The Hill - 6 ways to know if State Department reform is real or fake

Joseph Cassidy writing at The Hill makes some excellent points.

Money quote(s):

"A real reform plan would mobilize the department to confront the dangers of the 21st century. It would remedy organizational weaknesses and inefficiencies. It would clarify State’s role in formulating foreign policy and define its relationship with other U.S. government agencies. It would provide a sense of purpose to State’s dedicated but downtrodden employees. "

That right there looks like an pretty fair mission statement for departmental reform.

"In recent administrations, the State Department’s structure has been more hourglass than pyramid. Senior officials and their staffer remoras have been over-abundant and have consumed a disproportionate amount of the department’s workload. Real reform would cut senior positions and reduce the number of staff officers who don’t originate work product."

&

"There is widespread agreement that the weedy proliferation of special envoys (not just those with that specific title, but also other powerful single-issue envoys outside State’s regional and functional bureau chains of command) must be pruned. Real reform will substantially reduce their number but also ensure that important responsibilities are incorporated into other parts of the department (double-hatting officials with a special envoy title, when its termination would be politically or diplomatically problematic).

Envoy proliferation has had two pernicious consequences — disempowering regional bureaus (which should rather be reinforced) by removing important diplomatic issues from their control and ensuring regional bureaus don’t in practice follow “special envoy” issues as closely. Real reform will mainstream as well as streamline."

This.  The dozens of special envoys and such duplicating and tromping over the responsibilities of existing embassies and missions is overkill.  Even granting the half-dozen or so (seven?) actually mandated by law, the idea of dual-hatting some of those back into the fold, onto the worthy-brows of the officials already charged with those countries, regions, or issues is one well worth exploiting.

(Gotta love the use of "remoras" to describe the spear-carriers and special assistants attending to extraneous special envoys.)

"Too many otherwise smart people believe diplomacy is something separate from other elements of national power, e.g., that the James Mattis does national defense, the Treasury Department does international finance and sanctions, the Commerce Department helps U.S. business abroad, the Department of Justice does international law and State carries messages back and forth to other governments like an Amazon delivery drone.

Diplomacy without foreign policy content is irrelevant, and there’s no such thing as short-term strategy. Real reform would reassert State’s role as lead strategist and coordinator of U.S. foreign policy, including the current actions of other cabinet agencies and America’s role in the world over the next several decades. "

You can bet that Sec. Mattis knows very well the many aspects of national powers, DIMEFILS and similar mnemonics outlining the instrumentalities and elements of implementing national strategies and grand strategies.  State is a logical place for interagency coordination of national strategy although the National Security Council staff seems to have inherited that mantel of late.

Read the whole thing.

re: "8 myths about American grand strategy"

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") thinks about grand strategy (so you don't have to).

Money quote(s):

"Grand strategy appears to be the flavor of the month in the strategic community. I have planned or been invited to numerous conferences looking at the topic and the debates on this topic are as lively as I can remember in a long time. Just recently, I gave a talk to a grand strategy conference at NDU on the myths that afflict the field."

Mr. Feaver listed eight myths; CAA has selected his favorite three for your consideration.

"Myth 1: The U.S. can't do grand strategy

Many critics claim that the United States is simply too disorganized to do strategy on a grand scale.

In fact, we had a coherent grand strategy during the 19th century build around the Monroe Doctrine. We had a coherent grand strategy during WWII built around winning in Europe first. And we had a coherent grand strategy during the Cold War built around the idea of containment." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Myth 3: A grand strategy has to have a 3-syllable label that rhymes with "ainment"

This gets to the heart of why you get the odd argument that we had a grand strategy during the Cold War but we haven't since. When critics say that we haven't had a grand strategy since the end of the Cold War, what they really mean is that we haven't had a label like "containment" that enjoys widespread popularity. This is true, but trivial.

In fact, since the fall of the Soviet Union a 5-pillar grand strategy has been clearly discernible:

Pillar I. The velvet covered iron fist. Iron fist: build a military stronger than what is needed for near-term threats to dissuade a would-be hostile rival from achieving peer status. Velvet covered: accommodate major powers on issues, giving them a larger stake in the international distribution of goodies than their military strength would command to dissuade a near-peer from starting a hostile rivalry.

Pillar 2. Make the world more like us politically by promoting the spread of democracy.

Pillar 3. Make the world more like us economically by promoting the spread of markets and globalization.

Pillar 4. Focus on WMD proliferation to rogue states as the top tier national security threat.

Pillar 5 (added by George W. Bush). Focus on terrorist networks of global reach inspired by militant Islamist ideologies as another top tier national security threat, i.e. co-equal with WMD in the hands of rogue states. The nexus of 4 & 5 is the ne plus ultra threat.

No administration described the strategy in exactly these terms. Every single president succumbed to the political temptation to product differentiate and especially to describe one's own actions as a bold new departure from the "failed" efforts of his predecessor. Yet a fair-minded reading of the core governmental white papers on strategy, especially the National Security Strategy reports prepared by each administration, as well as the central policy efforts each administration pursued, reveals a broad 20-year pattern of continuity.

All post-Cold War presidents championed the first 4 pillars. The last two presidents (Bush and Obama) adopted the last 2. And the major grand strategic moves of the period derive from one or more of these pillars: eg. The outreach to India derives from Pillar 1, the invasion of Iraq derives from Pillars 4 and 5, and so on.

Obama campaigned as if he was going to make a grand strategic innovation by adding a 6th pillar: elevating climate change to be co-equal with WMD and terrorism. But he chose to do health care instead." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Myth 7: A grand strategy requires an existential threat

It may be easier to describe the grand strategy when there is an overarching existential threat to concentrate the mind. But as the post-Cold War has shown, it is possible to have a coherent grand strategy even when the threats are dispersed and less-than-existential.

The Cold War was not a time when everything was simple or when everyone knew priorities or everyone agreed on the threat. And it sure wasn't "a time of great stability and security unlike these really dangerous times today," -- a curious view that I hear most often from students who never lived through the Cold War era.

But it was a time when the much more obvious, and by the late 1950's possibly existential threat posed by the nuclear confrontation overlaid on top of a global ideological contest with the Soviet Union circumscribed strategic thinking in a way that is not the case today.

Compared to the Cold War period, we have more slack in our security environment and that introduces a certain amount of indeterminacy in the strategic debate."

Having "won" (i.e., we survived, Russia survived to become, er, Russia, Eastern Europe survived to become "Central Europe," and Western Europe survived to become the Eurozone) the Cold War, it's fun (for values thereof) to see so many latter-day Reaganites coming out of the woodwork to pretend that all along they'd meant to " jump on the team and come on in for the big win ."

11/23

re: "That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("From deep inside the foundations of our Republic's capital city") listened, as we all should, to the inimitable LTC (Ret.) Peters, speaker of uncomfortable truths.

Money quote(s):

"While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”"

This why we keep having to put up with Pakistan.

"After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?"

Not having a Leavenworth diploma to put at risk, I will venture that the decisions, and the decision-makers, that are relevant are not at the CGSC-graduate level. They are at the war and electoral college level. These are policy and grand strategy-level questions, and they are putting the operational cart in front of the logistical horse.

9/24

re: "Preventing Pearl Harbor"

George Smiley at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") commemorated America's most famous intelligence failure.

(Remember that operations are always successful; if they're not successful, then there was a failure of intelligence.)

Money quote(s):

"(C)ould the attack have been prevented, sparing the lives of 2,000 Americans who died on that fateful December day in 1941. While war clouds had been gathering for years before the Japanese strike, supporters of FDR claim that neither the President, nor his senior advisers, had any direct knowledge of a pending attack on Pearl Harbor, and could not provide definitive warning to Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, the senior Navy and Army commanders in Hawaii.

Still, there is plenty of evidence that U.S. intelligence was aware the Japanese fleet was on the move in late 1941, and might carry out a strike against American possessions in the Pacific."

George details for us a lot of that intelligence.

"Pearl Harbor was clearly at the top of Japan's potential target list, but raids on the Philippines, Alaska, Wake Island and Guam couldn't be ruled out. So, U.S. commanders in the Pacific faced the daunting challenge of locating the Japanese fleet, across millions of miles of open seas."

All of these potential targets were eventually attacked, and at least portions invaded and seized (including part of Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain).

"(T)here is one incontrovertible fact: the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor could have been easily prevented, had President Roosevelt followed the advice of his previous Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral J.O. Richardson. During his tenure as CINCPAC, Richardson repeatedly warned of his fleet's vulnerability at Pearl Harbor, and requested that most of his ships return to their home port in San Diego. When FDR refused, Richardson stuck to his guns and paid a high price: he was fired as CINCPAC in early 1941 and replaced by Admiral Kimmel."

There's a price, sometimes, in being prematurely correct.

Richardson's memoir included this passage, from a message to the chief of naval operations:

"(T)he probable cost (human and physical resources) of any war should be compared [with] the probable value of winning the war."

Clearly Adm. Richardson was a strategic thinker and had read his Clausewitz.

"Sadly, only World War II buffs and naval historians are familiar with the courageous stand of J.O. Richardson. At the cost of his own career, Admiral Richardson stood on principle, trying to avert a military disaster that he believed could be averted, by returning the fleet to San Diego and engaging in the preparations needed to ready the Navy for war.

Richardson's integrity and candor offer an important lesson for military leaders--or anyone in a position to advise decision-makers. Even in that rarefied air, it is essential to tell "the boss" what they need to hear--not what they want to hear. Admirlal Richardson did just that, realizing his advice might fall on deaf ears and result in his dismissal. It's regrettable that so many of his peers failed to follow his shining example in the days before Pearl Harbor."

Tell the truth as you see it, interpret the facts you know as best you can, don't shade or flavor unpalatable truths to fit the preconceived notions or prejudices of your superiors, and let those above you, with access to a presumably wider range of sources and methods, decide on the basis of a fuller scope of information.

12/7

re: "The Miserable Failure's War in Libya May Result In Victory"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ doesn't buy into the whole responsibility-t0-protect schtick, he's a bit more Jacksonian and punitive.

Money quote(s):

"The Bush model of war -- go in heavy, attempt to win the war on the backs of American (and allied) soldiers, attempt to establish a monopoly on the use of violence, and then continue that monopoly on the use of violence by acting as the nation's law enforcement/army for five, six, ten years -- doesn't work, or at least does not work at costs the American public is willing to pay.

I see no point agitating for a Full War Model against Iran, for example -- to urge such a thing is futile. I do not believe the American public has the appetite for such an endeavor. (At least-- not unless Iran uses its soon-to-be-built nukes.)

We didn't use to take care of these countries in this fashion. We used to arm and train rebels within those countries (they've all got them), fund them, provide intelligence, spread some bribe money around, and, when necessary, bring in the sort of Word of God that our air and naval forces issue from the air or sea." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Using auxilliaries is hardly a concept revolutionary in warfare, it's an economy-of-force move that makes sense for a global power concerned (as we should be) unnecessary U.S. casualties and an extended logistics chain.

"Colin Powell's ludicrous statement -- "You break it, you buy it" -- is a formula for nonstop, decades-long nation-building of exactly the same type that George W. Bush campaigned against in 2000, albeit on a much longer and much bloodier scale than we saw in, say, Haiti.
Why do we "buy" it if we break it?

Broken societies reassemble themselves. In fact, they seem to do so more quickly than people expect, even when faced with great devastation.

There is no need for American troops to hand-hold them through this process.

If a country thwarts or threatens the US enough to invite a decapitating military strike, one that takes out the ruling regime and renders the state without any force to impose order -- they broke it themselves." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

And, if necessary, rinse and repeat. Sadly, we may be headed down this road whether we like it or not regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan....

"(W)hat there won't be in the model of warfare I am endorsing is a large body of American troops in the crossfire.

Yes, our troops are the best in the world, and not just the best at destroying the enemy -- they are the best at destroying the enemy while sparing noncombatants' lives. They are the most disciplined and most precise forces the world have ever seen, in addition to being the most lethal.

So yes, the presence of our troops can in fact spare any number of noncombatants in such a bloody civil war.

But... I have to say: Who gives a shit? How many foreign citizens in an country we've gone to war with do I need to save in fair exchange for one American soldier's life?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Ace offers his own formulas for weighting that decision. It's a smarter way to evaluate strategic options than applying some sort of body count metric later on.

"These basket-case, broken, violent rogue countries have their own growing up to do. They have to go through their own spasms. They have to shed their own blood, and inflict their own massacres.

Yes, we can spare them some of this; but why should we? Someone is going to die in a war. I nominate foreign nationals.

American troops' heavy engagement is better for all parties in a war, except for the American troops themselves, and while they might be selfless enough to nobly volunteer for such missions, I'm a little too selfish to want to use them for such purposes any longer.

In some cases, we may need to fight a WWII style total war. Fine. In all other cases, we should go back to the 70s/80s model of backing indigenous fighters with the 90s/2000s addition of devastating airstrikes."

If we're not the world's policeman (as we claim not to be), then it might behoove us to be a bit more sparing in the application of our blood and treasure abroad.

"(T)he advantage of this style of warfare is that it is politically possible, which I no longer thing the Bush style is." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The man has a point.

"We have a strong interest in disarming Iran.

Do we have that strong an interest in rebuilding it and pacifying it? No, I don't think we do."

It's a valid point of discussion, and should be discussed, rather than assuming that Iran is a likely candidate for the Grand Fenwick model.

8/18

re: "Libya, Iowa, and F22 View 20110814"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog and Daybook") is good at looking at some big picture and on-the-horizon issues, at the same time.

Money quote(s):

"Libya and Syria

According to Aquinas, it is just to go to war to defend the innocent. There are restrictions, but this is not an unfair statement. Presumably that is why Obama considers it just to continue to break things and kill people in Libya. And recently Qaddaffi used helicopters, which once again put him in violation of the UN resolution, and thus required that the US kill some more Libyans and break some more Libyan property in the name of NATO acting for the UN." (Emphasis in original text heading. - CAA.)

Obviously, this linkery and quite have been idling awhile in my queue, waiting for my limited time and attention to get a "round tueit."

But the point still stands with regards to just war theory.

"One necessary condition for a war to be just is that there is a reasonable expectation of success. Success is defined in many ways, but you might sum it up by saying that in the end there would be more justice in the world after the war ends than there would be if it never started.

If we continue the intervention in Libya, do we expect that when it is all over there will be more justice in North Africa than there is now? And if we intervene in Syria, is there a reasonable expectation that what comes after the end of the thugocracy in Syria will be better than before we went in? I ask this seriously. Iraq is certainly better off without Saddam and his thuggish sons, but there were probably better ways to accomplish that than a lengthy occupation.

Republics seldom do Imperialism with any great competence. Competent Empire requires long term commitments, and a number of subtleties including the use of silver bullets, puppet regimes, auxiliaries and foreign legions, and other devices that do not win popularity in free elections. Incompetent Empire can leave both patron and client worse off than before. Washington warned us not to become involved in the territorial disputes of Europe. It is not isolationism to understand that we don’t know how to achieve some otherwise desirable results; and it is unjust to go to war without a battle plan under which we can realistically expect the world to be better off after our intervention than it would be if we did not undertake it." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Part of strategic thinking (see the bolded passage above), involves knowing what sort of end state, what kind of strategic objective, you have in mind.

Now, I think the bar should be adjusted quite a bit when it comes to waging a defensive war, a war for national survival; since it's quite lofty thinking to expect national leaders to intellectually accept that because they have no "realistic" chance of success, they must not fight in self-defense.

"The Chinese have launched an aircraft carrier. Carriers are the force projection system par excellance. Viet Nam has reinstated conscription. Japan is considering expansion of its self-defence forces. Few others in the world are made joyful by the news. Taiwan announced a sale on missiles that can kill aircraft carriers."

The Chinese re-launced an aircraft carrier, the Varyag. The Kiev apparently did in fact become some sort of hotel/casino.

As Dr. Pournelle correctly states, aircraft carriers (and their associated battle groups) are the defining force projection systems of our time, along with ICBMs. One could make a similar argument in favor of amphibious or other long-ranch ground expeditionary capabilities.

CAA has, in writing, made the academic argument that the aircraft carrier, along with ICBMs, are the strategic military capabilities that make a superpower "super." That was CAA's essential thesis when writing a "one-hour essay" the first time taking the FSWE (back during the late pre-Cambrian period when the "written exam" involved actual writing.)

CAA stands by that argument, by the way.



8/14

re: "Obama’s Next War"

Frank Gaffney at Big Peace outlines the prospects for peace (and for war).

Money quote(s):

"(A)n extraordinary intelligence-special forces team liquidated Osama bin Laden and drones have dispatched a number of other “high value targets” in what the President calls our “war on al Qaeda.” These are morale-boosting tactical achievements, but in the great scheme of things are more like whack-a-mole than strategic victories. Much more important is the fact that Mr. Obama is in the process of losing the two wars he inherited, and making a hash-up of the one he initiated in Libya."

Nonconcur in part. Taking UBL off the board was a strategic victory just as shooting down Adm. Yamamoto was

That being said, there's a vacuum, apparently, where the grand strategy ought to be.

"Mr. Obama’s earlier insistence on withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq and his abiding determination to pull out virtually all others by year’s end has, as a practical matter, made it impossible for the government in Baghdad to ask us to stay on. Even if the Iranian puppet, Muqtada al-Sadr, were not threatening if Americans are invited to stay to relaunch his Madi army’s sectarian warfare and bring down the coalition government (in which his party is a prominent part), the Iraqis can hardly be more in favor of maintaining an American presence than we are.

The predictable result in Iraq next year (if not before) will be a vacuum of power that Iran will surely fill. State Department and other Americans left behind, in the hope that the immense investment we have made in lives and treasure in Iraq’s democratic and pro-Western future will not be squandered, stand to become endangered species. The ironic symbol of our defeat may be the takeover in due course of the immense new U.S. embassy in Baghdad by Iranians – this time by invited diplomats, not the hostage-taking “students” of 1979."

Why is Mookie still breathing? Surely this is an oversight on someone's part.

I worry about my colleagues starting assignments in Iraq these days; I don't want to find myself glued to a television screen someday in the not-to-distant future, hoping (and dreading) to see someone I know running for the last helicopter out or being paraded around as A-Jad's latest hostage. He's done it before, after all.

" In his speech last week to what he calls “the Muslim world,” the President made it U.S. policy to support whoever manages to get elected in the various nations of North Africa and the Middle East currently undergoing political upheavals. As a practical matter, that will mean legitimating, working with and underwriting the Muslim Brotherhood, since they are far and away the most organized, disciplined and ruthless of the contenders for power in country after country. History tells us that such people – from Hitler in Weimar Germany to Hamas in the Gaza Strip – win even “free and fair” elections, which then amount to one-man, one-vote, one-time. (For more on the deadly nature and agenda of the MB or Ikhwan, see last week’s column in this space.)

President Obama’s openness (to put it mildly) to bringing the Brotherhood to power was manifested not only by his pledge to forgive $1 billion in Egyptian debt and to provide it another billion in additional foreign aid. Just as he did in his last much-ballyhooed “outreach” to Muslims in Cairo two years ago, Team Obama had one of the top Muslim Brothers – Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Ikhwan’s largest front group in this country, the Islamic Society of North America – prominently seated in the audience at the State Department."

I've mentioned ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood pedigree before.

During the course of a diplomatic career, it's not that unusual to find yourself, our your side, treating with very unpleasant and sometimes quite evil folk, as you're about your country's business of state and in the pursuit of peace. That sort of thing goes with the territory, I'm afraid. Examples including treating with Yasser Arafat even though we knew he was personally responsible for the murder of (at least) one of our ambassador. (For a transcription of the document itself, see here.)

It's still troubling and bothersome. I suppose I ought to be really worried when this sort of thing doesn't bother me.

re: "My Plan on How to Fight the Next Middle East War"

Frank J. Fleming at PajamasMedia ("exclusive news and opinion 24/7 with correspondents in over forty countries") is thinking about Grand Strategy.

Money quote(s):

"War is hell … if you’re in the war. For everyone else, it’s the whining that gets to us. The constant calls of “quagmire” and how everyone is dying for nothing and that we’re only making things worse and how we’re wasting money (yeah, the left used to pretend to care about that) really wear on us. I don’t know how our troops are doing with all the deployments, but all the civilians seem worn out from only hearing about war. We’re all war weary — despite most of us not being directly affected by any of the combat. Maybe our troops can handle getting shot at and going on multiple deployments just fine, but we can’t deal with the civilians complaining about it all the time."

Remember this?

"Obviously avoiding wars in the Middle East is not a realistic option, and I’m sure we’ll get involved in plenty more in the future. So how can we do that and avoid the constant whining of dumb hippies and having all those useless countries in Europe call us warmongers? Well, think back to the Iraq War and when people really started to viciously complain about it. We had broad support going in, and people were still pretty up on it during the initial bombing campaign and even once we got to the point of pulling down the Saddam statue. People truly started getting angry, and the “Bush=Hitler” signs came out in full force, when we stayed and tried to help.

Bombing a country is nothing, but hanging around the country afterward, helping it rebuild and establish a system of government where the citizens don’t get bossed around by a homicidal dictator, gets us into trouble. And it is pretty difficult for the troops; it requires them to stand out there exposed among the populace instead of just running around in tanks and exploding stuff. Plus it takes a long time, during which there will be constant whining about it, especially if there are Republicans in office to blame. The left basically collaborated with the insurgents in Iraq, saying, “Hey, if you kill more troops, then we will scream even louder about how awful this war is and hopefully get Bush out of office. So help us out here!”"

You have to love Frank J. He has a plain-spoken way of saying what he thinks and making it accessible.

"So I ask: Why should we even stay and help a country after we’ve bombed it?

Think about it. When President Bush gave that famous speech on the aircraft carrier in front of the “Mission Accomplished” banner, we could have just left the war then and said we won, and who could have argued with us? If you can go to a country, blow stuff up, and leave unscathed, that sounds like success. If someone came and burned your house and walked away, you wouldn’t say you won because the guy left. So why shouldn’t we in a future conflict in a Middle Eastern country just blow up stuff, declare victory, and leave?"

This is what's called a punitive expedition or war. Because its purpose is to punish. And that's it.

____

Hat tip to Frank J. at IMAO ("Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated.").

re: "Libya, Libya, Libya"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road opines on strategy and national interests.

Money quote(s):

"The most consequential error a commander can make is erroneously assuming that he knows his enemy's objective. Indeed, the bulk of analysis during a ground engagement goes into deducing the enemy's objective from his tactics. The underlying principle is so fundamental that it's almost invisible: You're fighting specifically to deny the enemy his objective, and to misconceive it all but guarantees that he'll reach it despite you.

On the other side of the ledger is your objective: the specific goal you're trying to reach in the circumstances before you. Oftentimes, it's merely the negation of your enemy's objective. In simple, two-contestant actions, that's almost always the case. That implies that at the end, either one of you will win and the other will lose, or both of you will retreat from your campaigns, having thwarted one another."

A commander on the ground has to worry about both tactics and operational art. Americans are spectacularly good at this stuff, btw. However, those are just the first two rungs of the ladder; there's strategy and grand strategy. But knowing your own objectives is essential and figuring out your adversary's is nearly as important.

"There are many players in this game. They're not limited to the Qaddafist forces and the rebels opposing them. The situation entangles many of the nations of Europe and the Middle East, plus supra-national forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood. America's own objectives are highly muddled, as it's unclear what outcome would benefit us at all, much less more than all other possible outcomes."

I like the way he thinks. Nice and convoluted-y.

"(A) good guideline for messes such as Libya is to defer making any irrevocable decisions until clarity should arrive. That guideline will sometimes leave us sitting on our hands while a golden opportunity passes by...but it will always prevent us from expending American blood and treasure to no gain, or to our ultimate rue."

&

"For the present, it's best to watch and wait. Given our military power and the relative weakness of all the other participants, no configuration of circumstances is likely to arise that couldn't possibly be undone in the future. Let's have a little clarity before exposing more of our bravest citizens to flying lead and anti-aircraft fire."

re: "Ho hum."

Col. B. Bunny at Eternity Road is asking a couple of excellent questions.

Money quote(s):

"Are there any elected officials within 100 miles of Washington, D.C. with a sense of urgency about national security? I’d settle for Congressional majorities composed of people who’ve simply seen “The Longest Day” and “Saving Private Ryan.” Forget profound strategic insight."

It's increasingly unclear to me whether there are any officials, in or out of uniform, at the policy making level who can conceptualize the military art at above the Operational level.

America does quite well at the Operational level.

American troops are actually positive geniuses at the Tactical level.

But when you start to talk Strategy or, heavens forfend, Grand Strategy, it becomes apparent that nobody's reading their Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, or even their Mao.