Morning Fog

Ukraine, The Lesson Unlearned

I had not wanted nor expected to resume this blog after a year's silence with a war on our hands. Nevertheless, no one can deny the Soviet elephant in the room (or across the border).

In Ukraine, Russian President for Life Putin has unleashed a war of occupation, with all the human misery, death, and destruction that entails, against a peaceful neighboring state. 

Knowing a little something about the Russia and about Putin, when people asked me two weeks ago what I thought we should do, I said that Biden needed to say loud and often that we would blast away the first Russian troops that crossed that border into Ukraine, say it like he meant it, and then do it when the inevitable occurred. None of that happened. That promise (to destroy Russian troops) was not made; and even if it had been, Biden could not possibly have made it sound like he meant it. Instead, he suggested that a small (undefined) incursion would not meet with Allied resistance, or even sanctions.

We waited for the war to start, and then started applying sanctions, but not those that would really hurt the Russians.  Continue to let Russia sell oil? Ridiculous. Do nothing to provide Ukraine with defensive air capabilities it did not have itself? Absolute folly. We are told that sanctions were only applied slowly, and that some of the more serious ones were withheld entirely, because our European allies could not agree to them.

Biden deserves full credit for a providing a limited, if predictably effective, response while having kept the NATO alliance together.  But is that really our goal? Should it be our goal? Personally I would have said our goal should be to prevent that war. 

To Biden and especially more to our European allies, one must pose a simple question:  Did you ever hear of a little trio involving Hitler, Chamberlain, and appeasement? If not, please go google it, because this was no different and even more blatant. How could you miss the similarities?  Putin massed his troops, and then told us he wasn't planning to invade, and we (I mean actually YOU, NATO leaders) believed him. Believed him because "we" wanted to, because the alternative seemed so er.., unpleasant.

There's a lot to answer for here. Have "we" looked at a map of Europe to see how many more countries will border the new expanded "Russia" after Putin completes his occupation of Ukraine? When "we" looked at the potential downsides for Europe, we fully considered Putin cutting off the gas, but did we consider him reinvading Poland?  I'm no warmonger (our recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were unnecessary and doomed to failure). But sometimes, gentlemen, there is a higher calling than the price of gas. One example may have been when we went to war to free Kuwait from an illegal Iraqi occupation. I think the Ukraine situation is one of them, too, and that a clear and hard military response was probably the only thing that might (might!) have made Putin think twice.

What if I'm wrong and Russia dissolves into a puddle of red ink and Putin turns tail and goes home tomorrow? (He won't, I'll wager.) How do we now get back to the status quo ante? How long will it take us to unkill the Ukrainian dead, repatriate the refugees, rebuild cities, undo the Russian occupation of Crimea, and push Russian nationals living in Ukrainian territory back across the border into Russia?  (Sure, I added a couple of items to the wish list - a dictator must pay a price, after all.)  We failed to learn the lesson of appeasement. We should have recognized it for what it was, and cut it off immediately.

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Getting Some Intelligence For Trump

Nearly every day the Donald says, or tweets, something calculated to make serious government officials (of the U.S. or even of other countries) shudder, giggle, or both.  It's great entertainment, and after all, that's what he is, an entertainer.

It's easy to poke fun at him, but let's give him his due:  He did warn us that the election was rigged, didn't he?  And he was right.  He just failed to tell us it was rigged FOR him, not against him, and by a foreign power at that! 

I think we have to take the conclusions of intelligence professionals in the CIA and FBI, that Putin and Russia were actively involved in planting anti-Clinton "news," as correct.  Mr. Trump does not. His failure to do so is a perfect example of how his ignorance can have destructive consequences for the fabric of the country we hold dear. In this case, there are two such potential consequences - destroying the tradition of non-partisan civil service, and wrecking a structure of intelligence assets and analysis that have been built over decades.

First: For obvious reasons, Trump prefers to deflect attention by claiming it's all just a Democratic Party plot against him. We know that Trump doesn't trust "government" and assumes that high level civil servants are constantly at work to advance their own personal agendas (as is he, in everything he does).  But government doesn't work that way. Since the days of Chester A. Arthur, the whole concept of our government bureaucracy has been that it remains outside politics and serves whatever political faction is in power with equanimity. With few exceptions, it does exactly that. There is no reason to suppose the CIA or FBI are doing otherwise in this case, though FBI Director Comey's efforts to derail the Clinton candidacy might be considered a severe test of the general rule. In making erroneous assumptions, Trump weakens the tradition of civil service non-partisanship. We'll all regret it if he succeeds.

Second, there's a small matter of intelligence operations. Trump and his team are now echoing Putin in calling for U.S.intelligence officials to "present the evidence." It sounds so rational, doesn't it? The problem is that in intel, providing the specifics of evidence publicly will more often than not reveal to your enemy exactly how the information was acquired, and enable him to pinpoint where to look for a mole, a glitch in his software, or some other vulnerability. That's why intelligence officers generally avoid getting too specific. Trump either doesn't know this, or doesn't care. Be assured that Putin does know, and does care very much. Of course he would love to have the specific evidence released and get a leg up on emaciating our intelligence services. Again, we'll all regret it if Trump plays along.

Given his disdain for intelligence - demonstrated in the above case, in his announcement that he doesn't need the briefings, in his offhand comment that the Chinese should just keep the U.S. underwater drone they captured but returned - will Trump go through his entire term without intelligence?  Some wags might say, he's gotten this far without it...  

You Can Lead A Horse To Water

More than once, I think, I have said that it's futile for the U.S. or others to believe that democracy can be built in a few years in a country that has never experienced that political arrangement and has neither democratic traditions nor democratic institutions.  There are exceptions, of course - Japan after WW II? - but mostly such efforts fail.

Phillip Carter, a former Army officer and senior fellow at the Center for A New American Security, has come to the related and equally self-evident conclusion that you can't have much success in getting others to fight your battles for you.  The client armies we have tried to build through security assistance programs have also tended to fail to meet our expectations, the most recent example(s) being our training and equipping of surrogates in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Of course we try to put the best face on the results, not wishing to suggest that we may have expended big bucks without getting a big bang, yet it hasn't generally worked out so well.  The Romans discovered this, and the Ottomans, and look at them now.

The truth is that any group we can support, in a fluid situation where power is up for grabs, is likely to have its own agenda.  If they don't, and if they have no agenda at all beyond getting from one day to the next, they are hardly likely to fight effectively for someone else's - hence the run from battle, the abandonment of expensive equipment and technology, that we hear of so often.

Still, we try, and probably will continue to do so.  It's very attractive to think that we can save American lives and still achieve our objectives.  I wish Mr. Carter and the Center for A New American Security luck in advocating a "more humble" approach to security assistance. 

Security Clearances Rushed

A recent Washington Post item "reveals" that government security clearances (which are actually mostly done by private firms) are often rushed.  One firm reportedly lost its contract to perform such clearances because it was cutting corners to approve clearances more quickly; yet successor firms doing the same work appear to be following similar practices.

Does it matter?  The Post doesn't really say what damage is being done - just implies that hurrying may lead to slips and omissions.  That's possible, but having had various levels of government security clearance for 30 + years, from my early days in the army to my retirement from civilian government, I always felt that security clearances are a necessary evil, but are unlikely to uncover the people who really want to do us harm.

That's because in most cases, a "clearance" consists mainly of a background check.  A job candidate fills out a lengthy personal history, his name is run past all key law enforcement agencies for negative information, from the FBI to the local police where he lives; and his bona fides are checked out by interviews of his associates, neighbors, and friends. 

Therefore the system itself has a few flaws.  For example, how many of us really know our neighbors or colleagues at work very well these days?  The typical response is going to be "Gee he seems like a nice guy when I see him out cutting the grass on Saturdays", far more often than it will be "Wow, we just had a beer together a few days ago and he confided to me that he murdered two people last week."  More to the point, the reality is that someone seeking entrée to the government or military for the purpose of subverting us is probably going to make sure her/his background does not raise any flags.  

Yet further, a lot of the real spy stories that I'm familiar with suggest that it's often only after a person gets into government, and perhaps attains a degree of responsibility, that foreign spy networks might seek to recruit him; and in those cases, immediate circumstances (a need for money, a missed promotion, an unhappy love life, a compromising circumstance in her private life) are the turning point. 

None of this suggests that we shouldn't have a security clearance system (nor that the Justice Department shouldn't be trying to ensure we get what we pay for when we contact private companies to conduct these clearances).  Of course we need to try to detect those who could represent a real danger.  But because of the numbers who need to be screened, it's a fairly cut-and-dried check-the-boxes process. 

Another thing the Post didn't mention was how long a security check may typically take.  Back in the 1960s, an entry-level check might take several months, and I doubt that has changed much.  When you need someone to fill a job but ask them to wait a half a year for an answer, you're likely to find that your best candidates have gone elsewhere.  It's little wonder that the companies that do this necessary but time-consuming work are under constant pressure to move some people, or all people, through the pipeline more quickly. 

  

Do Terrorist Symps Have Rights?

I was just reading the tale of a teen-ager being arrested for assisting a slightly older acquaintance to travel to Syria to join ISIS.  Elsewhere in the news, we've all seen the various reports of the Department of Homeland Security intercepting people, some of them as I recall American citizens, and preventing them from travel to Syria or Iraq. 

It's true that this seems a good thing from the standpoint of our security.  But sometimes, it's fun to play devil's advocate.  So let me do so here:

First: In very short order, those who want to go to Syria to join up will become much more wily about hiding their tracks, and no longer so easy to find.  Surely, intercepting the earlier ones, and boasting about how we caught them, will accelerate that learning process.   So in the long run, might it not be better to let them go, but garner identification, including facial recognition, and maybe fingerprints, so as to find and track them when they return to the U.S. 

Second:  Some of these would-be soldiers of Islam are reportedly U.S. citizens by birth.  If so, is it really legal to stop them from traveling?  I understand it may be something we need to do for security reasons, but that hasn't always sufficed as a justification for rights violations.  Admittedly, perhaps I need to do more research in the finer points of the law that governs this.  I know there are some extraordinary measures included.

Yet if there are those in this country (I'm not one of them) who were concerned about a drone strike killing a U.S. citizen who was actively fighting with al-Qaida, aren't there probably those who would decry this interference in a citizen's right to leave the country when he wants, and travel where he wants? Golly, where IS the ACLU when you don't need them, anyway?  

   

What Did You Do In the War, Daddy?

Another prominent individual -- this time Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald -- has misstated details of his military service, telling a homeless man that he had been "in the special forces."  But he hadn't, not really.   Yet, he has apologized, and veterans groups seem largely to have accepted that without suggesting he resign.  How come?  

Well, first, of course, the key difference is that veterans will recognize that - unlike Brian Williams - McDonald really is a veteran.  He's a West Point graduate and though he fairly quickly abandoned the military for corporate life, he did serve five years, much of it with the 82d Airborne Division.  

In addition, though, the term "special forces" is itself a bit fuzzy to define.  It has been applied in a variety of ways, beginning at least in the 1960's, to units like the Green Berets, but that was long before it became the formal designation for the entire gigantic organization chart that represents the myriad of "Special Forces" units that exist today.

If veterans are old enough, they may recall that in the Army of the 1950s and 1960s, the terms "Ranger" and "Airborne" both represented special, difficult, elite training for which soldiers had to qualify separately.  These really were precursors to special forces.  The career advice for any Infantry or other combat-branch officer who wanted to get ahead in those days was that it was essential to achieve one, or preferably both, of these qualifications.  (McDonald, according to what I've read of him, has both, having qualified as a Ranger and having served in an airborne unit.) 

All of this presumably helps explain why veteran outrage about McDonald hasn't gone so far as to force his resignation.  The keys will be whether he retains the respect and trust of most veterans 

  

Training Hostage-Takers

The latest attempt to rescue hostages from the clutches of terrorist groups failed earlier this week.  These well-executed feats of derring-do have seized the imagination of the public, and apparently of our highest officials as well, but I suspect our string of good luck in pulling them off may have been stretched to the breaking point.

Not only is the element of surprise lost, but officials have seemingly bent over backwards to publicize exactly how they are carried out, with details amplified by Hollywood-style reenactments.  The hostage-takers aren't idiots.  By now, they will be expecting rescue attempts, and of course will take steps to thwart them.  The risk to our special forces teams undertaking such missions is significantly increased.

This week, the Administration's call was that we could not not attempt the rescue.  That was probably the correct call at the time.  Next time, though, I hope we'll recognize that the dynamic has changed.   

 

Blackwater Convictions

A few days ago it was announced with some fanfare that employees of the private security firm Blackwater had been convicted for their roles in a 2007 massacre in Iraq which killed 14 Iraqis and hugely set back U.S. efforts to win "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.

This is certainly an important legal step, reaffirming, as the U.S. prosecuting attorney said, our commitment to the rule of law.  Justice has perhaps been done, though it took a long while and may yet be undone in appeals. 

Even if that's the case, however, I hope this prosecution may have a longer-term and more salubrious effect by putting paid to the hiring of private mercenaries to fight our wars.  Problems are legion:  lack of control, the soldier-of-fortune mentality, incidents like the current one, and the high cost of paying these Hessians.

It's the last one that is especially injurious to our overall military effort, I think.  Blackwater types inevitably mix with regular troops when in the same combat zone.  Stories are heard... for example about wages.. and the mercenaries are paid far more than the regulars.  This disparity may have been different back when we had conscription (if we had had these private armies at the time) because the troops were paid practically nothing, as draftees, but could at least console themselves that their second-class status was only for a year.

Now, we have the volunteer army, paid a much more competitive wage than draftees (though complaints exist).  If war-fighting is your life's work but you see your government hiring other guys to do similar tasks with far higher compensation, how does that affect you?   It's a politician's way out, but it stinks.

Wisdom About Deadlines

Reviewing the history of the gradual decline of the British Empire, I've noticed certain parallels between that process and the U.S.'s more recent trials in some of its foreign involvements. 

For the Brits, for example, there were several occasions when the government felt it necessary to declare a deadline for its withdrawal from its colonies, or from other trouble spots that developed from its colonial experience -- India, for example, and in Palestine.

As Dr. Patrick Allitt observes, the problem with this approach is that announcing a deadline may simply delay or completely thwart the outcome the withdrawing party wants, because the other party recognizes that it will have a freer hand after the other party is no longer present.  By withdrawing, one loses control, or any opportunity further to influence the coutcome. 

Indeed!  We should let that be a lesson to us in announcing withdrawals from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else.  The lesson seems so clear ...

Why, then, have we so often in recent times nevertheless announced "dates certains" (as the French call them) for our pulling out?

It's the pressure of a number of modern-world factors.  The main one is that as a nation, we simply have no staying power.  War not over in six months?  Fuh-gedda-bout-it!  And then people are fed up.  The electorate has little stomach for a long war, particularly in the age of instant gratification. 

The others are corollary:  A constant drumbeat from the media, and the concern of politicians that they'll lose favor (and elections) if they don't throw in the towel.  Plus, in recent times, the cynical willingness of either major party to capitalize on such situations by joining the baying in favor of pullout - on a timetable!

Thus, a paradox:  Wise diplomacy requires us to avoid specific deadlines; domestic politics demands it.  This was less of a problem in Truman's or Nixon's time, but things have changed.  Firm leadership in international affairs has become more and more difficult in recent decades. 

 

Iraq - For The U.S., The Wages Of SIN

Among this week's apparently unexpected events around the globe is the "overnight" military gains of a fundamentalist group we're calling "ISIS," and the collapse of U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi security forces before them.

"Apparently" unexpected because, first, we ignored the signs (not that we could have done much to change things), and second, because this general type of outcome could have been predicted ten years ago.  Iraq was a war of choice that we got into on a trumped-up pretext (where are those weapons of mass destruction anyway, now that we need them?) for no better reason than that George Dumbya Bush wanted to get even with Saddam Hussein because he (Saddam) had made a fool of his (W's) daddy.  

I hate to say I told you so, (I did, really, but strangely, no one was listening!) - but it was, in 2003, and still is today, so clearly Vietnam all over again.  Rather than learn the lessons of that war, we repeated them.  One might suppose that G.W. Bush, of all people (given his extensive wartime service in the National Guard) would have taken those lessons to heart. 

Oh well - the wages of SIN (self-important, incompetent nincompoops) still haunt our global intervention strategy.  Foreign nations are not "ours" to be lost or won, and it's ridiculous to suppose we can construct democratic forms and institutions from outside on a foundation of tribal and religious quicksand.  When we do, we destabilize, and Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only countries today who suffer from our efforts.

Does it help that KIAs in Iraq and Afghanistan combined equal only about one-tenth of the casualties from Vietnam?  Apparently not, because we have the inevitable bleatings of veterans (not to mention Congresspersons who never served) like Mr. John Nagl, who writes that "this is not what [his] friends fought and died for."  Obviously Mr. Nagl deserves an answer.

Which should be:  "Stuff it!  Enough of your whining!"  Today's soldier is a pro, he's paid to kill for his country, so let's keep a sense of proportion here.  We all face disappointments in our professional lives.  Whether it's me laboring long hours over some foreign policy initiative that never saw the light of day, or maybe the manager of a branch store of a huge retail chain who invests a lot of time in remodeling only to have the corporate owners close down his store and put him out of a job a few months later; the farmer whose crop fails, or ...

Or you, Mr. Nagl.  You may be correct, it's unjust, it's tough, it dashes your idealism.  Join the club.  But it's particularly offensive for you to draw the wrong conclusion, and suggest that the answer is for us to keep a large force indefinitely in Afghanistan.  No, sorry.  Our initial lightning war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after 9/11, was politically necessary; Bush called that one right.  But the decision to stay after that few months, and build democracy there, was foolish -- the SINs were at work again.  Actually, that sign on that aircraft carrier "Mission Accomplished," - so much criticized at the time - was prescient.  That's when we ought to have stopped.