Brookings: Topics - U.S. Department of Defense

Beyond the Arab Awakening: A Strategic Assessment of the Middle East

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:29:00 -0400

On August 28-29, 2012, the Saban Center at Brookings and the United States Central Command brought together analysts, officers, and policymakers to discuss the new and enduring challenges facing the United States in the Middle East.

The conference, Beyond the Arab Awakening: A Strategic Assessment of the Middle East, explored security developments in key countries of the region, focusing on those issues where the risks and opportunities for the United States are the greatest.

General James N. Mattis, then CENTCOM’s commander, delivered opening remarks, and the Honorable Michèle Flournoy, formerly the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, deliver a keynote address. The conference also featured experts from the Middle East as well as senior American analysts and officials. Together, the speakers and conference participants offered insights that went well beyond conventional Washington wisdom and provided valuable lessons and ideas for the U.S. military and policy community.

The proceedings from this conference include summaries of the sessions and the full text of Dr. Flournoy’s keynote address.

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Beyond the Arab Awakening: A Strategic Assessment of the Middle East

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Lessons and Context of the Navy’s First Carrier Drone Flight

Peter W. Singer — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:33:00 -0400

The U.S. Navy recently made history with its flight of the X-47B UCAS, the first unmanned carrier drone (unmanned systems) to launch from an aircraft carrier. In 2009 and 2011, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings had the pleasure of hosting then Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, to discuss the future of unmanned operations. The vision he laid out is well on its way to fruition, making it especially useful to place what happened today in the context of the larger U.S. defense strategy and to look at what lessons have been learned in the development of unmanned systems. As I explored in a look at the past and future of naval aviation after 100 years of flight, this success is only one part of a much bigger story.

What this history tells us is that, now that the Navy has crossed yet another step that the naysayers said could never be done, the challenges are as much organizational and political, as they are technical. For example, now that unmanned systems have shown they can fly off a carrier, what will be their exact role? Whether they will be delegated to take on tasks on their own or paired with manned planes, for a package that is greater than the sum of its parts, is a crucial question of naval air combat doctrine moving forward. It is akin to the questions that early warplanes faced as to whether they were to be tethered to the existing surface force of battleships as scouts or serve as their own, as a new form of a battle fleet.

We are only at the start of this robotic revolution at sea, just around the World War I stage of things, if manned airplanes are a parallel. Just as the first Navy planes started out doing only observation, but soon began to be used for everything from bombing runs to carrier onboard delivery (COD), so we are seeing a similar expansion in the roles of unmanned systems. UCAS originally started out being just in the observation ISR role, but clearly has a more lethal future, while the Marines are already using robotic helicopters for roles like cargo delivery in Afghanistan. But just like back then, we don’t yet have all the answers as to the optimal doctrine. Even the basic design of this technology remains to be learned and adopted.

A second lesson is that despite its relentless advancement, there are no signs that technology will end the central role of humans in war and at sea any time soon. However, not “ending”, isn’t the same thing as not “changing.” The specifics of the human roles will be altered, but again, this is nothing new. Most Navy warplanes today don’t have tail gunners or navigators. The skill sets and ranks of those who wear the wings of gold might be altered, which opens up the kind of internal identity and qualification questions in the Navy that have also recently challenged the Air Force. Does the remote operator (note: “operator,” not “pilot” is the terminology so far in the Navy, as opposed to how the Air Force views the requirement) of a plane that can take off and land on its own, who is sitting behind a computer screen, actually need 20/20 eyesight or the ability to do 50 sit-ups? Do they even need to be an officer (akin to how the Army has handled UAS versus the Air Force)? The next few decades will be an exciting time, with new paths being forged, much like they were by the first generation of naval aviation pioneers.

This leads to a third challenge that may be the most vexing to the Pentagon in the years ahead. In an article entitled U-Turn, I explored how there are a series of speed bumps that loom for unmanned systems, not so ironically just as they are making their mark. These range from internal cultural resistance to budgetary battles, in which the new is often disadvantaged against the old. We are seeing this play out here again. Few realize that (according to figures from the DoD UAs office), at the very same time the X-47 knocked down yet another technical barrier, the Navy’s planned UAS budget is being cut by 24%, several times greater than the rest of the budget cuts. Indeed, the tension that the successful UCAS test created for F35’s longer term buy numbers is much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, not to be spoken about, but palpable.

Bottom line: Congrats to the Navy and the team behind the X-47B on yet again making history, but this history tells us we have an array of questions to explore in the years ahead.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

How to Cut the Pentagon Budget Better Than Sequestration Does

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:16:00 -0400

A deeply flawed conventional wisdom is developing that despite warnings from former defense secretary Leon Panetta and others that the sky would fall if sequestration occurred, automatic spending cuts are not so bad after all. By this logic, not only should the cuts in defense as well as domestic “discretionary” accounts continue, but it would also be okay to implement automatic and across-the-board cuts in the next fiscal year, too, starting in October.

Yet the path we are on is far from acceptable.

While some of this year’s roughly $46 billion in defense cuts from sequestration reflect reasonable pruning, many of the reductions are not sustainable. Savings from policies such as dramatically reducing training for most military units this summer are not catastrophic if done once, but they cannot be continued without fundamentally jeopardizing military readiness.

Then there are savings that appear real but are not, such as deferred overhauls of major weaponry and deferred maintenance at bases. We can put off some repairs, but most will have to be done eventually — and may be more expensive if deferred. Then there are savings made on the backs of those with limited ability to make their voices heard: furloughs of civilian government employees top this list. In addition to being highly disruptive to government operations, these furloughs suggest that federal workers are second-class citizens (even as members of Congress can keep their entire paychecks for the year). Graduating students at public policy schools and other worthy individuals are being denied opportunities to work for the federal government due to hiring freezes.

Together, these temporary savings, faux savings and unfair savings represent at least half the $46 billion in cutbacks that the Defense Department is experiencing.

The military budget can be cut beyond the initial reductions from the 2011 Budget Control Act. But continued sequestration or reductions of comparable magnitude such as those resulting from the Simpson-Bowles proposals go too far. Such plans tend to make sweeping claims that, because defense spending remains reasonably high by historic and international standards, it can be cut much further. This reasoning is too vague for a world in which crises continue throughout the broader Middle East, U.S. forces remain engaged in Afghanistan, North Korea continues to nuclearize, and China continues its rise. It is time to get specific about further defense cuts.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

The Road to War : Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

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

Brookings Institution Press 2013 280pp.

If you remember the golden age of broadcast network news, then you probably welcomed Marvin Kalb into your living room on a regular basis. Recruited by Edward R. Murrow to join CBS News, Kalb went on to a distinguished three-decade career with CBS, and then NBC News. In The Road to War, Kalb examines the role of diplomatic commitments made by presidents. These commitments, rather than formal declarations of war, have led one president after another, from Truman to Obama, to order American troops into wars all over the world.

Condensed Excerpt:

Since World War II, presidents have relied more on commitments, public and private, than they have on declarations of war, even though the U.S. Constitution declares rather unambiguously that Congress has the responsibility to “declare war.”

Over the years, presidential commitments have come in different shapes and sizes, suggesting honor and integrity, strength and determination, the word of a president backed by the military power of the United States. No trifling matter, in diplomatic affairs. And yet . . .

Some commitments, such as America’s to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have been successful and durable, in part because they have been based on solemn treaties ratified by Congress. Another example is America’s commitment to South Korea, also based on a mutual defense treaty, supported by the presence of 28,500 American troops armed with nuclear weapons until December 1991.

Words have consequence. Spoken by a president, they can often become American policy, with or without congressional approval.

South Vietnam represented a very different challenge. It was war by presidential commitment, the United States sliding mindlessly, one administration after another, into a guerrilla war in Indochina, which cost more than 58,000 American lives. Few in Congress or the media questioned the war’s provenance or legitimacy, until it was too late.

Finally, in this book, which focuses on American commitments to South Korea, South Vietnam, and Israel, the one to Israel is perhaps the most fascinating. Here we have an unusually close relationship, culturally, religiously, politically in alignment, more or less, yet one without any basis in a formal treaty linking the interests of one nation to the other. It is based primarily on private presidential letters to Israeli prime ministers, rich with American promises and pledges to Israeli security. Over the years many of the promises have been honored, but some were betrayed, leaving feelings of anxiety among Israeli leaders about the ultimate reliability of an American commitment.

No doubt, presidential commitments are seen as serious, almost sacred, promises to act made by a chief executive on behalf of his administration. And other nations may view these commitments as binding nation-to-nation promises that succeeding administrations will honor, too. But there is a problem. Will they?

In 1982, for example, President Ronald Reagan pledged America’s “iron- clad commitment to the defense of Israel.” The commitment made sense to Reagan at the time, and it has been echoed by one president after another ever since. But does Reagan’s pledge have the same resonance now that it did then? Does it mean that if Israel feels it must bomb Iran to stop its nuclear program that America must join in the attack? Much has to do with trust between leaders and countries. Do Israeli leaders trust President Barack Obama as much as they did Bill Clinton and George W. Bush? These are questions that cut to the heart—and viability—of a presidential commitment.

Words have consequence. Spoken by a president, they can often become American policy, with or without congressional approval. When a president “commits” the United States to a controversial course of action, he may be setting the nation on the road to war or on a road to reconciliation. In matters of national security, his powers have become awesome—his word decisive. Who decides when we go to war? The president decides. As former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told me, it “all depends” on the president. “It’s his call.” Likewise, it is his decision when and whether, and under what conditions, to support a friendly nation.

In the final analysis, for reasons both political and military, Israel may, on its own, strike Iran. Would it then expect American diplomatic and military support? Obama has strongly implied yes. But, without a mutual defense treaty, there may always be a question about the durability and reliability of a presidential commitment.

A president, such as Barack Obama, for example, pledges that the United States has “an ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security—meaning, one would imagine, that if Israel were attacked, the United States would come to Israel’s defense. Is there anything more to this commitment than a presidential promise? Obviously, yes. Israel enjoys broad-based support from Congress and the American people. For the most part, both nations share common values and common aims. But the president is the key to determining the flow and texture of this delicate relationship.

A question often asked by political leaders in Israel is whether Obama will live up to his word. Will his commitment be honored or betrayed by him or by a successor? The answer to this question can mean war or peace. Might it not be better for both nations to negotiate a formal defense treaty—and, in this way, try to reduce or even eliminate areas of doubt in their relationship? Those who question the value or relevance of a U.S.-Israeli defense treaty point out that in recent years Obama has tried to organize Israeli-Palestinian peace talks only to fail abysmally because of Palestinian objections to Israeli settlements and Israeli insistence on building such settlements in the name of security. How would a treaty resolve these problems, they ask? Indeed, even the effort to negotiate a defense treaty would likely kick up fresh tumult and anxiety among Arab states, which are apt to see a U.S. treaty with Israel as proof that the United States can no longer be counted on as an impartial negotiator.

Another question: Obama has warned, more than once: “Let there be no doubt—America is determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.” Though the world has heard this warning, there are still many, especially in the Middle East, who question whether Obama would really use American military power to stop Iran from “getting nuclear weapons,” however that phrase might be defined. It is said in Washington and Jerusalem that never before have Israel and the United States been in closer alignment on stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. True, and yet not quite true. In the final analysis, for reasons both political and military, Israel may, on its own, strike Iran. Would it then expect American diplomatic and military support? Obama has strongly implied yes. But, without a mutual defense treaty, there may always be a question about the durability and reliability of a presidential commitment.

* * *

The Road to War is available in both hardcover and eBook formats:

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

Before tag at bottom:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marvin Kalb

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{BE4CBFE9-92F9-41D9-BDC8-0C2CC479A3F7}, 978-0-8157-2493-3, $29.95 Order
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Which Military Opinions To Listen To

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

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

A recent study by Jim Golby, Kyle Dropp and Peter Feaver published by the Center for New American Security examines the effects that public statements by senior military officers have on public opinion about the use of force. The study is based on survey research in which respondents were presented with real and hypothetical questions about whether the United States should apply military force to certain situations overseas. Some respondents were told that U.S. military leaders favored the contemplated action, others were told that the same military leaders opposed the action, and still others were given no cues about what the military thinks. The main finding of the research is that publicly expressed military views do make a difference on public opinion, especially when such views oppose a military action. Military opposition reduced public support for the use of military force abroad by an average of seven percentage points, while military support increased public support by three percentage points. The surveyed sample was large enough that these were significant differences.

The authors discuss some concerns suggested by these findings, especially the hazard of what they call “a problematic politicization of the military.” Their concerns are legitimate, but the study fails to make an important distinction between the sort of military opinions that ought to worry us (worry us, that is, because they are being expressed publicly) and the sort that ought not.

The public (and policymakers in the executive branch and Congress) ought to pay careful attention to what senior military officers say on questions that are contained within the military's area of expertise. That is where military officers can offer opinions that are more firmly grounded than what anyone else can offer. Such questions would include the costs and time required to accomplish a military mission, risks incurred in accomplishing it such as collateral damage to civilians, and the likelihood of being able to accomplish it at all.

A military officer's opinion ought not to be considered worth more than anyone else's when it goes beyond the area of specifically military expertise. Outside that area would be questions such as political and diplomatic costs of an action, national priorities in the allocation of limited resources, and how important attainment of the military objective would be to the national interest. Because these sorts of questions are just as important in any decision to apply armed force overseas as are the ones on which military officers are specially qualified to speak, an overall judgment on whether any given application of force ought to be undertaken also goes beyond the area of military expertise. Thoughtful and intelligent military officers are going to have opinions about these things and are entitled to have them, but that is not the same as having a special claim on the public's attention.

If there is a norm to be cultivated here, it is that active-duty military officers ought to insist on being heard on military questions (which is not the same as the question of whether a particular military action ought to be undertaken), while being mindful of the politicization hazard that Golby, Dropp and Feaver mention and thereby not taking advantage of their prestige, their uniform and their credibility to offer publicly their opinions on other things.

Unfortunately, too often military opinion gets handled in exactly the opposite way. On one hand, armchair generals sometimes do not defer to the military on military questions. A well known and egregious example is the public disparagement by civilian Pentagon leaders of the army chief of staff's judgment about the U.S. troop presence that would be required in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, military officers' opinions on questions that go beyond strictly military judgments sometimes are given excessive prominence, usually because politicians either want to shirk the responsibility for making a decision by pretending that a military opinion can be treated as a surrogate for a policy judgment, or want to use military officers as supporting props for promoting their own point of view.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

A Discussion About Drones

Peter W. Singer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Charlie Rose, Peter W. Singer joins Michael Boyle of LaSalle University, Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University, and Scott Shane of The New York Times to discuss the revolutionary nature of drone technology as well as the dilemmas—strategic, ethical, political—that they present. Read an excerpt below.

Charlie Rose: Peter Singer, put this in the context of warfare overall.

Peter Singer: Well you have a revolutionary change that’s happening in the technology of war. Now, the question here is, are we talking about war or counterterrorism—we’ve got things conflated. But when you look at the technology of drones, it’s a gamechanger in war. It’s something along the level of the introduction of gunpowder or the steam engine or the airplane. By that I mean it gives you a series of capabilities that we didn’t imagine we’d have a generation ago, but also it’s giving us a series of dilemmas that we also didn’t imagine we’d be having a generation ago. And they’re dilemmas that are political, strategic, tactical, all the way down to ethical and legal.

Now one thing that’s happening here I think that’s a challenge is that we’re seeing things conflated. So, just as the example that Scott gave of the conflation between the JSOC kill list and process—the Joint Special Operations Command on the military side—and the one that the CIA is doing, both of which are taking place in the shadow wars that are out there.

Peter Singer: Signature strikes is an illustration of this, where on one hand we’ve seen administration officials say either “we don’t do that,” and other times we’ve heard them say “we do do that, but this is why.” But then we also have a variety of tactics beyond signature strikes that, for example, in an overt military operation you would never utilize.

One’s called a 'double tap strike,' which is where you strike at a target and then you wait for the rescuers to come about and you strike again. Now that’s been something that we’ve pointed out that if adversaries did that in Afghanistan or Iraq we would say “how dare you, this is evidence of how bad they are.” Yet there have been reports that we may have conducted strikes in a similar manner. Don’t know whether they’re confirmed or not.

But what I’m getting at here is that a civilian, political appointee lawyer, operating under a very different set of laws and priorities, looks at that issue and the question of what tactics you might bring, what rules of engagement you operate under, very differently from how a military lawyer would. And that’s part of the importance of whether these do shift from intelligence agency to military, but also whether they stay in the complete black ops world or whether we own up to the fact that these are not covert operations anymore, they’re frankly not so covert, and we need to stop running away from them and embrace the fact that we are doing them and these are the rules we’re going to operate under and actually stick and follow those rules.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Publication: Charlie Rose

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Will Russia Take "Yes" for an Answer on Missile Defense?

Steven Pifer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:47:00 -0400

When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced this month that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors in Alaska, he noted that the U.S. missile defense program in Europe would be restructured. This means cancellation of Phase 4 of the plan, which called for the deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.

The decision could open the way for resolving U.S.-Russian differences over missile defense, one of the thorniest problems on the bilateral agenda, and remove an obstacle to further nuclear arms reductions — if Moscow can say something other than “nyet.”

The initial Russian reaction gave little ground for optimism. But Russian officials often react slowly to new ideas, so we may not yet have the final word.

The Obama administration unveiled its “European Phased Adaptive Approach” in 2009 with the goal of deploying increasingly capable SM-3 missile interceptors in anticipation that Iran would develop missiles with increasingly longer ranges. Moscow initially appeared to welcome the approach.

In November 2010, NATO and Russia agreed to explore a cooperative missile defense for Europe. Talks between U.S. and Russian officials in early 2011 yielded significant convergence on questions such as transparency, joint exercises and jointly manned NATO-Russia centers to share early warning data and plan how NATO and Russia missile defense systems would work together.

The dialogue stalled, however, as Russian officials began to complain more vociferously about Phase 4 of the plan, originally scheduled for 2020, when the SM-3 IIB interceptor would achieve the capability to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Moscow asserted that Iran stood many years, if not decades, from developing an ICBM, and claimed that the United States instead planned to target SM-3 IIBs against Russian ICBMs. U.S. officials countered that SM-3 IIBs in Europe would be ill-placed to engage Russian strategic missiles.

Hagel’s announcement renders that argument moot.

Now if the Russians do not want to move forward on resolving their differences with Washington over missile defense, they have to find other reasons to object. And they may.

A Russian official has expressed opposition to the fact that Phases 2 and 3 of the missile defense plan will go forward in Romania and Poland. SM-3 interceptors in those phases, however, will only be able to engage intermediate-range missiles. That presumably poses no problem for Moscow, as a 1987 treaty bans Russia (and the United States) from having intermediate-range missiles.

Russian recalcitrance may reflect simmering resentment about NATO enlargement, and the prospective deployment of SM-3 missile interceptors in Eastern Europe could add to the unhappiness. But how will small U.S. military detachments with interceptors to defend against missiles that Russia does not have pose a threat to Russia?

Moscow has sought a “legal guarantee” that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic missiles, even though they know full well that Senate Republicans would block such a treaty. Russian officials assert that the absence of legally binding limits creates uncertainty about the offense-defense relationship.

Moscow is correct that increasing missile defense capabilities could undermine the balance in strategic offensive forces, but that problem will not arise for 15 or 20 years, if then. The United States plans to deploy only 44 interceptors capable of engaging ICBMs in 2017.

Russia could cut its strategic missile force by 50 percent or even 75 percent and still easily overwhelm those interceptors. Until the gap between strategic offense and defense narrows considerably, a U.S. political commitment not to target Russian missiles, coupled with transparency on missile defense plans, should suffice.

Domestic motives may lie behind the Russian position. President Vladimir Putin may see political value in scratchy relations with the United States. Similarly, the Russian Ministry of Defense may hope that keeping alive tensions over missile defense will produce greater resources for military modernization.

If the Russians want to continue the argument over missile defense, they can offer various pretexts. But that should not obscure the main point: their assertion that missile defenses, specifically SM-3 IIB interceptors, will threaten Russian ICBMs and thereby undermine the strategic balance now has no substantive basis.

So is Moscow prepared to engage in a serious way with Washington and NATO to settle the missile defense question and pursue a cooperative approach?

Russian officials have begun to offer a more nuanced reaction to Hagel’s announcement and, on Monday, he and the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, agreed to resume consultations on missile defense. This is good news.

The question now is whether Moscow can find a way to say yes. Or will it instead seek an excuse to keep the fight going? President Putin, over to you.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The New York Times

Why The U.S. Is Not in a Cyber War

Ian Wallace — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

For several weeks, it has been difficult to open a newspaper or watch a Sunday talk show without hearing about the advent of “cyber war.” The media has been filled with an avalanche of cyber threat-related stories: the hacking of leading newspapers, evidence of Chinese government involvement in intellectual property theft, and now, further distributed denial of service attacks against U.S. banks. All these events present real and serious national security challenges. But cyber-espionage, cyber-crime and the malicious disruption of critical infrastructure are not the same as war, and the distinction is important.

The idea that America is in the middle of a “cyber war” isn't just lazy and wrong. It's dangerous. The war analogy implies the requirement for military response to cyber intrusions. America genuinely needs effective civilian government cyber defense organizations with strong relationships with the private sector and the active engagement of an informed general public. Creating and even promoting the fear of “cyber war” makes that more difficult. Here’s why:

First, while the U.S fights its wars using the highly-trained professional within the U.S. Armed Forces, defending against cyber threats does not necessary require military expertise or prowess. True, most private individuals and corporations lack the knowledge and training needed to fight off attacks from elite Chinese, Iranian and Russian cyber “warriors.” As a result, there is and will continue to be a pressing need for highly qualified information security experts to help defend the larger U.S. cyber landscape. Nonetheless, there are relatively simple ways to make it more difficult for the bad guys without escalating to a “war” standing. In 2011, the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (their equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency) showed that by taking just four key measures--“whitelisting” (i.e., allowing only authorized software to run on a computer or network), very rapid patching of applications and of operating system vulnerabilities, and restricting the number of people with administrator access to a system--85 percent of targeted intrusions can be prevented. These might appear more like prophylactic public health measures than warfare--and that’s the point. The United States does not need to declare “war” and call up the military to fend off cyber threats.

Read the full article »

Authors

Ian Wallace

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Samantha Sais / Reuters

Ill Will and the Multiplier Effect: Counterterrorism Attacks in Pakistan

Paul R. Pillar — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

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

A story from northwest Pakistan involves a discrepancy between reality and perception with regard to U.S. drone strikes. Last month two attacks in the tribal belt generated the kind of spreading news that has come to be routinely associated with the drones. A couple of al-Qaeda types are killed, but so are several villagers. The Pakistani foreign ministry lodges a protest with the U.S. embassy. According to American officials, however, the United States and U.S. drones were not involved at all in the attacks. “They were not ours,” said one official.

American speculation is that the Pakistani military conducted the attacks and attributed them to the United States to escape blame for the collateral damage. If so, this represents a reversal of a previous Pakistani practice of claiming responsibility for what really were U.S. drone strikes, to escape the embarrassment of allowing the Americans to conduct, or not preventing them from conducting, attacks on Pakistani territory. So a variable in this case is whatever public relations problem the Pakistani military and government most want to avoid in any given week.

There is a larger phenomenon at work, however, which helps to account for the believability of the Pakistani cover story. Once the United States gains a reputation for something, for good or for ill, the reputation not only becomes hard to shake but also gets applied by foreign populations in an exaggerated or overly expansive way. People are reacting to the reputation more than to individual events, because their perception of an event is heavily colored by the reputation.

This phenomenon can sometimes work to the advantage of the United States. It is involved in deterrence; a reputation for striking back can dissuade others from some transgression without actually having to strike them. But more often lately it has been a disadvantage. This applies particularly to the reputation the United States has acquired for Muslim-bashing. Americans tend not to understand the phenomenon fully because they see this reputation as a bum rap and know their intentions are better than that. They not only do not realize what is coloring other Muslims' interpretation of American actions in their part of the world; they also miss how some of their actions are adding to the reputation and thereby coloring the interpretation of future events.

The policy lesson in this is to take full account of the reputation-based multiplier effect in weighing the costs and benefits of actions ranging from drone strikes to military deployments and much else. The policy-maker needs to realize how existing reputations will color how foreign publics and governments interpret whatever action is being contemplated. He also needs to realize how the action may in turn affect the reputation of the United States and thus affect how the United States will be either thanked or hated for future actions—maybe even actions the United States itself does not commit.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Ho New / 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

From SEAL Team Six To Retiring Without Health Insurance

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Lt. Col. John Barnett (USMC) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Esquire magazine's report this week that a retired 16-year veteran of the United States military—a Navy SEAL who played a key role in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden—now struggles without health care has become a mini cause célèbre. The story is an opportune time to review how the U.S. takes care of the men and women who do so much to protect it.

America's military compensation system is at once generous and stingy. It needs improvement, but the right answer at a time of national fiscal duress cannot simply be to increase benefits wherever there seems an argument for doing so. Reforms and efficiencies are needed too.

Whatever the specifics of the SEAL's case, a person who leaves the military after 16 years doesn't fare very well in postservice compensation systems. Pensions kick in after 20 years of service, typically at 50% of previous basic pay, as does access to the military's "Tricare for life" health-care program that provides excellent benefits to veterans and their families at very modest costs.

Anyone retiring before 20 years of military service isn't eligible for these benefits, even in part, and virtually everyone in the military is well aware of this fact—which is why very few people voluntarily leave the service after 15-19 years.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon
Lt. Col. John Barnett (USMC)

Publication: Wall Street Journal

Image Source: © KYODO Kyodo / Reuters

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

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

Senator Hagel and Nuclear Weapons

Steven Pifer — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Critics of Senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense cite his views on nuclear arms reduction, including his endorsement of a proposal to cut U.S. nuclear weapons to 900 and his membership in Global Zero, as potentially dangerous to U.S. security. Are Hagel’s positions really over the top?

The senator endorsed a proposal to reduce to 900 total nuclear weapons in a 2012 Global Zero paper. That might be too low for the next step after the New START Treaty. In a recent book—The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms—Mike O’Hanlon and I proposed a new U.S.-Russia treaty to cut each side to 2000-2500 total nuclear weapons, in large part because we doubt Moscow would agree to go lower without bringing in third-country nuclear arsenals.

The Global Zero paper called for eliminating all intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and maintaining 450 nuclear weapons deployed on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and at bomber bases, with another 450 weapons held in reserve. I personally would prefer to keep some ICBMs in the force mix. That said, if our nearest peer competitor, Russia, also reduced to 900 total weapons, what would be wrong with the outcome? The United States could still maintain a secure, reliable, effective and powerful nuclear deterrent; each of the 900 weapons would be many times the explosive force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Such an agreement, moreover, could offer significant defense budget savings, particularly as we face tough decisions on recapitalizing our strategic nuclear systems.

Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, 900 nuclear weapons ought to suffice to deter Russia. As for third countries, assume that the Global Zero proposal was adopted by the United States and Russia with others agreeing to do nothing more than freeze their arsenals at current levels. That would narrow the gap between the two nuclear superpowers and other countries, but of the next largest nuclear powers, two—France and Britain—are U.S. allies. The third, China, reportedly has about 300 nuclear weapons, but the number that can reach the United States is just 60, less than one-seventh the number of deployed U.S. warheads under the Global Zero plan.

Negotiating a U.S.-Russia treaty to reduce to 900 would not be easy, but if achieved, nuclear deterrence would continue to function. The burden should be on skeptics to explain which third country would act in a dramatically different manner to challenge U.S. security or that of America’s allies.

Critics also express concern about Hagel’s membership in Global Zero (full disclosure: I also am a member). That organization advocates the goal of eliminating all nuclear arms. Almost every American president since 1945 has endorsed zero nuclear weapons as an ultimate goal. In 1986 in Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan came close to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev that would have eliminated all U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons within ten years.

Nuclear deterrence has been a key element of U.S. security policy for decades, and it helped keep the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War—with one big qualifier: at several points, the United States, the Soviet Union and the world got awfully lucky. What would have happened, for example, if John Kennedy had taken the counsel of most of his advisors and ordered air strikes on Cuba, followed by an invasion, instead of a naval blockade? U.S. intelligence did not then know that the Soviet commander on the island had tactical nuclear weapons and had been given authority to use them in the event of an attack.

Will we always be lucky, particularly if the number of nuclear-weapons states increases? At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, four countries had nuclear arms. Today the number is nine. Today the odds of a nuclear weapon being used are greater than during the Cold War. We face the threat of nuclear-armed rogue states and the ultimate nightmare: a nuclear bomb in the hands of a terrorist organization.

A genuinely non-nuclear world would eliminate that risk. It would offer distinct security advantages for the United States, which has friendly neighbors on its borders, the protection afforded by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the world’s most powerful conventional military. In a world without nuclear weapons, the United States could still practice deterrence to protect itself and its allies. U.S. conventional military capabilities would pose very heavy costs to a potential adversary.

Getting to zero would be hugely difficult, as Hagel and other serious advocates acknowledge. It would require extremely intrusive verification measures, a near automatic enforcement mechanism in the event of cheating, and settlement of long-standing international disputes. Zero nevertheless remains a sensible goal; we can move toward it in a step-by-step process of nuclear arms reductions, even if we do not know if we ultimately can get all the way there or how long it might take.

Reductions to 900 warheads or the ultimate elimination of all nuclear arms will not be simple to achieve. But we should ask two questions. What are the requirements of nuclear deterrence in the 21st century? And can we break out of the nuclear legacy of the past 60 years? Hagel seems to be asking those questions. Choosing to ignore them means consigning ourselves to continued reliance on lots of nuclear weapons … and luck.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: Ralph Alswang

What Cutting Defense Really Means

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

How much more, if at all, should the U.S. cut its military budget as part of comprehensive deficit-reduction efforts?

A typical observer can be forgiven some confusion on this issue. Even the recent history of defense spending isn't clear. Some say that the 2011 Budget Control Act cut $487 billion from the military over the next 10 years, while others claim that the armed forces will lose nothing from their core budget because the budget was bloated before 2011 anyway. In fact, the most accurate figure for cuts under current law is $350 billion over 10 years, as measured relative to a standard Congressional Budget Office baseline that assumes modest growth for inflation.

Further confusing the issue are competing arguments over how damaging additional cuts may be. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has voiced adamant opposition to any further reductions that would take annual defense spending much below $550 billion. Yet as a White House official in the 1990s he was content with a $400 billion annual budget (all figures are adjusted for inflation).

Meanwhile Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has questioned whether the U.S. could remain a superpower if the military loses another $500 billion (or 8% of its budget) over the next 10 years. Yet in 2010 the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles and Rivlin-Domenici commissions endorsed cuts of that very magnitude.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Wall Street Journal

Strangeness at Guantanamo

Paul R. Pillar — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

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

During a hearing Monday to consider pre-trial motions before the military tribunal at Guantanamo that is handling the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other defendants charged with perpetrating the 9/11 attacks, the audio and video feeds that run from the courtroom to media rooms and are the only way for the outside world to follow the proceedings were mysteriously interrupted for several minutes. No one who is saying anything to the outside world seems to know the reason for the interruption. The colonel who is the presiding judge seemed not to know on Monday. A member of the prosecution team said she does know but, with the cameras and microphones back on, would not explain. The following day the judge seemed satisfied with whatever explanation he apparently got, but he wasn't talking either.

The mysterious electronic gap is a fitting sample of much that is strange about the detention facility at Guantanamo and what goes on there. Part of the strangeness is about Guantanamo itself; other parts are about things that are centered at, or symbolized by Guantanamo, including the basis for indefinite detention of people suspected of involvement in terrorism and the military tribunal system used to try some of them.

What is odd about the facility itself is its anomalous legal status, being on a U.S. military base with a long-term lease from Cuba. Decision-makers in the George W. Bush administration selected the place to establish a detention center that would be as much as possible out of the reach of anyone's law. The Supreme Court has frustrated whatever hope there may have been to keep it entirely outside the reach of the law, but the anomaly of the place continues to be a basis for the legal uncertainty of much of what goes on there.

One of the latest of the many legal uncertainties about the military tribunal system concerns whether it can be used to try defendants for anything other than crimes of war. There is disagreement about whether prosecutors can bring to a tribunal conspiracy charges of the sort that can certainly be brought in a civilian court. The Department of Justice says they can; the military judge in charge of the tribunals says they can't (while adding that this very disagreement demonstrates the tribunals' independence and by implication their fairness). Besides the uncertainty, there is an irony given how members of Congress who have forced the handling of terrorism cases out of the civilian courts and into military tribunals may have thought that this tough handling of the subject as “war” would mean greater power and freedom to punish terrorists without prosecutors' jobs being complicated by all the rules of evidence and whatnot that civilian courts have. With regard to something like the use of conspiracy charges, the move to military tribunals means less, not more, flexibility in what prosecutors can do.

Also in the news this week is the administration's announcement that the State Department official who has been charged with negotiating new custody arrangements for Guantanamo prisoners is being reassigned without being replaced. This move is being interpreted as a tacit admission by the Obama administration that it will not realize its goal of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo, although officially the administration says that is still the goal. Failure to meet that goal is partly due to facing the reality of each detainee's case being different and many of them being complicated. The failure is in large part due again to Congress, which has restricted movement of detainees both to the United States and to some of the key foreign countries. Thus another irony: the actions of those who think in terms of a “war on terror” with a beginning and an end have laid the basis for a supposedly temporary detention system that will have no end.

President Obama recently appointed former prosecutor Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. As U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, White's office successfully prosecuted several of the highest profile terrorism cases—the experience that most refutes some of the chief arguments made in favor of reliance on the military tribunal system. Although at the SEC White will be a regulator rather than a prosecutor, the administration's evident hope and message in making this appointment is that Wall Street crooks will face effective punishment. Maybe the United States will handle the cases of such crooks with greater rationality, consistency and effectiveness than it seems to be handling the cases of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Thank the French, Don't Bill Them

Marvin Kalb — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The French deserve our thanks for repelling Islamist advances in northern Mali. What they do not deserve is a Pentagon bill for the limited military support we have provided in recent days. Indeed, if it is true, as reported in the French media, that United States has withheld larger deliveries of military assistance until assured of payment, then Washington ought to be ashamed of itself.

In recent days, U.S. transport planes have begun moving French troops and equipment into Mali—two planeloads on Monday, one on Tuesday; and defense secretary Leon Panetta has assured French officials that more can be made available. But the painfully grudging American response to French appeals for help is embarrassing and unbecoming for a superpower supposedly in the vanguard of the struggle against global terrorism.

France is doing the heavy lifting in Mali, because Mali was a French colony and many Frenchmen still live there. It became clear a few weeks ago that Islamist radicals were moving into position to seize the capital city of Bamako. The pathetically inept government of Mali could do little to stop them and requested urgent assistance. The socialist French prime minister, Francois Hollande, though opposed to military intervention and besieged by economic crisis, sent planes, tanks and thousands of troops to Mali. Frenchmen were threatened, and he acted promptly and courageously.

At the same time, Hollande urged neighboring African countries to join French troops in the struggle against Islamist radicals, who for months had been imposing harsh sharia-type law upon northern Mali, amputating limbs, stoning citizens and destroying some of the country’s cultural heritage. Until the French acted, there was a strong possibility that Mali could shortly become an Islamist country governed by al-Qaeda in the heart of central Africa—similar to what Afghanistan was shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States.

For this reason, the United States has been very concerned about the rise of Islamist fanaticism in Africa in recent years. Religious fanaticism tied to al-Qaeda terrorism make a very volatile, dangerous mix. The United States has even set up a small but elite force of troops and agents to help fight Mali-type insurgencies in Africa. Is this not the time to use it? One hopes, without fanfare, that it is being used.

The United States might have leaped to France’s support in Mali, but it did not. It limited its military assistance, making certain everyone understood that Washington would not send any troops to Mali; making certain, too, that the French understood that they would have to pay for the limited help they were getting from the United States.

After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has no appetite for further military adventures. In his inaugural address on Monday, president Barack Obama triumphantly proclaimed that “the decade of war” is over, meaning the United States has pulled out of Iraq, is pulling out of Afghanistan, and does not want to get into other wars. It needs a rest. The president has often spoken about the need for “nation-building at home.” That is an understandable position—the American economy is just now beginning to emerge from a deep recession, and the American people are tired. But the the United States remains the only genuine superpower in the world. Whether with joy or caution, it will be called upon to make difficult, controversial decisions. It cannot escape that responsibility.

Wars can be called those of choice or necessity. Either way, some may require U.S. military leadership—and certainly military help. Mali may be one of those wars. The French need American help, and they should get it: transportation, intelligence and even, if necessary, small numbers of special forces that are trained to get into a fight, accomplish their mission and get out. The French should get American help, but not the bill for the help; and they should be heaped with praise for taking on a tough task that no one else, including the United States, seemed ready to do.

Authors

Marvin Kalb

Publication: The National Interest

The U.S. Should Take a Gradual Approach to Women in Combat

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: On January 24, 2013, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted a ban on military women serving on the ground in direct combat. In the wake of this decision, U.S. News & World Report's Debate Club held a discussion on whether women should be allowed to fight in combat. Here is Michael O'Hanlon's contribution to the discussion.

I can't argue against the Pentagon's decision, but I also can't argue for it. Integrating women into front-line combat positions is a very delicate matter.

In today's military, women make up about 15 percent of the U.S. military and have suffered more than 100 combat fatalities over the past decade. Yet many military positions are still not open to them. Although 99 percent of active-duty Air Force positions and 88 percent of Navy billets are not restricted according to gender, the share is closer to 67 percent in the Army and Marine Corps.

There are cultural issues at work here, to be sure, but there are also physical ones. Infantry soldiers are extremely tough and must be quite strong. Some might challenge the irreducible strength standards demanded of Marine Corps infantry officers. But being able to lift oneself—while wearing body armor and carrying a pack—up and over walls is essential in modern combat. So is being able to move a wounded fellow Marine across a field to safety, or to haul part of a dismantled mortar to an ambush site. Some women can do these things; most cannot (in fact, most men cannot).

I am inclined to think that women with the skills and desire for intense ground combat should, at least initially, be steered toward other parts of the military (certain responsibilities within the special forces, for example) where they can contribute in important ways even in small numbers. But perhaps Secretary Panetta's decision still allows for a gradual approach, given that full integration by 2016 is its target, and given that exemptions may be possible if truly necessary.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: U.S. News & World Report