Brookings: Topics - National Security

President Barack Obama’s Counterterrorism Speech Nails it on Drone Strikes

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Fri, 24 May 2013 10:00:00 -0400

President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism speech Thursday did not deliver any radical policy changes or huge revelations, but it was well done nonetheless. It explained his reasoning behind the use of certain techniques of warfare including drone strikes and Guantanamo detentions, even as he also promised to minimize the use of these methods in the future and try to move towards a world in which the 2001 authorization for war against al Qaeda and affiliates would no longer be needed. It was an intelligent blend of the tone of his more idealistic speeches, such as the Cairo address of June 2009, with his more muscular messages like the December 2009 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

But one section of his speech is worth particular focus – the use of armed unmanned combat vehicles or drones. Even though President Obama did not specify exactly how drone strikes would change in the future, and did not provide a great deal of new information about them, the modest amount of detail he did provide was welcome. That is because U.S. drone strikes are badly misunderstood around the world, a point underscored by a New York Times op-ed today contained the following statements:

“...the C.I.A. has no idea who is actually being killed in most of the strikes. Despite this acknowledgment, the drone program in Pakistan still continues without any Congressional oversight or accountability.”

Such statements are incorrect and inflammatory, causing problems for example in U.S.-Pakistani relations. Indeed, even so-called “signature strikes” have typically been conducted only after a great deal of surveillance of a given site, very robust establishment of the fact that such a site is an enemy headquarters or related facility, and considerable care in ensuring that noncombatants are not present (and as Obama said, Congress is “briefed on every strike that America takes”).

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Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: CNN

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

Finally, Obama Breaks His Silence on Drones

Peter W. Singer — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over the last four years, there has been a strange irony. One of the greatest speakers of our era has largely kept silent about one of the signature aspects of his presidency.

Under President Obama's leadership, U.S. civilian intelligence agencies have carried out a series of not-so-covert operations in so-called secret wars that have reached a huge scale. There have been nearly 400 drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2008, in periods of activity that have ebbed and flowed dependent on everything from the availability of intelligence to local political tides.

But the long-term nature and growth in scale of the "drone wars" campaign made targeted killings a key feature of the administration's foreign policy, both in its internal approach to counter-terrorism and external perceptions of America. The advantages were clear to an administration that throughout this period faced a daily drumbeat of terrorism threats. Targeted killings by drones offered new means for action in ways that were more accurate, more proportionate and less risky to American lives than previous alternatives. They have repeatedly been used in successful operations that eliminated key terrorist leaders.

However, the short-term benefits came with long-term questions. As these operations increasingly were leaked to the media, they grew more and more controversial, whether from concern over civilian casualties, disputes over the appropriate role of the CIA versus the military in what had evolved into a massive air war campaign, Congress' sense that it was the victim of an executive branch end run or broader worry about the danger to constitutional powers.

As this played out, the president's absence from the debate became more and more telling. Yes, there were a couple of speeches by presidential aides finally acknowledging the use of such technology, quick mentions on late-night talk shows and even presidential jokes about drone strikes. But the administration's case in the public debate remained disjointed, tentative and, as the controversy surrounding John Brennan's confirmation hearings as CIA director illustrated, far from strategic or satisfactory. The time was long overdue for the true stamp of presidential voice and authority on the topic to be heard.

That is what makes the president's speech Thursday at National Defense University so important, and simultaneously so challenging for him. He has to try to strike a balance between arguing that terrorism threats will remain with us for the long term, as recent events in Boston and London would illustrate, but that the structures we gradually built up in response, from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the drone campaign, cannot remain with us in their ad hoc manner for the long term.

Beyond all the internal policy questions — such as what the CIA should control versus what the Pentagon controls — he has a broader task. He must lay out the overdue case for regularizing, so to speak, our counter-terrorism strategy itself, from the means to the ends. This will require touching on thorny issues such as how to bring more transparency to the ugly task of a targeted killings campaign, how to create more interaction with Congress — which both wants and avoids oversight — and, finally, how to find a path out of the Gitmo conundrum.

Beginning this kind of discussion has been described by some as just a way to change the topic in the midst of other would-be scandals dominating the news cycle. But let's be crystal clear: The president is making a big bet by speaking out on issues on which he still enjoys fairly broad public support.

The reason to take this bet is that the speech offers enormous advantages over the alternative of remaining silent. Though it may or may not assuage the genuine concerns at home about the drone campaign, the very act is hugely important inside government. Only the president can operate above the interagency disputes, and his vision will set the terms of internal policy development across multiple agencies (why those staff speeches and confirmation hearings never could substitute for his voice).

In turn, the public side of the speech matters in a manner beyond any blip in domestic poll numbers. Here again, only the president can truly stake out America's vision in a way the world notices. If well played, the speech might even be the foundation for future international norms that need to be set in the post-9/11, post-Osama bin Laden world. This is all the more important as our technologies proliferate and other nations, such as Russia, China and Iran, may seek to follow (or misuse) our precedents in drone strikes and targeted killings.

The issues at play are not just about which agency gets to do what and when to tell whom on Capitol Hill, but also how the United States might build a global coalition of the like-minded on the future of counter-terrorism.

In short, sometimes a speech is more than just a speech. By finally speaking out on some of the key issues that have grown to define his place in foreign policy history, Obama has his chance, finally, to set the terms of the debate and steer it toward more positive ends.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Publication: Los Angeles Times

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Obama’s National Security Speech and Pakistan

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:22:00 -0400

On Thursday, President Obama plans to deliver a speech on national security and counterterrorism issues. The speech comes at a particularly awkward time in Pakistan, the epicenter of the global jihad for more than a decade. Nawaz Sharif has just been elected for an unprecedented third term in a nation extremely unhappy with America's counterterrorism policies, especially the drone war fought in its skies from bases in Afghanistan.

President Obama faces the challenge of defending his policies and explaining why they are needed. He must do this without further alienating an angry Pakistan and its newly elected civilian government which is struggling to find its own way to deal with the terror Frankenstein that threatens the world and Pakistan itself. It may be mission impossible. Despite years of drone attacks and the death of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan remains the base for the top three most wanted terrorists on the U.S. Most Wanted list: al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Taliban chief Mullah Omar and Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT) boss Hafez Saeed.

In fact, Omar and Saeed enjoy the patronship and protection of Pakistan's army. More global terror plots have originated in Pakistan than anywhere else since 9/11. Without the drones, there would be little or no pressure on the terror infrastructure in Pakistan. Despite over $25 billion in American economic and military aid since 9/11, the Pakistani authorities cannot be relied on to fight the danger posed by al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, or LeT. Obama recognized that fact when he sent the SEALs to kill bin Laden without telling any Pakistani official that we had found him hiding inside the highly secure Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

But Pakistan is also a victim of the terror monster it has coddled for decades. Over 45,000 Pakistanis have died in terror-related violence since 9/11, and dozens more died in the election campaign just ended. Sharif has pledged to seek a political solution to the violence. He has campaigned against the drones and faces a national consensus that wants them to end. His main opponent Imran Khan promised to shoot them down if elected (probably with American supplied F-16s).

Obama significantly expanded drone attacks in 2009 and many dangerous terrorists have been eliminated by them. The price has been to further alienate the Pakistani people. His speech this Thursday is not likely to please many in Pakistan. The already very difficult U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship is at a crucial juncture with the first ever transition from one elected Pakistani civilian government to another in the country's history after a full term in office. Reconciling our counter-terror mission with our interest in promoting democracy in Pakistan will not be easy. If it is impossible, then the fate of U.S. relations with the most dangerous country in the world is headed toward an even more deadly outcome.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Holder: We've Droned 4 Americans, 3 By Accident. Oops.

Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:39:00 -0400

In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were “not specifically targeted.”

For all the effort that the Obama administration has gone to in asserting that its drones only kill the people that the administration intends to kill, Holder wrote in a letter today to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Samir Khan, 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki and Jude Kenan Mohammad were “not specifically targeted by the United States.” The fourth American to die in a drone strike since 2009 was Abdulrahman’s father Anwar Awlaki, a radical propagandist whom the U.S. killed in Yemen in 2011.

The five-page letter, obtained and published by Charlie Savage of The New York Times, does not explain the circumstances that led to the unintentional killings of Khan, Mohammad and the younger Awlaki. Holder does not apologize for the killings, nor explain whether their deaths resulted from errant targeting, mistaken identity or another circumstance.

But after acknowledging that the administration did “not specifically targe[t]” those three Americans, Holder defended killing Americans the administration believes to be members of al-Qaida without due process, a constitutionally questionable proposition.

“It is clear and logical that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted,” Holder wrote to Leahy. “Rather, it means the government must take special care and take into account all relevant constitutional considerations, the laws of war, and other laws with respect to U.S. citizens — even those who are leading efforts to kill their fellow, innocent Americans.”

Holder’s criteria are familiar, thanks to a Justice Department “white paper” on targeted killing that leaked in February. To target an American that American must be a “senior operational leader” of al-Qaida “or its associated forces”; capturing him or her must be “not feasible”; the strike would conform to the laws of war; and “a thorough and careful review” inside the executive branch determines that the American is part of an “imminent” attack. Oh, and the drone strike can only be done outside the U.S., Holder emphasizes, in an apparent nod to the concerns of Sen. Rand Paul.

Only the concept of “imminence” here is far broader than its conventional definition. Nor does Holder explain what undergirds the determination that an American cannot be captured; the relative ease of drone strikes creates a structural disincentive for a policymaker to opt for a risky capture operation.

Americans are a tiny fraction of the people killed by U.S. drone strikes. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently estimated that 4700 people have died from drone-launched missiles. An unknown percentage of those casualties are people whose identities are not known to the government but who are presumed to be terrorists based on their patterns of travel and other behavior.

It’s worth noting that this is not an exhaustive list of Americans killed by U.S. drone strikes. Kamal Derwish of Lackawanna, NY was killed in a November 2002 missile strike launched from a Predator drone, one of the first such cases. It’s unclear why Holder did not list American deaths from pre-2009 strikes in his tally.

Khan was the editor of Inspire, the English-language webzine of al-Qaida’s Yemen offshoot. He was killed in the September 2011 strike that killed Anwar Awlaki. Abdulrahman, a teenager born in Denver, was killed in Yemen shortly thereafter, alongside his 17-year old cousin.

Jude Kenan Mohamad travelled to Pakistan from North Carolina in 2008, allegedly to become a jihadi, and never returned. He was arrested in 2009 for trying to enter Pakistan’s tribal regions without the proper paperwork. But he skipped out on his court date, and vanished. Friends feared him dead after a November, 2011 drone strike. But his status — alive or dead — was never officially confirmed until now. Mohamad’s FBI wanted poster does not list his death. (“The FBI won’t declare a person dead until there’s physical evidence, DNA evidence,” a law-enforcement source explains to Danger Room.) Nor have outside terrorist trackers like the Long War Journal counted Mohamad among the droned. (“I don’t track him as being killed,” says Bill Roggio, the Journal’s editor.)

Buried within the letter is another startling admission from Holder. This week, Holder writes, Obama approved “a document that institutionalizes the Administration’s exacting standards and processes for reviewing and approving operations to capture or use lethal force against terrorist targets outside the United States and areas of active hostilities.” That would be the infamous Disposition Matrix, the bureaucratic codification of the administration’s so-called targeted killing program. Congress will now be “notified and briefed” on the document, so expect something resembling it to leak to the press.

It’s fitting that Obama has approved the disposition matrix and Holder has acknowledged the drone killings of Americans this week. Tomorrow, Obama will give a speech about the future course of the war on terrorism. It remains to be seen if he will acknowledge accidentally killing three American citizens without due process — one of whom was a teenager.

Authors

Spencer Ackerman
Noah Shachtman

Publication: Danger Room Blog

What Is the Future of U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation?

Andrés Rozental — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The decision by the Peña Nieto administration to channel the U.S.-Mexico security agenda through the Interior Ministry is not designed to negatively affect the close ties established over the past years in intelligence sharing and cooperation. Rather, it is the result of the Mexican government's decision to bring all the official agencies involved with that agenda domestically under a single umbrella.

The previous Public Safety Ministry and Federal Police are now coordinated from the Interior Ministry, so it is logical to have counterpart U.S. agencies use that same channel. There is no reason to believe that this change will negatively affect the bilateral relationship on security or drug trafficking issues since President Obama clearly concurred with this new approach during his visit to Mexico and during conversations with Mexico's president and his cabinet.

Aside from the security agenda, which is still an important element in the relationship, the two presidents indicated that other priorities will characterize the agenda going forward, especially economic ties, business facilitation, border infrastructure and educational exchanges. This is a positive development in my view as it moves the U.S.-Mexico agenda back to the issues that have historically brought our two countries together and de-emphasizes the monothematic nature of the relationship over the past six years.

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Authors

Andrés Rozental

Publication: Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

When Bombing Syria, Remember Lebanon

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:23:00 -0400

For more than two years, Israel has wisely kept a low profile as civil war has engulfed its northern neighbor Syria. But this past week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his air force to strike targets in and around Damascus, significantly raising Israel’s profile in the conflict. As Israel and America consider their next steps in that unstable environment, it would be wise to remember how Israel gradually got engaged in the Lebanese civil war and found nothing but frustration and failure as its well intentioned policies yielded unanticipated effects and unintended consequences.

Syria and Lebanon share the same bitterly sectarian politics. Both are the creations of French imperialism. And both were misruled too long by minority sects that spawned vicious and violent civil wars. Israel began interfering in Lebanon’s internal affairs in the 1960s when the Palestinian movement built its headquarters there. Starting with an air attack on Beirut International Airport in 1968, successive Israeli governments got more and more sucked into the swamp of Lebanese politics and warlord conflict.

In 1978, Israeli built a proxy army in south Lebanon and created a security zone to defend northern Israel from terror attacks. Similarly, there is talk now in Israel of a security zone in Syria and perhaps a Druze collaboration partner. In 1982, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon to create a “new Middle East” that would destroy the PLO and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. Instead, Operation Peace for Galilee led to the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Marine barracks bombing, two attacks on the American embassy, an eighteen-year-long insurgency in south Lebanon, the awakening of Lebanese Shia militancy and creation of Hezbollah.

Peace for Galilee was followed by Operation Accountability in 1993, Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1995 and finally Israel’s complete and unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. Israel’s Lebanese allies were abandoned to their fate. But the war continued across the border. In 2006, a half million Israelis were displaced from their homes during the thirty-four-day war with Hezbollah. Today Hezbollah has more weapons than ever before.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Sana Sana / Reuters

Chinese National Security Decision-making: Processes and Challenges

Yun Sun — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:03:00 -0400

In studies of contemporary China, information about the national security decision-making process is largely absent, despite the abundance of information and analysis on leadership politics and domestic policy-making. A proliferation of foreign policy actors in China has attracted much attention from researchers, leading to a booming number of investigations into the governmental and non-governmental players involved. The processes themselves―in which these players operate and interact to produce the eventual policy decisions―have eluded academic scrutiny, mostly due to the scarcity of available information. The topic, however, is critically important in achieving an accurate understanding of China’s national security policies which often seem unclear and plagued by conflicting messages.

In the Chinese context, the definition of “national security” is significantly different from that in the United States. For the American policy community, the term “national security” usually refers to the country’s external national security interests and threats. The responsibility for coordinating national security affairs lies primarily with the National Security Council. In China’s case, the term “national security” encompasses both domestic/internal and foreign/external security and, therefore, has a much broader connotation. This paper is primarily focused on the external dimensions of China’s national security. There are many overlapping aspects between China’s national security policy and its foreign policy, as the latter also serves to protect China’s national security interests. However, because national security also covers military security, national defense, economic security and other non-traditional security challenges, the framework and coverage is broader than with foreign policy.

This paper examines three processes of China’s national security decision-making: the decision-making at the top level, the policy-coordination process conducted through the National Security Leading Small Group (NSLSG), and the informational process for national security decision-making. Generally speaking, the supreme decision-making authority in China is monopolized and exercised through the collective leadership of the Politburo Standing Committee; this is especially true with regard to “strategically important” issues, such as Sino-U.S. relations. However, the paramount leader at the time of this writing, President Hu Jintao (the Politburo’s designated person for national security affairs) commanded large authority and privilege in determining regular national security policies. His primary advisor on national security (at the time of this writing State Councilor Dai Bingguo) played a central role in informing and advising him on key policy decisions. As the Director of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (the same organization as NSLSG),[1] Dai also carried responsibility for inter-agency policy consultation and coordination through the NSLSG/FALSG. Information for national security decision-making is produced primarily by participating agencies and think tanks, but there is a standard process of screening, organizing, and disseminating that allows information to flow to the top.

A fundamental challenge for China’s national security decision-making system lies in the conflict between the need for centralization and the diffusion of power (collective leadership) at the top level. Decisions on strategically important issues must be based on consensus, which is created through time-consuming debates; consensus-building proves especially problematic when a timely response is required. As an informal and ad-hoc committee, the NSLSG does not operate as the core national security team designated to follow, analyze, and coordinate daily national security affairs, nor does it have the adequate human resources and professional capacity to play that role. In reality, its role is more or less confined to the organizer of research and coordinator of policies. Its authority on national security affairs is further undermined by unbalanced civil-military relations and the lack of civilian oversight over daily military operational activities. In the informational processes, the players in the Chinese system are extremely risk-averse. Confined by agency perspectives and career advancement interests, they are reluctant to report new findings that are not in line with established conventional wisdom.

Understanding that most of the challenges in the Chinese national security system have deep historical, political and structural roots, any attempt to address them must be bold and might seem politically unrealistic. Nevertheless, the recommendations offered in this paper are aimed at addressing the fundamental deficiencies of the current system. Their feasibility depends on the future of political reform, which although widely agreed as inevitable, has thus far been successfully avoided.

[1] The general understanding of the relationship between FALSG and NSLSG in China is that it is literally the same organization with two different titles (一个机构两块牌子). However, several government analysts pointed out that within the same organization there is a distribution of labor on national security and foreign policy between two different bureaus.

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Authors

Yun Sun

Image Source: © Jason Lee / Reuters

What Will Keep a U.S. Defense Secretary Up At Night Through the Next Decade?

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 6, 2013
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Editor's Note: This book is available to download now on Kindle and Nook. Hard copy and other e-book versions can be ordered through the Brookings Institution Press.

In his new book, Star Spangled Security: Applying Lessons Learned Over Six Decades Safeguarding America (Brookings, 2012), former U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown (under President James Carter) offers an insider’s view of U.S. national security strategy over service to ten presidencies and bridges it to current challenges facing the United States.

Dr. Brown currently sits on the Defense Policy Board and previously served as secretary of the Air Force under President Lyndon B. Johnson; director of U.S. research and engineering under President John F. Kennedy; president of Caltech; director of Livermore Lab; and a negotiator on the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I and SALT II). He also led the development of the Polaris missile, nuclear ballistic missiles, the stealth bomber, and put the first GPS satellites in the sky.

On May 6, the Brookings Press hosted a discussion of Star Spangled Security. Drawing on his 60 years safeguarding America, Harold Brown discussed how to balance China’s ambitions with U.S. interests to avoid conflict; whose 3 a.m. phone call from the Pacific is most likely to trigger US military action; what strategic positions in the Middle East and in Africa will best serve American interests; what strategy might prevent rogue nations from using nuclear weapons; lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that ought to shape response to Syria now; a new perspective on drones; and the best ways to cut defense spending and reform the Defense Department.

Vago Muradian, editor of Defense News, moderated the discussion with Brown.

Mr. Obama, Don’t Draw That Line

Daniel L. Byman — Sat, 04 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

“The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable,” President Obama warned Bashar al-Assad’s government last December. “If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”

This threat followed the president’s earlier warning that “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” This red line has come to haunt Mr. Obama. Last week, the American intelligence community assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that the Syrians had used the chemical agent sarin in their attacks on the opposition.

The administration’s ultimatum now seems like cheap talk, and it illustrates the risks of carelessly drawing red lines and issuing highly public threats that won’t be enforced.

So far, at least, the Obama administration has put off both consequences and accountability and simply pushed for further investigation. Meanwhile, Mr. Assad has not blinked, and the president’s political opponents, like Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, argue that Iran and North Korea will draw the wrong lessons if the president lets Mr. Assad call his bluff.

Red lines can be attractive tools of foreign policy, deterring foes from ethnic cleansing, genocide or, in the case of Syria, using chemical weapons. Part of the reason to go public, as one administration official put it last year regarding Syria, is to have a “deterrent effect.” By threatening to act in advance of a problem, you stop the problem and don’t have to act. Issuing a red line can also reassure allies or placate domestic critics.

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Authors

Daniel L. Byman

Publication: New York Times

Image Source: © Yazan Homsy / Reuters

NATO and the Costs of Star Wars

Clara M. O'Donnell — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over the last decade, the US has spent tens of billions of dollars constructing a shield to stop nuclear missiles from North Korea or Iran reaching its soil. So far, the shield does not work. Fortunately for the Americans, neither Pyongyang nor Tehran has nuclear missiles that could hit the US. Unfortunately, however, America's missile defence programme has upset China and Russia, two countries that do have nuclear arsenals that could reach its homeland. America's European partners in NATO should try to convince Washington to scale back its missile defence ambitions for the next few years. Not only would this allow the US government to spend its shrinking defence budget on more pressing military needs. It would also improve European security by reducing tensions between NATO and Russia.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been increasingly worried about nuclear attacks by 'rogue' states. In 1998, a study group chaired by Donald Rumsfeld predicted that North Korea and Iran could field intercontinental ballistic missiles within five years. Today, however, Iran has neither intercontinental missiles nor a nuclear bomb. In March of this year, a report from the Pentagon's intelligence agency (erroneously declassified) assessed "with moderate confidence" that Pyongyang could build a nuclear device that fits on a missile. But there is still no evidence that North Korean missiles are sophisticated enough to reach the US.

Although the American mainland is not currently under threat, every president since George H.W. Bush has sought to deploy nation-wide defences against a limited attack by ballistic missiles. Reviving some of President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' ambitions, the US has had missile interceptors deployed in Alaska and California since 2004. Both the George W Bush and Obama administrations have also had various plans to deploy interceptors against intercontinental missiles at bases in Europe. (The Obama administration, working with NATO, has also been deploying interceptors in Europe to protect Europeans and US troops in the region against shorter-range missiles from Iran – a threat which does exist.) In March, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel announced that because of technical problems and budgetary constraints, the US is suspending its efforts to build Europe-based strategic interceptors. He also said that in response to the bellicose attitude of North Korea's new leader, the US will add 14 missile interceptors in on its West Coast, and perhaps deploy a few more on the East Coast, too.

The Obama administration has been wise to cancel the European leg of its strategic missile defence plans. Several recent studies had highlighted significant shortcomings in the programme. For example, a 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the interceptors planned for Europe would have been too slow to stop an incoming missile. But the US would be ill advised to increase the number of interceptors on the West – and possibly East – Coast. Studies have shown that the interceptors in Alaska and California do not work well either. According to Congress' Government Accountability Office, ten out of the 30 interceptors rely on technology which has never intercepted a missile during tests. The GAO estimates that it will take several years to repair this technology, costing the US taxpayer an additional $700 million. Hagel has promised to fix these glitches before the new interceptors are deployed. But the Pentagon does not yet have a solution to another big problem. None of its interceptors can distinguish between an incoming warhead and debris or decoys. (Ballistic missiles can easily carry decoys in addition to warheads.)

America's strategic missile defence efforts have made the US taxpayer fund a weapon that does not work to tackle a threat that does not exist. They have also antagonised China and Russia. Both countries worry that US technological breakthroughs could undermine their strategic deterrents. Moscow has been most displeased. The Kremlin has been asking for legal guarantees that the US would not direct its missile defences against Russia's strategic nuclear weapons. To reassure Russia, the Obama administration has encouraged Moscow to co-operate with NATO's defence programme against Iranian short and long-range missiles. (Moscow is less worried about NATO's defences against Iranian short-range missiles because the interceptors used would be too slow to stop a Russian strategic missile.) Washington has also been willing to provide Moscow political guarantees that its nuclear deterrent is not under threat.

But so far, the Obama administration has refused to give Russia legal guarantees. The US has made such commitments in the past. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty established limits on what Moscow and Washington could do in this area from the 1970s until 2002. President George W Bush then withdrew from the agreement in order to pursue America’s missile defence ambitions unhindered. The Obama administration fears that Republican senators – who are keen on missile defence – would not ratify a treaty that would constrain the US. As a result, missile defence has become one of the most contentious issues in a troubled US-Russia relationship. Moscow has refused to negotiate further cuts in its nuclear arsenal until the issue is resolved. Last year, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces threatened to attack the European NATO countries hosting US missile defences. And according to press reports, Russian bombers have been simulating strikes against American missile defence installations.

Now that Hagel has cancelled the European leg of US strategic missile defences, there is a chance that NATO and Russia could end their dispute. Senior American and Russian officials have resumed talks about Russia co-operating with NATO's missile defence efforts. US policy-makers have also been encouraging Moscow to negotiate new bilateral nuclear reductions – a top priority for President Barack Obama. According to some Russian officials, President Vladimir Putin may be open to an agreement when he meets President Obama at the G8 in June or at their bilateral summit in September. But the Russians still want legal guarantees on strategic missile defences.

Europeans welcome the possibility of improved NATO-Russia ties. Most of them have never been convinced of the need for, or feasibility of, strategic missile defences and many disliked Washington's decision to leave the ABM treaty. Germany and others have been keen for Russia to co-operate with NATO's missile defence programme as a way to alleviate tensions. To maximise the chances of a deal between Washington and Moscow, Europeans should now encourage their American allies to include legal guarantees on missile defence in a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Steven Pifer and Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution point out in their book 'The opportunity' that treaty limits could still allow the US to deploy all its planned defences against North Korea and Iran: the US and Russia could for example agree to each having a maximum of 125 interceptors capable of engaging intercontinental missiles. (The ABM treaty initially allowed for 200.) The treaty could also be limited to ten years, so that both sides could reconsider its ceilings in light of how the threats from North Korea and Iran evolve.

The White House, and Europeans, would struggle to convince some Republican senators to ratify such a treaty. But without it, Russia is unlikely to reduce its numerous tactical nuclear weapons – an arsenal that worries both Democrats and Republicans. Europeans should also discourage their US counterparts from deploying additional interceptors against strategic missiles until tests have shown them to be effective. The risk of wasting large sums of money at a time of savage defence cuts should help senators to reassess their views on missile defence.

As Greg Thielmann, a former senior US state department intelligence official, remarks, Europeans have "tamed ill-considered American instincts" in the past: in the 1980s, Europeans encouraged a reluctant Reagan administration to negotiate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. For the benefit of NATO-Russia relations and global arms control, the Europeans should encourage their ally to reassess its stance again.

Authors

Clara M. O'Donnell

Publication: Centre for European Reform

Image Source: © Yves Herman / Reuters

Lone Wolf Terrorists – No Easy Catch

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The terrible attack on the Boston Marathon is the most vivid and violent demonstration of terrorism confronting the United States and its allies today. Instead of large, complex plots hatched by organized jihadist terror gangs abroad, the new challenge is homegrown Muslim extremists who use the internet to self-radicalize and learn how to build bombs and create chaos by studying Al Qaeda texts online.

Much remains unknown about the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly built the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the marathon and killed three and wounded more than 200 on April 15. Experience shows that it’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions about a terror plot until the investigation is finished, but a preliminary judgment or two can be made about the Boston case.

The surviving terrorist, Dzhokhar, has reportedly told investigators that he and his brother were not part of an organized terror group like Al Qaeda or a broader conspiracy in the United States and that they decided to attack the marathon only a week or so before the event. They then decided to drive to New York City and carry out another attack in Times Square as a follow-up. The police stopped them before they got out of Boston, killing Tamerlan and capturing Dzhokhar.

The two reportedly learned how to build their bombs from an internet magazine produced by Al Qaeda called Inspire, the brainchild of an American citizen of Yemeni origin, Anwar al Awlaki, killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. They also listened to tapes of Awlaki’s sermons on jihad, available on the internet. The older brother, Tamerlan, traveled to Russia last year, and his activities there remain largely a mystery. He may have had contact with the Chechen jihadist movement which has longstanding ties to Al Qaeda and especially its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, who traveled there in the 1990s.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: YaleGlobal Online

Image Source: © Brian Snyder / Reuters

Could al-Qaeda Direct a Canadian Plot From Iran?

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:30:00 -0400

The revelation of an alleged plot to attack the Canada-U.S. train system by a small cell somehow connected to al-Qaeda’s presence in Iran has sparked interest in the relationship between the Sunni Muslim terror group and the Shia Muslim Iranian government. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda has a presence in Iran – but how it relates to the Tehran regime has been murky for years.

The relationship between al-Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shrouded in mystery and secrecy for years. Al-Qaeda operatives have transited through Iran regularly before and after Sept. 11, 2001, and some found sanctuary in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001, although the circumstances of their status in Iran was always unclear. But the hints of occasional operational co-operation between al-Qaeda and Tehran are mostly outweighed by the very considerable and public evidence of the deep animosity between Sunni-extremist al-Qaeda and Shia-extremist Iran.

Antipathy for each other is at the root of their ideologies and narratives. It has been most visible in their competition for influence in Iraq, and now also in Syria.

The Sept. 11 plot is a good place to start if we wish to understand the mystery. The 9/11 Commission report concluded that there was evidence of contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iran (through its Lebanese Hezbollah ally) dating back to his years in Khartoum in the mid 1990s.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Globe and Mail

Image Source: © Jon Blacker / Reuters

Organizing and Managing Intelligence Analysis to Fight Terrorism

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 22, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event
A discussion with Philip Mudd on his new book, "Takedown: the Hunt for al Qaeda" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)

I made a mistake. I thought we were fighting al Qaeda. What we were fighting was al Qaedism, and al Qaeda itself, the group, was only a subset of that. - Philip Mudd

Listen to this engaging conversation between Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and a former CIA officer, and Philip Mudd, a former CIA and FBI counter-terrorism official. The two intelligence veterans had a provocative, wide-ranging coversation about how the U.S. intelligence community does its work, touching on the Boston Marathon bombings, the investigation of the two Tsarnaev brothers suspected of commiting the act and their origins in Chechnya, and comparison to the 2006 plot to blow up jumbo jets flying between Britain and North America. The conversation also considered to free speech rights and the potential conflict with extremist actions.

The elder of the two brothers who are accused of being responsible for the attack on the Boston Marathon, Tamerlan, traveled to Russia sometime in the last year. He seems to fit a pattern that we've been seeing more and more frequently. Radicalized Americans, Muslims, who seem to have a fairly normal life the United States, and then something changes dramatically. - Bruce Riedel

If you look at the 7/7 attacks in the UK in 2005, if you look at the attempt that was well publicized in Canada—I'm going to guess that was about three-four years ago—to blow up the Parliament, you will often find somebody in that circle, psychologically, who plays the role of an older brother or father figure. Someone who has the respect of younger folks. - Philip Mudd

As an outside, nongovernment commentator, I would say the likelihood of a terrorist group conceiving, plotting, organizing, training, executing a 9/11 style attack, it's hard for me to imagine that. - Philip Mudd

On April 22, the Intelligence Project at Brookings, hosted a discussion with Philip Mudd on his new book, Takedown: the Hunt for al Qaeda (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), which examines how the intelligence community collects, analyzes and employs data to combat terrorism, and details the challenges still ahead in the war against al Qaeda. Mudd served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Center, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch and as the FBI’s senior intelligence adviser.

Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Video

Audio

Organizing and Managing Intelligence Analysis to Fight Terrorism

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20130422_intelligence_terrorism_transcript

Four Reasons Sens. Graham and McCain are Wrong about Military Detention for Dzhokar Tsarnaev

Benjamin Wittes — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain were quick out of the box last night in declaring that the Obama administration should hold Dzhokar Tsarnaev in military detention for his role in the Boston bombing:

Now that the suspect is in custody, the last thing we should want is for him to remain silent. It is absolutely vital the suspect be questioned for intelligence gathering purposes. We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives. The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now.

Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel. Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks.

We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama Administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option.

We will stand behind the Administration if they decide to hold this suspect as an enemy combatant.

Bobby quickly explained why this is both unnecessary and a bad idea; this very fine Wall Street Journal blog sketches out why it would pose legal problems as well. But the idea has had legs on Twitter, so I want to bring together in one place and explain the several distinct but overlapping reasons why it would be not merely ill-advised but absolutely nuts to try to treat Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant.

Broadly speaking, there are four reasons:

First and most important, Tsarnaev may not be an enemy combatant. Graham and McCain warn that “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans.” That’s certainly true. But not every terrorist with a bomb is an enemy combatant whose military detention is authorized by law. Some are just killers with bombs. Under the AUMF as interpreted by the courts, and under the NDAA as passed by Congress, the administration is authorized to hold in military detention only those who are “part of” or “substantially supporting” Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces. Nothing that has come to light publicly has shown that Tsarnaev was operating as part of any group covered by the AUMF. Unless and until such evidence arises, military detention is not merely a bad idea. It is simply not legally available. Particularly for those of us who support military detention in appropriate circumstances and have argued for its propriety and legality, it is absolutely essential to reject it where the facts do not support it. Military detention does not flow legally from the fact of someone’s being more than just a common criminal. It flows from the fact of someone’s being a part of a military enemy’s fighting cadre. Calling for detention of people who don’t meet—or may not meet—that threshold comes perilously close to calling for a roving power to lock up nasty people.

Second, assuming for a moment that the facts as they emerge would support an enemy combatant designation, there’s the small matter of Tsarnaev’s citizenship. Tsarnaev is reportedly a naturalized American citizen, and the government’s appetite for the detention of American citizens under the laws of war has waned—and rightly so. This began under the Bush administration, which tried twice—in the early cases of Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla—to detain U.S. citizens under the laws of war and ultimately backed down both times. The question of whether such detention is legally appropriate for a U.S. citizen captured by law enforcement remains an open one. But it’s an open question that no sane executive would want to test in the presence of a viable alternative—like, say, an open-and-shut prosecution in federal court. As a matter of policy, it was informally off the table long ago, and the Obama administration made that informal policy formal. John Brennan, in a speech at Harvard Law School, declared:

when it comes to U.S. citizens involved in terrorist-related activity, whether they are captured overseas or at home, we will prosecute them in our criminal justice system. There is bipartisan agreement that U.S. citizens should not be tried by military commission.

Third, even if the reports of Tsarnaev’s citizenship prove erroneous, he was certainly captured in the United States, and the military detention of domestic captures is problematic for many of the same reasons that the detention of the citizen poses difficulties. Again, whether it is or is not legally available is an open question of law; this was the issue in the Al Marri case. But this is not a question of law that any administration should be eager to test. And just as it has adopted a policy of not testing the citizen detention question, the Obama administration has taken military detention off the table for domestic captures. As Brennan put it,

it is the firm position of the Obama Administration that suspected terrorists arrested inside the United States will—in keeping with long-standing tradition—be processed through our Article III courts. As they should be. Our military does not patrol our streets or enforce our laws—nor should it.

Fourth, even if all of these legal and policy problems could be overcome, as Bobby explained last night, military detention offers no clear advantages in this case and has several big disadvantages. The public safety exception to Miranda means the FBI has a considerable degree of flexibility in conducting this interrogation, so there’s no particular reason to expect the Bureau will be unable to glean from Tsarnaev the answers to the critical questions at stake right now: Are there accomplices still at large, and to what extent was the bombing the work of any foreign group? On the other hand, military detention would gravely complicate the longer-term interest in punishment and in Tsarnaev’s legitimate long-term incarceration. In the Hamdi and Padilla and Al Marri cases, the consequence of military detention was a substantially shorter sentence than the suspect’s conduct would have supported.

In short, there is simply no case for military detention here. By pushing for it, Sens. Graham and McCain risk bringing into disrepute the one avenue realistically open to those who want answers and justice.

***

This was reposted from Lawfare, where Wittes and others have been following the situation surrounding the Boston bombing. You can read more on the Lawfare Blog »

Authors

Benjamin Wittes

Al Qaeda is Probably Pleased with Boston Bombing

Bruce Riedel — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:40:00 -0400

The two Chechen immigrants apparently responsible for the terror attack on the Boston Marathon may never have had any contact with al Qaeda—or even a single member of al Qaeda—but they are likely soon to be lauded as “heroes” of the global jihad.

It is much too soon to come to any hard conclusions about the motives and intentions of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged perpetrators, but it is not too soon to understand how al Qaeda and associated jihadists see the Chechen struggle against Russia in the context of their own ideology and narrative. Al Qaeda has long seen the Chechen struggle as part of the global war between Islam and its enemies. For the extremists who run al Qaeda and related movements, Russia’s actions in Chechnya are no different than Israeli actions in Gaza, French actions in Mali, or American actions in Afghanistan. All are allegedly part of a global conspiracy against Islam that ranges from the Caucasus to Kashmir to Bali.

In an audio message issued less than two weeks ago, Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda and its chief ideologue, said the greatest enemies of Islam are the “biggest criminals in Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.” Thus Zawahiri lumped American, Russia and Israel together as the enemies of Muslims everywhere.

For Zawahiri and his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, this argument that Islam is under siege by a global conspiracy is nothing new. Zawahiri and bin Laden began their careers fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians. The Chechen struggle against Russia is for them only a continuation of that war and indeed of the Central Asian and Caucasian Muslims’ struggle against Tsars, Commissars, and now Putin that goes back to the 18th century. Zawahiri himself was briefly arrested in Russia in the mid-1990s, apparently while he was actively assisting the Chechen insurgency. Bin Laden encouraged Saudis to go to Chechnya to fight Russia.

For angry young Muslims radicalized by what has happened in their own homeland, the al Qaeda narrative provides an explanation for a bigger struggle that involves not just their own country but the entire Muslim world. At the same time it also gives them more targets for their anger. If an angry Chechen cannot attack a Russian target, then a soft target in his own city in America or Europe—a marathon or another public space—is an easier target.

Al Qaeda has been encouraging just such attacks for the last several years. The Yemeni American Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a drone strike in 2011, articulated it in the English language web magazine he helped create, called Inspire, that also printed simple manuals for how to build a bomb in your family kitchen. The attempt by a Pakistani American, Faysal Shahzad, to blow up a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 (which was foiled by NYPD at the last minute), was an early example of this kind of small but devastating attack. Shahzad has now become a hero in the al Qaeda narrative even though he failed in his attempt.

Whether al Qaeda had any role – direct or indirect by the internet – in the radicalization of these two men, it is likely to revel in the results of their attacks in Boston. While the attack was nowhere near the magnitude of 9/11, it has consumed the American media and political scene for almost a week so far, led to the unprecedented lockdown of an entire American city, and sent the White House itself into enhanced security.

Americans have every right to ask: Why do they hate us? Americans are not responsible for the ugly civil war in Chechnya, or the horrendous terrorist attacks carried out by Chechen terrorists in Moscow and other Russian cities. Unfortunately the global jihadist movement and its violent ideology doesn’t see the differences that we rightly see. For according to the narrative of Ayman Zawahiri, Islam is under attack from every direction, and the jihadist answer is to strike back in New York, Madrid, London, Toulouse—and now Boston.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

The Boston Marathon Bombing and Our Post-Terrorist Incident Drill

Paul R. Pillar — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Reactions to the bombs at the Boston Marathon have quickly fallen into a familiar pattern. It is as if there were a manual that politicians, journalists and others involved in the reacting pull off the shelf after any terrorist attack to help them script their comments and their questions. There are, first of all, ritual denunciations that use a well-worn vocabulary. Every terrorist attack is labeled as “cowardly,” as President Obama labeled this one, even though that is one of the less appropriate of a plethora of negative adjectives that could be applied to terrorist attacks. Different terrorist operations require different degrees of moxie or courage, but with most of them cowardice on the part of the perpetrators is not a dominant characteristic, or even a characteristic at all.

Also in the early hours after a terrorist incident there are aggressive efforts in the media to offer explanations that ought to await a thorough investigation, even though the real investigation is barely getting under way. Of course, journalists gotta do what they gotta do on any story with high public salience. And there is some informative analysis that is offered despite the paucity of early hard information, especially comments about how, in general, investigations of terrorist incidents tend to proceed. Much of the quickly generated commentary in the media, however, consists of speculation that outruns the available facts. It is over-analysis, which is not helpful to public understanding.

Some of the over-analysis concerns the presumed significance of the particular target. Some perplexity has been expressed about Monday's attack by those who cannot figure out why the Boston Marathon in particular would be a target of terrorists. Such musing overlooks how many terrorist targets are targets of opportunity, with little if any symbolic significance attached to the chosen target. For terrorists whose objective is to harm as many people as possible of a particular nationality (which may or may not be true of the perpetrators of the Boston bombing), any well-populated gathering will do.

Similar over-emphasis is placed on the date of an attack and on what it might be the anniversary of. This also overlooks the opportunism involved in most terrorist operations, in terms of when, as well as where, it might be most feasible to mount an attack. In general, western analysts and commentators on terrorism devote more attention to anniversary dates than terrorists do.

The particular method of operation used, including the design of a bomb, is often seized upon in the early hours for much public speculation about who the perpetrators might be. A frequent comment is that such-and-such method of attack or bomb design is a “hallmark” of a particular group. Such observations fail to take account of how one group may copy the methods of another, or of how variation in methods can have advantages for a terrorist group.

There is a strong appetite for inferring patterns. One incident does not make a pattern, but with at least two incidents in close succession the urge to draw patterns is irresistible. The revelation on Tuesday of a letter tainted with ricin poison that was sent to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi is sure to stimulate the pattern-drawers, even though senators were told there is no apparent connection between the letter and the bombs in Boston.

Also early in the process there is usually a focus on the domestic political implications of an incident. We have had a bit of that already in connection with this week's incident, with people taking special note of how the White House pinned the “terrorism” label on the event. The subtext for such observations was the folderol last year over the incident in Benghazi, Libya, in which some people tried to place great importance on whether and when the White House called something “terrorism.”

Expect also that there will be the usual recriminations about how government agencies failed to prevent the attack. We haven't heard much of that yet, but we will. We can expect that, also as usual, the recriminations will be based on hindsight and will pay little heed to what is or is not realistically preventable.

After a perpetrator is identified, the over-analysis takes a new turn. Major implications are extracted from that identity, even though it may say little about the shape and severity of any underlying threat. Terrorist attacks are rare public events, interrupting extended times without attacks, that are not necessarily representative of any continuing hidden reality.

Imagine that the perpetrator of the bombing on Monday turns out to be a lone individual with personal, nonpolitical and even trivial motivations—such as a runner disgruntled about not getting into the race. The public reaction likely would be one of relief, with the incident then being seen as a one-off involving a bizarrely motivated individual and not indicative of a larger threat. But this development actually would not say anything one way or another about any larger threats that do exist.

The converse of this is represented by the habitual emphasis on whether or not there are “links,” especially to the now-vaguely-defined radical Sunni phenomenon to which we append the label “al-Qaeda.” The tendency is to get alarmed if there is such a “link,” and to be more relaxed if there is not. But actually the presence or absence of such links tells us little about the chance of another bomb going off in an American city next week, next month or next year.

Instead of trying to extract more lessons and implications than are genuinely extractable from a single incident, such an event would be better used as an occasion for thinking about broader issues involving terrorism. To the extent threats from abroad are involved, the thinking should be about how developments overseas and especially U.S. policies abroad may affect the number of those disposed to resort to terrorism. The thinking also should fit anti-U.S. terrorism into a context in which it can be compared and contrasted with other forms of material harm to U.S. interests and with the physical harm that America's own actions may cause or exacerbate elsewhere.

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest