Im-Politic: A Neglected Russia Disinformation Objective?

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2016 election, Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, China, CIA, CNN, collusion, cybersecurity, Director of National Intelligence, disinformation, fake news, Im-Politic, intelligence community, James R. Clapper, John O. Brennan, Matthew Rosenberg, MSNBC, NBC, North Korea, Putin, Russia, The New York Times, Trump

Well then. Two passages in a New York Times article from this morning’s print edition were sure conversation-stoppers when it comes to the ongoing uproar about charges that President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to boost his election odds and ensure soft treatment from his administration. That is, if you read far enough into the long piece to encounter them. In fact, they’re so important that they should have been the main angle – or at the very least, the main theme of front-page stories from now until we ever find out what’s really happened.

The passages (which make the same critical point):

First, according to Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg, by some point last September (at the latest), American intelligence officials were worried that Russia had developed an “operation to create discord inside the American government.”

Second, and more specifically, the intelligence agencies viewed one key part of this operation as feeding information suggesting that Vladimir Putin’s regime could blackmail the President (and/or the candidate) to “United States intelligence agencies and pit them against Mr. Trump.”

And here, in Rosenberg’s words, is the context:

“American intelligence agencies believe that Russia’s spy services see the deep political divisions in the United States as a fresh opportunity to inflame partisan tensions. Russian hackers are targeting American voting databases ahead of the midterm election this year, they said, and using bot armies to promote partisan causes on social media. The Russians are also particularly eager to cast doubt on the federal and congressional investigations into the Russian meddling, American intelligence officials said.

“Part of that effort, the officials said, appears to be trying to spread information that hews closely to unsubstantiated reports about Mr. Trump’s dealings in Russia, including [a] purported video [depicting him in compromising sexual situations], whose existence Mr. Trump has repeatedly dismissed.”

In plainer English, if Rosenberg has it right, the Russians have not only been trying to put Mr. Trump over a barrel and make sure that he defeated his main rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. They have not only been trying to shake Americans’ confidence in their democratic institutions by hacking into them and unleashing a flood of fake news onto its media platforms, social and conventional. They have not only been trying to cover their tracks by using such fake news and other tactics to discredit the Congressional investigations into election meddling and related reported outrages.

They have also – separately – been trying to whip up antagonism between the President and the intelligence community. Achieving this goal of course would both tend to hamper America’s own intelligence operations and broader foreign and national security policies, as well as undermine the nation’s political system and its underlying social and cultural unity. And the tumult engulfing the capital and the nation as a whole suggests that the Russians are succeeding with this disinformation campaign, and that the intelligence agencies are playing their hoped for role.

Not that this possibility lets Mr. Trump and his aides totally, or mainly, or partly off the hook when it comes to their Russia ties either before or after his election.  For this objective could well have been sought on top of an effort to turn Mr. Trump into a Manchurian Candidate and President, not instead of it. But it does raise the question of how many of the allegations have stemmed from simple, and completely fictitious, plants.

Something else noteworthy about this article: If it’s accurate, then the potentially disastrous loss of America’s cyber-weapons to Russia and perhaps other adversaries that keyed Rosenberg’s piece was just the latest disclosed possibly catastrophic intelligence failures that occurred during Barack Obama’s presidency, and on the watches of the former intelligence agency chiefs, like his Director of National Intelligence (the complex’s top job) James R. Clapper, and one of his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John O. Brennan – both of whom have been particularly sharp Trump critics.

Two others? China’s penetration of the CIA’s operations in the People’s Republic, which reportedly resulted in the assassination or capture of “more than a dozen sources” (according to press accounts, the breach began in 2010, under Brennan’s predecessor, former General David Petraeus) and the failure to anticipate the speed of North Korea’s nuclear weapons development (which can be laid directly at Clapper’s feet, and which Brennan apparently missed as well).

Clapper, incidentally, is now a “national security analyst” for CNN. Brennan has just joined NBC and MSNBC in the same capacity. Good luck to you if you think there’s any chance these networks’ weekend talk shows tomorrow will raise any of this, including the Rosenberg article, with them?

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Sense and Nonsense on Russia’s Hacking

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2016 election, Amy Klochubar, China, cyber-security, cyber-war, defense spending, Democrats, hacking, Hillary Clinton, intelligence, John McCain, Middle East, NATO, Obama, Office of Personnel Management, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Republicans, Russia, sanctions, terrorism, Trump

What could be more predictable? The growing uproar over charges that Russia’s government waged a cyber-focused disinformation campaign to influence the last U.S. presidential election has let loose a flood of positively inane statements and arguments on both sides that show politics at its absolute worst.

Even worse, unless both Democrats and Republicans – and the various conflicting camps within the two major parties – get their act together quickly, the odds of further attacks and all the damage they can cause to American governance will only keep shooting up.

Let’s start with those who have expressed skepticism about these allegations, including regarding the substance of yesterday’s intelligence community report concluding that “President Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine confidence in the democratic process, denigrate [former] Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton [the Democratic nominee], and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

Can they really be serious in contending that the intelligence agencies’ publicly expressed judgments don’t pass the credibility test because no smoking gun or any other compelling evidence has been published? Do they really want the CIA etc to reveal whatever human and technical sources and methods they rely on? Do they really believe that any effective counter-hacking strategy can be developed or continued after disclosing that information?

The insistence on definitive proof, moreover, amounts to terrible advice for making foreign and national security policy generally. It seeks to apply to the jungle realm of international affairs the standards of the American legal system. President Obama’s years in office should have taught Americans how dangerously childish it is to believe that relations among sovereign countries are governed by commonly agreed on rules and norms, that the world is on the verge of this beatific state of affairs, or even that significant progress is being made. And Americans should hold shadowy world of spying and counter-spying to a simon-pure standard?

A more defensible rationale for doubting the intelligence community’s work emphasizes its past major blunders. And from what’s been made public, they have indeed been all too common and all too troubling.  (Please keep in mind, though, that successes often cannot be made public.)

Nevertheless, if a president or president-elect has no faith in a high confidence judgment of this importance from his intelligence agencies, then it’s clearly time to clean house. If the next administration does indeed decisively reject the community’s work on this matter, it will have no legitimate choice but to replace it leaders.

Back to the genuinely ditzy positions: statements that the Russian hacking failed to influence the course of the election. I personally believe this, and shame on those partisans who keep insisting that this interference prevented former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from winning the White House or that it delegitimizes to any extent Donald Trump’s victory.

But should the United States count on Moscow – or any other actor – continuing to fail? Should it wait to respond forcefully until a U.S. adversary succeeds? Shouldn’t Washington capitalize on its adversaries’ current evident shortcomings in this regard and focus on punishment and deterrence? Simply posing these questions should make clear how obvious the answers are.

A final major objection to hammering the Russians represents another more reasonable judgment call, but it’s still fatally flawed. It’s the argument that Washington needs to softpedal the hack attack because the United States has a vital interest in improving relations with Moscow.

As I’ve written, opportunities for better ties with Russia abound, and they should be pursued. But that’s no reason to let Moscow off lightly for its cyber-aggression. In the first place, in any mutually beneficial relationship, boundaries need to be drawn. This is especially true given how much stronger and wealthier than Russia the United States is. If an effort to subvert America’s democratic processes doesn’t qualify, count on further, even worse provocations by Moscow.

Just as important, this approach overlooks a crucial reality: Clear indications that Russia has an incentive to cooperate with the United States in fighting Islamic extremism and terrorism haven’t appeared because Moscow is in a charitable, or even helpful, mood. They’ve appeared because these are vital interests as well for Russia, which both borders the dysfunctional Middle East and rules over its own Muslim populations.

In other words, Moscow has plenty of incentive to play ball with Washington on the Middle East whether the United States retaliates sharply for the hacking or not. And if the Russians don’t understand that, then there’s little hope of any form of meaningful cooperation.

Yet the actual and potential inconsistencies and hypocrisies of those urging tough retaliatory measures are equally troubling. Some are exclusive to Democrats. For example, the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the Obama administration for the hacking seem pretty modest for actions that it claims “demonstrated a significant escalation” of Russia’s “longstanding” efforts “to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.”

And at the same time, the outrage voiced at Moscow contrasts conspicuously with reactions to China’s successful attack on the federal Office of Personnel Management, in which the records of some 22 million U.S. government employees – including classified and confidential information – were compromised. Indeed, President Obama never publicly blamed China’s government nor announced any responses.

Most important, however, is the question of whether Russia hardliners in both major parties old and new will act on the logical implications of their views of Russian actions and intentions – including on Moscow’s efforts to expand its influence along its own European borders. If for instance the hacking, as per Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, is truly an “act of war,” then will the call go out to cut off economic and diplomatic relations with Moscow?

If Russia’s moves against Crimea or Ukraine or the Baltics mean, in the words of Minnesota liberal Democratic Senator Amy Klochubar, that “Our commitment to NATO is more important than ever,” will today’s hawks – especially the noveau liberal variety – call for more U.S. defense spending and bigger American military deployments in endangered countries? And will they demand that American treaty allies in Europe finally get serious collectively about contributing to the common defense – which is first and foremost their own defense?

The answers to these questions will speak volumes to the American people as to whether their government is truly determined to defend interests declared to be major against foreign threats. And you can be sure they’ll convey the same vital information to America’s foreign friends and foes, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Russia – and Broader – Reset That’s Urgently Needed

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China, Cold War, Europe, interest-based thinking, national interests, NATO, NATO expansion, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, Soviet Union, spheres of influence, third world, threat-based thinking, Vietnam

Even though American policy could take a significantly different turn after Donald Trump becomes president, it’s all too likely that U.S.-Russia relations will continue heating up to worrisome temperatures for the foreseeable future. And although much American rhetoric on the subject has veered into hysteria, there’s no shortage of real-world obstacles to any new White House hopes for a cool-off – mainly Moscow’s undeniable determination to expand its influence along in Europe, where it now directly borders the U.S.-led NATO alliance. There’s also abundant (though not yet conclusive) evidence that Russia’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 American presidential election.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is by no means solely to blame for rising bilateral tensions. As I’ve written previously, much and possibly most of the problem stems from the American decision – supported by presidents and Congresses of both parties – to expand NATO right up to Russia’s doorstep after the end of the Cold War. And facing up to this wholly unnecessary, gratuitous effort to capitalize on Russia’s post-1990 weakness looks to me like the key to a genuinely successful reset of bilateral ties.

But ultimately, just as important for the United States as dealing with this urgent short-term problem is learning a lesson about how to think about its national interests that sadly was missed after the decades-long superpower struggle ended. The lesson: The key to foreign policy success is basing actions on identifying overseas interests of intrinsic, material importance, rather than on assumptions about actual or potential adversaries.

During the Cold War, American foreign policymakers across the board used both sets of criteria as lodestars – and created big, unnecessary trouble for the nation as a result. Washington reasonably treated the security of, for example, Western Europe and Japan as vital interests of the United States – because these regions were reasonably judged to be centers of critical economic and therefore military capability and potential. Losing them to Soviet influence could indeed have tilted the balance of global power against the United States in genuinely damaging ways. Moreover, an equally reasonable determination was made that Western Europe and Japan could be defended at acceptable cost and risk to America.

Tragically, however, this form of “interest-based” thinking was not applied to much of the developing world. In these regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, major defense commitments were taken on even though the countries in question were typically of little or no intrinsic interest to the United States – in terms of their actual or (realistically potential) wealth or military power, their raw materials, or even their location.

Instead, Washington based policy on the type of threat it concluded was posed by these countries, by ascendant forces within them, or by Soviet or Chinese designs on them or activity within their borders. Therefore, as I’ve written, Americans consumed themselves with debates over subjects like:

>whether rival superpowers’ activity in these areas was fundamentally offensive in nature or defensive;

>whether the relationships between these rival superpowers and local forces were simply alliances of convenience that meant little in the long run and could be easily broken up with appropriate U.S. overtures, or whether they were strongly ideological ties with real staying power; and similarly

>whether the local forces themselves should be seen simply as Soviet of Chinese pawns (and therefore needed to be fought on some level), or whether they were fundamentally nationalistic and on “the right side of history” (and therefore needed to be accepted and cooperated with).

These are all fascinating questions, and the resulting debate made fascinating reading – at least from an academicky or purely rhetorical standpoint. But they were dangerously off-base as fundamental determinants of American policy. The main reason: They all presented supposed answers to questions that are virtually unknowable – unless we imagine that certain foreign policy-makers and analysts are mind-readers or have highly reliable crystal balls. Disaster in Vietnam – a war never consistently, or even often, justified for intrinsically important reasons – reveals the price America can pay for indulging in these fantasies.

Defining specific, concrete U.S. interests is no science, either. But answers here are relatively knowable. Sure, subjectivity can’t be avoided. But Americans depend on our government to make judgments like this all the time. If the nation has decided otherwise, then it’s hard to make the case for any government at all.

How should this argument affect how Americans think about the new Russia challenges in Europe? Principally, they should stop focusing on whether Putin is a new version of the Soviet leaders who many thought aimed at worldwide dominion, or simply a nationalist feeling besieged by the West and seeking greater security along Russia’s frontiers. And they should start focusing on the intrinsic importance of the countries that Putin seems to be threatening.

In other words, how has Washington viewed Ukraine or Georgia or Moldova? What about new NATO members such as Poland or Hungary or the Baltic countries? Have they ever been placed in the category of vital interests, either from a national security or economic standpoint? Have U.S. leaders ever been willing to risk war on their behalf, even when the United States enjoyed a nuclear monopoly or overwhelming superiority? If the answers here are “No” (Spoiler alert: It is.), then has anything about these countries and their concrete and even perceived value changed since the end of the Cold War? In fact, has anything about them economically or strategically changed other than new NATO membership in some cases?

In my view, history makes obvious that the answer to those latter questions is “No” as well. Further, nothing has happened either in these parts of Europe, or in the American or Russian militaries, that has made them more easily defended by the West with conventional weapons alone than during the Cold War.

So it’s easy to see how more threat-based thinking can too easily lead Washington into a corner in which its only choice to defend all of its new treaty allies from some new form of Russian hegemony is to threaten nuclear war more loudly; and how interest-based thinking can lead to the alternative of offering to recognize how geography inevitably (however sadly) relegates these countries to a Russian sphere of influence, and seeking the best possible arrangement for them. And it’s even easier to see which alternative, however imperfect, is vastly superior.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Robert Gates is a Flawed National Security Guru

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2016 election, Bill Clinton, border security, China, Crimea, debt, Donald Trump, export controls, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Iran-Contra, Middle East, NATO, NATO expansion, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Robert M. Gates, Ronald Reagan, Russia, terrorism, The Wall Street Journal, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Ukraine

The Wall Street Journal op-ed staff’s decision to publish Robert M. Gates’ article last Friday on how he sizes up the two major presidential candidates’ qualifications for the Oval Office makes sense only by the degraded and often mindless standards of the American political, policy, and media establishments.

Sure, as the tag line ostentatiously noted, “Mr. Gates served eight presidents over 50 years, most recently as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.” As a result, I’m certainly interested to know his views – and especially that, although Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has a deeply flawed record, Republican Donald Trump is “beyond repair.” You should be, too. But should anyone regard Gates as the last word? I’m not convinced – nor should you be.

For starters, one of the presidents Gates served was Ronald Reagan – as a big player in that administration’s reckless and downright looney scheme (the so-called Iran-Contra affair) to evade Congress’ ban on supplying anti-communist Nicaraguan rebels with profits made secretly by selling arms to Iran’s terrorism-sponsoring, hostage-taking ayatollahs. Gates also seems to regard George W. Bush’s disastrous foreign policy presidency as standing within the bounds of acceptability. Hello?

At least as unimpressive, though, is Gates’ judgment regarding current foreign policy issues. Here are three examples. First, the former Bush and Obama Secretary of Defense warned that:

“Every aspect of our relationship with China is becoming more challenging. In addition to Chinese cyberspying and theft of intellectual property, many American businesses in China are encountering an increasingly hostile environment. China’s nationalist determination unilaterally to assert sovereignty over disputed waters and islands in the East and South China Seas is steadily increasing the risk of military confrontation.

“Most worrying, given their historic bad blood, escalation of a confrontation between China and Japan could be very dangerous. As a treaty partner of Japan, we would be obligated to help Tokyo. China intends to challenge the U.S. for regional dominance in East Asia over the long term, but the new president could quickly face a Chinese military challenge over disputed islands and freedom of navigation.”

True indeed. But then he upbraids both Trump and Clinton for opposing President Obama’s Pacific rim trade agreement, a position that he argues (despite presenting no evidence) “would hand China an easy political and economic win.” Indeed, Gates dredges up the know-nothing specter of China responding to Trump-ian tariffs with a trade war against America that it could well win because of all the U.S. debt it holds and because it’s “the largest market for many U.S. companies.”

Apparently he’s unaware that China’s debt holdings are a small fraction of the outstanding U.S. total, that the PRC remains much more important to American multinational firms as an offshore production platform than a final customer (which explains why the United States runs a huge trade deficit with Beijing), and that without adequate access to the American market, China’s export-focused economy and political stability would face mortal danger.

Worse, as chief of Mr. Obama’s Pentagon, Gates pioneered a relaxation of American export controls that greatly expanded China’s access to America’s best commercially produced defense-related knowhow. Talk about feeding the beast!

Gates’ critique of the Clinton, and especially Trump, Russia stances should inspire no more confidence. According to this supposed national security guru, “neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Trump has expressed any views on how they would deal with Mr. Putin (although Mr. Trump’s expressions of admiration for the man and his authoritarian regime are naive and irresponsible).”

As Gates notes, under Putin, “Russia [is] now routinely challenging the U.S. and its allies. How to count the ways. There was the armed seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea; Moscow’s military support of the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine; overt and covert intimidation of the Baltic states; the dispatch of fighter and bomber aircraft to avert the defeat of Syria’s Assad; sales of sophisticated weaponry to Iran.

“There is Russia’s luring the U.S. secretary of state into believing that a cease-fire in Syria is just around the corner—if only the U.S. would do more, or less, depending on the issue; the cyberattacks on the U.S., including possible attempts to influence the U.S. presidential election; and covert efforts to aggravate division and weakness with the European Union and inside European countries. And there is the dangerously close buzzing of U.S. Navy ships in the Baltic Sea and close encounters with U.S. military aircraft in international airspace.”

But actually it’s Gates who’s leaving the biggest questions unanswered. Does he now view the targets of Putin’s aggression as vital U.S. interests that merit a defense guarantee that could expose the United States itself to nuclear attack? When exactly did Crimea and Ukraine, which are so close to Russia that they cannot possibly be defended by Western conventional forces, attain this status? Why were American presidents going back to 1945 wrong to take exactly this position (including all of those he served)?

Indeed, what’s changed since Gates himself recognized this reality, and warned former President George W. Bush that the NATO expansion pushed by him and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, would needlessly provoke the kind of Russian push-back now underway? And if Gates hasn’t reversed himself on Russia, why is he so scornful of Trump’s evident interest in cutting a deal with Putin?

Gates is non-partisan, but no better, when it comes to the Middle East. He accuses the two candidates or failing to define “what the broader U.S. strategy should be toward a Middle East in flames….” But his critique of Trump is especially off base. According to Gates, the Republican candidate has “suggested we should walk away from the region and hope for the best. This is a dangerous approach oblivious to the reality that what happens in the Middle East doesn’t stay in the Middle East.”

But he misses the essence of Trump’s position, which is defending America from threats emanating from the region at America’s borders – which are relatively controllable – versus in that terminally dysfunctional, faraway region – which is completely uncontrollable. Gates can legitimately disagree with this approach (which I have repeatedly endorsed), but he can’t legitimately claim that it doesn’t exist.

Gates’ critique extends to several other current flashpoints, but what’s especially revealing to me is how this supposed diplomatic sage completely mis-identifies the biggest foreign policy question facing America’s leaders and the public. It’s not, per his formulation “how [the next president] thinks about the military, the use of military force, the criteria they would apply before sending that force into battle, or broader questions of peace and war.”

As I’ve been writing since the mid-1980s, that kind of thinking puts the cart before the horse. (Here’s a good summary of my first lengthy article on the subject, which unfortunately is not available in full on-line.) America’s main foreign policy challenge is figuring out its principal overseas interests, and basing its decisions on using force on the importance of those goals. Otherwise, debates on going to war and other uses of military power will be conducted in a strategic vacuum – which already too often has been the case.

Given Gates’ wealth of experience, it’s fine for The Wall Street Journal – or any other news organization – to grant him a prominent forum from time to time. How much better it would be, however, for editors and reporters and pundits to ask him, and themselves, if he’s ever displayed any learning curve.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: What to Do About Russia in Syria

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Afghanistan, Donald Trump, energy, Iran, ISIS, Middle East, national interests, Obama, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Putin, Russia, Shah of Iran, Soviet Union, Syria, terrorism, Vietnam

During the Cold War, American leaders got into two bad habits that often wound up costing the country dearly. First, the Soviet Union, or some of its surrogates (like Cuban military advisors), or some local forces calling themselves Communists would show up or emerge in a place that rigorous thinking made clear had no important strategic or economic value to the United States. And all of a sudden, Washington would act like the fate of this place would make or break that of Western civilization. Second, a major setback would be incurred in a region of genuine importance, and since no viable countermeasures were available, the United States would simply assume that things would turn out OK eventually.

Worrisomely, variations of both bad habits are evident in the foreign policy world’s reactions to Russia’s recent burst of military intervention in the Syrian civil war. They demonstrate that if Washington’s response – either under President Obama or whoever succeeds him – winds up enhancing American security and prosperity, U.S. leaders will have to focus like the proverbial laser beam on American interests.

Vietnam of course was the prime example of the first pattern. As most surely remember, it showed the disasters that can result from massive conflicts not remotely justified by the tangible stakes. Iran and Afghanistan were great, though more obscure, examples of the second. After the pro-Western Shah was thrown off his throne in Tehran in 1979, and after Soviet forces plunged into Afghanistan later that year to try keeping their stooges in power, all manner of rationalizations for U.S. inaction popped up – even though America and the world desperately needed the Persian Gulf’s oil. Even though the worst case never unfolded and the flow of crude has continued pretty much uninterrupted, America’s ongoing exposure to the region’s turmoil indicates that hope isn’t an acceptable foundation for policy.

Russia’s entry is certainly a new factor not only in the Syrian conflict but into the entire Middle East/Persian Gulf equation. And it’s one I didn’t expect. But even though it greatly increases the chance of some kind of dangerous mishap involving U.S. and Russian forces operating in an uncoordinated manner in a relatively confined theater of action, Moscow’s move doesn’t change the fundamental situation, which consists of three main components.

First, the Middle East, because of its energy resources and its potential as a platform for terrorist strikes against the United States, remains a vital concern for Americans. Second, as a result, and equally important, Washington can’t afford to depend on optimistic predictions about the so-called foreseeable future. And third, Putin’s venture has no bearing on the inability of the United States – whether acting alone or multilaterally – to turn Syria or the Middle East into a substantially more stable, less dangerous region from America’s standpoint.

In other words, President Obama is wrong to be confident that whatever energy or terrorism threats will eventually fade because Vladimir Putin will get bogged down militarily, or because Russia’s economy can’t sustain prolonged military ventures, or because Moscow will ultimately turn the Sunni Muslim world against him. Other dovish voices are wrong to oppose a stronger U.S. response simply because past interventions have flopped and arguably worsened the region’s instability, and to suggest that standing aloof per se will somehow produce better results.

Donald Trump is wrong as well to assume that simply because Russian leaders also oppose Islamic terrorism that Washington should simply count on their military conveniently doing the dirty and dangerous work of defeating ISIS – and bogging themselves down in the Middle East. And both Democratic and Republican hawks are wrong to believe that the Russian gambit strengthens their case for deeper U.S. armed involvement in Syria and the region as a whole, whether to create no-fly zones to protect civilian populations or to start sending American troops into the fray whether in “advisory” or more active roles.

Therefore, the best American approach to the Middle East post-Putin remains exactly the same as it was pre-Putin – transitioning from a strategy of countering threats emanating from the region by trying to transform it into something better, to one of dealing with these threats through domestic policy measures like accelerating efforts to marginalize the Gulf in the national and global energy pictures, and preventing terrorist attacks by securing America’s borders.

As I’ve written, because the second goal in particular remains far from achievement, the United States can’t simply pick up militarily from the Middle East and go home. But its operations need to be linked tightly to the transition strategy, which means air and some ground activity (e.g., special forces) to keep ISIS and similar groups off balance enough to prevent them from consolidating control over areas large enough to become training centers for overseas attacks. These operations, however, need not and should not continue for one additional minute once the U.S. government has reliable systems in place for keeping terrorists away from its frontiers.

Defeating ISIS may actually entail actively cooperating with the Russian military until the mission is accomplished, and in fact the greater the burden on Russian forces, the better for Americans. But realizing longer term benefits from such efforts – either for relations between Washington and Moscow, or for the Middle East – is as unrealistic as expecting American shows of force to drive the Russians out.

And it’s as unnecessary. The root problem posed for the United States by the Middle East stems not from the specific activity or designs of hostile or potentially hostile local or outside forces, but from the fact that this terminally dysfunctional, and thus easily exploitable region matters to America at all. Washington’s top priority still should be ending this importance, and becoming indifferent to the Middle East’s future no matter how it evolves or who’s (supposedly) in control.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Wisdom and Blind Spots of Henry Kissinger

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China, economics, Henry Kissinger, idealism, international order, interventionism, Iran deal, Jacob Heilbrunn, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, power, Putin, realism, Russia, strategy, The National Interest, Ukraine, World War II

When I was helping to edit FOREIGN POLICY magazine, I used to say that the only authors whose articles I would ever accept sight unseen were those by U.S. and other present and former heads of major national governments, and Henry Kissinger. I never had the pleasure and honor of working with this former Secretary of State and presidential national security advisor, and disagreed with him strongly on major issues then and now. But I still haven’t seen any reason to doubt that Kissinger boasts a combination of hands-on policy experience (in what a well known Chinese curse understatedly calls “interesting times”) and deep historical knowledge that’s been unique.

So I would strongly urge everyone interested in U.S. foreign policy or world affairs to read the interview with Kissinger just published in The National Interest. I was, to be sure, disappointed that Editor Jacob Heilbrunn didn’t ask his subject about the Iran deal – especially since Kissinger and one of his successors, George Shultz, wrote an op-ed in April highly critical of President Obama’s efforts to deny Tehran nuclear weapons, but not flatly dismissing the possibility that the president could conclude an acceptable agreement. Now we have a final deal. What does Kissinger think? Maybe he’s still holding his cards close to his vest, and ruled the topic out of bounds in advance?

In fact, the only headline issue on which Kissinger comments is Russia’s grab for more power in Ukraine and elsewhere along its European borders. If you think Vladimir Putin is the devil incarnate, or the second coming of Stalin, you need to learn about Kissinger’s notably evenhanded interpretation of how this crisis emerged – with which I broadly agree. His ideas for easing East-West tensions deserve much more attention, too.

Ultimately, however, what I found most interesting about the interview has to do with what I have always found most disappointing about Kissinger – his failure to help develop a distinctly American version of “realist” diplomatic thinking.

At the start of the interview, Kissinger does a good job of defining the debate between realists (supposedly like himself) and “idealists” that has shaped much of American foreign policy since the end of World War II: “The way the debate is conventionally presented pits a group that believes in power as the determining element of international politics against idealists who believe that the values of society are decisive.” As this statement suggests, he (correctly) views the dichotomy as “simplistic” and “artificial,” but does (also correctly) acknowledge that these terms can influence how leaders order their priorities and strike balances among competing objectives.

Yet however important these concepts to American strategists, as I’ve pointed out, even avowed realists like Kissinger have consistently overlooked the single most important ingredient for successfully pursuing this approach – understanding geography and its implications. In fact, wherever they’ve stood on the realist-idealist spectrum, U.S. leaders have for decades followed a strategy that’s almost willfully defined geography out of existence. Both Democrats and Republicans alike, during and after the Cold War, have carried out policies of military intervention, alliance building, and economic integration, that are much more appropriate for a small, highly vulnerable country than for a continent-spanning power protected by two wide oceans.

From a geopolitical perspective, even Kissinger’s well known preoccupation with creating and preserving “international order” is a sign of diplomatic hubris rather than a hallmark of prudence and pragmatism. Why, after all, would such a serious and knowledgeable student of the past believe that disorder, including widespread chaos, is a natural – much less achievable – goal for a world lacking consensus on fundamental values and norms of behavior? And as a result, why has Kissinger been so thoroughly convinced – along with so many other political friends and foes – that for a country with the advantages enjoyed by the United States, surviving and prospering amid this tumult is a much more feasible aim than bringing it to an end, or even significantly moderating it?

Finally, the National Interest interview also confirms another big weakness of both Kissinger’s version of realism and post-World War II foreign policy – a refusal to think seriously about economics. The word isn’t even mentioned. In principle, anyway, neglecting wealth and its creation was understandable for America for most of the Cold War. The United States was predominant, it had no challengers on this front, and the chief threats Americans faced seemed overwhelmingly military. Since the early 1970s, however – not so so coincidentally, when Kissinger was most prominent – keeping this spot blind has been inexcusable. For in this material world, from where does Kissinger think power in all of its tangible forms ultimately springs?

Still, with the exception of China policy (where his consulting business has compromised his analysis, in my view), I’m glad Kissinger remains active on policy issues and continues advising politicians. He may be 92, but he’s orders of magnitude wiser, deeper, and sharper than virtually anyone else in America’s foreign policy establishment.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Miss and a Possible Hit for the New Pentagon Strategy Statement

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China, cyber-security, Defense Department, ISIS, Martin Dempsey, multinational corporations, National Military Strategy, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pentagon, Putin, QDR, Quadrennial Defense Review, Russia, technology transfer

It’s always hard to know how seriously to take the national security and military strategy documents periodically issued by the White House and Defense Department. On the one hand, it’s clear that they’re the products of lots of person-hours and resources; a few years ago, in fact, I was honored by an invitation to participate in a skull session held in connection with one of the Quadrennial Defense Review reports.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to contend that these exercises result in any meaningful change. Sure, points of emphasis come and go – the new National Military Strategy (NMS) document just published by the Pentagon (the first since 2011) generated some news coverage (and complaints from Moscow) by pointing to a growing threat from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And of course, it was the first such statement that mentioned ISIS. But the new NMS seems dominated by the usual declarations that the United States has global security interests (not its authors’ fault – setting the broader national security strategy is the job of elected and appointed political leaders, not them) and that the nation will defend and advance these wide-ranging functional and geopolitical objectives with whatever kinds of American and allied military forces and related resources are needed.

Nonetheless, two features of the NMS are arguably newsworthy:

>First, judging by the NMS, the U.S. military has no clue that the nation needs to start moving aggressively to curb the transfer of advanced militarily relevant technology abroad by American multinational businesses. The document actually leads off by noting, “Complexity and rapid change characterize today’s strategic environment, driven by globalization, the diffusion of technology, and demographic shifts” and then fretting that “When applied to military systems, this diffusion of technology is challenging competitive advantages long held by the United States such as early warning and precision strike.”

As should be clear to anyone educated enough to read a newspaper, cyber-hacking capabilities should be added to this list (and they are later in the NMS). In fact, as I’ve noted, America’s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey, has publicly admitted that the United States no longer enjoys superiority in this critical sphere. But what should be even clearer is that when U.S. high tech companies in particular set up labs and training centers in China in particular, or invest in Chinese technology companies, they not only greatly strengthen China’s military, but they just as greatly boost the odds that dangerous devices and knowhow find their way to places like North Korea and Iran. A related problem: U.S. allies, described in the NMS as comprising “a unique strength that provides the foundation for international security and stability,” have often been more reckless than Washington in permitting the spread of these technologies.

Greater efforts at technology denial per se won’t solve this problem – largely because so much of this dangerous cat has been let out of the bag. But good luck with even maintaining a usable American technological edge on the military front if the world’s most advanced creators of high tech products and services remain so largely free to feed the Chinese beast.

>Second, Dempsey’s Foreward to the NMS contains a genuinely remarkable statement that would merit much greater discussion if it received any elaboration in the document. It didn’t, but contrasts so stunningly with the literally universalistic objectives that have dominated American strategy since Pearl Harbor that I need to spotlight it anyway.

According to Dempsey (in a poorly structured sentence), “We are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that are resolved quickly…that control of escalation is becoming more difficult and more important….” And then he adds this kicker: “…as a hedge against unpredictability with reduced resources, we may have to adjust our global posture.”

It’s standard for military leaders to warn that the nation’s security commitments are threatening to exceed the resources available to meet them, and the NMS itself pointedly observes that “We will not realize the goals of this 2015 National Military Strategy without sufficient resources. Like those that came before it, this strategy assumes a commitment to projecting global influence, supporting allies and partners, and maintaining the All-Volunteer Force.” But by adding “unpredictability” to simple budgetary uncertainty as a reason for reconsidering the nation’s worldwide objectives, it looks like Dempsey is at least thinking along substantially different lines.

Again, since this statement is a standalone, it’s hard to know how much importance it merits, and whether there will be any follow-up anywhere in the Pentagon. One thing that is certain: Dempsey’s comment about adjusting the nation’s global posture, which I’ve argued is an essential step in strengthening its security, didn’t appear in the NMS by accident.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Literary Windows into Putin’s Aims

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Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky, Eastern Europe, Mikhail Khordokovsky, NATO, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Ukraine, War and Peace

I’m no expert on Russian literature, Russian culture, or anything Russian. But I did take the language for two years at the high school level, and studied the Soviet system and its foreign policy in some college courses. Moreover, as part of my continual self-improvement program, I just finished Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (which somehow I was never assigned back in the day). So a new post on FOREIGN POLICY magazine’s website on “What Russian Literature Tells Us About Vladimir Putin’s World” couldn’t help but catch my eye.

Although I’m not someone who thinks that Eastern Europe’s fate is a vital U.S. national security interest (much less Ukraine’s), Washington did push strongly and successfully to bring many of the former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, and Moscow is increasingly active military off the coasts and in the skies over the region (as well as sometimes on the ground through hired agitators). So the risk of accidental confrontation at the least has grown uncomfortably high, and brings urgency to the task of figuring out Russia’s leadership.

According to James Stavridis, a former four-star U.S. Navy admiral, to understand the Russians best, “Get rid of that CIA report full of dusty Cold War tropes. Forget the NSA intercepts or spy satellite imagery. And drop the jargon-filled scholarly analysis from those political science journals. Instead, get back to the richest literary gold mine in the Western world: Russian novels and poetry.”

The author’s interpretations of all the Russian authors he deals with strike me as worth reading. Especially notable seemed to be his discussion of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Of the former, Stavridis writes, that he “shows us how the Russians think about their ability to fight, and illuminates the deep patriotism that fuels today’s nationalist tendencies. Tolstoy makes clear the largest landmass under national sovereignty in the world is literally unconquerable, even by the brilliance of Napoleon. Moscow might burn, but the Russian military will never give up.”

My only quibbles. First, when the Russian army believed it fought for a cruel monarchy, in 1917, it collapsed. Second, the Red Army’s fighting spirit was clearly sapped in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So I agree that no one should doubt the Russian soldier’s determination to defend Mother Russia. But their willingness to wage war for exploitative autocrats is open to real doubt, and its potency seems to wane the farther away from the homeland (which is being defined expansively lately) it gets.

Stavridis’ takeaway from Solzhenitsyn’s 1962 tale of life in a Soviet prison camp strikes me as more convincingly relevant to current challenges: “Think the Russians will crack under sanctions? Try reading [Denisovich, whose] protagonist, a convict in a Siberian gulag, finds a hundred ways to scrape through the day, dealing with the petty corruption, laughing at the predicaments, occasionally reveling in the harsh conditions of his imprisonment, and powerfully exhibiting the ability to overcome adversity. Like Denisovich, Russians will find an ironic pleasure in overcoming the pain of sanctions, and we should not put too much faith in our ability to break their will through imposing economic hardships.”

But I haven’t read either work. As for Stavridis’ treatment of Crime and Punishment, I’ve got mixed feelings. It seems a stretch to compare Dostoyevkey’s psychologically tormented main character, Raskolnikov, to oligarch-turned-opposition leader Mikhail Khordokovsky. Yes, the former is redeemed after committing a terrible crime, and the latter has become a voice for democracy after cashing in hugely during the initial post-Soviet “Wild, Wild East” period, and then serving prison time. But Khordokovsky’s devotion to Western ideals like rule of law and transparency in business and politics when they don’t serve his immediate interests can still legitimately be questioned – as Stavridis seems to recognize.

In fact, Crime and Punishment contains few explicit descriptions and comments on Russia’s culture or the Russian character, but facets of both come through loud and clear throughout the novel. It’s impossible to read without being struck by traits such as an obsession with social status (especially if it’s been lost), a ridiculously fragile pride, and a deep ambivalence towards the West nonetheless dominated by an unmistakable inferiority complex. And it’s equally impossible to read passages depicting these qualities without thinking of today’s headlines.

But I’d urge you to read Stavridis’ post for insights from other great Russian works. And if U.S.-Russian relations genuinely grab you, read some of these works themselves if you haven’t already.

One final note: When I was helping to edit FOREIGN POLICY in the mid-1980s, we ran an eye-opening (at least to me!) article on Russian cultural and social traditions and how they continued to shape the Soviet system and its behavior. It was written by a veteran Foreign Service Officer named John Michael Joyce, it was titled “The Old Russian Legacy,” it came out in the magazine’s Summer, 1984 issue, and it’s out of circulation now. But it’s well worth tracking down if you have access to a good public or college library.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Another Poorly Thought Out Obama Doctrine

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9-11, Ali Khamenei, Carter Doctrine, Congress, Cuba, F. Scott Fitzgerald, foreign policy, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Iran deal, Jimmy Carter, New York Times, nucler weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, preemption, Putin, Russia, sanctions, stupid stuff, Thomas Friedman

Well, it seems that the previous Obama foreign policy doctrine sure didn’t last long. Starting last summer, the president’s diplomatic thinking made waves when a series of Mainstream Media reports, plus his own former Secretary of State, all seemed to agree that Mr. Obama’s strategic lodestar was “Don’t do stupid stuff” overseas. (You can read my critique here.) This week, however, the president appeared to unveil a strikingly new approach, which could be summarized as “Take Big Risks.” In addition, in an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Mr. Obama displayed other signs of greater foreign policy ambition, along with some incoherence, that didn’t attract nearly enough attention.

Friedman writes that the president’s own description of a new “Obama Doctrine”

“emerged when I asked if there was a common denominator to his decisions to break free from longstanding United States policies isolating Burma, Cuba and now Iran. Obama said his view was that ‘engagement,’ combined with meeting core strategic needs, could serve American interests vis-à-vis these three countries far better than endless sanctions and isolation. He added that America, with its overwhelming power, needs to have the self-confidence to take some calculated risks to open important new possibilities — like trying to forge a diplomatic deal with Iran that, while permitting it to keep some of its nuclear infrastructure, forestalls its ability to build a nuclear bomb for at least a decade, if not longer.”

This view, however, lumps together some risk-reward ratios that don’t seem to belong in the same category. It makes perfect sense to argue, as per the president, that

“You take a country like Cuba. For us to test the possibility that engagement leads to a better outcome for the Cuban people, there aren’t that many risks for us. It’s a tiny little country. It’s not one that threatens our core security interests, and so [there’s no reason not] to test the proposition. And if it turns out that it doesn’t lead to better outcomes, we can adjust our policies.”

But to contend that “The same is true with respect to Iran” is worrisome. Mr. Obama allowed that Iran is

“a larger country, a dangerous country, one that has engaged in activities that resulted in the death of U.S. citizens, but the truth of the matter is: Iran’s defense budget is $30 billion. Our defense budget is closer to $600 billion. Iran understands that they cannot fight us. … You asked about an Obama doctrine. The doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities.”

This assessment, however, is coming from a president avowedly supremely aware of the difficulties America ran into in the last decade fighting in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq in post-9-11 Afghanistan. As with Vietnam decades before, these interventions show that crude indicators of military strength like budget levels can be dangerously misleading – all the more so when the adversary is halfway around the world, and convinced that it’s fighting for survival or for a fanatical cause. In addition, of course, the consequences of getting Cuba or Myanmar wrong are indeed negligible. Even if Washington avoids a new war, the consequences of getting Iran wrong could be catastrophic, not least because it could result in the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a government with expansionist aims in a region still crucial to the world’s energy supplies.

An Obama miscalculation on Iran becomes even scarier upon realizing that the president seems to have greatly expanded America’s defense commitments in the Persian Gulf. In 1980, President Carter’s doctrine declared that the United States would defend Gulf states from aggressors from outside the region – meaning the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of 9-11, George W. Bush’s administration signaled a determination to respond with force preemptively – before being attacked – to eliminate the threat of weapons-of-mass-destruction use by rogue states. In 200x, the president turned words into deeds with the invasion of Iraq.

Now, Mr. Obama states that he’s willing “to make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them.”  

That could be a perfectly legitimate decision to make. But as a major ramp up of U.S. foreign defense obligations, it needs a thorough examination by Congress and the public. Intensive debate is all the more important given the squeeze on America’s defense budget, and given the crucial lesson that the president should have learned from dealing with Vladimir Putin: The line between the internal and external threats faced by states are anything but clear-cut. And Iran has been at least as active as Russia in using various non-state proxy groups to advance its interests.

Finally, the president’s views of what’s motivating Iran remain confusing.  On the one hand, Mr. Obama repeated his conviction that “that the sanctions regime that we put together was weakening Iran over the long term,” stated that the country’s supreme leader agreed; and claimed that Ayatollah ali Khamenei believed that “if in fact he wanted to see Iran re-enter the community of nations, then there were going to have to be changes.” On the other hand, he described Iran as “a country that withstood an eight-year war and a million people dead, they’ve shown themselves willing, I think, to endure hardship when they considered a point of national pride or, in some cases, national survival.”

In other words, President Obama views Iran both as a country that would not allow stronger sanctions to “stop its nuclear program” (as he said in announcing the deal last week), and as one that was so anxious for sanctions relief that the prospect led to talks that have rendered it toothless (by his account) for many years.

It’s true that F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” At the same time, he made this point in an essay titled “The Crack-Up.”

Making News: On Chattanooga Radio Today, National Tomorrow Night

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Abdullah, censorship, China, internet, Making News, oil prices, Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, The Brian Joyce Show, The John Batchelor Show

I’m pleased to report that I’ll be appearing this afternoon on “The Brian Joyce Show” from Chattanooga, Tennessee to discuss the nosedive we’ve seen in recent months in world oil prices, and what we can now expect in the wake of the Saudi King’s death and the Russian economy’s ongoing woes.  Click here to listen live on on WGOW-FM at 1:25 PM EST.  Unfortunately, Brian’s show doesn’t post that many podcasts.

It’s also great to be reappearing on the nationally syndicated John Batchelor Show tomorrow night at 9:15 PM EST to discuss China’s remarkably depressing success in censoring the internet.  Click here to listen live.  Podcasts of John’s show are always posted, and I’ll put up the link as soon as it’s available.