I recently posted a few words about Kenneth Pollack's A Path Out of the Desert on my Facebook page.
A Path out of the Desert. Terrific book on grand strategy for the U.S. in the Middle East. The author is Kenneth Pollack. This is one of the few books I've read that suggest to me that I really need my own copy. Pollack is way beyond military solutions for the problems of the Arab Muslim world, and, based on my experience, he's right on about the need to reform education.
Bibliographical note: Pollack, Kenneth M. A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East. New York: Random House, 2008. xlvii + 539 pages.
One of the strengths of this book is that it delivers most of what it promises. When most people, like the retired colonels and generals on various TV networks, talk about "strategy," they don't really mean strategy. Sometimes they're addressing tactical questions, sometimes they're addressing theater problems, but those aren't matters of strategic scope. A real strategic principle, like the "Anaconda" strategy of the American Civil War, or containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, takes into account the broad political and economic features of the situation, and the interaction of initiatives and challenges on various fronts.
For example, it makes no sense to speak of a "strategy" for Afghanistan. For our efforts in Afghanistan to succeed, we need a strategy for dealing with Islamic extremism throughout the Muslim world. We need principles to work in Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Pakistan, and India, as well as in Afghanistan itself. We need to integrate our Afghanistan policy into our general strategy. The problem at the moment is that we don't seem to have a grand strategy.
Although Pollack confines himself to the Arab Middle East, with some references to Turkey and Iran, the general principles he enunciates, as well as his prescriptions for action, are applicable from Morocco to Indonesia, from Somalia to Bosnia, wherever the Islamist ideology is opposed to American interests.
Read this book! Then we can discuss it.
More later,
Glenn A. Knight
Glenn A Knight
In my study
Showing posts with label American foreign policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American foreign policy. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
An Appeal for Passion
Michael Gerson's article, on Obama's Afghan decision makes what I think is a very important point, although Gerson himself may not be fully aware of it: Reason doesn't motivate. President Obama's decision may be driven by reason and calculation, but it needs to be justified to the public and the military with feeling, with passion, with a bit of fervor.
So far, I think Gerson is right. People don't send their kids to war, they don't like to see kids sent to war, because it's the reasonable thing to do. They have to feel the rightness of the policy. So Mr. Obama does need to use his rhetorical gifts to sell the public on this war, as well as to show the military that he is committed to this policy.
However, when Gerson wrote speeches for George W. Bush, he used emotion, and Bush ended up as the most unpopular President since Nixon, and regarded by many as the worst President since James Buchanan. There are two problems with appeals to emotion:
First, emotion can be used to replace reason, to support policies that aren't really justified. One of the dangers here is that emotion can suppress debate, can prevent the consideration of reasoned alternatives.
Second, once the public and the military have been persuaded of the rightness of a course, once they are fully committed to the policy, the leaders lose their flexibility. If you look at the end of Vietnam, one of Richard Nixon's problems was that so many Americans looked at the negotiations with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong as a betrayal of the men and women who had died in the war. And those Americans were the ones who supported the war, the ones who enabled Nixon to maintain some momentum in Congress.
Appeals to emotion may be necessary to gain public support for an increasingly unpopular war, but if Obama takes that course, he may find himself riding the tiger of public opinion.
So far, I think Gerson is right. People don't send their kids to war, they don't like to see kids sent to war, because it's the reasonable thing to do. They have to feel the rightness of the policy. So Mr. Obama does need to use his rhetorical gifts to sell the public on this war, as well as to show the military that he is committed to this policy.
However, when Gerson wrote speeches for George W. Bush, he used emotion, and Bush ended up as the most unpopular President since Nixon, and regarded by many as the worst President since James Buchanan. There are two problems with appeals to emotion:
First, emotion can be used to replace reason, to support policies that aren't really justified. One of the dangers here is that emotion can suppress debate, can prevent the consideration of reasoned alternatives.
Second, once the public and the military have been persuaded of the rightness of a course, once they are fully committed to the policy, the leaders lose their flexibility. If you look at the end of Vietnam, one of Richard Nixon's problems was that so many Americans looked at the negotiations with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong as a betrayal of the men and women who had died in the war. And those Americans were the ones who supported the war, the ones who enabled Nixon to maintain some momentum in Congress.
Appeals to emotion may be necessary to gain public support for an increasingly unpopular war, but if Obama takes that course, he may find himself riding the tiger of public opinion.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
I Don't Go Where I'm Invited - Khamanei
There were a lot of conservatives - still are, I suppose - who criticized Barack Obama's campaign promise to negotiate with Iran "without preconditions." I do believe that Ms. Clinton herself criticized that initiative as naive. Well, as this report indicates, we really have nothing to fear. It doesn't matter how naive we are in asking the Iranians to the diplomatic ball, if they follow the supreme leader's advice, they won't dance.
The Pursuit of Shared Interests
The accompanying article by Scott Wilson of the Washington Post is a very good analysis of the principles underlying President Barack Obama's approach to foreign policy. Wilson provides a number of examples of cases in which President Obama has made the pursuit of shared interests the basis of his efforts to persuade other nations to join with us in various endeavors. The idea that international relations should utilize shared interests to build cooperative relationships is hardly a new idea, but it has been a productive source of policy initiatives in the past.
There are a few problems with the approach, however, and I would like to mention those that come to mind.
Problem one is that every nation has a particular set of interests. While some of those interests may coincide with ours, others may conflict. That means that one needs to make one's pitch to act in accordance with the shared interest in a manner which makes the interests we don't share less important. For example, China is a big importer of oil. The United States is a big importer of oil. Therefore, we both have important interests in the free flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf area and into the areas where it is to be consumed. So the Chinese might be expected to cooperate with us in clearing pirates out of the Malacca Straits.
We also see our interest in the free flow of oil as demanding that we oppose instability in the Middle east. We should be in favor of moderate democratic reform, while opposing Islamic extremists, violent revolutions, or the seizure of power by parties which might cut off the flow of oil. (See Kenneth Pollack's excellent book A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East for lengthy discussions of all the points raised in the last two sentences.) China, on the other hand, has based its oil policy on signing long-term contracts with countries will to sell cheap because no one else will do business with them. China has, for example, oil deals with Iran and Sudan, and has invested heavily in developing oil fields in Sudan. Therefore, the Chinese have not been cooperating in pressing the government of Sudan about Darfur or other human rights issues.
Problem two is that the interests of the leadership of some countries don't coincide with the interests of their people. Governments in the Middle East have consistently mismanaged their economies, partly out of fear of business becoming a competing power center in their societies. We can talk all day to Hosni Mubarak about the ways in which the long-term economic interests of Egypt depend upon a thorough-going reform of the educational system, and he'll block those reforms as too likely to produce a generation of young people ready to think for themselves and to defy authority.
Pollack suggests that, in some of these cases, we may have to provide incentives (subsidies, bribes) to induce the governments to do what is in their countries' interests. This should not be necessary, but we don't live in a perfect world.
Finally, there is the problem of cost. All nations, with a few exceptions, have an interest in at least slowing climate change. But this is a very expensive proposition, so they also have an interest in minimizing the cost to themselves. (Is this an example of the tragedy of the commons? I think it is.) So India may agree that carbon emissions need to be reduced, while also arguing that it is other countries who should bear the burden of those reductions.
Following shared interests to find agreement is a great idea, and it will produce results. But it will also encounter a lot of difficulties.
There are a few problems with the approach, however, and I would like to mention those that come to mind.
Problem one is that every nation has a particular set of interests. While some of those interests may coincide with ours, others may conflict. That means that one needs to make one's pitch to act in accordance with the shared interest in a manner which makes the interests we don't share less important. For example, China is a big importer of oil. The United States is a big importer of oil. Therefore, we both have important interests in the free flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf area and into the areas where it is to be consumed. So the Chinese might be expected to cooperate with us in clearing pirates out of the Malacca Straits.
We also see our interest in the free flow of oil as demanding that we oppose instability in the Middle east. We should be in favor of moderate democratic reform, while opposing Islamic extremists, violent revolutions, or the seizure of power by parties which might cut off the flow of oil. (See Kenneth Pollack's excellent book A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East for lengthy discussions of all the points raised in the last two sentences.) China, on the other hand, has based its oil policy on signing long-term contracts with countries will to sell cheap because no one else will do business with them. China has, for example, oil deals with Iran and Sudan, and has invested heavily in developing oil fields in Sudan. Therefore, the Chinese have not been cooperating in pressing the government of Sudan about Darfur or other human rights issues.
Problem two is that the interests of the leadership of some countries don't coincide with the interests of their people. Governments in the Middle East have consistently mismanaged their economies, partly out of fear of business becoming a competing power center in their societies. We can talk all day to Hosni Mubarak about the ways in which the long-term economic interests of Egypt depend upon a thorough-going reform of the educational system, and he'll block those reforms as too likely to produce a generation of young people ready to think for themselves and to defy authority.
Pollack suggests that, in some of these cases, we may have to provide incentives (subsidies, bribes) to induce the governments to do what is in their countries' interests. This should not be necessary, but we don't live in a perfect world.
Finally, there is the problem of cost. All nations, with a few exceptions, have an interest in at least slowing climate change. But this is a very expensive proposition, so they also have an interest in minimizing the cost to themselves. (Is this an example of the tragedy of the commons? I think it is.) So India may agree that carbon emissions need to be reduced, while also arguing that it is other countries who should bear the burden of those reductions.
Following shared interests to find agreement is a great idea, and it will produce results. But it will also encounter a lot of difficulties.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Panicked Conservative Forecasts End of the World
The End of the World.
The very title of Michael Ledeen's piece shouts out the author's paranoia, panic, and rampant fear-mongering. The lead (or "lede") for the piece is even more indicative of the author's state of mind. "As a global conspiracy aimed at our destruction grows, not only does Obama fail to respond to the threat, but he actively helps our enemies."
The End of the World.
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! Ledeen thinks that there is a conscious, intentional, centrally directed conspiracy of the Russians, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Syrians to bring about the fall of the United States. There are a lot of things I could say about this notion, but here's the main one: So what!
All four of these countries are in economic decline, they have fragile or even self-destructive political leadership, and they are incapable of offering a serious threat to the United States. Sure Hugo Chavez hates us, but he's busy taking the Venezuelan economy into a deep-dive into socialist incapacity. Oil prices are down, and that's hurting both Venezuela and Chavez. Syria is exhausting its minuscule oil supplies. Even Iran has so mismanaged its oil business that it is importing refined gasoline at the same time that it ships natural gas to China at bargain prices.
Mr. Ledeen has mistaken the anti-American rhetoric of political elites who are trying to distract their publics from the messes they've made at home. Of course President Obama isn't making a big deal about this "threat;" it isn't worth his time. If Mr. Ledeen and his fellow "conservatives" had as much faith in the capitalist system as they profess, maybe they, too, could refrain from hysteria.
The very title of Michael Ledeen's piece shouts out the author's paranoia, panic, and rampant fear-mongering. The lead (or "lede") for the piece is even more indicative of the author's state of mind. "As a global conspiracy aimed at our destruction grows, not only does Obama fail to respond to the threat, but he actively helps our enemies."
The End of the World.
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! Ledeen thinks that there is a conscious, intentional, centrally directed conspiracy of the Russians, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Syrians to bring about the fall of the United States. There are a lot of things I could say about this notion, but here's the main one: So what!
All four of these countries are in economic decline, they have fragile or even self-destructive political leadership, and they are incapable of offering a serious threat to the United States. Sure Hugo Chavez hates us, but he's busy taking the Venezuelan economy into a deep-dive into socialist incapacity. Oil prices are down, and that's hurting both Venezuela and Chavez. Syria is exhausting its minuscule oil supplies. Even Iran has so mismanaged its oil business that it is importing refined gasoline at the same time that it ships natural gas to China at bargain prices.
Mr. Ledeen has mistaken the anti-American rhetoric of political elites who are trying to distract their publics from the messes they've made at home. Of course President Obama isn't making a big deal about this "threat;" it isn't worth his time. If Mr. Ledeen and his fellow "conservatives" had as much faith in the capitalist system as they profess, maybe they, too, could refrain from hysteria.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Commentary's Books: February 2009
By the way, Commentary has a Web site: commentarymagazine.com.
The five books which were reviewed in Commentary's February 2009 issue are listed here.
Outliers: The Story of Success. Malcolm Gladwell. Little Brown. 320 pp. $27.99. Reviewed by Brian C. Anderson.
Innocent Abroad: An Intimate History of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. Martin Indyk. Simon & Schuster. 512 pp. $28.00. Reviewed by Dean Godson.
So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government. Robert G. Kaiser. Knopf. 416 pp. $27.95. Reviewed by Dan DiSalvo.
Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics. Dagmar Herzog. Basic Books. 320 pp. $26.95. Reviewed by Justin Shubow.
Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. Laura Claridge. Random House. 544 pp. $30.00. Reviewed by Jonathan Kay.
In addition, Terry Teachout's article "The Trouble with Alfred Hitchcock" relies on a book by Donald Spoto, Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (Harmony, 352 pp., $25.95) to support Teachout's opinion that Hitchcok was "a sexually frustrated man whose view of women was - to put it mildly - unattractive."
The five books which were reviewed in Commentary's February 2009 issue are listed here.
Outliers: The Story of Success. Malcolm Gladwell. Little Brown. 320 pp. $27.99. Reviewed by Brian C. Anderson.
Innocent Abroad: An Intimate History of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. Martin Indyk. Simon & Schuster. 512 pp. $28.00. Reviewed by Dean Godson.
So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government. Robert G. Kaiser. Knopf. 416 pp. $27.95. Reviewed by Dan DiSalvo.
Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics. Dagmar Herzog. Basic Books. 320 pp. $26.95. Reviewed by Justin Shubow.
Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. Laura Claridge. Random House. 544 pp. $30.00. Reviewed by Jonathan Kay.
In addition, Terry Teachout's article "The Trouble with Alfred Hitchcock" relies on a book by Donald Spoto, Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (Harmony, 352 pp., $25.95) to support Teachout's opinion that Hitchcok was "a sexually frustrated man whose view of women was - to put it mildly - unattractive."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - December/November 2008
- Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America. Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95. [New Listing]
- The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, $32.00. [New Listing]
- The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Ron Suskind. Harper, $27.95. [New Listing]
- The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Jane Mayer. Doubleday, $27.50. [New Listing]
- The Post-American World. Fareed Zakaria. Norton, $25.95. [Previous rank: 1]
- The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Andrew C. Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, $24.00. [New Listing]
- The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. Bing West. Random House, $28.00. [New Listing]
- One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. Michael Dobbs. Knopf, $28.95. [Previous rank: 5]
- Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Ahmed Rashid. Viking, $27.95 [Previous rank: 7]
- Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. Ted Sorensen. Harper, $27.95. [Previous rank: 2]
- A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East. Kenneth M. Pollack. Random House, $30.00. [New Listing]
- America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft with David Ignatius. Basic Books, $27.50. [New Listing]
- Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs, From Communism to al-Qaeda. Richard Wallace and H. Keith Melton with Henry Robert Schlesinger. Dutton, $29.95. [Previous rank: 8]
- Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac. Norton, $27.95. [New Listing]
- Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. Linda Robinson. PublicAffairs, $27.95. [New Listing]
I was shocked - shocked! - to realize that I had not posted one of these bestseller lists from Foreign Affairs magazine since March. I've been reading more books than periodicals lately, and I've been very busy. No excuses, just a fact.
I should note that, partly because this list is somewhat elderly, I have had the opportunity to read two of the books on the list: The War Within, by Bob Woodward, and The Dark Side, by Jane Meyer. I posted a review of The War Within to this blog some time ago. I have not reviewed The Dark Side here, although I read it some time ago. The Way of the World, by Ron Suskind, is in the stack of books I am planning to read. I hope you can find something in this list that you will think worth reading.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Realism and Morality
In the enclosed article Rick Moran argues that President Obama has chosen realism over morality with regard to Iran. I think that a) he's incorrect, and b) that's exactly the choice the president should have made.
I think all this realism vs. morality talk is mistaken because there is, as far as I know, no moral rule at all that says that the United States should encourage people in other countries to get themselves killed. You may recall that a lot of people found the results of such encouragement disheartening in Hungary in 1956 and Iraq in 1991.
And, in any event, the president has to deal with the world as he finds it. That doesn't mean he can't work to change it. It does mean that it isn't very wise to run into a stone wall again and again.
I think all this realism vs. morality talk is mistaken because there is, as far as I know, no moral rule at all that says that the United States should encourage people in other countries to get themselves killed. You may recall that a lot of people found the results of such encouragement disheartening in Hungary in 1956 and Iraq in 1991.
And, in any event, the president has to deal with the world as he finds it. That doesn't mean he can't work to change it. It does mean that it isn't very wise to run into a stone wall again and again.
The Absolute Truth of Victor Davis Hanson
I enclose an article by Victor Davis Hanson, who is one of the few right-wing ideologues who can write in complete sentences. I suppose that's due to his training as a classicist.
In this article, Mr. Hanson seems to assert that the U.S. is now a less reliable ally than it was under President Bush. But that's not actually what he's asserting. What he really says is that the Europeans ought to perceive President Obama as less reliable than President Bush because Obama is "to the left of Europe." He adduces no evidence that anyone in Europe actually perceives Obama as less reliable than Bush.
What struck me the most, though, was that at the base of Hanson's accusations is that Obama does not believe in "absolute truth," but in some relativistic vision of history. I've had a number of discussions on this sort of thing over the years, and "absolute truth" usually means "the particular version of the truth to which I subscribe." In matters of history and politics, there aren't a lot of absolute truths running around, and the people who believe that they possess absolute truth are almost certainly wrong. Does Hanson really want the President of the United States to up himself in the same category as the Supreme Leader of Iran, Osama bin Laden, and Mullah Omar?
Of course Obama needs to take a relativistic stance! That's called "empathy" or seeing the affair from the other person's point of view. How can we possibly hope to defeat the jihadists if we don't try to see how the world looks from their side of the table?
"Absolute truth" is absolute bunk!
In this article, Mr. Hanson seems to assert that the U.S. is now a less reliable ally than it was under President Bush. But that's not actually what he's asserting. What he really says is that the Europeans ought to perceive President Obama as less reliable than President Bush because Obama is "to the left of Europe." He adduces no evidence that anyone in Europe actually perceives Obama as less reliable than Bush.
What struck me the most, though, was that at the base of Hanson's accusations is that Obama does not believe in "absolute truth," but in some relativistic vision of history. I've had a number of discussions on this sort of thing over the years, and "absolute truth" usually means "the particular version of the truth to which I subscribe." In matters of history and politics, there aren't a lot of absolute truths running around, and the people who believe that they possess absolute truth are almost certainly wrong. Does Hanson really want the President of the United States to up himself in the same category as the Supreme Leader of Iran, Osama bin Laden, and Mullah Omar?
Of course Obama needs to take a relativistic stance! That's called "empathy" or seeing the affair from the other person's point of view. How can we possibly hope to defeat the jihadists if we don't try to see how the world looks from their side of the table?
"Absolute truth" is absolute bunk!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Speak Softly ...
I notice that a lot of conservative commentators are urging President Obama to speak out on the events in Iran. These are the same people, of course, who identified Iran as the source of all of the evil in the Middle East, and who condemned anyone who wanted to open a dialogue with the country's leadership. Now they want President Obama to speak out on one side of an internal Iranian fight.
There are two good reasons for the President of the United States not to jump into the Iranian melee. There are lots of other reasons, some formal, some shaky, but there are two good ones.
First, most Iranians are not big fans of the United States. Even those who are not enamored of the present regime have been raised to believe that the United States, along with Britain, has played the villain more than once in Iranian affairs. It is one thing to note that some Iranians share some of our values. It is another to cause the broad mass of Iranians to identify the students and other protestors with the United States. There is no way that most Iranians would see that as us merely supporting a movement we like. They would have to see us as Khamanei wants to portray us - as puppetmasters of these brave young people.
Second, working out an arrangement which keeps Iran's nuclear program from becoming a nuclear weapons program is more important that who the political leader of Iran might be. If Mousavi wins, we'll have to deal with him (and he ain't no George Washington). If Ahmadinejad wins, we'll have to deal with him. In no case should we make it easy for these guys to refuse to talk with us.
Let's also remember that, as in most of the Middle East, public opinion is more anti-American and anti-Israeli than elite opinion. Iran might be an exception, but I'd be somewhat cautious about accepting the idea that a more "democratic" government would necessarily better for us.
In 1956 we spoke out in favor of the Hungarian revolution, and then we stood by and did nothing while the Red Army stormed Budapest. In 1991 we urged the Shi'ites to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and then we stood by and did nothing while Saddam's army and the mukhabarat massacred thousands of people. Let us remember the first half of Teddy Roosevelt's famous injunction, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick."
There are two good reasons for the President of the United States not to jump into the Iranian melee. There are lots of other reasons, some formal, some shaky, but there are two good ones.
First, most Iranians are not big fans of the United States. Even those who are not enamored of the present regime have been raised to believe that the United States, along with Britain, has played the villain more than once in Iranian affairs. It is one thing to note that some Iranians share some of our values. It is another to cause the broad mass of Iranians to identify the students and other protestors with the United States. There is no way that most Iranians would see that as us merely supporting a movement we like. They would have to see us as Khamanei wants to portray us - as puppetmasters of these brave young people.
Second, working out an arrangement which keeps Iran's nuclear program from becoming a nuclear weapons program is more important that who the political leader of Iran might be. If Mousavi wins, we'll have to deal with him (and he ain't no George Washington). If Ahmadinejad wins, we'll have to deal with him. In no case should we make it easy for these guys to refuse to talk with us.
Let's also remember that, as in most of the Middle East, public opinion is more anti-American and anti-Israeli than elite opinion. Iran might be an exception, but I'd be somewhat cautious about accepting the idea that a more "democratic" government would necessarily better for us.
In 1956 we spoke out in favor of the Hungarian revolution, and then we stood by and did nothing while the Red Army stormed Budapest. In 1991 we urged the Shi'ites to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and then we stood by and did nothing while Saddam's army and the mukhabarat massacred thousands of people. Let us remember the first half of Teddy Roosevelt's famous injunction, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick."
Monday, May 4, 2009
God and Gold - A Review
Mead, Walter Russell. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 449 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. Index. $27.95.
History is a word with a great many meanings. In its origins, it comes down to “story.” History is the stories we tell about our past. In that sense, I suppose, Beowulf is not only the oldest Anglo-Saxon poetry, it is also our oldest history. Of course, Beowulf is fictitious, a story out of legend. The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Bible, and many another collection of tales are likewise the stuff of myth and legend, and not to be construed as literally historical. I recall the distinction made in my college New Testament class between “historic” and “historical” (from the German historische and geschichtliche), that is, between events which seem to have had a profound effect on later societies, such as the Trojan War and the founding of Rome, and events which could be shown to have occurred.
Even when we are dealing with history (Geschichte) as narratives of actually verified events, there are big differences between chronicles and explanatory texts. I just posted a review of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. That is a chronicle, a more or less chronological recounting of events, arranged in the traditional fashion of the passage of presidential administrations. Choice of Enemies, another book I read recently, starts in 1979 and runs, similarly, through the administrations of Carter, Reagan, 1 Bush, Clinton, and 2 Bush. Walter Russell Mead’s God and Gold, is in an entirely different category.
Mead is not merely setting out to recount a series of historical events; he intends to explain them. In particular, he notes that since the Dutch got into the global trading business in the 17th Century, the three great sea powers of the world, Holland, Britain, and America, have dominated economic, political, and social developments all over the Earth. It is not too much of an exaggeration to agree with Mead’s subtitle that this is the world made by those powers.
For one thing, in the past 400 years, since the days of Louis XIV, the British and Americans have won every war they’ve fought, except for the two occasions on which they fought one another. For another, Rotterdam, London, and New York have controlled and directed world finance over that same time span. In fact, most of the instruments of modern fiscal operations were invented in those financial centers. If a country wishes to participate in the world economy today, or (as may be the case) a country must engage in international trade, even against its wishes, it must do so according to the terms set by modern capitalism. For an example of the social influence of the maritime powers, I think it is only necessary to cite a story I was told of a professor at an Indian university who proudly displayed on the name placard on his door: “Failed Ph.D. Harvard.”
Mead starts the book with an account of some similarities among the experiences of England and America, between for example Cromwell and Reagan, and their many successes. But he also notes that both the English and the Americans keep expecting history to end. That is, they keep thinking that, having defeated the Spanish, or the French, or the Germans, or the Russians, they have reached the uplands of perfect peace, in which all the peoples of the world will live in perfect harmony, drinking Coca-Cola and acting like good Britons or Americans in all other ways. So far, history has not cooperated.
Mead sets out to answer “six key questions,” which are worth recounting in full.
· What is the distinctive political and cultural agenda that the Anglo-Americans bring to world politics?
· Why did the Anglo-Americans prevail in the military, economic, and political contests to shape the emerging world order?
· How were the Anglo-Americans able to put together the economic and military resources that enabled them to defeat their enemies and build a global order?
· Why have the Anglo-Americans so frequently believed that history is ending – that their power is bringing about a peaceful world?
· Why have they been wrong every time?
· What does Anglo-American power mean for the world?
These are interesting and, I think, very important questions. Mead makes a good effort to answer them with humor, with impressive scholarship, and with a nice eye for great little examples and metaphors to make his points. Even if you think, after reading this book, that Mead has gotten every answer wrong, he will have given you enough to think about to keep you busy for a long time. This is the kind of book that leads you to go read the books referred to, so that it might serve as the touchstone of a lifetime’s education. We have Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Milton, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edward Gibbon, and many others brought in as witnesses before the bar of history.
The part of Mead’s exposition I found most interesting was the manner in which the Anglo-Americans adopted an Anglican approach to religion. Unlike the Lutherans and some other Protestants, the Anglo-Americans don’t subscribe to the idea that scripture should be, or can be, the sole authority to guide life and religion. After all, the best minds, reading the best manuscripts, disagree on the meaning of scripture. But, unlike the Catholics, the Anglican approach does not wholeheartedly embrace tradition. Bishop Newman tried to reconcile the Anglican church with tradition, and he ended up converting to Catholicism. And, despite the best efforts of such as Gibbon, Hume, and Jefferson, reason has never been able to run the table as a life-directing methodology.
So the Anglican approach is to balance the three sides of religious belief, and never go too far in one direction or another. Mead takes Bergson’s philosopy and Popper’s ideas about the open society, and carries them on to show how the open society allows for the rate of innovation that has made capitalism a success. In short, Mead brings to the table a full toolkit of philosophical, historical, political, and military analytic approaches to demonstrate that the last four hundred years of Anglo-American dominance was no accident, but the result of a complementary set of cultural attributes. His use of his tools is masterly. I can give no higher recommendation than to say that I plan to read this book again, and in the not-too-distant future.
History is a word with a great many meanings. In its origins, it comes down to “story.” History is the stories we tell about our past. In that sense, I suppose, Beowulf is not only the oldest Anglo-Saxon poetry, it is also our oldest history. Of course, Beowulf is fictitious, a story out of legend. The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Bible, and many another collection of tales are likewise the stuff of myth and legend, and not to be construed as literally historical. I recall the distinction made in my college New Testament class between “historic” and “historical” (from the German historische and geschichtliche), that is, between events which seem to have had a profound effect on later societies, such as the Trojan War and the founding of Rome, and events which could be shown to have occurred.
Even when we are dealing with history (Geschichte) as narratives of actually verified events, there are big differences between chronicles and explanatory texts. I just posted a review of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. That is a chronicle, a more or less chronological recounting of events, arranged in the traditional fashion of the passage of presidential administrations. Choice of Enemies, another book I read recently, starts in 1979 and runs, similarly, through the administrations of Carter, Reagan, 1 Bush, Clinton, and 2 Bush. Walter Russell Mead’s God and Gold, is in an entirely different category.
Mead is not merely setting out to recount a series of historical events; he intends to explain them. In particular, he notes that since the Dutch got into the global trading business in the 17th Century, the three great sea powers of the world, Holland, Britain, and America, have dominated economic, political, and social developments all over the Earth. It is not too much of an exaggeration to agree with Mead’s subtitle that this is the world made by those powers.
For one thing, in the past 400 years, since the days of Louis XIV, the British and Americans have won every war they’ve fought, except for the two occasions on which they fought one another. For another, Rotterdam, London, and New York have controlled and directed world finance over that same time span. In fact, most of the instruments of modern fiscal operations were invented in those financial centers. If a country wishes to participate in the world economy today, or (as may be the case) a country must engage in international trade, even against its wishes, it must do so according to the terms set by modern capitalism. For an example of the social influence of the maritime powers, I think it is only necessary to cite a story I was told of a professor at an Indian university who proudly displayed on the name placard on his door: “Failed Ph.D. Harvard.”
Mead starts the book with an account of some similarities among the experiences of England and America, between for example Cromwell and Reagan, and their many successes. But he also notes that both the English and the Americans keep expecting history to end. That is, they keep thinking that, having defeated the Spanish, or the French, or the Germans, or the Russians, they have reached the uplands of perfect peace, in which all the peoples of the world will live in perfect harmony, drinking Coca-Cola and acting like good Britons or Americans in all other ways. So far, history has not cooperated.
Mead sets out to answer “six key questions,” which are worth recounting in full.
· What is the distinctive political and cultural agenda that the Anglo-Americans bring to world politics?
· Why did the Anglo-Americans prevail in the military, economic, and political contests to shape the emerging world order?
· How were the Anglo-Americans able to put together the economic and military resources that enabled them to defeat their enemies and build a global order?
· Why have the Anglo-Americans so frequently believed that history is ending – that their power is bringing about a peaceful world?
· Why have they been wrong every time?
· What does Anglo-American power mean for the world?
These are interesting and, I think, very important questions. Mead makes a good effort to answer them with humor, with impressive scholarship, and with a nice eye for great little examples and metaphors to make his points. Even if you think, after reading this book, that Mead has gotten every answer wrong, he will have given you enough to think about to keep you busy for a long time. This is the kind of book that leads you to go read the books referred to, so that it might serve as the touchstone of a lifetime’s education. We have Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Milton, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edward Gibbon, and many others brought in as witnesses before the bar of history.
The part of Mead’s exposition I found most interesting was the manner in which the Anglo-Americans adopted an Anglican approach to religion. Unlike the Lutherans and some other Protestants, the Anglo-Americans don’t subscribe to the idea that scripture should be, or can be, the sole authority to guide life and religion. After all, the best minds, reading the best manuscripts, disagree on the meaning of scripture. But, unlike the Catholics, the Anglican approach does not wholeheartedly embrace tradition. Bishop Newman tried to reconcile the Anglican church with tradition, and he ended up converting to Catholicism. And, despite the best efforts of such as Gibbon, Hume, and Jefferson, reason has never been able to run the table as a life-directing methodology.
So the Anglican approach is to balance the three sides of religious belief, and never go too far in one direction or another. Mead takes Bergson’s philosopy and Popper’s ideas about the open society, and carries them on to show how the open society allows for the rate of innovation that has made capitalism a success. In short, Mead brings to the table a full toolkit of philosophical, historical, political, and military analytic approaches to demonstrate that the last four hundred years of Anglo-American dominance was no accident, but the result of a complementary set of cultural attributes. His use of his tools is masterly. I can give no higher recommendation than to say that I plan to read this book again, and in the not-too-distant future.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Legacy of Ashes - A Review
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 2007. xvii + 702 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. Index. $27.95.
Legacy of Ashes purports to be a definitive history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in the Truman administration, to the subordination of the Director of Central Intelligence to the new national intelligence director. I’m not sure how “definitive” a history can be when a considerable amount of the evidence is still classified, but Weiner has certainly done a lot of work, interviewed many knowledgeable people, read a lot, and used the results of a quite remarkable oral history project.
This is a long book, arranged by presidential administration, in the manner in which, as Josephine Tey noted, English history is arranged by reign. There are 500 pages of exposition, 150 or more pages of notes, and an extensive index. It gives the reader the impression of having learned a great deal about the history of the agency, and even of have gotten the “inside story.” Since, however, the story of the CIA is the story of people who tended to lie rather easily, it’s hard to know how much credence to place in the insiders’ versions of things.
What is clear is that the CIA’s career followed an arc of sorts. It started with disaster and incompetence, when the covert operations boys got into the business of dropping anti-communist warriors into China, North Korea, and part of the Soviet Union. These teams of saboteurs and guerrillas were quickly swept up by the local authorities, even when these had not been tipped off in advance. There are some sad stories here, but the real theme is that the CIA early on developed a certain routine in which it persisted for its entire career, and which was of little use to the United States.
First, the CIA was never very good at the intelligence business. For a variety of reasons – the proclivities of its leadership, its recruiting methods, the desires of its customers – the CIA always emphasized covert operations at the expense of intelligence gathering and analysis. We have been told for years that humint was starved for money, while the military poured billions into satellites and listening devices, but reading Weiner’s book I had the impression that while the CIA never had the analytic capabilities it needed, it probably had as much as it wanted. The CIA did not have the language skills for its job, and it did not develop them. The CIA relied on foreign intelligence services for most of its information, including relying almost completely on the Israelis for intelligence on the Middle East. The Agency never developed a good system for filtering and refining information.
Second, fascinated by covert ops, the Agency not only failed to develop intelligence for its customers, it didn’t do very well by itself. Operations were often undertaken without either a serious intelligence objective or the information needed to give them any chance of success. Moreover, the CIA would get carried away with itself and create very destructive situations. On several occasions, from Hungary in 1956 to Iraq in 1991, the Agency encouraged local populations to rise against their tyrannical masters, and then watched helplessly as those foolish enough to listen to them were slaughtered.
Third, the CIA lied to its bosses, it lied to its agents, it lied to Congress, it lied to itself. This may have been especially true of Allan Dulles and Dick Bissell, but everyone was suppressing some piece of information. There were several internal reports which might actually have helped the CIA to find a useful role and an effective modus vivendi, if the various directors hadn’t carefully filed them away to be forgotten.
The CIA rose from its distressing beginnings to a peak under Richard Helms. It is notable that the CIA was probably at its best when it had Helms and William Colby, both career intelligence men, in the Director’s job. The end of Vietnam, the revelations in the mid-70s under the Church and Pike committees, the decline into such irrelevance that, at the time this book was written, all of the key players were either military or State Department veterans – not career Agency people. And, with 9/11, having proven once more that it didn’t know who was threatening the United States, what they might do, or when they might do it, the agency revealed its irrelevance.
One factor, which Weiner develops very well, was the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union, the Soviet “target,” as I heard it referred to, gave the CIA a mission. The Agency never penetrated the USSR, and it failed to protect itself against it, but the existence of the Soviet Union gave the CIA a focus, a guiding principle, something concrete to work on. At one point, when Robert Gates was running the agency under George Bush, he “compiled a to-do list for the new world, completed it in February, and presented it to Congress on April 2, 1992. The final draft included 176 threats, from climate change to cybercrime.” In other words, the CIA had no clear and self-evident mission, and it needed someone to give it one.
There are some people who would say that the CIA’s problem is not how to come up with a mission – counter-terrorism, say – to replace the all-consuming struggle against world Communism. The problem is how to get out of Cold War modes of thinking, how to learn to deal with non-state actors, and how to get out of crisis mode and into a mode of permanent operations. For many years, the Foreign Service has provided diplomatic services to the nation, in minor countries as well as great, keeping an eye on small American interests as well as the global threats and opportunities. Foreign Service Officers learn the languages they need to learn, they go where they’re told to go, and, in the course of a career, they generally gain the skills they need to operate at senior levels of government. The military has a similar system, and similar expertise. The CIA never developed that sort of combination of structure and esprit. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem was that it was established to battle the enemy at Armageddon, not to live in the world as it is.
Legacy of Ashes purports to be a definitive history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in the Truman administration, to the subordination of the Director of Central Intelligence to the new national intelligence director. I’m not sure how “definitive” a history can be when a considerable amount of the evidence is still classified, but Weiner has certainly done a lot of work, interviewed many knowledgeable people, read a lot, and used the results of a quite remarkable oral history project.
This is a long book, arranged by presidential administration, in the manner in which, as Josephine Tey noted, English history is arranged by reign. There are 500 pages of exposition, 150 or more pages of notes, and an extensive index. It gives the reader the impression of having learned a great deal about the history of the agency, and even of have gotten the “inside story.” Since, however, the story of the CIA is the story of people who tended to lie rather easily, it’s hard to know how much credence to place in the insiders’ versions of things.
What is clear is that the CIA’s career followed an arc of sorts. It started with disaster and incompetence, when the covert operations boys got into the business of dropping anti-communist warriors into China, North Korea, and part of the Soviet Union. These teams of saboteurs and guerrillas were quickly swept up by the local authorities, even when these had not been tipped off in advance. There are some sad stories here, but the real theme is that the CIA early on developed a certain routine in which it persisted for its entire career, and which was of little use to the United States.
First, the CIA was never very good at the intelligence business. For a variety of reasons – the proclivities of its leadership, its recruiting methods, the desires of its customers – the CIA always emphasized covert operations at the expense of intelligence gathering and analysis. We have been told for years that humint was starved for money, while the military poured billions into satellites and listening devices, but reading Weiner’s book I had the impression that while the CIA never had the analytic capabilities it needed, it probably had as much as it wanted. The CIA did not have the language skills for its job, and it did not develop them. The CIA relied on foreign intelligence services for most of its information, including relying almost completely on the Israelis for intelligence on the Middle East. The Agency never developed a good system for filtering and refining information.
Second, fascinated by covert ops, the Agency not only failed to develop intelligence for its customers, it didn’t do very well by itself. Operations were often undertaken without either a serious intelligence objective or the information needed to give them any chance of success. Moreover, the CIA would get carried away with itself and create very destructive situations. On several occasions, from Hungary in 1956 to Iraq in 1991, the Agency encouraged local populations to rise against their tyrannical masters, and then watched helplessly as those foolish enough to listen to them were slaughtered.
Third, the CIA lied to its bosses, it lied to its agents, it lied to Congress, it lied to itself. This may have been especially true of Allan Dulles and Dick Bissell, but everyone was suppressing some piece of information. There were several internal reports which might actually have helped the CIA to find a useful role and an effective modus vivendi, if the various directors hadn’t carefully filed them away to be forgotten.
The CIA rose from its distressing beginnings to a peak under Richard Helms. It is notable that the CIA was probably at its best when it had Helms and William Colby, both career intelligence men, in the Director’s job. The end of Vietnam, the revelations in the mid-70s under the Church and Pike committees, the decline into such irrelevance that, at the time this book was written, all of the key players were either military or State Department veterans – not career Agency people. And, with 9/11, having proven once more that it didn’t know who was threatening the United States, what they might do, or when they might do it, the agency revealed its irrelevance.
One factor, which Weiner develops very well, was the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union, the Soviet “target,” as I heard it referred to, gave the CIA a mission. The Agency never penetrated the USSR, and it failed to protect itself against it, but the existence of the Soviet Union gave the CIA a focus, a guiding principle, something concrete to work on. At one point, when Robert Gates was running the agency under George Bush, he “compiled a to-do list for the new world, completed it in February, and presented it to Congress on April 2, 1992. The final draft included 176 threats, from climate change to cybercrime.” In other words, the CIA had no clear and self-evident mission, and it needed someone to give it one.
There are some people who would say that the CIA’s problem is not how to come up with a mission – counter-terrorism, say – to replace the all-consuming struggle against world Communism. The problem is how to get out of Cold War modes of thinking, how to learn to deal with non-state actors, and how to get out of crisis mode and into a mode of permanent operations. For many years, the Foreign Service has provided diplomatic services to the nation, in minor countries as well as great, keeping an eye on small American interests as well as the global threats and opportunities. Foreign Service Officers learn the languages they need to learn, they go where they’re told to go, and, in the course of a career, they generally gain the skills they need to operate at senior levels of government. The military has a similar system, and similar expertise. The CIA never developed that sort of combination of structure and esprit. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem was that it was established to battle the enemy at Armageddon, not to live in the world as it is.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
How Far Can You Go?
This is an interesting post comparing the total rejection of torture as a method with a vow never to yield up one's fellows, no matter how terribly one might be tortured. Fernandez' point is that no one knows what he can really take until he's in the situation. Maybe if Boston were really threatened with a nuclear attack, and the police had someone in custody who knew how to stop it, maybe Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe would change his mind about never, ever, condoning the use of torture.
On the other hand, I tend to think, and Fernandez' examples don't change my mind about this, that that sort of extreme situation is unlikely to arise. While torture will work, given time and resources, and may allow the torturers to round up dissident organizations, I don't see it working in a sufficiently timely fashion to be our salvation in a really critical situation. So, why should we reduce ourselves to the level of criminal sadists in order to obtain some marginally useful information?
Read Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana for more on the subject of torture and its uses in different societies. And then let's think about why we had allied countries to which we were able to send suspected terrorists to be tortured. Maybe we should reconsider allying ourselves with geriatric dictatorships and their machinery of torture.
On the other hand, I tend to think, and Fernandez' examples don't change my mind about this, that that sort of extreme situation is unlikely to arise. While torture will work, given time and resources, and may allow the torturers to round up dissident organizations, I don't see it working in a sufficiently timely fashion to be our salvation in a really critical situation. So, why should we reduce ourselves to the level of criminal sadists in order to obtain some marginally useful information?
Read Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana for more on the subject of torture and its uses in different societies. And then let's think about why we had allied countries to which we were able to send suspected terrorists to be tortured. Maybe we should reconsider allying ourselves with geriatric dictatorships and their machinery of torture.
Victor Hanson's Nightmare
Victor Davis Hanson works out of California. He was a professor of classics, and now he has a gig at the Hoover Institution. He is a frequent contributor to Commentary (neocon alert!) and other conservative mags. In this piece, Hanson takes his criticism of Mr. Obama's rhetoric on international affairs into the land of the strawman.
To give Hanson his due, some countries do have their own ambitions for power, glory, or ideological transformation which might be hampered by America's presence. However, it isn't our mere existence that bothers Iran, to use his most extensive example. We and the Iranians have acted against one another. We backed the Shah for years, when it was obvious that the Iranian people weren't buying his brand of modernization. This identified us with the source of evil for all of the theocratic revolutionaries. When the Shah fell, they went after us, too. They went after us in Iran. They went after our embassy and our CIA station, where, in their mythology, we had developed plans to help the Shah torture and kill his Islamist enemies.
Maybe he's right that Khomeini was after regional power when he ordered human wave attacks in the war with Iraq. But it's also true that 1) Iraq started that war (and expected to win it) to gain regional hegemony; 2) the United States backed Iraq against Iran (at least until the arms for hostages deal); and, 3) an overexcited American Navy captain shot down an Iranian airliner loaded with civilians.
I think Michael Scheuer, in his 2008 book Marching Toward Hell, has some of this right. No, the Iranians aren't nice people, and neither are Al Qaeda and the other Islamist groups. But they wouldn't be turning their anger against us if we were not present in their world. To be more precise, it is the United States' uncritical support for Israel, our support for nasty dictatorships in a number of countries, and our outright warfare against Arab and Muslim people that causes these people to hate us.
Hanson is right about one thing. If Mr. Obama only changes the rhetoric of American foreign policy, the results are going to be disappointing. There is substance to the reasons some countries are hostile to us, and that substance is not going to evaporate under a wave of oratory. If we keep doing what we've been doing, we'll keep getting what we've been getting.
To give Hanson his due, some countries do have their own ambitions for power, glory, or ideological transformation which might be hampered by America's presence. However, it isn't our mere existence that bothers Iran, to use his most extensive example. We and the Iranians have acted against one another. We backed the Shah for years, when it was obvious that the Iranian people weren't buying his brand of modernization. This identified us with the source of evil for all of the theocratic revolutionaries. When the Shah fell, they went after us, too. They went after us in Iran. They went after our embassy and our CIA station, where, in their mythology, we had developed plans to help the Shah torture and kill his Islamist enemies.
Maybe he's right that Khomeini was after regional power when he ordered human wave attacks in the war with Iraq. But it's also true that 1) Iraq started that war (and expected to win it) to gain regional hegemony; 2) the United States backed Iraq against Iran (at least until the arms for hostages deal); and, 3) an overexcited American Navy captain shot down an Iranian airliner loaded with civilians.
I think Michael Scheuer, in his 2008 book Marching Toward Hell, has some of this right. No, the Iranians aren't nice people, and neither are Al Qaeda and the other Islamist groups. But they wouldn't be turning their anger against us if we were not present in their world. To be more precise, it is the United States' uncritical support for Israel, our support for nasty dictatorships in a number of countries, and our outright warfare against Arab and Muslim people that causes these people to hate us.
Hanson is right about one thing. If Mr. Obama only changes the rhetoric of American foreign policy, the results are going to be disappointing. There is substance to the reasons some countries are hostile to us, and that substance is not going to evaporate under a wave of oratory. If we keep doing what we've been doing, we'll keep getting what we've been getting.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Strategic Errors and Errors of Ideology
Mr. Rodriguera accuses Mr. Obama's recent foreign trip of revealing two strategic errors. First, Mr. Obama is "naive" is expecting support from our European allies. I think Mr. Rodriguera has fallen for into the error of "Boltonism," the belief that it is better for the U.S. always to go it alone. There is a serious point here, one which Michael Scheuer makes much of in his book Marching Toward Hell. The Cold War was largely fought by proxy forces; with the exception of a few rumored Russian pilots over Korea, we never directly confronted our enemy. This was possible because the proxies - the ARVN, for example, had enough skin in the game to be fighting primarily for them, and only secondarily for us. Nowadays, it's harder to find that sort of proxy, and we've come to rely on mercenaries, some American and some foreign. Machiavelli pointed out the problems with mercenaries, to wit, if they're competent they're a danger to their employer, while if they're incompetent they are no danger to his enemies.
In the case of Afghanistan, I think that our allies are carrying part of the burden. Japan is paying the Afghan army's wages for six months, for example. It's just that only some of them are willing to put their combat troops into, well, combat. As long as they're used for jobs within the range of their abilities, they can be useful.
The second strategic error is our failure to attack Taliban strongholds sufficiently aggressively. For one thing, I think we've been aggressive enough to bring Pakistan to the brink of dissolution. To be more aggressive, we'd have to invade Pakistan.
I'm not sure yet, as I've just taken the matter under advisement, but I'm thinking that our strategic error in Afghanistan, and the only one that matters, is that we've been trying to establish a stronger central government than can be sustained by the political culture of the country. Perhaps our tendency to favor central governments over tribes is misplaced. When we started supporting and working with tribal forces in Iraq, we began to have some success. Maybe what we want in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a weak central government with strong regional powers, which we could play off against each other. By setting up a strong central government, with a well-equipped army, we create a prize for the provincials to fight for.
If, for example, the Pakistani central government were weak enough, and the provinces strong enough, it would be a matter of no concern that the Taliban are moving into Buner. If they took Islamabad, it wouldn't be worth much to them, and the other provincial powers would probably unite to drive them out. Paris might be worth a mass, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to have Kabul worth a Friday prayer service.
In the case of Afghanistan, I think that our allies are carrying part of the burden. Japan is paying the Afghan army's wages for six months, for example. It's just that only some of them are willing to put their combat troops into, well, combat. As long as they're used for jobs within the range of their abilities, they can be useful.
The second strategic error is our failure to attack Taliban strongholds sufficiently aggressively. For one thing, I think we've been aggressive enough to bring Pakistan to the brink of dissolution. To be more aggressive, we'd have to invade Pakistan.
I'm not sure yet, as I've just taken the matter under advisement, but I'm thinking that our strategic error in Afghanistan, and the only one that matters, is that we've been trying to establish a stronger central government than can be sustained by the political culture of the country. Perhaps our tendency to favor central governments over tribes is misplaced. When we started supporting and working with tribal forces in Iraq, we began to have some success. Maybe what we want in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a weak central government with strong regional powers, which we could play off against each other. By setting up a strong central government, with a well-equipped army, we create a prize for the provincials to fight for.
If, for example, the Pakistani central government were weak enough, and the provinces strong enough, it would be a matter of no concern that the Taliban are moving into Buner. If they took Islamabad, it wouldn't be worth much to them, and the other provincial powers would probably unite to drive them out. Paris might be worth a mass, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to have Kabul worth a Friday prayer service.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Surf's Up! Get Your Waterboards.
Was that title too cynical? Too facetious? Maybe, but I would like to note that, horrible though the story of the fellow who was waterboarded 183 after he'd spilled his guts, we have no basis for knowing if this was a really unusual occurrence (as I suspect), or something that was done frequently. This is headlining by exception, in which the "man bites dog" story grabs the headline.
I heard a radio interview today with Philip Zelikow. Those of you who have read my review of The Commission will know who Zelikow is. Zelikow asserts that there were those who spoke out against "harsh interrogation," and that he thought President Bush wanted to hear these contrarian opinions. The last assertion may be cast into some doubt when Zelikow notes that a memo he distributed while he was working at the State Department resulted in an order to gather up all of the copies and destroy them.
This is the way this kind of story grows legs. Every day there is a new revelation. The more investigations there are, the more sources for new revelations. It can become a self-sustaining cycle, and the signal to noise ratio can get into bad shape.
I heard a radio interview today with Philip Zelikow. Those of you who have read my review of The Commission will know who Zelikow is. Zelikow asserts that there were those who spoke out against "harsh interrogation," and that he thought President Bush wanted to hear these contrarian opinions. The last assertion may be cast into some doubt when Zelikow notes that a memo he distributed while he was working at the State Department resulted in an order to gather up all of the copies and destroy them.
This is the way this kind of story grows legs. Every day there is a new revelation. The more investigations there are, the more sources for new revelations. It can become a self-sustaining cycle, and the signal to noise ratio can get into bad shape.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism - A Review
Weigel, George. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Auckland: Doubleday, 2007. 195 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. $18.95.
George Weigel is a Catholic – very Catholic, one might say. He is also a conservative who has contributed to Commentary, the neoconservative magazine. Here we have a little book (157 pages of text), with a big title, that reveals its Catholic roots in numerous ways. For example, Weigel dedicates the book to George Pell, the cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Australia. There are many references to Pope Benedict XVI and his writings. The signature block at the end of the acknowledgments reads:
G.W.
Commemoration of St. George
25 April 2007
Washington, D.C.
But the main way in which this strikes me as a Catholic (not “catholic”) book is that it is structured as a series of lessons. This is a sort of catechism on the subject of Islam, “jihadism,” and the West’s relations with Muslims and Islamic societies. After a brief introduction, the book consists of fifteen “lessons,” divided into three sections: “Understanding the Enemy,” “Rethinking Realism,” and “Deserving Victory.” These reflect Weigel’s purpose in writing this book. “My purpose here is to identify what we should have learned, since September 11, 2001: about the enemy, about us – and about what must be done to see us through to a future safe for freedom.”
First, since there are so many terms applied to this particular movement, I should say that Weigel likes the term “jihadism” for what others have called “Islamism,” “political Islam,” “Salafism,” or “Islamic fundamentalism.” Islamic fundamentalism does not necessarily imply either political revolution or violent action. Salafism refers to the sub-set of Islamists who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is an unbeliever or an apostate and, thus, deserves to die. Political Islam includes movements seeking to gain power through electoral processes or other peaceful means. Jihadism expresses a movement based on the necessity of undertaking a struggle, if necessary a violent struggle, in order to impose Islamic law on society.
Like Christianity, Islam lays claim to being a universal religion. Allah is everywhere, and the Quran speaks to all men, so a good Muslim may believe that all men ought to submit to the will of God and become Muslims. Most Muslims worry about things close to home, however, and are not overly exercised by the existence of non-Muslim countries far away. The Jihadists, such as Sayyid Qutb, are, Weigel informs us, in the tradition of Taymiyya (1263-1328) and al-Wahhab (1703/4-1792), and are driven by the idea that conflict between Islam and non-Islam is inevitable. In this view, jihad is a defense against the foreign and sinful ideas assaulting the Islamic world from all sides.
In his first section, “Understanding the Enemy,” Weigel reviews much of the history of Islamic interactions with the West and the principles of jihadist belief. This is good and useful material, and it tells us something about the intractability of the cause arrayed against us. I have one problem with this section, Weigel’s contention in his first lesson that: “The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological.” This statement assumes a kind of belief not everyone shares, and it implies that Weigel believes that only religious belief can defeat religious belief. In other words, Weigel presumes here that our struggle with jihadism is a religious war, and that it must be a religious war on our side, as well as on theirs, if we are to win it.
The second section, “Rethinking Realism,” lays out a program for opposing jihadism by recognizing wickedness and preparing the way for “responsible and responsive government.” Weigel also asserts that deterrence is unlike to be of much use against those who seek martyrdom. There are some useful suggestions here, including espousal of a major coordinated campaign of public diplomacy. But it concerns me that, by eschewing deterrence, Weigel is, by extension, dismissing the concept of containment. The alternative is, of course, aggressive action taken to the enemy’s ground. I’m not so sure that jihadism cannot be contained, during the time needed to help responsible governments to evolve in the Muslim world.
Next, in “Deserving Victory,” Weigel asserts that we need to believe that we deserve to defeat jihadism. “Cultural self-confidence is indispensable to victory in the long-term struggle against jihadism.” He urges the West to avoid making concessions to Islamists in the name of tolerance. He suggest depriving jihadism of much of its funding “by developing alternatives to” oil. He asserts, most interestingly, that only a domestic political coalition of the center can be victorious.
Finally, he states that U.S. leadership is indispensable.
This is an interesting little book. One fears that it might be read as suggesting that the United States needs to rally its allies under the banner of Christendom and begin a crusade against Islam. I think Weigel’s aims are more limited, and the means he would use less military, than those of, say, Paul Wolfowitz. I find it hard, however, to see how one can wage an explicitly religious war without arousing passions that are at best difficult to control.
George Weigel is a Catholic – very Catholic, one might say. He is also a conservative who has contributed to Commentary, the neoconservative magazine. Here we have a little book (157 pages of text), with a big title, that reveals its Catholic roots in numerous ways. For example, Weigel dedicates the book to George Pell, the cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Australia. There are many references to Pope Benedict XVI and his writings. The signature block at the end of the acknowledgments reads:
G.W.
Commemoration of St. George
25 April 2007
Washington, D.C.
But the main way in which this strikes me as a Catholic (not “catholic”) book is that it is structured as a series of lessons. This is a sort of catechism on the subject of Islam, “jihadism,” and the West’s relations with Muslims and Islamic societies. After a brief introduction, the book consists of fifteen “lessons,” divided into three sections: “Understanding the Enemy,” “Rethinking Realism,” and “Deserving Victory.” These reflect Weigel’s purpose in writing this book. “My purpose here is to identify what we should have learned, since September 11, 2001: about the enemy, about us – and about what must be done to see us through to a future safe for freedom.”
First, since there are so many terms applied to this particular movement, I should say that Weigel likes the term “jihadism” for what others have called “Islamism,” “political Islam,” “Salafism,” or “Islamic fundamentalism.” Islamic fundamentalism does not necessarily imply either political revolution or violent action. Salafism refers to the sub-set of Islamists who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is an unbeliever or an apostate and, thus, deserves to die. Political Islam includes movements seeking to gain power through electoral processes or other peaceful means. Jihadism expresses a movement based on the necessity of undertaking a struggle, if necessary a violent struggle, in order to impose Islamic law on society.
Like Christianity, Islam lays claim to being a universal religion. Allah is everywhere, and the Quran speaks to all men, so a good Muslim may believe that all men ought to submit to the will of God and become Muslims. Most Muslims worry about things close to home, however, and are not overly exercised by the existence of non-Muslim countries far away. The Jihadists, such as Sayyid Qutb, are, Weigel informs us, in the tradition of Taymiyya (1263-1328) and al-Wahhab (1703/4-1792), and are driven by the idea that conflict between Islam and non-Islam is inevitable. In this view, jihad is a defense against the foreign and sinful ideas assaulting the Islamic world from all sides.
In his first section, “Understanding the Enemy,” Weigel reviews much of the history of Islamic interactions with the West and the principles of jihadist belief. This is good and useful material, and it tells us something about the intractability of the cause arrayed against us. I have one problem with this section, Weigel’s contention in his first lesson that: “The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological.” This statement assumes a kind of belief not everyone shares, and it implies that Weigel believes that only religious belief can defeat religious belief. In other words, Weigel presumes here that our struggle with jihadism is a religious war, and that it must be a religious war on our side, as well as on theirs, if we are to win it.
The second section, “Rethinking Realism,” lays out a program for opposing jihadism by recognizing wickedness and preparing the way for “responsible and responsive government.” Weigel also asserts that deterrence is unlike to be of much use against those who seek martyrdom. There are some useful suggestions here, including espousal of a major coordinated campaign of public diplomacy. But it concerns me that, by eschewing deterrence, Weigel is, by extension, dismissing the concept of containment. The alternative is, of course, aggressive action taken to the enemy’s ground. I’m not so sure that jihadism cannot be contained, during the time needed to help responsible governments to evolve in the Muslim world.
Next, in “Deserving Victory,” Weigel asserts that we need to believe that we deserve to defeat jihadism. “Cultural self-confidence is indispensable to victory in the long-term struggle against jihadism.” He urges the West to avoid making concessions to Islamists in the name of tolerance. He suggest depriving jihadism of much of its funding “by developing alternatives to” oil. He asserts, most interestingly, that only a domestic political coalition of the center can be victorious.
Finally, he states that U.S. leadership is indispensable.
This is an interesting little book. One fears that it might be read as suggesting that the United States needs to rally its allies under the banner of Christendom and begin a crusade against Islam. I think Weigel’s aims are more limited, and the means he would use less military, than those of, say, Paul Wolfowitz. I find it hard, however, to see how one can wage an explicitly religious war without arousing passions that are at best difficult to control.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - March/April 2008
I should note that Foreign Affairs describes this list as "The top-selling hardcover books on American foreign policy and international affairs." That these are hardcovers explains the prices. You may want to watch for them at your local library, or wait until they appear in paperback.
1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00. [#1 in the previous list.]
2. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95. [6]
3. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00. [4]
4. The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. Craig Unger. Scribner, $27.00. [New]
5. Condoleeza Rice: An American Life. Elisabeth Bumiller. Random House, $27.95. [New]
6. The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets ... and How We Could Have Stopped Him. Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Twelve, $25.00. [New]
7. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95. [9]
8. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [3]
9. The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack. Ronald Kessler. Crown Forum, $26.95. [New]
10. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95. [7]
11. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00 [12]
12. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Fugure of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [New]
13. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95. [2]
14. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00. [10]
15. The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. Steve Levine. Random House, $27.95. [New]
Among the new books, I would think that Creating a World Without Poverty might be the most interesting. The biography of Condoleeza Rice may also be worthwhile.
1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00. [#1 in the previous list.]
2. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95. [6]
3. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00. [4]
4. The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. Craig Unger. Scribner, $27.00. [New]
5. Condoleeza Rice: An American Life. Elisabeth Bumiller. Random House, $27.95. [New]
6. The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets ... and How We Could Have Stopped Him. Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Twelve, $25.00. [New]
7. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95. [9]
8. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00. [3]
9. The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack. Ronald Kessler. Crown Forum, $26.95. [New]
10. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95. [7]
11. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00 [12]
12. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Fugure of Capitalism. Muhammad Yunus. PublicAffairs, $26.00. [New]
13. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95. [2]
14. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00. [10]
15. The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. Steve Levine. Random House, $27.95. [New]
Among the new books, I would think that Creating a World Without Poverty might be the most interesting. The biography of Condoleeza Rice may also be worthwhile.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Foreign Affairs Bestsellers - January/February 2008
I recently posted a link to the current bestsellers list at Foreign Affairs. One of my reasons for publicizing this resource is my feeling that we have too little background to interpret international news. Too few of us have travelled overseas, let alone lived outside the United States. Our local newspapers tend to be short on foreign news. The television networks and the national newspapers have cut their overseas bureaus to the bone, and beyond. Thus, when there is a crisis in Georgia or Gaza, we don't have enough information to place it in context.
I am reading several books right now on the Middle East, reminding myself of material I have known, finding out about recent developments, and discovering other people's viewpoints on situations. But I was shocked to realize that I had read none of the books on Foreign Affairs' bestseller list for January/February 2008. Here it is, so that some of you may be able to do better.
1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00.
2. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95.
3. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00.
4. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00.
5. Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. Bob Drogin. Random House, $27.95.
6. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95.
7. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95.
8. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control. Abraham H. Foxman. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.
9. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95.
10. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00.
11. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark. Walker & Company, $28.95.
12. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00.
13. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Cullen Murphy. Houghton Mifflin, $24.00.
14. A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor, and Country. Wesley K. Clark. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.
15. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Mark Lilla. Knopf, $26.00.
Let me add a couple of notes. While I haven't read the book, I have read Norman Podhoretz' World War IV in the version serialized in Commentary magazine. This is scary stuff. After I learned that Podhoretz was a major foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani, I was really glad that Giuliani crapped out in the Republican primaries. If you think Paul Wolfowitz was a bad neoconservative influence in the Bush administration, imagine Podhoretz in a similar role.
Mearsheimer and Walt's book (#3) aroused a great deal of angst in the Jewish political community. Foxman's book (#8) is one of the responses to Mearsheimer and Walt. Maybe one should read them in tandem. From the use of the term "control" in Foxman's sub-title, I suspect he's using a strawman argument against Mearsheimer and Walt, but, as I haven't read either book, I can't really say.
The ones I think will probably prove most worthwhile:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
Those are the three I'm adding to my reading list.
I am reading several books right now on the Middle East, reminding myself of material I have known, finding out about recent developments, and discovering other people's viewpoints on situations. But I was shocked to realize that I had read none of the books on Foreign Affairs' bestseller list for January/February 2008. Here it is, so that some of you may be able to do better.
1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Metropolitan Books, $28.00.
2. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Norman Podhoretz. Doubleday, $24.95.
3. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00.
4. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations. John Bolton. Threshold Editions, $27.00.
5. Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. Bob Drogin. Random House, $27.95.
6. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95.
7. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead. Knopf, $27.95.
8. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control. Abraham H. Foxman. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.
9. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. Amy Chua. Doubleday, $27.95.
10. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Michael B. Oren. Norton, $35.00.
11. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark. Walker & Company, $28.95.
12. Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Basic Books, $35.00.
13. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Cullen Murphy. Houghton Mifflin, $24.00.
14. A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor, and Country. Wesley K. Clark. Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.
15. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Mark Lilla. Knopf, $26.00.
Let me add a couple of notes. While I haven't read the book, I have read Norman Podhoretz' World War IV in the version serialized in Commentary magazine. This is scary stuff. After I learned that Podhoretz was a major foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani, I was really glad that Giuliani crapped out in the Republican primaries. If you think Paul Wolfowitz was a bad neoconservative influence in the Bush administration, imagine Podhoretz in a similar role.
Mearsheimer and Walt's book (#3) aroused a great deal of angst in the Jewish political community. Foxman's book (#8) is one of the responses to Mearsheimer and Walt. Maybe one should read them in tandem. From the use of the term "control" in Foxman's sub-title, I suspect he's using a strawman argument against Mearsheimer and Walt, but, as I haven't read either book, I can't really say.
The ones I think will probably prove most worthwhile:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
Those are the three I'm adding to my reading list.
Obama's National Security Team
Fred Kaplan wrote a column for Slate about the appointment of Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (The column is attached to the title of this piece.) The burden of Mr. Kaplan's assertion that this is a good appointment is that Panetta knows his audience. More to the point, he knows what the consumers of intelligence need to know.
I used to do training for a living. My then-manager taught me one very valuable lesson about training, one which applies to other areas of life. The point isn't to tell your audience everything you know, although that might make you look smart. The point is to tell them what they need to know in order to do their jobs. That means that you need to know their business; you need to know something about their jobs and what is required to do them. So I can see Mr. Kaplan's point: Panetta knows what information his customers need, so he will also know what information to demand from the resources under his command.
The weakness of appointing a career professional to the top job isn't only that he won't have any political clout, although he won't, at least until he proves himself. It's that agencies have values that distort the information they give the consumers - values that are irrelevant to the needs of the consumers. For example, I hear that there is a tendency to rotate the subjects of the President's Daily Brief among various bureaus, so that no one will feel left out. That's all very well, but the only criteria for inclusion in the brief is how important the information may be to decisions the President is going to have to make.
For this sort of objective assessment you need people who understand the political process and what issues are confronting the White House. On the other hand, you also need a lot of solid professionals to support the effort. It appears from another Kaplan article that Mr. Obama is putting together a very sound team of professionals at the operational level in the Defense and State Departments: http://www.slate.com/id/2208215/
Lest you think that only the mainstream media types at Slate see benefits in the appointment of Mr. Panetta, Mark Safranski wrote an article on the subject which appeared in the conservative site Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-leon-panetta-may-be-the-right-man-for-cia-chief/.
These may be straws in the wind, but it seems that Mr. Obama is determined to have good advisors, and good implementers, on the national security front, so that he can concentrate on the economy without worrying that the world will descend into chaos due to American inattention.
I used to do training for a living. My then-manager taught me one very valuable lesson about training, one which applies to other areas of life. The point isn't to tell your audience everything you know, although that might make you look smart. The point is to tell them what they need to know in order to do their jobs. That means that you need to know their business; you need to know something about their jobs and what is required to do them. So I can see Mr. Kaplan's point: Panetta knows what information his customers need, so he will also know what information to demand from the resources under his command.
The weakness of appointing a career professional to the top job isn't only that he won't have any political clout, although he won't, at least until he proves himself. It's that agencies have values that distort the information they give the consumers - values that are irrelevant to the needs of the consumers. For example, I hear that there is a tendency to rotate the subjects of the President's Daily Brief among various bureaus, so that no one will feel left out. That's all very well, but the only criteria for inclusion in the brief is how important the information may be to decisions the President is going to have to make.
For this sort of objective assessment you need people who understand the political process and what issues are confronting the White House. On the other hand, you also need a lot of solid professionals to support the effort. It appears from another Kaplan article that Mr. Obama is putting together a very sound team of professionals at the operational level in the Defense and State Departments: http://www.slate.com/id/2208215/
Lest you think that only the mainstream media types at Slate see benefits in the appointment of Mr. Panetta, Mark Safranski wrote an article on the subject which appeared in the conservative site Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-leon-panetta-may-be-the-right-man-for-cia-chief/.
These may be straws in the wind, but it seems that Mr. Obama is determined to have good advisors, and good implementers, on the national security front, so that he can concentrate on the economy without worrying that the world will descend into chaos due to American inattention.
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