The now-infamous Rolling Stone article that earned Gen. Stanley McChrystal a one-way trip out of Afghanistan has attracted attention for what it says about the White House.

And in a way, that’s a good thing.

Because once you get past the name-calling scandal, the article is really a takedown of counterinsurgency strategy and, by extension, a subtle get-out-of-Afghanistan-now message. In an attempt to categorize the debate about whether to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, here’s Hasting’s characterization:

COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military’s preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation’s government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps.

[…]

The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

Or this:

After several hours of haggling, McChrystal finally enlisted the aid of Afghanistan’s defense minister, who persuaded Karzai’s people to wake the president from his nap. This is one of the central flaws with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy: The need to build a credible government puts us at the mercy of whatever tin-pot leader we’ve backed – a danger that Eikenberry explicitly warned about in his cable.

To sum up, you have a questionable description of COIN, followed by a single opinion from someone whose stated qualifications are that he went to college with McChrystal (who knows if Macgregor has any COIN expertise) deriding the entire concept.

It’s one thing to report on who McChrystal is, what he’s said, where he comes from, and the difficulty of mission he’s trying to accomplish. But it’s quite another to falsely characterize his mission as a Sisyphean task from the get-go. Clearly, the president, having consulted and deliberated for three months, believes that there’s significant reason to hope counterinsurgency can bring about hard-fought American security.

For a better discussion of COIN, I’d encourage you to read papers like this, by David Kilcullen, author of the Accidental Guerilla and an actual COIN expert. In the paper linked above, Kilcullen properly characterizes COIN as difficult and far from a guaranteed success, but forwards a thoughtful framework for how COIN practitioners might organize their efforts to bring about the best chances of sustainable security.

…you may now return to your regularly scheduled name-calling.

Photo credit: The US Army’s Photostream

Washington is abuzz this morning with news of an as-yet-unpublished Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. You can read the nastier bits here and here, but let’s just say that we learn that the general and his entourage have some not terribly complementary things to say about Obama, Biden, National Security Advisor Jim Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.

Though the full article isn’t out, leaks of the article make the attacks seem more personal rather than professional in nature, though I guess it’s likely that personal animosity is probably an extension of professional differences. And for those scoring at home, some of the attacks aren’t even that clever. No, I don’t think “Biden” sounds anywhere close to “Bite Me.”

The moral of this story is simple: Never, ever let your staff get trapped on a 12-hour bus ride between Paris and Berlin during a volcanic ash eruption with an all-access reporter. Duh. Michael Hastings, the freelance journalist who penned the piece, went on Morning Joe today and dropped that a lot of his material came from a European trip with McChrystal and co. that was extended and forced onto a bus thanks to Eyjafjallajokull (or as the military calls it, “E-15”). In such confined spaces and after such a stressful travel experience, people tend to get punchy and let things slip.

You’d expect that after such a flabbergasting news bomb, McChrystal’s staff would offer a “clarification” or denial or retraction or… something. But instead, there was an apology sent from McChrystal to reporters:

I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard. I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome.

In other words: it’s all true.

McCrystal and his staff’s comments are certainly beyond the pale, and the profile continues to confirm erstwhile speculation that there are significant fissures within the U.S. team in Afghanistan. First, there was McChrystal’s interview with “60 Minutes” last September, where he dished on the Pentagon’s slow-response and his lack of contact with Obama. Then there was Ambassador Eikenberry’s leak of a strategy memo that resisted McChrystal’s call to increase troop levels. That’s on top of an eyebrow-raising speech in London that got him hauled onto Air Force One for a chat with the president. And now this.

Some are howling that this amounts to insubordination and that McChrystal should be fired. That may be true, and McChrystal is being reeled into D.C. tomorrow to explain himself. At the very least, it’s amazingly dumb public relations. You don’t get to be a flag officer in the U.S. military without being accustomed to the chain of command. And McChrystal and any loose-lipped staff should know that you keep your disagreements private and then execute the orders of the commander in chief. But who knows, maybe that’s not the way McChrystal, an ex-commander of the insular and secretive Special Ops, was used to conducting himself.

So what now? There is, of course, a very good possibility that this will be the end of the road. But that decision isn’t as easy as you might think. For one, Obama is not a knee-jerk politician who reacts instantly to every negative media report. He’s careful, deliberate and won’t be pressured.

Furthermore, this is an issue of national security, not petty politics. The president has to make decisions in the long-term interest of American safety and in consideration of the country’s sons and daughters in harm’s way. So, absent a ridiculous inability to keep things out of the press, changing an otherwise strategically competent theater commander in the midst of a major counterinsurgency campaign may not be the best thing to do at the moment. Obama has to thread the needle between team chemistry in Afghanistan and a PR nightmare to give both Afghanistan and the U.S. the best chances for long-term security.

And it’s with that in mind that any decision to replace McChrystal will be made.

Photo Credit: isafmedia

Every so often, I’ll get a call from someone over at Fox News to appear as a talking head.

Now, before you scream out a collective “EEEEWWW! GROSS!” let me explain. I work at a smallish think tank, and as the old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. My connection to Fox was established through a good friend (and conscientious journalist) who works on Fox News Sunday. He introduced me to a handful of other bookers, all of whom have been very courteous, friendly and genuinely appreciative of my contributions.

This started just over a year ago, and I’d estimate that Fox offers me a slot as a talking head on national security issues (oh, and on pirates. Fox LOVES pirate stories) perhaps once every two weeks. Due to scheduling conflicts and the last-minute nature of many of the requests (it’s not unusual to get a 9:00 a.m. call for a 10:30 a.m. appearance), I can do only perhaps half of them. (Click here to see a clip of me talking with none other than Geraldo Rivera [best line from Geraldo, “I agree with Jim”], or here to see me drop some knowledge on an “expert” from the Heritage Foundation [whom several of my friends suggested I ask out. I demurred].)

In the beginning, I was just really happy to get on TV. Call it narcissistic, call it what you will, but I was generally under the impression that I was providing Fox’s viewers with an alternate viewpoint. I understood that “Fair and Balanced” was a joke, but I always believed that I might be able to connect with a small percentage of the ardently conservative audience and give them some honest food for thought. When the White House froze out Fox a few months ago, I thought it was a bad move to all but give up on reaching a large percentage of the news-viewing public. (The White House has since backed down from that stance.) It’s from that perspective that I’ve been engaging Fox. But over the last few times I’ve gone on, I’ve come to realize that in some circumstances, it’s a futile effort.

Just yesterday, I received a request to discuss this op-ed from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). In the article, Lieberman dings the Obama administration’s recently released National Security Strategy because it uses the term “violent extremism” to define one of America’s enemies, rather than “violent Islamic extremism.” Lieberman took the omission of one word and turned it into an entire opinion piece.

Here’s where we run into problems. I am happy to go on Fox and discuss the big issues of the day when we’re starting from a neutral position. If the topic is “Let’s discuss Obama’s national security strategy,” that’s fine. But this time, the point of departure was, “Joe Lieberman, who’s a credible voice on national security to Fox’s viewership, says Obama’s national security strategy sucks. Jim, it’s your job to explain why it doesn’t suck.”

That’s a fairly clear illustration of Fox’s m.o. Instead of having an honest debate, Fox chooses an angle on a story (i.e., Lieberman’s critique of the National Security Strategy) that establishes a frame for the discussion. Those frames, more often than not, will have the progressive on the defensive from the start. But by having a progressive on TV, Fox can claim to be “fair and balanced.”

When I objected on these grounds, my Fox booker, whom I like a lot, reiterated that going on TV still provided me the opportunity to get my viewpoint out there. I replied that the interview was framed in such a way that did not allow their audience to be persuaded – and yet my appearance would validate their claim to be fair and balanced. I closed by saying,  “[I]f there are big issues framed from a neutral point of view, I love to talk about them. I just don’t want to be the punching bag on pre-determined outcome.”

So how did the slot I refused to go on turn out? Click here and see for yourself — they only had one guest, from the center-right Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Consider that my little contribution to unfair and unbalanced.

Peter Beinart has a must-read in the latest Foreign Policy on the mythology of Ronald Reagan — and the conservative movement that keeps perpetuating it.

As someone whose first job in D.C. was interning at a lobby firm that had — no kidding — a framed portrait of St. Ron in every office, I relish lines that tether President Reagan back to his terrestrial home, such as:

During his presidency, Reagan repeatedly invoked the prospect of an alien invasion as a reason for the United States and the Soviet Union to overcome their differences. Whenever he did, [National Security Adviser Colin] Powell would mutter, “Here come the little green men.”

That’s some delicious red meat right there.

But if we focus there — and Reagan haters are apt to do just that — we miss the real lesson. Beinart might douse ice water on the conservative narrative of Reagan, but he makes a strong case for the lesson that Obama can and should learn from The Great Communicator:

Reagan’s political genius lay in recognizing that what Americans wanted was a president who exorcised the ghost of the Vietnam War without fighting another Vietnam.

Americans loved Reagan’s foreign policy for the same reason they loved the 1985 blockbuster Rambo, in which the muscle-bound hero returns to Vietnam, kicks some communist butt, and no Americans die. Reagan’s liberal critics often accused him of reviving the chest-thumping spirit that had led to Vietnam. But they were wrong. For Reagan, chest-thumping was in large measure a substitute for a new Vietnam, a way of accommodating the restraints on U.S. power while still boosting American morale.

[…]

Obama can, and should, be Reaganesque in his effort to project great strength at low risk. That means understanding that America’s foreign-policy debates are often cultural debates in disguise.

Reagan was a master of symbolic acts — like awarding the Medal of Honor to overlooked Vietnam hero Roy Benavidez — that made Americans feel as though they were exorcising Vietnam’s ghost without refighting the war. Obama must be equally shrewd at a time when he has no choice but to retreat from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan. That means more than ritual incantations about flag and country; it means rhetorically challenging those who unfairly attack the United States. From a purely foreign-policy perspective, publicly confronting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez when they malign the United States, or calling out universities that ban military recruiters from campus, might seem useless. But for U.S. presidents, there is no pure foreign-policy perspective; being effective in the world requires domestic support. [emphases added]

If Democrats are going to close the ever-elusive national security gap and strongly defend what I’ve called a sterling record on national security, they’re going to have to swallow some pride and steal one from the Gipper.

Photo credit: Fresh Conservative’s Photostream

If you read the conclusion of today’s Democracy Corps/Third Way poll analysis, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Democrats remain disturbingly not confident talking about national security.

[M]any Democrats seem relatively silent about the accomplishments of the Obama administration and their party on national security. Though a few are stressing the administration’s efforts on the new START treaty and nuclear proliferation, fewer still seem to be stressing the administration’s accomplishments regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, efforts to strengthen the military, and steps to combat terrorism. The survey strongly suggests progressives should speak out forcefully on these issues, and remind voters of the contrasts between those relative successes and the failures the country witnessed under eight years of Bush-Cheney. [emphasis added]

When the president scores 53 percent approval even after two significant domestic terrorist attempts in the last six months, that’s a strong statement. Even the last few months have seen a significant 10-point shift — moderates have changed allegiances and now trust Democrats more than Republicans on national security by six points.

Progressives need to own the national security narrative, a message I’ve tried to hammer home repeatedly over the last several months. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote back in April for Roll Call:

[T]he Obama administration has quietly put together a sterling record on national security. So why are Democrats so down in the dumps? As one party strategist put it, Democrats “are behaving like the president has a 30 percent approval rating. On these [security] issues, Democrats inherently believe that no one will believe our arguments.”
There’s plenty for progressives to cheer. … Progressives stand for strong, smart security policy. Obama has terrorists in retreat and American prestige on the rise. Democrats need to begin owning their successes if the American public is to give credit where it’s due.

The Democracy Corps/Third Way analysis offers solid, straightforward recommendations. These are hardly liberal fantasy — they’re pragmatic, progressive ways to emphasize what has been a successful beginning on national security that will translate into electoral gains.

• Speak in stronger terms about anti-terror efforts.
• Stress efforts to support and strengthen the military.
• Emphasize successful attempts toward greater international cooperation.
• Emphasize domestic and economic renewal as an element of national strength.
• Provide a contrast to the Bush-Cheney administration.

Two quick comments on the specifics of the recommendations. First, on the economy “as an element of national strength,” we’re now wondering less why the White House put such a strong emphasis on precisely that point in last week’s National Security Strategy. And on that final point, John Boehner’s been going around claiming that the administration’s counterterrorism successes have been “lucky,” an argument that the survey says falls flat with voters. I’d offer my evisceration of Boehner here (it was fun to write, so please check it out).

Much of the world has reacted harshly against Israel in the wake of the tragic loss of life in this weekend’s flotilla incident. While the optics certainly look terrible for Tel Aviv, it’s critical that we avoid a rush to judgment. Two things need to take place first: one, an inquiry insuring that we have all the information we need about the incident; and two, a full consideration of the geopolitical issues in play.

Open questions remain about what led up to the horrific results, questions that need to be answered before any fair evaluation can be made. A partial list includes: Did the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) follow standard procedures to attempt to divert the flotilla as it had others? Was the flotilla given proper warning of the impending boarding? Were other non-lethal diversionary methods (such as water cannons, sound blasts, attempts to escort the ship out of the immediate area) deployed? Once the decision was made to board the ship, did IDF members on board first use non-lethal methods? Were there specific acts that caused the IDF to switch to live ammunition?

A thorough investigation may well prove that the IDF’s use of deadly force was indeed disproportionate. But learning the answers to these questions is critical before establishing that judgment.

A discussion should also take place on the legal and moral justifications for Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The blockade has been going on for approximately two years, and Israel has justified it on grounds that Hamas could get the weapons via international shipping.

Israel’s right to defend itself is not in question. And though Gaza is not a sovereign state, Israel claims that the blockade is justified because it is at war with Hamas, the group that controls Gaza.

But the effect of the blockade on civilians in Gaza has been severe. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has condemned the blockade not on security grounds but humanitarian ones, saying it has caused “unacceptable suffering.” And the Gladstone Report, the UN’s analysis that followed the late-2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza, found that Israel’s blockade exacerbated humanitarian needs, particularly food, economic recovery and public heath.

Israel claims that it was prepared to take the flotilla’s humanitarian goods, inspect them and send them on to Gaza. But regardless of the shipment’s fate, Gaza’s citizens desperately need more, and Israel should reorient the blockade to focus on weapons while proactively facilitating humanitarian assistance. Besides, the incident has already prompted Egypt to open its border with Gaza, demonstrating that there is a limit to Israel’s ability to rope the region off.

It’s important to understand why the flotilla was out there in the first place: not to deliver aid to Gaza, but to make a political point about the blockade’s existence. It’s equally important to note that the flotilla had to provoke Israel in order to make the political point resonate with a wider audience. Israel has to learn not to play into its opponents’ hands.

Any loss of life is tragic, and whatever the investigation turns up will not change the fact that nine individuals have been needlessly killed. But we must understand the specific circumstances that led up to the incident, as well as its wider geopolitical context, before levying judgment.

Photo credit: freegazaorg’s Photostream

It would be easy to draw a straight line between the alleged “intelligence failures” of the last six months and Dennis Blair’s resignation. Let in the Underwear Bomber and the Times Square bomber, and heads should roll, right?

Well, not so fast my friend.

Any alleged failing on Blair’s part is a minor reason for his departure. If Faisal Shahzad was the reason, we’d have expected Mark Leiter — head of the National Counter Terrorism Center, NCTC, which falls under the DNI’s purview — to go first.

Blair left because of power, authority and personality conflicts with the White House. More specifically, the DNI position has little power or authority, and Blair got outmaneuvered personally by savvy bureaucratic operators like CIA Director Leon Panetta and White House counter terrorism advisor John Brennan.

Politico reported on Blair’s struggles back in January:

“One reality is Blair is really not political; he is really not good on the Hill,” said one former counterterrorism official. “He doesn’t know how to build coalitions on the Hill. He is really just out there swimming on his own, and he is not doing a very good job for the people who might have pushed expanding the DNI’s power to get behind him on this.”

On the one issue where Blair really chose to take a stand — appointing Chiefs of Station at CIA offices abroad — the White House sided with Panetta. And then there’s the big elephant in the room — budget authority.

Despite being the nominal Director of all 16 US intelligence agencies, the DNI doesn’t control their individual budgets or personnel, except for those under NCTC. That’s a big problem, causing the “boss” to be subject to the machinations of his de facto subordinates. Sure, the DNI has the authority to facilitate collaboration between those individual agencies, but if those agencies’ heads retain enough authority to run their own little fiefdoms, that creates uncomfortable tensions. And Blair didn’t seem politically savvy enough to navigate that mine field.

So, on the personality front, Blair, though a highly respected professional, seems to have been a bit of a fish out of water in this job. Then again, is the DNI job too small a fish in a big ocean?

Defining the DNI’s role from a budgetary point of view should be the next intelligence community reform.

Photo credit: Robert Huffstutter / CC BY-NC 2.0