Some Philosophic Remarks for the New President-Elect

Congratulations, President-elect Trump, you are now committed to filling what is arguably the toughest jobs on the planet.

As you obviously understand, the President’s most important function is to make decisions.  You will be inundated by matters to be decided by you usually accompanied by recommendations from advisors, counselors, cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, et al, but you will be the actual decision maker.  Also, as important as many of your past decisions were in business, your decisions as President may literally decide between war and peace, life and death for Americans and others.   Although the Federal Government will not function if you try to make all of the decisions yourself, it’s just too big and complex and there are too many things going on every day, you should resist as much as possible any thought of delegating the big war and peace decisions that will define your presidency. 

  

War is the organized use or threatened use of violence in conflicts between two or more states or proto-states.  Warfare is the collective human activity of conducting a war.  War is universal but warfare reflects culture, history, social organization, technology, personality, inspiration, etc. and will always be different each time a war breaks out even as parties to the conflict try to refight their last war.  Peace is generally but inaccurately considered to be the absence of war.  A lifetime studying history, war, warfare, military affairs long ago convinced me that "if you want peace, prepare for war" (from Epitoma Rei Militaris, by the Roman Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus).  To appear unprepared to go to war even in your own defense is the surest way for a nation to invite war.

 

That said, the most important lesson I have derived from the reading of Clausewitz is that war and the use of military force to resolve a dispute or conflict is almost always the worst possible tool for solving a problem or resolving a dispute (except in cases of national survival).  Murphy’s Law applies to war because in war whatever can go wrong probably will go wrong.  The military set great store in having plans because a plan let’s everyone know what they’re deviating from.  The Law of Unintended Consequences equally dictates that for every anticipated result of a war, there will be multiple events that were not intended almost none of them good for you.  Edward Luttwak, a very smart guy even when I disagree with him, wrote a whole book on how the logic ofwar and conflict is the opposite of what applies outside of war. 

 

The first decision you have to make – because if you wait until a crisis to decide it may be too late – is whether you accept the reality that nuclear weapons are not for fighting wars but for preventing anyone else from using their nuclear weapons against the US or its friends or allies.  Deterrence is the name of the game and in order for it to work, the US invests effort and resources in to preparing to use them.  (See above re the logic of war).

Another important idea for both decision making in general and for war and warfare in particular is to understand that ‘speed is essential, haste harmful’ –Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov.  Our own John Boyd took this idea a step further with his OODA Loop, which emphasized the cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, Act – and doing it faster than your opponent so that he is reacting to what you do rather than initiating his own plans.  Many observers note that in today’s cyber-world, the available time to complete this cycle is under incredible pressure.

There are also some important concepts used in discussing warfare - 

Surprise – doing anything that your opponent did not expect, i.e. attacking in a place, at a time, or with a capability that wasn’t expected.  This is one of the oldest force multipliers giving the attacker the initiative.

Mass and/or Unity of Effort – making sure that enough friendly force is concentrated at the right place and time to assure victory – but not too much force – and that few if any friendly forces are needlessly left out of the fight.

Simplicity – “keep it simple, stupid”.  Combat is a multiple body problem (a phrase coined by astrophysicists to describe really hard and complicated interactions between many objects moving through space over the same time period).  The more bodies you have in motion, the harder it is to know who’s doing what much less control them as they do it.   Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Ulysses S Grant, and Dwight Eisenhower all ran into this challenge.

You never want to pit your strength directly against an opponent’s strength.  You commit your strength against weakness – never fight fair.  All properly executed warfare is Asymmetric.

You have seen along with all of us how in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the US failed in its efforts to rebuild and reshape those nations, societies, and cultures.  The US Armed Forces and the Department of State are not constituted, equipped, manned, or supported for such missions.  Ultimately, only Iraqis and Afghans can rebuild.  Our best role is to help and support them with aid and sometimes by fielding military forces to secure space in both time and geography in which our local friends and allies can do that rebuilding.   We are also not constituted politically and socially to support seemingly open ended deployments of our military forces for anything other than a major conflict.

Finally and most importantly, holding the Moral High Ground in conducting military combat operations is as critically important to long term mission success as holding the tactical high ground on the battlefield.  We have to reserve the use of lethal military force for those situations in which it is truly warranted, will be most effective, and can be used with the minimum – preferably zero – damage or casualties to civilians/non-combatants.  And we have to be seen to be acting with restraint and limited aims because as the old cliche reminds us, "with great power comes great responsibility."  As you may have observed, many Americans are not happy with the USA acting as the world's policeman, but they are even more unhappy when anyone else does it.

Christmas Eve, 1915, World War One

Once again we approach Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with prayers for peace in our hearts and minds and on our lips. It seems to be always this way, but perhaps in 2009 we can make a start towards changing that. Here's a poem from 1915 that seems as relevant today as then. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanakkuh. Peace be with us all in a prosperous New Year in 2009.

Christmas 1915

‘Tis Christmas Eve. In all the camps
There gleam a host of tiny lamps
That make the hill on which I stand
A veritable fairyland.
For friends at home and far away
Have helped us celebrate the day
By sending each and every man
A present of a billycan
Crammed full of wondrous things inside,
You couldn’t guess them if you tried.
Tobacco, socks and butterscotch,
And for some lucky chap, a watch;
Tinned cheese, and ham, and bloater-paste,
Sweet biscuits (which we will not waste),
Toothbrushes, chocolate, lanoline,
Bootlaces, coca, Vaseline,
Stewed fruit, cigars, a Christmas cake,
And writing pad all helped to make
A gift as pleasant to receive
On service as it was to give.
Now the first excitement o’er
And as I listen from the shore,
A wave of song towards me floats
From fairy choirs in fairy boats
Bearing the message of love and praise
And a prayer for purer, better days.
The Spirit of God is hovering there
In the wondrous calm of the still night air,
For the roughest heart has seen again
A vision of peace and goodwill to men.
So here’s to you, good friends and true,
And ‘hands across the oceans blue’;
We wish you all both far and near:
A Happy Christmas, a prosperous New Year!

Sgt Alan J. Kerr
(AWM 1 DRL 397)

Mumbai Mayhem – in the streets and among the pundits

I’ve already seen a fair amount of speculation bouncing around the internet and over the airwaves about the perpetrators of the latest terror attack in Mumbai (aka Bombay), India. Sherlock Holmes at this point would probably be muttering something about the futility of speculation in the absence of sufficient information – and I would suggest that the majority of these pundits still have insufficient information about a group or organization whose latest (if not first) terrorist operation is still ongoing. Certainly my own stints as an analyst taught me this same kind of caution – which as I expect all analysts know is one of the things that drives your policy-maker/decision-maker customers right up the wall.

All of that said, I personally would dare already to disagree about the sophistication, etc. of this attack, based upon what information we already have available.

In the first instance, the principal weapons used by the terrorists appear to be automatic weapons including AK-47s or at least some variation of the Kalashnikov automatic rifle family. This class of firearm is the entry level weapon for both domestic and international terrorists and can be found just about anywhere around the world. Even my daughter has fired one!

The timing of the operation – apparently dusk or early nightfall – offered the attackers both a somewhat covered approach to their objective(s), especially if they did in fact arrive by boat. It also, in Mumbai, offered them a ‘target-rich’ environment. In such a situation, the presence of a large number of civilians offers numerous advantages to the terrorists:

1) multiple targets – the care of the wounded and the identification of the dead impose a major burden on the responding security forces;

2) potential hostages – the assembled civilians in the targeted streets, hotels, restaurants, etc., included a significant number of foreigners (especially UK, U.S., and even Israeli citizens who we understand already were clearly of greatest interest), but also the significant presence of wealthy and/or prominent Indian citizens;

3) cover and concealment – the presence of a large number of civilians offered the terrorists both a crowd within which to lose themselves and a shield that would impose constraints upon the responding security forces.

The multiple targets raise two somewhat contrary thoughts. The targeting of more than one location resulted in dispersal of the terrorists’ numbers vice concentrating their entire force upon a specific target or targets in close proximity from which the terrorists would be able to support each other against responding security forces. On the other hand, the dispersal of targets and the terrorists spread wider panic and forced the security forces to also spread their responding strength. To my mind, along with the absence of masks or any other concealment of the attackers’ identities, this dispersal also supports that as some pundits have already suggested – this group was fully prepared to die in the execution of this attack having maximized the confusion, panic, and physical damage they could create.

The different attacks were not literally simultaneous, according to the timelines so far appearing from Indian and other media sources, although the coordination is evident. The weapons are pretty much the entry level terrorist arsenal of automatic weapons and grenades, and while I would defer to the Indian soldiers who have discussed this, learning the proper use of these weapons is not that difficult for even the average person (or else armies around the world would look very different than they do.). Even the rubber boats (if in fact part of the operation) are available for recreational use in many places around the world.

The one real surprise is that the terrorists were able to plan this attack and raise and equip the force that carried it out without anyone apparently recognizing that this was coming. The Indian security forces were clearly not prepared to prevent this specific attack or anything like it. That part of the terrorists’ operation was reasonably sophisticated – the rest of their operation reflects tactics that can be learned from any of a number of books readily available in public libraries, online, or even in book stores (I have a number of them on my own shelves). They can also be learned from a number of computer/video combat or shooting games – or even via practice with paintball or similar amusements. There are also a number of online sources for overhead imagery that may have facilitated the planning of the attack – assuming that the terrorists didn’t use the old-fashioned technique of actually walking over the ground and checking out the local streets and alley ways. None of the photos of the terrorists so far shown by the media suggest that any of these individuals would have stood out from the crowd if they had been scouting out the area before the attack.

Pending the receipt of that further information I mentioned above, my money right now is on a the attack being the work of indigenous South Asians (Pakistani and/or Indian Muslims) who have been in contact with Al Qaeda. That contact may have taken any of several forms, but it is entirely possible that no more than one or two members of the responsible group, if that many, has had any direct, personal contact with Al Qaeda or its agents.

The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same -

As is now clear to everyone, this year’s Presidential election has produced unprecedented change in America. There is no question that it is an important change, but I was glad to see that the President-elect and the people around him appear to understand the immensity of the challenge now facing them. They are reportedly already talking about how this new team must act quickly but not hastily. After all, there remain divisions within the country. Their words brought to mind one of my favorite aphorisms borrowed from the Russian general Alexander Suvorov – “Speed is essential, haste harmful.”

In a moment of irony, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s cold reaction to the U.S. election made clear one of the reasons for this new administration to want to move with speed. It appeared as if Russia, out of all the nations of the world, remains determined to play the game of international relations by the old rules. The reality is that many of these old rules remain in place and it is imperative that Americans and particularly the new Obama Administration recognize this fact. However important and significant Obama’s election is much of the world around us remains the same.

We don’t know much about how the President-elect will actually lead and govern the country. As a recovering American apparatchik who voted for Obama, I am still anxious about his apparent lack of knowledge of how the U.S. government works and where the buttons and levers are. The best news is that unlike the current resident of the White House, Obama clearly is an intelligent thoughtful man capable of changing his mind when information is brought to him that compels such a response. Also, by the mere fact of his election he has changed the domestic political equation to greatly reduce (note that I do no say eliminate) race from our domestic debate – and abroad his election has revalidated the previously widely held and sometimes rather romantic view that America is truly a nation of hope and opportunity – Too bad Ronald Reagan isn’t alive to offer some benediction on the event as I think he would recognize it.

Our greatest hope must be that Obama doesn’t squander the good feelings, that he acts on his intention and his demonstrated ability to bring people together, and creates an administration that will not swing to the extremes. This includes the requirement that he really extends a hand and lends an ear to the Republicans in Congress while the Democratic leadership on the Hill avoid the past excesses committed by both parties on the Hill. The challenge for the Republicans as they work to rebuild their party – or find a new political home – is to decide what principles they represent and how to work with the Obama administration in a way that reflects and embodies those principles instead of projecting an image of their party as the ultimate ugly guest at the ball.

That’s the best I can do for you this morning. After all, it’s all speculation now. President-elect Barack Obama actually has to start doing things before we can really be sure that we know who he is and what his election means.

“Surtout, pas trop de zele” – Above all, not too much zeal

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (1754-1838) was a man of many accomplishments – among them cleric, diplomat, statesman, aristocrat, revolutionary, and imperialist. He is considered by many the most accomplished European diplomat of his age, with a diplomatic career that began with his mission to London in January 1792 to persuade Great Britain to remain neutral as revolutionary France battled the rest of Europe. His final diplomatic achievement was the 1834 conclusion of a formal alliance among Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France. Nevertheless, he is most often remembered today for the many epigrams attributed to him, of which my favorite is “Surtout, pas trop de zele,” often translated as “Above all, not too much zeal." By this phrase, Talleyrand was reportedly reminding his diplomatic subordinates that decisions about war, peace, and the nation’s security must be based upon the exercise of cool-headed reason and not upon emotions or any waxing or waning popular enthusiasm.

Talleyrand’s words came back to me recently as I listened to both presumptive-presidential candidates outlining their views on national security issues and declaring what their future decisions would be with regard to war and peace in different circumstances. Personally, the experience acquired over my diplomatic career leads me to generally disregard such commitments. Statements made in the heat of a political election campaign cannot help but suffer from a surfeit of zeal, intended as they often are to pander to the perceived enthusiasms of all or a part of the electorate.

The United States has had past experiences with the harmful impact of enthusiasms on political-military decision-making. I, for one, want to believe that the next President of the United States will ponder any decisions about peace, war, national security, and the future of the nation with a cool and rational consideration of the merits of the issue at hand – and not by trying to remember what promise he may have made on the campaign trail.

"For what we are about to receive..."

The above noted fragment comes from a blessing that has been used (with variations) at mealtime for hundreds of years. I imagine that in its original un-ironic sense, this prayer was uttered at many a Thanksgiving table this past week. I remember it from reading the adventures of Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, and others as a half prayer/half joke uttered by seamen of Britain’s Royal Navy just before the guns of an enemy ship would send several hundred pounds of metal hurtling toward them.

In this ironic sense, it may have also been on the minds of the volunteers the State Department found for those 48 jobs in Iraq that need to be filled during the coming year. In case you hadn’t heard, members of the Foreign Service did step forward and volunteer for these positions. There probably won’t be anywhere near as much attention paid to this news as was paid to the report that the State Department had previously put the Foreign Service on notice that these positions would be filled by ‘directed assignment’ if volunteers were not identified. That means that the Department was threatening to send the ‘press gangs’ through the corridors in order to shanghai the required number of personnel. I am confident that from Secretary Rice down to individual Personnel Officers, the Department’s management is grateful that such extreme measures were not necessary (though we don’t yet know if any of the volunteers might now be able to discuss the merits and of water-boarding as a means of persuasion).

It is probably true that this would have been the first time since the Vietnam War that the Department would have filled positions via directed non-voluntary assignment. However, it is not the first time since the end of that war that the Department reminded Foreign Service employees of such a possibility. All members of the Foreign Service join with a stated commitment that they are available for assignment anywhere, anytime – worldwide availability. In reality, this commitment has not prevented some officers from spending little to no time outside of Washington, DC, or plum assignments in Western Europe. During my own thirty years of service, the Department made repeated efforts to convince personnel that the assignment process was fair and ensured that everyone had their share of both plush and hardship posts. When Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State, such an effort was given the unfortunate name of “GLobal Opportunity Program” and the officers thus selected to leave Europe for the underdeveloped world were christened “GLOP-ees.”

The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought to center stage the question of personal safety and security for Foreign Service personnel serving abroad. When I joined the Foreign Service in 1973, the Department had just lost two officers killed by Palestinian terrorists in Sudan. Those deaths brought to over 100 the number of names on a memorial plaque commemorating members of the Foreign Service who died while serving abroad. Those two officers, Cleo Allen Noel, Jr., and George Curtis Moore, are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Today there are two plaques in the C Street lobby of the State Department building in Washington http://www.afsa.org/plaquelist.cfm bearing the names of 225 members of the Foreign Service who died while on service abroad. The related guidelines have changed since 1973 so the entries are no longer strictly chronological, but the plaques include the names of 71 individuals who died from 1973 to 2007.

The official U.S. government (USG) position on the protection of its diplomatic/consular personnel and facilities abroad is based upon international law and on the agreements that govern diplomatic and consular activity, which make it clear that their security is the responsibility of their host governments. However, while the USG will rarely say so publicly, the protection provided by host governments has frequently failed in the face of terrorists or of angry crowds of their own citizens.

The Department of State has taken and continues to take steps to protect its employees and its physical plant or facilities, as well as the sensitive information to which it has access. The Department’s Division of Security, or DS, did not exist in 1973 in the robust incarnation that it presents to the world today. The Department also requires all personnel going abroad on assignment to undergo several days of security-related training before they leave. However, DS cannot provide bodyguards for every employee abroad, and the question of issuing personal firearms to American diplomats for self-defense is so surrounded with questions of legal liability, international law, host government laws, and the terrible international public image it would create that the possibility is never even seriously raised.

The Departments of State and Defense (DoD) had repeated discussions over my own 30 years’ service about the possibility of using military personnel to provide security for State facilities and personnel abroad. The response has always been, and I believe continues to be, “No,” other than the ongoing and highly successful Marine Corps’ Embassy Security Guard program. DoD rightly argues that it does not have sufficient personnel for such duties, that most military personnel are trained for combat not for security duties, and that such added duties would draw military personnel from other critical missions and duties.

The facts of the matter are clear. The Foreign Service has always been a career accompanied by real risks and confronted by some very real threats. This is even more so in this 21st Century world. It is up to the individual to recognize this and decide what to do about it, including considering the possibility that this not a career they wish to pursue. For its part, the Department’s management is obligated to discuss the risks and threats frankly and fully with all personnel and potential employees; to take every practical precautionary measure to assure the safety and security of Foreign Service personnel while still allowing them to pursue their duties effectively; and most importantly that means the Department must ensure that every member of the Foreign Service is adequately trained and prepared to confront the threats – both real and potential - with every possible chance of success. Those sailors I mentioned at the beginning of this blog fully recognized that their given (if not chosen) trade entailed serious risks including injury and even death. Their half-jesting prayer was an acknowledgement of the realities of their world and a declaration that they would meet those challenges head on. As even Defense Secretary Gates recently acknowledged, the United States is in greater need than ever of the skills, talents, and dedication of its Foreign Service than ever in its history. What the members of the Foreign Service need from us is the moral, physical, and fiscal means necessary to enable them to effectively work as their service to the nation takes them in harm’s way. “For what we are about to receive….. “

Washington Looks at its Cards, Moscow Looks at the Board

I remember when I was an undergraduate, my Russian History professor offered the observation – even then a cliché – that Americans played poker while Russians played chess. The ‘truth’ within this epigram was that Americans tended to play for the short term, thinking only of the current hand, knowing that the deck would get reshuffled and play would start again; while the Soviet Union (led principally by Russians) played for the long-term win, looking ahead two, three, or even five or six turns ahead – meaning also ahead of the Americans. During my State Department career, I had several opportunities to observe that – as with most clichés – this one held a kernel of truth.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire in the early 1990s, the United States and the new Russian Federation recognized that without the burden of ideological rivalry the life-and-death struggle of the Cold War had ended. The two countries looked increasingly like partners as the 20th Century came to an end. However, Moscow learned, as have London, Paris, Bonn, and other friendly capitols, that Washington does not allow partnerships to prevent it from acting unilaterally when it considers action necessary, especially post 9/11.

The Bush Administration came into office with several goals that directly affected this emerging partnership, including, for example, winning a free hand to pursue a modernized nuclear deterrent more relevant to the post-Cold War world by reducing or eliminating related arms control commitments. Resulting U.S.-Russian frictions were compounded by disagreements over such issues as trade, technology transfer, Russia’s World Trade Organization membership, NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries and former parts of the Soviet Union (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the Balkans conflict, Iraq, and U.S. concerns at Russian actions in its relations with the new independent states that had been part of the Soviet Union.

One U.S. goal that was achieved was the elimination of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which was considered an obstacle to the desired national missile defense system aimed at the growing missile threat from Third World countries such as Iraq, North Korea, and Iran – among others. The U.S. announced its withdrawal from the treaty in December 2001. Since then work has proceeded on the missile defense system and the U.S. has been discussing with friendly governments where to place system launch units, warning radars, command and control centers and other components.

Various locations in Europe have been mentioned for the launchers, including the UK and Poland. As proposed launcher sites neared its borders, Russia escalated its public objections. Moscow claimed that the U.S. system is actually intended to counter Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrence. It was also rumored that Moscow would walk away from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that eliminated a whole class of shorter range NATO-Warsaw Pact missiles. Since the range of these weapons limited them to use in Europe, this may have been an attempt to dissuade Washington’s European allies from participating in the project.

The United States holds a pretty strong hand on these issues. The achievement of a functioning missile defense system is primarily a matter of time, resources, money, and determination. The U.S. holds most of these in abundance – only its determination is subject to question as Presidential administrations come and go. By contrast, without the resources of the former Soviet Union at its command, the Russian Federation cannot compete with the United States in any hypothetical arms race – even with a strong, healthy economy.

Having read (or counted) the cards – Moscow has announced that it may suspend its obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Agreement. Signed in 1990, the CFE treaty includes restrictions on the size, makeup, and deployment of NATO and Warsaw Pact member conventional (non-nuclear) military forces in Europe from the Atlantic Ocean to Russia’s Ural Mountains with the goal of limiting each side’s ability to launch a surprise conventional attack. The treaty is supported by a system of mutual inspections in which personnel from the signatory countries visit each other’s military installations to verify compliance.

The CFE treaty has been a sore spot for the Russian Federation because its terms continue to limit Russian deployment of conventional military forces and because the U.S. and other Western countries have invoked its terms in connection with the presence of Russian military forces in the Caucasus (Georgia in particular) and in Moldova. Adjustments to the Treaty were agreed upon by all parties in Istanbul in 1996, but the NATO countries refuse to ratify this Adapted Treaty until Russian forces are withdrawn from Moldova and Georgia where their presence is considered a treaty violation. So, as the U.S. is perceived in Moscow as having raised the ante by discussing the possible deployment of anti-missile interceptors in Poland, Russia has responded by advancing Queen’s Rook to a4 (or QR4).



"When an escaped prisoner looks for a guard, he always finds one."
Klingon Proverb (Star Trek)