Liveblogging Tonight's Debate Posted by Max Bergmann

We at Democracy Arsenal will be live blogging tonight's debate and responding to any foreign policy issues that arise. If this is to be believed, there may be more foreign policy content then originally expected, since Palin may actually decide to go on the attack tonight on foreign policy:

Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight's debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight's showdown.

Check this space regularly.

McCain and the Realists Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

There has been this constant meme in the press over the past few months regarding the struggle for John McCain's soul.  Is he a Neocon or is he a realist?  I don't know why people are so confused about this?  Just look at where the grand pubahs of Republican realism (Kissinger, Schultz, Scrowcroft, Powell, Baker and even Gates) stand on pretty much all the foreign policy issues of our day and it becomes pretty obvious that McCain is no realist.

On Russia:  Gates recently gave a speech calling for a more moderate approach.  Kissinger and Schultz recently put out an op-ed calling for closer engagement. And at the recent Secretaryies of State forum Kissinger, Baker and Powell all pushed a moderate approach.  Does that approach sound at all like what McCain had to say at the debate?

Well, I was interested in Senator Obama's reaction to the Russian aggression against Georgia. His first statement was, "Both sides ought to show restraint."

Again, a little bit of naivete there. He doesn't understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia. And Russia has now become a nation fueled by petro-dollars that is basically a KGB apparatchik-run government.

I looked into Mr. Putin's eyes, and I saw three letters, a "K," a "G," and a "B." And their aggression in Georgia is not acceptable behavior.

On Iran:  Kissinger believes we should talk at the Secretary of State level.   Baker's Iraq Study Group called for direct engagement with Iran.  Scowcroft has also called for dropping preconditions for talks.  But McCain opposes this position:

Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition. Without precondition. Here is Ahmadinenene (ph), Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we're going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the state of Israel, and therefore then giving them more credence in the world arena and therefore saying, they've probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior.

On Iraq:  There was almost universal opposition to the surge from the realists.  Baker's Iraq Study Group plan called for a major reduction in forces by 2008.  Powell made the case that putting more troops in Iraq would put too much strain on the military.  Scrowcroft opposed the war in the first place.  I think we all know what McCain's position on the surge was.

Add to this other things like McCain's opposition to talking to North Korea or his support for the League of Democracies and it becomes pretty apparent that across the board McCain's position is very different than that of all the preeminent realists in his party.  There really isn't much of a struggle for McCain's soul.  The man's foreign policy pretty obviously mirrors that of George W. Bush - some combination of ideological Neoconservatives and more traditional general hawkishness. 

Does John McCain Understand That We Need Allies? Posted by James Lamond

Yesterday E.U. monitors began patrolling Georgian territory, fulfilling their role as was agreed in the cease-fire agreement.   When Georgia and Russia went to war on August 6, it wasn’t George Bush, Condi Rice, and especially not John McCain who flew to Moscow to make peace.  It was Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France, who brokered the deal.  This is the same France that John McCain called an “aging movie actress in the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn’t have the face for it,” and said that they were “close to rendering themselves irrelevant.”  Do they still seem irrelevant?

In fact we are pretty lucky that our allies have been able to pick up the ball on this one.  With the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan dominating the Bush administration’s foreign policy agenda, there have many security challenges that Washington has not addressed.  The E.U. monitoring of Georgia demonstrates the importance of having allies to help manage crises around the world. 

Unfortunately John McCain’s Bush-like rhetoric towards our allies is more likely to destroy alliances than build them.  From thinking that Spain’s Prime Minister was leader of a South American Nation, to his comments about France and Germany in the run up to the war in Iraq, John McCain has continued to treat our key allies with disdain and disrespect. With the myriad of global challenges popping up around the world, is this really the man that America can afford to be president?

New Blogger: James Lamond Posted by The Editors

Just wanted to introduce our newest blogger and member of the NSN team, James Lamond.  James has joined us as a policy researcher for the next couple of months.

The Vice Presidency Matters Now Posted by Max Bergmann

Would you trust Sarah Palin enough to send her to Moscow and Beijing to represent the US? Gaining that trust, is Palin's test tonight. 

It should go without saying that a VP should be qualified to be President, since 20 percent of vice presidents have been forced to suddenly take office in the midst of a presidential term. But it is not just that the VP will be a heartbeat away. They have a job to do now.

The notion, as Senator McCain has said, that the job of the vice president was merely to check on the health of the president is severely outdated. While the selection of vice-presidential candidates may not have much impact on the electorate, the fact is that since the end of the Cold War the Vice President has had a substantial impact on governing, especially in foreign policy. It is no longer just a ceremonial office. This is not merely due to the vice presidents’ that held office, but to a greater demand on U.S. foreign policy.

With the end of the Cold War and America’s rise as the sole superpower, the foreign policy challenges confronting the United States have grown and become more varied. Given the lack of direct authority in crafting domestic policy, it was natural that the Vice President’s office adopt a growing role in foreign policy, since the office can speak authoritatively not just on behalf of the entire administration, but on behalf of the entire country. During the Clinton administration, Al Gore chaired a U.S.-Russia commission and was the first American leader to visit China following the Tienanmen Square massacre. Dick Cheney has been dispatched to Pakistan and the Middle East and played a highly influential and independent role in crafting Bush administration foreign policy and in the end created a very powerful and highly unaccountable office. It is very important therefore that these candidates be properly vetted and asked tough questions.

We face so many challenges, from two wars, to a global financial crisis, to bolstering withering alliances, to managing great power relationships with Russia and China, that it is extremely important to have a VP that is empowered to take responsibility over some of these issues. For instance, it is imperative that a new administration throw itself into the Middle East peace process. But this single issue could dominate an entire year of a Presidency. Obama can charge Biden to take a lead role. But McCain will not be able to do that with Palin. At the very least we need a VP that we can trust to represent the views of the United States to foreign leaders. So again would you trust Palin enough to send her to Beijing or Moscow, or even Brussels? Convincing us that she can do that is Palin's test tonight.

Israeli Generals For Obama Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

I thought this was a very interesting piece.  Israeli Generals and former security officials arguing for why Obama would be better for Israel's security than McCain or Bush.  Really puts a hole in much of the fearmongering that conservatives have attempted to promote in the Jewish Community.

Alaska's National Guard Suffers Under Palin Posted by Adam Blickstein

"The Governor still has a responsibility to stand up for their troops and to intercede when things are happening that shouldn't be happening....and we don't see any evidence of this happening, especially to benefit or to protect the special requirements of the rural population."
-Brigadier General David "Dave" McGinnis (Ret.), former Chief of Staff of the National Guard Association of the U.S

Today, Veterans for America (VFA) released a report chronicling the state of Alaska's National Guard under Gov. Sarah Palin's leadership. After compiling extensive on-the-ground research, VFA found that Alaska's national guard is in a very deteriorated state, especially amongst the rural guard population that comprises nearly 1/3 of the forces. The preliminary report, which can be accessed here, found that:

Despite the dedicated and relentless work of the Alaska National Guard-led Family Support Programs, the Alaska Vet Centers, local Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), municipal officials, social service providers such as the Food Bank of Alaska, and leaders of community-based efforts, VFA’s findings indicate that the post-deployment needs of Alaska National Guard members and their families remain largely unmet.

In addition, as a result of inadequate leadership from the Governor of Alaska, among others, the Alaska National Guard has an inadequate understanding of the full range of post-combat issues facing those who have served abroad from the Alaska Guard in recent years, as well as their family members who have been left to deal with the toll of unexpected – at times, repeated – deployments.

The Alaska National Guard, which was originally designed primarily as a defense force against threats to Alaska, was deployed without programs and systems in place to care adequately for postdeployment needs. The United States should not continue to deploy the Alaska National Guard until this situation is remedied.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, among others, should take steps immediately to address this pressing national security issue.

The National Security Network co-hosted a conference call today to examine this issue ahead of tomorrow's Vice Presidential debate. Full audio of the call can be found here.

Stalin's Legacy and Georgian Democracy Posted by The Editors

NSN Intern Eric Auner provides his take on the state of Georgia's Democracy"

According to a New York Times story today, Stalin remains a revered figure for many Georgians.  This makes some sense, given that he himself was Georgian, but seems puzzling considering that he is widely considered to be a mass-murdering psychopath (I imagine that he is not so popular in Ukraine).  A historian quoted in the article claims that most Georgians regard him as “higher than man, more than human and less than God.”  Even if one does not accept this story at face value, which is probably the correct response, this article can serve as a doorway to a greater discussion about the state of Georgian democracy today.  How democratic is Georgia?  Here are some quotes from a recent Newsweek article on the subject:

“The NGO Freedom House puts the country in the same category as Venezuela and Nigeria”

“Georgian democracy suffers from having no real line between state and party… President Mikheil Saakashvili has never created a meaningful judiciary, has weakened the legislature and has centralized executive power.”

“If anything, the country is becoming less democratic, according to Freedom House. In November 2007, Saakashvili cracked down on antigovernment demonstrators in front of Parliament, declared martial law and shut down a private television network.”

None of this is meant to bash Georgia.  Rather, the existing discourse, propagated by people like Sarah Palin, about a struggling democracy facing an “unprovoked” invasion (even though Colin Powell himself has said that “the match that started the conflagration was from the Georgian side”) from a resurgent empire needs to be modified and fleshed out.

Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Secretaries of State, put it more bluntly: “This drift toward confrontation needs to be ended.”  Both campaigns need to deal with this, John “We are all Georgians” McCain especially.

Republican Foreign Policy Experts for Obama Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

I mean seriously why is Henry Kissinger supporting McCain?  Why are any of these guys?  On Iran and Russia their views are completely antithetical to his.  Here is the latest in an op-ed from Kissinger and George Schultz.

There is no danger of general war today. But there is the risk that a conflict arising out of ancestral passions in the Caucasus will be treated as a metaphor for a larger conflict, threatening the imperative of building a new international order in a world of globalization, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflicts and technological revolution.

The presence of Russian troops on the territory of a state newly independent from the old Soviet empire was bound to send tremors through all the other countries that established themselves after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This has evoked a rhetoric of confrontation, reciprocal threats and retaliatory countermeasures: American naval forces have been in the Black Sea; Russian military and economic capability has been displayed in the Caribbean as if from a 19th-century balance-of-power playbook.

The Georgian crisis is cited as proof that Vladimir Putin's Russia is committed to a strategy of unraveling the post-Soviet international order in Europe. A strategy of isolating Russia has been advocated in response. The United States and Russia had been without high-level contact since early August until a recent meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Non-governmental contacts have been curtailed.

This drift toward confrontation needs to be ended.

This doesn't really jive well with the whole "we are all Georgians now."

Petraeus Closes the Book on McCain's Strategy for Afghanistan Posted by Patrick Barry

General Petraeus' remarks yesterday should close the book on John McCain's overly-simplistic strategy for restoring stability to Afghanistan.  After today, it's difficult to imagine anyone saying that McCain has even the slightest idea of what he is talking about when it comes to that country.

For the entire campaign, McCain has repeatedly made the point that to achieve victory in Afghanistan, the U.S. military need only look to the 'surge' strategy that proved so successful in Iraq. During the Presidential debate, McCain invoked the surge, and said that "that same strategy will be employed in Afghanistan," but even before that, he ripped Barack Obama, saying "it is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan." Yet for all this confidence and bluster, it took just a few short remarks by General Petraeus to cut the central premise of McCain's Afghanistan policy off at the knees.  Just look:

“People often ask, ‘What did you learn from Iraq that might be transferable to Afghanistan?  The first lesson, the first caution really, is that every situation like this is truly and absolutely unique, and has its own context and specifics and its own texture,”

General Petraeus is the pre-emininent figure when it comes to counter-insurgency, so vaunted in his profession that followers of his way of war have gifted him with near mythic status, calling him "King David."  Others may have contributed more to the discussion of counter-insurgency, but no figure is more associated with the term than General Petraeus. An open declaration by the man who has mastered the lessons of Iraq, that those same lessons cannot be simply mapped onto Afghanistan, is absolutely devastating to McCain.