Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Man Alone Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Is it just me but don't you get the sense these are some lonely days for Barack Obama in the White House Situation Room.

Every day it seems comes a new "leak" that the President is on the verge of sending between 30,000 and 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. First came McClatchy over the weekend saying 34,000. Then CBS News said that McChrystal was going to get close to his request of 40,000 troops for the fight. Now the New York Times is reporting that Secretary of State Clinton, Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen are all pushing for 30,000. Now perhaps this is an elaborate means of showing how tough the President is when he stands up to hisadvisors and only sends 10,000 or 20,000 troops, but it sure doesn't feel that way (but a boy can dream). Instead, it feels like the proponents of escalation in Afghanistan are doing the same thing they tried to do over the summer: using a pliant news media to force the President's hand on troop increases.

It's a crying shame, because if Elisabeth Bumiller and David Sanger are to be believed, President Obama is asking all the right question about the potential downsides of a military escalation and in particular a counter-insurgency operation:

Officials said that although the president had no doubt about what large numbers of United States troops could achieve on their own in Afghanistan, he repeatedly asked questions during recent meetings on Afghanistan about whether a sizable American force might undercut the urgency of the preparations of the Afghan forces who are learning to stand up on their own.

“He’s simply not convinced yet that you can do a lasting counterinsurgency strategy if there is no one to hand it off to,” one participant said.

Well sure there is that. And it's truly bizarre to read that the Obama White House is openly deriding Afghan President Karzai at the same time that it is considering a long-term commitment to Afghanistan that will basically prop up his corrupt regime - and seek to extend its writ across the country. The issue is far less one of when the ANA will be ready; but whether the Afghan government can lend civilian support to a counter-insurgency operation. Indeed, a chuckled mordantly the other day when I was re-reading AntonioGuistozzi's " Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop" and he noted that in Kunar the Taliban insurgency was less potent because the lack of a government presence "was not able to antagonize local communities." Ladies and Gentlemen: your Afghan government!

Indeed the very questions being asked by President Obama seem to go to the heart of the problems in instituting a counter-insurgency strategy:

Mr. Obama, officials said, has expressed similar concerns about Pakistan’s willingness to attack Taliban leaders who are operating out of the Pakistani city of Quetta and commanding forces that are mounting attacks across the border in Afghanistan. While Pakistan has mounted military operations against some Taliban groups in recent weeks, one official noted, “it’s been focused on the Taliban who are targeting the Pakistani government, but not those who are running operations in Afghanistan

Perhaps someone could explain this to the Washington Post Ed Board or any other joker who continues to conflate the Pakistani Taliban with the Afghan Taliban. But clearly the continued presence of Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan will undermine US efforts to defeat the Taliban - particularly in the South. It really makes one wonder why so many of the president's top advisors are so fervently recommending more troops for Afghanistan, in pursuit of a mission that seems so fraught with problems and seemingly is such a long-shot to succeed.

Of course, as Spencer notes, it would also be nice if a single person in the Administration were advocating for troop reductions - or perhaps making the case that our presence in Afghanistan actually bolsters the insurgency and harms US interests. Instead the template seems to me more troops and a counter-insurgency approach.  With the military furiously pushing both - and leaking that view to the major dailies on a daily basis - I suppose this shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but it doesn't make it any less depressing.

Stuart Bowen's Inspired Idea Posted by Michael Cohen

In a statement that may not come as a huge surprise to regular readers of DA I'm a bit of a policy wonk so when I see innovative ideas like the recent one floated by Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraqis Reconstruction, I become quite pleased - particularly since I sort of made this recommendation in a report I did last spring. Courtesy of Spencer, here are the goods:

Bowen, acting with the institutional power of his government office, SIGIR, is circulating a draft proposal to create a new civilian office for wars like Afghanistan and Iraq that would report jointly to the Departments of State and Defense. . . Bowen believes that a single agency, which he analogizes to an “international FEMA,” ought to be the single civilian point-of-contact with the military if the United States is to avoid future wartime coordination fiascoes. He calls it, in typical Washington acronym-ese, USOCO –the U.S. Office for Contingency Operations.

Now regular readers of DA are more than familiar with my general view of future wartime fiascoes (even current ones) but in the event of future misadventures (or even current ones) this is a smart management and operational response. As we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military lacks the core competency to do post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction; and the civilian agencies (like State and AID) lack the basic capacity and resources to do the job. Moreover, in Iraq and Afghanistan the lack of communication between different agencies and proper allocation of responsibilities has created all sorts of problems.

But the alluring part of this proposal is not necessarily its impact on post-conflict operations; its the very idea that roles and responsibilities in the national security bureaucracy should be more effectively delineated. Back in the Spring I co-authored a report that pointed out the shambles that is our foreign assistance bureaucracy:

The continued existence of overlapping programs and agendas, as well as the failure to match actors with specific assistance responsibilities, is part of the reason that confusion so regularly defines the foreign assistance bureaucracy.

But the problem runs even deeper. Consistently - and particularly in times of war - short-term U.S. national interests take precedence over more long-term development objectives. In the 1960s and 1970s the lion’s share of development assistance funding went to Vietnam. In the last seven years, Iraq and Afghanistan have received the majority of foreign assistance. As late as 2005, 80 percent of the democracy
promotion budget for the Middle East went to Iraq.  Today, more U.S. foreign aid is going to post-conflict transitions - and other venues in the war on terrorism - than to peaceful and fledgling democracies.

Taking post-conflict stabilization responsibilities away from AID and State would hopefully allow these agencies to focus on the long-term diplomatic and development agendas that are supposed to define their policy agenda (don't get me started on the whole idea of having the civilian response corps housed at State).  If I had my way, I'd create a separate agency for humanitarian and disaster relief - separate from AID - because after all humanitarian assistance is NOT development work. I think even having separate agencies for doling out development assistance and democracy promotion wouldn't be the worst idea either.

Still, specialization - even at risk of fostering nasty turf battles - is a course worthy of consideration. To be sure the proposal is not perfect. For example, the idea of giving the agency dual loyalty to State and DoD seems like a bad idea - not only potentially unworkable but almost certainly destined to be either undermined or usurped by the Pentagon.

Not surprisingly, however, the biggest criticism of the idea comes from those who believe that there isn't much "appetite for creating a new organization.” Of course, they're right. But look, America's civilian agencies are screwed up beyond all recognition; they were created for a different world, a different America and a different set of challenges. They are not pigs on which to apply lipstick. Serious, institutional change is long overdue.  I wouldn't define USOCO as all that radical, but it's a step in the right direction.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Barack "Baines" Obama Version Posted by Michael Cohen

If the New York Times is to be believed things don't look good on the Afghanistan front:

Advisers to President Obama are preparing three options for escalating the war effort in Afghanistan, all of them calling for more American troops, as he moves closer to a decision on the way forward in the eight-year-old war, officials said Saturday. The options include Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for roughly another 40,000 troops; a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops; and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Officials hope to present the options to Mr. Obama this week before he leaves on a trip to Asia. While some civilian and military officials believe Mr. Obama is seeking a middle ground in the debate over Afghanistan, aides denied he has made any decision or is leaning toward any of the options.

There are a lot of things to chew over here. First, let's discard the silly notion that 40,000 troops, or even 30,000 troops, entails a "middle ground" option. The high end on troop levels appears to be 80,000 - but that was never a realistic option, from either a military or political standpoint. So 40,000 was always the high end: and now it looks like McChrystal may get as many as 34,000 - if McClatchy is to be believed. Let's not be fooled on this: if the President sends between 30,000 and 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan it's the high end, not some amorphous middle ground.

The second problem is that troop level decisions are not like ordering off of a Chinese menu; they have to be twinned with a political and military strategy that has a hope of success. But instead to read today's Times article is to see a "strategy" that seems to be a combination of half-baked COIN tactics that seem destined for failure:

Troop levels would hinge, for instance, on the administration’s assessment of how many former Taliban fighters can be peacefully reintegrated into Afghan society and to what extent improved governance at various levels could prevent disaffected Afghans from siding with insurgents.

Officials are focusing on an approach predicated on the belief that the Taliban cannot be entirely eradicated in Afghanistan and that Al Qaeda is the real threat to American interests. The main goal for American forces, then, would be to protect the 10 most important population centers in Afghanistan and keep the Taliban isolated long enough to train Afghan security forces to take over the fight.

This reads to me like a dangerous mismatch. The main goal of US forces will be to protect population centers, which I have to assume means a lighter military footprint in engaging with the Taliban. This is very much at pace with General McChystal's "hearts and minds" strategy of protecting the population and reducing civilian casualties. But how exactly are we going to convince Taliban fighters to integrate themselves into Afghan society when they are feeling diminished military pressure from the United States? What's their incentive to switch sides?

And why do we believe that improved governance alone - devoid of any sort of coercive techniques - will convince the population to side with the government, particularly if ISAF is basically abandoning the rural population to protect Afghan cities?  After all the Taliban has been a largely rural insurgency - wouldn't minimizing foot patrols and focusing instead on protecting the cities actually give the Taliban more breathing space?

Finally, where in a counter-insurgency fight has the application of good governance alone diminished the potency of an insurgency? It hasn't. I think Bing West sums this up well in his recent Afghanistan Trip Report: "A rural population - no matter how content with the government - cannot stand up to a tough enemy." What works in a counter-insurgency - in cleaving the population away from an insurgent force - are generally policies that feature a healthy level of coercion and violence. Check out Malaya, Kenya, Algeria, Iraq and Vietnam is you don't believe me. I'm not advocating such an approach, but at the very least we should be honest about the potential success of a carrot-based approach.

Along these lines, I was struck by something National Security Advisor Jim Jones said in a recent interview with Der Spiegel:

What's really important in Afghanistan is that with this new administration we insist on good governance, that it be coordinated with economic development and security, and that we have much, much better success at handing over responsibility for these three things to the Afghans.

Sure limiting corruption and improving governance is important, but what possible leverage does the Obama Administration and NATO have over President Karzai to act on this agenda if we're about to announce a decision to send 30-40,000 more troops to his country? To be completely honest, I don't care all that much if Karzai is corrupt, so long as he is supporting the US mission and improving the Kabul government's basic capacity. He appears as incapable of doing the latter as he is at ending the former.

Everything I read coming out of this White House review seems to be more and more confusing; there are lots of tactical discussion, lots of questions about troop levels, but I'm seeing a lot less on putting in place a strategy that makes sense, furthers US interests and has a good shot of actually succeeding. Why does this whole review make me feel like the White House is simply muddling through, looking for a "strategy" that will move the ball forward, but won't take the mission any closer to resolution?

Let's be very clear on one point: sending 30-40,000 troops is not a half measure. It represents a serious and ramped-up commitment to Afghanistan that will almost certainly mean the maintenance of a US troop presence there through much of Obama's presidency. It will take months to get that many troops on the ground - and then military commanders will almost certainly demand 12-18 months to test the effectiveness of the new "strategy." That bring us into 2011, even 2012 and a potential re-election campaign.  In short, a commitment like the one that Obama is considering will come to dominate his presidency - and in time directly impact the domestic and foreign policy agenda he was actually elected to put in place. And that impact will not be positive. Making that sort of commitment without a clear strategy for success, without a partner on the ground that can be relied upon and without an exit strategy only increases the risk.

Think long and hard about this Mr. President. Once you take this genie out of the bottle, it ain't gonna be so easy to put it back.

Strategery for Israel, Iran, Af-Pakistan, and the Test Ban Posted by David Shorr

[With apologies for the truly awful rhymes in the title.]

I wanted to offer a compendium of pieces that have caught my eye in the past couple months, all with the common theme of offering strategic approaches to a number of the knottiest problems on the current agenda.

Speaking of knotty challenges, let's start with Israel and Palestine. This Daniel Levy piece from Foreign Policy portrayed Obama as being quite canny in facing down Netanyahu over settlements. The argument is that making a stand on settlements undercut Netanyahu's game of offering bite-sized confidence building measures. Made a lot of sense to me when I read it; don't know if the theory still holds after recent events.

[UPDATE: I found Levy's update on Obama's Mideast peace strategy just after posting this. He acknowledges the damage done by the administration's recently softened stance, and faults them especially for not plotting their next more more carefully. Levy doesn't see all hope as lost, however, and believes it will still be possible for Obama to seize the initiative.]

On AfPak, Christian Brose & Daniel Twining had an interesting article in the Weekly Standard. Their analysis focuses on the Pakistan Army as the region's pivotal player. Pressuring Taliban forces militarily and politically from the Afgah side of the border would change the Pakistan Army's regional geopolitical calculations, the argument goes. Tracing back to Bosnia and Kosovo and the importance of driving a wedge between Russia and Milosevic, I tend to think these calculations are important.

And then on Iran, Meir Javedanfar gave a very clear explanation over on Real Clear World of the fragile and endangered deal with Iran over its enriched uranium. His bottom line is that the Obama Administration should reject proposed Iranian revisions to the deal, just as Hillary Clinton ended up doing the other day. As a general matter, I'd note that the idea of mutual bargains such as this deal is fundamental to the Obama approach to foreign policy. My Stanley Foundation colleague Mike Kraig refers to these kinds of solutions as the "balance of interests" rather than a balance of power.

Last but not least we have the vital matter of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. A recent NYTimes op-ed by Carnegie Endowment President Jessica Mathews walked through the international politics of the treaty (particularly its ratification) and its importance for preserving the nuclear nonproliferation norm.
 

Interests, Responsibilities, and Persuasion Posted by David Shorr

I really liked Scot Wilson's WaPo piece yesterday on President Obama's foreign policy worldview. The article highlights what I consider the United States' central foreign policy challenge: getting other nations moving in the direction we desire. As NSC communications strategist Ben Rhodes put it, if nations were already inclined to live up to their responsibilities, "this would be easy."

Wilson collected comments from a good variety of foreign policy mandarins, but I have to quibble with part of a quote from someone I admire tremendously, Lee Hamilton. I don't agree with a description he gave of Obama's approach -- that the president is putting "a lot of faith in his persuasiveness." The narrative of persuasion is one of the great misconceptions of this debate.

The diplomacy of shared interests and responsibilities isn't an attempt to overcome skepticism via mesmerizing rhetoric and the force of our arguments. The administration isn't waiting for the Iranian government to tell us "you're right, our uranium enrichment is bad for global security." In a case like Iran, the real objective of tough-minded diplomacy is to offer a stark choice between cooperation and continued pressure from a unified front of powerful nations, as Secretary Clinton stressed in rejecting Iran's attempt to reopening the nuclear deal (via Politico).
 
With respect to gaining the cooperation of others more broadly (including to maintain pressure on Iran), my own tack is to ask what the alternative is. If the only hope for international cooperation lies in those areas where traditional national self-interests converge, this would all be easy. More to the point, international politics as usual would leave many problems -- nuclear proliferation, global warming, poverty, Israel-Palestine -- on a very negative trajectory.

It shouldn't take a lot of enlightenment to see the enlightened self-interests on these issues. A little statesmanship is all we're asking. After all, that's why they're called world leaders.

Irony of the Day: Burma Edition Posted by David Shorr

Just heard on NPR this morning about plans for a "general election" in Myanmar.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Hyman Roth Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Hamid Karzai is a gangster.

What else can you say about the guy? He goes and basically tries to steal the first round of the Afghanistan presidential election - the UN, NATO and the US freaks out and demands he stand for a runoff with Abdullah Abdullah (precisely how far do you think John Kerry had to twist that arm to get Karzai to agree to this) so that he will seem like a legitimate and credible leader.

Karzai agrees, but makes perfectly clear that he is simply going to steal the runoff (the announcement last week by the election commission that they would open more polling locations, which the UN had adamantly asked him them not to do was a pretty clear indication). Abdullah seeing the handwriting on the wall, backs out, the Election Commission plays along (stranding yours truly - who was on his way to Kabul - in Dubai) and now every Western leader is falling over themselves to label Karzai the "legitimate" president of Afghanistan.

Karzai played this beautifully. To make matters even better for him the United States expended what little political leverage they have over the guy in getting him to agree to a run-off. How'd that work out?

In fact, you really have to love this quote from today's New York Times story:

President Obama on Monday admonished President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan that he must take on what American officials have said he avoided during his first term: the rampant corruption and drug trade that have fueled the resurgence of the Taliban.

As Mr. Karzai was officially declared the winner of the much-disputed presidential election, Mr. Obama placed a congratulatory call in which he asked for a “new chapter” in the legitimacy of the Afghan government.

What he is seeking, Mr. Obama told reporters afterward, is “a sense on the part of President Karzai that, after some difficult years in which there has been some drift, that in fact he’s going to move boldly and forcefully forward and take advantage of the international community’s interest in his country to initiate reforms internally. That has to be one of our highest priorities.”

I'm sure Hamid will get right on that. We Americans are just adorable - adorable I tell you! Along these lines, an additional shout out to Spencer for finding this precious quote from an administration official in another Times story:

“We’re going to know in the next three to six months whether he’s doing anything differently — whether he can seriously address the corruption, whether he can raise an army that ultimately can take over from us and that doesn’t lose troops as fast as we train them."

Adorable! Meanwhile before those 3-6 months are up this Administration will have likely decided to send even more troops to Afghanistan (i.e. exactly what Karzai wants us to do) basically erasing whatever leverage we have left over the guy to "seriously address" corruption. Why does anyone in this Administration - after watching Karzai steal an election and play the US and NATO like a fiddle - think he will do anything seriously different going forward, especially when we've offered no indication that we intend to cut him or Afghanistan loose?

Perhaps this should lead to  a recognition that we simply don't have the host country support to do an actual counter-insurgency. I mean if this isn't an indication that those feverish dreams of COIN dancing in the heads of policymakers are have little basis in reality then I give up. How can you fight an counter-insurgency when not only is the Afghan government illegitimate, and incompetent, but seemingly impervious to real NATO and US persuasion?

In the end, It seems to me that if you want to get Karzai's attention the best place to start would be to show him you're actually serious about changing course if change isn't forthcoming.  And along those lines we have one piece of leverage that we can use - the number of American soldiers that we are willing to throw into the fire on behalf of this government. It's about time we used it. It's about the only card we have left.

Ret. STRATCOM Commander Supports Obama's Nonpro Agenda Posted by James Lamond

Retired General Eugene Habiger (USAF) has a great op-ed in The Hill. Gen. Habiger is one of the military's most experienced nuclear experts.  He was, among other impressive posts, Commander in Chief of United States Strategic Command, where he was responsible for the military strategic nuclear weapons and supporting the national security strategy of strategic deterrence.

Some highlights from his op-ed:

President Obama took some bold steps when he spoke at the United Nations last month.  Like every president since Truman, he understands the consequences of miscalculation and complacency in the nuclear age.  He warned, “If we fail to act, we will invite nuclear arms races in every region, and the prospect of wars and acts of terror on a scale that we can hardly imagine.”

I could not agree with him more. For most of my military career, I worked in the nuclear weapons arena, first as a crew member on a B-52 bomber as bomb squadron commander, then as a commander of two nuclear bomb wings; the Inspector General of the Strategic US Air Command and finally the Strategic Command.  As commander-in-chief of STRATCOM, I was responsible for all U.S. nuclear forces supporting our nation’s security through strategic deterrence, and was the president’s top military advisor on these issues.

 

I know from my unique experience that in order to keep our military strong and our country safe, we need to rethink the role nuclear weapons play in our national security and defense strategies in the radically different post-Cold War environment of the 21st century. 

 

This is not a partisan issue.  This is about keeping the American people safe, and it is long overdue.  While we have made some progress in the twenty years since the end of the Cold War, over 20,000 nuclear weapons remain in the possession of nine nations around the world.  While numbers like these brought comfort to some at an earlier time, in our post-9/11 world they have the potential to bring grave danger to all.  Aggressive steps to reduce these weapons will help prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.   While we have a long road ahead of us, I am cautiously optimistic that we can achieve this goal.    

Another important point that he makes, that often gets ignored by those who do not closely follow the debate, is that nonproliferation efforts are in keeping with traditional American foreign policy.  

To some President Obama’s remarks at the United Nations on arms control and nonproliferation may have seemed new.  Yet the drive towards a nuclear weapons-free world is almost as old as the bombs themselves.  And as threats have evolved and the strategic landscape has shifted, a growing sentiment in the national security establishment has made possible a new approach for the 21st century. 

And he rightly calls on congress to pass on a the both the START follow-on and CTBT:

A critical part of moving forward will be support from home.  With the very security of our nation at stake, the time for partisan games is over.  The recommendations of the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should reflect the operational necessities of today’s military.  And the Congress should prepare to work with the President on the follow-on to START and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. 

NOTE: I have been unable to find the original article on The Hill website.  Will update with a link as soon as I find it.

President Obama Must Take the Lead on Climate Finance Posted by The Editors

By Nancy Soderberg and Francesco Femia.  

There's another financial crisis on the horizon -- the climate financial crisis. Working towards the global meeting in Copenhagen this December, the UN's climate negotiations are teetering on the brink of failure. The elephant in the room of these negotiations is how to pay for a global agreement -- and who will pick up the tab.

If the administration does not get ahead of Congress and commit now to financing a global deal on climate change, negotiations will fail. And the cost of inaction and certain failure will be much higher than the cost of action. Once a tipping point is reached, we will face a human and financial catastrophe that will make this recession seem like a golden age of prosperity. And unlike our economy, once the damage is done, the climate will not rebound with a bailout package.

The challenge boils down to this: the developed world -- responsible for today's crisis -- must help pay the costs for the developing world to do the right thing. Those catching up to us -- China and India -- will have to participate too, but developed countries need to lead. The good news is that for $150 billion, the world can get far ahead of the problem. While the long terms costs are likely to be higher, this investment now will set the world on the right course.

At the September G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, leaders recognized the need to get the financing right by directing their Finance Ministers to report back at the next meeting in November with a range of possible options for climate change financing. They should recommend a global target for climate finance of at least $150 billion annually by 2020 - and commit the United States to funding 30% of that target, or $50 billion, through public financing. Roughly a third of this would be used to help the developing world adapt to the current effects of climate change, another third for helping poor nations adopt clean technologies, and the remainder for other mitigation objectives, such as energy efficiency and forest protection.

To be sure, in the wake of the current financial crisis, such funding will be politically difficult to obtain. Yet, we managed to find $15 trillion for bank bailouts and stimulus plans, $1.3 trillion in tax cuts, and one trillion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The investment in saving our planet is no less urgent a challenge. The risks to our national security are real, including natural disasters, political upheaval, and further instability in states that could harbor the next Osama Bin Laden. And again, there is some good news. It costs billions, not trillions, and possible sources of public financing already exist, including revenues from the auctioning of allowances under cap-and-trade mechanisms, current climate and energy legislation, bunker fuel mechanisms, and international carbon and currency transaction levies.

But perhaps the most cost-effective way to help the world adopt clean energy and adapt to the effects of climate change is to stop propping up the very industry we should move away from -- fossil fuels. The world's richest G20 economies spend an estimated $300 billion a year to subsidize the industry most responsible for global emissions. In other words -- we have the money, we're just using it the wrong way. Re-directing this money would generate double the amount needed for climate financing -- and it wouldn't cost us a dime. At the September G20 summit in Pittsburgh, leaders asked for a plan to phase out those subsidies, but they won't consider it until June of 2010.

That is too leisurely a pace.

President Obama should press for a plan to be in place before the Copenhagen meeting this December -- preferably by the end of the G20's Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting on November 6 and 7. In the meantime, he should move to end our own subsidies and instruct the U.S. agencies that currently provide fossil fuel subsidies internationally to do so, including the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Export Import Bank, and the Treasury Department which works through the World Bank. According to the Environmental Law Institute, this step alone would save us $72 billion, well more than what the United States needs to commit for its fair share of climate financing. Such transfers could break a major deadlock in the negotiations, and bring the developing world on board.

These are all ways to pay for a climate deal now - and at a much lower cost than doing it later. And such a move may be the only way to salvage the faltering Copenhagen negotiations. Should President Obama take the lead, the world will follow. And Congress just might as well.

Nancy Soderberg is a former US Ambassador to the United Nations and President of the Connect U.S. Fund, a consortium of six U.S. foundations promoting key foreign policy goals.

Francesco Femia is a Program Officer at the Connect U.S. Fund, where he focuses on climate and development issues.

This article is cross-posted with the Huffington Post.  The original article can be seen here.

Robert Kagan and Regime Change in Iran Posted by David Shorr

I've started posting on TPM Cafe as a regular blogger, with this post in response to Bob Kagan's WaPo op-ed yesterday. But there's more to say about the following passage at the end of Bob's piece:

The worst of it is that the Tehran regime is now desperately trying to buy time so it can regain full control of the country in the face of widespread anger after the fraudulent presidential elections in June and a still-vibrant Iranian opposition. For the clerics, an endless negotiating process is not merely a means of putting off any real concessions on its nuclear program. It is also, and more important, a way of putting off any Western sanctions that could produce new and potentially explosive unrest in their already unstable country.

To put it mildly, mixing the issues of the nuclear program and Iran's political turmoil is not helpful. In my other post I've already highlighted the distinction between holding off from seeking new sanctions and "an endless negotiating process." Now I want to stress the need to choose between two mutually exclusive policy goals: stopping Iran from getting the bomb or regime change. You simply can't pursue both at the same time.

The expression of people power after the June election fiasco was truly inspiring, and greater openness of the Islamic Republic is a thing to be hoped for. But apart from the problem of Iranian hard-liners exploiting any American involvement as a convenient excuse for their own repressive acts, there is a direct and inevitable trade-off between reaching a nuclear deal and holding out for different leaders. As a practical matter of domestic political reality, the turmoil could very likely push Iranian leaders to resolve the nuclear issue, but regardless of our sympathies, such politics is among the Iranians.

Just think about it. If you lead the Iranian government to believe that the United States' real objective is to remove them from power, won't they have good reason to doubt that cooperation on the nuclear program would earn them any benefit? What incentive is there to make a deal? And is Bob Kagan really saying that "potentially explosive unrest in [an] already unstable country" is a good thing?

You're a funny man, John McCain Posted by Patrick Barry

John McCain points out that "[f]or the first time since September 11, 2001, America is having a vigorous national debate about how to succeed in Afghanistan."  I'd point out that debating something is pretty hard when you're not paying attention to it. 

What Exactly Are Our Options in Afghanistan? Posted by Michael Cohen

I have a lot of respect for Stephen Biddle, who I think wrote one of the most cogent analyses of FM 3-24, the Army and Marine Counterinsurgency Manual. But on Afghanistan, I've been a bit more critical. There was his piece from the American Interest this past summer that I felt portrayed our options in Afghanistan in an overly simplistic manner.

Now he's written a piece for the New Republic that takes a similar approach, by portraying our options in Afghanistan as being a choice between full-fledged COIN and COIN half-measures. The folks at TNR asked me to draft a response to the article and you can read the full thing here. I've cut and pasted a short preview below:

In the summer, Biddle based his argument on the suspect notion that policymakers faced the choice of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan or prolonged American engagement. Now, Biddle's straw men are the disparate elements of a counter-insurgency operation, which he claims will fail on their own but which are likely to succeed if pursued in concert. But neitherfull-fledged COIN or so-called half measures are reflective of the diverse set of possible scenarios that the White House could andshould be considering. If anything, they only muddy the waters because neither strategy has a strong chance of succeeding or even being implemented.

Biddle claims that "integrated COIN offers a higher probability of success than any of the proposed middle ways; middle ways are cheaper, but also likelier to fail." Yet nothing in his article actually supports this argument. Biddle does not make the affirmative case for why a COIN mission would work; and he doesn't fully and faithfully engage with the alternative approaches for stabilizing Afghanistan and securing U.S. interests there. Quite simply, there is no evidence that the sum he embraces is greater than the parts he dismisses.

Obama and Honduras: principled stance leads to pragmatic moves Posted by The Editors

This post is by NSN intern Luis Vertiz

Reports indicate the Obama administration will be sending high level officials as envoys this week to meet with both factions in the continuing drama of the Honduran coup. The crisis started when President Manuel Zelaya was removed from office, to be replaced by Honduran congressman and interim President Roberto Micheletti. The envoy trip will be the first time the Obama administration will directly lead negotiations between the two sides, as efforts by the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and regional diplomats have thus far faltered. The sticking point during these negotiations has been whether or not to allow former President Zelaya to finish his term in office, which is set to end in January. Obama’s strategy has been to allow the negotiations to move forward without direct US involvement, while at the same time waiting for an opportunity to confer recognition of any possible consensus.

Two Guys Who Light The Menorah Debate COIN, Afghanistan and the Military Industrial Complex Posted by Michael Cohen

Judah Grunstein and I take about an hour over at Bloggingheads TV to debate the finer points of COIN (is it really warm and fuzzy?); US strategy in Afghanistan, the myth of American omnipotence (a favorite topic of mine) and the divergent reactions to Obama's Nobel here and in Europe, where Judah lives.

The funniest thing about this discussion is that after we finished taping we spent another half hour continuing our debate - and it was some pretty good material. But you'll have to wait for when we put out the collector's edition DVD. And if you hear some faint barking in the background that's my bulldog Ruby, who is a full-on COINdanista. She is none too happy with my writings and even has a framed picture of David Galula over her dogbowl.

Watch it here

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The What is CT Version? Posted by Michael Cohen

This paragraph from an otherwise pretty fascinating article on Afghanistan in the Wall Street Journal this weekend left me completely and utterly gobsmacked:

People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach -- prompting members of Mr. Biden's staff to step in and write the document themselves.

How is it possible that the US military, which has spent the past 8 years fighting a Global War on Terror (i.e. counter-terrorism) incapable of drafting a credible case for a CT approach in Afghanistan . . . for the President of the United States? Seriously, how is that possible? I suppose the smart ass answer would be that there is no credible case for a CT approach in Afghanistan. But of course that is silly; as Austin Long pointed out recently at FP.

But I really have to question the kind of military advice President Obama is getting  if they can't even tell him what a counter-terrorism strategy in Afghanistan would look like. Have they become so inculcated with COIN doctrine that they simply reject the very idea that a CT strategy can succeed in Afghanistan or elsewhere? And how is the President being served when he is not being presented with every possible military and political scenario in Afghanistan? Look, whether you support COIN or support CT, the bottom line is that if the military is being asked by the President to develop military options for Afghanistan they have a pretty significant obligation to do it - whether they agree or disagree with the approach. The fact that they can't or won't do it is pretty disconcerting.

Cheney's Host -- A Bit of Background Posted by David Shorr

The host of former Vice President Cheney's infamous speech this week was Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy. Not coincidentally, Mr. Gaffney has been a standard bearer for hard-line archconservatism going way back. To offer further context on where these guys are coming from, I feel compelled to give some historical background and recall the denouement of Gaffney's government service. Namely that Gaffney was ultimately too conservative for the Reagan Administration.

In Reagan's first term, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was the Dick Cheney figure, pushing for a confrontational policy toward the Soviet Union, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle played the role of David Addington in relentlessly steamrolling alternative internal views. Frank Gaffney was Perle's deputy. In essence, the Reagan Administration's first-term policy on nuclear weapons and arms control was a preview of the break-your-kneecaps bureaucratic operating style that Cheney subsequently perfected. [For a terrific chronicle of those times, see Strobe Talbott's Deadly Gambits. Talbott was the Jane Mayer of that time, though she also played that role herself back then.]

During his second term, Reagan shifted his policy toward pursuing arms control rather than eschewing it; he brought in a new defense secretary, Frank Carlucci, and out went Perle and Gaffney. One of the signs of our political times is that in contemporary terms, President Reagan would qualify as a moderate -- which is the difference between him and Vice President Cheney and Mr. Gaffney. (For some more recent examples of Frank Gaffney's radical pronouncements, see Salon.)

Romney's Day Old Talking Point Posted by Adam Blickstein

In an Op-Ed today in the Manchester Union-Leader, Mitt Romney regurgitates neocon talking points that he already regurgitated earlier this week at an AIPAC conference that were no doubt originally spoon fed into his mouth by Fred Kagan or one of his acolytes. I'm not going to rehash the idiocies of the Romney's varied and scattered arguments, but the problem with eating ones own vomit is that it just doesn't really taste the same the second time around. For instance, Romney said this at AIPAC on Monday:

When Poland and the Czech Republic are humiliated by us, they lose confidence in America’s support for them, and they may decide that they must incline more toward Russia.

And in his Op-Ed today, Romney stated:

When Poland and the Czech Republic are humiliated by us, they lose confidence in America's support for them, and they may decide that they must incline more toward Russia.

But while Romney was busy re-writing copy and pasting his AIPAC address into the pages of the Union-Leader, Joe Biden was in Poland holding high level meetings with the Polish Premier. The outcome?

...the Polish prime minister and president gave their backing to the scaled-down alternative. That was an achievement for Biden who will take his message to Romania and the Czech Republic.

Premier Donald Tusk signed on to President Barack Obama's revamped U.S. missile shield, declaring Poland ready to participate in the project, which is intended to counter threats from Iran.

"I want to stress that Poland views ... the new configuration for the missile shield as very interesting, necessary, and we are ready at the appropriate scale to participate," Tusk told reporters at a news conference with Biden.

The only thing humiliating is Mitt Romney not reading the news close enough to actually, you know, adapt his talking points to at least marginally reflect reality. We already had one President who was notorious for not reading the news. We can't afford another.

UPDATE: And of course, something Romney doesn't even mention is the fact that the strategic repositioning of our missile defense architecture is meant to enhance both security for Europe and Israel in the face of evolving threats, underscored by joint U.S. Israel defense exercises conducted this week:

A major air defense exercise launched with Israel this week will help the United States craft its European missile shield, a U.S. commander said on Thursday.

Signaling the strength of their alliance against what they say is a threat from Iran's nuclear program, Israeli and U.S. forces launched a biannual drill on Wednesday. Known as Juniper Cobra, it includes target practice against missiles, both real and in computer-simulated exercises.

War is Cruelty, You Cannot Refine It Posted by Michael Cohen

My colleagues at New America Foundation, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have an excellent new report out about the effects of the drone war against al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. For those of us who have been advocating for a ramping up of the US-led drone war it brings with it sobering news:

Since 2006, our analysis indicates, 82 U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan have killed between 750 and 1,000 people. Among them were about 20 leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied groups, all of whom have been killed since January 2008. 

It is not possible to differentiate precisely between militant and civilian casualties because the militants live among the population and don't wear uniforms, and because the militants have the incentive to claim that all the casualties were civilians, while government sources tend to claim the opposite. However, of those killed in drone attacks from 2006 through mid-October 2009, between 500 and 700 were described in reliable press reports as militants, or some 66 to 68 percent.

Based on our count of the estimated number of militants killed, the real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 250 to 320, or between 31 and 33 percent.

While these numbers suggest that the drone war has been successful in disrupting al Qaeda; the fact that one in three people killed by these attacks is an innocent civilian is clearly troubling. This raises all sorts of legal and moral issues about the killing of civilians.

Indeed one of the arguments made by supporters of a counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan is that those of us who are advocating a more counter terrorism/drone based approach are ignoring the potential price paid by civilians. (An argument made by Eli Lake's in a recent bloggingheads debate with fellow DA blogger Heather Hurlburt). Ignoring the fact, for a second, that my recommendation is actually for a decreased military footprint in Southern Afghanistan this is a false and misleading choice. Civilians die in all wars - counterterrorism missions or counter-insurgencies; and we should be completely honest about that point. But this question got me wondering a bit: should civilian casualties even be the primary prism by which we assess America's war fighting choices?

Part of the reason why we focus so directly on civilian losses is the new dominant COIN narrative that argues protecting civilians must take precedence because if civilians are killed indiscriminately it risks creating what David Kilcullen calls "accidental guerrillas."

But if the history of COIN shows us anything it is that counter-insurgencies are just as deadly as conventional wars and are always hard on civilians. From the Briggs plan in Malaya, which forcibly relocated half a million ethnic Chinese, and the detention policies and systematic use of torture that defined the Battle of Algiers to the sectarian cleansing that preceded the surge in Iraq in 2007 if there is one defining characteristic of COIN it is coercion and violence. A lot of "accidental guerrillas" were created in Malaya and Iraq and Kenya and even Algeria - and yet even FM 3-24 tells us that these were successful counterinsurgency operations. So the bottom line is that anyone who tells you that counterinsurgency is a warm and fuzzy way to fight a war is simply not telling the whole story.

In Afghanistan, however, the US military has bought into the warm and fuzzy argument; hook, line and sinker.  And it's bringing with it some troubling results. There is this story from Jonathan Landay about an ambush of US Marines that was perhaps made worse by rules of engagement (ROE) that place a premium on protecting civilian lives; there was a fascinating 60 Minutes story recently, which recounted the stress soldiers were feeling in trying to protect civilians while also seeking to target the enemy; and there was this harrowing tale from Tim Lynch about how the Taliban manipulate the US military's ROEs regarding civilian casualties to attack US and NATO targets. Beyond the danger to US troops, Lynch raises a legitimate concern:

In war people die; the currency spent by battle commanders is blood.  Many of those who perish are innocents which is why the professional does not enjoy war, seek combat or prolong conflict.  Our leaders are prolonging conflict by restricting the use of our decisive combat arm.

Now I don't write this to suggest that we should take the gloves off in Afghanistan or that we take military steps that would needlessly target civilians; instead it's a bit of a corrective to the notion that we can fight a war effectively in which protecting the population rather than targeting the enemy is our abiding goal.

In the end, I'm not sure this is realistic or achievable - or even the proper way to judge the effectiveness of a specific mission. The United States should do everything in its power to protect civilians and avoid any military action that harms them, but at the expense of the achievement of that mission or US national security interests? Well that's not so clear cut.

Indeed, throughout American history we have taken the opposite course; perhaps the best example being the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. Did that act save the lives of both American soldiers and ironically Japanese civilians who would have died in an American invasion? Probably. 

But even in Afghanistan, if adopting a COIN approach rather than a more military focused CT mission saves civilian lives: is it the right strategy?

Would targeting the Taliban more directly, even at the cost of a higher number of civilian casualties, be a more humane long-term strategy if it wiped out the Taliban and their rancid ideology AND put Afghanistan on an better path toward stabilization. I'd hate to be the one to make a call, but its not only a legitimate debate - its a philosophy that pretty much defined US war-fighting practices from the first days of the republic.

Indeed, possibly the safest thing to do for Afghanistan would be to withdraw all American and NATO troops (it certainly would be the safest although likely not the best turnout for Afghan civilians forced to live under Taliban rule). But I don't hear anyone who is preaching the virtues of protecting civilians making that argument. And why not? Because in their view, defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda is in the vital national interests of the United States. They have decided that protecting American lives from al Qaeda terrorists is worth the risk it poses to Afghan civilians. In fact, whether you support a CT mission or a COIN mission you've basically made the call that protecting American lives from terrorist attack is worth the potential price paid by Afghan civilians. Not to say this isn't necessarily a legitimate choice to make, but let's at least be honest about it.

So where does this leave us? The bottom line is that no matter what course we take - short of complete withdrawal - civilians in Afghanistan are going to find themselves in harm's way. This is a simple fact and all the platitudes about COIN being more humanistic won't change that. If we determine that fighting wars is in our national interest - and that the threat from foreign powers and America's enemies are intolerable - then we should be completely honest about the price to be paid. Hopefully by doing so we will set a higher bar for when and how we intervene overseas (and perhaps do it less often).

But if we try to fight wars in the belief that we can make it safe for civilians while still protecting our national interests - we're just lying to ourselves. As Sherman reminds us again, war is cruelty, you cannot refine it.

Delayed Reaction Posted by James Lamond

So it just occurred to me that the irony of the Center For Security two awards yesterday.  Scooter Libby was given the Service Before Self award, for taking one for the team, so-to-say.  So Scooter's award is for protecting his boss, Dick Cheney.  Therefore, if Scooter took such a hit in protecting Dick Cheney, then it is safe to assume that Dick Cheney did something wrong and was in trouble. Right?  So who else would the Senter for Security Policy award with their highly prestigous Keeper of the Flame Award? None other than Dick Cheney.

But I guess you can't argue the merits.  The award is given, to "individuals who have enhanced American security through their commitment to a strong military, the propagation of democracy and respect for individual rights throughout the world." An who has done more for respecting individual rights around the world than Dick Cheney?

Lamar Alexander Slams Cheney, Defends Obama Posted by Adam Blickstein

Dick Cheney was pretty unhinged last night as he struggles to defend his failed record in Afghanistan. Needless to say, several government officials and a retired military officer more serious about national security than partisan sniping responded forcefully to Cheney's absurd attacks. Call me surprised, then, when one of those level-headed politicians offering a sobering rebuttal of the former Vice President turned out to be Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, who today said:

"I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what  our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan. Then I think he should come to  Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can  persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he  needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want  him to take the time to get it right." 

Maybe the water's edge just got a little closer to the Capitol building? Full video below:

 

Gen. Eaton: Dick Cheney Was "Incompetent War Fighter" Posted by The Editors

This statement is from the National Security Network's Senior Advisor Major General Paul Eaton:

Washington, D.C. - Today, National Security Network Senior Adviser Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and from 2003-2004 oversaw the training of the Iraqi military, responded to Dick Cheney's Afghanistan accusations from last night:

"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it.  2.  Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

"As one deeply invested in the Armed Forces of this country, I am grateful for the senior military commanders assigned to leading this fight and the men and women fighting on the ground. But I dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics into the profound deliberations our Commander-in-Chief and commanders on the ground are having to develop a cohesive and comprehensive strategy, bringing to bear the economic and diplomatic as well as the military power, for Afghanistan—something Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never did.

"No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war.  I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right."

Which do they care more about? Posted by James Lamond

So the Senate voted 64-35 for cloture on the defense authorization conference report, with a final vote scheduled for sometime tonight.  The Defense Authorization Bill will then go on to president Obama for his signature. 

Conservatives in the Seante filibustered the defense authorization because it contains an amendment meant to protect homosexuals from hate crimes.  Chris Johnson at the Washington Blades describes the amendment: 

"The hate crimes provision, known as the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would make illegal hate crimes based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, among other categories, and would allow the Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of such crimes.'

Imagine that.  Thirty five conservative members of congress are voting against funding our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and providing the Pentagon with the resources it needs to protect America's national security.  And why? All because they feel that it is more important to deny rights to American citizens than it is to protect America and provide for our troops.

Imagine what would happen in a reverse situation: Progressives in congress voting against a defense authorization bill at a time of war because a measure meant to protect and enhance the rights of American citizens... I can hear the cries of treason.

A Tale of Two Afghanistans Posted by Michael Cohen

There are two very interesting stories out today in the LA Times and Washington Post about the state of the fight against Taliban forces in Afghanistan. First the good news from Rajiv Chandrasekaren who reports from Nawa in Helmand Province where things are apparently looking up:

In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened, the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around without body armor and helmets.

But at the same time, we see the limitations of the US military's counter-insurgency strategy - the lack of Afghan support:

The turnaround here remains fragile. Marine commanders in Nawa acknowledge that their gains could melt away if the Afghan government and security forces do not move quickly to deliver essential public services, or if U.S. troop levels are reduced here before stability is cemented. Many of the insurgents who left Nawa in July have taken refuge 10 miles to the northwest.

 . . . Despite repeated requests, the government in Kabul has not sent officials to Nawa to help on issues that matter most to local people: education, health, agriculture and rural development

This seems a rather large fly in the ointment - and suggests that any gains made in Helmand could be transitory even if more American troops are sent to Afghanistan. There is plenty of reason to have confidence in the US military's ability to clear an area of Taliban fighters. It's the hold and build part that is tricky and from every indication we simply don't have Afghan support or the political will to make that happen.

Case in point, this article from the LA Times, which suggests that the Taliban are making dangerous inroads in the North:

Reporting from Kunduz, Afghanistan - The hulks of burned-out fuel tankers on the doorstep of this provincial capital stand as scorched testament to the growing reach of the Taliban and other insurgents across Afghanistan's once-stable north . . . residents of a widening arc of territory a half-day's drive from the capital, Kabul, describe daily lives fraught with danger as the militants' foothold becomes stronger.

Just beyond the Kunduz city limits, insurgents brazenly tool around in Ford Rangers stolen from the Afghan police. A Taliban-run shadow administration, complete with a governor, a court system and tax levies, wields greater authority than its official counterpart in much of Kunduz province.Local Afghan officials are frustrated. Their own security forces are spread far too thin, they say -- in Kunduz, fewer than 1,000 police officers safeguard a province of 1.4 million people. Attacks against the Afghan police are relentless: In August, Gov. Omar's brother, a district police commander, was killed in a clash with the Taliban.

Now I realize that you can only read so much into two articles, but these pieces do seem to suggest that perhaps there is a greater need for prioritization by US forces in Afghanistan. The challenge of pacifying Southern Afghanistan is clearly enormous and without a serious influx of American troops it's unlikely to happen (and even then I'm not so sure). Even if we do send, say 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, it will be quite a while before they are in country. With little hope of the ANSF turning into a modern army any time soon -- and not to mention the fact that Taliban fighters in the South can easily slip across the border into safe havens in Pakistan -- I just don't understand why we have made pacifying Helmand and extending the writ of the government there the focus of our military operations. 

Why not focus energy and resources on places like Kunduz where support for the Taliban is weaker and where the size of their fighting force is smaller? If the price of building up forces in the South is that the situation in the North and West becomes destabilized (a point that the article suggest is happening) then it seems the foray into Helmand is actually doing more long-term harm than good.

One thing seems clear: without the support of the Afghan Army and police; without enough ISAF troops, without proper backing from the Afghan government, the US and NATO cannot be everywhere in Afghanistan. So perhaps the focus should be on being in the places that we can be the most successful.

Sec Clinton: You Can Have Too Many Nuclear Weapons Posted by David Shorr

For former speechwriter reasons, no doubt, Heather really liked the way Secretary Clinton used the verb cling, as in "Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer." Heather and I agree that this was a key passage in Clinton's excellent major address on nonproliferation today at US Institute of Peace, but I actually think the adjective excess is more important and links to other favorite points in the speech.

The perennial question of whether you can be too rich or too thin is a subject for another blog, but I'm glad Clinton has clarified the matter of having too many nuclear weapons. I'm glad because the question of how many you need leads to the question of why you have them. And then of course the issue of the consequences of having too many.

Not only is this where the debate needs to go, it represents a significant shift. Because most arguments you hear for keeping (or adding new) high levels of nuclear weapons treat them as symbols of (a very strange notion of) strength. It's high time we talked about why our country has history's most destructive weapons in our arsenal. Only when we've clarified the role and purpose of nuclear forces 20 years after the end of the Cold War can we make sound decisions about how many we need -- and how many are excessive.

Oh, Secretary Clinton's speech. Sorry. Here's how she talked about it:

But we must do more than reduce the numbers of our nuclear weapons. We must also reduce the role they play in our security. In this regard, the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review will be a key milestone. It will more accurately calibrate the role, size, and composition of our nuclear stockpile to the current and future international threat environments. And it will provide a fundamental reassessment of U.S. nuclear force posture, levels, and doctrine. Carried out in consultation with our allies, it will examine the role of nuclear weapons in deterring today’s threats and review our declaratory policies with respect to the circumstances in which the United States would consider using nuclear weapons.

There is another important dimension, though:

As part of the NPR, the Nuclear Posture Review, we are grappling with key questions: What is the fundamental purpose of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal? Will our deterrence posture help the United States encourage others to reduce their arsenals and advance our nonproliferation agenda? How can we provide reassurance to our allies in a manner that reinforces our nonproliferation objectives? [Emphasis added.]

Right, our nonproliferation agenda. This is another essential difference of perspectives with hard-liners. The way they look at it, moral authority and holding up our own end of the bargain make no difference. It should be so obvious that the other guys are worse that we're morally superior regardless of our own actions. Back to Secretary Clinton:

We are under no illusions that the START agreement will persuade Iran and North Korea to end their illicit nuclear activities. But it will demonstrate that the United States is living up to its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament. In doing so, it will help convince the rest of the international community to strengthen nonproliferation controls and tighten the screws on states that flout that their nonproliferation commitments.

I couldn't have said it better.

Sec Clinton: Don't "Cling" to Outmoded Weapons Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Secretary Clinton has just delivered abotu four speeches in one at the US Institute of Peace.  will post transcript when I get it:

Speech 1:  aimed at the international community, laying out how the US is committed to a range of jont actions and negotiations that will rejuvenate the global consensus toward controling and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons.

Speech 2:  a firm push on Iran to make good on the deal it made today, including the statement5 that Iran should understand that the US will "never" have normal relations with a weaponizing Iran.

Speech number 3:  opening the debate outside defense circles (where it's been going on for a while) about how we think about the role and relative importance of nuclear weapons.  much too much of the defense establishment hasn't thought about this in more than a decade -- during which we've seen 9/11, the emergence of information warfare, a renewed focus on counter-insurgency and other developments -- for none of which nuclear weapons are relevant.  I think Clinton's use of the word "cling" with respect to weapons gives an important hint on where she's going.

I've missed some nuggets, but as this speech will be parsed for all these little bits -- and right now Alex Thier is trying to get her to make news about Pakistan in the Q&A, there's a danger that the coverage will misst he bigger point -- the nonproliferation agenda is an umbrella which pulls under it a large number of countries and conerns, and by including them and their concerns helps channel their energy and willingness to work on the issues of highest concern to us.