If the War in Libya is to Protect Civilians, Why Aren't We Protecting Civilians? Posted by Michael Cohen

In his last Twitter communication before he was tragically killed in the Libyan town of Misrata, Tim Hetherington wrote, "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO." 

It seems odd that there was no sign of NATO air power in Misrata, which has been under siege for several weeks now and has been subject to flagrant attacks against civilians by Gaddafi forces. After all it was just under a month ago that President Obama declared, “some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

Of course these words were spoken about the potential for a civilian bloodbath in Benghazi, but it seems, increasingly, that if Misrata were to fall we could be dealing with a similar situation. Surely there is the risk of significant civilian casualties, even massacres. If the US and NATO is engaged military in Libya to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe why are they not acting more pro-actively to protect civilians in Misrata?

The answer to this conundrum is, of course, not overly complicated. Both the US and NATO have pledged not to put troops on the ground in Libya so they will go only so far to protect Libyans as can be accomplished via air power. In a very real sense this exposes the farcical nature of our intervention in Libya. We are there nominally to protect civilians, but that goal is a constricted one; and is subservient to the larger imperative of the White House to limit military and, in turn, political exposure to the conflict.  In short, we are willing to protect civilians, but only so long as we don’t actually put American or European troops in harm’s way.

At the Huffington Post, David Wood captures the essence of this dilemma and the problems it is causing in bureaucratic Washington:

Washington took the bold step of committing military force, but not enough to win. The administration waited to apply very limited military force until it was almost too late, and now, it has painted the U.S. "into a corner." In the resulting stalemate, Libyan rebels and civilians are being ruthlessly pursued and killed while the United States, in effect, stands helplessly by.

The White House wanted the Pentagon to come up with a low-cost regime-change plan for Libya. Ideally, this strategy would have toppled Col. Muammar Gaddafi without bogging the U.S. down in another inconclusive foreign adventure. And by no means could the plan have included young American infantrymen advancing under fire across the sand.

The military kept insisting that no such option existed. A real regime-change operation, some officers argued, requires "boots on the ground." That was a cost the White House, given rising domestic pressure to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, was unwilling to consider.

The White House thought the Pentagon was disrespecting the president by refusing to propose a politically acceptable action plan, while the Pentagon became furious that White House officials didn't "seem to understand what military force can and cannot do,'' the official said.

In the past I have been critical of the US military for not only disrespecting the President but for openly manipulating him on Afghanistan policy. But in this situation, it is the military that is being played.  The White House by refusing to consider putting troops on the ground has given the military an impossible mission – protect civilians without ground forces or even the ability to effectively conduct close air support. What’s worse, unless the White House wants to more fully escalate the conflict they’ve made it practically impossible to fully protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s wrath - a contradiction of why we went to war in the first place.  

So now the choice is to maintain a status quo that Tony Cordesman rightly points out could lead to more civilian suffering or escalate the conflict, put boots on the ground and ensure that Qaddafi is toppled. Neither option is terribly palatable, but both provide compelling evidence about the dangers of embarking on a military intervention in both a half-cocked and half-assed manner.  

I'm sympathetic to Cordesman's argument that we now must consider putting troops on the ground to salvage our policy in Libya and end a war that we have helped to escalate, but it's a terrible choice we face. One can argue at great length about whether it was right to go to war in Libya in the first place . . . but what seems incontestable is that trying to fight a limited war on the cheap that doesn't meet our military objectives, but furthers some rather fuzzy political ones is no way to fight a war.

Running Things...It Ain't All Gravy Posted by Eric Martin

This Frederic Wehrey piece in Foreign Affairs explores some of the cleavages and divisions in Libya's population/power structures that could come to the fore if and when the Qaddafi regime is toppled - as well as some of the challenges in rebuilding (or building anew) a society left dilapidated by years of inept dictatorial rule:

After Libyans, and much of the civilized world, rejoice in the seemingly inevitable fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi, the country will face the difficult task of repairing a society long traumatized by the Middle East's most Orwellian regime. Libya lacks both legitimate formal institutions and a functioning civil society. The new, post-Qaddafi era, therefore, is likely to be marked by the emergence of long-suppressed domestic groups jostling for supremacy in what is sure to be a chaotic political scene. 

In the near future, even with Qaddafi gone, the country may face a continued contest between the forces of a free Libya and the regime's die-hard elements. In particular, Qaddafi's sons -- Saif al-Islam, Khamis, Al-Saadi, and Mutassim -- and their affiliated militias may not go quietly into the night; the struggle to root them out may be violent and protracted...

Lined up against these Qaddafi holdouts are the members of the Libyan military and officer corps who have joined the opposition. [...]

Libya's tribes will also be critical for governance and reconciliation. Qaddafi's 1969 coup overturned the traditional dominance of the eastern coastal tribes in Cyrenaica in favor of those drawn from the west and the country's interior. Although the Qaddafi regime was, at least in theory, opposed to tribal identity, its longevity depended in large measure on a shaky coalition among three principal tribes: the al-Qaddadfa, al-Magariha, and al-Warfalla. [...]  

In the post-Qaddafi era, the recently defected tribal bulwarks of the ancien régime -- the al-Magariha and the al-Warfalla -- will play a critical role in lending legitimacy and unity to a new government. That said, the weakness and fragmentation of the military and the tempting availability of oil resources highlight the very real threat of tribal warlordism.

In a prior post, I raised the all-too-possible specter that the aftermath of Qaddafi's ouster could give rise to (or perpetuate) internecine conflict that would require policing by international forces and/or a prolonged nation building effort in order to avoid a massive conflagration.  Wehrey's piece highlights some of the fault lines along which such conflicts could erupt. 

While it is possible that Libya could undergo a smooth, relatively violence-free transition to stable governance, we cannot afford to plan based on best-case-scenario assumptions. Though this is no great insight, it remains true: wars, revolutions and lesser armed conflicts are notoriously unpredictable. 

Considering the enormously expensive, long-term, resource-intensive nation building/policing efforts that the United States is currently undertaking in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would be beyond imprudent to risk getting embroiled in yet another such enterprise at this juncture. Which is why my reaction to the possibilities discussed in this piece in the Small Wars Journal was more of hopeful relief than concern:  

Let’s make something clear, the civil war in Libya will not end in a stalemate. The French will likely intervene with ground forces and topple the Gaddafi regime, and they will probably do it within a month. It is quite possible that they will do so with Italian help. President Obama has fervently wished for America to be just one of the boys; in the end, this may be a case of wishing for something so much that you get it. America has abrogated the role of global marshal that it assumed after World War II. Every posse needs a Marshal to lead it. The French will likely pick up the tin star they found lying in the street of the global village. [...]

None of this is to say that the French may not be walking into a situation similar to that we faced in 2004-6 in Iraq when Iraqi factions fought over the remains of their country and the more radical factions turned on their would-be Coalition Force liberators. Libya will likely be a mess for years to come. However, I am suggesting that the U.S. will not be calling the shots if the French intervene decisively, and we should think about if that is what we really want. [emphasis added]

A situation in which France, rather than the United States, takes the lead in managing a potentially chaotic, conflict riddled, post-regime-change environment in a foreign country (that we remain largely ignorant of on a granular level) sounds like something that we should not only "want," but strongly encourage.  While ceding the lead role does have its drawbacks in terms of prerogatives and priorities, we quite simply do not have the resources to lead the "posse" in every global conflict that we choose to intervene in - especially at a time when we are already leading the pack in two other theaters.

The Latest Take-Down of Liberal Interventionists Posted by David Shorr

Here is the most ironic passage in Jacob Heilbrunn's National Interest article on Samantha Power as the embodiment of a foreign policy paradigm shift:

Power has a penchant for dramatizing history through people rather than considering broader forces. She states in the acknowledgments to “A Problem From Hell” that a friend from Hollywood advised her to create a drama by telling the story through characters. And that is what she did.

Why ironic? Because he's written an article on Samantha Power as the embodiment of a foreign policy paradigm shift. Actually, I don't want to be too harsh about the Heilbrunn piece, especially since it compares quite favorably to the meandering paranoid screed that Stanley Kurtz gave us on the same subject. In keeping with Heilbrunn's earlier critique of such hyperpartisan intemperance on the far right, he offers a sober examination of the interventionist approach.

That said, though, I have to take issue with two of Heilbrunn's main indictments against interventionism. The first concernts the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Heilbrunn recounts his own exchange with Power at a conference the following year. He pressed her on the seeming contradiction of decrying inaction in the face of tyrannic butchery, yet laying off Saddam:

Her response? The Bush administration was not acting multilaterally and Saddam’s actions, at that point, didn’t meet the definition of genocide even if they had in the past. It is an answer that I never found fully satisfactory, at least for someone who was otherwise championing the cause of stopping mad and bad dictators around the world.

While Heilbrunn may be unpersuaded, the distinction between what Saddam was doing in the early-2000s versus his merciless crackdowns in the late-1980s and early-1990s is hardly a fine point. Every so often when this question resurfaces, I feel compelled to dust off Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth's authoritative essay on the issue, "War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention."  In a nutshell, the point of intervention is not to stop the dictators, but to stop what they're doing or are about to do. As Roth put it, resort to force "should be taken only to stop current or imminent slaughter, not to punish past abuse." In other words, what Heilbrunn tags as hypocrisy is actually a pretty stringent criterion for military action.

Which brings me to my second objection. Since Heilbrunn elides the crucial point above, this leads to his further misreading of foreign policy liberals' views on democracy promotion. Portraying liberal interventionism as the orthodoxy of a new elite, here's how he summarizes our dogma:

This elite is united by a shared belief that American foreign policy must be fundamentally transformed from an obsession with national interests into a broader agenda that seeks justice for women and minorities, and promotes democracy whenever and wherever it can—at the point of a cruise missile if necessary.

As to our supposedly itchy cruise missile trigger finger, well op. cit. Ken Roth. But let me sketch a larger picture and resist the idea, speaking at least for one liberal, that the worldview focuses on social justice at the expense of other concerns.

It's fair to say that many emerging liberal foreign policy leading lights are firmly internationalist -- with the aim of helping spread peace and economic and political empowerment as widely as possible. For some of us (especially yours truly) the main idea is to strengthen the rules-based international order, and in that light, the fight with Qaddafi is about reinforcing a norm against leaders making war on their own people. Yet we're hardly blind to the trade-offs among the goals of national security, economic growth, and the spread democracy. While the United States has important concerns about repression in China, the most urgent agenda is clearly balanced economic growth. Lest anyone think that geostrategic competition has been shunted aside, I'd only mention the Obama Administration's backing of Southeast Asian fears over China's maritime claims. And for all the criticism of President Obama's low-key response to the 2009 people-power protests in Iran, the reason was precisely due to worries about undercutting our efforts on Iran's nuclear program.

By applying limited force on behalf of limited interests, interventionists have no doubt taken a substantial risk. We indeed make some of these calculations based on a broader concept of enlightened self-interest and global leadership. But we are calculating nonetheless -- not, as some might believe, treating the other nations of the world as a social engineering project.

Welfare: Bad For America, Good For Europe? Posted by Michael Cohen

Andrew Exum makes a wry observation about European security.

Here's the way this read in today's Washington Post: “The Americans have the numbers of planes, and the Americans have the right equipment,” said Francois Heisbourg, a military specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.

Here's the way this should have read in today's Washington Post: “The Americans have the numbers of planes [because the European states neglected to buy them], and the Americans have the right equipment [because the Americans actually designed and then manufactured the right equipment],” said Francois Heisbourg, a military specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.

Andrew goes on to note that Europe should "either stop talking so tough regarding military interventions or to re-invest in truly independent military capabilities."

But why should they? After all, European governments know they can rely on US military might and taxpayer dollars to subsidize their security needs and prevent them from actually investing in a more robust security apparatus. And when European leaders like Sarkozy decide to talk tough they can count on America to provide the military muscle to back up their words - as has been the case with Libya.

The bottom line is that as long as the United States continues to feel that it has an obligation to underwrite European security needs . . . it will continue to underwrite European security needs. And European countries will continue to free ride off of US security guarantees and not develop the "right equipment" and strategy to protect and further their own interests. In the world's most most stable and prosperous region we have created a bizarre situation where US resources and arms are underpinning a security structure that could quite easily be taken over by the inhabitants of that region!

As my good friend Sean Kay notes, "The most fundamental missions of NATO are achieved - Europe is integrated, whole, and free. The challenge now is to ensure that this is sustained via the European Union. By jealously hanging onto an irrelevant dominance over European security policy, the United States hinders effective EU security integration and ironically damages America's own interests. If the United States can't hand over lead authority in Europe where can it?"

Precisely. The Libya engagement provides many lessons for policymakers (few of them good) but this is one that is likely receiving less attention than it should. So long as the United States insists on subsidizing European security we're going to be the ones upholding European security interests - and well past the point when that makes any sense at all.

Start Another Fire and Watch It Slowly Die: The Aftermath of Regime Change Posted by Eric Martin

Adam Curtis, a documentary filmmaker, traces a loose history of the modern concept of humanitarian intervention in the West and its philosophical underpinnings - punctuated, unsurprisingly, with several compelling documentary film clips.

While historians may quibble with certain aspects of his rendition, there was one passage that stood out: 

The movement had begun back in Biafra because a group of young idealists wanted to escape from the old corrupt power politics. To do this they had simplified the world into a moral struggle between good and evil.

They believed that if they could destroy the evil - by liberating victims from oppression by despots - then what would result would be, automatically, good.

But the problem with this simple view was that it meant they had no critical framework by which to judge the "victims" they were helping. And the Baghdad bombing made it clear that some of the victims were very bad indeed - and that the humanitarians' actions might actually have helped unleash another kind of evil. [emphasis added]

These concerns speak directly to my apprehensions about US military involvement in Libya.  Even a muscular No-Fly-Zone was not likely going to prove sufficient to enable an out-trained and out-gunned rebel force to topple Qaddafi, yet escalating after that fact was made clear by sending in ground forces would be ill-advised to say the least (two wars is likely enough for the moment).  Even arming the rebels (like a No-Fly-Zone, this option has a certain arms-length, antiseptic appeal on the surface) is an extremely risky endeavor, with the potential to destabilize the nation and its environs for decades to come.

More importantly, as I tried to emphasize in my prior piece, we should be careful what we wish for: if the rebels do manage to usurp Qaddafi, what comes next could prove worse in many respects.  It is not fanciful to imagine that a country with no history of democratic rule and weak civil institutions would be fertile ground for violent purges, power struggles, protracted civil wars and/or insurgencies (with forces loyal to Qaddafi attempting to re-claim the power and privilege recently lost - see, ie, the Baathists in Iraq - and rebel forces keen to settle scores - see, ie, the Mahdi Army purges in and around Baghdad).  These armed conflicts would be exacerbated if the rebels receive large amounts of weapons, and the country is awash in arms.

Would the US feel compelled to intervene if such situations were to evolve as a direct result of our armed intervention? Would we commit to policing the population and nation building lest such conflicts run rampant?  Either scenario would be enormously costly and time consuming, both of which are understatements in the extreme. 

But as the Curtis quote illustrates, we can not and should not assume that merely removing an odious regime will inevitably lead to a positive outcome, or that the forces that oppose a given despot must be, ipso facto, righteous.

The essential lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan should not be limited to the notions that wars are almost always far more costly than advertised (in monetary terms), that they unleash myriad unforeseen destructive forces that can have regional implications and that disengaging from them is exceedingly difficult (already, we have been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets, and our impending deadline to withdraw from Iraq is causing much consternation for US military leaders). 

That list must include the proposition that unseating even a noxious regime is no guarantee that the aftermath will be easily manageable, conflict free or anything short of tragic for the populations that we are ostensibly attempting to help - or that there are not also noxious elements amongst our putative allies in the underlying population.

So How's That Strategic Partnership With Pakistan Going? Posted by Michael Cohen

This is perhaps the least surprising development to come out of Pakistan - recipient of billions of dollars in US military and economic assistance and supporter of the Taliban insurgency killing American soldiers in Afghanistan:

Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it put on hold C.I.A. drone strikes aimed at militants in northwest Pakistan, a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies.

Pakistani and American officials said in interviews that the demand that the United States scale back its presence was the immediate fallout from the arrest in Pakistan of Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. security officer who killed two men in January during what he said was an attempt to rob him.

In all, about 335 American personnel — C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces — were being asked to leave the country, said a Pakistani official closely involved in the decision.

Honestly, who could have seen this coming? It's not as if the United States hasn't plied Pakistan with military assistance for the past ten years and it's not as if the Pakistanis have pretty much refused to take any critical steps to further US strategic interests (that don't also directly benefit Pakistan). You can't really blame the Pakistanis for being annoyed at the US, particularly after the Raymond Davis incident, but this whole decline in cooperation is indicative of how fragile the "partnership" between the US and Pakistan remains - and always has been.

Back in December 2009 one of the key elements of the Obama Administration's Afghanistan strategy was to strengthen ties with Islamabad. In fact, in some key respects it's almost more important than the war in Afghanistan. Since then relations between the two countries have gotten worse, particularly on a host of issues crucial to US security interests. And because of the US reliance on Pakistan as a transit point for resources into Afghanistan our ability to put pressure on Islamabad is even more constrained. 

For what it's worth, color me skeptical that drone strikes in the FATA will cease; the Pakistanis benefit too much from them to cut them out completely. But the critical issue in US-Pakistan relations is the Afghan Taliban safe havens - and on that front we've of course seen no progress and no shift in Pakistan's strategic calculus. One can imagine that this latest downturn in relations only makes it less likely that anything positive is about to happen.

Peggy Noonan on the Virtue of Restraint Posted by David Shorr

In her Wall Street Journal column Friday, Peggy Noonan criticized the international intervention in Libya as an example of excessive activism. Pointing to Dwight Eisenhower and her own mentor Ronald Reagan as model presidents, Noonan dusts off the classic argument against action for action's sake -- 'don't just do something, sit there!' But as much as I admire Eisenhower's leadership and embrace prudence as a virtue, I find Noonan's case unpersuasive. Despite what she says, President Obama's Libya decision was more grand strategy than grand gesture.

The more I think about these issues, the heart of the debate seems to be between realism about outcomes versus realism about alternatives. Interventionists are charged with impulsivity and failing to think through the contingencies. But was the option of staying at arm's length truly more realistic?

One thing that Noonan notes is the pressure for action from the international media:

The administration no doubt feared grim pictures from Benghazi and the damage those pictures could do to the president's reputation and standing.

Just to point out the obvious, the damage would have been much more severe for the people of Benghazi; so it isn't just a matter of perceptions. That's not to say perceptions don't factor into it -- they cannot be dismissed, nor should they. Indeed it's a strange sight to watch a living legend political communicator be so dismissive about media perceptions.

Noonan is at least consistent in her argument, stressing the importance of being "steely-eyed" and "responsive to immediate and long-term strategic needs." But again, damning the Libya intervention as an emotional response is too facile a critique. It overlooks the strategic interest in a rules-based order, an international community in which some abuses of power and violations of humanitarian principles are considered beyond the pale.

Are critics of the intervention being realistic about the alternative of failing to intervene? They ask about the ambiguous outcome and lack of consistency in response to the different (or similar) situations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, or Sudan, for that matter. Here's my question: can someone explain why the United States should stay on the sidelines when an international consensus wants to forcibly resist a despot's brutal crackdown? Does that make strategic sense?

The ambiguous outcome -- and its twin, the ambiguous objective -- indeed pose a problem. By keeping the military commitment within constraints (rather than whatever-it-takes open-endedness), President Obama is playing a game of chance rather than certainty. The calculation is that the Qaddafi regime is weak enough to be ousted by the combination of Libyan rebels on the front lines, coalition forces over the horizon, and defections from Qaddafi's own forces.

Where Peggy Noonan sees an emotional impulse, I see underwriting a calculated risk. We just don't know if it will be enough to remove Qaddafi. Looking at it through the realism of alternatives, giving limited help for an uncertain outcome is still better than the certainty of abandoning Libyans rising up against Qaddafi to their fate. Remember the key facts. The opposition asked for the help and understood it would be limited. A surprising international consensus called for the intervention.

I think these ambiguities are characteristic of the world in which we live. They make for difficult dilemmas and uncomfortable choices. With all due respect to former Secretaries of State James Baker and Henry Kissinger, the criteria for intervention they lay out in Friday's WaPo seem sensible on their face, but require a degree of clarity and certainty that will be very hard to find.

If you're looking for an example lofty rhetoric not backed up by forceful action, look at US actions right after the first Iraq War in 1991, probably the most under-discussed historical analogy of the current debate. Many will recall President George H.W. Bush's prudent (and wise) decision not to press on to Baghdad and remove Saddam from power. What's less remembered are the signals from Washington encouraging Saddam's foes to rise up against him -- as Barry Lando, the episode's leading expert, reminds us. An Iraqi insurrection indeed sprouted, with the expectation of American support. None came, and they were slaughtered by Saddam. The situation in Libya is the reverse; the rebellion was initiated internally, and the US and others stepped up with material backing. As I say, a response that was better than the alternatives.

Further Confirmation That Our Strategy in Afghanistan is Not Working Posted by Michael Cohen

One of the key elements about US policy in Afghanistan that nearly all sides seem to agree upon is that without success in standing up the Afghan government and without success in getting Pakistan to turn on the Afghan Taliban safe havens in their country - the mission will likely fail.

With that as a starting point, it makes reading the latest White House report on Afghanistan/Pakistan acutely depressing reading. To be sure there is very little here that can be considered good news - for every possible step forward, there are one or two steps back. And what's more there is very little indication that the fledgling progress we have made is sustainable - either in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But on the issue of safe havens and the performance of the Karzai government it is particularly distressing - and speaks to the failures of the current strategy.

First on safe havens. Much of the media focus of the report is on the challenges facing Pakistan in going after Pakistan Taliban militants. But from the perspective of US policy in Afghanistan, this is a sideshow - the real issue is the sanctuaries and here the report has nothing good to say:

The denial of extremist safe havens in Pakistan cannot be achieved through military means alone, but must continue to be advanced by effective development strategies.

Actually let me revise that statement - the report has basically nothing to say on this issue (as the above sentence suggests). There is a great deal about how the US is laying the foundation for a strategic partnership with Pakistan "based on mutual respect and trust" but no sense of when or even whether the Pakistani government will shift their strategic calculus against the Afghan Taliban. And as press reporting suggests there has been little progress on this front. Until there is, military success in Afghanistan will be hard to achieve and even harder to sustain. That the report basically punts on that question is telling.

How about the Karzai government? Here the report is more explicit, regrettably so. From July to December 2010, the report says that progress on building the capacity of the Afghan government is "static" - which basically means very little improvement at all. Indeed, the report notes that on the sub-national level (which is more critical to the US war-fighting effort than the national level) progress is particularly non-existent. Recruiting for district or provincial offices remains poor, the Afghan government has shown little inclination to take on corruption - and while security improvements are cited, the report does note that the security situation in the north has actually worsened.  (Of course, if one wants to draw a verdict on Hamid Karzai they can also consider his appalling behavior that led indirectly to the horrific killings of UN workers in Mazar-i-Sharif last week.)

The best the report can point to is "modest" improvements in training of the ANSF, but the force is still deeply dependent on ISAF forces to conduct operations and attrition rates, while better are still high.

In short, there is very little positive to report - but in the areas most crucial to the current strategy, progress is basically non-existent or fledgling. Now I have a feeling that an email will be headed my way soon after I publish this post that talks about security improvements as a first step forward and strengtening Afghan capacity as the next step. But to be honest, I'm not seeing any reason to believe that this second is possible (it's always been the most intractable element of our strategy and one where US influence is the most limited).

This question this report should raise is how much longer do we try to do the impossible (get Pakistan to adjust its strategic calculus vis-a-vis the Taliban and the Karzai government to be something they aren't) before we shift our strategy to what actually is possible?

Why Leon Panetta Shouldn't Be Secretary of Defense Posted by Michael Cohen

So according to the Washinton Post, the leading candidate for Secretary of Defense is current CIA director Leon Panetta. Hearing this news reminds of this little tidbit from Bob Woodward's, "Obama's Wars" and the debate about escalation in Afghanistan from the Fall of 2009:

He [Panetta] told other principals, "No Democratic President can go against military advice, especially if he asked for it." His own recommendation would be, "So just do it. Do what they say." He repeated to other key White House officials his belief that the matter should have been decided in a week. 

As I wrote last Fall it's almost as if in Leon Panetta's world we don't need a president.

If there has been a defining feature of US national security policy in the Obama Administration it would be the gradual erosion in civ-mil relations and in particular, the strengthening of the military in national security decision-making. This is, in part, what helped lead to the decision to escalate in Afghanistan and the President to embrace a flawed counter-insurgency policy that, as we've seen over the past 15 months, is not working. Much of this erosion is due to the fact that we have a "Democratic President" who for political reasons seems unwilling to get in a public battle with the military or openly disagree with military advice (it is of course not coincidence that the quote above refers to a Democratic President - one can imagine that a Republican President would, in Panetta's world, have a bit more latitude).

Indeed, more than ever what is needed is a Defense Secretary, and civilian leadership at the Pentagon, that is willing to rein in the military's adventurous spirit - especially in Afghanistan.  Even more important we need a Democratic president (and civilian advisors) who is inclined to make decisions about the use of military force based on policy not politics.

I'm not sure how appointing someone who allegedly said the words above to the top job at DoD is going to help in that process.

From the Department of It Must Be Wrong If Obama Did It Posted by David Shorr

Did you know that the Libya intervention is really just part of a larger plot to subjugate the United States to "an ever-broadening regime of redistributive transnational governance?" I didn't think so. Well, it's a good thing we have Stanley Kurtz of the National Review to pierce the humanitarian pretense:

Superficially, Power's chief concern is to put a stop to genocide and "crimes against humanity." More deeply, her goal is to use our shared horror at the worst that human beings can do in order to institute an ever-broadening regime of redistributive transnational governance.

Knowing what Samantha Power wants reveals a great deal about Barack Obama's own ideological commitments. It's not just a question of whether he shares Power's long-term internationalist goals, although it's highly likely that he does. Power's thinking also represents a bridge of sorts between Obama's domestic- and foreign-policy aspirations. Beyond that, Power embodies a style of pragmatic radicalism that Obama shares. Both Obama and Power are skilled at placing their ultimate ideological goals just out of sight, behind a screen of practical problem-solving.

I bet you were suckered by all that "crimes against humanity" stuff. Well, you'll feel pretty silly after you read the Kurtz piece. If you had brazenly extrapolated views expressed by Ms. Power and her association with left-wing bogeymen painstakingly researched Power's writings and statements, you would've pieced together the master plan of one-world government. That 644-page book from ten years ago, about the tragic history of the world's failure to react to the Holocaust and other genocides? An elaborate ruse.

Of course the really dangerous thing is that Power's long-term internationalist goals are shared by [President] Obama -- or at least it's highly likely he shares them, but it's not just a question of sharing the goals.

Can't you see what's going on here? One day, a US administration factors widespread international sentiment into a decision to use force; the next day, the American military is an arm of the UN. First, America offers support for the winds of democratic reform sweeping across the Mideast, and next thing you know, Al Qaeda goes from underwear bombers to running entire countries of millions of people. And of course it's a very short hop for America to go from enlisting other nations' help to bolster the rules-based international order, to becoming an enfeebled ex-superpower.

[NOTE: Just to avoid misunderstanding, all of the above was intended as ironic. I didn't mean those things seriously -- though in another sense, I mean it very seriously.]

Turning That Frown Into A Smile - Why I Was Wrong About Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

For nearly two years I have been a harsh critic of the war in Afghanistan. For months and months I have railed at the false signs of progress, the failed US military approach to the war, the lack of a coherent political strategy, the shameless cheerleading of war supporters etc - but today that has all changed.

What shifted my view? Well, it was actually an op-ed I read in the Washington Post by Craig Charney and James Dobbins. I highly recommend reading this transformative article because I think it will have the same lightning bolt-like effect on you that it had on me. To sum up here are the key arguments:

1) Things used to really stink in Afghanistan; but they stink a bit less today.

Evidence: "Afghanistan’s gross domestic product has tripled. This puts Afghanistan on a par with China in its double-digit economic growth rate, though from a much lower base."

Just for the record, Afghanistan's GDP is $11 billion; China, about $5 trillion. But hey GDP growth is GDP growth. So as the kids say, Cha-Ching!

2) Things stink in Afghanistan; but in other places people think their countries stink more.

Evidence: "Polling confirms that Afghans are very troubled by official corruption, but they don’t compare their government to Switzerland’s. If they look abroad, they look at their neighbors — Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, Pakistan and Iran — and see systems generally far less accountable than their own. Afghans are also very concerned about still-rising violence, but they put that in context. Recent levels of violence do not compare to the levels that Afghans experienced in the 1980s and ’90s."

This seems incontrovertible - and I'm only amazed that I didn't see it sooner. Surely Afghans watch updates on their nightly news or read articles on their iPads and shake their heads at how bad things are going for the Turkmens. And when an Afghan child dies the reaction of family members and their community is "Eh, things were worse when the Russians were here. God Bless America, U.S.A, U.S.A!!"

3) Americans think things are going badly in America; and as a result they think things are going badly in Afghanistan.

Evidence: "The difference is that most Afghans are better off now than in the recent past, while most Americans are not. Consequently, they are optimistic — and we are the opposite. This also helps explain the drop in American support for the war, which says a lot more about how Americans view their prospects than how the Afghans view theirs."

So to clarify; Americans are pessimistic about their future, which stands in stark contrast to the bubbly optimism of your ordinary Afghan citizen. Because we are such a country of Debbie Downers we can't see all the many signs of progress in Afghanistan that is captured by unarguably exact public opinion polling. Thus . . . things are going well in Afghanistan and the country is perched on cusp of a political and economic renaissance.

Honestly, how could one argue with this logic.

Now of course my "change of heart" is a rather lame effort at an April Fool's Joke - this op-ed unfortunately is not a joke (well not purposely at least).

And for the families of these six young Americans . . . there won't be any laughter today.

Drezner v. Bradford on the Success / Failure of the G-20 Posted by David Shorr

Over at ForeignPolicy.com, two smart experts are going head-to-head on an issue central to my day job: the effectiveness and value of the G-20 as a multilateral forum. The Brookings Institution's Colin Bradford lays out "Seven New Laws of the G-20," the gist of which is to push back against the rush to judge G-20 failure. According to Colin, we need to relax and adjust to new realities that put more cooks in the global economic policy soup. I think his warnings against freak-out are well taken, as are his points about the opportunities of working with middle powers and exploiting the disruption of old coalitions and dividing lines.

Looking at Dan Drezner's reaction, I think he's too easily swept up in the G-20 obituaries -- but he also makes a fair point about the need for standards of success or failure in a multilateral forum. Inasmuch as multilateral diplomacy is a political process, it is subject to the same “expectations game” as any other form of politics. And this begs the question of reasonable expectations versus being set up for disappointment and perceived failure.

For the most part, I think the G-20 skeptics / cynics are applying unreasonable expectations. They usually point to the fiscal expansion v. contraction debate and the persistent controversy over currency valuations. It’s hard to think of a more stringent standard (but then, the G-20 has also drawn fire over its ritual calls for completion of the WTO Doha Round). Just like in olympic judging, you have to factor in the degree of difficulty.

In terms of a more patient and incremental template to judge progress in the G-20, I like the post-Seoul summit piece Colin wrote for Canada's Centre for Global Governance Innovation. The G-20's signature agenda is macroeconomic rebalancing to spread domestic consumption more evenly across the major economies, as a stable basis for global growth. Developed within the G-20, the “framework for strong, sustainable, and balanced growth” (SSBG) offers an alternative multilateral frame to the fraught currency dispute.

The dilemma for judging success or failure in such high-stakes high politics is that the issues are difficult by definition, yet there must be some progress to show for all the multilateral effort. The essence of the matter is that the process must help elicit policy moves that are difficult within the domestic context but are vital for the international common good. In reality, China will not commit itself to a sizable specific revaluation of the RMB, and nor will the G-20 agree to a set of triggers, mandates, or sanctions that compel rebalancing. Any such expectations in the media or elsewhere are useless. Yet it should be possible to apply a different sort of standard of effectiveness, say: that the normative frameworks, quantitative metrics, and ongoing dialogue in the G-20 generate pressure for exporting economies to boost consumption and consuming economies to reduce debt.

Recognizing when China acts responsibly Posted by Jacob Stokes

A new piece out today in the Times by Yan Xuetong, professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, argues that the philosophical underpinnings of the Chinese foreign policy establishment are shifting. Deng Xioaping’s admonition to lay low on the international stage is, according to Yan, giving way to a more “Confucian” conception. Yan explains:

Our group of thinkers draws inspiration from ancient Chinese philosophy, which regards both material capability and morality as necessary conditions for building strong and durable global leadership. For the sake of making itself a rising power that is welcomed by the rest of the world, China should act as a humane authority (wang in Chinese) and take on more international responsibilities to improve its strategic credibility. 

This is a trend America and the rest of the world should encourage. “Moral” actions in the conception that Yan explains above are likely have lots of overlap with what Robert Zoellick meant when he famously called on China to act as a “responsible stakeholder.” In other words, more of such actions would benefit the world. (As for the material  part, China already has that down.)

For that to happen though, the rest of the world – and America in particular – needs to recognize when China is acting to support global goods. Recently there have been several moves by China that indicate a shift towards helping to carry the burden of global leadership. Building on its decision in 2008 to help anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, this week China announced that it provided its first escort to ships from the World Food Program, guiding civilian craft along the coast of Somalia.

Washington's Bipartisan Consensus Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Foreign Policy, my old traveling partner Jim Arkedis has an interesting article that seeks to dramatize the differences between liberal interventionists and neo-cons. It's a rejoinder to a blog post by Steve Walt who argues that "liberal interventionists are just 'kinder, gentler' neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionists on steroids." 

Arkedis's response is to argue that not only do liberal interventionists have more respect for international institutions (a point that Walt concedes); they are perhaps a tad less reliant on military solutions to serious international problems and also they are "ideological moderates rooted in classically liberal understandings of individual liberty and equality of opportunity -- at home and abroad -- who believe the world's problems should be solved through tough-minded diplomacy and negotiation, whenever possible."

Um, ok . . . but these sort of "our intentions are purer" defenses sound good on paper, but less so when they hit the light of day.

I will certainly grant Jim's point that neo-cons are more inclined to view US military power as a fundamental tool of statecraft (and as Jim rightly points out a Gore Administration would have almost certainly not invaded Iraq in 2003). I agree that liberals are more likely to embrace key elements of soft power and I concur that the reliance on international institutions is a worthwhile distinction (except of course when liberal interventionists ignore international institutions to go to war against Slobodan Milosevic).

These distinctions are important and worthy of note; but they don't tell the entire story.

For example, in the 1990s it wasn't the neo-cons agitating for military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo and shifting our mission in Somalia from humanitarian engagement to armed nation-building - it was liberal interventionists. Instead, neo-cons were pushing for regime change in Iraq (as a way of projecting American power); a goal they achieved in 2003 with almost universal support from liberal interventionists. Quick: how many prominent liberal/progressive foreign policy experts came out publicly against the Iraq war? And I must have missed it when the liberal interventionist wing of the Democratic Party joined me in condemning mission creep in Afghanistan in the summer and fall of 2009.

Jim acknowledges the Iraq "elephant in the room" but argues that liberal interventionists have "learned much in Iraq's wake" - ironic words as we are in the process of militarily intervening at this exact moment in yet another Muslim country. 

So I tend to agree with Jim that liberal interventionists have purer intentions when they advocate the use of force, but so what? In the end, we always seem to find ourselves in the same place, fetishizing the use of force and as Walt puts it believing that "it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world"  and getting "involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect."

Frankly, I think it's because liberal interventionists are more naive than malevolent, but until they stop defining US interests in limitless terms, stop constantly advocating for robust US leadership around the world, stop "supporting a strong military as the bedrock of America's foreign policy" and stop fetishizing the use of force as a crucial element of American power . . . well the distinctions between them and neo-cons won't mean as much as they'd like to think they do. 

Obama's Most Glaring Contradiction Ever Posted by Michael Cohen

I've really gone back and forth on this question of whether it was right to intervene in Libya (and I think Marc Lynch makes perhaps the most persuasive case for intervention here). 

Those of us who are skeptical of intervention have to grapple with the fact that not acting could have led to a terrible civilian massacre, which appears to have been averted. On the other hand those who endorse intervention have been too far triumphalist about the use of force and the explicit morality of acting (and the implicit immorality of not getting involved).

However, I think the one argument that perhaps is getting too much attention is the question of whether we are demonstrating a double standard by intervening in Libya and not intervening in Cote d'Ivorie or Bahrain or Syria etc. I think the President tackled this issue well last night:

Some question why America should intervene at all - even in limited ways - in this distant land. They argue that there are many places in the world where innocent civilians face brutal violence at the hands of their government, and America should not be expected to police the world, particularly when we have so many pressing concerns here at home.

Given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right. In this particular country -– Libya -- at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves. We also had the ability to stop Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground.

This is absolutely correct. Generally speaking I tend to think consistency is a bit of an overrated concept in foreign affairs - and Libya is a good example of why. The decision to intervene in Libya should rely not on whether it can be replicated elsewhere or whether it represents a double standard . . . but quite simply and almost exclusively on whether it's the right to intervene in Libya. That's it.

If we determine that we can make a difference in a positive way; that intervention furthers US interests (a debatable concept on Libya) and that our engagement will be minimal (also debatable) those are the most important pieces of evidence - not the places or conflicts in which we are not getting involved. And while there are reasons to be concerned that this action creates a dangerous precedent (a point I argued here) that isn't necessarily a reason not to act. 

So having said all that I'm really troubled by arguments like these:

To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and - more profoundly - our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

You know what's weird; this was the next paragraph in Obama's speech last night.

The very notion that those who didn't want to act are turning a "blind eye to atrocities" or that reluctance to engage is a betrayal of who we are as a people is not only a ridiculous strawman that minimizes the concerns of those who oppose intervention . . it is directly contradicted by Obama's own words.

If someone accused the Obama Administration of betraying the people of Cote d'Ivorie for turning a blind eye to oppression and betraying our values . . . I would imagine they would point to the earlier two paragraphs to make the argument that the US can't be everywhere. How about if the Bush Administration had accused private citizen of Barack Obama of turning his back on American values by not supporting the Iraq War and the liberation of the Iraqi people? Same thing.

So why then use this absurd rhetoric to attack the opponents of intervention in Libya? Did really no one in the White House speechwriting shop flag this inherent contradiction?

You know I'm trying very hard to be supportive of this intervention but when the White House trots out arguments like this that dismiss those of us who are skeptical about the use of force - and embraces absolutist rhetoric on intervention Libya that suggests the US had no choice but to act . . . well it isn't helping.

Libya Speech -- Echoes of the '90s and '00s, Guideposts for the '10s Posted by David Shorr

For a significant segment of the foreign policy community, the genocides and humanitarian crises of the 1990s were a formative experience. In other words, as we debate the response to Libya, many of us can't helping thinking back to the bloodletting in the Balkans and Africa. Here's the main point of President Obama's speech: had the US and its partners failed to step in and defend civilians, Benghazi would have joined Srebrenica (site of an infamous July 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serb forces) in the annals of tragedy and shame. In terms of American public understanding, this raises the old question of the political salience of "proving a negative." I'd like to believe that Americans are able to grasp the value of taking action to prevent tragedies from occurring -- even if it means we don't see those tragedies on CNN -- but then, I'm not a duly certified political strategist.

For all the things I liked in the speech (see below), the passage about Bosnia was a little perplexing. The president said it took "more than a year" for the US to use air power against the Serbs, which has me scratching my head over the timeline. NATO air strikes came in August 1995 -- weeks after the Srebrenica massacres and more than three years after the Serbs commenced ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in April/May 1992. Whatever timeline the White House is using, this only heightens the contrast with the speed of the Libya intervention.

As for President Obama's refusal to broaden the military mission to regime-change, obviously the media coverage has focused on his been-there-done-that comparison to Iraq, but I was struck by four little words in that section. Obama rejected the proposal that the US "do whatever it takes" to oust Gaddafi (emphasis added). This phrase is on my personal list of tough-talking flourishes, strongly reminiscent of the Bush era, that score political points at a cost to policy sense. It is the ultimate blank check, and the president is wise to carve room to make deliberate policy choices rather than wide-open commitments.

One of the president's top priorities has clearly been to keep the United States from being left holding the bag for this entire operation. Most of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy seems to focus on defining the limits of the American role. This stems partly from not wanting to test Americans' appetite for overseas commitments and also sensitivities about US intervention in Muslim countries. But the media discussion has underplayed the larger strategy. Instead of focusing just on how America is trying to curtail its role, we shouldn't overlook the other side of the equation -- that President Obama is trying to put other nations on the hook for their share of the burden. Two grafs toward the end of the speech explain the approach quite nicely, and are worth quoting at length:

There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and common security - responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America's problems alone, but they are important to us, and they are problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world's most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.

In such cases, we should not be afraid to act - but the burden of action should not be America's alone. As we have in Libya, our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action. Because contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all.

Actually it's an approach and a worldview that runs through many areas of Obama foreign policy. Just think of all the issues on which the administration talks about the need for other nations to "meet their responsibilities." Whether this qualifies as an "Obama Doctrine," I leave for others to decide.

UPDATE:  I meant to include one more '90s reference. The Libya debate reminded me of a brief passage from President Clinton's acceptance speech at the 1996 Democratic convention:

We cannot save all the world's children, but we can save many of them.

We cannot become the world's policeman, but where our values and our interests are at stake and where we can make a difference, we must act and we must lead. That is our job, and we are better, stronger and safer because we are doing it.

Not very extensive, but it struck the right balance. I wonder if, in a sense, President Obama's current stance is a fuller exposition of the above.

Sad truth: Aggression, not repression, hurting Chinese soft power Posted by Jacob Stokes

Last Friday’s Washington Post featured an op-ed by Joseph Nye titled, “China’s repression undoes its charm offensive.” Nye’s argument isn’t as simplistic as the headline, but it’s still based on a faulty premise. The piece begins with Nye explaining how he was asked to give a speech in China on his construct of “soft power.” He says the speech “was before the series of revolutions roiling the Middle East, in whose aftermath China is clamping down on the Internet and jailing human rights lawyers, once again torpedoing its soft-power campaign.”

I think Nye gets cause and effect wrong here. First of all, in the context of Asia and China, the definition of “soft power” has been broadened to basically mean power gained through any non-military means. As Joshua Kurlantzick explained back in 2006, “When Joseph Nye coined the term soft power, he originally used a more limited definition, excluding investment and aid and formal diplomacy—more traditional, harder forms of influence. In the context of Asia today, both China and its neighbors enunciate a broader idea of soft power, the idea that soft power implies all elements outside of the security realm, including investment and aid.” China doesn’t have much soft power in the way Nye originally defined the term; its soft power is largely of the Kurlantzick type.

Nye doesn’t acknowledge this broadening of the definition, the practical effect of which changes the nature and source of China’s soft power, and by extension, what can undermine it. Freedom advocates -- including yours truly -- would like it if China’s soft power suffered from the CCP’s violations of human rights and freedom of speech (the brutality of which has been documented here and here). But the reality is that China’s earlier charm offensive was largely based on sweetheart economic deals with nations who welcomed Chinese influence and investment precisely because it didn’t come with humanitarian and good governance strings attached. Chinese cultural education and frequent participation in regional organizations may have helped drum up some goodwill, but they weren’t the main drivers of affinity towards the Middle Kingdom. Countries become friends with China because it pays to be friends with China.

Debating Military Intervention in Libya Posted by Shadi Hamid

So for those of you waiting for myself and Michael Cohen to go tete-a-tete, you will, sadly, have to wait. In the meantime, here's a bloggingheads.tv debate I did with sometime sparring partner and University of Vermont professor Greg Gause. We discuss the pros and cons of intervention in Libya and America's relationships with allied autocrats in places like Yemen and Bahrain. As you might expect, I defend the US decision to intervene in Libya. For me, it's actually pretty straightforward. If we didn't act, thousands would have likely been slaughtered at the hands of Qaddafi's forces. By acting, we prevented what would have been a bloodbath in Benghazi. And the whole point of humanitarian intervention is that you act before the massacres are committed. In any case, you can watch that part here.  

 

Friday Afternoon Fun Posted by James Lamond

It’s been a while since my last post, but I thought a fun Friday afternoon post would be a good reentrance to DA. After seeing the announcement for a very interesting event sponsored by CAP and the American Constitution Society titled, “Born in the USA?: The Historical and Constitutional Underpinnings of Birthright Citizenship” a colleague suggested that NSN hold an event on events in the Middle East titled “The Rising.” As a proud New Jersey native and fervent Springsteen fan I could not resist thinking up a few events inspired by Springsteen albums that could also explore current debates in foreign policy:

• “The Wild the Innocent and the Tripoli Shuffle”: Humanitarian intervention in Libya
• Da Nile Ain’t Just “The River” in Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood's role in Egyptian Politics
• “The Ghost of Tom Joad”: American Resilience
• “Darkness of the Edge of Town”: North Korea
• “Human Touch”: U.S. interrogation policy following the Bush administration
• “Devils and Dust”: The nonproliferation agenda following New START
• “Tunnel of Love”: Is the special relationship between Great Britain and US still as strong as ever?
• "The Promise": Guantanamo Bay
• “Magic”: Bipartisan cooperation on national security issues

Libya: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Posted by Michael Cohen

First, the good. One of the biggest fears about the military operations in Libya is that the United States would be stuck holding the military bag. But the decision yesterday by NATO to assume responsibility for military operations goes a long way toward allaying those concerns - and strikes me as a hugely important diplomatic breakthrough. Now we have a structure in place for sharing responsibility among a host of countries so that is no longer a US-led operation. Of course it's possible that the US might still be forced to bear the greatest military burden, but now there is a structure in place for burden-sharing and that is a very positive step forward.

Now the bad. Having the NATO structure is important because it does seem like this operation will be going on for a while. This article by Nancy Youssef only adds to the sense that the Libyan rebels are in no position to take over the country any time soon - and even if they were, no clue whatsoever on how govern it:

Rebel fighters who once vowed to seize Tripoli from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi instead have retreated from their forward positions to defend their homes, saying their rebel council isn't leading them, they don't trust their military commanders and their army is divided.

Days of interviews throughout Libya's rebel-dominated eastern half provide a grim picture of the group whose side the U.S. and its coalition partners have taken in a fight whose goal, if unstated, is to drive Gadhafi from power after 42 years. The rebels hardly seem ready to take the lead.

If the US and UN goal is to send Gaddafi packing we're either going to have put ground troops in Libya or be prepared for a lengthy engagement of enforcing a no-fly zone and building up a rebel army. Or we may have to accept a de facto partition of the country also supported by NATO arms and diplomacy. In short we are in Libya for the long haul - either militarily or politically - no matter what the White House says about days not weeks.

This leads to the ugly . . and there is a lot of ugly. First Bruce Ackerman, "In taking the country into a war with Libya, Barack Obama's administration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency -- an executive who increasingly acts independently of Congress at home and abroad."

Second Mike Tomasky, who is rightfully pissed off about Obama's public silence about the war, "When you send soldiers off to fight, you have to tell the American people why. I'm just flabbergasted."

Finally, Spencer Ackerman, "It’s one thing to say that the U.S. is right to take action against Moammar Gadhafi. It’s quite another to insist that it’s not even a war. And it’s simply dishonest to do so while escalating the war.But that’s the spin from the Obama White House . . . And it fits a pattern with President Obama: escalating U.S. military commitments while portraying them as essentially finite and limited."

What is perhaps most disturbing about this entire Libyan escapade (and there are many disturbing elements) is President Obama's seemingly curt dismissal of basic democratic norms. The lack of public debate, the lack of consultation with Congress, the failure to address the American people; the transparent and embarrassing effort to call what is clearly a war, something different ("Time-limited, scope limited military action" my ass) it's all very troubling.

There is an arrogance and outright deviousness from this President on national security matters that has only been hinted at in the Afghanistan escalation and seems now fully flowered with Libya. I sort of take for granted that Presidents will mislead the American people about the wars we fight (it's another of the many reasons why American wars are a generally bad thing); I just didn't expect it from this President.

*On a sort of related note I did this really enjoyable interview with the inestimable Carl Prine that touches on some of these issues. If you have any interest in military affairs and national security in general be sure to start following Carl's new blog Line of Departure - a smarter, snappier and more insightful analyst you will rarely find.

Confused in Asia Posted by Jacob Stokes

Once again the West’s attention is being pulled westward, away from the crisis and extraordinary show of resilience by the Japanese towards the war in Libya. Just in time, Evan Feigenbaum has a strong think piece – his words – in the Washington Quarterly arguing that America no longer “gets” Asia. Feigenbaum says American policy towards the region is fractured and badly out of date intellectually, strategically and bureaucratically. The first two take a bit more real estate, so go read the piece. The third, bureaucracies, is worth quoting though:

Bureaucratically, U.S. institutions, policies, and programs are badly skewed. The United States just isn’t organized for success in the new Asia. The United States formulates and implements its Asia policy through a baffling mishmash of misaligned agencies and military commands. Thus, Pacific Command (PACOM) based in Hawaii handles East Asia and half of South Asia, while Central Command (CENTCOM) based in Florida oversees the other half of South Asia and Central Asia. Responsibility for Central Asia is lumped with Russia and Ukraine at the National Security Council, with India at the State Department, and with India, China, and Japan at the Pentagon. In fact, the United States didn’t even treat India as an Asian country until as recently as the 1990s, managing relations with New Delhi through a westward-looking bureau with principal responsibility for the Middle East.

I’ve made arguments on this blog pushing back against those who say the administration has flubbed its promise to “return” American focus back to Asia after years zeroed in on the Middle East. But for that happen in a lasting way, the thicket of bureaucratic confusion Feigenbaum illustrates here surely needs to get cleaned up. Maybe that can be part of the administration’s approach to negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan, which will require significant regional buy-in and therefore extensive cross-departmental coordination. A more coherent and streamlined organization could also help alleviate the need for regional czars and special envoys, which make for great profile pieces but, as the death of Richard Holbrooke has shown, don't often result in effective policy solutions over the long term. One thing’s for sure: No matter what’s happening in the rest of the world, Asia won’t wait around for us.

Libya Mission Creep Watch Posted by Michael Cohen

Today's article in the New York Times about the make-up of the rebel forces in Libya is not a pleasant read:

After the uprising, the rebels stumbled as they tried to organize. They did a poor job of defining themselves when Libyans and the outside world tried to figure out what they stood for. And now, as they try to defeat Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s armed forces and militias, they will have to rely on allied airstrikes and young men with guns because the army that rebel military leaders bragged about consists of only about 1,000 trained men.

What this suggests to me is that unlike the situation in Afghanistan in which the US was able to work hand-in-hand with a proxy army to dislodge the Taliban from power, there simply isn't a rebel force on the ground in Libya that has the military chops to unseat Gaddafi. (And according to the LA Times, the rebel forces are engaging in the sort of extrajudicial behavior that led us to come to their defense in the first place). None of this is to say that eventually that rebel force may not develop . . . but what happens until then?

Are we prepared to patrol a no-fly zone over Libya, occasionally take potshots at pro-government elements on the ground and build up a rebel force to knock off Gaddafi for 6 months, a year, two years? You get the idea here. But since we've taken ground forces off the table (indeed the UNSCR forbids it) we are not ready to step into the fight in a decisive manner, which means this is far more likely to drag on for a while then it is to end soon.

But hold on, says the White House, 'we're just in this fight for a few days, not weeks. This is a French, British, Arab League, coalition of the willing fight.' Meh. First of all, as Spencer is reporting US military involvement has increased since the war began, with American pilots shooting pro-government armor and artillery units.

Secondly, we've started down a road in Libya that could lead down many different directions - but because we have basically put our credibility (and military power) on the line in stopping civilian massacres in Libya we simply can't walk away. Indeed, if part of the rationale for getting involved in this civil war was to stick up for the forces of reform and democracy in the Arab world then we are basically on the hook until this situation is resolved. Indeed I have to agree with my old professor Adam Garfinkle when he writes:

We have a great deal riding on the success of the Franco-British operation, assuming one actually takes shape in a hurry. If it doesn’t work, the U.S. government is very likely going to be dragged, even with the President privately kicking and screaming all the way, to a mission definition (again, the only logical one available) that will presage an open-ended commitment. 

Obviously things could turn out well in Libya, but the more likely scenario is that we have a de facto partition of the country and UN/US/Coalition of the Willing forces on the hook for the foreseeable future in degrading Gaddafi's forces. I suppose one could argue that's better than the alternative; namely civilian massacres in Benghazi, but the very notion of this conflict being short-lived and relatively painless seems like a figment of the White House's imagination.

And not just the White House, but also war supporters. Here is Bill Galston in the New Republic addressing some of the concerns I've raised above:

Let me grant, as well, that the endgame is murky at best. There’s a non-trivial possibility that Qaddafi will be able to hang on to power in a substantial part of Libya. If so, we and our allies may have committed ourselves to protecting “Benghazistan” against retribution for the indefinite future. We’ve seen that movie before. Let’s hope this one ends better.

Huh? I suppose hope is a policy . . . but it's not a very good one. Once again, cheered on by the "do something" crowd we've found ourselves in a fight that we don't seem to know how to get out of.

Using Talks with the Taliban to Fix the Afghan Political System Posted by Jacob Stokes

Earlier today I attended an enlightening event at the Center for American Progress on transition goals for Afghanistan. Among the many insightful points that were brought up by panelists David Kilcullen, Caroline Wadhams and Anand Gopal was the urgent need for work on political reform in the country.

There is widespread consensus on the need for political reform. The basic problem is that the government is too concentrated at the center – far more so than it should be for a society as diverse as Afghanistan. Right now, Hamid Karzai is unlikely to accept reforms because Afghanistan’s overly centralized structure, enshrined in the country’s constitution, enables Karzai to place cronies in power all over the country, creating a vast patronage network for himself. As has been widely documented, this often results in “predatory” governance.

Even if Karzai governed effectively, political reform is necessary because his second term ends, depending on how you count it, in either April or November of 2014. (The Afghan constitution imposes a two-term limit on the president.) Either date falls just before the time America and NATO have said that they will transition the security lead in Afghanistan to Afghans. Relying on the system in place now, overly centralized and embodied by Karzai, is simply not a long-term solution.

So what to do? America and NATO should continue to push for negotiations with the Taliban and towards a broader political settlement (which must also include current and former members of the Northern Alliance). And we should use those negotiations as an opportunity to catalyze constitutional reform. At today’s panel, both Wadhams and Kilcullen agreed that talks represent an opening for revising the formal governance structure to be more representative and less centralized.

America and NATO need to start thinking about what’s left behind in Afghanistan post-2014. Using limited U.S. leverage to push for a political settlement -- and with it, political reform -- that’s broadly representative is an essential part of ensuring stability, and by extension U.S. interests, post-2014.

Happy Anniversary, Iraq War Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Foreign Policy, Matt Duss and I have a new piece marking the 8th anniversary of the Iraq war - and the lessons from that conflict that remain frustratingly unlearned:

As the United States and its European allies launch attacks against the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddhafi, it seems almost poignant that this third military intervention in a Muslim country in the last decade began nearly eight years to the day that the United States invaded Iraq. It is a fitting reminder that even as 50,000 soldiers remain in Iraq, and American soldiers continue to be killed and maimed there, the lessons of that disastrous decision to go to war remain largely unlearned by many in the foreign policy community.

At the outset it's important to acknowledge the key differences in the manner in which these interventions have been undertaken and the differing levels of international and regional legitimacy that they possess. But it is the similarities that are more disquieting. The U.S. has yet again become involved in a military effort of indeterminate length, justified through a questionable definition of national interest and with little forethought to the long-term consequences of utilizing military force. It seems the costs and consequences of Iraq have simply not been fully appreciated by policymakers and pundits.

. . .  We find ourselves again on the cusp of a military intervention/escalation that has no clearly identifiable end state, driven by familiar appeals to American "credibility" -- a credibility defined almost entirely in terms of a willingness to use force. Such appeals indicate a defiant ignorance of the fact that the unwise use of force can also dramatically and dangerously undermine America's credibility. This should be a central lesson of Iraq. Alas, it seems that "shoot first and ask tough questions later" remains our default position.

You can read the whole thing here

 

On Precedents and Double Standards in Libya and the Wider Region Posted by Eric Martin

A few days back, Shadi Hamid made an interesting argument in favor of intervening militarily in Libya that I would like to revisit:

One of the main sources of Arab antipathy toward America is our long, tragic history of supporting repressive dictatorships in the region. This five-decade-long bi-partisan policy gave us the self-destructing Arab world that we have now (and also contributed to the rise of Arab terrorism as Steven Brooke and I argue here). The "stability paradigm," - which is just about as "realist" as you can get - has proven a failure.

Let's grant Shadi's premise for the sake of argument: US support for brutal autocratic regimes in the region has fostered resentment and, at times, a virulent strain of anti-Americanism that has produced violent manifestations. 

But if that's the diagnosis, how exactly would launching military attacks on Libya provide the cure?  After all, Qaddafi's is most definitely not one of the autocratic regimes that the US has funded, armed and otherwise helped to maintain power. Quite the opposite. 

A similar argument was made in anticipation of the invasion of Iraq, with a similar logical disconnect separating premise and conclusion. Again, Iraq's was not a regime supported by the United States (at least, not since the 1980s, after which the US fought a war and maintained a no-fly-zone and other punitive measures), so how would its ouster convince denizens of the Middle East that the United States was not conspiring with autocracies when it suited US interests?

If anything, it reinforced this notion by stressing the disparate treatment certain regimes received (Iraq) under the putative justification of spreading freedom and democracy, while US client-states remained in good favor despite their blatant disregard for human rights and democratic norms (not even so much as a reduction in aid or other forceful ultimatum requiring reforms).

Similarly, our muscular action in Libya, while we turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's activities in Bahrain (at the Bahrain regime's request and with its assistance), and events in Yemen, will drive home the point that "friendly" dictators will continue to receive US support, even if less accommodating regimes will be targeted in furtherance of our highly malleable and selective (though universal?) support of "freedom and democracy."

As the New York Times notes (via Matt Yglesias), the intervention itself might be serving to further entrench those autocrats that we find strategically appealing:

With his brutal military assault on civilians, and his rantings about spiked Nescafé, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi handed many leaders across the Arab world what had otherwise eluded them: A chance to side with the people while deflecting attention from their own citizens’ call for democracy, political analysts around the region said. And they really do not like him. Even Arab leaders most critical of the United States’ intervention in the Middle East have reluctantly united behind the military intervention in Libya. That has given a boost to Arab leaders in places like Saudi Arabia who are at the same moment working to silence political opposition in their backyards. [emphasis added]

Interestingly, Zalmay Khalilzad fully endorses the implementation of this type of double standard.  Here is Khalilzad's description of the underlying dynamic:

...[T]he dysfunction of the Middle East today generates the most threatening challenges to the international community. The largely peaceful, youth-oriented, democratic revolutions across the region present an opportunity to catalyze a fundamental transformation.

Yet he argues that the US should only take vague steps to apply some undefined "pressure" on "friendly authoritarian" regimes, but, on the other hand, utilize military assets (in one form or another) to oust those regimes hostile to US interests (Libya, Syria, Iran). He argues that if we fail to act in Libya:

Other dictatorships would then be emboldened to squelch their democratic opponents and resist liberalization.

But he fails to mention what lessons will be drawn from Bahrain and Yemen.  In that sense, Khalilzad is not so much endorsing a regional transition in support of broad-reaching democratic revolutions, as he is recommending using the spread of freedom and democracy as a pretense to help unseat US adversaries (sound familiar?), while engaging in the same toothless goading of the "friendly authoritarian" regimes. 

There may be sound strategic reasons to follow the advice of Khalilzad or Hamid, but disabusing the Arab public of the notion that the US supports friendly autocratic regimes despite their brutality and anti-democratic tendencies should not be one of them.