A National Strategic Narrative

The containment that Kennan argued for was the physical containment of Sovietism. It was real politics, and Nationalist China was considered as part of the team of "good guys" that would work together to keep the Soviets in that physical box. We still stood for Self-determination and other core US principles upon which our nation was founded.

There were two simple vital national interests to which we were committed:

1. Prevent the Eurasian landmass from being dominated by any hostile power or coalition of powers (which drove our involvement in WWII as well to counter German and Japanese efforts);

2. To protect a world trading system hospitable to the unrestricted movement of goods and capital.

Then Mao prevailed in China and gave us the finger and linked up with the Soviets. At that point vital interest #1 was in serious trouble; and the containment of Sovietism morphed and expanded to a much less real, much more ideological containment of communism.

Suddenly self-determination, a core principle, had to be compromised to "democracy." We also came to learn that containing an idea was much harder than containing a state, and that populaces seeking liberty from fromer and current colonial systems that adopted communism as an ideology demanded that we shelf some other core US principles to attempt to suppress such movements to avoid giving up areas under our influence to this Sino-Soviet threat's area of influence.

Today, we still cling to a version of this idological containment and attempt to apply it to "Islamism" and wrestle how to deal with populaces seeking liberty that have been forced to turn to organizations such as AQ for support.

Puck and I discussed this "Sustainment" concept, I personally prefered "Empowerment" as a more viable concept. He wrote his paper, I wrote mine. We differ in many ways, but agree, that the status quo is not sustainable. Certainly we have changed our approaches by degree as Bill Moore points out. Intervention under Clinton, Preemption under Bush, and a lot of fuzzy COINdinista developmentism under Obama to date. At the core of all remains this ideological containment. Hell, we work to contain AQ in the FATA.

For those interested in a different twist on this one can google Defense Concepts, "A Grand Strategy of Empowerment, A Return to Values-Based Realism."

I just read George Kennan's Long Telegram for the first time. They don't seem to make elder statesmen like they done used to.

From Part 2: Background of Outlook(excerpt)

<blockquote>It should not be thought from above that Soviet party line is necessarily disingenuous and insincere on part of those who put it forward. Many of them are too ignorant of the outside world and mentally too dependent to question [apparent omission] self-hypnotism, and who have no difficulty making themselves believe what they find it comforting and convenient to believe. Finally we have the unsolved mystery as to who, if anyone, in this great land actually receives accurate and unbiased information about outside world. In atmosphere of oriental secretiveness and conspiracy which pervades this Government, possibilities for distorting or poisoning sources and currents of information are infinite. The very disrespect of Russians for objective truth--indeed, their disbelief in its existence--leads them to view all stated facts as instruments for furtherance of one ulterior purpose or another.</blockquote>

From Part 5: [Practical Deductions from Standpoint of US Policy](excerpt)

<blockquote>(5) Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.</blockquote>

http://www.ntanet.net/KENNAN.html

<em>Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.</em>

Lisa,
The Mr. Y pseudonym notwithstanding, the whole paper is set up as a compare and contrast between X and Y so to speak: between old-think concepts and their new ideas. Between containment and sustainment, etc. My point is not so much to attack the Kennan link, although I think there's more to his argument than the received "containment" wisdom, as it is to point out very briefly the weaknesses in their contrasts. Lots of false apples and oranges points.

There are some valid points and their call for change certainly rings true, but their ideas for change are a lot of hope and gladspeak. Sustainment, for example, is not an active policy. It is a modifier to a policy end. It is a policy adverb, not a policy verb. You don't sustain as an end, you sustain as a means to an end You can have sustainable containment or sustainable engagement or sustainable annihilation. Or you can unsustainable versions of all of these. Finally, it isn't new that you can't control the world. We never could. It has always been chaotic and too complex for us to control. Just ask the 9 guys that got killed by our "ally" in Kabul today. Their murderer didn't get the engagement, sustainment, fair competition, popular will message quite as clearly as MisterY would have hoped. More sustainable and intelligent policies? Yes. Hope that people will realize that they want to be just like us? Not so much.

Lisa, I think many of us are wondering exactly what is the message? Change? We have been changing. The only people that are locked into the Cold War paradigm are those writing these papers arguing for change. We're actually locked into a CNAS paradigm, one that doesn't work, and yet we're blaming our shortfalls on the Cold War paradigm that only exists in some folks' imagination? The paper makes the illogical argument about resilience, and how globalization is essential to maintain it? It argues we can out compete any other country? You can take those arguments to Pittsburgh and talk to the steel industry if you can find it, or Detroit and talk to the auto industry once they pay back their billions of dollars loaned to them by the U.S. government or any other number of locations where businesses can't compete given the current conditions with some foreign countries who have lower wages, disciplined workers (without the corrosive and corrupt unions we have), less substance abuse, better education at the basic level, etc. These are problems that will take decades or more to fix, and the interim solution is not to embrace globalization assuming a few happy thoughts will make us competitive. A greater percentage of our defense materials are procured from foreign countries, and that is simply dangerous, because as I stated above the world has always been unpredictable, and just because a country is friendly or at least tolerant enough of us to do business with us today, does not mean they will so tomorrow. Y's paper was full of old ideas, illogical arguments and happy thoughts rebundled to look new, but without much basis in reality. X's paper was based on sound . X's paper was in line with our national values.

I think that their ideas have value in a way, but by trying too hard to set their assessement of the world and their ideas up as new and unique, they damage their message. Since they set themselves up as a new Kennan, it is important to note that people gloss over some of Kennan's most important observations. I cited a couple of them in my article in Survival earlier this year:

George Kennan wrote that 'many foreign peoples ... are tired and frightened by experiences of the past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security.

When addressing the Soviet threat, Kennan, 'much depends on [the] health and vigor of our own society, and our ability to face the deficiencies therein.

You can read the full text of his now-declassified cable at:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm.

Other observations: Closed system/open system, so what? Was the world ever "controllable" and is it really all that much more chaotic now than it ever has been?

"Fair competition": What is that? Each person/firm/state will have a different answer.

Sustainment: Yes, we need to consider how spending (pissing away) our national power on poorly defined and arguably overblown threats/concerns affects us and stop doing that. However, I don't think sustainment and containment are logically related as exclusive options or antonyms. They shouldn't be juxtaposed. Containment in some situations may be the most sustainable option. They are two different things that are not mutually exclusive. Sustainable policies = yes. It is always best to choose the policy that disinvests the least amount of national power to attain a given end. Containment is a policy option.

Exclusion versus engagement: Who are we really excluding right now?

Finally, regarding this statement which comes in the midst of references to the Westphalian system: "It is the popular convergence of interests among peoples, nations, cultures, and movements that will determine the sustainability of prosperity and security in this century." Popular will has become the new "universal truth." The assumption being that if you let everyone's will be voiced, their preferences will be exactly like ours and we can live happily ever after. This is only an updated version of universal truths we've chased in the past: divine will, laws of nature, laws of reason, etc. So, the imagination that there is one popular will and that we have to all end up at the same endpoint is essentially a refutation of the Westphalian system in the long term. This is why people are so stirred up. It is, in a way, a return to the religious wars, only now the religions include "popular will" and other secular ideologies, in addition to politicized Abrahamic religions.

Slap, this doesn't address the necessity of global integration; securing the global populace; or using our hard earned riches to develop the rest of the world. Obviously these guys saw the world as a closed system. 

I agree with all APH has written (in the first post), and will add I see little new in their proposed national strategy, and frankly I am hard pressed to discern a strategy, or strategic narrative in the paper. Most of the points being presented are not new and most of the recommendations are already being implemented to varying degrees.

I felt the narrative lost credibility throughout due to its distortion of history. The premise that all is new and more complex than ever before, especially more complex than the world that resulted in the National Security Act of 1947. Mr. Taleb addressed this faulty way of thinking in "The Black Swan" when he addressed the opaqueness of history. He wrote about what he called the "retrospective distortion" or how we can assess matters only after the fact, and that history seems clearer and more organized in history books than in empirical reality. I suspect the national security planners in 1946 and 1947 didnt quite see it the same way that "Y" authors did. I suspect they saw a very complex world post WWII that was rapidly changing (brand new threats that required a new way of thinking and a new security structure) and they werent sure how to respond to such unpredictability. The world was complex then and it is complex now, but I agree with the authors that 1947 Act is no longer relevant in todays world. They again distorted history in my view when they limited their view of history (again to the Cold War) by writing that the belief of the "last half century" was that the world was closed system that could be controlled through technology, power and containment. First off Im not sure how anyone could believe this time period or any other period in history was a closed system? Mankind has always used technology, power and determination to achieve prosperity and power. One only needs to look at the story behind the Panama Canal to see mans use of technology and determination to overcome nature to facilitate global trade, along with hundreds of other examples long before the Cold War. Our history didnt start at the beginning of the Cold War and it didnt end when the Cold War ended.

While I agree with the authors that "U.S." security and prosperity are enduring national interests, I found many of the proposals in this paper border line illogical and based on assumptions that if not out right faulty, are at least debatable. I also found their use of terminology to be confusing. One example (and there are several) is that we need to shift our emphasis from power and control to strength and influence? Power is all about influence, and not just military influence. What do they mean?

Strongly agree that our power/influence is based on our success at home, and our first priority should always be America first. Obviously a bankrupt nation (financially and/or morally) cant project power from its shores effectively for long. However, I find their claims that our interdependent global economy is in our best interest. Somewhere in the paper they addressed resilience and were not resilient when we outsource our jobs overseas, or transfer our factories overseas to pursue cheap labor and lower taxes. Resilient communities dont have to be closed, but they do need to protect their systems and be able to disconnect from the outside world.

As APH stated we are still in a zero sum world, and while the authors addressed the importance of energy security, they didnt address that fossil fuels are limited and that the "raise of the rest" will put increasing demands on those few resources, which in turn will lead to tension between States (and possibly war). Take any number, but for purposes of illustration well say their is only a 100 tons of Uranium left in the world to mine and we need 30 tons a year, Russia needs 30 tons a year, China needs 30 tons a year, India needs 30 tons a year, and so on, and failure to keep the nuclear power plants running will result in grave damage to the affiliated national economies, then we are still in a zero sum world. A strategy or strategic narrative of hope doesnt address that or many other real issues that our national leaders must wrestle with. Nor does it address the reality that others wont embrace our world view and will pursue their perceived interests with force if they can, so deterrence still plays a critical role.

The authors lost me when they started addressing trends, and then addressed joblessness and illiteracy as trends? We have been reducing illiteracy for years, and joblessness comes and goes based on economic cycles, it isnt a trend. Then they embraced the same unsubstantiated argument that dragged our nation into nation building when they claimed the poor, fatherless, and unemployed youth were vulnerable to recruitment in radical organizations. Many if not most terrorists come from educated and middle class families. Getting away from our tunnel vision on Islamic terrorists, the child soldiers in Sierra Leone didnt all come from such deprived conditions, rather the rebels killed their parents in front of them and used force, terror and drugs to coerce the kids into their gangs/militias. Assuming we could have got to the left of this problem, would have investing in schools and development prevented it? Or more likely, would have investing in developing Sierra Leones security forces been a better investment in "hope" of trying to prevent this tragedy?

Finally why did the authors only address diplomacy, development and defense and neglect to mention information? Could it be that this paper was just an attempt to reinforce the push for the empty rhetoric of the 3Ds? We have always done the 3Ds, sometimes well and sometimes not so well, but this paper didnt address what we should do, only that we should continue the 3Ds. I would it give the paper a C- at best.

I'll address the article later, I made it half way through; with a lot of notes on it. Can agree with some of it, but I think it also has some fatal flaws.

Fareed in many ways reminds me of Oprah, self-made, intelligent, insightful, popular, and a trend setter (in his case for ideas on policy). I like him, but like all of us he errors on occassion, yet his thoughts are often accepted without much criticism as the right way to view things by a large group of people. I think he is wrong about this article, but no doubt it will gain more currency with Fareed's endorsement. This like your book making it on Oprah's reading list.

One person who is viewed as credible can have a lot of influence if he or she is an effective communicator, if we really want to learn how to influence foreign audiences we first need to learn how to be viewed as credible. Credibility first, and then the message.

Here is what Fareed Zakaria said about this today on his CNN show GPS:

ZAKARIA: And now, for our "What in the World?" segment.

What got my attention this week was an article written under the pseudonym Mr. Y. The article has a bold thesis, even more surprising given who the mysterious Mr. Y turns out to be.

It argues that the United States has embraced an entirely wrong set of priorities, particularly with regard to its federal budget. We have overreacted to terrorism, to Islamic extremism. We have pursued military solutions instead of political ones.

Y says we are under investing in the real sources of national power -- our youth, our infrastructure, our economy. The United States sees the world through the lens of threats, while failing to understand that influence, competitiveness and innovation are the key to advancing American interests in the modern world.

So, Y says, above all we must invest in our children, that only by educating them properly will we ensure our ability to compete in the future. That we need to move from an emphasis on power and control to an emphasis on strength and influence.

Y goes on to say that we shouldn't even talk about national security as we have for the past 60 years, we should be talking about national prosperity and security.

Now, I think this is very smart stuff for the new world we're entering in, but it's important and influential in particular, given the source. This article arguing we need to rely less on our military comes from the highest echelons of the Pentagon.

Mr. Y is actually two people, both top-ranking members of Admiral Mike Mullen's team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They are Captain Wayne Porter of the U.S. Navy and Colonel Mark Mykleby of the Marine Corps. It's likely that the essay had some official sanction, which means that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or perhaps even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had seen it and did not stop its publication.

So why did the authors call themselves Mr. Y? It's a play on a seminal essay from "Foreign Affairs" magazine more than five decades ago. The title was "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," and it was signed simply X. The author turned out to be the American diplomat George Kennan, and the article turned out to have perhaps the greatest influence on American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century.

It set out the policy of containment, that if we contain the Soviet Union, countering its influence, eventually the internal contradictions of the Soviet system would trigger its collapse, and it worked. But Porter and Mykleby say the basic approach, a massive military to deter the Soviets, a quasi-imperial policy to counter Soviet influence all over the world, is still in place and is outmoded and outdated. They call their policy proposal sustainment, and they hope it just might be the policy that will carry us forward for the next 50 years.

Mr. Y is hoping to be the next X, to set the new tone of Washington strategy. Will that happen? Well, the term "sustainment" is silly, but the ideas behind it are not. Washington needs to make sure that the United States does not fall into the imperial trap of every other superpower in history, spending greater and greater time and money and energy stabilizing disorderly parts of the world on the periphery, while at the core its own industrial and economic might is waning.

We have to recognize that fixing America's fiscal problems, paring back the budget busters like entitlements and also defense spending, making the economy competitive, dealing with immigration, outlining a serious plan for energy use, all these are the best strategies to stay a superpower, not going around killing a few tribal leaders in the remote valleys and hills of Afghanistan.

You can read Mr. Y's essay on our website, CNN.com/GPS. Read it, debate it and write to your congressman if you agree with it.

And we'll be right back.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1104/24/fzgps.01.html

One word characterizes this piece. That word is, "Yuck". These guys have bought into the Kantian vision of perpetual peace with a vengeance - but how does this help orient a US foreign and defense apparatus that is systematically underfunded, and even more systematically underappreciated. Do these guys really think that turning up the rhetoric helps an economically beleagered American public pay more of a price and bear more burdens ? Worse yet, have they really bought into the lie that smart power can be had on the cheap ? The dishonesty of this article is so overwhelming, so the authors might have thought twice at revealing their names.