Brookings: Topics - Presidential Appointments

The Road to War : Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

Marvin Kalb — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 280pp.

Not since Pearl Harbor in 1941 has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. Why no declarations of war? Why has it become so comparatively easy for a president to commit the nation to war? What is Congress’s responsibility? Where is the press? In The Road to War, esteemed journalist and author Marvin Kalb explores these crucial and timely questions.

Rather than formally declaring war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing predecessors’ “commitments,” private and public. Many have been honored, but some have been betrayed. From Vietnam to Israel, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous. For example, presidents pledged the United States to the defense of South Vietnam; yet none saw the need for a formal declaration of war, and few in Congress or the media chose to question the war’s provenance or legitimacy until it was too late. In the end, the U.S. lost 58,000 Americans—and the war.

Given the extraordinarily close U.S.-Israeli relationship, based on secret presidential assurances, it is remarkable but true that a number of Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Kalb, while explaining the origin of this sense of betrayal, raises a profoundly important question: Isn’t it time for the United States and Israel to negotiate a mutual defense treaty? Wouldn’t such a treaty help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and provide American reassurance for Israel in the nuclear standoff with Iran?

The word of a president can morph into a national commitment, the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president “commits” the United States to a policy or course of action, with or increasingly without congressional approval or national debate, it is time to raise the yellow flag--watch out!

Praise for The Road to War:

“Every road to war is ultimately also a tragedy. Kalb’s concluding chapter, however, offers a timely and important ray of hope: a defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel in the context of a fair peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians might avoid not just one but even two wars. President Obama should read this chapter.”
—Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser

“Marvin Kalb has written a fine book that should be required reading for everyone who wants to be president because it underlines what every president seems not to know in the beginning—that it is much easier to get into war than to get out of it. Terrific insight, carefully researched and clearly written.”
—Bob Schieffer, CBS News

“Kalb raises important questions about the unchecked power of presidents to take the nation to war. His provocative proposal for a U.S.-Israeli defense treaty will certainly add to the debate about the future of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East.”
—Graham Allison, Harvard University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marvin Kalb

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Lessons of the Syrian Reactor

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The office of the assistant to the president for national-security affairs in the West Wing of the White House is a spacious, well-lit corner room in a building where space is at a premium. It contains not only the national-security adviser’s large desk but also a table for lunch discussions and other small meetings as well as a couch and easy chairs for more relaxed discussions. In April 2007, this commodious setting was the scene of a remarkable meeting. Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser at the time, welcomed Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad, who came with a special briefing for his American host. Dagan revealed a secret nuclear reactor in the final stages of construction in the Syrian desert, developed with the help of North Korea. Knowledge of this project constituted a stunning intelligence coup for Israel.

Later that year, on September 6, 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syria’s nuclear facility at Al Kibar along the Euphrates River. The mission emerged from more than two decades of comprehensive intelligence collection and analysis by American and Israeli intelligence services targeting Syria’s development of weapons of mass destruction. It was a dramatic demonstration of intelligence success—all the more so given the ongoing civil war that has devastated Syria since 2011. The world does not need to worry about a Syrian nuclear reactor under threat of capture by Islamic radicals. Israel took that concern off the table.

But the incident also demonstrated that once a policy-intelligence feedback loop becomes dysfunctional, as happened to the George W. Bush administration after it exaggerated and distorted intelligence estimates to justify the Iraq War, there are serious policy implications. Israel wanted America to take out the reactor, but Bush was constrained by an intelligence community unwilling to cooperate with another major military operation based primarily on intelligence data.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Ho New / Reuters

The Danger of Groupthink in the Obama Administration

Paul R. Pillar — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

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

David Ignatius has an interesting take on national security decision-making in the Obama administration in the wake of the reshuffle of senior positions taking place during these early weeks of the president's second term. Ignatius perceives certain patterns that he believes reinforce each other in what could be a worrying way. One is that the new team does not have as much “independent power” as such first-term figures as Clinton, Gates, Panetta and Petraeus. Another is that the administration has “centralized national security policy to an unusual extent” in the White House. With a corps of Obama loyalists, the substantive thinking may, Ignatius fears, run too uniformly in the same direction. He concludes his column by stating that “by assembling a team where all the top players are going in the same direction, he [Obama] is perilously close to groupthink.”

We are dealing here with tendencies to which the executive branch of the U.S. government is more vulnerable than many other advanced democracies, where leading political figures with a standing independent of the head of government are more likely to wind up in a cabinet. This is especially true of, but not limited to, coalition governments. Single-party governments in Britain have varied in the degree to which the prime minister exercises control, but generally room is made in the cabinet for those the British call “big beasts”: leading figures in different wings or tendencies in the governing party who are not beholden to the prime minister for the power and standing they have attained.

Ignatius overstates his case in a couple of respects. Although he acknowledges that Obama is “better than most” in handling open debate, he could have gone farther and noted that there have been egregious examples in the past of administrations enforcing a national security orthodoxy, and that the Obama administration does not even come close to these examples. There was Lyndon Johnson in the time of the Vietnam War, when policy was made around the president's Tuesday lunch table and even someone with the stature of the indefatigable Robert McNamara was ejected when he strayed from orthodoxy. Then there was, as the most extreme case, the George W. Bush administration, in which there was no policy process and no internal debate at all in deciding to launch a war in Iraq and in which those who strayed from orthodoxy, ranging from Lawrence Lindsey to Eric Shinseki, were treated mercilessly. Obama's prolonged—to the point of inviting charges of dithering—internal debates on the Afghanistan War were the polar opposite of this.

Ignatius also probably underestimates the contributions that will be made to internal debate by the two most important cabinet members in national security: the secretaries of state and defense. He says John Kerry “has the heft of a former presidential candidate, but he has been a loyal and discreet emissary for Obama and is likely to remain so.” The heft matters, and Kerry certainly qualifies as a big beast. Moreover, the discreet way in which a member of Congress would carry any of the administration's water, as Kerry sometimes did when still a senator, is not necessarily a good indication of the role he will assume in internal debates as secretary of state. As for Chuck Hagel, Ignatius states “he has been damaged by the confirmation process and will need White House cover.” But now that Hagel's nomination finally has been confirmed, what other “cover” will he need? It's not as if he ever will face another confirmation vote in the Senate. It was Hagel's very inclination to flout orthodoxy, to arrive at independent opinions and to voice those opinions freely that led to the fevered opposition to his nomination.

Nevertheless, Ignatius is on to something that is at least a potential hazard for the second Obama term. The key factor is not so much the substantive views that senior appointees bring with them into office. As the cliché goes, a president is entitled to have working for him people who agree with his policies. The issue is instead one of how loyalty—not only to the president, but collective loyalty as part of the president's inner circle—may affect how senior officials express or push views once they are in office.

In this regard it is useful to reflect on the meaning of “groupthink.” The term has come to be used loosely as a synonym for many kinds of conventional wisdom or failure to consider alternatives rigorously. But the father of research on groupthink, the psychologist Irving Janis, meant something narrower and more precise. Groupthink is pathology in decision-making that stems from a desire to preserve harmony and conformity in a small group where bonds of collegiality and mutual loyalty have been forged. It is the negative flip side of whatever are the positive attributes of such bonds. LBJ's Tuesday lunch group was one of the original subjects of Janis's writing.

With this in mind, the second term appointment that becomes even more interesting regarding Ignatius's thesis is that of John Brennan. Ignatius has Brennan well-pegged, including a comment that he “made a reputation throughout his career as a loyal deputy.” One might expand on that by observing that among Brennan's talents—and they are considerable—is a knack for what is often called managing up. Earlier in his career he was a protégé of George Tenet, and during the past four years he appears to have forged a similar relationship with Barack Obama.

One ought to ask what all of this might mean for Brennan's ability and willingness to speak truth not only to power, but to his patron—and to do so especially at politically charged times when his patron may be under pressure or may have other reasons for wanting to move in a particular direction in foreign policy. This is more of a question with Brennan than it would have been with David Petraeus if he were still the CIA director. Petraeus was very conscious of the truth-to-power issue, and more generally of the importance of objectivity, when he was appointed. As he himself observed, on matters relating to Afghanistan he might find himself “grading my own work.” Because the issue was recognized and involved obvious matters such as the Afghanistan War, and because there was nothing even remotely resembling a patron-protégé relationship between Petraeus and Obama, the issue was not destined to be a significant problem. The intimate, cloistered nature of the patronage involved in the Obama-Brennan relationship is something quite different.

Against this backdrop—and given how the Obama administration appears to have signed on to the conventional wisdom about unacceptability of an Iranian nuclear weapon—one ought to look more closely at a troubling line in Brennan's statement submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for his confirmation hearing. In listing some of the national security challenges that require “accurate intelligence and prescient analysis from CIA,” the statement said: “And regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang remain bent on pursuing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems rather than fulfilling their international obligations or even meeting the basic needs of their people.” Two countries, Iran and North Korea, get equated in this statement even though one already has nuclear weapons (and recently conducted its third nuclear test) while the other forswears any intention of building any. There are other related differences as well, including ones having to do with international obligations: North Korea renounced the Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 and has been a nuclear outlaw for ten years, while Iran is a party to the treaty and conducts its nuclear work under IAEA inspections.

The judgment of the U.S. intelligence community is that Iran has not to date decided to build a nuclear weapon and, as far as the community knows, may never make such a decision. One would think that senators would be making better use of time if, instead of asking for the umpteenth time for still more information about the Benghazi incident, they would ask instead why the nominee to be CIA director, by saying that Tehran is “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons,” disagrees with a publicly pronounced judgment of the intelligence community.

If a crunch comes that is related to this issue, perhaps the rest of the intelligence community will play a beneficial role. I have been quite critical of the intelligence reorganization of 2004 as being a poorly thought-out response to the post-9/11 public appetite to do something visible that could be called “reform.” The rapid turnover in the job of director of national intelligence is a symptom of the problems the reorganization has entailed. The current director, James Clapper, deserves the public's thanks for taking a thankless job and performing it with distinction. But maybe in the face of certain types of personal relationships and certain decision-making patterns, the new arrangement can have some payoffs. If Clapper—who does not figure into Ignatius's discussion of Obama's inner circle—becomes, on Iran or any other issue, a counterweight to any White House-centered groupthink that might emerge in that circle, he will have earned even more thanks.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Thoughts on the Hagel Filibuster and its Political Implications

Sarah A. Binder — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

I’m late to the conversation about whether or not Republican efforts to insist on sixty votes for cloture on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense constitutes a filibuster. Bernstein’s earlier piece ("This is what a filibuster looks like") and Fallows’ recent contribution provide good, nuanced accounts of why Republican tactics amount to a filibuster, even if some GOP senators insist otherwise. In short, the duck test applies: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then …. it’s a filibuster!

Still, I think there’s more to be said about the politics and implications of the Hagel nomination. A few brief thoughts:

First, let’s put to rest the debate about whether insisting on sixty votes to cut off debate on a nomination is a filibuster or, at a minimum, a threatened filibuster. It is. Even if both parties have moved over the past decade(s) to more regularly insist on sixty votes to secure passage of major (and often minor) legislative measures and confirmation of Courts of Appeals nominees, we shouldn’t be fooled by the institutionalization—and the apparent normalization—of the 60-vote Senate. Refusing to consent to a majority’s effort to take a vote means (by definition) that a minority of the Senate has flexed its parliamentary muscles to block Senate action. I think it’s fair to characterize such behavior as evidence of at least a threatened filibuster—even if senators insist that they are holding up a nomination only until their informational demands are met.

Second, there’s been a bit of confusion in the reporting about whether filibusters of Cabinet appointees are unprecedented. There appears to have been no successful filibusters of Cabinet appointees, even if there have been at least two unsuccessful filibusters against such nominees. (On two occasions, Cabinet appointees faced cloture votes when minority party senators placed holds on their nominations—William Verity in 1987 and Kempthorne in 2006. An EPA appointee has also faced cloture, but EPA is not technically cabinet-level, even if it is now Cabinet-status). Of course, there have been other Cabinet nominees who have withdrawn; presumably they withdrew, though, because they lacked even majority support for confirmation. Hagel’s situation will be unprecedented only if the filibuster succeeds in keeping him from securing a confirmation vote.

Third, using cloture votes as an indicator of a filibuster underestimates the Senate’s seeping super-majoritarianism. (Seeping super-majoritarianism?! Egads.) At least two other recent Cabinet nominations have been subjected to 60-vote requirements: Kathleen Sebelius in 2009 (HHS) and John Bryson (Commerce) in 2011. Both nominees faced threatened filibusters by Republican senators, preventing majority leader Reid from securing the chamber’s consent to schedule a confirmation vote—until Reid agreed to require sixty votes for confirmation. The Bryson unanimous consent agreement (UCA) appears on the right, an agreement that circumvented the need for cloture. Embedding a 60-vote requirement in a UCA counts as evidence of an attempted filibuster, albeit an unsuccessful one. After all, other Obama nominees (such as Tim Geithner) were confirmed after Reid negotiated UCAs that required only 51 votes for confirmation, an agreement secured because no Republicans were threatening to filibuster.

Finally, what are the implications for the Hagel nomination? If Republicans were insisting on sixty votes on Senator Cornyn’s grounds that “There is a 60-vote threshold for every nomination,” then I bet Reid would have been able to negotiate a UCA similar to Sebelius’s and Bryson’s. But Hagel’s opponents see the time delay imposed by cloture as instrumental to their efforts to sow colleagues’ doubts about whether Hagel can be confirmed (or at a minimum to turn this afternoon’s cloture vote into a party stand to make their point about Benghazi). Of course, it’s possible that the time delay will work to Democrats’ benefit if they can make headlines that GOP obstruction puts national security at risk. (Maybe Leon Panetta should have jetted to his walnut farm to make the point before the cloture vote.) Whatever the outcome, the Hagel case reminds us that little of the Senate’s business is protected from the intense ideological and partisan polarization that permeates the chamber and is amplified by the chamber’s lax rules of debate and senators’ lack of restraint. Filibustering of controversial Cabinet nominees seems to be on the road to normalization—even if Hagel is ultimately confirmed.

Authors

Sarah A. Binder

Publication: The Monkey Cage

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Obama’s Second Term: Staffing Challenges and Opportunities

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Recent departures of White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and Senior Adviser David Plouffe have drawn attention to a frequently overlooked aspect of the American presidency – the men and women who work most closely with the president in the Executive Office of the President, writes Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. Though Cabinet secretaries wield significant influence within the administration, no one can deny the influence of White House advisers, many of whom consult with the president on a broader range of issues and, most likely, more frequently than Cabinet members due to their closer proximity. Little is known, however, about the frequency with which these individuals come and go.

This report documents staff turnover rates amongst the president’s “A” team (the top tier of staff in the Executive Office of the President as designated by the National Journal) and compares the Obama team to those of Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush. By the end of the first term, 71 percent of President Obama’s “A” team had left their original positions—a rate comparable to his predecessors. As President Obama begins his second term, less than one third of his original team will be occupying their initial positions. To be sure, staff departures affect White House operations – loss of institutional memory, costs imposed when rehiring and orienting the new people, disappearance of networking contacts and relationships on the Hill and in the Washington community – to name a few. Complicating matters further, second terms are never easy as presidents tend to overplay their hand at the start and political capital diminishes rapidly as Congress increasingly perceives the president as a lame duck. This study provides original data documenting staff turnover rates and discusses President Obama’s staffing challenges and opportunities in his final term.

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Authors

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Image Source: © Reuters Photographer / Reuters

John Kerry as Secretary of State

Tamara Cofman Wittes — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: In an interview with BBC Newshour, Tamara Cofman Wittes discusses John Kerry's role as the next secretary of state. Read an excerpt below or listen to the full audio.

BBC: So what is your take on the Kerry years that we’re going to see now? How do you think he will compare to Hillary Clinton?

Tamara Cofman Wittes: You know the personal style might be quite different, but I think this is someone with a long experience in foreign affairs, indeed a life time’s experience if you consider that he’s the son of a Foreign Service officer. But also, somebody with his own longstanding relationships with a lot of global leaders through his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and I think because of that work, a keen appreciation of American interest’s, of our alliances abroad, and also of the limits and the changing nature of American power.

BBC: Everything you’ve just said suggests a period of management rather than change.

Wittes: Look, there are inevitably going to be crisis that flair, that demand intense focus. But I think the mood of the American public is one of management not of taking on ambitious new projects abroad. And I think that’s a mood that the White House is sensitive to as well as the new Secretary of State.

BBC: Righter, I could see that, that people don’t want any more foreign interventions. But maybe they would like a United States to be more assertive in the Middle-East, peace and that sort of thing, and would you expect him to deliver much of that?

Wittes: It’s interesting to me that we’ve already got information coming out about a Presidential trip to the Middle-East. I wouldn’t expect too much, by way of the Middle-East peace initiative out of that trip, but I think it’s an interesting choice given the administration’s clear desire to focus it’s energy abroad in places like East Asia where there is perhaps more of an economic gain for the United States to be found.

BBC: I saw an article you wrote the other day, saying that really women are now at the heart of the foreign policy establishment. Even if Hillary Clinton is gone, even if Condoleeza Rice is gone, that there are a lot of women in senior positions now, that is the case.

Wittes: Absolutely. We’ve seen a number of women taking senior portfolios, whether it’s Secretary Clinton, or Michèle Flournoy in the Defense Department, or others indeed scattered across the foreign policy agencies of the Executive Branch. But more than that I think we’ve seen a generation of women who have come into this field and really made a name for themselves so that it’s no longer the case that when you’re looking for a female face in the room you have to search. There’s really a plethora of female faces and female experts available to draw on.

Audio

John Kerry as Secretary of State

Authors

Tamara Cofman Wittes

Publication: BBC Newshour

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Mr. Vladimir Putin: Operative in the Kremlin

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:30:00 -0500

Event Information

February 6, 2013
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Falk Auditorium
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036

Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #MrPutin

President Vladimir Putin has been Russia’s dominant political figure for more than a decade, but during this term, the West has learned little about his background and the formative experiences that shape his worldview. In their new book, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Senior Fellows Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy reveal the complex identities of Mr. Putin and argue that an awareness of his real personas is essential to understanding the influence he has had on Russia and what the future holds for the country.

On February 6, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings hosted the launch of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin featuring a panel discussion to explore how Vladimir Putin has singularly defined Russian leadership and its role in the world in the new century. The discussion featured Hill and Gaddy, who will examine how Putin has turned himself into the ultimate political performance artist and how his identities have shaped the way the political and economic system operates today in Russia.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott, who served in the U.S. State Department from 1993 to 2001 as ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union and then as deputy secretary, also joined the panel. Brookings Guest Scholar Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS News and NBC News who first reported from Russia in the 1950s, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. During the discussion, Kalb and Talbott used experiences from their distinguished careers covering Russia to offer perspectives on the sweep of Russia’s modern history that encompasses Putin’s lifetime from the end of the Stalin-era until today.

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Fiona Hill: Putin’s Statist Personality: Restoring the Greatness of Russia

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Fiona Hill: Putin’s Statist Personality: Restoring the Greatness of Russia

Can Kerry Fill Clinton’s Shoes?

Tamara Cofman Wittes — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

When I was in college studying politics, a senior male professor was my valued mentor. One piece of his advice, way back then, always stuck in my craw: Even if I wasn't interested in professional sports, he urged, I should learn a bit about it and read the sports page in the paper every day. Why? So that I would be able to join in the male chit-chat before the big meetings started.

I took his advice, for a while, and found that he was right: The big boys always did seem to talk about the football game before the meeting, and knowing something about sports gave me a way to join in. But it always felt forced, and a little risky, too -- after all, what if I said something ignorant? But though it was uncomfortable, it was what I had to do to make a place for myself in what was still, in the early 1990s, mostly a man's world.

As a younger scholar, I attended my share of meetings and conferences where I was the only woman in a room full of male experts. Although I saw more younger women entering graduate school, hoping to work in foreign policy and international affairs, not all of them made it out the other end of the pipeline. Too many female students and junior faculty I met were agonizing about whether they could afford to take time out for maternity leave before they got tenured. One older professor told me, when he learned I was pregnant, "A dissertation is a baby, too, you know." If that were true, then I produced three babies in three years (two delightful humans, one that "lives" on a shelf) -- while getting and holding a full-time job at a think tank.

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Authors

Tamara Cofman Wittes

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Gary Cameron / Reuters

Mr. Putin : Operative in the Kremlin

Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2013 390pp.

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On February 6, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings hosted the launch of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin by Brookings Senior Fellows Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy. * A Brookings FOCUS book

Who is Vladimir Putin? Observers have described him as a "man from nowhere"—someone without a face, substance, or soul. In Mr. Putin, Russia experts Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy argue that Putin is in fact a man of many and complex identities. Drawing on a range of sources, including their own personal encounters, they describe six that are most essential: the Statist, the History Man, the Survivalist, the Outsider, the Free Marketeer, and the Case Officer. Understanding Putin’s multiple dimensions is crucial for policymakers trying to decide how best to deal with Russia.

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Hill and Gaddy trace the identities back to formative experiences in Putin’s past, including his early life in Soviet Leningrad, his KGB training and responsibilities, his years as deputy mayor in the crime and corruptionridden city of St. Petersburg, his first role in Moscow as the “operative” brought in from the outside by liberal reformers in the Kremlin to help control Russia’s oligarchs, and his time at the helm of a resurgent Russian state. The authors then examine the nature of the political system Putin has built, explaining it as a logical result of these six identities.

Vladimir Putin has his own idealized view of himself as CEO of "Russia, Inc." But rather than leading a transparent public corporation, he runs a closed boardroom, not answerable to its stakeholders. Now that his corporation seems to be in crisis, with political protests marking Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, will the CEO be held accountable for its failings?

"For more than a dozen years—the equivalent of three American presidential terms—Vladimir Putin has presided over the largest nation on the planet, the second most powerful nuclear arsenal, and massive natural resources. Yet there is still debate about who he really is. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy have gone a long way in answering that question, starting with the title, which makes a crucial point: even though 'Mr. Putin' was, in his upbringing and early career, a prototype of the Soviet man, he’s no longer ‘Comrade Putin.’ His aim is not the restoration of communism. He has made a deal with the capitalists who have thrived in Russia over the past two decades: they support him in the exercise of his political power, and he supports them in amassing their fortunes.”—from the foreword by Strobe Talbott

Praise for the book:

"Of the many biographies of Vladimir Putin that have appeared in recent years, this one is the most useful, particularly to foreign-policy makers..."
—Robert Legvold in Foreign Affairs

"As experienced students of modern Russia, Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy are exceptionally well qualified to explain the experiences and influences which shaped the mind of Vladimir Putin, the President who came from nowhere to assert control of a vast and complex country. Theirs is a tough analysis. Not everyone will agree with every aspect. But, if you want to begin to understand Russia today, read this book."
—Sir John Scarlett, former Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

"For anyone wishing to understand Russia’s evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide. Essential because to a very large degree the country’s most recent history is a reflection of the influence of one man, Vladimir Putin. By skillfully dissecting his various ‘identities,’ showing how these have been reflected in Russian policies and how they may be inadequate to emerging challenges, Hill and Gaddy illuminate not only the recent past but offer a tantalizing glimpse of what the future may hold."
—John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of U.S. Central Intelligence

"A meticulous psychological portrait of Vladimir Putin and of the highly personalized state he has molded. How Vladimir Putin sees himself is key to how his system works, but, after twelve years of Putin Power, the nation and the people he leads have changed while Putin himself has not. Can Putin reinvent himself? Hill and Gaddy say Russia’s new urban middle class wants more than a ‘political performance artist."
—Jill Dougherty, former Moscow Bureau Chief, CNN

"In this well-written and genuinely entertaining volume, Hill and Gaddy take us behind the theatrics and the rumors to give us a clear and intriguing view of the man himself. They have looked into Putin’s eyes and seen . . . a multiplicity of identities, all of which made him what he is today, and all of which tell us something about the Russia he continues to rule. This book is mandatory reading for the president and his advisers."
—Robert Kagan, author of The World America Made

Read about Mr. Putin at The Economist »
Read about Mr. Putin at the guardian »

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Fiona Hill

Clifford G. Gaddy

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Hagel’s Misreading of How to Treat an Ally

Michael Doran — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Chuck Hagel likes Ike. That much has been apparent for some time. But thanks to David Ignatius’s Jan. 27 op-ed column, “Reviving Eisenhower’s doctrine,” we now know what he likes best: Eisenhower’s management of the Suez crisis. For Hagel, it is more than a shining example of past American leadership. It is a guide for future presidential behavior.

Dwight D. Eisenhower is certainly worthy of emulation, but Hagel has unfortunately learned precisely the wrong lessons. In 1956, Britain, France and Israel launched coordinated invasions of Egypt. To say that Eisenhower disapproved would be an understatement. He directed at his allies a level of hostility typically reserved for worst enemies. After demanding that the attacking forces evacuate Egypt immediately, he imposed crippling economic sanctions on France and Britain. Against Israel, he threatened sanctions while engaging in bare-knuckle diplomacy.

All three powers buckled under the pressure, which was particularly damaging to Britain. Although Prime Minister Anthony Eden was America’s closest ally, Eisenhower brought his economy to the verge of collapse. The pressure destroyed Eden’s career and drove the final nail in the coffin of the British empire.

Realists in the Hagel mold find this episode exhilarating. Eisenhower, they say, pursued the national interest without concern for “sentimental” attachments, to say nothing of domestic lobbies. When applied to the present, the analogy calls for dealing sharply with Israel. The United States, the implication goes, must not allow its client to drag it into conflict with Iran. Instead, Obama must treat Benjamin Netanyahu with the same grit that Ike flashed at Eden.

But this analogy omits a key fact: Ike came to regret those policies. “Years later,” Richard Nixon wrote in the 1980s, “I talked to Eisenhower about Suez; he told me it was his major foreign policy mistake.” By 1958, Ike himself had realized his error and reversed course.

Two primary considerations prompted Eisenhower’s reevaluation. First, the Suez policy simply did not work. By distancing the United States from Israel and the Europeans, Eisenhower believed he was stabilizing the region and laying the foundation for a strategic accommodation between the Arabs, as a bloc, and the United States.

But the anticipated benefit never materialized. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser emerged from the conflict much stronger and more adversarial to U.S. interests. The Soviet penetration of the Middle East deepened considerably. These trends had catastrophic consequences, chief among them the 1958 revolution in Iraq, which replaced the most pro-Western Arab government with a junta that migrated into the Soviet orbit.

The United States, Ike realized, was paying a heavy price for having broken the only immutable rule of a realist foreign policy: Support your friends and punish your enemies. It would continue to pay for years, and not just in the Middle East. When the United States became mired in Vietnam, Britain and France refused to help. Why should they? Eisenhower had taught them that membership in the NATO alliance imposed no binding obligations outside Europe.

As he contemplated these unintended consequences, Ike concluded that he had based his strategy on a false premise. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles expressed it with admirable clarity in the midst of the crisis. U.S. failure to compel Israel to withdraw its forces from Egypt, he remarked to an agreeing Eisenhower, would lead to a catastrophic defeat in the Cold War. It would, Dulles said, “make it almost certain that virtually all of the Middle East countries would feel that United States policy toward the area was . . . controlled by the Jewish influence in the United States and that accordingly the only hope of the Arab countries was in association with the Soviet Union.”

Eisenhower assumed that the Arabs behaved as a unified bloc, especially with respect to Israel. The fallout from Suez, however, taught him otherwise. The upheavals that accompanied Nasser’s rise shared one factor: They had no connection whatsoever to Israel. From this, Eisenhower learned that the alignment of the Arab states in the Cold War was a function of their own internecine conflicts.

This realization led to a paradigm shift. During Suez, Eisenhower had envisioned the United States as an honest broker, shuttling between the Arab world and the alliance of Britain, France and Israel. By 1958, he defined the American role in an entirely new way. The job of the United States, he now realized, was to balance the status-quo Arab powers against a set of revisionists, who were aligned with the Soviet Union. In that context, Israel was more an asset than a liability. Historians typically ascribe this intellectual innovation to Nixon and Henry Kissinger. They were the first to publicly articulate the perspective, but Nixon had absorbed it while serving at Eisenhower’s side.

Today, another revolutionary wave is sweeping the Arab world, driven once again by internal factors. Meanwhile, Hagel remains fixated on a U.S.-Arab-Israeli dynamic. This magical triangle has never had the all-pervasive influence ascribed to it. As long as Hagel remains in its thrall, Eisenhower’s true realism will elude him.

Authors

Michael Doran

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

A Report Card for Hillary Clinton

Marvin Kalb — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Hillary Rodham Clinton has just concluded four tumultuous years as secretary of state, and already, as though in anticipation of a possible presidential run in 2016 (not announced but assumed by Washington pundits), she faces a groundswell of criticism about her time as the nation’s number-one diplomat.

The basic line is that she didn’t succeed at anything big. She accumulated enough mileage for first class air travel for the rest of her life—and Bill’s. But she didn’t win a ticket to the Foggy Botton Hall of Fame. Her record of accomplishment, it is asserted, is disappointing. No peace agreement in Afghanistan. Failure in Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. Reset with Russia: a big zero. Syria: a frightening disaster. Benghazi: her biggest embarrassment. And Iran? Further negotiations possible, but nothing on the near horizon to suggest a deal to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Yet, though this record may be bleak, I would still give her an A-, which, in graduate school, is not a bad grade. My reasoning follows:

Secretaries of State are not presidents. She worked for a president who managed foreign policy out of the White House and who dominated the decision-making process. Even if she had preferred a more activist policy in the Middle East, for example, she could not have initiated one without the president’s approval and enthusiasm. Last weekend, in a remarkable TV appearance, Barack Obama, with Clinton at his side, praised his secretary of state as one of the “finest” in American history. He cited the fact that, during her time as secretary, coinciding with his first administration, they together ended the war in Iraq, began to wind down the war in Afghanistan, ousted the Qaddafi regime in Libya and dismantled the “core leadership” of al-Qaeda, which included the stunning killing of Osama bin Laden. One could add that the United States has begun, sensibly, to readjust its overall foreign policy from one focused almost entirely on the greater Middle East to one that recognizes the rising importance of China as a potential adversary and India as a potential ally. The U.S. opening to Myanmar falls into this effort.

Also, not to be under-valued in an age of instant communication, Clinton has represented the United States in a thoroughly appealing way, traveling everywhere, meeting everyone, trumpeting human rights and democracy and winning the admiration of women throughout the world. No small accomplishment. In addition, she helped Obama and Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi cool the flames of war in Gaza. That yielded a ceasefire that was the best anyone could have done in that circumstance.

For any secretary of state who served after Henry Kissinger, secretary of state to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970’s, the comparison with the irrepressible Kissinger has become almost inevitable. Invariably, Kissinger wins. One reason is that Kissinger came to office with an already finely tuned concept of global power. It was a balance-of-power concept drawn from Klemens von Metternich’s nineteenth-century Austrian playbook—one great power offsetting another; the United States pitted against the Soviet Union, with both struggling for advantage and yet recognizing that in a nuclear world some degree of cooperation was important, even essential.

Another reason for Kissinger’s acclaim was that he worked for a president who, early on, understood and appreciated Kissinger’s approach and who, later on, was so absorbed with his own political survival during the Watergate scandal that he gave his secretary a lot of room to maneuver and negotiate and even steal more than a few headlines. Finally, Kissinger loved the machinations and mysteries of modern diplomacy, and his manipulation of the media was clever enough to win their respect while he achieved a meaningful degree of success in the Middle East and in East-West relations. But he failed miserably, in my view, in Vietnam, where the war continued on his watch, with additional thousands of Americans killed, though he and Nixon knew the war was unwinnable.

Clinton, though highly experienced as a First Lady and New York senator, obviously intelligent and globally recognized, assumed the secretary’s mantle without enjoying either Kissinger’s background as a foreign-policy expert or benefitting from America’s undisputed position as the world’s number one power. Therefore, the inevitable comparisons with Kissinger would seem unjustified. By January 2009, the United States was not necessarily in decline, as some scholars have suggested, but it was clearly tired of its involvement in two long and bitter wars. It conveyed the unmistakable impression of a great power eager to cut back on its global obligations. Time and again, the president stressed the need for “nation building at home.”

Consider also the great recession, which greeted Obama and Clinton on their first day in power. The threat of this recession turning into a depression comparable to the 1930s was so great that the Obama administration had to focus first and foremost on domestic problems rather than foreign policy.

In this context, it was Clinton’s job to keep the world in one piece while Obama spent most of his time trying to re-energize the shattered economy. She did a good job.

I sensed that she wanted to out-Kissinger Kissinger on the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock, but she never got the chance. A few months ago, having recently returned from one of her exhausting foreign journeys, she stepped out onto the beautiful backyard patio of the French ambassador’s residence during a book party for a friend. I was the only other person on the patio. She seemed to cherish a quiet moment communing with Mother Nature, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a brief chat. I asked if she ever thought about doing a Kissinger-type shuttle in the Middle East. She had tried persuasion, more than a few times, but it hadn’t worked. She nodded and smiled. “Maybe after the election,” she said. I was intrigued. Did she mean she would engage in shuttle diplomacy and try in this way to force an agreement between the two sides? She brushed aside further discussion, but fixing her eyes steadily on mine, she repeated simply, “After the election.” Then she returned to the party.

But then came the election, another trip long-scheduled and impossible to neglect, and then, unexpectedly, a series of infirmities that left her unable to engage any time soon in vigorous foreign travel. During a number of concluding interviews, she hit one point over and over: She needed to catch up on her sleep. She deserves the chance.

Authors

Marvin Kalb

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Forget Iran—Chuck Hagel's Toughest Fight Will Be the Pentagon's Budget

William A. Galston — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In the run-up to his confirmation hearing this week, Chuck Hagel has had to endure a coordinated campaign attacking his views on the simmering conflict between Iran and Israel. There's no doubt that if Hagel is confirmed as Defense Secretary, Tehran's nuclear program will eventually be one of his central challenges. But there's another task that he will have to address first, one that's perhaps even more important for the United States in the long-term: scaling the Pentagon's budget to fiscal reality.

It’s inevitable that the next head of the Department of Defense will preside over massive cuts in the military budget. The spending targets already required by law are too large to be met through reductions around the margins of our current defense posture, and the additional cuts looming at the end of February promise to make the job far harder. The United States military will be forced not only to reduce its existing capabilities, as it has after every extended period of war, but also to choose among some of its longest-standing commitments. Even if the Senators who will be questioning Hagel, who has described the defense budget as “bloated,” don't press him on this issue, one would hope that he has started to reckon with it.

Consider current projected spending. Excluding spending for ongoing wars (mainly in Afghanistan), defense spending will total about $562 billion in the current fiscal year. If that figure rose at the rate of inflation over the next decade, spending would reach $714 billion. But it won’t, thanks to the Budget Control Act of August 2011 that narrowly averted a default on the national debt: the BCA established caps below the rate of inflation for all categories of discretionary spending, foreign and domestic. As a result, defense spending is limited to $661 billion in 2022—$53 billion less than would be needed just to keep up with inflation.

There’s more. The BCA also called for an additional reduction in the deficit of $1.2 trillion between 2013 and 2022. After the “super-committee” failed to agree on how to do that, the law’s backup mechanism, “sequestration”—essentially, automatic cuts—came into play. This provision of the law would divide the $1.2 trillion evenly between defense and nondefense programs, an additional $492 billion of spending reductions in each of these sectors over the next ten years. (Reduced interest payments on the debt would make up the remaining $200 billion of the $1.2 trillion total.)

The fiscal cliff agreement pushed back the date on which sequestration goes into effect from December 31, 2012 until the end of February, and there’s a chance that sequestration could be defused (or at least softened) in the coming budget negotiation. Still, the bet on both sides of the aisle is that sequestration will become operative at the beginning of March. On top of the budget caps, it would reduce defense spending in 2022 to $605 billion—more than $100 billion below what would be needed to maintain the purchasing power of the military budget at 2013 levels. Just this year, military leaders would have to cut $60 billion from pre-BCA levels, more than 10 percent of projected expenditures. And they would have to cram those cuts into the remaining six months of the fiscal year. That’s the planning horizon that Chuck Hagel would face.

Meeting these targets would be even tougher than it looks. As Brookings defense expert Michael O’Hanlon observes in his recent book, The Wounded Giant, most military costs—including pay, health care, and environmental restoration—rise at a rate of about 2 percent more than inflation. There are plenty of economizing measures that are long overdue: the Pentagon could easily close more military bases and switch to more efficient personnel replacement strategies for ships at sea. Still, trimming the fat won’t get close to doing the job.

At the least, it's likely that this we would be looking at immediate layoffs, including officers and enlisted personnel who have made a long-term commitment in the expectation of a reciprocal commitment from their country, and abrupt cancellation of numerous contracts in various stages of completion. And it would become impossible for the Pentagon to carry out all the missions currently assigned to it. If Hagel gets the nod, he will have to recommend major strategic choices in the face of the Pentagon's budget constraints.

So what should he do? A case can be made that safeguarding the Persian Gulf, keeping the peace in East Asia, and guaranteeing the freedom of the seas ought to be America's top priorities. Notably, they all involve naval and air power, far more than land-based forces. In theory, we could reduce our capacity to conduct full-scale land operations, relying more on special forces and technology to keep our enemies on the defensive. This course comes with real costs and grave risks, however—in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula, among other hot spots—and would have to be the result of the most searching review of grand strategy since the late 1940s. We have not even begun to think this through.

Needless to say, urgent fiscal pressure is hardly a formula for sound defense policy-making. And I've written before about how I’m equally skeptical about huge cuts in the domestic portion of discretionary spending. So it’s worth considering what has brought us to this place. If Republicans refuse to put more revenues on the table while Democrats resist all but the most modest reforms in Medicare, we have only two choices—large deficits and a rising debt burden, or spending reductions that would gut public investment, defense, and the social safety net. As Bill Clinton would say, it’s arithmetic.

Right now, the political momentum is carrying us toward sequestration. It may well be that after we experience its effects for a year or so—on poor people as well as the nation’s defense—the politics of the budget would shift toward a more balanced approach. I'm sure that Chuck Hagel is hoping it happens as quickly as possible—before we damage ourselves in ways that would be hard to reverse.

Authors

William A. Galston

Publication: The New Republic

Hagel Defense Nomination Will Pass

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearings as secretary of Defense starting today promise to be the most riveting of any of President Obama's second-term nominations. The former GOP senator from Nebraska and Vietnam War veteran will surely come under fire from some committee members over his provocative views on a variety of areas.

Whether a contrarian-type thinker like Hagel can be highly effective at the Pentagon is partly a matter of timing. For a new administration, needing a steady and cautious hand on the tiller, it might not be best.

But now that President Obama is in his second term, he knows his own mind on many matters, and John Kerry, as secretary of State, represents a careful and pragmatic voice on foreign policy, too. So Hagel's willingness to challenge others' assumptions might not be so undesirable. Indeed, on some issues, it could be productive.

Much of the controversy over Hagel has concerned his views on key countries such as Israel, Iran and Iraq. Here's what he has said and why it should not derail his confirmation:

On Israel, Hagel has criticized aspects of Israeli policy, including its reticence in engaging with Palestinians. In 2006, he said, "Our relationship with Israel is a special and historic one. But it need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships." Many others in the foreign policy community have expressed similar concerns. It is highly doubtful that Hagel will express any hesitancy about helping Israel defend itself.

On Iraq, Hagel called the 2007 U.S. troop surge "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder ... since Vietnam." But even some of us who came to defend that policy strongly had initial doubt. In any event, U.S. troops are now home from Iraq.

On Iran, the nominee has expressed doubts over possible U.S. airstrikes even as Tehran continues its march toward a nuclear weapons capability. But the president has declared repeatedly his firm view that Iran must not be allowed a nuclear weapon.

In this regard, Hagel's skepticism about a hard line could be a welcome antidote to a strong consensus leaning toward the use of force in coming months, a decision that would be fraught with danger.

On Afghanistan, it is important that Hagel show an openmindedness about our policy. He has been a skeptic, but that is OK as long as Hagel understands where we are in the campaign plan, and recommends any major changes with utmost care.

Much progress has been made, and Afghans have been counting on a gradual and careful U.S. transition out of the combat mission. Without delicate handling, the Afghan army and police could collapse, and next year's Afghan presidential elections could deteriorate into a sectarian and tribal competition. That would risk future stability and increase the likelihood of an al-Qaeda return.

The U.S. defense budget is the biggest issue of all for Hagel. If confirmed, he will step into a situation where, failing new congressional action, the Pentagon will have to eliminate almost 10% in its current year budget under the automatic spending cuts due March 1.

Hagel has said that the Defense Department "in many ways has been bloated. ... I think the Pentagon needs to be pared down." Yet one round of defense cuts has already been agreed upon. The cuts are somewhere between $350 billion and $487 billion over the next 10 years, as part of the deal worked out between Obama and Congress back in 2011.

But on March 1, if no further action happens, another $500 billion will be taken out of its 10-year plan. These cuts are in addition to the more dramatic reductions in war costs underway. Some have noted that annual defense spending would still slightly exceed the Cold War average even after such reductions. But the automatic cuts are not wise, and I hope Hagel will say so.

To be sure, additional Pentagon budget cuts of $100 billion to $200 billion over the next decade are feasible as part of a broader deficit deal. But I see no way to make $500 billion more in cuts without undermining our defense strategy.

Hagel can bring some fresh thinking to the budget process, and if he shows flexibility with some of his past views during the hearings, there's no reason he won't win confirmation.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: USA Today

State and the Stateswoman: How Hillary Clinton Reshaped U.S. Foreign Policy — But Not the World

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to hand the reins of foreign policy over to Senator John Kerry, her legacy is a matter of hot debate. To be sure, with much of the Middle East in turmoil and U.S. relations with Russia and China shifting, broad assessments of her tenure, no matter how heated, are only provisional. Even so, some of the most important and enduring elements of the Clinton years—steadiness and pragmatism coupled with a reinvigoration of ties with Europe and the so-called rebalancing with Asia—are clear.

For style and for collegiality, Clinton gets high marks. She understood that she was a part of President Barack Obama's team, not a co-president, as some might have once worried she would try to be coming out of the bruising 2008 election season. When Obama had strong views, she did not publicly dissent or allow any distance to open between her position and that of her boss. She understood that secretaries of state carry out the foreign policy determined by the president and that little good can come from public disagreements of the kind that plagued the Carter administration and the George W. Bush administration.

Clinton's work ethic as secretary of state was remarkable. She did not quite overtake Condoleezza Rice's record for miles traveled during her four-year stint as the nation's top diplomat -- Rice traversed a total of 1,006,846 miles, Clinton a mere 956,733 -- but most everyone around her was continually impressed by her preparedness. Hard work is no unusual distinction for secretaries of state, and is, in itself, no great virtue. But in Clinton's case, diligence paid off. Gaffes were rare, and she never embarrassed allies with a failure to understand the constraints binding them; there were few public trip-ups of the kind that haunted the Reagan administration's early efforts on missile defense, the Clinton administration's dealings with allies over Bosnia, or the George W. Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. Moreover, Clinton did not have to backtrack on positions she recognized too late as unpromising, unwise, or simply incorrect; for example, there was none of the on-again, off-again quality to negotiations with North Korea that there had been in several previous administrations.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: Foreign Affairs

The President's Fantasy Cabinet

Shadi Hamid — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

As President Obama's second term gets underway, The American Prospect asked experts and activists look back and weigh in on who Obama should have chosen to serve, if partisan politics (and reality) were no object. Please find below Shadi Hamid's contribution, which discusses Obama's optimal choice for Secretary of State.

Secretary of State

John Kerry would be a safe bet and a solid Secretary of State. But I’m not sure if a safe, solid Secretary of State—or a solid Secretary of Defense—is precisely what America needs now. That Kerry turned against the Iraq war and revised his views on the use of force is a credit to him. President Obama has clearly decided that he wishes to pursue a prudent, status quo-oriented foreign policy. But as the Middle East threatens to implode and with America’s moral leadership increasingly in doubt, a better choice would be someone at least slightly outside the Washington consensus—someone who saw foreign policy as a way to fashion new opportunities rather than manage the same set of threats. Though the Obama administration may not agree, the Arab Spring is on par with the transformative world events of 1848, 1945, and 1989. In an ideal world, Obama would appoint someone who gets the Arab revolutions and understands the opportunities they provide for bold, creative U.S. policymaking.

To be sure, there are few candidates of stature who fit that bill. Two exceptions are Samantha Power and Michael McFaul. Power came from a human rights background and, as Director for Multilateral Affairs on Obama’s National Security Council, has been a key administration voice for a more ideals-based foreign policy (especially during the debate over intervention in Libya). McFaul was also a senior NSC director and is now U.S. Ambassador to Russia (full disclosure: I briefly worked with McFaul when I was a fellow at the center he directed at Stanford University). Before joining the administration, he established himself as one of the leading American scholars not only on Russian politics but also on democratic transitions, an issue that is front and center not only in the Arab world, but also in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Eastern Europe. There is also something to be said for having an academic in the position, which can mean (but certainly doesn’t always) that the person in question has a broader, longer-term view of economic and political dynamics and the role they play in international politics.

Read the full list of recommendations by a range experts and activists on The American Prospect »

Authors

Shadi Hamid

Publication: The American Prospect

Flexible Thinking Is Key for Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:22:00 -0500

Senator Chuck Hagel is a fascinating choice to be secretary of defense.

The selection clearly reflects President Obama’s strong sense of kinship and loyalty to Hagel—a man who stood up for Obama back in 2008 during the presidential race, and a man who was not afraid to challenge his own party or the conventional wisdom on Iraq, Iran, Israel, and other matters. With voices like Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s coming strongly to Hagel’s defense of late, I am favorably inclined myself. Specifically, on Iran policy, I welcome Hagel’s skepticism about the use of force—because a military strike on Iran would be considerably more foreboding and fraught than many seem to recognize. Even if we ultimately carry it out, as the least bad of numerous options, I would hope that it would occur only after all other recourses were exhausted. Hagel could help ensure that outcome.

Still, it is fair to acknowledge the views of Hagel’s critics and the legitimacy of some of their positions. For example, given what Senator Hagel has argued over the years, I would want to know answers to questions like these:

You opposed the Iraq surge back in early 2007, which was perhaps understandable at the time, but now that we can all see that it worked (at least within certain military parameters), how do you feel about it now?
If you have opposed Iran sanctions when in the Senate, do you still do so now, in light of the regime’s subsequent behavior, including the stolen elections of June 2009 as well as the continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability?
In Afghanistan, what would be the consequences of an accelerated drawdown, of the type you seem to prefer, for the Afghan army and police force that depend on NATO partnering at present, and also for the Afghan political system more generally as it prepares for 2014 elections?

It is not so much that any of these questions have right answers. But they are all matters where Hagel’s previous views have raised eyebrows and where new information may require some revision in his (and many others’, including my own) thinking on the subjects. It would be important to get a sense of his willingness to rethink controversial views when evidence challenges them. If Senator Hagel demonstrates that he has such sensibilities—that he is a flexible and empirical thinker—I believe his contrarian and independent way of thinking could be very useful to this president and this country, and would hope the Senate would promptly confirm.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

John Brennan Is An Excellent Choice to Lead the CIA

Bruce Riedel — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:30:00 -0500

John Brennan is an excellent choice to be the next director of the CIA. He served in the agency both on the analytic and operational sides of the organization. He has an insiders understanding of the unique culture of the spy organization. At the same time he has the confidence of the President from four years in the White House as Obama's counter terrorism czar. Its a very unique skill set. He will inherit an agency facing some key decisions. For a decade, the CIA has rightly been pre-occupied with the al Qaeda threat and supporting two large wars. The era of large ground wars is ending even as the al Qaeda threat is being transformed by the Arab Awakening from Mali to Syria. The challenge ahead will getting conflicting priorities right in an era when America faces many intelligence requirements with tighter budgets to meet them. The DCIA also oversees a global espionage alliance and he has to build and manage productive liaison relations with many other countries, some friends and some not so friendly or even worse. Brennan has years of experience with this clandestine diplomacy. His close ties to Obama will enhance his strengths as America's top spy master.

Authors

Bruce Riedel