Is there an "Obama Doctrine" lurking among the zigs and zags of the president's foreign policy over these first nine months? I think there is, in his repeated invocation of global rights and responsibilities. The problem is that this lawyerly framework hasn't been applied to the really tough issues, such as what to do in Afghanistan. I have been looking for a "doctrine" because, frankly, strategic thinking has been this administration's weak spot. A pragmatic president has surrounded himself with pragmatic advisers - a retired Marine general as national security adviser, a former senator as secretary of state, a career intelligence officer as secretary of defense. None are grand strategists on the model of Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Reviewing Barack Obama's major speeches, I do find one theme that he returns to again and again. To take the version that the president used in his inaugural address: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility." This involves a reciprocal exchange - "mutual interest and mutual respect" is how Obama put it that cold day in January, and he has returned often to that formulation. This idea - of balancing rights and responsibilities - strikes me as a central pillar of Obama's foreign policy. Iran has the right to civilian nuclear power but the responsibility to abide by the Non-Proliferation Treaty; Israel has the right to live in peace but the responsibility to refrain from building settlements, which Obama rejects as illegitimate...
More at The Washington Post.
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General McChrystal and his direct reports have the awesome responsibly to devise, communicate and work with the Obama administration on the best strategic plan for Afghanistan and the 40,000 US troops McChrystal requested.
In reviewing General McChrystals request, the White House is rethinking what was, just six months ago, a strategy that viewed Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single integrated problem. Now the discussions in the White House Situation Room, according to several administration officials and outsiders who have spoken with them, are focusing on related but separate strategies for fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"The kind of separation that existed between the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001 really doesnt exist anymore," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised General McChrystal. "You have much more ideological elements in the Taliban. In the east, theyre really mixed in with Al Qaeda."
McChrystal's "success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign" will have to be a collaborative effort for a responsible, intelligent, and cutting edge approach. President Obama is smart enough to listen and learn from the experts and act accordingly. It is important to be open, supportive, respectful, diplomatic, hopeful, prayerful, and expecting the best from all involved in this difficult decision making process. Lets participate doing our part!
General McChrystal and his direct reports have the awesome responsibly to devise, communicate and work with the Obama administration on the best strategic plan for Afghanistan and the 40,000 US troops McChrystal requested.
In reviewing General McChrystals request, the White House is rethinking what was, just six months ago, a strategy that viewed Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single integrated problem. Now the discussions in the White House Situation Room, according to several administration officials and outsiders who have spoken with them, are focusing on related but separate strategies for fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"The kind of separation that existed between the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001 really doesnt exist anymore," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised General McChrystal. "You have much more ideological elements in the Taliban. In the east, theyre really mixed in with Al Qaeda."
McChrystal's "success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign" will have to be a collaborative effort for a responsible, intelligent, and cutting edge approach. President Obama is smart enough to listen and learn from the experts and act accordingly. It is important to be open, supportive, respectful, diplomatic, hopeful, prayerful, and expecting the best from all involved in this difficult decision making process. Lets participate doing our part!
Slightly off topic: I have heard from "reliable sources" (aka the rumor mill) that all the fuss the pak military is making about the Kerry lugar bill is basically disinformation and smoke being blown to provide the army adequate cover as it prepares to launch an operation in Waziristan. If they launch an operation without this kind of prep, they will get blamed for being "american lackeys". This way, their anti-american bona-fides are bolstered, Zardari (and all the liberals) have sleepless nights, all the other politicians are once again exposed as pathetic tools AND the military still does what they have been told to do in Waziristan. This sounds no less plausible to me than all the other theories being floated....
They probably wanted to make a pre-emptive strike against the "civilian oversight" provisions of the bill anyway, so its a case of "two birds with one stone". If this theory is correct, then we should see a Waziristan operation anyday...
That still leaves the matter of "India specific jihadiis" and the good taliban. There may be some bargaining going on about those two items...
"This vision of a global rule of law exemplifies what we are coming to understand as Obama's way of thinking -- optimistic, rational, practical. But like the mantra of "change" that got him elected, it is an empty vessel waiting to be filled with the details of real life. It's not a strategy. It's a formula for how to solve problems -- which is not the same as global leadership.
Obama hasn't applied this doctrine directly to Afghanistan, but let me briefly try: The international community has made a commitment, through the United Nations and NATO, to help rebuild Afghanistan. That mission is limited, but it does carry continuing responsibilities. Training the Afghan army and promoting security is one; supporting economic development and better governance is another; encouraging Afghan political reconciliation is a third.
The notion that the United States can break with that mission -- and opt for a more selfish counterterrorism strategy that drops the rebuilding part and seeks to assassinate America's enemies with Predator drones from 10,000 feet -- would not fit well with any reading of the Obama doctrine. That approach, to be blunt, would be lawless."
Thanks for the opening two paragraphs, they got my attention and sent me running to read the remainder of David Ignatiuss Washington Post article. Reading the article is important because I think the last three paragraphs (shown above) are the most significant. Fully agree that his "empty vessel" is not a strategy, not sure if it is a "formula for how to solve problems" and agree that whatever he is doing it is not global leadership.
Mr Ignatiuss article reminded me of Col Boyds thinking on the subject of strategy. Col Boyd has been given credit for changing the "Art of War". Boyd as also been heralded as a modern day Clausewitz. Military generals, at least the ones that wanted to consider his thinking, have almost exclusively concentrated on the application of his teachings at the operational and tactical levels of war ignoring the strategic level.
Of course that maybe one reason our generals have been taking a plastering on their strategic thinking prowess since the start of both the Afghanistan and Iraq War. For that reason, I feel the Presidents review of General McCrystals assessment is justified. I also feel it is untimely and should have been sooner.
Boyd stated that Strategy is a game of interaction and isolation. "A game in which we must be able to diminish adversarys ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours." Sounds similar to president Obamas responsibilities and consequences theme that Mr Ignatius points out.
Boyd also stated that there are three levels to strategy; the physic al, the mental and the moral level, with the moral being the most important. Boyd dedicated a sizable section of his brief to the moral level and titled it "A Moral Design for Grand Strategy". In this section he provides a slide titled: "Moral Leverage" and demonstrated how to achieve it with two bullets:
ââ¬Â¢ "Respect their culture and achievements, show them we bear them no harm and help them adjust to an unfolding world, as well as provide additional benefits and more favorable treatment for those who support our philosophy and way of doing things;
yet
ââ¬Â¢ Demonstrate that we neither tolerate nor support those ideas and interactions that undermine or work against our culture and our philosophy hence our interests and fitness to cope with a changing world"
It is that second bullet I think the president does not get because the "empty vessel" of political equivocations do not demonstrated that we neither tolerate nor support. The world culture is not our culture, nor our philosophy, nor is it our interests and "bending the curve" towards that world culture does not demonstrate global leadership.
What is missing is any hint that Obama HIMSELF has any ideas about what to do. The impression he conveys (rightly or wrongly) is that he is just some sort of intelligent "decider in chief" who sits atop a pyramid of advisers, gets their input and checks off an option that he likes; he does not have even a vague "cunning plan" in his own head. This is not horrible (one can think of many pragmatic arguments in favor of such a boss) but tends to work better where the institutions are all working and the challenges are all routine. I think that when we look at leaders, especially in a time of crisis (when is it NOT a time of crisis?), we expect that the leader is one step (or more) ahead of the curve. He should be able to delegate details, but if that is all he does, well......He will have to show some successes soon, otherwise he is an empty suit and placeholder and not a game-changing leader (OK, thats what some people always claimed he is, but I am hoping against hope)..