism on my right shoulder.

The war of images

IN THE NEWS
I enthusiastically agree with the sentiment expressed at Part of the Plan: If there's any future to the US effort in Iraq, it requires changing the mental image that Iraqis, Americans, and other citizens of the world have of the war from this to this.

The compound fallacy

IN THE NEWS
Here's something I noticed in the article about former President Bush's recent trip to Abu Dhabi, in which he heard some very harsh comments about his son, the current President:

Bush added: "How come everybody wants to come to the United States if the United States is so bad?"

Note to Bush Senior: Your son does not equal the United States.

The real problem

IN THE NEWS
What's the real problem in Iraq? The mounting sectarian violence? The failure to pursue a classic enclave strategy? The weaknesses of the Iraqi military and police?

If you ask Vice President Cheney, the real problem in Iraq is Iran. That's the conclusion of Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker, at least.

As misguided as this thesis may be, the rebuttals may be equally off-base. Iranian support for SCIRI, the Sadrists, and other Shi'ite factions is a serious problem. Iranian financing helps these organizations deliver money and protection that the Iraqi government cannot provide. (Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon represents a similar threat.) While no Shi'ite militia, or even a coalition of Shi'ites, is poised to seize control of all of Iraq, Iran is helping sustain the insurgency. For a relatively small investment, the Iranian government can create a great deal of trouble for the Iraqi and American governments.

At this point, the discussion might easily devolve into a relatively pointless discussion of how hard it would be to invade Iraq. Not only is that sort of invasion politically and militarily implausible, it would neither end the Iraqi insurgency. At best, attacking Iran would have a neglible effect on the conflict among Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds; at worst, it would inspire even greater outrage and desperation among many Iraqi Shi'ites.

Americans committed the same strategic error in South Vietnam, but with greater justification. Many observers and participants, from General William Westmoreland to Colonel Harry Summers, argued that the "real problem" in South Vietnam was North Vietnam. NVA formations attacking across the DMZ, or infiltrating South Vietnam from Cambodia or Laos, disrupted efforts to defeat the Viet Cong. American and South Vietnamese efforts to win hearts and minds became moot when NVA units moved into a village. The solution, therefore, was to eliminate the North Vietnamese military threat. For many, such as Summers, the NVA was always going to be a problem, as long as US ground forces were kept out of North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Of course, US leaders were worried that an invasion of North Vietnam would turn a regional war into a superpower conflict, if the Chinese or Soviets rushed to North Vietnam's defense. However, even if the United States had succeeded in knocking North Vietnam out of the war, National Liberation Front guerrillas might still have continued their war against the South Vietnamese government. The NLF would have faced a drastic reduction in material and manpower support, and they would not have benefited from the political mayhem that NVA operations in the South sustained. That's not the same as saying that the NLF would have been defeated. In fact, the NLF's dependence on North Vietnam led to the Tet Offensive, a crushing defeat from which the insurgency never truly recovered.

Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents has neither the scale nor the significance of the Democratic Republic of vietnam's support for the NLF. Nevertheless, it's still worth trying to remove Iran as a factor in Iraq's internal war. Other options than invasion--for example, a mixture of interdiction and inducements--definitely exist. Let's just be clear how much, or little, of a difference these steps might make--particularly as the sectarian violence within Iraq worsens.

Again with the advisors

IN THE NEWS
How well is the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq doing? A lot depends on the effort to train Iraqi security forces. So what do you make of highly impressionist articles like Thomas Ricks' recent piece , which starts with the following gloomy assessment:

The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.

You might dismiss the complaints in this article as the usual grumbling from the grognards. There are never enough resources for the mission, or never enough time to do it right. In even the most successful military campaigns, people in uniform will find things to complain about, usually with justification. While the PFC's corner of the war may look chaotic and disastrous, the general may see an overall success.

However, the problems described Ricks' article are not mere grumbling. If anyone in the front lines of the Iraqi counterinsurgency war--and the advisors are the real front line--admits that they lack the language or cultural skills to adequately train their Iraqi counterparts, US forces are still not equipped to help defeat the Iraqi insurgents.

In the history of US counterinsurgency efforts, the fulcrum of success is often the way the American military prioritizes this kind of warfare. Three years into the occupation of Iraq, a sure sign that counterinsurgency is still not adequately prioritized is the ad hoc way in which American advisors are prepared:

A separate internal review this year by the military's Center for Army Lessons Learned, based on 152 interviews with soldiers involved in the training and advisory program, found that there was "no standardized guideline" for preparing advisers and that such instruction was needed because "a majority of advisors have little to no previous experience or training."

Imagine if each tank platoon in the US Army received a different set of training, with varying degrees of quality. Imagine if each SEAL team received recruited and trained for unconventional warfare differently. Now, imagine yourself as a divisional or theater commander, trying to figure out how well a particular war is going. Maybe the doctrine is wrong--but which doctrine, among many that various units under your command seem to be pursuing? Even more important is the perspective of Iraqi civilian and military leaders, trying to make sense of what the US government wants them to do.

Of course, you don't have to imagine these things, because the US military doesn't allow them to happen. Even among the US special operations forces (SOFs), frequently unpopular with the more conventionally-minded generals who prefer working with tank units, there is enough consistency in training across similar SOF units to know what you're getting.

In short, the Ricks article identifies a severe defect with the US counterinsurgency effort in Iraq. All other grumbling aside, the complaints aout training must be addressed. Even if the theater strategy were a work of genius, it can't succeed if the lower strategic strata fracture into disconnected, misguided efforts.

If the new Congress wants to start dealing with Iraq on the right foot, it might focus its attention on this problem. The US Army needs to treat the training mission in Iraq as the first priority, not the last. While there may be some institutional inertia and doctrinal resistance to this notion, the Congress has helped overcome these obstacles before, when it dictated changes to the SOFs that the Pentagon was unwilling to make. If the US military fails to do an effective job of training, neither the "go big" or go long" options really exist.

For this, I am thankful

IN THE NEWS
I'm a day late with my Thanksgiving post. So sue me. Americans are often too much in a rush to end holidays. (If only the Christmas season started later, and lasted longer...)

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject at hand, which is something for which I am thankful. Since this blog isn't about me, I'll skip the many things that make me feel like a lucky man this holiday season. Instead, I'll focus on something that, as a citizen, I feel grateful for having.

We've gone through some dark years recently, and the midterm elections are not a silver bullet. The shift in power in Washington, DC, is only a catalyst for change. If the other elements were inert, the catalyst would be meaningless. These other elements include the members of the national security bureaucracy, many of whom have been toiling under extremely unfortunate conditions. So...

• To every US Army or Marine officer who used less force than the rules of engagement allowed, but enough to get the mission done.
• To every intelligence professional who continued provide honest, not preferred, answers.
• To every FBI agent who didn't leap at the chance to make a cheap arrest, just to make headlines.
• To every CIA agent who argued against holding prisoners who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• To every diplomat who continued to work with America's allies, in spite of the frat boy catcalling coming from American elected officials.
• To every federal prosecutor who argued against the use of warrantless wiretaps, on both legal and practical grounds.

I'm thankful for what you've done. Not only have you helped minimize the damage done, but the future depends on your skill, experience, and dedication. I pray that you will have the chance now to do your job right.

TANSTAAFL

IN THE NEWS
J. over at Armchair Generalist puts his finger on something important about politics in the post-9/11, post-Iraq invasion world. Many Americans either don't know that the skyrocketing federal deficit will have to be paid one fine day, or they don't care.

I want to shake these people and say, are you really that stupid? Do you really think the multi-billion dollar defense supplementals are free? Do you really think the BioWatch/BioShield billions are somehow written off as not adding to the debt? Do you enjoy watching the federal government grow larger as your local services shrink? Do you really think this deficit spending will never be repaid by YOU or your kids' taxes?

Testify, brother! I wonder how much deeper the Republican electoral hole would have been, if more US voters factored the cost of the Iraq war into their decisions at the polls. I also wonder how many people realize the effect this avalanche of debt will have on our other national security priorities. Oh, wait, it already has had an effect--just look at the behavior of North Korea and Iran recently.