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.

A skeptic at the National Mall

I will admit it: my political affinity for Barack Obama has never been entirely consistent. But I did end up voting for him, and while it was incredibly moving to see him sworn in today, I cannot help but think that this day should be as much clarity and recognition of the difficulties that lay ahead as it is celebration. Election night's spontaneity was the best place for genuine, heartfelt happiness. We have known Obama would be President since November. Today should not be considered the start of a honeymoon, but of the real difficulties and challenges that come with actually being President.

To recap: I preferred the benediction to the invocation. Lowery was inclusive, genuine, and good-natured. Warren, on the other hand, seemed neither rhetorically impressive or able to reach far beyond his usual target audience. The poem seemed out of place, especially after a well performed speech.

I emphasize well performed. Because as Obama's first speech as President rather than candidate or President-elect, I found myself dwelling as much on the elements that originally left me skeptical of Obama as on those that lead me to eventually vote for him.

Perhaps the most troubling of the themes Obama outlined in his speech is the pervasive notion that the idea of trade-offs in a time of crisis are admissions of defeat rather than acknowledgments of reality (all emphasis in the speech is mine alone).

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

Obama is right that these challenges will be met. But we will not meet them if we refuse to accept that sometimes, our hopes are too high or misplaced. For example, if we hope for peace in the world, it is not reasonable that we attempt to meet the challenge of spreading democracy or fighting terrorism with unrelenting energy. This sort of message, though, is poisonous to the political discourse of the leader even if it is the tool of a wise critic.

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed.

Now, of course Obama is going to talk about having to make unpleasant decisions. But there is little hint to what they will be. What I found most interesting about this passage however, was how it was essentially John McCain's argument about the fundamentals of our economy being strong repackaged in a much more rhetorically effective manner. Obama's choice of the word capacity is interesting too - especially as we find it is not the lack of capacity, but overcapacity that will bedevil our plans to speed ourselves out of a recession.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

Are our memories short? Obama is careful not to mention what big plans have been so successful - each can just laugh at those misguided cynics and let their minds wander to the good old days, whatever they are for each ideology. But the fact is that cynics do remember the New Deal, and they can recall the disastrous industrial and agricultural policies that delayed recovery, even if the optimists choose only to remember fireside chats, the FDIC, and Social Security. No, the ground has not shifted beneath cynics - it has shifted beneath the idealists. The past two decades have seen their plans torn asunder by historical force and human fallibility. The plans for a free, democratic and peaceful new world order were undermined by the realities of '90s military interventionism and ultimately shattered by 9/11. The plans for then protecting that order with force to defeat terrorism have squashed the dreams of a different sort of idealists. Domestically, anyone angry at the so-called legacy of deregulation or globalization in today's economic crisis should speak to the neoliberal idealists that permeated the Clinton administration (not just the Bush administration). The universal legitimacy of freedom, democracy, capitalism, and the American way of life and the American way of leadership, are no longer unquestionable. That is the change in ground, and it strikes against ambitious American Presidents, not cynics who are skeptical of the utility of American power abroad and planners' power at home. The prosperity of our lives and the legitimacy of our values are not natural facts.

The old arguments are not necessarily those of cynics - the clash between progressive left and "laissez faire" right on economics could have easily been described as idealist as cynical. Perhaps the use of idealist divisions by politicians who know the issues better is cynicism, but that does not make cynicism manifested as criticism of these idealist positions irrelevant too. Obama delineates that there are no false choices to be made between big and small government, market and intervention, liberty and security - all that remains is for the cynics to step aside, for their criticism and reluctance are the sole obstacle between vision and reality.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

While I admire Obama's Niebuhrian rhetoric here, Obama grossly simplifies the nature of alliances and convictions. We sacrifice our convictions to maintain our alliances - the United Nations tolerated the totalitarian USSR to defeat fascism, and dictatorships to defeat communism. Nor do I particularly think Obama should dress up any of our challenges today in the garb of the simplified binary rhetoric of world war or cold war. We do not live in a world where our enemies are on one side and our friends another, nor is there any one single struggle that dominates our agenda that can sift nations in such a manner. We face a complex strategic environment where states that befriend us to solve one issue will stonewall us on others.

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.

I do not find the call to embody the nationalist ethos as disturbing as I am sure some on the libertarian right will, not because I support blindly a government that believes the main problem with its citizens is that they are too individualist, but because this sort of rhetoric is endemic to American politics. After reading Bacevich's New American Militarism, too, one might describe wrapping policies and attitudes in battle flags as the sort of militaristic rhetoric a cynical politician might employ. More importantly, though, we see the main obstacle to success is not the failure of our policies or an overconfidence in our capabilities, but the failure of Americans to adequately embrace the attitude of optimism. It seems like a rhetorical fail-safe - criticizing or resisting any aspect of this ambitious transformation sows the seeds for its failures. Obama may support bipartisanship, but in a campaign that was based on hope, his administration will need to fight not necessarily the voices of Republicans but of doubt. It is a tough fight and not one I think is particularly wise. Because ultimately, the voice of cynicism can be a voice of reason, and we should be careful in these four years of presumed change and renewed hope about making an enemy of it.

Confirmation

Steve Walt has an interesting take on the Clinton confirmation hearings. I tend to go on about how a major difference between partisan policies nowadays is ultimately not whether we exert too much power or too little, but who's exerting it. Hence a Democratic administration that speaks not of "soft power" but of "smart power." Now, while many progressives have cheered the latter as an effective re-branding of the former, Clinton explicitly states it will involve a mix of both military and diplomatic means - "the full range of tools at our disposal. With 'smart power,' diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy." Which all sounds well and good, but what really differentiates it from, say, the second term of the Bush administration? Or many other recent Presidencies? Clinton, as Walt points out, seem to think that if we can just not be the Bush administration, it will be the beloved 1990s again. Americans, remembering the other Clinton, may be inclined to agree. But we're not going back to the 1990s and we can't try acting like we did in the 1990s and expect it to work very well. But clearly, the overriding message throughout most Democratic candidates has never been to claim the exertion of power is wrong, but that power has been squandered or misused. The fundamental insight that we seem to be lacking is that we are becoming less powerful relative to other countries and certainly less powerful relative to our objectives. It is not a matter of "smart power," it is a matter of smart policy to guide that power.

Walt's enumeration of Hillary's unmanageably and impossibly large list of "priorities" is perhaps too kind. Delineating each distinct objective, there are maybe 37 priority items dealing with perhaps 70 or more countries, excluding the rest which would doubtlessly be involved given the profligacy of "global" objectives. Who can imagine what the secondary and tertiary goals of this Department would be? As Walt points out, Clinton's recognition that priorities must actually be prioritized and realistically evaluated does not seem to reflect in her list of primary goals. There seems to be little acknowledgement of what efforts will come at the expense of others, and what goals may prove to be contradictory. For example, the idea that America will have a foreign policy consistent with its democratic values and principles while promoting human rights everywhere possible without being ideological seems a bit dubious as a 'non-ideological' policy. To many in the rest of the world, our commitment to democracy and human rights appears very ideological, and thus pursuing these goals may not be compatible with say, winning the war on Afghanistan which will require the aid of Central Asian countries with some autocratic tendencies. Can we simultaneously engage and strengthen our alliances India and Pakistan in a productive manner? Strengthen NATO and pursue a pragmatic Russian policy? Our foreign policy seems to be not only that we can have our cake and eat it too, but also have NATO, the UN, the G8 bake us cakes that we can continue to both have and eat.

Don't worry, though. We'll sort it out with smart power.

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...