Armchair Generalist

Declining Competency in Crafting Strategy

Via the blog "War, the military, COIN and stuff," we learn of Andrew Krepenivich's latest portrait of strategic thinking and what's wrong with the Obama administration's National Security Strategy. In short, the problem is that it isn't really a strategy. It's a wish list.

One might think that the major increases in defense spending have left the US military well-equipped to address these challenges. Sadly, this is not the case. The defense buildup has not resulted in a significant modernization of the military. Indeed, from a procurement standpoint, the US military can be said to have experienced a “hollow buildup.” The result is an aging inventory of equipment whose service life is being shortened further by the high tempo of ongoing military operations. Those looking for large, painless cuts in the defense budget are bound to be disappointed.
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Fortunately, there are more than two ways (increasing funding and creating efficiencies) to resolve a mismatch between the defense program and the resources available to sustain it. They involve strategy, which can be simply defined as how a state’s resources are best employed to achieve the ends it seeks. The better the strategy, the more that can be accomplished with a given set of resources.

Strategy necessarily involves setting priorities and taking risks. This is because no state, however powerful relative to other states, has ever had sufficient resources to eliminate all risks to its security and well-being. Thus two ways of dealing with the problem of having to work with a relative decline in resources are to reduce the objectives to be achieved; or to accept greater risk that they may not be accomplished.
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There is an opportunity here, if the Obama Administration is willing to seize it. It involves exploring all available options for diverting the country from its path toward a declining military posture, and doing so within the context of an overall integrated strategy. Similar to the approach pursued by Great Britain a century ago, this would involve providing clear guidance as to how the United States might expand its circle of willing and capable allies, how it might identify, create and leverage sources of advantage and how they would be employed to address the most pressing challenges to the nation’s security. Such a strategy would set clear priorities and make hard choices. It would identify areas where the United States would have to scale back or divest itself of commitments, and where it would accept an increase in risk in protecting vital national interests. Importantly, the details of such a strategy document would, as was true of the key Cold War strategy documents, not be made public. Major business firms and sports teams do not share with the public (and hence their rivals) how they plan to achieve success, lest the competition use that information to its advantage. This applies all the more to governments, which are charged with preserving the survival and well-being of their citizens. Yet the Obama Administration has no such integrated, classified national security strategy document.

I just want to know, why hasn't the Obama administration hired Andrew Krepenevich to run the National Security Council's long-term strategy development yet. What are they waiting for? Also read Todd Harrison's "Analysis of the FY 2011 Defense Budget."

Why Do Republicans Hate Veterans?

Hat tip to Steve Benen.

The "No Shit" Moment on the Hill

It's almost sad how we are continuously let down by the pronouncements of our learned political representatives on The Hill. More sad when they are Democrats, because we've come to expect the ludicrous, the stupidity of Republican comments. But here's Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), currently chairing the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, talking about the future defense budget.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the “success of any reductions in the Pentagon budget” would depend on savings from the significant troop reductions in Iraq this year and the pace of reducing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan starting next July.

“More than any other thing, this is going to affect the budget,” Levin said at a breakfast with defense reporters.

If the pace of the troop reduction in Afghanistan is “significant” next July, Levin said, the Pentagon could have “major savings.”

You don't say? If we pull tens of thousands of US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we reduce operations cost and can apply that to the budget? What a novel idea. Of course, it's instantly in peril because no Democratic politician will dare suggest in public fora that US national strategy should, in fact, consider the possibility that the current attempts to fight Afghanistan's insurgents without adequate support from the Afghani government isn't going to get any better over time. But anything to avoid the possibility of cutting modernization programs, eh, Senator Levin?

Let's not stop pushing a second jet engine for the Joint Strike Fighter onto the Pentagon when its leadership clearly stated it was not welcome. Let's continue to ignore the need for DOD acquisition reform when Dr. Ash Carter, the USD(AT&L) notes that 30-40% of all DOD contracts are overhead costs. Let's continue to ignore all the GAO reports that document the spiraling costs of major defense acquisition programs, as they double in cost and continue to be delayed. Let's all cross our fingers and hope that GEN Petraeus pulls off a miracle and is able to significantly beat down the Taliban and allow for some initial drops in manpower in Afghanistan. But hope isn't a strategy, is it, Senator?

Rumsfeld - Buried with Praise

The DOD's press service announced that former SecDef Rumsfeld was honored last Friday with a ceremonial portrait that will hang in the halls of the Pentagon, warning all future SecDefs about the dangers of arrogance and hubris. Okay, I made that last part up. But I couldn't help a slight reflex gag as a bit of vomit threatened to back up into my mouth as I read SecDef Gate's praise of his predecessor.

Both of his official portraits will hang in the Pentagon. The newest, painted by Steven Polson and unveiled today, shows Rumsfeld at his stand-up desk with a picture of first-responders and soldiers unfurling the flag over the still-burning Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001.

The unveiling ceremony was a veritable who’s who. Former defense secretaries William Cohen and Frank Carlucci attended. Retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers and retired Marine Gen. Peter Pace – who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff alongside Rumsfeld - were there with their wives. Former deputy secretaries Paul Wolfowitz and Gordon England, retired Air Force Gen. Joe Ralston, retired Navy Adm. Vern Clark, retired Navy Adm. Ed Giambastiani, former senior Pentagon correspondent Charlie Aldinger, and many more friends attended the event.

As one wise old man once said, "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." I'll spare you my usual angy, spitting diatribe about how Rumsfeld ruined the Army's force structure, wripped apart its modernization efforts, fed its troops into the sausage machine we lovingly call "Operation Iraqi Freedom," and kept yammering about how the WMDs were "over there, north, south, west, somewhere in Iraq." History will define what a villain this man was, and make an example of his insanely poor dictatorship of US defense efforts.

But I do take exception with the poor research of Jim Garamone, writing for the American Forces Press Service. The photo of the Army soldiers and workers unfurling an American flag against the side of the Pentagon was not taken on September 12, 2001. It was unfurled in a ceremony on October 11, 2001 (see the photo in the Wiki site). I know that because I was there in the bleachers along with a few thousand others, trying to understand what just happened a month ago. I was there on September 12, 2001, also. They were still a little busy that day, searching for bodies and putting out fires, to be unfurling huge flags on the sides of the Pentagon. The failure of this DOD news service to catch this error really kind of pisses me off.

But no, we have to smile fake smiles and pretend that we honor this jackass, this "honorable man," because of the "heroic" efforts he undertook after terrorists hit the Pentagon. Enough said. I'm wasting time on this ass and I have better things to do. "The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones, So let it be with Caesar."

UPDATE: I can be a real asshole sometimes. Let me apologize to Jim Garamone for failing to do the necessary research on the photo in the Rumsfeld portrait. Had I spent a few minutes more on this post, I would have found out that, yeah, they did hang the flag on Sep 12, 2001. My irrational anger at Rumsfeld blinded me to this obvious point.

Billions for Biodefense

The Center for Biosecurity has updated its annual assessment of US government biodefense spending. Continuing the trend that President Bush began, the Obama administration bumped up the spending in its FY2011 budget to $6.48 billion across the government, for a total of $61.9 billion allocated since 2001. This is about a 4% increase, a little better than just adjustments for inflation.

Since 2001, the United States government has spent substantial resources on preparing the nation against a bioterrorist attack. Earlier articles in this series have analyzed civilian biodefense funding by the federal government for fiscal years (FY) 2001 through FY2010. This article updates those figures with budgeted amounts for FY2011, specifically analyzing the budgets and allocations for biodefense at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce, and State; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the National Science Foundation. This article also includes an updated assessment of the proportion of biodefense funding provided for programs that address multiple public health, healthcare, national security, and international security issues in addition to biodefense. The FY2011 federal budget for civilian biodefense totals $6.48 billion. Of that total, $5.90 billion (91%) is budgeted for programs that have both biodefense and nonbiodefense goals and applications, and $577.9 million (9%) is budgeted for programs that deal strictly with biodefense.

Of that sum, 72.8% is in DHHS, 12% comes from DOD, 6.8% is DHS funding, and the remainder (8.4%) is allocated to Agriculture, EPA, Commerce, State, and the National Science Foundation. I continue to object to the Center's using the DOD funding inside of the Chemical-Biological Defense Program as funds spent "preparing the nation against a bioterrorist attack." Although the spending trend is increasingly being moved toward "emerging infectious diseases," the majority is still for biodefense for the military and not deployed for protecting noncombatants. But it's interesting to watch the trends and discuss the US government's inability to justify what it's doing with all that money.

DHS is asking to have its money doubled in Project BioWatch so that it can push to fund the development of "Gen 3" detectors. This continues to throw money down a deep, black hole, as these detectors aren't monitoring the air in the overwhelming majority of US cities (and thus failing the strategic objective against which they were deployed). And all those "white powder" incidents won't alert a biological monitor if the envelopes are opened indoors. But why expect the Obama administration to actually do the hard work and think clearly about this challenge? It's so much easier to just continue the Bush administration's failed policies.

They Just Refuse To Go Away

The Nukes of Hazard cover former Bush administration officials Bob Joseph (Under Secretary of State for Arms Control) and Eric Edelman (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy) as they bad mouth the new START treaty, which is under review by the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Nothing they have to say is particularly new, but it's always a good thing to beat back the stupid things they trot out for public consumption.

Sez they: “Despite claims by the administration that the treaty will reduce by 30 percent the number of nuclear warheads each side is permitted to deploy (from 2,200 to 1,550, a net reduction of 650), the numbers are really smaller, since both the U.S. and Russia were moving towards force levels significantly lower than those permitted under the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty negotiated by President Bush, which reduced the levels by almost 4,000 warheads.”  

Rebuttal: Without a new arms control agreement the Russians may not reduce the number of warheads they deploy significantly below the upper limit of 2,200 warheads in the Moscow Treaty. In the absence of limits on the size of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, Russia would have less confidence in its ability to maintain a stable strategic nuclear relationship with the United States. This could prompt Moscow to maintain a larger number of deployed warheads (and delivery vehicles) targeted at the U.S.  than it would with a new treaty.  As STRATCOM Commander General Kevin Chilton stated, “One thing I was pleased to see in the treaty were these limits because…when you look to the future we certainly don’t want them to grow and they would have been unrestricted otherwise without these types of limits articulated in the treaty.”

Sez they: “Moreover, some of the claimed reduction is an artifact of a revised counting rule. In fact, because a bomber will now be counted as one warhead no matter how many bombs or cruise missiles it carries, the agreement may be the first of its kind to permit an actual increase in fielded warhead levels.”

Rebuttal: New START’s bomber counting rule is not a fundamental departure from how START I, which the authors supported, counted bomber weapons.  Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) noted that counting one weapon per bomber “appears to continue guidance first set down by President Reagan….President Reagan’s position was to minimize the counting of bombers reflecting their stabilizing nature.”  Bombers are inherently less destabilizing than missiles because they take much longer to deliver warheads to their target and can be recalled.  Neither side is likely to get a strategic leg up on the other via the bomber counting rule. Moreover, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the number of Russian deployed strategic warheads “is above the treaty limits.  So they [the Russians] will have to take down warheads.” 

It's hard to deal with such blatant liars, but it's even harder when the two of them are still doing business with this administration's officials. You might find it hard to believe (or not), but there is this weird relationship between liberal hawks and conservative hawks. They share common friends, they hang out at the same meetings, and for some reason, it's only the liberal hawks who are "nice" about pushing political agendas when they're on the outs. Their conservative friends never take a break from the struggle. If they stop pushing their agenda, in or out of office, they know they lose ground. Would that our side could figure this out.

Why "Team America" Struck Out

In which Andrew Bacevich explains how GEN McChrystal fell afoul of smug disdain of Washington politics.

To imagine that replacing McChrystal with Gen. David H. Petraeus will fix the problem is wishful thinking. To put it mildly, Petraeus is no simple soldier. He is a highly skilled political operator, whose name appears on Republican wish lists as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. Far more significant, the views cultivated within Team America are shared elsewhere.

The day the McChrystal story broke, an active-duty soldier who has served multiple combat tours offered me his perspective on the unfolding spectacle. The dismissive attitude expressed by Team America, he wrote, "has really become a pandemic in the Army." Among his peers, a belief that "it is OK to condescend to civilian leaders" has become common, ranking officers permitting or even endorsing "a culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. Once the previously forbidden becomes acceptable, it soon becomes the norm.

"Pretty soon you have an entire organization believing that their leader is the 'Savior' and that everyone else is stupid and incompetent, or not committed to victory." In this soldier's view, things are likely to get worse before they get better. "Senior officers who condone this kind of behavior and allow this to continue and fester," he concluded, "create generation after generation of officers like themselves -- but they're generally so arrogant that they think everyone needs to be just like them anyway."

It's a great article, as usual. Check it out.

This Is Your Typical Congressional Representative

Greg Jaffe's Gaffe

Greg Jaffe is a well-respected national security reporter for the Washington Post. Usually, he writes in a clear and coherent manner, and that's always nice to find (given the many alternatives leading to weak and incorrect views on national security). But I really find his article yesterday to be off-base and disturbing. He suggests that there have been a dozen military commanders who have been in charge of Iraq, Afghanistan, and US Central Command (over the past ten years, mind you) and (gasp) three of them have been "fired" or resigned under pressure, and only two (Odierno and Petraeus) have been praised. How could this have happened?

Explanations for the shortage of good generals abound. Some young officers blame the Pentagon's insistence on sticking with its peacetime promotion policies. Military personnel rules prevent the top brass from reaching down into the ranks and plucking out high-performers who have proved themselves especially adept at counterinsurgency or have amassed significant knowledge about Afghanistan and Iraq. "In all previous wars, promotions were accelerated for officers who were effective," a senior Army official said.

Instead of speeding promotions, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld slowed them down so that officers wouldn't cycle through complex jobs so quickly. As a result, there are many three-star generals with limited counterinsurgency experience and a large pool of colonels and one-stars who have done multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. The lower-ranking officers are years away from even being considered for senior slots in the wars.
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Rarely, though, does the exhaustive search lead to anyone outside the narrow confines of the U.S. Army. Eleven of the 12 top war commanders since 2001 have been Army generals. "The Army has had an absolute hammer lock on all the senior jobs and their staffs," said Bing West, a former Marine who has written several books about the Iraq and Afghan wars.

These are the main offending paragraphs. I would like to tell Mr. Jaffe, well, DUH. Yes, the DOD does have this personnel office that likes to rotate senior leaders through jobs with about a 2-3 year cycle. So three major commands, over a ten year period, will in fact result in at least nine to twelve commanders. It's not hard math. It's amazingly routine, and to question why we're not keeping general officers there until they retire is kind of stupid. And yes, we've known for some time how SecDef Rumsfeld absolutely fucked over the Army by insisting that he personally approve all two, three, and four-star general officers (which is a major change in process from the previous SecDef).

But honestly, the one paragraph where Jaffe notes how "eleven of the 12 top war commanders since 2001 have been Army generals," I really just want to knock on his head and say, "HELLO, anyone home? Huh? Think, Jaffe. Think!" You're fighting two major combat operations on the ground against adversaries who have practically zero air or naval components. In fact, the entire CENTCOM theater is kind of lacking in that area, although air and naval transport is vital to the Middle East. Of the two ground components, the Army constituted about 80% of the military personnel in theater. So, yeah, the Army does have its leadership in charge of the overwhelming mass of Army troops.

There's some talk going around that the US military doesn't train or prepare its general officers for this level of political-military operations, that the current civil-military crisis with McChrystal is actually a visual indication of a deeper problem. I think that's bunk. Most of the three- and four-stars I know are very smart, very capable guys who understand perfectly how the civil-military relations are supposed to be. Are they frustrated? Sure. They understand (to a degree) the strategic nature of warfare, that politicians are supposed to set political objectives in war, and then the military advises them on the best way to get things done. And when the political objectives are for shit, then the military leader grimaces, salutes and does the best he can with the resources available.

I think it's correct to say that our Army leaders are much better at operational and tactical warfare, and that there are Air Force and Navy (and even Marines) who excel at strategic warfare because they have a larger focus. But that doesn't mean there's a crisis of command here. The failure continues to be the lack of a political strategy for the Middle East that includes a plan to end combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, understanding that we don't have the time, energy, or blood to stay there for another generation. That's not a military failure. Nor is it a military failure for our active duty generals to keep silent in public about such efforts. Our retired military generals have the responsibility to be more critical about the process (when they're not hired out to support the military-industrial complex... but that's a story for another time).

U.S. SuperCop Continues to Rule

 The Wall Street Journal covers President Obama's meeting with the South Korean president to reassure him of the US government's interests in supporting South Korea's economic and military stability. Part of these talks was to announce the intention to move the time for the U.S. military's transition of command of all forces in South Korea from 2012 to 2015. Because, you know, South Korea's well-trained and equipped military can't handle the North Korean's hungry, poorly-armed military (who also couldn't field a football team who was worth a damn). Says the WSJ:

Seoul took peacetime control of its 600,000-person military from the U.S. in 1994 and the two countries agreed in 2006 that South Korea would take wartime control of its military from the current joint command led by a U.S. general. A transition plan took effect in 2007 with 2012 scheduled for the handover.

The transition is popular with U.S. military planners who believe it will give the Pentagon more flexibility to move American troops in and out of South Korea. But it has always received a mixed reaction in South Korea, with people divided by a belief that their military should be able to handle the job and worry that they'll lose some of the safety net the U.S. military leadership is perceived to provide.

South Korea's conservative establishment throughout last year pressed Mr. Lee to seek a delay of the wartime control transition and enlisted some military experts in Washington to their side. U.S. and South Korean military officials, including the senior leaders in Seoul who were in charge of the transition, repeatedly demonstrated the transition was proceeding smoothly. Messrs. Lee and Obama were content to let the matter stand until the Cheonan sinking.

"Neither side wanted to make this a burning issue, but the Cheonan incident on top of the nuclear test that North Korea conducted after Obama took office last year, really showed that the U.S. had to do something to beef up South Korea's security," said Lee Chung-min, a dean at Yonsei University in Seoul and adviser to South Korea's foreign ministry.

Maybe the South Koreans want this hand-holding. But if we've been developing this transition for the past three years, and the transition isn't going to happen for another two years, isn't it immature to abandon all this just because of a singular crisis (which, while regrettable, doesn't seem to be a wartime issue right now)? I just see this theme being repeated over and over again by both liberal hawks and conservative hawks. Oh, the poor country (insert name - Iraq, South Korea, Germany, Afghanistan) can't do it without the United States. Unless the US government is in control of every inch of the world, to include "global commons" as well as nation-states, utter chaos will result. 

We're way beyond the time for a new strategy - one that acknowledges that other countries have a responsibility to work out their destinies. We keep talking about multinational alliances and working in a multipolar world, but what our government seems to mean is a coalition that is always led by the United States. The bad side for us is that this strategy gets expensive, and our leadership - or should I say, all the NSC/HSC staffers - get a little to arrogant in their plans to rule the world. Well, maybe I exaggerate. But they don't spend adequate time on these strategies, so they keep screwing it up - and we get things like Afghanistan, where the Obama strategy is the same as the Bush strategy - just with a few more troops.

Our Disfunctional National Security Council

Some things truly are non-partisan. Take the behavior of the National Security Council, filled with Very Serious People who contemplate the big policy issues in national and homeland security, giving them at least a few minutes of thought prior to making personal gut calls based on political agendas and then moving on to the next meeting. So many issues, so little time. Sometimes it's hard to identify the difference between a Republican or Democratic NSC, given the common low level of discourse and the shoddy products one sees emerging from those sound-proofed rooms.

In light of the recent civil-military crisis involving Gen. McChrystal, Dan Drezner wants to know if the Obama administration's NSC is truly a well-oiled machine with a single, focused messageor if it's all just a smoke screen covering up a dysfunctional, quarrelsome mob.

For the past year or so, we've seen a series of stories detailing the Obama administration's foreign policy process.  The signal theme of these stories is that the White House is large and in charge of this process.  While Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates are clearly influential, Obama and the Executive Office of the President are clearly the central node, disciplining everyone else into a single policy position.

The description of U.S. foreign policy towards Afghanistan to come out of the McChrystal imbroglio is one of serious bureaucratic wrangling, a Pentagon resistant to civilian oversight, petty carping, and significant press leakage. 

How can both of these narratives be correct? 

From what little I can discern, this NSC staff isn't any better or efficient than the Bush administration. Lots of personal agendas, limited analyses, little attempt if at all to work the serious policy issues in a professional manner. While there's been an effort on message discipline for Iraq and Afghanistan, those are not the only national/homeland security issues requiring address. And on those other issues, there's been little progress, not much original thought, not much new in the way of progressive policy emerging from the NSC. It's all small, incremental steps from the Bush administration's policies.

The Obama administration has misinterpreted the intent of strategic communications, as other agencies have. The purpose of strategic communications isn't to dissemble and cover up the organization's blemishes, like some cheap PR agent. The purpose of strategic communications is to clearly communicate what your objectives are, and then to publically demonstrate that your agency really does what it says it sets out to do. Of course, that would entail some brutal honesty as to what one's objectives are and why those objectives aren't being met. That's not a feature seen in many bureaucratic organizations today.

Repubs Stuck in Cold War

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is a symptom of the greater problem that the Republican party has, as the Repubs all look fondly back to the Reaganesque days of the Cold War. They just can't stop saying "Soviet Union" when they talk about today's Russia.

"Clearly the Soviet Union as a democracy is a fraud. Rule of law is very loose, foreign investment is very low," he said. "The Soviet Union, I mean Russia, is making the countries around it concerned with how Russia is constantly trying to manipulate their elections, undermine their freedom, and impose some control."

Think Progress blogger Max Bergmann noted that DeMint called Russia the Soviet Union at a hearing on the new START treaty last week as well.

At the FPI event, DeMint also explained his overall take on Russia. "Russia is trying to undermine American strength in different parts of the world. As we think of Russia, it s important to think of them as a threat to many and a protector of none," he said. He also at one point said, "I don't pretend to be an expert."

DeMint's expertise on Russia was also called into question after he seemingly misrepresented the objectives of both the Bush and Obama administrations in deploying ballistic missile defense systems in Europe.

At a May 18 hearing, he complained that the current design of the system isn't sufficient to combat Russia's missile arsenal, which numbers into the thousands. "Is it not desirable for us to have a missile defense system that renders their threat useless?," he asked.

Both administrations have gone to great pains to explain that the system has always been aimed at Iran, not Russia, and it's hard to find a credible expert who believes that any feasible conception of missile defense could be built to overpower the Russian capability.

I think you can find a lot of similar comments from Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and others involved in reviewing the new START treaty and pushing for missile defense programs. They really need that overwhelming sense of peril that the Soviet Union used to provide, but that Russia doesn't seem to project these days. Their twen-cen attitudes continue to demonstrate why no one should take Republican national security views very seriously. They certainly don't take the subject seriously.

Casual Fridays

It's not good to be the only red shirt in the landing party.

Deep Thoughts

"When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say, 'Bitch, you're Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.' "

Lady Gaga to Rolling Stone

Idiotic Musings

I know I should practice more self-restraint, but sometimes I see these supposedly smart defense analysts stating opinions where I just have to say, "Really? Fuck off." DOD Buzz brings me one of those moments, where Loren Thompson offers his insights as to the implications of Gen. Petraeus taking the Afghanistan command.

“If the price of picking Petraeus turns out to be sticking with the counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan well beyond the current timetable, then it may be President Romney or President Palin who gets to celebrate the fruits of that strategy. An unpopular war, a weak economy, trouble with the cleanup along the Gulf Coast — this all sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?” said Loren Thompson, defense consultant and analyst.

On top of that, Petraeus may bring some unique challenges to the White House. The Obama administration, Thompson said, “has now created a different political problem for itself.  Gen. Petraeus is rumored to have presidential ambitions, and his high standing with the public could make him just as hard to control as McChrystal was.”

Let's get past the sheer stupidity of even considering Mitt "Flip Flop" Romney or Sarah "Half Term" Palin as serious candidates for the presidency. Thompson wants to compare the failed policies and critical issues of the CheneyBush administration's two terms to the Obama administration's two years? Really? If it sounds familiar, you moron, it's because CheneyBush fucked up all three issues so badly that we still haven't recovered.

But I really don't understand the fascination with considering Petraeus as presidential material just because he's a good military leader. Certainly Gen. Wes Clark wasn't successful with that approach. Our public hasn't been fascinated with former military leaders as national politicians since Eisenhower, really. And all polls point to Americans wanting to see job security addressed rather than a triumphant U.S. domination of the Middle East. It's the economy, stupid, not the military.

Meanwhile, Michael O'Hanlon is still living in the past, where the "indispensable man" just needs another six months to turn things around (has he never heard of the "Friedman Unit"?). He says, "At this moment, as we enter into perhaps the most crucial six months of the entire war, I hope and pray that President Obama will decide we cannot afford to be without the leadership of such an amazing American." Really, Mikey? No other general has figured out that excessive civilian casualties are "bad," that making the Afghani central government appear legimate is "good"? Wow, then I really fear for the future of the US military.

I guess I'm just in a bad mood. I see these ridiculous comments about national security issues, and I really want to know what's going through the minds of the editors who allow them to be printed. It almost comes down to a ridiculous point where I suppose the editor says, "hey, get me a quote by someone who works in a known think-tank! It will round out our story. Doesn't matter if he or she is credible or not." Am I wrong?

We Still Need a New Strategy

Tim Toles's sharp rapier wit pierces the recent civil-military crisis in today's WaPo. Touche', sir.

Overreacting on Chemical Terrorism

I missed this Global Security Newswire post, referencing a NY Times article on chemical security. Seems that a few environmental activists want to shake up Congress with proposed legislation on chemical security, not because there are any indications that something might happen, but rather because BP's oil incident "demonstrates" how bad chemical terrorism could be. It's an amazing leap of logic into the absurd. I think their real reason is to try to recoup some of the regulation lost during the Bush years, and they just need a rationale to justify their action.

When Michael Graff, then-chairman of BP's American chemicals division, wrote Bush adviser Karl Rove in October 2002 to blast U.S. EPA's plan to take the lead on guarding against a potential terrorist assault on chemical facilities, he called for an industry-driven process routed through the Department of Homeland Security. "We have a similar set of concerns" about the prospects of EPA involvement in chemical security oversight, Rove replied, promising to pass on BP's concerns to others.

Industry won that early clash over EPA's role, as the agency's effort got axed before the plan was released. But the intense scrutiny of BP and other oil companies' preference for self-regulation in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is giving advocates for stronger chemical security rules a new opening to warn that the private sector cannot prepare for disastrous events -- whether deliberate or accidental -- without a harder nudge from the government.

"The BP spill in the Gulf shows undeniably that worst-case scenarios can and do happen, and they can and do overwhelm any emergency response capacity," said Center for American Progress consultant Paul Orum, who has researched high-risk chemical facilities for nearly two decades. "Oil in the water is really bad. Chemicals in a big city could be even worse."

Now I do think we need to examine chemical facilities for security gaps and to advise their owners on how to improve the safety of their operations - within limits, though. The implementation has to make sense. I don't like how DHS has developed chemical safety standards loosely based on their physical hazards and demanded all chemical storage sites to report on what they have, where it's stored, what they're doing. Building a compliance structure that fines industry on infractions is only going to make the chemical industry get creative about how they report to DHS. But using BP's oil spill as scare tactics? Not worthy. You can't base policy on the "black swan" cases.

I also dislike how chemical "safety advocates" try to force firms to use "safer substitutes" for industrial processes. The example in the article discusses forcing oil industries to switch from hydrofluoric acid to sulfuric acid, because current storage tanks  in Texas holding hydrofluoric acid could imperil 550,000 people in a 25-mile range. I don't know what numbers they're using in these estimates, but I think they are exaggerating the potential effects of a spill just a bit. The problem is, industry uses specific chemicals because THEY WORK in specific processes, and when you substitute them with other "safer" chemicals (and it's all relative), you increase manufacturing costs (which are passed onto the customer).

If you want to increase regulation on the chemical industry because you don't like the potential emissions, then that's the legislation you want to pass. Don't dress it up as "chemical terrorism" and exaggerate the effects. It's unnecessary and contrary to good policy analysis.

McChrystal Relieved of Command

And so it goes.

President Barack Obama Wednesday fired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of the war in Afghanistan.

Obama turned to Army Gen. David Petraeus to command the war. Petraeus, who led the Iraq war in 2007 and 2008, is now commander of the U.S. Central Command.

Obama met earlier in the Oval Office with the 55-year-old general, ordered back to Washington after release of a magazine article in which McChrystal and his aides ridiculed many members of the Obama administration’s war council, including Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Adviser James Jones and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.

McChrystal left the White House after the brief meeting, which lasted less than half an hour.

Obama accepting McChrystal's resignation was relatively easy to predict. As for General Petraeus taking command of combat operations in Afghanistan as well as continuing to act as Commander, US Central Command, that's a bone-headed play - Petraeus is busy enough. McChrystal had a deputy, and there are other three- and four-stars who could have filled the bill. Democrats continue to act as if they've never played in the national security field before. It's embarrassing, and you know it's wrong when Bill Kristol suggests it first.

Just as a side note, I know many people will be tempted to read implications of this action into the current military strategy being implemented in Afghanistan. It's a faulty point. Even though Obama should develop a better strategy, one that's not solely based on military execution of COIN tactics, he's stated that the current strategy will continue. Using Petraeus as the commander for forces in Afghanistan will ensure that will be the case.

Next prediction: every military officer in theater will clam up on any and all topics before any reporter lacking a military combat background. Rolling Stone isn't getting any more interviews.

UPDATE: President Obama's statement from the Rose Garden is here.

UPDATE 2: I agree with Bernard Finel that the Petraeus appointment was strictly political and has its considerable down sides.

Supreme Court Disallows Talking With Terrorists

I'm not a typical watcher of the Supreme Court. Not a legal analyst, and I don't understand all the supporting and dissenting views of the particular cases under consideration. I am, however, at a loss to understand why the Supreme Court ruled against the attempts by non-governmental agencies to engage terrorist groups with the idea of convincing same to use peaceful, political avenues to achieve their stated goals.

The justices voted 6-3 to reject a free-speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups to the law that bars "material support" - everything from money to technical know-how to legal advice - to foreign terrorist organizations.

The aid groups were only challenging provisions that put them at risk of being prosecuted for talking to terrorist organizations about nonviolent activities.

But Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opinion for the court that material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways.

"Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," Roberts said in an opinion joined by four other conservative justices, but also the liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.

The court often looks skeptically on laws that criminalize speech and holds them to a high level of scrutiny. But Roberts said there is good reason in this case to defer to Congress and the president, "uniquely positioned to make principled distinctions between activities that will further terrorist conduct and undermine United States foreign policy, and those that will not."

Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. "Not even the 'serious and deadly problem' of international terrorism can require automatic forfeiture of First Amendment rights," he said. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

Roberts seems to be basing his ruling on two points - first, that merely talking to terrorist groups, even in the interests of convincing them to use non-violent methods, crosses the line by "recognizing" known terrorist groups, and that gives them credibility. Second, by training terrorist groups on how to peacefully engage the political processes of nations and the international community, the terrorist groups might continue their nefarious activities through the course of "lawfare" or legal warfare.

I don't find this credible in the least, from the standpoint that any legitimate expert who studies terrorism will tell you that the way to "drain the swamp" of potential terrorists is to convince terrorist groups to abandon violent approaches and to engage the people who could join such groups. It's a generational engagement with a culture. The only explanation I have is that the conservative judges on the Supreme Court are more aligned with the hard-right hawks who believe the only tools you need in counterterrorism are the kinetic variety.

Elections do have consequences. President Bush has created a Supreme Court with a significant activist agenda, and it will take decades to recover from it. But hey, let's watch the MSM and others continue to worry about the implications of allowing any "liberal" Obama-appointed judges on the bench...

Waiting for Obama

Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I’ll be here ’til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Always tease tease tease
You’re happy when I’m on my knees
One day is fine, next day is black
So if you want me off your back
Well come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An’ if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know!

THE CLASH

Great article by Sean Naylor, while we wait for the White House response.

Also see Matt Y's reference to Max Bergmann's view of the strategic implications of this story.

Even the non-military liberal blogs have figured out what's wrong with the current application of COIN and the failure of the Obama administration to develop progressive military strategy.

Mikey O'Hanlon also believes in the indispensable man - fortunately, the comments to his USA Today article are more worthwhile reading than his point of view.

Loren Thompson similarly is wayyyyy off base, but hey, he's never been a friend to the Dems.