Diplomatic Solution for Iran -- Whoa Nellie Posted by David Shorr

As you probably heard, last week President Obama briefed journalists on the new economic sanctions against the Iranian regime. Here's the short version. The White House wants everyone to know that there's more to the sanctions' impact than meets the eye. And while this could help pave the way to a diplomatic resolution, there's less than meets the eye in terms of an immediate pay-off. In other words, the administration is playing a diplomatic long-game, and the latest breathless anticipation about diplomacy misunderstands the strategy.

Two Washington Post columnists took part in the briefing, and offerred contrasting views of the link between progress on sanctions and on diplomacy. Robert Kagan drew a careful distinction between the two, whereas David Ignatius went an extra step or two in anticipating the diplomatic possibilities. Personally, I found Bob's account much more plausible.

Reaching a happy diplomatic ending with Iran is contingent on three things: the regime's willingness to verifiably keep their nuclear program strictly civilian, a substantive deal to that effect, and deft diplomacy to reach a deal satisfactory to both sides. Much of the debate over policy toward Iran stresses the first, Iranian leaders' bottom-line decision about acquiring nuclear weapons or capability. No, the real problem is that Tehran's ultimate calculation is unknowable until put to the test, and the entire enterprise is basically a process of peeling the onion of their intentions. In this sense, I agree with the critique Peter Feaver of Shadow Government makes against the "it's useless to negotiate with these people" school of Iran policy. Feaver argues that whether you end up bombing Iran or learning to live with their bomb, either way you have to exhaust your diplomatic options.

What we have to overcome in the meantime is Iranian foot-dragging. Iran's default diplomatic approach will always be to try to run out the clock. This doesn't mean they've decided to build the bomb, it only means that only under duress will they submit to constraints. That's why the international community has to insist on meaningful commitments and actions rather than vague declarations -- and why the solid international front behind the sanctions is crucial in ensuring Tehran has no interlocutors to give them cover and help deflect pressure. [Even with all the attention paid to the role of Russia, I don't think the main point comes through; President Obama didn't merely secure Russia's vote in the Security Council, he drove a big wedge between them and Iran and a instilled a genuine sense of ownership by Moscow.]

Perhaps paradoxically, this diplomatic dynamic ensures the process will be a steeplechase rather than a sprint. I think Cliff Kupchan gets ahead of himself when he argues that the window is open for a final deal on Iran's nuclear progam. It's not that we have the luxury of time for diplomacy to work; the clock of Iranian technological progress is indeed ticking -- the only question is how fast. We'll need interim measures and deals to allow enough time to reach the final deal.

Which brings us to sad tale of the agreement reached last October in Geneva by which Iran would have shipped its enriched uranium out of the country to be turned into fuel rods for civilian nuclear energy. The essential point of the agreement was to alleviate internaional concerns about how close Iran was coming to having a nuclear weapon capability -- to add to the clock by putting their nuclear material in international custody and constraining their enrichment activities.

I'm guessing a similar deal will be the key to any further progress, rather than a dramatic sprint toward a final resolution. Having renegged on that earlier bargain, the ball is in Tehran's court. While the US and others must be genuine in their desire for a peaceful outcome, to ardently pursue Iran is to play their game. I think Blake Hounshell makes an excellent point in highlighting how new the sanctions are. This is probably the main underlying message from the Administration, including Secretary Clinton's interview with David Sanger.

The Geneva agreement and the sanctions have everything to do with one another -- i.e. the administration would not have been able to get the sanctions without Iran having been put to the test. And here is where I disagree with Peter Feaver's analysis. Feaver laments the lapse of time before the international pressure on the Iranian leadership was ratcheted up and attributes it to Obama's belated recognition that carrots won't work. His administration can perhaps be faulted for not being clearer in declaring the Geneva terms null and void, but I see no epihany on their part. In a sense, they were following a similar logic to Feaver's own argument about the necessity of trying diplomacy first. In order to get to sanctions -- and the international supported needed to enact them -- they had to test Iran's sincerity first.

The Wikileaker's DADT Isolation Posted by Jacob Stokes

The more we find out about Pfc. Bradley Manning, the intel analyst who allegedly leaked thousands of classified documents and at least one video to Wikileaks, the more sad and desperate the whole situation appears to be. The NYT fleshes out some details today:

[Pfc. Manning] spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

Then he joined the Army, where, friends said, his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.

The second paragraph really caught my attention because it gets to the heart of the most fundamental reason why the DADT policy is broken: because it asks soldiers—those tasked with fighting and dying for their country and those tasked with safeguarding sensitive national security information—to lie. It asks them to purposely misrepresent who they are. That flies in the face of the military’s culture of honor, courage and equality. The policy means that even an otherwise upright soldier who is gay can never be fully himself or herself to fellow service people.

This argument is not to excuse what Pfc. Manning allegedly did, which was against the law and almost surely endangered the lives of Americans and Afghans in the field while revealing little new information about the war in Afghanistan. Nor am I saying that the DADT policy was the sole driver behind Pfc. Manning alleged decision to leak the information. It’s clear that there were a number of factors and motivations at work.

But the story clearly states how Pfc. Manning’s homosexuality isolated him within the force. Manning had joined the army, as the article says, “to try to give his life some direction and to help to pay for college.” He sought guidance from the military and was met with institutional discrimination. Surely the imperative to hide his homosexuality pushed Pfc. Manning further and further into isolation, and he eventually (allegedly) cracked. Pfc. Manning did what he could to gain acceptance within the community of hackers who had befriended and accepted him when the military wouldn’t—he leaked the material.

Bombing Iran Is A Bad Idea, No Matter Who Does it Posted by Patrick Barry

Should Israel bomb Iran?  That's the question outlets like the Weekly Standard and the National Review have been asking lately. The most recent entrant to the conversation is former Bush NSC official Elliot Abrams.  In today’s Wall Street Journal, Abrams - after spending an inordinate amount of space discussing how regional politics in the Middle East are more complicated than they appear - reaches a simplistic conclusion: Arab countries would support an Israeli attack on Iran.

Perhaps the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, if he is an Israeli pilot. In that case, all gestures of friendship will be forsaken or carefully hidden; there will be denunciations and UN resolutions, petitions and boycotts, Arab League summits and hurried trips to Washington. But none of that changes an essential fact of life well understood in many Arab capitals this summer: that there is a clear coincidence of interests between the Arab states and Israel today, in the face of the Iranian threat.

The major problem with this argument is not that it’s wrong (though I suspect it is). It’s that it only makes sense in a world in which a military attack on Iran - whether by the U.S., Israel, or even an Arab state – is a reasonable option. It is not.  Judging from the most commonly cited implications of military action, they would be just as severe whether a strike was launched by the IAF, the USN or the Rebel Alliance.

Iran’s asymmetric response: Ambassador Nicholas Burns, former Bush administration Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, offered the Senate Foreign Relations Committee grim summation of how Iran might respond to an attack: "Air strikes would undoubtedly lead Iran to hit back asymmetrically against us in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider region, especially through its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. This reminds us of Churchill's maxim that, once a war starts, it is impossible to know how it will end."

Inability to eliminate nuclear program:  A military strike would not substantially set back Iran’s nuclear program, and may even incentivize Iran to build a weapon. In February, Brookings Institution Fellows Michael O'Hanlon and Bruce Riedel wrote, “even a massive strike would not slow Iran's progress towards a bomb for long. We cannot be sure we know where all existing Iranian facilities to enrich uranium are located - as the revelation of yet another previously unknown site near Qom last year reminded us." Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Colin Kahl took this a step further, suggesting that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities might “incentivize the Iranians to go all the way to weaponize.”

Consequences for Iran’s opposition movement: Fareed Zakaria recently cited noted Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji, who wrote: “Even entertaining the possibility of a military strike, especially when predicated on the nuclear issue is beneficial to the fundamentalists who rule Iran.  As such, the idea itself is detrimental to the democratic movement in my country."  Similarly, when he was CENTCOM commander, General David Petraeus warned that the military option risks unleashing a popular backlash that would play into the hands of the regime.  “There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment,” said Petraeus. “So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike),” he added.

Having failed to persuade anyone to support a U.S. military strike on Iran, American war hawks now are trying to re-locate the campaign for ‘war with Iran’ to a third-party.  Yet, the consequences of military action remain just as severe.  A venue change won’t alter that.

 

Afghanistan Exit Strategy Watch - Our (Corrupt Man) in Kabul Version Posted by Michael Cohen

If President Obama is looking for another excuse to shift the US mission in Afghanistan away from counter-insurgency to something that looks a bit more like an exit strategy today's article in the Washington Post about corruption in the Afghan government should be helpful:

Obama administration officials fear that a move by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to assert control over U.S.-backed corruption investigations might provoke the biggest crisis in U.S.-Afghan relations since last year's fraud-riddled election and could further threaten congressional approval of billions of dollars in pending aid.

The concerns were sparked by Karzai's decision this week to order a probe of two anti-corruption units that have been involved in the recent arrest of several senior government officials on graft and bribery allegations. Karzai said the investigators, who have been aided by U.S. law enforcement advisers and wiretap technology, were acting outside the Afghan constitution.

I've long been a member of the "Let Hamid be Hamid" school of thought, but doing so also requires a somewhat sober recognition of the kind of leader with which you're dealing. It's fascinating that only a week after Dick Holbrooke extols Karzai's commitment to fighting corruption today's article features this little tidbit: 

But this official and others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, expressed certainty that the real basis of Karzai's concern was the threat that corruption investigations posed to the government itself. Despite the task force successes, U.S. officials have cited repeated instances in recent months in which top government figures intervened to quash corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans.

"If I were in his shoes," the defense official said of Karzai, "I would also be concerned about it. Those high-profile arrests were done by Afghans, reviewed by Afghan judges. . . . They're finding things, and becoming more aggressive. There are people who are corrupt throughout the government who are upset about it. I think [Karzai's] feeling the pressure."

This isn't complicated. Hamid Karzai is not interested in curbing corruption. Allow me to repeat: Hamid Karzai is not interested in curbing corruption.

No matter how much we cajole him; how much we plead; how much we talk about its importance it isn't going to matter. At the very least, it won't matter enough to shift the fundamentally corrupt nature of his government. 

The key is to accept that fact and work within the limitations of a host country government, not hope against hope that things will change. That means focusing the US mission on stabilization and containment of the Taliban; not the dangerous belief that we, the United States, can extend the legitimacy of a government that is fundamentally illegitimate. A good place to start might be in paring back our objectives in Kandahar.

The Prague Project Crunches the Numbers Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

Our friends over at the Prague Project whipped up a nice visual reminder that the support for the New START accord runs deep.  Heritage counts six people who oppose the treaty--though it is worth mentioning that Eric Edelman and Robert Joseph both testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and neither one could actually bring themselves to recommend that the Senate reject New START.  Not too hard to do the math on this one.     

Courtesy of the Ben Loehrke, here's the graph:

The Real Lesson Of Iraq - We Never Learn Posted by Michael Cohen

A couple of days ago President Obama gave a speech about the Iraq War that has led to some soul searching on the meaning of that conflict. Over at Time Magazine, Joe Klein declared the lesson of the Iraq War is that "We should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again." I'm not sure I buy that notion - it seems a bit too absolute. And as Jon Chait points out if applied through history would have prevented the US from intervening militarily in places where we probably should have (WWI, WW2, Korea, the Iraq War to name a few). But I do sympathize with the sentiment.

But over at the Economist blog, Matt Steinglass (h/t to Kevin Drum) makes a very different - and unfortunately - very wrong observation:

There haven't been many examples lately of people learning from their mistakes, but the invasion of Iraq appears to be a mistake from which some lessons have been learned. It's difficult to imagine America returning to fantasies of easy conquest and democracy-building anytime in the next few decades, anywhere in the world. 

Clearly Matt is not a regular reader of democracyarsenal! In fact, we are at this exact moment doing the specific thing that Matt thinks we should never, and will never, do again - deluding ourselves into believing that we can effectively engage in nation building in far-flung corners of the world like Afghanistan. The lessons that the military - and its cheerleaders in the punditocracy - have taken from Iraq is not "let's never do that again" but instead, let's do it better the next time. And of course that next time is now Afghanistan.

Indeed, the entire counter-insurgency mission in Iraq was formulated around the idea that the US had "figured out" how to fight counter-insurgencies and that the lessons of what worked in Iraq could be applied to the Hindu Kush. The same delusion and hubris that convinced America it could "win" in Iraq and that its interests were at stake there is what is driving our escalation in Afghanistan today.

Of course, predictions like Matt's are nothing new - after Vietnam the US had clearly "learned" the lesson that fighting overseas wars with uncertain objectives, lack of popular and international support support and less than overwhelming military superiority was a bad idea. In fact we created a whole new military doctrine (Weinberger/Powell) to mitigate against another Vietnam. And yet here we are . .  again, making the same mistakes and misjudgments that we made, albeit on a larger scale, 45 years ago.

Steinglass even doubles down on the "lessons learned' argument noting the work of the Sustainable Defense Task Force and their plan for a trillion dollars in defense spending cuts - and suggests that this represents "public stirrings" of support for a small defense budget. Apparently Matt missed this "bipartisan report" from the QDR Independent Panel, which suggests we need more not less money for the nation's defenses. I know I too am shocked that a report of prominent DC-based national security experts recommends more defense spending. Who could have seen that one coming? And in the end whose recommendations do you think will end up having more currency in Washington?

I would really like to believe that Matt Steinglass is on to something here, but the simple reality is that for many years now the American Way of War is that we either learn the wrong lessons from the wars we fight or we forget the right ones.  Afghanistan is our current example - something tells me there will be others.

Why We Fight -- Countering the Conservative Foreign Policy Critique Posted by David Shorr

A lot of debate lately on the question of whether conservative foreign policy thinking (and politics) have been taken captive by a wild-eyed form of neoconservatism. The recent round -- which has drawn the most response from conservatives themselves -- was sparked by Jacob Heilbrunn's piece on the Foreign Policy site, arguing that the current generation foreign policy Republicans have banished moderates and moderate ideas.  Among the reactions over on the Shadow Government blog, Jamie Fly's is fairly thorough. His last two paragraphs are especially action-packed:

What Heilbrunn fails to grasp is that his desired foreign policy (and President Obama's) is at odds with the views of the American public. Americans don't accept that the United States is in decline. They like the idea that there is something exceptional about their country. They have no problem cuting deals with China and Russia, but they want their President to make sure that we get the best deal possible and only cede as much as necessary. They want their president to speak out in support of those fighting for democracy and human rights. And they don't like to see their government neglect democratic allies while negotiating with repressive regimes.

Americans want a values-based foreign policy, not a cold, calculating one. This, not a neocon sponsored coup, is why there is a broad foreign policy consensus on the Right today.

Some of Fly's points offer a basis for constructive dialogue. On the other hand, the charges that the Center-Left embraces decline and rejects all notions of exceptionalism are self-serving caricatures -- which is ironic in a post that pushes back against caricatures of neoconservatives. The 'declinist' tag is one I've addressed before, so I'll summarize. A genuine declinist has serious doubts about American strength and power; our national strategic fundamentals are headed irreversibly downward. The point is that it's possible to retain faith in American dynamism and, at the same time, believe that changes in the world have made it harder for America to exert leverage over problems and achieve our aims globally.

Now, there are exceptionalists, and there are exceptionalists. I'm afraid our friends on the Right don't own the franchise. A hat tip goes to Greg Scoblete of RealClearWorld Compass Blog for highlighting David Frum's response to critics who took issue with the idea of US global leaderhip in Frum's mission statement for conservatives. As someone who considers myself a moderate exceptionalist, I largely agree with what Frum says, which he best summarizes as follows:

Just as even the most self-equilibriating markets need a lender of last resort, so even the most stable international system needs a security guarantor of last resort.

My one quibble is that I believe in the longer-term that global security public goods could be provided collectively by major powers, assuming they ultimately converge as responsible stakeholders. Since this is far from a safe assumption, Frum and I are unlikely to part ways on the basic idea for at least a decade or three.

But back to Jamie Fly's rallying cry. For me, the interesting underlying issue in the debate between Right and Left is the question of what we're really fighting about. There are a couple good ones here -- issues where liberal and conservative views could complement one another quite nicely. First, striking worthy bargains with China and Russia. As broad guidelines, let's agree that we have to deal with them, and we don't want to be pushovers. Recently there was another interesting Shadow Government post from Daniel Blumenthal on US-China relations emphasizing the need to deal with China from a position of strength.

Blumenthal may be right that the Obama administration hasn't gotten it quite right and has been a little too solicitous of Beijing. But let's not forget that down the they-only-respect-strength road lies no deal at all. I have my doubts about what deals conservatives might think can be squeezed from the other side. So lest we get too excited about getting tougher, I have a couple questions. Do conservatives believe that pressing Beijing more impatiently and publicly on letting the RMB float upward would have achieved the desired result? And don't their US sovereign debt holdings boost China's own bargaining power?

Last is the issue of "a values-based foreign policy" versus "a cold, calculating one." OK, there's definitely some calculating going on. Don't be so sure, though, that it's the heartless, national interests-focused calculations of the Realists. It might just be a clear-eyed assessment of pragmatists. For my part, I feel like an accidental Realist rather than a real Realist. I think I'd be much more enthusiastic about the values agenda if we didn't have these other gigantic problems like the economic downturn, fraying of the NPT, and global warming all staring us down.

Still, with that said, I take the point about the importance of pressing issues of human rights and democracy not only in China and Russia, but also Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Egypt. Heck, I've even (slightly) tempered my security mono-focus with regard to Iran. And I agree with Heather in her recent TNR piece that "the effort to find a post-Bush language for the promotion of democracy and human rights remains a work in progress." I'd only add that the Obama administration probably doesn't get credit for the things it is doing, owing not only to the conservative critique, but also the overloaded bandwidth of public diplomacy.

The September Vote Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote on the New START Treaty when Senators return from recess in September.  Sen. Kerry released a statement today, saying, “We have the votes to report the treaty out of Committee now. However, in consultation with Senator Lugar, I chose to reschedule the vote to be responsive to the concerns of our members so that we can build bipartisan consensus around a treaty that our military leaders all agree will make America safer.” 

Through months of hearings, Senators have meticulously reviewed the treaty and its accompanying documents.  An impressive record of bipartisan support has been built by Sens. Kerry and Lugar, who have worked with their colleagues on the Committee and elsewhere to answer questions and facilitate the passage of this important treaty. 

Once New START is voted out of committee, the treaty will move to the full Senate where 67 votes are needed.  In an interview with the Cable, Sen. Lugar highlighted the importance of finding the floor time to ratify the agreement, and of doing so quickly.  "If not [before the election], then whether it works out in December or not is no longer a matter of parliamentary debate, it's a matter of national security," he said, citing the fact that U.S. inspectors have not been able to verify Russian behavior regarding nuclear weapons deployment since the original START agreement expired late last year. "We ought to vote now and let the chips fall where they may. It's that important."

"The problem of the breakdown of our verification, which lapsed December 5, is very serious and impacts our national security," Lugar said. Members may want to take extra time to consider the treaty, but if they are really concerned about Russian activity, ratifying the treaty is the way to address that, he added.

New START has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership.  Prominent national security experts have come out in spades to support this treaty and call for its quick passage.  Even in this partisan environment, Senators from both sides of the aisle have expressed interest in supporting New START.  Last week during a Senate Armed Services hearing, Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) explained that he, like others, hope to support New START.  “Most people I talk to, members in the Senate, would like to get to a point of a vote to advise and consent to the new START treaty. I certainly would,” Lieberman said.   

Sen. Lieberman and other GOP senators have indicated that if the price is right for funding our nuclear complex, they will support the treaty.  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week during an interview with Reuters, “The only way this treaty gets in trouble is if it’s rushed.”  McConnell continued, “My advice to the president was, don’t try to jam it, answer all the requests, and let’s take our time and do it right,” he said. “All they have to do is find enough money to satisfy Senator Kyl that they are prepared to do what they said they would do,” he said.  “If it’s important to you, you can find a way, in an over a trillion dollar discretionary budget to fund it. In my view they need to do that, because without that I think the chances of ratification are pretty slim,” McConnell said.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) has also said that he wants to vote for the treaty, but is waiting for the final nod from his leadership. "I'm waiting for Senator Kyl to finish his analysis, but he's leaning yes and I'm leaning yes," Bennett said.  In an interview with Laura Rozen, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) “was, overall, somewhat encouraging about prospects for START ratification. He said with a more detailed administration commitment to modernizing U.S. nuclear facilities and language in a resolution that clarifies that the treaty does not restrict U.S. missile defenses, he would be comfortable with it. “To me there’s a way to get there to quell the concerns of people regarding this point,” Sen. Corker explained.

Senators will have the next six weeks to review the advice of our nation’s most respected national security experts.  As Sen. Kerry explained in his letter to committee members, the record is clear:

We had the opportunity to hear from—and to question—the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, and the director of the Missile Defense Agency. In our effort to provide a wide range of views, we heard from high-ranking members of the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43 administrations. We also heard from the directors of the nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories, and received written testimony from the man who oversaw them for President George W. Bush. We had a closed hearing with high-ranking intelligence officials. And we questioned the Treaty’s negotiators on multiple occasions, in open and closed sessions.

Overwhelmingly, these witnesses supported timely ratification of the New START Treaty. Some of the strongest endorsements came from America’s military leaders. Admiral Mullen testified that the Treaty has “the full support of your uniformed military.” Secretary Gates confirmed in an article he published in May that “[t]he New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership.” And General Chilton, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, testified that “our nation will be safer and more secure with this Treaty than without it.”

Come mid-September, Senators had better be ready to act, and to do so rapidly.  Our national security depends on it.

Egyptians are Getting Angry Posted by Shadi Hamid

Last time I reported from Cairo, in May, I quoted the Islamist writer Ibrahim el-Houdaiby saying: "There's a moment of real change this time." Maybe now is still too soon. Certainly, Egypt's fractious opposition has a long way to go. But it's starting to get its act together. In particular, the cooperation between former IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood is starting to pay dividends. 

I have a new piece in The National that looks at these developments and asks what they might mean for Egypt's future course. I pay particular attention to the interesting interplay between economic growth, rising expectations, and political discontent. You can read it here. Here's a teaser:

According to a Solidarity Centre report published earlier this year, from 2004 to 2008, more than 1.7 million Egyptian workers participated in over 1,900 labour-related protests. The riots, the strikes and the sit-ins have gone largely unnoticed by the West, in part because they do not appear to be explicitly political – at least not yet.

It is interesting, then, that observers so often fault Egyptians for their apparent passivity. This, conveniently, allows western policy makers to persuade themselves that Egypt will not become another Iran or another, well, Egypt, circa 1952. Egyptians might want change, so the thinking goes, but they don’t seem particularly interested in actually doing anything.

But, again, the numbers belie such claims. The short-lived “Arab spring” in the first half of 2005, after all, saw Egypt’s first ever mass-mobilisation in support of democracy, with over 150,000 participating in protests, demonstrations and campaign rallies. Presumably that counts (and, presumably, suggests that American pressure does, in fact, matter). 

As they say, read the whole thing.

The Failure of Perry-Hadley and the Growing Debate Over the Defense Budget Posted by The Editors

This post is by Gordon Adams, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. 

The struggle to discipline the defense budget and reign in the Department of Defense has begun.  Growing concern about the deficit, combined with growing disenchantment over the situation in Afghanistan and concern about the endlessly expanding role of DOD in US foreign policy have combined to put this issue squarely on the table.

The latest round in this debate is the report of the Independent Review Panel on the DOD Quadrennial Defense Review.  This report, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former National Security Adviser Steven Hadley, is longer than the Quadrennial Defense Review itself. It is also a great disappointment, as was the QDR.

It betrays the continuing "suspension of disbelief" already painfully evident in the QDR.  Instead of bringing realism and discipline to defense planning, the report simply "doubles down" on the QDR’s analysis, calling for even more forces and more spending. The report willfully avoids three pressing national security realities.

The first is our looming fiscal crisis, which JCS Chairman Mike Mullen has called "our biggest national security threat." The report simply waives this issue aside; DOD planning, it seems to argue, must be done outside this context, as if budgets and the need for restraint did not exist.