issue: Foreign Policy & Defense

Stand with Westphalia

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The “aught” decade that just ended was bracketed by 9/11, perpetrated by al-Qaeda terrorists who had enjoyed havens in Sudan and Afghanistan, and a thwarted Christmas 2009 airline bombing by a Nigerian terrorist, who learned his craft in Yemen. The years were filled with a running, halting effort to prevent the Taliban from re-taking the Afghanistan government. Throughout the millennial decade, a postmodern theme dominated: terrorists virtually taking over weak states that should have been eliminating them.  Today, as we enter a shiny new decade, we should embrace a cozy and decidedly pre-modern tradition: the system of sovereign states that has served us well since the 17th century.

The world has been governed by an arrangement of sovereign nation-states with fixed boundaries since the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648. But that system faces threats today. In a fascinating article in Foreign Policy, Atlantic staff writer Graeme Wood described today’s worrisome “quasi-states”—ethnic enclaves that have currency and governments, yet are not officially recognized by the United Nations. Wood includes Abkhazia, an entity of 190,000 that separated from Georgia after a war in the early 1990s; Somaliland, a refugee enclave from a Somalian dictator’s brutality in the late 1980s; and Kurdistan, which stamps visas “Republic of Iraq-Kurdistan Region.”

No less worrisome are weak nation-states that are currently facing threats to their sovereignty from terrorist groups within their borders. The attempted airplane bombing by a Nigerian disciple of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has taken root in Yemen, is only the latest reminder.

Like termites eating away at a building’s foundation, a weak commitment to states ultimately threatens to topple the internal and external order provided by the Westphalian system, with America and our allies directly in the path of collapse. The system’s bad actors—groups who refuse to respect states per se—have perversely, if predictably, turned on the greatest state of them all, the United States. And so the system needs to defend itself, with the U.S. at the lead.

The destabilization latent in both quasi-states and weak nation-states is aggravating already dangerous conditions in many of the world’s hotspots. In Lebanon, Hezbollah currently controls two cabinet seats and 11 seats in the 128-member Parliament; the cabinet recently voted to defy a UN order for Hezbollah to disarm. In Gaza, Hamas took official governmental powers through elections in 2006, yet has failed so far to provide decent government services, while clashing with Fatah—previously the best hope for progress and stability—and fighting progress with Israel.

Prior to last year, Pakistan had essentially conceded the northwest Federally Administered Tribal Areas to al-Qaeda and the Taliban; today, violent clashes occur in the region, but the terrorists are far from subdued. Meanwhile, in Yemen, al-Qaeda operatives are moving into formal positions in the government. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban is marching again on Kabul; President Obama’s new strategy aims principally to “degrade” the Taliban, in the hopes that the Afghan state can save itself.

With almost a year to review, discussion is now beginning about what President Obama’s foreign policy doctrine exactly is. As the inevitable fray begins, here’s one big doctrinal idea: let’s dedicate America’s resources, both hard and soft, to nurturing strong states around the world, undergirded by constitutionalism and the rule of law, and pressing those actors who would otherwise create sub-states and quasi-states either to put down their weapons and join states, or suffer the oblivion that recalcitrant terrorist methods deserve.

In the coming decade, the U.S. must focus like a laser on the threat non-state actors pose to the world order.  The fronts spread throughout the world.  We need to pressure warlords in Afghanistan to join the government by making private militias unacceptable and illegal.  We should push Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza to forgo violence, recognize Israel, and become legitimate.  We need continually to support and reform the government in Yemen, while fighting al-Qaeda’s intrusions.  In our own hemisphere, we need to render illegitimate the paramilitary groups who are currently re-arming in Colombia and threatening the government there.

In all of these cases, we should employ all the multilateral instruments at our disposal, working with NATO and the UN and also organizations like the IMF and the World Bank to deploy both carrots (including trade and other economic incentives) and sticks (sanctions and, in the case of aggression or imminent threats, force).

There is also much we can do unilaterally.  The FY 2010 omnibus spending bill passed by Congress shows we’re on the right track in using our “soft power” to help consolidate states.  For instance, the budget increases monies to the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which incentivizes governments to undertake democratic reform, 26%, to $1.105 billion.  And in Yemen, the FY 2010 budget nearly doubles our FY 2010 economic support funds from $21 billion to $40 billion, which should help strengthen the government there.

However, there are flaws that demonstrate the need for a more systemic approach.  In Pakistan, under Congress’s 2010 budget, our military assistance will drop, from $300 million in FY 2009 to $238 million in FY 2010, and economic support barely rising, from $1 billion to $1.04 billion.  These decisions risk undermining a Pakistani government that has recently made promising steps toward finally confronting the non-state actors within its borders.

All in all, disparate strands including Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Colombia need to be woven into a coherent, international approach, led by the United States. The issue isn’t so much quasi-states like Abkhazia and Somaliland, as interesting and troubling as they are. More urgent are non-state actors seeking to become states that directly threaten our security. And so the past should be prologue: we should stand with Westphalia, now more than ever.

Simmer Down, America

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The headlines make it sound like we’ll all be dead by July…

WaPo: “Officials warn of looming terror risk”
NYT: “Senators warned of terror attack by July”
CBS News: “CIA Chief: Al Qaeda Poised to Attack U.S.”

…but I’d still go ahead planning that BBQ on the 4th, because even if there is an attack, the headlines portray a threat environment that — while serious — probably isn’t as menacingly “looming” as they make it seem.

Here’s the actual exchange between Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and FBI Director Robert Mueller:

Senator Feinstein: What is the likelihood of another terrorist attempted attack on the U.S. homeland in the next three to six months? High or low? Director Blair?

Blair: An attempted attack, the priority is certain.

Sen. Feinstein: Mr. Panetta?

Panetta: I would agree with that.

Sen. Feinstein: Mr. Mueller?

Mueller: Agree.

That’s a little bit more nuanced than the writers would have you believe. The journalists’ apparent ironclad certainty about an impending terrorist attack distorts the intensely political context surrounding the issue and ignores the degraded threat al Qaeda central poses.

It’s important that the issue was raised during Senator Feinstein’s questioning and not during the intel chiefs’ opening statements. If they brought it up right off the bat, that would imply there was specific intelligence about an ongoing plot. Given the context of this exchange, security heads don’t appear to have anything concrete that is specific and imminent. They’re hedging their bets.

Now Senator Feinstein is right to ask tough questions like this — that’s her job. But if you’re a high-ranking intelligence official, and the senator overseeing your department asks you about the possibility of an attempted attack, who in their right mind would ever say, “Naaah, I think it’s all good. Nothing to worry about here…”? If that’s your answer and there is even a small-scale attempt (like the one on Christmas), then you can kiss your job goodbye.

Finally, we need to put al Qaeda’s attack capabilities in context. Senator Feinstein correctly qualified her question to ask about an attempted attack; it’s a critical word that gets ignored. Because over the next six months, I don’t believe that either AQ’s senior leadership or its international affiliates will regain the logistical competence to attempt a massive attack on the scale of 9/11. Far more likely is the small-time attempt perpetrated by individuals who, as Director Panetta mentioned, have “clean” histories and are — by definition — more difficult to collect intelligence on.

Or to reinterpret the security chiefs’ answers, “Yes, there is the high probability that someone we could never hope to know about will attempt a minor terrorist attack in the United States. It may or may not be successful, depending on how competent and lucky the operator is. To say otherwise would ignore such individuals’ patterns of recent behavior. But another 9/11 — though possible — is far less likely.”

Obama’s Budget: Turning the Aircraft Carrier Around

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Trying to write a post on the defense budget is nearly an exercise in futility. In something like 500 words, it’s nearly impossible to make an overarching judgment that neatly summarizes the bill for the largest government department in the world. That said, let’s give it a shot!

My frame of reference for Pentagon budgeting is in one sense deeply personal. Now I don’t want to make myself sound like a saint, but as a civilian DoD employee for five years, I was always very conscious that I had a responsibility to be mindful of taxpayer dollars I was spending. I experienced — anecdotally and systematically — just how atrociously, rigidly wasteful and yet astoundingly petty the Pentagon can be. In other words, the way the Pentagon spends cash is downright goofy.

Here’s an idea of where I come from: Yours truly got to spend about two months in Australia working security for a bilateral U.S./Australian war-gaming exercise. I was rather surprised when the government computer reservation system insisted that I stay at the four-star hotel in Sydney at somewhere like $350 a night, when the perfectly acceptable three-star, $150-a-night alternative down the street was available. Now I enjoyed the feather pillows and mints, but would have preferred to swap them for the cheaper hotel plus my inexplicably denied business class airfare on the 26-hour trip.

Then there was my counterterrorism watch center office — completely renovated and upgraded by 2003 to actually resemble something close to the set of 24. Trust me, it was awesome — you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a brand new LCD TV, and I had three classified computer networks at my desk, something almost unheard of throughout DoD. Cost to taxpayer? $5 million. And it would have been a good investment, too, had the Base Realignment and Closing Commission not decided to close the office by 2011.

The FY2011 budget, released yesterday, won’t correct any of those, ahem, anomalies soon. And my experiences have ingrained enough skepticism that I don’t do cartwheels when the Pentagon announces — as it did this year — that “this budget did not defer hard choices, but made them.” As small-time as my stories are, they’re symptomatic of a well-established culture that isn’t going to change with one document. I think it’s probably more accurate to say, “this budget did not completely defer hard choices, but started the process of trying to change the DoD’s culture and the way it spends money. And that’s really tough.”

Though inefficient spending will continue on large and small scales, the Obama administration’s budget priorities are finally focused on the military’s most immediate needs. After eight years of Rumsfeld’s appalling financial sleight-of-hand and willful suspension of reality, Secretary Gates has actually paid necessary attention to funding personnel and equipment needed to compete in the wars we’re in. Rumsfeld’s obsession was technology — he thought whiz-bangs and gadgets could win our wars so soldiers didn’t have to! Then came Afghanistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan (again), which proved that technology could kill a lot of stuff really fast, but that winning the peace required more boots on the ground than he bargained for. So after extended deployments that have exhausted our troops and worn out their equipment, this budget dedicates funding to address the shortcomings of the Bush administration.

The budget’s other highlight addresses how the Pentagon does business. A serious Cold War hangover, Rumsfeld’s technological focus, and two wars have created a race-to-the-bottom culture where defense contractors pitch highly complex systems as cheaply as possible. The industry has conditioned itself to underestimate cost and development time and are amazingly left to evaluate their products’ own successes — hardly a recipe for optimal competition in the best interests of the taxpayer. This budget begins the process of taming that lion:

Our objective is to achieve predictable cost, schedule and performance outcomes based on mature, demonstrated technologies and realistic cost and schedule estimates. We are also implementing initiatives that will increase the numbers and capabilities of the acquisition workforce, improve funding stability, enhance the source selection process, and improve contract execution. Our intent is to provide the warfighter with world class capability while being good stewards of the taxpayer dollar.

It’s a wonderful notion, albeit one that will probably take a generation’s worth of acquisitions to truly implement.

I’ve obviously left out so, so much about this budget. It is encouraging to know that the administration appears in tune with what our military needs, and what the taxpayer can reasonably support. Turning an aircraft carrier takes a long time, and it will be years before we get a read on how well the new mindset is taking hold.

Elevating Human Rights on the U.S. Policy Agenda for Iran

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PPI Fellow Mike Signer joined a panel discussion sponsored by the Center for American Progress on “Elevating Human Rights on the U.S. Policy Agenda for Iran.” He was joined by Geneive Abdo, Fellow and Iran Analyst at The Century Foundation, and Hadi Ghaemi, Coordinator at International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The panel was moderated by CAP’s Matthew Duss.

A First Glance at the Quadrennial Defense Review

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Flipping through the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, a report prepared by the Defense Department every four years for Congress, an image of Ricky Ricardo telling Lucy that she has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do comes to mind.

It’s not that the Quadrennial Defense Review (or more precisely, its executive summary that I’ve just torn through) is “bad” per se. But it certainly requires a bit of context to understand the coded defense-ese. In its purest form, the QDR is supposed to be a review of the Pentagon’s strategy and priorities. In short order, strategic priorities are turned into budgetary ones, as billions of dollars pour into programs that execute the top-tier missions.

The good news is that in this year’s version, certain strategic priorities are credibly enshrined. The Pentagon articulates Secretary Gates’ highly sensible focus on the wars we’re in. (That might seem like a no-brainer, but read the 2006 QDR, where Rummy essentially ignored Iraq and Afghanistan, choosing to focus on pie-in-the-sky “transformation” issues instead.) Other “new” priorities like counter-insurgency, climate/energy, and caring for America’s service members also get deserved top-billing and, eventually, new defense dollars. Reforming the acquisition process also gets a significant nod – but more on that in a second.

As for broad strategies, umbrella priorities like “Prevent and deter conflict” and “Prepare to defeat adversaries on a wide range of contingencies” are necessary missions that the Pentagon has to undertake. I mean, who’s going to do it? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? And certainly, because future conflict and contingency operations will take on unknown forms, their presentation in the QDR has to permit for both continued dollar flow to needed weapons programs while allowing room for unanticipated spending to mitigate new and emerging threats.

The I Love Lucy parallel was triggered only when I dug down within those blanket priorities. Lurking in the fine text is language that suggests the Pentagon continues to evade hard choices. Most glaringly, the QDR continues to include one little phrase with huge implications: U.S. military forces must maintain “the ability to prevail against two capable nation-state aggressors.” Many experts expected this long-held doctrine to be cut from the 2010 QDR because the “two theater” approach — considered almost a placeholder in the strategic void post-USSR, pre-9/11 — was essentially out-of-date in the 21st century. With America preoccupied with a new range of threats arising from rogue and failed states, maintaining this nebulous mission was of dubious importance.

This language distorts priorities. On the one hand, continuing the “two theater” approach is an invitation to defense contractors to pitch too many potentially unnecessary weapons systems, at the expense of new ones better suited to the conflicts we’re actually embroiled in now.  And because this is how the Pentagon has always done business, we’ll probably buy more than we really need. On the other hand, this QDR is clear about the need to reform defense acquisition — and has highlighted cuts in the F-22, Future Combat Systems, and the DDG-1000 — even though it doesn’t state how to institutionalize the reform. (If you’re looking for a place to start, Jordan Tama’s memo to the president is a good one.)

And that’s a central tension in the QDR — can the Pentagon continue to add missions without scaling back others? There is no question that the Defense Department needs to maintain a healthy defense industrial base to do what we need to defend America’s interests. But Pentagon officials need to think harder about how to align that vital goal with the new threats of unconventional warfare. In short, the QDR has to make a clean break with outdated strategic assumptions so that our finite military resources can go where they’re needed most.

The Republican Response: Was that Army Sgt. Supposed to Be There?

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I went slack-jawed during the Republican response when — lo and behold — right behind Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and in plain view of the cameras sat an Army Staff Sergeant in full uniform:

Per paragraph 4.1.2.15 of the official DoD Directive on “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces,” armed forces member explicitly MAY NOT:

Attend partisan political events as an official representative of the Armed Forces, except as a member of a joint Armed Forces color guard at the opening ceremonies of the national conventions of the Republican, Democratic, or other political parties recognized by the Federal Elections Committee or as otherwise authorized by the Secretary concerned.

In other words, unless authorized by the Secretary of the Army, the staff sergeant was breaking the law.

I suppose this begs the question of whether the McDonnell’s speech constitutes a “partisan political event.” After all, he gave it in his role as governor of his state in response to the president’s State of the Union address, a nonpartisan political event.

But McDonnell didn’t give a State of the State speech. He was giving the Republican response to the State of the Union. The speech was carried on the website www.soturesponse.com with the blazing headline: REPUBLICAN ADDRESS TO THE NATION. Sounds like a partisan event to me.

Republicans like to tout their ties to the military as a proxy for being strong on the issue of national security. But by thrusting this uniformed Army Staff Sergeant front-and-center on national TV and endangering the poor guy’s career (he’ll probably be reprimanded for misconduct), I think we have to ask a very serious question: Do Republicans actually care about the military, or do Republicans just view military members as as political pawns to be trotted out at election time?

Update: According to the Virginia Voices blog at WaPo, the Army Staff Sergeant in question was Robert Tenpenny. Staff Sergeant Tenpenny admirably served with Gov. McDonnell’s daughter in Iraq, and I’m sure he considered it an honor to be seated behind his friend Jeanine’s father as he delivered the most important speech of his life. I can understand how in the excitement of being selected for such a prime spot, he may not have realized the consequences of that choice. However, he probably should have erred on the side of caution — my active duty coworkers in DoD were always very careful about this stuff in 2004 and 2006. A Navy friend of mine refused to so much as stand in the crowd at a Jim Webb rally because of the regulation.

That said, I’m also confident that the RNC knew what it was doing in its heavy-handed staging of the event.

State of the Union: Commander-in-Chief as Cheerleader

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In the most raucous and gutsy State of the Union I can remember — the president challenged Democrats to not run for the hills, thrust the onus of governance on Republicans, and stared down Chief Justice John Roberts — national security policy came and went with hardly a whimper. It’s not that the president didn’t spent a significant chunk of his speech on the topic (he did), but rather that what he said didn’t break new ground.

If there was a newsworthy tidbit of policy, it was the president’s call to secure all loose nuclear material within four years. It was a smart way to package the issue, tying nuclear terrorism to Obama’s repeated goal to eventually have a world without nuclear weapons. Republicans will no doubt jump at that line as the latest in a twisted attempt to paint Obama as naive and weak. It’s not true, of course — eliminating nuclear weapons is the right long-term goal, but their reduction will come in concert with other countries as part of a slow, negotiated, equitable drawdown over decades.

Otherwise, the president gave a set-piece rundown of the broad set of national security priorities. He vowed to continue the withdrawal in Iraq, even though the disturbing increase in violence over the last few weeks and barring of ex-Ba’athists from the March parliamentary elections are both cause for significant concern. He charted a path out of Afghanistan, framing the choice to send more troops there as one of the hard choices of governance that won’t make him popular. And he vowed to continue to take the fight to al Qaeda while acknowledging shortcomings within the intelligence community (that, if you’ve been buying what I’m selling, is a more nuanced problem than he’d have time to explain). On the AQ score, the administration actually deserves more credit than it has received — if the harshest critics examine the record, they’ll find that, for example, the White House was sending top officials to Yemen well before the Christmas attempt.

The policy implications aside, I thought the most impressive rhetorical flourish about American national security and foreign policy actually came in the first part of the speech that was dedicated to the economy. Extolling the virtues of American ingenuity and innovation, Obama compared America to China, India, and Germany — three countries the president said that weren’t waiting to revamp. He challenged Americans to beat those countries, saying he refused “to accept second-place for the United States of America.”

Bam. That’s what Americans need to hear from this president: that he’s ready to lead, that — just like we’re doing in Haiti — America acts internationally because “our destiny is connected to those beyond our shores,” and that the United States is the greatest country in the world. Now, if you’re reading this blog, chances are that you’re a progressive who might have some doubts about what America has done in Iraq, or questions about why we’re in Afghanistan. But regardless of any questionable past policies (and without getting into a debate about them here), Americans need to hear from this White House that America is a strong force for good in the world. I worry that the president hasn’t made that case strongly enough all the time. This was a good start.

We Shouldn’t Negotiate with the Taliban’s Top Leaders

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The notion of integrating top Taliban commanders into the Afghan government is gaining traction among influential members of the Obama administration. Joe Biden likes the idea, as apparently does Richard Holbrooke, while Gen. Stanley McChrystal has indicated he could see a role for Taliban members in government.

On the surface, it’s an attractive solution. The administration is rightly skeptical of the election-stealing Afghan President Karzai, who continues to rule a corrupt regime. “(Sigh.) Fine. Let the Taliban into government,” you can almost hear war-weary NSC officials dejectedly admit, “at least it’ll help get us the #@*% out of there.”

Unfortunately, it’s a short-sighted solution that will ultimately undermine NATO’s many hard-won victories in Afghanistan over the last eight-plus years.

Before digging into the why, it’s important to clarify exactly what’s under consideration. Today, the WaPo reported that in an effort “energize the peace process,” the U.N. has lifted sanctions against five former Taliban officials who are prepared to renounce violence. These converts fall in a different category than what the White House is currently debating. While reconciliation with the likes of hard-core top Taliban elements like Mullah Omar is out of the question, an administration official conceded that the White House was discussing “above low- and mid-level fighters.”

Stop right there: Those low- and mid-level fighters are far enough. Above that pay-grade, the Taliban’s mid-tier officers are in it not just for the paycheck, but for steadfast ideological convictions that are much harder to genuinely convert.
And that ideology fundamentally rejects the pillars supporting government in Kabul. As Barbara Elias writes in a hard-hitting essay for Foreign Affairs, governing within an even partially Westernized democracy is out of the question:

Their [the Taliban’s] legitimacy rests not on their governing skills, popular support, or territorial control, but on their claim to represent what they perceive as sharia rule. This means upholding the image that they are guided entirely by Islamic principles; as such, they cannot make concessions to, or earnestly negotiate with, secular states.

In other words, we should be highly suspicious when the likes of Taliban leader Mullah Omar makes overtures about playing “our role in peace and stability of the region,” as he did in the fall. It’s a trap – the Taliban’s leaders want to join government to overthrow what it sees as a traitorous regime supported by infidel Western tyrants, not to act as a constructive governing partner. Once sharing power, the Taliban’s ideological resolve will only harden as its members refuse to accommodate otherwise constructive solutions forwarded by their more secular domestic or international partners.

It is far more constructive to remove the ideologues’ foot soldiers, which is precisely the aim of a potential $1 billion program for jobs and education for the Taliban’s grunts. Depriving the Taliban of its army is critical to removing its ability to peddle fear and repression outside of power. Integrating its non-contrite higher-ranking officers into the government just gives them a different kind of army.

That’s why it is yet again gut check time for the White House. Working with the most vile members of the Taliban is a great temptation, but will prove a fool’s errand.

Cold Confusion

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The news that the president is going to propose a three-year “freeze” on appropriations for non-defense discretionary programs (with veterans and homeland security programs exempted) is creating a lot of consternation among progressives today.

But folded into this consternation is a significant amount of confusion. The term “budget freeze,” long the default-drive Republican fiscal austerity “idea,” usually connotes an across-the-board flatlining of spending in non-exempt accounts, a total commitment to the budgetary status quo that neatly allows its proponents to avoid separating sheep from goats and offending any constituency for any particular program. If that’s what Obama was proposing, it would indeed be inconsistent with any new jobs initiative, or indeed, with key elements of the “middle-class relief” agenda the administration just announced. But that’s not what he is proposing; it is instead really an overall spending “cap” under which specific programs could be increased or decreased, presumably depdending on their usefullness in creating jobs or other worthy social goods. It’s an approach that Bill Clinton, back in 1992, called “cut and invest.”

Since it’s Congress, not the administration, that will actually make appropriations decisions, and since members of Congress and the committees they chair which often serve as the most powerful constituencies for programs with little real justification, it can definitely be argued that any real “freeze” would look more like the across-the-board variety (indeed, that’s what happened to Clinton’s “cut and invest” budget when Congress got its hands on it in 1993). Alternatively, it can be argued that the whole thing is mainly rhetorical, given public concerns about government spending.

But in conjunction with the president’s push for a bipartisan “deficit commission” that would be empowered to make recommendations on long-term budget savings that would be submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote, the “freeze” proposal, whatever it actually means, will definitely upset progressives fearing that Obama is “going Hoover” in economic policy. And make no mistake, there’s one objection to the “freeze” idea that’s not based on confusion: if you really do believe that the federal government needs to be running larger short-term deficits in order to provide Keynesian stimulus to consumer demand, then any domestic spending limits, however selective in application, will strike you as a very bad approach.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Is the New Bin Laden Tape Really Him?

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Nerd alert: My brother Bob and I have a long-standing competition to identify anonymous celebrity voice-overs on TV ads (and we’re pretty good — picking out Gene Hackman shilling for Lowes is amateur hour), but I don’t claim to ID celeb voices for a living. That’s why I can’t definitively say that the recently released Bin Laden tape isn’t him, but I suspect there’s a decent chance that it just might not be.

Last January, Bin Laden released a 22-minute tape on the eve of the Obama inauguration about everything from Israel to the economic crisis. The long-winded diatribe, replete with OBL’s standard Koranic references, was standard fare from al Qaeda’s chief taco. His tapes of May and March 2008 were also 22 minutes. That’s a far cry from this week’s version, which barely clocks in at 22 words (actually 144, but you get my drift), according to the Middle East Media Research Institute’s transcript.

Second, keep in mind that al Qaeda’s senior leadership has always had its eye on the big prize — the spectacular attack that generates either genuine fear or awe for its daring size, scale, or target. In 1998, they leveled two American embassies simultaneously; in 2000 they struck at the heart of the American military by blowing a massive hole in the side of an American Navy destroyer; and 9/11 speaks for itself. Even AQ’s latest significant attempt at a large-scale operation – the multi-flight Heathrow plot in 2006 – was an impressive feat of imagination. But in this tape, a man claiming to be Bin Laden embraces not a spectacular success that improves upon complex and sickeningly impressive plots, but a complete failure of an attempt that he likely had nothing to do with.

Then again, maybe even notable failures at small operations are enough these days. It’s possible that the combination of a tighter American safety net and the embarrassing overreaction of the pundit class has convinced AQ that small-fry attacks are sufficient to carry AQ’s fundraising and recruiting goals in the current climate. So if this was really OBL on the tape, it would signal a major degradation of AQ’s modus operandi and attack capabilities.

But the irregularity continues to bug me — it doesn’t make sense that Bin Laden would essentially admit al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. That’s why I keep thinking someone might be masquerading as the big man. By tying the Christmas Day attempt to Bin Laden, the real perpetrators of the plot — al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — could gin up money and recruits in its aftermath.

It would be a serious scandal within Islamic extremist circles if the CIA came out in the next 24 hours and declared the tape fake, so I have to imagine that even uppity terrorists aren’t that stupid. Then again, perhaps the CIA should consider floating a trial balloon about the tape’s “questionable authenticity” just to see what sort of reaction it generates.

Secretary Clinton, Cyber Diplomacy, and Google

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Echoing FDR in reference to cyber-repression in places like Vietnam, North Korea, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today outlined her vision of a world with five Internet freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom to connect online everywhere, freedom from fear of cyber attacks, and freedom from want – the idea that information networks are a “great leveler” that can help lift people out of poverty.

Clinton’s speech clearly signals that fostering free access to the Internet can be a powerful tool that can help loosen the grip of the most repressive regimes. And to that end, she launched a new $15 million project for grassroots civic participation and new media capabilities in the Middle East and North Africa. Small, to be sure, but a worthy start.

But on the panel following Secretary Clinton’s speech, Rebecca MacKinnon of the Open Society Institute warned that though online access no doubt promotes openness, the Internet is not “freedom juice” that can be simply injected into a country and hope that all its oppressive tendencies vanish. That’s because places like China have done a devilish job of networking authoritarianism – a policy that toes a tight line by plugging into the global economy while blocking the receipt of global information. China is of course hardly alone – up to 40 countries (including some nominal democracies) now censor Internet content.

Finally, Clinton had a few words pointedly directed at private sector Internet companies, whom she encouraged to embrace the principals of openness as part of American companies stand for:

I hope that refusal to support politically motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies. It should be part of our national brand. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression … And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply the prospect of quick profits.

Thus far, Google is the standard-bearer on this issue. The company’s slogan – Don’t Be Evil – has been invoked as it weighs whether to withdraw from China following allegedly government-sponsored cyber attacks on Google-housed email addresses of human rights activists. Since Google and its ilk in effect own the leverage of cyber-diplomacy, it makes sense that the State Department is cajoling them in this direction. I’d expect to see more Foggy Bottom conferences with various Silicon Valley CEO’s to drive home this point in the near future. That’s a good thing.

Finally, the business argument is worth examining. Contrary to the American market, Google isn’t quite as ubiquitous in China as it is stateside. That said, the WSJ grades Google.cn’s results (under censorship) as superior to its Chinese rival Baidu. The article concludes, “From a policy standpoint, the worst move China could make would be to force Baidu’s main competitor out of the country, leaving Baidu with no incentive to spend on R&D and improve its results.” But I’m not so sure — if China wants to stem the flow of information, why would they need a better search engine?

America Acts in Haiti

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With a hat tip to Spencer Ackerman for flagging the video (and accompanying sentiment), scenes like this symbolize what America stands for:

Watch as LA County rescue workers pull a victim from the rubble; the crowd erupts with spontaneous applause and chants of U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

I worry that there’s a strain within progressive America that doubts our country’s place in the world. I worry that America’s actions over the last decade have irreparably damaged progressives’ image of America as a great nation that was conceived to do great things.

To be sure, the Iraq war has triggered worthy reflection on that point. But my uber-fear is that with President Obama’s decision to adopt a new strategy in Afghanistan, progressives’ degraded concept of America has been legitimized now that one of their own has allegedly–if falsely in my opinion–“followed in Bush’s footsteps.”

Not to trivialize the point by being colloquial, but with issues like Iraq, it is unfortunately and tragically true that America screws up sometimes, and royally so (and Massachusetts, don’t think I’m just looking at that ranch in Crawford). Let’s remember that though even gross misjudgments in policy may raise questions about what America is, the worst errors are ultimately set right. America will remain a great place that does wonderful and selfless acts of kindness. It does so for two reasons–because it can and because that what it was meant to do.

Rebuilding Haiti

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Scott and readers at TPM have suggested that the United States must assume nation-building efforts on the scale of Iraq or Afghanistan in Haiti. Scott makes an excellent point that the silver lining of all this is that America’s humanitarian mission in Haiti is an opportunity to provide reconstruction assistance in a country where it’s welcomed by all. However, let’s keep in mind that American assistance will likely flow under the auspices of the U.N., so the rebuilding effort won’t provide the unfettered learning tool that Scott envisages.

That said, I’m nervous about the comparison drawn between Haiti and Iraq/Afghanistan. If the evocation of America’s other nation-building efforts is meant merely as a general comparison to signify the size of the U.S.’s contribution to Haitian reconstruction, stabilization, and eventual growth, then it’s right on. But the cynic in me worries that comparisons to Iraq and Afghanistan are designed to elicit a direct contrast between very different missions. It’s as if some are almost daring the Obama administration to prove that America actually cares about a country that doesn’t immediately impact America’s national security (though if reports of mass refugee influxes prove accurate, then there is a decided self-interest as well).

Haiti is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. The circumstances of America’s involvement couldn’t be more different. Haiti is closer and smaller. It had a more stable government that could control its territory. Haiti’s geography and history of foreign occupation are less violent. Its social structures and norms couldn’t be more opposite… and on and on.

So let’s dispense with those comparisons as quickly as possible. The bottom line is that America’s contribution is, and should be, of historically large proportions. The reason for our involvement will be for no better or worse reason that what President Obama wrote:

[F]or a very simple reason: in times of tragedy, the United States of America steps forward and helps. That is who we are. That is what we do. For decades, America’s leadership has been founded in part on the fact that we do not use our power to subjugate others, we use it to lift them up—whether it was rebuilding our former adversaries after World War II, dropping food and water to the people of Berlin, or helping the people of Bosnia and Kosovo rebuild their lives and their nations.

And that’s all that matters.

Vision of a State: Ultra-Federalism in Afghanistan

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama’s provocative, considered decision to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan was a major moment in his presidency. By the president’s own description, the deployment is a means to an end. However, since his speech, there has been too little discussion about what we hope to achieve after security is delivered in Afghanistan.

The fact of the matter is that, assuming we achieve broad-based security in the region and “degrade” the Taliban, any successful democratic system in Afghanistan will need to be sui generis—in a class unto itself. This new goal should recognize the critical difference between a written constitution (a document) and a culture of constitutionalism (a way of life). As Thomas Jefferson once wrote of America, “Where is our republicanism to be found? Not in the constitution, but merely in the spirit of the people.” Afghanistan today possesses a perfectly serviceable written constitution, with a bicameral legislature, provincial government, an independent judiciary, and a strong executive branch. The question is whether it also possesses constitutionalism.

America’s non-military assets—including our aid budget and the Pentagon’s “civilian surge”—should make constitutionalism our ultimate goal in Afghanistan. To achieve constitutionalism in Afghanistan, we should aim at what might be called “ultra-federalism,” following the model of the United States Constitution. In designing America’s Constitution, the Framers built from our inheritance prior to 1787: thirteen states with existent, different constitutions; dramatic cultural, economic, and demographic contrasts; and legal and cultural misgivings about a strong central government. Over the decades, as America evolved—as slavery was prohibited and the Civil War was fought, and as the New Deal swept through the country—our constitutional values, like a vine, wrapped around the knottiest ethnic and historical features of our landscape.

The governing principle? We should avoid the naïve goal of perfecting a political system from scratch on the basis of abstract concepts; instead, only a pragmatic, syncretic approach—sampling from different systems for what works best—will achieve a resilient, native design that will be endorsed by the citizens it will govern.

“Ultra-federalism” in Afghanistan should mirror and embrace the country’s unique and disparate elements. The new system should include established practices and political values that accept and incorporate the ethnic divisions between the country’s major and minor ethnic groups: the Pashtuns and Tajiks (both historically Iranian), Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimak, Turkmen, Baluch, Nuristani and other small groups. Constitutional law should embrace not only Pashto and Persian, the two official languages of the country, but Uzbek and Turkmen, which are spoken in the north, and, to the extent possible, the 70 other dialects throughout the country. As far as tribes go, the Pashtuns alone have at least seven tribes, the Durrani, Ghilzai, Jaji, Mangal, Safi, Mamund, and Mohmand, which generally distribute authority to elders through patrimony. Those power structures ought to be recognized and brought into the ultra-federalist system, just as the pre-existing American states were incorporated into the 1787 Constitution.

Afghanistan is 99 percent Muslim, and Afghanistan’s constitution already embraces Shari’a law; however, an ultra-federalist culture would constantly seek to discover and bridge gaps between local systems for administering justice and the official machinery of the state courts. Finally, the ultra-federalist system ought to recognize and incorporate discrete issues certain tribes present for the federal government. For instance, the Ghilzai generally use a flat political structure that pointedly avoids a paramount chief. Such local decision-making processes should be welcomed into the ultra-federalist system.

Finally, as far as the familiar democratic goals of rule of law, recognition of human rights, and free and fair elections go, it is essential that we be practical in our attempts and circumspect about our goals. To trumpet absolutist aspirations for a “democratic” Afghanistan by implanting new institutions (such as nationwide elections) will result in charades like the flawed and corrupt election in August and the bankrupt run-off in November. Instead, we should establish reasonable benchmarks that aim for democratic participation (a process that can grow) instead of only participatory democracy (a binary outcome that sets us up to fail).

But ultra-federalism won’t only be about accepting the givens; it should also be about pushing initiatives that will help constitutionalism take hold culturally. These include reducing Afghanistan’s shameful illiteracy rate of 70 percent, so people can understand laws and participate politically; launching an all-out war on corruption, in part by nurturing an independent bar of trained, competent lawyers; and making militias and warlordism both unacceptable and illegal.

All of these efforts should be considered and adopted by Afghanis through a series of new local and national loya jirgas—the traditional elder-driven, tribal-based, deliberative structure that approved Afghanistan’s 2003 constitution.

The security earned through President Obama’s new strategy needs a larger end: a stable Afghanistan that will, in turn, help make the world safer for America and our allies. The broader aim of ultra-federalism will help build a robust Afghan state that will withstand the Taliban and grow, eventually and on its own path, into a democracy Afghans can truly call their own.

Haiti, Nation-Building, and Soft Power

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I am minimally qualified to comment on the crisis in Haiti, but one of Talking Points Memo‘s readers has what sounds to me like an important perspective on American involvement in reconstructing the country over the coming years (not months). Since Haiti is in our backyard, the reader says, we will have to assume nation-building efforts on the scale of Iraq or Afghanistan if Haiti is not to devolve into chaos.

I’m sure Jim will have much sharper thoughts on all of this, but I’ll just throw out there the suggestion that the great tragedy before us presents at least one silver lining — it gives us an opportunity to gain valuable experience in nation-building, and to do so in a context where our help is viewed gratefully rather than resentfully.

If soft power and nation-building are to become increasingly important in foreign policy to avoid the prospect of failed states (or to address actually existing failed states), then the United States must not only repair its image as a hegemonic bull in a china shop, but it must show that we can actually produce an unambiguously good reconstruction. Simply, we need to be trusted and seen as effective. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that we’re not exactly effusing these qualities today when it comes to our nation-building efforts.

Of course, our efforts could go badly in Haiti, which would be another setback for us. But what alternative do we have than to hope for the best?

A Conversation with an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Expert

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Sana, YemenChristmas Day would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was connected to a group called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, often referred to as AQAP. Since that attempted attack, I’ve found a disturbing lack of clarity in the public debate about who AQAP is, how they differ from AQ’s senior leadership, and what their ideological aims are. It’s very easy to say “Al Qaeda” on the news. Such generalized branding doesn’t allow the public to digest the fact that AQ’s regional branches operate very differently from the mother ship along the Af-Pak border.

So I put some questions on the issue to a real expert on the subject, my friend and ex-intelligence colleague, Hans Spielman. Hans is a former Navy lieutenant turned civilian DoD counterterrorism analyst. He studied AQAP for over four years, and his work is highly respected within the intelligence community. All of his information is backed by publicly available sources, so don’t think he’s spilling any classified material.

Q: Al Qaeda’s activities on the Saudi peninsula have long been independent of the Af-Pak based leadership. So what is Saudi AQ? What are their aims?

A: Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia historically has shown the ability to carry out large-scale complex attacks against Saudi and foreign targets in Saudi Arabia. Saudi AQ was most active in the country during the 2003-2006 time period. Saudi-based extremists conducted several major attacks/operations, including bombings in Riyadh (2003), the Khobar Towers attacks (2004), Yanbu (2004), several assassinations/kidnappings (2004), and an attack on the Abqaiq oil facility (2006). There has been a lull in activity in recent years.

Concurrent with the rise in Saudi AQ’s activity during 2003-2006, Saudi authorities stepped up their counterterrorism efforts against the network. Several wanted lists of suspected terrorists were published and widely distributed during this timeframe. Saudi efforts resulted in the killing/capturing of multiple key network members and militants throughout the kingdom.  As mentioned above, there has been a notable lull in activity in Saudi Arabia in recent years.

Q: So first there was Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, now we talk about AQAP? Are they the same?

A: The press links the Dec. 25 failed airplane bombing to AQAP. However, it is unclear (in my opinion) if today’s AQAP network really can be considered a direct descendent of the Saudi al Qaeda network that was responsible for the spate of attacks during the 2003-2006 time period, although there was some sort of merger between AQ in Yemen and AQ in Saudi Arabia in January 2009 resulting in the formation of AQAP – now based in Yemen.

But I think you have to separate Saudi AQ 2003-2006 from today’s AQAP – it is apparent that AQ-affiliated extremists remain active and capable on the peninsula, but the players have changed and the focus may have changed somewhat as well.

 

Q: Why has Yemen become attractive?

A: Yemen is a logical base of operations given the Yemeni government’s inability to govern/police the entire country and the ready supply of weapons and potential recruits.

Q: Is AQAP’s future bright?

A: If the link to AQAP is valid, the failed Dec. 25 attack demonstrates that AQAP remains active and maybe capable of international attacks (not just regional).

This is all good stuff. I think it’s important to note that, as he stated, the Dec. 25th attack actually failed, so while he says that AQAP is “maybe capable” of international attacks, my read is that AQAP’s international attack capability is even more of an open question.