Another Biden Plan...

Vice President Biden has a nasty habit of attaching his name to oddball foreign policy gambits. The last "Biden Plan" was the scheme to de facto federalize Iraq on sectarian lines, a "solution" that almost no Arab Iraqis were interested in and wishfully assumed the US could completely disrupt the Iraqi balance of power and withdraw its troops, with no consideration for the violence that might erupt between Iraqis and against Americans redrawing their country's maps.

Biden's previous foreign policy record included backing the 2003 Iraq War in the first place, while opposing the 1991 Gulf War. He has also taken credit for ideas that, in retrospect, one might not want to take credit for - coming up with the idea of the USA PATRIOT Act (years before 9/11), or in the VP debates, claiming sending NATO into Lebanon, a policy it does not seem he actually supported in 2006 that nevertheless would have been disastrous.

So, I can't help but be skeptical when he advocates the George Will strategy in Afghanistan. American troops will pull out, while drones and special forces will attack al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once again, Biden prefers to ignore the actual political dynamics of the region. To Biden, everything comes down to a simple calculus - we spend $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 we spend in Pakistan. The ratio must change, because Pakistan is the greater threat.

Biden argues sending troops and conducting counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is simply throwing good money after bad. What is unclear is how this would be any different in Pakistan. American military aid to Pakistan has been notoriously squandered on weapons systems to use against India, and is in danger of simply fueling the country's rampant corruption. Biden continually assumes that factions can be bribed to oppose their geopolitical interests. Just as a central government to distribute oil money would keep allow Iraqi federalism to function without violence, aid to Pakistan will blind them to their national interest in a) supporting the Taliban to provide strategic depth and b) using defense spending to deter India.

What most advocates of drawdown do not acknowledge is that Pakistan's incentive to make peace with the Taliban and return them to power in Afghanistan increases if the US leaves a power vacuum. This means that the ISI will have increased incentive to protect Taliban and al Qaeda targets from US airstrikes, because most of the figures on our hit list will be potential Pakistani allies in a reconstituted Taliban. Why Pakistan would tolerate a necessarily heightened tempo of drone strikes, let alone the special forces raids that resulted in Pakistani guards firing on US helicopters?

I understand the point of the Afghan war was to deny al Qaeda a safe haven. However, the cooperative dynamic the Biden plan is dependent upon is less likely to play out in the drawdown it entails. Shifting operations to raids and drone strikes would not make the war "easy," and ultimately, the diplomatic challenges of counting on Pakistani cooperation while eroding our partnership through violations of their sovereignty and counteracting their interest will give way to the South Asia of the '90s - Pakistan and India pursuing politics as usual, Afghanistan in chaos or under Taliban rule, and al Qaeda extant but pestered by the occasional drone strike. Perhaps a bearable scenario, but hardly a desirable one.

Going ballistic

In the midst of this President's emphasis on Russian relations, the Afghan war, and now perhaps Arab-Israeli talks as his foreign policy keystones, it is perhaps too easy to forget the one country that might present a "peer competitor" to the US, China. Though China is far from replacing the US as hegemon, China's combination of rising wealth and military modernization are not cause for alarm, but certainly demand consideration. The US has been doing a relatively poor job of maintaining its status as hegemon. It has mired itself in debt, two wars and on top of that, its military procurement system has encouraged budgetary bloat and all too many weapons systems that neither meet the needs of present wars nor seem to have much use for the future.

It is important to note that the term "asymmetry" has more application in warfare than the counterinsurgency and guerrilla wars that occupy our current thinking on defense. The goal of any belligerent is to create an asymmetry over the enemy, whether it is the Taliban creating asymmetry through the use of IEDs in Helmand or the US creating asymmetry through overwhelming air dominance in its own combat operations. This understanding of asymmetry informs the People's Liberation Army as it seeks to develop "assassin's mace" capabilities, technologies and tactics that would allow it to defeat a qualitatively superior force. These technologies range from electronic countermeasures that addle our air strikes to ballistic missiles appropriated for conventional strikes against US airbases and carrier groups.

Keep in mind that while the US is experiencing "relative decline," it still maintains overwhelming air and naval dominance across the globe. China's "assassin's mace" technologies, while we ignore them at our own peril, are not cure-alls. Chinese electronic jamming, for example, may not be able to defeat current generations of American missile guidance systems. Chinese weapons systems, when measured against their US equivalents, are still a generation or more behind. Nevertheless, this dominance, particularly in the naval and air capabilities the US would first bring to bear against China in any conceivable war scenario, has spurred development in ballistic missile technologies. These could be a potential "game changer" in a US-China war.

Why? No other country currently employs ballistic missiles against mobile naval target, nor do many other countries have the ballistic missile capabilities to challenge the United States. Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) are much faster than cruise missiles, making them harder to intercept. They can be launched from land, unlike many anti-ship missiles, so US air-sea dominance will have less capability to counteract them. Other conventionally-armed ballistic missiles could be targeted against US airbases at Kadena, Okinawa, South Korea and Guam to achieve theatre-wide air dominance in an operation against Taiwan.

Notably, the PLA artillery command and the PLA Navy do not agree on the utility of these missiles. So let's not single out US procurement for having inter-service politics (the PLAN opposes ASBMs in part to preserve the importance of the navy) guide procurement. Another thing to keep in mind is the importance of things like US tanker capabilities, basing rights, and electronics (among many other factors) to the complexity of warfare at land and sea. It's not hypocritical to be worried about Chinese capabilities but think our resources are not best spent on the F-22 and other defense industry pet projects.

Afghanistan and false compromises

Unsurprisingly, more Americans are starting to realize just how much of a challenge winning the war in Afghanistan will be. The "US Out of Afghanistan" crowd encompasses growing segments of the American left, traditional and paleoconservative voices like George Will and writers at The American Conservative, and realists like Stephen Walt. The mainstream consensus of this group is that America's military role in Afghanistan should be sharply reduced, and that we can accomplish what we want merely by picking off al Qaeda and Taliban from afar with drones, CIA operatives, and special forces soldiers. This would be plausible had we already not pursued this policy when the Iraq war diverted troops from Afghanistan. Trying to simply keep the Taliban and al Qaeda from taking over by killing the right people does not work.

For example, take the example of the Bundeswehr, which killed dozens of Afghans, many of them civilians, by bombing tankers it feared would become suicide bombs. Intercepting the tanker with ground troops would have been one thing, but simply letting an F-15 deal with it was the wrong choice. Or take our policy of "offshoring" Afghan policy in the late '90s - Bill Clinton took all the right steps of relying on intelligence and cruise missiles to retaliate for the embassy bombings, and of course we ended up with the USS Cole and September 11th. Sending special forces teams to shoot up AQ along the Durand Line did not do anything to stop the Pakistani Taliban and instead led to Pakistani border patrols shooting at our helicopters. McChrystal, our Afghan commander, was previously renown in military circles for his high-intensity campaign of targeted killings by special forces in Iraq. Yet McChrystal, elevated to command of the entire Afghan war, has emphasized counterinsurgency doctrine, not enemy-centric, highly kinetic special operations. Do George Will and other Afghan war skeptics understand something about the efficacy of special forces this veteran commander does not?

In reality, America and its allies tried and failed to halfway fight the war in Afghanistan. Over-reliance on airstrikes has had terrible consequences for civilians, and the enemy leaders we have eliminated has only left us with the war we are fighting now. The same goes for reliance on special forces. To once again invoke Sherman*, "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." We attempted to fight terrorism easily and safely throughout the '90s, and the Taliban easily and safely during much of our time on the ground. The killing-on-the-cheap model Will proposes has already failed.

That said, does this just mean America should entirely pull out of Afghanistan and leave the whole country to rot? I disagree - leaving Afghanistan now would be a humanitarian disaster and at best mark a return to the civil war we left the country in after Soviet withdrawal. From a pragmatic perspective, leaving Afghanistan would also leave open the possibilty of more terrorist attacks originating from revived training camps. No, withdrawing will not dry up the well of terrorists - the al Qaeda members who attack the US are not poor, uneducated Pashtun farmers who have lost a family member to American bombs. They certainly do contribute to the Taliban, but AQ's deadliest members are self-selected and educated who seek combat.

That said, there are two issues that I might qualify as necessary conditions for the war effort. One is regional stability. If US efforts to stabilize Afghanistan were to destabilize things to the point where the collapse of the Pakistani government is imminent, it might be better to have the usual Taliban in power than loose nuclear weapons in Pakistan. However, this is a difficult line to cross and even if US presence did seem destabilizing, leaving at that point might make things worse. The other thing that scares me about Afghanistan is how much we've let our efforts get tied up in Karzai, who is on the road to becoming Afghanistan's Ahmadinejahd in terms of legitimacy. If we are completely done with the war and think there is no way to solve Afghanistan's problems or protect our limited interests there, that one matter. It is another matter to assume we can solve those problems or protect our intrests them with past errors.

*It seems both Robert Gates and I are fond of using the same quote. I hadn't read that issue of Foreign Affairs until now, I promise...

Truth in advertising

The Yemeni government has blamed deceitful insurgents for the collapse of its hours-long ceasefire in the north. In fairness, Yemen self-titled its efforts "Operation Scorched Earth" and it's rare to see states talking about their efforts much more honestly than that.

Other items of note:

Joshua Foust calls out the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan. I've earlier argued that our European allies aren't nearly as interested in fighting Obama's war as they are in praising his words. We should also recognize the US has come a long way in crafting counterinsurgency doctrine, and other NATO members may not be interested in reforming their own military forces to fight wars their governments aren't particularly interested in.

Support for organized labor in the US drops. Whether or not this was a new great depression, it's certainly clear that whatever progressive reforms are made will not follow in Roosevelt's footsteps. I remain skeptical that popular and legislative support, even should they return, can resuscitate organized labor's strength in the absence of effective industrial policy (which may be an oxymoron at this point in history).

Arming a declining power

Although Biden has rightly highlighted the myriad weaknesses of Russia's socio-economic foundation, it's worth noting that Western powers have always been economically superior to Russia, and yet fears of rising Russian power persist throughout recent Western history. The ever-resurgent Russia threatened Britain in the mid-19th century, Germany (particularly Bethman-Hollweg) leading into WWI, and of course the US in the Cold War and now again in its wake.

Simplifying (crudely), many Russia hawks fear Russian military power enough to justify pushing NATO expansion further eastward, but believe Russia's latent weaknesses will grant the US leverage to undercut the Kremlin's response. Russia is up to little good, but this perspective is flawed. Russia has demonstrated throughout history its ability to function as a great power despite weak economic fundamentals. Not only that, but attempting to exploit Russian weakness to press further into its self-declared "sphere of influence" put us exactly in the situation we are in now.

Russia's declining economy can no longer support its massive Soviet-era military. The Russian government has both realized this, and realized it no longer needs to do so. Much like the United States, Russia has realized that its future battles will not be in the plains of Central Europe, and it is adjusting its procurement accordingly. For the first time in years, the Russian navy is purchasing new ships - not Russian designs, of course (the Russian defense industry is decrepit, especially shipbuilding), but French Mistral-class amphibious assault ships. Russia is downsizing its army and creating more permanently-staffed units. While in previous decades the USSR has relied on maintaining divisions that exist only as officer corps and equipment and then calling up troops to staff them, this strategy of mass mobilization is now obsolete. Instead, Russia is modeling more of its units along the lines of its airborne troops (and that of professional Western military forces) to ensure the capability for rapid response and expeditionary missions.

This leaner military is, to paraphrase Spengler, for war, and it may want war. Russia's strategic deterrent remains its nuclear arsenal, which is why up until now most Russian naval efforts were directed (not always successfully) towards strengthening its submarine-based nuclear arsenal. Now, rather than fielding an army useful only for or deterring against mass invasion, Russia wants a force for waging short, decisive wars. Russia has learned from its experiences in Georgia, where the paratrooper forces were immediately deployed and effective in combat. So, let's remember that even though the old Russian way of war may not be economically feasible, Russia is certainly adapting its forces to compensate for past weaknesses. Russia may not overcome its faults, but it is certainly trying to adapt. Russia's military reforms demonstrate it will not simply roll over to Western demands and retains a strong national interest in a sphere of influence.

The Mistral, though, raises an interesting question. What sort of countries does Russia need an amphibious assault ship to fight? The first possibility would be the Ukraine, and the Crimea in particular. Coming on the heels of Medvedev's heated rhetoric and accusations of Ukrainian nationalists (probably true) and government soldiers (less likely) participating in the Georgia war, Russia may be trying to scare the Ukrainian government (or perhaps the population) into a less anti-Russian stance. But that's a possibility that needs to be addressed on its own.

Don't worry, it's always been like this

Terrorism and non-state actors are the biggest threat to world security today. The state system is in decline. Everything as we know it is changing irrevocably, and probably for the worse.

Such is the typical line of pessimist thinkers on today's international scene, and probably one this blog's writings strays into frequently. Critically, these trends point to a revolution in international affairs and the state system in particular. P. Michael Phillips, an Army liaison to the Pakistani armed forces, begs to differ. In "Deconstructing our Dark Age Future," he argues that yes, terrorism, mercenaries, and other non-state groups are problems and sovereignty is not so universally strong as we might prefer - but these are the same problems we've been dealing with all along.

The "Westphalian system" - a term theorists and use to describe an international system consists of sovereign, legally equal states whose internal affairs are not subject to intervention from others - is really a model, a way the world could work and the way we would like it to. In fact, many states are not absolutely sovereign, exercising supreme authority in their territory (Somalia), legally equal (Iraq) or immune from external intervention (Georgia). Alarmists assert these trends are dismantling our current system. Phillips instead shows how these problems have been endemic to the state system since Westphalia, and instead of overreacting to insoluble flaws to our model, we should change our model and our strategy accordingly. The article is well worth the read and only 17 pages.

I am inclined to agree with Phillips for the most part. Placing the Peace of Westphalia as the beginning of the state system overstates the importance of international law at the expense of power (Are not Thucydides and Machiavelli relevant today?), providing historical legitimacy for the expansion of international law's power, culminating in the League of Nations and UN. Unequal sovereignty and international interventions did not stop with Westphalia and have been part of the international system up until today.

However, I do think that the role of state-sponsorship in terrorism is more ambiguous than the article acknowledges. Like terrorism and "hostile non-state actors" in general, terrorism without state sponsorship has been with us for a long time too. Irish terrorist groups often collected money from diaspora, in the manner al Qaeda collects money from donors in Saudi Arabia. Many insurgencies and terrorist groups have local goals and do not attempt attacks on a Far Enemy. Over-attributing terrorism to state sponsorship has already lead to erroneous ideas about foreign policy (the supposed al Qaeda-Iraq link) and may still lead to overly bellicose responses in the future (Iran).

Sovereignty, like the Westphalian model, is "true" only insofar as they are supported by power. The power of the United States, perhaps, is in relative decline, and thus our ability to check breaches of sovereignty is too. But we have worked against sovereignty as often as we have tried to support it. We too use foreign intervention and take advantage of militia groups, like the Sons of Iraq. It is likely we will continue to undermine sovereignty in the future, as all strong (and truly sovereign) states can and sometimes must do. While we may not be entering a Dark Age, there are still plenty of questions about sovereignty, terrorism, and the role of the state left to answer. Just because answering them might change our preconceptions about the world, though, does not mean they change how the world itself works.

Following in the wrong footsteps?

After launching a massive assault to retake the Swat valley that has been a humanitarian disaster and a questionable military victory, Pakistan has rightly decided it needs some help with counterinsurgency. However, Pakistan might be learning from poor examples. Pakistan has requested Sri Lanka's aid in training its troops. Sri Lanka, which finally ended its decades-long struggle with the Tamil Tigers, is not the country Pakistan should be emulating. Chinese and Indian political pressure dampens international condemnation, but if the US, Israel, or any other western country ever emulated Sri Lanka, the world would recoil in horror.
From a moral standpoint, the indiscriminate use of artillery and airpower against civilian population centers is bad enough. Add to that things like the massacres of NGO personnel and destruction of hospitals and churches, and it's obvious we should be a little hesitant to support Sri Lankan doctrine. Sri Lanka is also notable for its suppression of journalism in the war zone and the assassinations of critical voices.

Pragmatically, these tactics are unlikely to be effective in Pakistan. Sri Lanka took three decades to eradicate the Tigers by force alone. It also had the geostrategic advantage of fighting on an island. Unlike the LTTE, the Taliban will not be content to linger on their side of the Durand Line. Brutal Pakistani offensives will merely push the Taliban to some other locale, such as Baluchistan or Afghanistan or another section of the FATA/NWFP, leaving the civilian population to bear the brunt of the casualties. The LTTE was also a different type of threat than the Taliban. While the LTTE pioneered terrorist tactics like suicide bombing and pursued guerrilla warfare, they were far more similar to a conventional military in organization than the Taliban. Killing LTTE leadership contributed to the victory against the insurgency. Meanwhile, assassinating Baitullah Meshud, much like the many successful Predator strikes we've conducted in previous years, have failed to noticeably weaken or deter the Taliban.

Having the military adopt Sri Lanka's counterinsurgency doctrine is not likely to bring success without significantly weakening Pakistan's civilian government and its democratic credentials. A campaign of intense military operations within Pakistani borders would require the Pakistani government to cede control of vast regions of the country to the military and curtail Pakistani liberties outside of the combat zones to suppress domestic opposition. Given the additional ethnic, geographic, and strategic complexity of the Taliban's insurgency and Pakistan itself, such an undertaking would usher in de facto, if not outright, military rule.

Of course, it'd be a mistake to read too much into this. But in the wake of the Swat valley campaign and increasing American pressure to "win" in South Asia, it's worth reminding that a new plan isn't always a better plan. Treating the Taliban like the Tamils would be a moral and strategic mistake.

A while back Daniel Drezner pointed out that the financial crisis would test theories of international great power relations that have been sidelined in favor of the debate over the war on terror and the neoconservatives vs. all-comers debate. Some scholars went so far as to point out Bush's relatively successful handling of East Asian affairs as evidence the administration did not fail on the "big" issue of great power politics.

But here we are in 2009, with a financial crisis throwing political and economic order into tumult across the globe. Theoretically, if globalization sputters to a halt and war breaks out between countries previously bound by international trade, we should deem liberal theorists correct. But perhaps of more interest to realists, or anyone concerned about shifting balances of power, would be the relative effects of economic decline. Certainly, global trade may face enormous setbacks. The G20's word on preserving free trade has been continually discredited by the actions of its member nations. It will not help that these international ties are weakened. But even if 5% of the world economy evaporates in a global market correction and the economy crashes, does that mean all countries are equally stricken by the loss? Of course not. Almost certainly, some countries have and will suffer more than others. The question is which ones, and what implications will their losses have on the global political order?

It is false to assume economic calamity automatically begets open state-vs.-state warfare. The 19th century panics produced no wars in their wake. WWI came at a time of unprecedented great power economic integration. (Internal conflict, on the other hand, is much more likely.)

Germany benefited disproportionately from the economic growth of the late 19th century thanks to the territorial acquisition of its predecessor states, while Russian economic growth in the early 20th century accelerated thanks to reform and investment (to some extent rearmament played a role in this, though arguably Russian rearmament was the reward, not the cause, of this growth spurt). The outcome, by the argument of some realists, was WWI - a nervous France and Britain seeking to hedge against Germany, and a Germany fearful of a modern, and thus preponderant, Russia on its border with its primary ally facing an existential threat. Economic changes altered the balance of power, and war was the result.

While history cannot tell us who will be facing down who in the aftermath of these recessions, it is likely the uneven setbacks and uneven recoveries that will drive great power political impacts, with the prospect of major combat delayed until revisionist great powers feel comfortable with challenging the ruling order. It takes time, after all, for economic disruptions to change the military status quo. The instruments of modern interstate warfare are costly and complex, and the tools necessary to challenge US air and naval superiority are especially so. Nuclear programs that could deter them take even more time, and are subject to international pressure. But the process by which a great power or minor power decides the US and its allies are unwilling or unable to prevent its gambit, by realist theory, would be inevitable.

Of course, this might not be the future at all. The US, contrary to worries that China is "buying low" on foreign assets and resources, might regain some sign of its traditional economic flexibility and come out the strongest. After all, China is wracked with all sorts of challenges to its seemingly permanent rise. Even if it does seem to come out ahead of the United States in relative terms, this recovery might require its government to forgo military spending so it can placate the population with developing schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure left behind by decades of short-term growth obsession.

With that in mind, I do not consider China's shenanigans in the South China Sea to be of profound consequence. They are not a harbinger of war, if anything they are a repeat of China's previous early-term showdowns as many commentators have pointed out. But they also serve to remind us of China's lingering (or growing, depending on your take) ambitions. China's interpretation of international law is ludicrous - exclusive economic zones are exclusive for economic purposes, they are not sovereign Chinese waters; China cannot exclude whatever vessels it will. The story is that the USNS Impeccable was mapping the seafloor, while China contends the hydrographic vessel was gathering military intelligence. Both could be correct. After all, scoping out the area around Hainan provides valuable intelligence for American submariners and subhunters, and as much of China's naval strategy relies on its southern approach, securing Hainan is vital to the PLA Navy.

Does the possibility of war between the US and China, or any combination of great powers, remain? Colin Gray believes so, and writes a convincing case for what is now an unfashionable argument: insurgency and terror are part of our present predicament but must not dictate strategy or force structure. But in America's Defense Meltdown, William S. Lind's chapter on the USN warns:

Overwhelming any comparison of fleets is the fact that war with either Russia or China would represent a catastrophic failure of American strategy. Such wars would be disastrous for all parties, regardless of their outcomes. In a world where the most important strategic reality is a non-Marxist “withering away of the state,” the United States needs both Russia and China to be strong, successful states. They need the United States to be the same. Defeat of any of the three global powers by another would likely yield a new, vast, stateless region, which is to say a great victory for the forces of the Fourth Generation. No American armed service should be designed for wars our most vital interest dictates we not fight.

Both economic and military catastrophe has the habit of producing insurgency. Earlier I parenthetically noted the danger to internal, not international peace, from this economic crisis. It is now cliche to cite Mexico and Pakistan as nearly-failed states, and it will likely soon be the same to lament Eastern Europe's financial insolvency. Then there are the already anarchic regions of Somalia and the DRC. Meanwhile America is still mired in Afghanistan and will have 50,000 "non-combat" (a meaningless distinction by most analysts' estimates) soldiers in Iraq. Despite the pressing need for successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the financial crisis will test Europe's will in Afghanistan as NATO governments struggle to resolve the paradox of their commitment: the arbitrary limitations on the size and scope of European deployment will hinder the overall war effort, while the perceived failure of this effort further undermines Western support for the conflict's counterinsurgency campaign.

I do not hold the views of those fearing great power confrontation and state-vs.-state warfare and the "COINdinistas" and those focused on terrorism and "fourth generation" warfare to be necessarily incompatible. For example, while military conservatives argue that counterinsurgency campaigns will drain the country's military resources and willpower, counterinsurgents like David Kilcullen would respond that direct combat should be avoided until absolutely necessary. But there remain some glaring contradictions. Will non-state actors develop the capability to attack the modern "market-state" and thus force a revolution in strategic thinking, or does Thucydides remain the best guide for geopolitics? Should the US military strip down to fight the wars it is most likely to fight, or redouble its commitment to deterring great power conflict?

There are immediate limitations. On one hand, military spending seems like it will be crowded out by the massively expansionary spending of the Obama administration. For better or for worse, the government has reoriented towards domestic spending and the Obama-Gates team seems deadset on cost control for big projects like the F-22 and Future Combat System. This means the United States may not be able to ensure continued dominance in conventional affairs and restructure itself for COIN. Meanwhile, the wars America is presently fighting both dictate America's current military affairs (forcing America to learn COIN, leave, or lose - even former US commanders are saying America will be deployed in Afghanistan until 2025 to win) and circumscribe short and near term options. The consequence of the costly and difficult war on terror, piled on top of financial crisis, may be the sapping of American willpower and a retrenchment of power projection capability.

A possible, if hardly certain answer seems to be that warfare itself will, of course, evolve with the nature of the entities prosecuting it. War, by either the great power or COIN model, is still subject to Clausewitz's principles. But regular warfare is likely to become increasingly irregular, which means that state will adopt characteristics we identify with non-state actors, while irregular forces will become increasingly professional as they improve their technical capacities and the skill of their personnel. In other words, the true challenge is not necessarily to shift the military irrevocably in one direction or another, but to create a military (and a national security apparatus in general) that is flexible enough to respond to future threats. While it is likely impossible to satisfy both needs simultaneously, the military must become "a learning institution," while the procurement process must be radically overhauled so that weapons systems can at the very least be debated on their practical merit, not their political worth as jobs programs and corporate welfare.

This is, of course, easier said than done. Our Jominian, enemy-centric tendencies are still quite apparent in Pakistan, and the temptation now seems to be to kill as many AQ as we can, get out and leave, while hoping that any of the countless people we've alienated don't do anything else to disrupt our strategic interest. American politics, defense bureaucracy, and international institutions like NATO are not entirely conducive to counterinsurgency or anything that hints of a long term operation. Are we better off preparing for conventional war simply because that's what we know how to fight? Past experience tells us this is the case, and that the illusion counterinsurgency is something the US doesn't need to dirty its hands with will come undone eventually.

It's over when the Post says its over

Ordinarily I'd hesitate before going against a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (and one who has exposed some of the darkest aspects of the GWOT at that), but this article from Dana Priest seems wildly off the mark.

Since there is (free) registration required, I'll quote the parts that seem off base.

The problem starts with the title: "Bush's 'War' On Terror Comes to a Sudden End."

Tell it to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But what's the reasoning behind such a sweeping declaration?

While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office.

Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

Keep in mind that these "counterterrorism operations" include occupying an invaded country, bombing targets inside its neighbor and other countries, and in some cases special operations incursions. These, to me, seem to be the "war" in the war on terrorism. I simply can't follow the train of thought here. If the argument is that Bush used war as an excuse to do illegal things, then how does no longer doing illegal things (while still fighting the war) mean the war is gone? To me, this just seems to say that the War on Terror will now be waged within certain legal limits... Which war, by the way, has regarding these sorts of issues.

Over the next 2 1/2 years, as Democrats gained power in Congress, as the violence in Iraq sapped public support for the president and as the fear of another terrorist attack receded, the debate over secret prisons, renditions and harsh interrogations grew louder. Presidential candidates felt comfortable to include these sensitive subjects in the debate on the efficiency of Bush's war against terrorists, and even on the notion that it was still a war.

Yes, but the main aspect of a war on terror, and indeed wars in general, is that they are conducted using military force. Obama has not in any way significantly reduced the use of state violence against terrorism. If anything, he is bringing the war on terror within the legal restraints we expect in our usual conflicts. Philip Bobbitt supports closing Guantanamo and ending official sanction of torture, too. But he believes more than most that fighting terrorism is still a war. Will Dana Priest tell him that he no longer believes in a war on terror?

During his campaign and again in his inaugural address Tuesday, Obama used a different lexicon to describe operations to defeat terrorists. "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals," he said. ". . . And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

This is just the absurd punchline to the argument. Priest could have drawn a contrast to Bush by emphasizing the section of the speech in which he extended a hand to the Muslim world and cooperative states, but no, she chooses the section that everyone from Marc Ambinder to Jon Stewart has said sounds the most like W's rhetoric in the war on terror.

Summary: Priest first defines the war on terror as the aspects that have the least to do with military combat operations, which are in fact illegal under the laws of war, and then says that since Obama is ending those aspects, the war itself is over. In other words, we have a writer projecting their desires and opinions onto the President. The real question is, how long is this free credibility going to last?

What next for a war on terror?

The war on terror doesn't seem to be much closer to being over. Gitmo changes aside, Obama still thinks it exists, we're in it, and that we'll win it.

We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Is there really anything about this statement which differentiates it from the rhetoric of the past eight years?

Much as Eisenhower was able to reject Truman's failed management of the Korean War while still prosecuting and expanding the Cold War as a whole, Obama may have rejected the Bush administration's choice of battlefields and conduct of warfare, he has not rejected the war itself. Even as the British government reaffirms its disdain for the language (and the implicit structure contained within) of the "war on terror," Obama seems neither prepared nor interested in treating the battle against terrorism as anything less than a war. Obama reinforces the narrative of neoconservatives who treat the struggle against terrorism as on par with WWII or the Cold War, not by downplaying the importance of the war on terror but merely suggesting it be conducted differently - that we cooperate with countries we might otherwise not and moderate our campaigns when possible. Perhaps one could argue such forceful language is more rhetoric than heartfelt belief, but Obama's promotion of talks with Iran and derision of the invasion of Iraq should not detract from a record that is in favor of escalation in Afghanistan and, if necessary, military action in the wider region.

Now, there is a case to be made for the "war on terror" being treated as a sort of era-defining generational conflict on par with WWII and the Cold War (though its best proponent would consider those two conflicts part of one war, and prefers the plural "wars on terror"). This would rest on the presumption that modern terrorism (the focus here is on terrorist organizations and capabilities, not on the 20th century methods we conceive of as terrorism) presents a fundamental threat to constitutional order within states and the process of globalization that dominates the state system. Without a concerted effort in both specific regions and our broader global policy - a war on terror - modern terrorists will hollow out and struggling states and undermine strong ones. There is evidence the former is a real possibility, and the capability of terrorist organizations to acquire the resources to deal serious blows to modern states is a looming, if still distant, threat.

Obama's promises to revitalize NATO efforts in Afghanistan and rein in nuclear proliferation are, well... promising. It is also likely that only a more internationalist President like Obama will have the credibility necessary for a great power consensus on new international laws and norms, and campaigns to marginalize terrorist organizations. If Bobbitt is right (and there is a chance he is), then we really are at war against more than al Qaeda and perhaps more than radical Islam. Certainly we are at war with more than bin Laden, whose seclusion means killing him is unlikely to seriously hamper al Qaeda or terrorism in general. A war on terror treated as a war would become our overriding national interest. To adopt the rhetoric of war, or of the Cold War, or of another new notion of war that we must use to interpret fighting terrorism as a "war" while trying to insulate domestic society from its requirements is foolishness that will lead to disaster. We cannot continue the recent decade of bifurcation - where outside TSA check-in lines, the actual responsibilities and burdens of the war on terror are borne by a small segment of the population and the need for wider institutional reforms are ignored for political convenience.

We would of course like to do everything at once, but the war on terror has its own policy costs and public diplomacy can only go so far to prevent it from conflicting with some of our domestic, economic, and other international interests. If Obama is to speak of the war on terror without enacting the major changes necessary to prosecute it, then we as a country would be better off acknowledging that terrorism is not a priority and accepting a modus vivendi in which we pursue domestic concerns or progress on other international issues and terrorism is at least a thorn in our side. Terrorism will not go away simply with public diplomacy, more economic aid, and withdrawal from Iraq. Nor is certain that it poses a threat of the magnitude Bobbitt and others survive. We will have to live with the risk that terrorism would pose, and I would not consider this an admission of defeat or a disaster for American foreign policy under present circumstances. But if we are to lower terrorism on our list of national concerns, then we should not formalize this casual belligerence as a bipartisan policy where it will exacerbate the difficulties to the policies we would prefer to emphasize.

The men of the 3rd Batallion, 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, are discovering in their first two months in Afghanistan that the tactics they learned in nearly six years of combat in Iraq are of little value here — and may even inhibit their ability to fight their Taliban foes.

Their MRAP mine-resistant vehicles, which cost $1 million each, were specially developed to combat the terrible effects of roadside bombs, the single biggest killer of Americans in Iraq. But Iraq is a country of highways and paved roads, and the heavily armored vehicles are cumbersome on Afghanistan's unpaved roads and rough terrain where roadside bombs are much less of a threat.

All that being said, whether we are engaged in just the first few battles of the "wars on terror" or merely preoccupied with righting the bungled execution of our response to 9/11, our national security priority should be resolving the wars we are presently fighting. While we have successfully negotiated a new SOFA that will let us withdraw from Iraq, Afghanistan is going poorly and unlikely to get any easier. Despite a drawdown in Iraq and the seeming success of insurgency tactics there, the "get out of Iraq to win Afghanistan" strategy is already showing its limitations:

The men of the 3rd Batallion, 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, are discovering in their first two months in Afghanistan that the tactics they learned in nearly six years of combat in Iraq are of little value here — and may even inhibit their ability to fight their Taliban foes.

Their MRAP mine-resistant vehicles, which cost $1 million each, were specially developed to combat the terrible effects of roadside bombs, the single biggest killer of Americans in Iraq. But Iraq is a country of highways and paved roads, and the heavily armored vehicles are cumbersome on Afghanistan's unpaved roads and rough terrain where roadside bombs are much less of a threat.

So those MRAPs that Wesley Clark was previously fawning over seem not only to be rather unhelpful, but serious limitations on combat operations. Afghanistan doesn't just need infrastructure to win over hearts and minds - it needs it so our forces can even engage in combat patrols from their vehicles. But is that sort of strategy, necessary to the insulated bases Americans favor, even plausible in Afghanistan?

In Iraq, American forces could win over remote farmlands by swaying urban centers. In Afghanistan, there's little connection between the farmlands and the mudhut villages that pass for towns.

In Iraq, armored vehicles could travel on both the roads and the desert. Here, the paved roads are mostly for outsiders - travelers, truckers and foreign troops; to reach the populace, American forces must find unmapped caravan routes that run through treacherous terrain, routes not designed for their modern military vehicles.

In Iraq, a half-hour firefight was considered a long engagement; here, Marines have fought battles that have lasted as long as eight hours against an enemy whose attacking forces have grown from platoon-size to company-size.

We will not be able to conduct our war from the FOBs. Even with new roads, they would take years to develop and such construction would be marred by constant attacks. Without a real American presence in the countryside, our troops will make little headway against the Taliban. The article overall highlights the lengths to which a strategy of force protection in both our operations and our equipment have undermined our efforts in counterinsurgency. The failure to adequately win over and protect the population of Afghanistan, on the other hand, is quite clear. Instead of having to hide and fight amongst Afghans, the Taliban have adequate resources to field relatively large groups of combatants and have the good sense to clear out civilians before engaging. It is the Taliban, not NATO, that seems to be choosing when and where to engage, and whether or not civilians will be safe.

Perhaps one final passage from Obama's speech warns of a lesson yet to be learnt, and one of dire relevance to Afghanistan, the war on terror and foreign policy in general:

And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Does the lack of historical perspective in this really scare anyone else? Americans cannot help but believe it, but as anyone (like Obama) who's read Niebuhr knows, Americans cannot help but believe a lot of things that are just wrong. Just because we believe that someday we will live in a utopia without ethnic grievance or blind vengeance does not mean we can base our policy on that hope. Winning the war on terror requires addressing the fears of populations which intentionally or inadvertently harbor terrorists. If we cannot understand the very real, very present desires for retaliation and the persistence of tribes, then we cannot understand the fears of anarchy and tribalism that might lead Afghans to support the Taliban rather than what they see as an inept government. It is well and good Obama wants to usher in a new era of peace. But we must begin by recognizing the world as it actually is, not by how we cannot but believe it must become.

Wars without ends don't easily justify means

The debate over Israel's alleged "war crimes" at the Atlantic lead Jeffrey Goldberg to bring up an interesting point: would we criticize American troops for killing hundreds of Somalis in the battle of Mogadishu?

First off, this seems to be false equivalence. It was not American bombing that inflicted thousands of casualties, nor was the decision to undertake operations that would directly lead to civilian casualties made at the operational level by American commanders. The deaths of American troops resulted from a "kill or be killed" decision made at the tactical level by individual soldiers. Somali gunmen firing from between the legs of civilians were a direct threat to the American soldiers who returned fire. The US did not set out seeking to destroy civilian infrastructure harboring militia members - firing at civilians was an inevitable necessity for individual American troops hoping to protect their own lives. Now, during the bombing one could make a similar argument, although less directly - those Qassam rockets were not going to kill IDF airmen - but the errors being made are slightly different. American troops killed hundreds of Somali civilians because of a lack of foresight by commanders who assumed a quick and easy operation could be conducted without engaging in a protracted urban firefight. Israel, on the other hand, has planned Cast Lead for months and deliberately targeted civilian-housed arms, militant, and Hamas infrastructure. Civilian casualties were treated as a lamentable consequence, but certainly not an unforeseen one. Indeed, some commentators have argued Israel is deliberately paying less attention to collateral damage to ensure the thorough destruction of the military wing of Hamas.

Morally, Israel's actions are lamentable even though they do not likely fall under the commonly enforced definition of war crimes. Legally, they are within Israel's rights and thus justified in that sense. But strategically, they are increasingly misguided. Israel is operating towards ambiguous ends that, as stated so far, seem vastly outstripped by the damage Israel is incurring. Means must be proportional to ends, too, and if Israel is pursuing legally proportional means to a strategically impossible ends, then they are not proportional in strategic terms. Nor, if the perception Israel is waging a pointless war at great human cost, will those deaths be viewed as ethically proportional even if they are in legal terms. International norms and international law are not necessarily synchronized, and not always (as is usually assumed) in favor of military action.

A military option - hot war, or hot air?

So, as the last few days of the Bush administration wind to a close, it's perhaps comforting to know we didn't live through the worst of possible outcomes. New reports reveal that, despite earlier fears and rumors, Bush ultimately rejected Israeli requests to facilitate an attack on Iran. (That being said, Sanger appears to be wrong about his first line. A JPost article I linked to earlier notes that not only did we sell Israel GBU-39s, but they're using them now in Gaza.) Now that the US has handed most of Iraqi airspace back over to Baghdad, it seems Israel's last realistic chance to hit Iran without alienating its allies has passed.

Even if you're of the persuasion that the Iranian nuclear program should be stopped by any means, you should be glad the Israeli option isn't on the table. Letting Israel attack Iran would still result in all the same negative consequences for the US (and Israel) without having anywhere near the military effectiveness of an American lead-strike. While the IDF is well-equipped, its ability to use airpower strategically pales in comparison to the United States and would fall short of the level necessary to land a killing blow on the Iranian nuclear program. The entire reason Israel needed to buy GBU-39s in the first place was so Israeli fighter aircraft (F-15s and F-16s) could project the bunker-busting power without sacrificing the range larger ordnance requires. Even then, it's questionable whether Israel could muster enough forces to hit Arak, Ishafan, or Bushehr, Iranian air defense sites and C4I centers, or significantly hamper Iran's ability to retaliate against Israel by unconventional means.

Furthermore, Israel's ability to permanently cripple the Iranian nuclear program is unlikely. Since Iran's nuclear program is far better distributed than Iraq's in 1980, their planned strike at Natanz would still leave other nuclear facilities open. Even if some of them were hit, Israel would substantially increase the incentive for Iran to develop nuclear arms to deter Israeli attack, while only setting the program back a few years. Iran would also likely expel the IAEA inspectors and reject any sort of international controls on its program. Such an attack would be politically embarrassing enough for the US and EU to allow Russia and China to quietly (if even that subtly) provide political cover and material support for Iranian military and nuclear programs.

Meanwhile, the US would hardly escape the political fallout. Using American designed planes, American built bombs, and flying through what was then American patrolled airspace, the US would have been held just as responsible even if its pilots and aircraft were not directly involved. Iranian retaliatory action in Iraq or the Persian Gulf would be likely. As for the Israelis, the fretting about the comparative handful of rockets from Palestinian refugee camps would be nothing compared to the violence of action Hezbollah could achieve with Iran's full support in a retaliatory operation (or even achieved during the 2006 conflict). While Khamenei stands opposed to utilizing Iranian volunteers as martyrs to retaliate against Gaza, there is little doubt in my mind he would be aggressively backing them to respond to an Israeli attack.

That being said, could the United States really have done any better? Would it be able to in the future?

While American strategic airpower is magnitudes greater than anything Israel could hope to muster (bombers, superior basing locations, carriers in the Gulf, and thus the ability to bring more and heavier firepower to bear), airpower alone might not have the ability to prevent an Iranian nuclear program from continuing. The Bush administration originally mulled tactical nuclear weapons to ensure the destruction of Iranian bunkers. Additionally, there's no guarantee that the people and technological skills can be bombed away with the bunkers.

So, John Robb proposed something different - but, by his own admission, still liable to unleash blowback. Instead of simply targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure, Robb proposes collapsing the Iranian state, and thus its capability to support a nuclear program at all - using Effects-Basd Operations (EBO) to systematically undermine the Iranian regime. But the notion of EBO was discredited the year that article was written - in Lebanon, Israeli reliance on EBO lead to a fiasco. The US military has effectively renounced the concept. So if the application of airpower at any level is unlikely to achieve the desired outcomes, and a ground intervention remains entirely out of the question, can the US honestly pursue a policy where the military option is kept "on the table?"

The credible deterrence value of such a policy is unclear. For Iran to believe we would allow an open-ended conflict we are unprepared to deal with across the Middle East (and into Central Asia where Iran's influence in Afghanistan might come into play), America would be the one playing the role of a "rogue state" that does not recognize Iran's deterrent through insurgency and state sponsored terrorism. But the military option has too much value as a political signal to voters scared of an Iranian bomb, and to countries thinking of withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty, since the prospect of two countries withdrawing from the treaty and pursuing the nuclear bomb would undermine the NPT's credibility.

So even if diplomatic engagement with Iran is ultimately necessary, does the US really have a fall-back plan for Iran? I'll throw in my ideas later...

The justice and (f)utility of force in Gaza

As Israeli troops enter Gaza and the human cost of Operation Cast Lead mounts, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify - on moral or strategic grounds - the actions of the IDF. While Israel does have a right to defend itself against attack, it is unlikely that by any standards of just war that Israel is acting proportionately. The morality of interactions between polities - the legalistic morality idealists would like to govern international affairs - does indeed entitle Israel to recourse through force of arms. But war is a broad thing - and it is the execution of this retaliation, not its initiation, that one must examine if one would like any claim to fighting a "just war."

There is a mode of thought, present among proponents of Cast Lead as it is among all modern belligerents, that cuts off its concern with moralism once victimhood entitles one to retaliation. After that point, the ends of retaliation justify the means - military necessity and political-self preservation take precedent. While this argument usually attempts to extend the morality of beginning retaliation to all aspects of its conduct, the underlying message that morality is less relevant, if not irrelevant once both sides are in combat. The only relevant morality is that which entitles the victim to retaliation. There is a case to be made for emphasizing the moral objective or achieving retaliation of winning a conflict at the expense of moral conduct in battle, but it is not one we associate with the notion of just war theory.

When a government wages a war on the proposition that protecting innocent civilians from being bombed, proportionality in its own measures, especially when they are concentrated against an enemy that is not distinct from the civilian population, is necessary. Even in WWII, when the Allies conducted a policy of "total war," that conflict's inherent basis in a state system provided grounds for waging wars against countries (ones that did not recognize in themselves a separation between people and government) with established governments. But Israel does not intend to recognize Hamas as a legitimate government, and therefore it cannot simply write off the Palestinian people's desire for safety and claim they are conducting a just war, and not just invoking the idea of one.

Our sense of proportionality is inextricable from our preferences among the belligerents. How many commentators who claimed Russia's actions in Georgia were disproportionate now support Operation Cast Lead? This is likely why the notion of just war will remain more an elastic clause for belligerents than what it was intended as - an actual constraint on the use of force. Instead, it has become an enabler.

That being said, the ultimate reality of the situation is that even if Israel were to embrace a consequentialist outlook and use whatever means necessary to destroy Hamas, it will doom Cast Lead to failure. Israel's goal of destroying Hamas will prove incompatible with its goal of protecting its population without being forced to conduct a long occupation. Even as the IDF estimates it is killing and capturing hundreds of terrorists a day, more rockets keep falling on Israel. Destroying Hamas would likely require a long operation that approaches the problem in keeping with successful counterinsurgency tactics. Because counterinsurgency and modern warfare has become population-centric, simply going out and killing all of the terrorists is not possible and will not be helpful. Without a significant and sustained military presence, it is unlikely Israel will be able to remove Hamas from the fabric of Palestinian society or , and once Israel does leave Hamas can claim a propaganda victory since Hamas, contrary to Israel's aims, still exists as an armed force. Even if Hamas were to be destroyed, Ehud Barak's objective of ensuring there is "no terror activity in Gaza" would not be achieved. More radical groups like Islamic Jihad, who've been waiting for this war all along, could step in to fill the power vacuum. Gaza without Hamas would be more anarchic and unpredictable than before.

I do not expect the United States to make an all-out effort to resolve this misguided conflict, (especially since our diplomatic sympathies lie deeply enough with Israel to favor its perspective). Nor, ultimately, would it likely be able to. Ehud Barak and the Israeli government are acting out of their own interests and needs, and we will not make much headway in convincing the Israelis not to do so. America has its own share of flawed wars that need attention, and regional crises of much more direct relevance to American interests. There are some who would like to hand Israel-Palestine over to Clinton as soon as Obama is in office (Israel's ground operations will most likely be done with). Some Clinton proponents believed she would be the perfect Secretary of State to handle negotiations, thanks to her credibility among Israeli hawks, past sympathies for Palestinians and association with the most peaceful and (potentially) productive periods in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. But in the wake of Cast Lead, staking her credibility and legacy to dealing with an intractable conflict that will be of secondary importance to our own wars (and their necessary regional diplomatic efforts) does not strike me as a particularly good idea.

Finance, Industrial Policy and The Limits of Power

I've been reading a lot of Andrew Bacevich lately, and while I may not be enamored with all of his diagnosis or prescriptions for the ailing American hegemon, they are impossible to ignore. At the very least lend a very useful framework for analyzing our present predicament. One of Bacevich's most important observations on domestic politics is that an ideology of "National Security" has, for the past 60 years, justified a relentless expansion of executive power.

TARP has given this expansion new relevance. Because bailout plans are guaranteed to fail if their credibility is undermined by major changes, the short-term well being of the economy is hostage to the will and whimsy of the executive branch. In Bacevich's latest book, America's economic ills consist of its entitlement to a culture of consumption and its underpinnings - cheap credit, cheap oil, and cheap imported goods. As far as economic policy goes, the conservative Bacevich savages Reagan's rhetoric of indulgent individualism. Because economic debate in the United States remains a left vs. right, government vs. market affair (even as the President once decried as "laissez-faire" does more to move America towards "socialism" than any has in years), it is tempting to analyze Bacevich in the same way. Such rhetoric compels the disgruntled to come away from The Limits of Power with a worldview that finds free market ideology complicit with this culture of consumption, and thus the obvious solution with a stronger government that can rein in finance, promote alternative energy and rebuild American industry to wean it off of imports. Reject "market fundamentalism," and the culture of consumption might wither away.

But such an interpretation is naive, if not delusional. If anything, Bacevich's thesis that our economic addictions are rooted beneath the veneer of partisan politics requires us to recognize it as naive and delusional. We have already seen a massive expansion in government power and reining in of the free market, and it has only served to further promote the underpinnings of this "culture of consumption." We have spent over a trillion already and potentially guarantee trillions more to ensure access to credit. The business cycle has taken care of cheap oil for us. As for cheap imported goods, perhaps the government might take a step in the "right" direction. But if you asked me, the widening trade deficit is more a symptom of our refusal to save than of a dangerous reliance on foreign products.

The evolving manifestations of America's insatiable entitlement have substituted government for the market to facilitate its addiction to consumption-fueled growth. The ideology of "National Security" may now find a new place in the bailout debates and industrial policy. Wesley Clark insists that the maintenance of American military power relies on the protection of our auto industry, and justifies his claims with a variety of arguments similar to those The Limits of Power targets. Take one paragraph:

In a little more than a year, the Army has procured and fielded in Iraq more than a thousand so-called mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. The lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by the efforts of the American automotive industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn’t have to divert much civilian capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been quickly met.

The ideology of "National Security" in The Limits of Power functions as an elastic clause to justify whatever the United States would prefer to do in the interest of power. In this case, Clark identifies the interests of American national security not just with equipping its massive military, but in paving the way for its transformation into fighting counterinsurgency and the war on terror. But he also implies that such debt is necessary so that these wars can be fought without influencing civilian life, hoping to insulate Americans from even indirect civic liability in their conflicts.

We should not be surprised if economic nationalist rhetoric strengthens its rhetoric of national security. The steel industry is never far behind in making similar arguments. While it may seem outlandish to read all such articles through the lens of Bacevich's thesis, it is important to fully absorb the book's argument. The culture of consumption and faith in militarism that brought us to this point was not the making of any one person or party. Neither will the effort that overcomes it be. If we accept his criticism of the past, we must recognize its relevance to our present and future, regardless of who is leading us.

I do not consider Bacevich one of the best critics of the Bush administration because I agree with him entirely (I do not think we can so easily and confidently revert to the purely defensive, conventional military posture he advocates, among other things). I consider Bacevich one of the best critics of the Bush administration because he understands the Bush administration's worst flaws in their proper context - not as the sole responsibility of some cabal that has hijacked America, but as the manifestation of long-term trends at all levels of government and society that both parties and most Americans have comfortably allowed to run rampant, if not encouraged. The root problems will not disappear simply because the party has changed even if the symptoms manifest themselves differently. The most sobering part of The Limits of Power is that we can see the trends it identifies continuing to manifest themselves today. Obsession with immediate economic gratification at the expense of managing debt, messianic ambitions of America's role in world affairs, a national security strategy focused on the "imperial periphery" and the appropriation of the concept to justify the interests of selfish interests in a broken system - these have not disappeared. The current iterations of these actions - the financial bailout, the move away from reducing budget deficits, our desire to regain moral world leadership and fix Afghanistan, to help American industries - are arguably more justified and clear-sighted than those of the Bush administration. But as the country waits in anticipation of the inauguration and an era of change, it is important to remember not only the limits the Bush administration came up against in exercising power abroad, but the limits we will face in truly changing how it is exercised.

The Last Shots of 2008

A month ago I referred to relying on resolving the Kashmir dispute to accomplish our foreign policy goals in South Asia is akin to relying on resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute to accomplish our foreign policy goals in the Middle East. So, true to form, the ceasefire in Gaza has erupted into violence that may lead up to a major ground offensive.

Just as in Kashmir, we would have to put pressure on a nominally allied country to gain the favor of Muslims. It is unlikely we will see any sort of grand settlement without moving Israel closer to its pre-1967 borders or stopping settlement in the West Bank. Meanwhile, that we supply Israel with billions in military arms does little to endear us to the Palestinians or the broader Islamic community.

That being said, Israel is acting entirely within its rights and responsibilities as a sovereign country. When Hamas launches rockets at Israeli homes, Israel is obligated to retaliate against Hamas. Putting pressure on Israel to make concessions as it responds to these attacks may seem like the sensible step for peace negotiations, but in all likelihood it would only strengthen hawks and reduce our leverage as a broker of negotiations, even if it enhanced our credibility among Palestinians.

So far Operation "Cast Lead" seems to be proceeding well for the Israelis. According to most reports, the IDF has caught Hamas unprepared and landed heavy blows against infrastructure and logistics. Thanks to this surprise advantage (and some new ordnance from Uncle Sam), Israel's tactics of using airstrikes seem to be working reasonably effectively so far, with "50 percent" of capability for rocket attack eliminated. (The IDF actually started its own Youtube channel to highlight its "precision bombing" in Gaza, while Arab networks have already brought Gaza to the center of their attention.)

But with 20,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza and the party's non-military wing firmly embedded in the Strip's social services, it's going to take more than a bombing campaign to destroy their operational capability. So far, the Israeli government has alluded to new phases of operations, possibly involving ground troops in an operation "to totally change the rules of the game." Even if this was enough to destroy Hamas, would Israel really want to? Because destroying Hamas would require destroying the government of Gaza, does Israel really have a Phase IV planned to pick up the pieces?

On top of all of this, the man who has the most riding on Operation Cast Lead, Ehud Barak, is also the man most to bring progress in negotiations - and with the election coming up soon, he cannot afford to bring Israel another July War.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan's offensive against the insurgents in Pashtunistan has closed off the Peshawar corridor. Since the majority of our supplies come through Pakistan, this is just one more reason why they will have to remain an ally in the war on terror. But since this route is becoming less and less reliable, we will need a new solution. This requires us to deal with two possible alternatives:

1. Strengthening the route through Russia into Central Asia. This means dropping human rights claims against the 'stans and increasing our reliance on Russia through rail transport. While Russia is generally glad NATO is doing its job in Afghanistan and fighting Islamic terror there, this course isn't particularly palatable to people concerned about human rights or worried about Russia's future course.
2. Trying to open the "East-West Corridor" from the Caucasus across the Caspian into Central Asia. Once again, we have to concede human rights issues to countries like Uzbekistan. This time, though, we would likely end up increasing our military presence in the Caucasus in a way Russia would be very unhappy with, possibly stressing the Western European NATO members who fear they will suffer the most from Russia's response to American penetration of the post-Soviet sphere.
   

An Afghan Awakening?

The US is hoping to launch a second "Awakening" of tribal militias - this time in Afghanistan. While this idea might seem commendable, the more one examines Afghanistan, the less viable it seems without some significant changes from how it was accomplished in Iraq. While it will be important that we bring Afghans in the South and East who might otherwise ally themselves with the fundamentalist militias on board, accomplishing this by empowering the militias themselves will likely be a major mistake. Iraq's government had far more credibility at the national and local level, and provided both a pathway for integrating the militias in such a way that the government could eventually monopolize force in those areas, and in the transition could theoretically check potential excesses on the part of the Sons of Iraq, and thus helped balance power between combatant factions.

In Afghanistan, however, actual local governance is incredibly weak, since many officials aren't elected but appointed. If we pursue these tactics, we will be delegating more power to the tribes and people of Afghanistan in some ways, yes, but we will not be doing so in a sustainable manner. The Awakening in Iraq is working because it built on ties between Sunni communities and the militias; through the plan to integrate the militia members with the government, it in turn helped bind the militias to the government and thus would help reinforce the credibility of the Shia dominated government to Sunnis. The militia program in Afghanistan, however, seems to bypass the idea of building government credibility or ties between the militias and the government entirely:

During a weekend visit, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. focus on establishing a strong central government in Afghanistan may have been "overstated." He said the U.S. would now focus more on "enabling the communities, the tribes and their leaders."

"How strong the central government will be in the future, I think, is yet to be determined," he told reporters.

This is focusing on a legitimate problem but responding in a very risky way. I certainly have been critical of a Kabul-centric Afghan policy. That said, I don't think the solution is to create a parallel security force that does what the government is supposed to. Now, the creation of these militias is indeed only a first phase, but until we can integrate them with the de jure local governments they will require constant US handling to prevent them from further destabilizing Afghanistan in the long run. However, that integration cannot be effective until the people of Afghansitan see their local governments as legitimate, which means without fixing the problem of governance in Afghanistan this entire effort may be wasted.

To be fair, similar criticisms were voiced at the beginning of the Anbar Awakening, and fortunately many of these fears have not (yet) been realized. But again: different country, different problems. As we've already seen, Afghanistan there are the issues of governance to sort out. But there are also underlying problems in our military strategy, too. Where the United States had a significant ground presence in Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq, the ground presence in the turbulent regions of Afghanistan has proven inadequate. America cannot effectively combat today's hostile militias because when Americans (or whatever other ISAF force there is) go back to their bases, the Taliban can control the countryside. Replace "Taliban" with "warlords" and one can see why revitalizing non-governmental militias could be so dangerous. If warlords do come to control these militias, checking them will not be easy, since they, not the US, not ISAF, and not the Afghan government, will have the last words. Counterinsurgency needs to be population-centric to succeed, and without our soldiers being deployed accordingly, the militia strategy will indeed be counterproductive. If we do not want to send another hundred thousand or more troops into Afghanistan for a long, long time, we will need to begin deploying our men into the midst of the villages we hope to defend. Such a strategy may carry a higher cost in both blood and treasure, but there is no easy way to win this war.

Also in the news...

As the global economy flounders, Russia is organizing the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, in hopes of... "not creating a cartel." Keep in mind that Putin came up with the idea of a "Gas OPEC" in 2002 and that Gazprom board member and nominal Russian "executive" Medvedev hoped this organization would achieve OPEC's level of influence. How such an organization could achieve OPEC's influence without the power to manipulate the flow of gas is beyond me. And while yes, there are Russian ships cruising in the Carribbean again, those interested in geopolitics should be more concerned about Russia's energy deals than its military deployments. Russia's fleet is still not a viable challenge to the US on the open seas, and even if the era of "cheap gas" and today's falling energy prices ends, it still won't be enough - even when the gap between the US and USSR was narrowest, the US still had a clear naval advantage outside of the USSR's regional waters. However, because Gazprom intends to invest more in energy resources outside the post-Soviet sphere, Latin America is more important to the Kremlin for economic reasons than military ones. While countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are ideologically opposed to American influence and globalization, this does serve as a good reminder of why the US needs to stay politically active and economically open around the world - there are countries waiting to pick up where we left off, and they may not use such an advantage to our best interests.

Piling it On

This is not looking like a good week for optimists.

The NBER threw in the towel and decided that despite the discrepancy between quarterly GDP forecasts and the official definition, the US downturn started in December 2007. Before people start grumbling about the worthless academics taking too long to get in touch with reality, remember when the stimulus package to "real Americans" was supposed to save the economy? Those were the days...

Mankiw and Cowen have good NYT editorials on the economy, in particular on what lessons we should really be taking from the '30s.

But, you shouldn't become too wrapped up in worrying about the economy. According to a bipartisan Congressional task force, you should also be worried about an attack on the US using weapons of mass destruction, the odds of which "are now better than even" between now and 2013. The report points out that a biological attack is more likely than a nuclear one, though nuclear proliferation and the destabilization of Pakistan will make loose nuclear weapons likely threats. It says the next attack on the US will also most likely originate from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

But, before we decide to stick to that promised policy of preemptive intervention to kill terrorists on Pakistani soil, it might be worth considering the precedent we're setting. Because there's a country that already has and it believes it has been once again attacked by terrorists based in Pakistan. Already, India has taken Obama's stance to indicate that it too has the right to kick down doors in the pursuit of justice. As Robert Kaplan, India faces a far graver threat from Islamic terrorism than the United States does.

Yet a policy that allows such attack on India's part could easily end up with a nuclear exchange - note that Pakistan does not have a "no first-use" policy on nuclear arms. While launching nuclear weapons at the United States would be futile, Pakistan does have a credible deterrent against India. This will likely be the second time that the United States must navigate its way through an Indo-Pakistani crisis while fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan.

Calls for Obama to take the "regional approach" and use Kashmir to convince Pakistan to contribute more troops to dealing with Islamic fundamentalists in its own borders and cease support for them outside of them seem more unrealistic than ever. India was hostile to the idea before the attacks, it will not be amenable to them now. The ideal outcome would be greater cooperation between the two powers on counterterrorism, but this is incredibly unlikely. As tensions increase, the US will find that Kashmir negotiations will not be able to proceed without taking sides, and treating Kashmir as a way to deal with American concerns about Afghanistan will inevitably draw the US to a pro-Pakistani line.

India has endured decades of Islamist violence on its own soil. If this sort of thing happened to the United States, we'd have taken up Armitage's cry and bombed them into the stone age. But we cannot expect that they will continue to tolerate such tragedies in a manner conducive to our goals. One way or another, Indians will feel compelled to respond. Relying on the Kashmir approach to win the war on terror is not viable. India, for its part, however, must improve its counterterrorist efforts. Watching Indian footage, city police fired at Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists with ancient bolt-action rifles while the response of more professional units has not impressed American analysts either. While there's obviously a lot more than small arms deficiencies that contributed to the problem, they are symptomatic of a deeper problem. India has invested well in its regular military but left the provincial-level counterterrorist and police forces underfunded. Terrorist attacks are thus more effective against India, and India cannot respond with its regular military without triggering a nuclear crisis. (We, too, struggle with managing the traditional gap between domestic law enforcement and the use of our military abroad. Fortunately we've managed to get by without a nuclear war scare... So far.)

The important thing to remember during all of this is that al Qaeda is hoping we'll overreact. Based on the latest tapes, they're having trouble coming up with an effective message against Obama without any policies of his they can criticize. Al Qaeda needs to provoke Obama into making a big mistake that involves perceived aggression and injustice against Muslims to maintain its base of support. This is something his cabinet should keep in mind as January 20th approaches. While I still take issue with sending Hillary Clinton to Foggy Bottom, I'm far more pleased with Obama's other national security picks. That being said, no matter what happens to the economy, sidelining foreign policy will come with consequences. Obama had really better trust his staff, because he is going to be a busy, busy man.