Obama's Democracy Deficit - and How to Fix It Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at World Politics Review, Brian Katulis and I take a look at Obama's upcoming Cairo speech and offer some thoughts on what the President needs to say - and how we can put democracy promotion back on the US foreign policy map:

President Barack Obama's historic address to the Muslim world in Cairo tomorrow offers a prime opportunity to outline a new U.S. vision for democracy and human rights in the region. To accomplish this goal, Obama must firmly reject the notion that safeguarding America's strategic interests in the Middle East somehow runs counter to the goal of advancing political reform. Instead he must craft a balanced message that recognizes that reform is synonymous with U.S. interests in the region.

Unfortunately, if early signs are any indication, the president seems to be striking the wrong balance. The delayed appointments of key democracy promotion and human rights officials -- including the administrator for the Agency of International Development and the assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor -- suggest that the issue is simply not a high priority.

Policy statements and decisions by top officials are sending a more disturbing signal. In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that China's adherence to global human rights standards, or lack thereof, can't interfere with larger economic and security concerns. The administration has even acceded to Egyptian demands that economic assistance not be used to support civil society groups and has slashed funds for democracy promotion by 60 percent. The Obama administration seems to be falling into the same trap that has plagued U.S. foreign policy for decades: placing short-term strategic concerns above the long-term imperative to press for reform.

 . . . it is not enough to engage with the region's often unaccountable and autocratic leaders. Obama must also reach out to those advocating for change. The right words from a new American president can have a powerful impact on the cause of political reform in the Middle East.

Read the whole thing here:

Recognizing America's Limitations Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Attackerman, Spencer Ackerman responds to my concerns about Stanley McChrystal's COIN-focus with the following observation:

It's worth asking a simple question here. What's in it for the Afghan civilian to cooperate with the U.S., actively or passively, against the Taliban, if the U.S. doesn't provide for her basic needs?

In many ways this quote highlights the inherent contradiction that resides at the heart of counter-insurgency doctrine. What makes anyone actually believe that the US is either willing or able to provide for the basic needs of the Afghan people? I don't mean to pick on Spencer because I am a huge fan of his work, but to provide for the basic needs of the Afghan people would take decades and would require the commitment of billions of US dollars. Ain't going to happen.

As one of Spencer's commenters astutely points out:

You have to be able to deliver government services, economic opportunity, education, infrastructure and security to tens of thousands of widely scattered small-scale population centers throughout the county. If we were to be honest, we would recognize that would require a commitment we are unwilling to make, and therefore the entire exercise is one of political theater and misdirection.

Spencer also asks:

What incentives exist for our Afghan civilian to bandwagon with the U.S./Kabul-government side rather than the insurgent side, and how the U.S./Kabul-government side can tip those incentives in their favor.

It seems that the first and most obvious answer to this question is that not many sane Afghans are going to want to bandwagon with the Taliban after spending numerous years under their murderous and horrible rule. I've seen little evidence that the Taliban enjoys broad popular support or that they have any real chance of taking over Kabul.

But if there are Afghans that still do prefer Taliban rule - what is to make us believe that anything the Kabul government can provide will turn them against the Taliban? The COIN-danistas want us to believe that ethnicity and religious fealty is less consequential than which side can provide basic health care or build a water filtration plant. In some cases this may be the case, but it seems to be that blood is generally thicker than water.

Going back to my initial argument, the US needs to recognize that we simply lack the capability to provide for the basic needs of the Afghan people; that our efforts to turn the Afghan population against the Taliban are beyond our capabilities. And thus we need to focus on what we can accomplish in Afghanistan: ensure that the country's security services are strong enough to prevent a Taliban takeover and degrade, as much as possible, Taliban forces.

And then we need to get the hell out.

Counting the Dead in Afghanistan Posted by Patrick Barry

One thing that perplexes me about the discussion over whether the Pentagon should be publicizing enemy death tallies is that at least some of the debate seems to have hardened over the issue of whether such counts are a good measure of progress. To me that sort of misses the point.  Of course the number of insurgents killed won't determine whether we win or lose in Afghanistan. 

What publicizing those numbers might do (and I say that with a heavy dose of skepticism) is persuade people - either here in the U.S. or there in Afghanistan - that the momentum of the war is shifting.  As Nathan Hodge points out, the Taliban relies on similar propaganda, including sinister night letters sent to intimidate and coerce.  If the insurgency is engaged in operations aimed at persuading the population, why shouldn't ISAF be too? 

Now Americans and Afghans aren't dumb. There will have to be other metrics to round out the picture for a domestic audience, and Afghans will need to feel the situation improving in order to throw support behind the Government and ISAF.  Moreover, since the Obama administration is starting from a deficit both in terms of metrics (see Tony Cordesman) and Afghan support (see BBC polling), there's a real danger of relying too much on death tallies as the prism for understanding the state of the war.  But in a context where the U.S. public is nervous, and where Afghans perceive the insurgency taking hold, I wonder whether it would be silly to not attempt things that might reverse those perceptions, with publicizing death tallies is part of that exercise? 

Carafano confused about acquisition reforms Posted by The Editors

This post is by NSN intern Luis Vertiz

James Carafano from the Heritage Foundation recently penned a confused op-ed piece defending the significant use of contractors to supply the military.

While there is legitimate debate concerning the use of contractors for our national defense, it is odd that Carafano picked on the Levin-McCain Defense Acquisition Reform Bill –which was recently signed into law– because none of the bill’s provisions directly deal with contractors. What the Levin-McCain bill actually deals with is the process by which the Pentagon evaluates and green lights major weapons acquisition programs. Yet Carafano writes,

“Yet, last week, Obama signed the Levin-McCain Defense Acquisition Reform Bill.  In all likelihood, it will inhibit rather than improve the Pentagon’s ability to buy things efficiently. Why? Because it layers even more levels of bureaucracy and red tape into the acquisition process. And it does nothing to counter congressional micro-management and earmarking, the two biggest impediments to the military’s effort to buy things fairly and efficiently. To save money, Washington would be better off using more contractors, not less.”

Carafano’s assertion that the government could save money by hiring more contractors does not fly with the experience of the last eight years. Under the Bush Administration, the use of contractors in acquisition work skyrocketed. Instead of a decrease in the costs of acquisition programs, program costs grew dramatically while repeatedly falling behind schedule. In the past 6 years, 95% of all major DoD acquisition programs are two years behind their delivery schedule, with additional costs rising $300 billion over the original estimates of these projects. The GAO reports that between FY 2001 and FY2007:

“the number of contracting actions valued at over $100,000 increased by 62 percent and dollars obligated on contracts increased by 116 percent, according to DOD. Moreover, DOD has reported that the number of major defense acquisition programs has increased from70 to 95. To augment its declining in-house acquisition workforce, DOD has relied more heavily on contractor personnel.”

We saw a period of increased use of contractors, but coupled with an additional spike in program costs. The GAO concluded:

“of the 31 program offices that reported information about the reasons for using contractor personnel, only 1 indicated that reduced cost was a key factor in the decision to use contractor personnel rather than civilian personnel.”

Again, the Levin-McCain bill aims not to directly eliminate contractors, but helps acquisition personnel at the Department of Defense to incorporate best practices from industry to prevent cost-overruns and schedule delays. It is really a reform of management, not personnel policy. In fact, Carafano paradoxically opposed the Levin-McCain bill, even when it puts into law "...state-of-the-art commercial supply chain practices" that he believes would reduce delivery times and program costs.
So what is Carafano really criticizing? He is concerned that:

“[t]he White House, however, has no interest in relying more on the private sector. Instead, they plan on playing politics - pandering to a fear of “outsourcing” inflamed by the politics of opposition to the war in Iraq.  They will use this opportunity to purge contractors, cut defense spending, and give us exactly what we usually get when we spend cut defense spending - less defense.”

Carafano is, ultimately, more concerned about reductions in some spending programs under Obama and Gate’s defense budget than he is regarding the perceived cutting of contractors. But as the GAO illustrated, Secretary Gates is right to narrowly seek sensible limits on the use of contractors within DoD’s acquisition process.

Carafano could present a much better case for spending reform if he did not confuse his opposition to spending decreases for Cold War-era weapons systems –like the F-22– than with the Levin-McCain Defense Acquisition Reform Bill. His op-ed rests upon the premise that President Obama and Secretary Gates are paring down spending for our national defense to support some unsubstantiated, ideological, anti-contractor agenda. The facts, however, paint a different picture.

McChrystal's Wrong-Headed Focus Posted by Michael Cohen

Yesterday I wrote with disappointment about the focus of COIN-advocates on reducing civilians casualties rather than targeting the enemy. Today in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen McChystal shows more of this wrong-headed approach to American interests in Afghanistan. (Courtesy of Spencer Ackerman).

On Afghanistan strategy: “A resilient Taliban insurgency, increasing levels of violence, lack of governance capacity … lack of development in key areas” threatens the “future of Afghanistan and regional stability.” Providing the Afghan people “with an opportunity to shape their future” requires a “firm commitment” from the United States. “The challenge is considerable,” and “there is no simple answer.” McChrystal advocates a “holistic counterinsurgency campaign.” Casualties “will increase” but “with the appropriate resources, time, sacrifice and patience, we will prevail.”

But here's the thing, the United States is not prepared to devote the time, sacrifice and patience to meeting this probably unreachable goal. Churchillian rhetoric sounds great in congressional testimony but the simple reality is that US forces in Afghanistan are operating under a constrained time frame. Gates has spoken about the need to see progress in a year. Our focus needs to be degrading the enemy, not some amorphous counter-insurgency goal.

And there's more:

“Central to counterinsurgency is protecting the people,” he said. . . Effectiveness is measured in “the number of Afghans shielded from violence.” Developing Afghan military and police capacity will be his top security effort. “There will be mistakes” along the way, McChrystal said.

I'm all for developing Afghan military and police capacity - and I'm glad to see that McChrystal is focused on this goal, but that isn't the issue here.

Indeed, everyone it seems is most interested in McChrystal's possible role in detainee abuse or his actions during the Pat TIllman scandal, but what Congress really needs to be addressing  is the misguided focus of our new commander in Afghanistan that places protecting civilians ahead of killing the enemy. Quite simply, it's no way to fight a war or protect the country's vital national interests.

Muslim Brotherhood Will Attend Obama Speech in Cairo Posted by Shadi Hamid

The POMED Wire, the blog of the Project on Middle East Democracy, is breaking the news that ten parliamentarians from the Muslim Brotherhood will be attending Obama's speech in Cairo on Thursday. There doesn't seem to have been much in English on this yet, so we went ahead and translated parts of the Al Arabiya article which first reported this development just a couple hours ago. Apparently, the invitations were a result of U.S. pressure, and, according to the Muslim Brotherhood's Saad Katatni  “came as a compromise solution between the American administration and the Egyptian government.” This is a significant development, and quite unexpected. For more, check out the the POMED Wire summary here.

NSN Daily Update 6/2/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

Kim Jong-il reportedly designated his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor.

A Pakistani court ordered the release of an Islamic charity leader accused of fronting for Lashkar-e-Taiba, which committed the November Mumbai attacks.

An arson attack in Iran killed 5 as tensions rise ahead of next week’s presidential elections.

The Obama administration authorized U.S. embassies to invite Iranian diplomats to their Independence Day parties on or around July 4.

Commentary of the Day

The Financial Times argues that despite voter apathy and projected low turnout, the European parliamentary elections this week still matter.

Gideon Rachman supports President Obama’s projection of soft power, but worries about raising expectations of its total success.

Drones, "Pathrai," and HUMINT in Pakistan Posted by Patrick Barry

Two very different articles this morning provide new wrinkles to the controversy surrounding the CIA's covert drone program in Northwest Pakistan. First, you have this Karen DeYoung piece in the Washington Post, which, given DeYoung's insider contacts, at least partially constitutes an attempt by the administration to push back against the recent critiques directed at the Drone strikes. DeYoung's report includes testimony from both American and Pakistani officials that the drone attacks have become more targeted as ground intelligence has improved:

"There are better targets and better intelligence on the ground," the Pakistani official said. "It's less of a crapshoot.”

A second U.S. military official agreed, saying, "We're not getting civilians, and not getting outrage beyond the usual stuff."

Take that for what it’s worth. At the very least, its clear that there are some ardent defenders of the program pushing for its continuation in spite of the very strong arguments against its use. But assuming that Predator operations are improving, the question shifts to why? An article from the Guardian comes up with a pretty wild explanation – computer chips:

That success is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed "chips" or "pathrai" (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination.

"Everyone is talking about it," said Taj Muhammad Wazir, a student from south Waziristan.

"People are scared that if a pathrai comes into your house, a drone will attack it."

According to residents and Taliban propaganda, the CIA pays tribesmen to plant the electronic devices near farmhouses sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

Now this seems pretty outlandish to me, especially because I'm told the British press does not have the most sterling reputation for the veracity of its reporting on covert U.S. policy. But truth and true are not always the same. While there may be reason to doubt that “pathrai” explain the uptick in drone strikes, the larger issue of how intelligence, particularly human intelligence, factors into CT operations in Pakistan remains salient.

In public remarks, several high-profile members of the Obama administration have identified the drones as critical instruments for incapacitating al-Qaeda (see Panetta, Mullen, Blair).  Leaving aside the question of whether asserting drones are effective actually makes it so, it strikes me that the drones themselves are only one part of the larger equation of CT operations planning in Pakistan. At least as important to these efforts, is the human intelligence that locates the senior al-Qaeda operatives targeted by the drones. Without good HUMINT, information on the safe-houses, training camps, the senior operatives, all that goes away – making the Predator UAV just another remote controlled toy, and worse, dimming prospects for successful kinetic operations of any kind, including the special ops missions, which DeYoung reports are currently reserved for the Big Three (Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar.) This begs a set of basic questions: are Predator strikes, and their associated ramifications helping or hurting our intelligence gathering in northwest Pakistan? Will operatives see them as a success and become more cooperative? Or will the public outcry render them mute?

Civilian Casualties vs. Body Counts Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at abu muqawama, Andrew Exum makes an audacious claim about the proper metric for success in Afghanistan. In responding to a WSJ article about the military's growing use of body counts to measure succes in Afghanistan, Exum writes:

In the context of a counterinsurgency campaign -- which we can all agree we're engaged in -- enemy body count is a poor metric. Civilian body counts, by contrast, are a better metric -- the fewer civilians dying, the better. . . I know the public affairs officers in Afghanistan are trying their best, but by publicizing enemy body counts as part of one's communications plan, you create the impression that we ourselves are using enemy body count as an effective metric to track success and failure. Which I hope to goodness we are not.

First of all, we don't all agree that we're engaged in a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. Indeed, I'm pretty sure President Obama would not agree that we are engaged in a full-fledged counter-insurgency campaign. (Perhaps COIN-lite or Skim COIN).

Beyond that point, forgive me for asking the obvious question - and at risk of being derided as an old fashioned, lost in the weeds, conventional warrior - but isn't the point of war-fighting to kill the enemy? I'm sure if you would ask the Sri Lankan government why they succeeded in defeating the Tamil counter-insurgency or the Pakistani military why they were able to turn back the Taliban forces in Swat, I'm pretty sure the answer will not be - we protected civilians. If anything quite the opposite: their success came from killing the enemy and in a brutal manner.

While I am sympathetic to the notion that enemy body counts are perhaps an imprecise way of judging military success I'm really not clear on how protecting Afghan civilians from the Taliban makes Americans any safer or fulfills our mission there.  Are American troops going to spend 10, 15, 20 years in Afghanistan "protecting civilians" from the Taliban? Are we going to try to meet David Kilcullen's goal of extending “an effective, legitimate government presence into Afghanistan’s 40,020 villages.”? Is that even possible in a country as large as Afghanistan and facing an enemy with far more staying power than the United States and NATO?

As this excellent article from Sunday's NYT makes clear, any security gains we are making in Afghanistan are at best transitory and require a far more substantial commitment than this Administration has demonstrated a willingness to maintain, particularly when you have Secretary Gates indicating that US and NATO forces have about a year to turn things around in Afghanistan.

But in Afghanistan, a complex patchwork of tribes, ethnicities and rivalries, it remains unclear whether the early success in this area can be replicated. In the painstaking business of counterinsurgency, security requires more than just extra troops. It means giving Afghans reasons to reject the insurgents by providing the basic trappings of a state — an effective police force, enough government services, and economic opportunity so they can work rather than fight. . . One problem is that the gains could still be temporary. Insurgents regularly leave areas where Americans appear, only to resurface later.

The Afghan government is so far from being able to provide these services that it's hardly even worth entertaining the notion. And even if it did, the Taliban will simply go elsewhere. Its the most elaborate game of Whack-a-Mole imaginable and it's one we are destined to lose.

So considering the immense challenges of trying to secure the Afghan population - and the practical certitude that we will fail -- shouldn't destroying the Taliban and degrading their capabilities be the military's top and only priority? Wasting time, resources and lives with public works projects and temporary security gains is just that, a waste of time. As the great TX Hammes said at a conference I went to recently, even if you do everything right in Afghanistan for the next 20 years - you get 7.5% growth and you have relatively stable security situation - you are still left with a country that looks like Chad.

Moreover, by making civilian body counts the top metric you are waging war on the enemy's terms - and you are allowing them to dictate how you judge the success of your operation. If anything, you are actually giving incentive to the Taliban to kill more civilians.

Now the COIN-danistas will tell you that civilian casualties are the best metric of success . . . because that was the case of Iraq. But of course the drop in civilian casualties had far more to do with the Sunni war on Al Qaeda and the ethnic cleansing of 2005-2006 than anything done by the US military.

In the end, not only is a full-fledged COIN campaign in Afghanistan not going to succeed, but it's very hard to argue how it is in our national interest to continue down that road. America has an enemy in Af/Pak; it is Al Qaeda and to a lesser extent Taliban. Our military's job is to wipe out that enemy, not to ensure that Afghans can life peaceful, prosperous and safe lives (a wonderful goal, but one that we are highly unlikely to achieve). When we talk about what to do in Afghanistan it might be worth remembering that basic fact . . . and what America's interests actually are.

Earth to Romney: Missile Defense is a Sideshow Posted by Patrick Barry

Need another reason to write off Romney's speech?  How about his nonsensical fixation on missile defense - a long-time conservative sideshow that remains disconnected not just from operational use, but from the nature of the threats facing the U.S.  Here's Mitt:

Missile defense is a non-nuclear, entirely defensive system designed to protect not just America but the world from a catastrophic attack. Yet the President plans to cut the missile defense budget by 15 percent, cut funding for missile defense sites in Europe by 80 percent, and reduce the number of planned interceptors in Alaska. That is a grave miscalculation, given the provocations from North Korea, Iran’s near-nuclear status, Pakistan’s instability, and the complete failure of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Rarely in history has any development carried such awful possibilities as a nuclear-armed missile in the hands of evil men. And rarely in history has any program had the promise to do more good or spare more suffering than a system of missile defense.

Really Mitt? For a defense system with such "promise," the program most targeted for cuts - the Airborne Laser (ABL) - sure has a pretty dismal track record.  Last month before the House Armed Services Committee, Secretary Gates had this to say about preserving the ABL:

The ABL program has significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable.

And it's not just ABL that has exhibited this lack of potential - according to a study by Russian and American scientists and proliferation experts at the EastWest institute, summarized by the Washington Post, "a planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy."

Not only are Romney's claims to missile defense's "promise" dubious, they are a distraction.  Romney works himself into a tiz over the possibility of "a nuclear-armed missile in the hands of evil men," but says squat about the more realistic scenario of fissile material in the hands of a terrorist.  The Obama administration has made deterring this threat a huge priority, with the issue getting top-billing in the President's nonproliferation speech. Just this weekend, at an emergency meeting over North Korea's nuclear test, Secretary Gates expressed deep concern that the real threat from North Korea's nuclear activities lies not in the regime gaining a nuclear arsenal, but in their demonstrated propensity to proliferate.  Once again, Missile defense fails the reality test.

For a candidate in search of foreign policy credibility, Romney displays an astonishing ability to base his positions on the most uncredible platforms.