NSN Daily Update 5/19/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in D.C. yesterday.  Netanyahu will meet Congressional leaders today and is expected to discuss his position on a Palestinian state.  President Obama told Netanyahu that his administration has a timetable on Iran.

The U.S. and Russia began nuclear talks.

The Supreme Court ruled that an ex-detainee could not sue high-ranking Bush administration officials for his treatment in U.S. custody.

Young Pakistanis take on responsibilities in a vacuum of government services.

Commentary of the Day

The New York Times reacts to the Indian election.  Gideon Rachman writes about the ugly side of Indian democracy.

Bob Herbert writes about the psychological toll of the war in Iraq.

Fareed Zakaria examines the effect of global fear and panic in the face of both the Swine Flu and global economic crisis, concluding that “the sense of urgency that makes people act -- even overreact -- and ensures that a crisis doesn't mutate into a disaster."

The Militarization of US Foreign Policy - Sign # 643 Posted by Michael Cohen

Apparently nearly a million Pakistanis have been displaced by the government's military attacks on the Taliban in the Swat Valley and not surprisingly the United States is providing humanitarian assistance. What is perhaps surprising (or maybe should be) is who is doling out the assistance - the Pentagon. Spencer Ackerman over at the WINDY blog poses a reasonable query:

The question, though, is when the Defense Department isn’t going to retain the exclusive capability to provide this aid.

Secretaries Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bob Gates have both talked about bolstering the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s capacity to take on the provision of non-military assistance. I hesitate to criticize, since we’re talking about the well-being of roughly a million people — a concern that eclipses bureaucratic box-checking — but there’s always going to be some important priority that comes before interagency reform. And in this case, the State Department has a more established presence in the country than the Defense Department does.

True enough. This is not a time to be arguing over which is the best agency to be offering humanitarian assistance, but really shouldn't this be AID's job? We've seen a lot of talk about the need for a less-military focused US response to Pakistan's problems. Wouldn't the empowering of our civilian agencies be a worthwhile step in that direction; particularly when as Spencer points out they already have a fairly robust presence in the country? This is what happens when you keep weakening the country's civilian agencies.

Countering the COIN Fad Posted by Michael Cohen

Today's must read piece is the op-ed from Sunday's Washington Post by Celeste Ward on the fad of counterinsurgency:

Counterinsurgency doctrine is on the verge of becoming an unquestioned orthodoxy, a far-reaching remedy for America's security challenges. But this would be a serious mistake. Not all future wars will involve insurgencies. Not even all internal conflicts in unstable states -- which can feature civil wars, resource battles or simple lawlessness -- include insurgencies. Yet COIN is the new coin of the realm, often considered the inevitable approach to fighting instability in foreign lands. . . like many useful concepts that gain currency in Washington, counterinsurgency risks being taken too far, distracting us from other threats, challenges and strategic debates.

This is exactly right. I would in particular hammer on the last point that raises the issue of military strategy versus tactics. A line you hear quite often from COIN advocates is that counter insurgency is difficult and we shouldn't do it - but the military has a responsibility to be ready to apply COIN strategy if our elected leaders demand it.  But of course the veneration of COIN goes beyond this rather minimal application. Many seem to view COIN as the future of war and based on the "success" of COIN in Iraq, they seem to believe that the United States is uniquely positioned to do it . The question for many COIN-danistas seems to be not whether and when we should do counter-insurgency, but how the US can do it more effectively. I thought Justin Logan captured this idea very nicely a few months ago:

The work of the COIN crowd is going to create the impression in the minds of policymakers that the military knows how to win counterinsurgencies and therefore we don’t need an “Iraq syndrome.”  But we do need an Iraq syndrome.

The military needs to be making clear to the civilian leadership precisely how difficult counter-insurgency can be and why they should think twice about trying to implement such an approach.

But of course that's not exactly occurring - as the myth-making narrative of the Iraq surge makes clear. Ward does a nice job deconstructing that argument as well, pointing out that not only were COIN-tactics being utilized prior to the surge in 2007, but that the "success" of the surge is a dubious one at best:

So why did the Iraqis stop the carnage and start deal-making by 2007? We don't fully know. A number of accounts give a nod to the Sunni Awakening and the cease-fire by the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Nonetheless, the prevailing interpretations of the surge narrative -- even competing ones, which tend to differ mostly over claims of paternity -- put the Americans in the driver's seat of history. The assumption seems to be that the United States, its leaders and the tactics it employed are primarily responsible for the events on the ground.

But the decisions of the Iraqis themselves surely made a material difference. They stopped fighting, whether due to political calculations, fear or exhaustion. The full story of Iraqi motivations and perceptions has yet to be told. Meanwhile, sectarian maps of Baghdad show a clear pattern over time: Sunnis and Shiites progressively moved into separate enclaves, by choice or by force. By the time of the surge in 2007, mixed neighborhoods in the city had nearly disappeared, as the respective sects moved into areas populated by their own. The conflagration of sectarian violence might have been poised to burn itself out anyway.

As I've written here many times the clearest and most unambiguous lesson that we should draw from the war in Iraq is that we should never get involved in such a war again - and that any benefit we accrue from invasion, occupation and nation-building will almost never be worth the cost.

The fetishization of COIN is not the way to accomplish that goal.

NSN Daily Update 5/18/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

The Sri Lankan military announced the killing of Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels.  The rebels admitted defeat and agreed to lay down their arms for good.

The U.S. says that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal.

Sonia Gandhi’s Indian National Congress won a landslide victory in the Indian election.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put the fate of embattled Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, in the hands of MPs in the continuing expenses row.

Commentary of the Day

Roger Cohen discusses the issue of Iran in the context of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, previews today’s meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tony Karon lays out the six issues dividing President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Matthew Engel analyzes the British “hysteria” over the MP expenses row.

NSN Daily Update 5/15/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

President Obama is said to have decided to keep a revised form of military tribunals for some detainees who cannot be tried in a civilian court.  Experts say that President Obama may have to classify the torture photos to keep them private.  The U.S. again warned Britain of repercussions if the High Court makes interrogation details public in the Binyam Mohamed case.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, said that the harsh interrogation program’s “main purpose” was to find a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of deliberately misleading Congress about the harsh interrogation program.

North Korea demanded that South Korea unconditionally accept higher wages for Communist workers and other demands at the shared industrial park.

Commentary of the Day

Mark Thompson describes President Obama’s “delicate” national security balance.

David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss the recent news in the torture debate.

Philip Stevens praises Vice President Joe Biden’s recent speech on the Israeli-Arab conflict and looks ahead to the Netanyahu-Obama meeting next week.

Paul Krugman deplores China’s contributions to global warming.

Wilkerson v. Cheney Posted by James Lamond

A little late to this, but for those who haven't seen it yet, Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former COS, has a great post over at Washington Note. The retired Army Colonel, Bush administration official, and proud Republican is a little bothered by the nonsense that Dick Cheney has been spewing all over cable news.

Tanning Boehner Over Intelligence Posted by Adam Blickstein

Seems like John Boehner's confidence in information from the intelligence community changes far more frequently then the orange pigmentation of his skin. Boehner today:

"It's hard for me to imagine that our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress."

Yeah, I guess all that pre-war intelligence falsely asserting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that whole claim of a connection between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein's Iraq aside. Here's Boehner talking about pre-war intelligence:

"It's clear to all of us, Democrats and Republicans, that we have flawed intelligence. The CIA have bad intelligence, the Pentagon had bad intelligence and, for that matter, all of our allies around the world had the same bad intelligence."

But of course we all now know the Defense Intelligence Agency was rather manipulative with its use of pre-war intelligence as presented to Congress and the public:

A top-level Defense Department official skewed intelligence reports about Iraq in 2001 and 2002 in an attempting to justify an invasion, according to an inspector general's report from the Pentagon. The Senate Armed Services Committee discussed the report today.

...according to acting Pentagon Inspector Thomas Gimble, who defended the report before the panel, the problem was not the criticism Feith's office aimed at the CIA. The problem was that the office presented only one side of highly controversial intelligence assessments.

For Boehner, there seems to be a thick line between "mislead" and "bad intelligence." And here's Boehner discussing the 2007 Iran NIE:

"Either I don't have confidence in what they told me several months ago or I don't have confidence in what they're telling me today."

He does have a short memory, doesn't he? Courtesy Media Matters Action Network:

More Truth on the Surge Posted by Michael Cohen

One of the problems with trying to keep abreast of all that is happening in the world is that fascinating news items always seem to fall through the cracks - take for example this excellent WSJ piece from last Saturday on the limitation of counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq:

Violence is on the rise in Iraq as American troops withdraw. A ground-level look at the handover provides one explanation: The Iraqi government is neglecting many of the successful counterinsurgency initiatives it is inheriting from the U.S. military.

The article goes on to note that the Shiite dominated Iraqi government has been dragging its feet on integrating Sunni Awakening forces into the government:

Now, the Shiite-dominated government apparently lacks the will to maintain thousands of armed Sunnis and the money to find them promised civilian jobs with the government.

Shocking. Who could imagine that the a Shiite-led government wouldn't want to maintain armed Sunni militias and find them jobs?

What this story reminds us (and you should read the whole thing here) is the serious limitations of counter-insurgency doctrine and the short-term nature of the tactical success that came from the surge in Iraq.

First, as every COIN advocate will tell you, successful counter-insurgencies operate on a long time horizon. It requires staying power, it requires a significant troop presence and above it requires political will and support both from the United States and the host country. Of course, none of these attributes have existed during the US war in Iraq and even if we go back in time and begin COIN operations in the Spring and Summer of 2003 it would have required a larger US footprint, possibly more initial US casualties and there is a good chance that US troops would still be there (of course the fact that we didn't take that route at the time is telling).

While there is no doubt that counter-insurgency techniques helped contribute to the reduction in violence in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 (you won't get me to say that it was the primary reason) and while the surge helped to place Iraq on a more positive trajectory it has not, by any means, dealt with the underlying political dynamics that divide the country.

The second fly in the ointment that the WSJ identifies is the extent to which the surge - by empowering Sunni militias in Anbar province - have created a second major power source in the country (a feat by the way that theoretically shoudl work against basic COIN strategy)

In 2007, Uday Karim says he grew disillusioned with Al Qaeda's violent tactics and led his 145 insurgents to join forces with the Americans. His so-called Awakening fighters began safeguarding the villages around Iskandriya, and the area grew calm. The U.S. military has passed off the responsibility for Awakening forces, which have numbered more than 100,000 fighters across Iraq, but Baghdad hasn't paid them in full. Since the government took over Mr. Karim's group in January, it has provided just one month's pay.

Iraq's government says it has addressed bureaucratic snags in the program's transition and that the fighters will be paid. Even so, the budget for Awakening salaries runs out at year's end.U.S. commanders worry that if Baghdad doesn't foot the bill, group members could become a threat again. The U.S. military believes that recent car bombings in Baghdad were hatched somewhere in this belt of rugged farming villages.

. . . On a recent visit to Iskandriya, his once-ubiquitous Awakening forces have largely vanished. A handful of fighters milled about in dun-colored camouflage. As for the rest, Mr. Karim shrugs.

"Who knows what they're doing with their time," he says. "If some individuals decide to fight the government again, no one is going to interfere."

This is not to say that we are about to see a reprise of 2005-2006 in Iraq. But one can't help but wonder that the short-term goal of encouraging and paying Sunni leaders to fight Al Qaeda brought a near-term success and a long-term headache to Iraq.

As I noted yesterday debates about the "success" of the surge and COIN in Iraq are not esoteric thought experiments - particularly when you have the advocates of counter-insurgency calling for these tactics to be used in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  This is not even to suggest that there is not a time and place for counter-insurgency (perhaps they might come in handy in Pakistan right now) but if we're going to have this discussion we have to be brutally honest about it.

As we are seeing in Iraq today, the limitations of COIN are clear; and they must be acknowledged before we double down on more military escalations that have a limited chance of achieving long-term success.

Af/Pak Skepticism Posted by Michael Cohen

The New York Times reports today that House Democrats are becoming increasingly concerned about the Obama Administration's policy in Afghanistan.

Congressional Democrats are voicing growing unease over the Obama administration’s national security policies, including the seemingly open-ended commitment in Afghanistan.

According to the House Appropriations Committee chairman, David Obey, the Congress is going to keep the Administration on a short leash:

Mr. Obey said he would give the White House a year to demonstrate progress, just as he gave the Nixon administration a year to show progress in the Vietnam War inherited from the Johnson administration.

“With respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am extremely dubious that the administration will be able to accomplish what it wants to accomplish,” Mr. Obey said last week. “The problem is not the administration’s policy or its goals. The problem is that I doubt that we have the tools there that we need to implement virtually any policy in that region.”

Now to some extent a year one timetable is a bit arbitrary, but Obey is 100% correct in doing what a GOP Congress did not do for 6 years - hold the President's feet to the fire on national security policy.  A couple of weeks ago I expressed hope that the Administration's Af/Pak policy was primarily counter terrorism focused, but in the weeks since I've become increasingly concerned that things are moving in a more COIN-focused direction, as the selection of Lt. Gen McChrystal to run the Afghan war suggests.

There are a lot of folks in the Obama Administration - and outside - who think nation building is the correct course of action in Afghanistan. And what begins as a limited COIN/CT operation can quite easily devolve into something far more involved. It will be difficult for President Obama to resist the temptation to do more in Afghanistan.

Hopefully an engaged Congress can make sure that we don't go down that road.

NSN Daily Update 5/14/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

In the West Bank, Pope Benedict XVI criticized Israel on its Palestinian policy.  He also urged Muslims and Christians to repair the damage between them.

The first Congressional effort to look into Bush administration detainee policy opened with a highly partisan hearing.

The New York Times profiles the U.S. fight against the Taliban in Korangal Valley, Afghanistan.  The Wall Street Journal writes about how a U.S. base expansion in Zabul province disrupted access to agricultural canals, alienating locals and handing the Taliban a propaganda victory before U.S. troops even hit the ground.

The U.S. and allies set October as a deadline for progress with Iran. If benchmarks on nuclear negotiations are not set by then, sanctions will follow. The move is meant to reassure Israel and Arab states.

Commentary of the Day

Richard N. Haass writes about how to define success in foreign policy.

Will Dobson argues that the task of democracy promotion more complex than just depending on falling oil prices, and that promoting civil society and intrinsic freedoms will go far in spreading democracy around the globe.

The LA Times urges President Obama to release the torture photos.

Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, says that the U.S. needs to lead on fixing the humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo.