re: "Fixing the Army (By Ruining It)"

JAMES JOYNER at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") gave a learned dissection of a Tom Ricks post.(which wasn't actually written by Tom Ricks, btw.)

Money quote(s):

"My strong guess is that the author is a non-commissioned officer, probably a Sergeant First Class, with minimal familiarity with Google, much less the Army above the batallion (sic) level."

("Batallion" is the correct spelling, but only if you're writing in German. - CAA.)

"If I were holding a contest to see who could come up with the dumbest idea for reforming the Army, I’d stop it and declare a winner. This would set the Army back two decades, ruining hard fought gains in achieving a Total Force.

Now, twenty years ago, I’d have given this a big Hell Yes and a Hooah or three. The National Guard was an embarrassment and seeing these fat yahoos in sore need of a haircut running around in my uniform made my blood boil. But a hell of a lot has changed since then. We’ve integrated the promotion system so that Guardsmen have to earn it in the same way that active force soldiers do. And many Guardsmen have seen more combat time than their active duty counterparts owing to the vagaries of the force structure. These people are every bit the soldier as the guys on active duty now and it would be a slap in the face to label them as second class citizens."

This responded to a suggestion that since the National Guard now has a four-star seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the NG be split off as a "sixth service." Several specific (and wrong) recommendations are made in this connection.

Mr. Joyner has the right of this one.

"I did plenty of D&C as a cadet but can’t imagine when you’d find time to do this at a unit. Especially with the current opstempo, there’s just too much to do. And, frankly, most soldiers would see spending a lot of time practicing for parades to be degrading, not just a colossal waste of time. We’ve cut out shining boots and pressing fatigues; let’s go ahead and keep this gone, too."

"D&C" means "drill and ceremonies." In other words, marching around and stuff. It's taught (and learned) in basic training, and our NCOs learn how to teach it at the first level of NCO academy training. As Pvt. Winger once said of it: "Especially that "marching in a straight line" business."

Soldiers already know how to do this and use the techniques when appropriate. If they need to brush up for a specific ceremony or event, well, that's why practices are held.

"The old battle dress uniform that I wore finally gave up the ghost during the Iraq War, when the Army decided that it just made no sense to have multiple camouflage patterns and went to one standardized one. The hasty replacement, the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) turned out to have multiple problems–most notably that the “universal” camouflage pattern not only isn’t universal but doesn’t even work in the main theater it’s being worn, Afghanistan–so they’re looking to replace it. It’s a bit frustrating.

Getting rid of the polyester green uniforms with the lime green shirt as a garrison dress uniform and making the dress blue uniform the standard service uniform again was something I campaigned for back in the late 1980s. They’ve finally done it. The problem is that, rather than going back to the old tradition of khakis or some other substitute uniform for hot weather, they decided to have a “class B” version of the uniform that consists of the light blue trousers with a white dress shirt and all the ribbons and skill badges on it. This makes soldiers look like shopping mall security guards." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The "universal" ACU digital pattern works if you're in an environment consisting of (recently) dead grass. Otherwise, it simply tries to be too much at once. While it's understandable that the Army didn't think it was cost-effective to field four sets of each camoflage pattern to every soldier, there could probably have been a way around it; issuing only desert pattern uniforms to soldiers at Fort Hood and (other Southwestern U.S. forts) for instance and woodland-suitable patterns only to soldiers in temperate locations (East Coast, Germany, Pacific Northwest, &tc.).

As for the Paul Blarts (i.e., "mall cop" Class B uniforms), I'm with Mr. Joyner (as well as Petronius); they're garish. A khaki shirt would have made a lot more sense, even if the light (actually medium) blue trews were retained. CAA has never been all that fond of the mint (and polyester) green "Shade 44" Class A/B uniforms. Something a bit drabber, closer to the brown/green of World War II army (and current USMC) service uniforms would have been better.

11/19

re: "Overpaid Bureaucrats"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") tackled the topic of an over-popular punching bag.

Money quote(s):

"Federal government employees include the 1.6 million members of the uniformed military, FBI agents, CIA officers, NSA analysts, and all manner of other dedicated professionals that Americans actually like. And then there are the vast numbers of engineers, accountants, and other technical experts that most people don’t even know about. At the state and local level, there are legions of schoolteachers, cops, firefighters, safety inspectors, and others who provide valuable services. For whatever reason, they’re not what people think of when they’re villainizing the “faceless bureaucrats.”

People have come to despise “government bureaucrats” because of bad experiences with the DMV and the Post Office and a general sense that governments employ a lot of lazy people with bad attitudes who are impervious from being fired. And they’re right! Then again, so does the private sector."

Just to clarify, DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles where I come from, your state may have a different name for this agency) is not a federal agency.

Come to think of it, the U.S. Postal Service has hived off from the federal government and semi-privatized and the postmaster-general both removed from the cabinet and deleted from the line of presidential succession.

"Any of us with experience in the government sector have stories of the “retired on active duty” senior NCO or the GS-12 who spends her days reading the newspaper and surfing the Internet. Whether those people are any less prevalent in the private sector, I couldn’t say; but we naturally resent the government workers not pulling their weight more, since they’re on our payroll. And maybe the system should be fixed to get rid of the bad apples–although making it too easy to fire people is not without costs.

But the deadwood are far outnumbered by dedicated professionals doing incredibly important–and sometimes, dangerous–jobs that even most of us “small government” types want done. It’s useful to remind ourselves of that from time to time."

Not that CAA hasn't had his share of run-ins with the "retired-in-place" community, but they're thankfully in the minority in every agency or service in which I've worked thus far. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

8/30

re: "Unless You’re In The Military, The President Is Not Your Commander In Chief"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") expanded upon a pet-peeve.

Money quote(s):

"(S)ince the September 11th attacks, and probably before then although I can’t say I noticed it quite as much, there has been a tendency to refer to the President as “our” Commander in Chief, or for civilians to say that the President is their Commander in Chief. In reality, of course, the Constitution merely states that the President “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” "

The president wears several "hats," as it were. He's indeed the commander in chief; he also embodies a number of "chief executive" roles, as well as some having legislative or judicial aspects. Oh, and chief diplomat as well.

"This idea of the President as “Commander in Chief of America” is at the center of what has been called the Imperial Presidency. As Gene Healy noted in his excellent book The Cult of the Presidency, the Presidency we know today bears almost no resemblance to the institution the Founding Fathers created when they drafted Article II of the Constitution. For roughly the first 100 years of the Republic, Presidents kept to the limited role that the Constitution gave them. There were exceptions, of course. Most notably revolving around military crises, wars, or similar circumstances. Abraham Lincoln greatly expanded the powers of his office during the Civil War but so did Presidents such as James Polk and Andrew Jackson. Even that great beacon of limited government Thomas Jefferson used the opportunity of the Louisiana Purchase to exceed the powers of his office. For the most part, though, America’s 19th Century Presidents held to the limited role that is set forth in Article II, which is probably why they aren’t remembered very well by history." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Nice historical recapitulation.

"Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson to FDR went far beyond anything resembling Constitutional boundaries to achieve their goals, and they were aided and abetted in that effort by a compliant Supreme Court and a Congress that lacked the courage to stand up for it’s own Constitutional prerogatives. Then, when World War Two ended and the Cold War began, the powers of the Presidency began to grow exponentially.

Throughout this period, the one common theme regardless of who sat in the Oval Office was the manner in which the Presidency itself became more and more entangled with a military air. Where previous Presidents were open and available to the public, the President today goes from the White House to Marine One to Air Force One, all the while encased in the tightest security bubble of any person in the world."

Much of this is the inevitable result of the world wars and subsequent Cold War. Some of it has less to do with presidential egos (or showmanship) than with the egos of presidential staff.

"(T)here’s the question of whether it’s really appropriate for a President to return the salute of a military officer. Since he is a civilian, there’s a fairly good argument that it not only isn’t necessary for the President to return a salute, but that it’s inappropriate."

Recent changes of military courtesy as regards veterans not in uniform being allowed (it was never specifically forbidden, apparently) to render the hand salute for the U.S. flag or for the playing of the National Anthem make this less of a stretch, to my mind. At least in those instances where the person rendering the hand salute is himself (or herself) a veteran. Which is nice.

As for us Foreign Service folks, when abroad the only non-military/naval person at an embassy who should be saluted is an ambassador. Presumably, the ambassador would then return the salute. I've heard of presidents (and ambassadors) being criticized for not returning a salute, of the "what?-are-they-too-good-for-it?" variety. So it's not like you can win but for losing.

In some places, local embassy guard forces (Monrovia, I'm looking at you!) salute all American staff entering the embassy, which is, on the one hand, simply another form of "sniper check" and on the other hand a veritable cloud bank of disinformation. To a degree, having to return such a salute tickles the former-NCO side of CAA; what really made my day was how the local thugs, er, "special police" (these were the Charles Taylor days) would also snap to attention and salute us as well.

"In any case, along with the Imperial Presidency, is seems that we’ve also developed a Militaristic Presidency. The fact that such a view of a President’s proper role makes it easier for them to commit American forces to dubious missions raises the question of whether we’ve gone way too far in cloaking the Presidency with an air of authority (t)hat is wholly inappropriate.

There’s another danger in the idea that the President is “our Commander in Chief.” If the man, or woman, in the White House is just “the President,” then disagreeing with and criticizing them isn’t much different than disagreeing with any other politician. Accept the idea that they are your “Commander in Chief,” though, and all of a sudden the subtle idea that they are their to give all of us orders that must be obeyed gets introduced into the mix." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

And that's just wrong. For those of us who're just-plain-citizens, i.e., voters, the president works for us, not the other way around.

"(D)o we really want to start introducing into our political culture the idea that the relationship between citizen and President is in anyway similar than, say, the relationship between a Pfc. and their commanding officer?

So, let’s stop this nonsense that the President is our Commander in Chief, because unless you happen to be uniform at the moment he isn’t."

1/2

re: "Army Linguists: Too Few and Poorly Utilized"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") examined a report of how the Army mis-utilizes its linguists.

Money quote(s):

"Big Army, which is essentially the entire force minus special ops types, is a very strange bureaucracy with little understanding of how to use unique assets. No private should be treated differently than another and it would cause resentment if Specialist Rosenthal, the only guy in the unit who spoke Arabic, were spared the guard duty, KP, and shit details (in the case of deployments to desert environments, quite literally) the other lower enlisted soldiers pulled. Naturally, too, he needs to partake of all the same common task training and Infantry skills as the rest of the boys. Keeping his Arabic skills up to speed, well, that’s something he should do on his own time."

CAA is not utterly unfamiliar with this phenomenon. An old and dear friend, now a highly-paid and respected linguist "at a government agency in the Baltimore-Washington corridor" told me about being a young French linguist freshly graduated from the Defense Language Institute and arriving at Fort Hood, Texas, where he spent the remainder of his active duty enlistment washing trucks.

As a military intelligence soldier deployed to Iraq, CAA was in a unit well-stocked with language-designated (and qualified) soldiers, none of whom knew much Arabic, Kurdish, or Farsi (the three languages which would have been useful to us). We were, however, fully competent in our non-language related skill-sets so, once we were sufficiently augmented with linguists (both uniformed and contractor) we successfully carried out our missions.

I suspect that the young soldier whose account Mr. Joyner excerpts was one of those sorts of usefully-languaged soldiers sent to augment a unit whose other, Korean language-qualified, soldiers were more useful in that organizations more usual mission roles. That is, they were probably in a unit which either deployed to Iraq from their bases in Korea or from bases where there unit had a significant "reinforce Korea" mission, such as in Hawaii.

8/25

re: "Success In Libya Does Not Justify An Unnecessary, Improper Decision By President Obama"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") wrote this last August and it still stands true.

Money quote(s):

"While the battle for Tripoli still rages, it is rather apparent at this point that the final collapse of the regime of Muammar Ghadafi is, if not totally destroyed, on its last legs and that his 42 year old one man dictatorship is at an end. Not surprisingly, that has led many people to the conclusion that President Obama’s decision to back the UN/NATO mission in Libya in March was justified because, well, it worked. While President Obama will get, and does deserve, some degree of credit for achieving the goal of overthrowing Gadhafi at a minimal cost to the United States in lives and money, however, none of that success eliminates the serious questions that were raised by the Obama Administration’s decision to intervene in Libya, and the manner in which they went about doing so."

No one disputes the president's authority, as commander-in-chief, to give order to the military in the absence of a Congressional authorization; there's a whole procedure worked out about this in the War Powers Act.

"Leaving aside the all-too-real possibility that Libya will descend into civil war and chaos and that we’ll be faced with a Somalia-like situation within striking distance of Europe and the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean Sea, one of the truly unfortunate dangers of the “success” in Libya is that it reinvigorates an interventionist argument whose credibility had been, thankfully, called into serious doubt by our decade-long involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan."

And:

"(N)either the United States nor NATO are going to suddenly go out on “humanitarian” missions when the risks are too high, which is why the people are Syria shouldn’t count on anyone coming to their aid any time soon, but all that really does is create an argument that justifies interfering in the internal affairs of other nations as long as they aren’t strong enough to actually fight back too hard. It’s neither moral, nor is it a proper use of American military force, which should primarily concern itself with the protection of the vital national interests of the United States." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Morality is actually something that the use of U.S. military force is, if not uniquely, somewhat unusual in having as a factor, historically speaking at least. It's a fundamental basis for the legitimacy of using military force, which is also based, but not solely, on legality.

"There was, to put it bluntly, no reason to involve ourselves in yet another military action at a time when our troops are already stretched to the limit thanks to two wars we’ve been fighting for ten years, one of which doesn’t seem to have any geographic limitation at all. There was no reason to spend money we don’t have to come to the rescue of allies who aren’t willing to make the investments necessary to protect our own interests. Most importantly, there was no reason to get involved in a conflict in which our own national interests were not implicated in any manner whatsoever."

There's an argument to made that the U.S. "got played" in fronting the heavy lifing for some of our NATO allies in this matter, which was neither within NATO's normal area of operations nor the consequence of responding to an attack on a NATO country.

"Finally, there are the serious legal and Constitutional questions raised by the President’s course of action in Libya. Instead of seeking approval from Congress for the Libya mission, President Obama relied solely on a series of United Nations Security Council Resolutions that authorized force for the sole purpose of protecting civilians. That justification quickly went out the window, though, and it became rather obvious from the start that the United States and NATO were primarily concerned with aiding the rebels, despite their questionable ties, not protecting civilians. While the Administration did notify Congress of the action as required by the War Powers Act, they failed to seek Congressional approval for the same and showed no inclination that they thought they needed to notwithstanding previous statements by the President and the Vice-President to the contrary. When the 60 day WPA time limit approached, they made the absurd argument that the United States was not engaged in “hostilities.” Of course, Congress is partly responsible here as well considering that they failed to take any steps to challenge the President’s clear violation of the law. Nonetheless, the President fought an illegal war, and the fact that it worked doesn’t justify that fact that he acted improperly."

8/23

re: "On Gingrich, The Palestinians, And “Invented People”"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") considers the facts-in-the-minds-of-the-people-on-the-ground.

Money quote(s):

"Whether or not it is historically accurate to say that there was no such thing as the idea of a Palestinian nation prior to the early 20th Century is largely irrelevant. What matters is what the facts on the ground are right now, and right now there are some 4 million people in the West Bank and on the Gaza Strip who consider themselves part of a Palestinian nation. Ignoring that reality is impossible, and engaging in historical diversions about the Ottoman Empire, the Caliphite that preceded it, or the Roman Empire that once ruled Palestine is really quite pointless." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Can I get an "Amen!"?

Sure, prior to the XX cent. the "history" of the Palestinian people is pretty much fairy-tales (unless you're talking about the Jews, &tc.). But, deliberately or not, there's a very real sense of national consciousness there now, and that has to be accepted (and dealt with).

12/11

re: "International Relations Graduate School Pros and Cons"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") offered advice to international relations students.

Money quote(s):

"If you want to go into the Foreign Service, Intelligence community, or the Pentagon, a PhD is desirable but probably not worth the tradeoff in delayed earnings and entry into the workforce." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Mr. Joyner excerpted a passage than explains that in greater detail.

There are plenty of Ph.D folks who do enter the Foreign Service; there's certainly no bar to it, but the point about delayed earnings impacting lifetime earnings is valid enough. IIRC, entering FSOs with Ph.Ds come in at pay grade (actually "class") FS-04, the highest of the three entry level pay grades. Which is nice, but since they're ineligible for promotion to FS-03 until they complete their probationary period (approx. 3-5 years) and receive their permanent "commissioning and tenure," their less-credentialed entering classmates will have caught up with them (due to administrative time-in-grade promotions) by the time any of them can enter the mid-grade FSO ranks.*

" Presidential Management Fellowship. The PMF is the Golden Ticket in government service, shooting you all the way to the GS-13 level in a very short period and opening the path to the Senior Executive/Intelligence/Foreign Service as a relative kid. By comparison, it took David Petraeus 11 years to make lieutenant colonel (GS-13 equivalent) and 26 years to make brigadier general (the lowest SES equivalent). And he’s a West Pointer with a Princeton PhD!

Even without the PMF, a public policy masters will get you in the door and give you both the training and credentials to enable you to move up through the ranks expeditiously. Theoretically, the government doesn’t really care where you went to school–a degree from University of Phoenix is as good as one from Harvard to the personnel department. But a good brand name will matter later in your career.

Many government types actually manage to get a PhD in mid-career. (It’s especially common for military officers, since the Pentagon has a relationship with a handful of schools, most notably Princeton, that allows them to rush people through the program in a mere three years.) This comes with the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school.

Additionally, government service provides another route to being a think tanker or even a professor. While several of us at the director level at the think tank where I work have PhDs, most have MAs and very valuable experience at senior levels of government–ambassadors, assistant secretaries, National Security Council staffers, and such. And many of the elite universities around the country will hire people with that sort of experience as professors (especially in the public policy schools). The war colleges and other professional military education schools vastly prefer them to career academics." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

For those entering the Foreign Service without a masters degree, once you get to the mid-grade ranks there are opportunities for long-term training assignments outside of the Department, even outside of the federal government. They have the advantage, as Mr. Joyner correctly notes, of "the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school." You just can't beat a scholarship like that.

(For those suspecting that this is a boondoggle at the taxpayer's expense, I would counter that students in this sort of program are already in government service, so the advantages to the government of providing professional development to its career officers is that the benefits of having a better professionally-developed officer start paying off as soon as the student returns to the Department.)

_____

While no particular formal educational credential is required to be selected as a probationary FSO, far and away the vast majority (99 percent?) of newly-hired FSO have an undergraduate degree when they are hired.

Without a university-level (or better) education, the chances of successfully completing the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) aren't all that good.

The Foreign Service is something of a meritocratic mandarinate that way. It's not prejudice so much as the level of intellectual preparation that it requires. In fact, my sense is that the majority of entering FSOs have graduate (or equivalent) degrees. Its hiring process is extremely competitive and that level of academic preparation gives FS candidates a distinct edge.

The same goes for professional work experience as well, including military service. There are some things that very few schools teach, after all, but can nonetheless be learned by the willing.

(I should mention that there is a Veterans Preference factored into the selection process, which is why, like in the Civil Service, prior military and naval folks are more highly represented in the Foreign Service than in the general population.)

"The better your credentials and contacts, the better. Going to Harvard or Stanford or Chicago simply gives you more options than going to a less prestigious institution because it stands out on a resume. Additionally, as Farley notes, some schools do a much better job than others of providing institutional support in networking and finding jobs. And, of course, having spent your 20s working for the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Ambassador to the United Kingdom is going to open more doors than having spent them in an archive somewhere working on a giant book few will ever read." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Quite a few FSOs went to big "name" schools, but frankly the largest cohort seems to come into the Foreign Service with graduate (or undergraduate) degrees from Foggy Bottom's neighboring George Washington University (GWU) campus. It's an excellent school whose proximity apparently facilitates recruitment.

Vanishingly few come from elite "name" programs such as Georgetown University's (GU) Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service or Harvard's Kennedy School. Instead, I've met quite a few Tufts and Thunderbird graduates in the Foreign Service.

_____

* - FS pay grades or "classes" work differently from civil service ("General Schedule" ("GS") pay grades in that the lower the FS number, the higher the rank. That is, the higher the number, the lower the rank. Something like that.

FSOs enter at either FS-06, -05, or -04. Over the last decade or so, these have been variously called Junior Officer ("JO"), Entry Level Officer (ELO), and First-And-Second-Tour (FAST) officer ranks. They're equivalent to Civil Service GS-8, -9, and -10 or to the Army's "company grade" officer ranks of Second Lieutenant (O-1), First Lieutenant (O-2), and Captain (O-3).

Mid-grade FSO ranks are FS-03, -02, and -01. They are the equivalent of military "field grade" commissioned officer ranks (i.e., major/lieutenant commander/O-4, lieutenant colonel/commander/O-5, and colonel/captain/O-6) or Civil Service GS-13, -14, and -15.

Above FS-01 are several Senior Foreign Service (SFS) ranks with names like Counselor (OC), Minister-Counselor (MC) and Career-Minister (CM) equivalent to the Civil Service's "Senior Executive Service" (SFS) or to military/naval "general officer" (GO) or "flag" ranks (i.e., admirals).

There's also the SFS rank of "Career Ambassador" (CA) which, while a great honor and quite a rare cap to a FS career, doesn't actually come with a pay bump beyond what is earned by a Career-Minister.

8/11

re: "Kimberly Webb Joyner, 1970 to 2011"

Please join me in offering veteran, writer, blogging colleague, and editor James Joyner most sincere condolences at the sudden and tragic loss of his wife, Kimberly Webb Joyner, mother of two young daughters.

re: "Greece's Dangerous Gamble"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") looked at the Greek financial crisis.

Money quote(s):

"As much as the Germans and French resent having to bail out profligate Greece, the Greeks resent having their core political decisions dictated from Paris and Berlin even more."

Likewise for Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Iceland. To name a few.

"European integration has been achieved through stealth and technocratic maneuvering on the part of elites, quite frequently bypassing the clear preferences of the ostensibly democratic populations in various countries. The passing of so much authority to the European Central Bank and to appointed officials in Brussels has been inexorable, with little input from the European publics and often against the expressed wishes demonstrated via referenda."

This is not a bug in the European experiment: it's a feature.

11/1

re: "Joint Chiefs of Staff Sweepstakes"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") had some thoughts about who should fill this important post.

Money quote(s):

"Both (Petraeus and Stavridis) epitomize the scholar-warrior-diplomat that the military has been touting for a generation as the ideal type."

Subsequent to Mr. Joyner's insightful post, GEN Petraeus was offered, and accepted the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"The United States has been at war for most of the last two decades. That we launched an operation in Libya whilst still bogged down in two major wars and are ratcheting up rhetoric elsewhere in the region gives me little confidence that we’re about to change.

Further, while it’s certainly possible to be an outstanding strategic leader without having been in harm’s way, the fact of the matter is that the Army and Marine Corps have done the lion’s share of the fighting in these wars. It would be odd, indeed, to disqualify our ground force leaders for the chairmanship because they’ve been off fighting the country’s wars rather than thinking about the wars we might one day fight."

re: "Obama Killed The War Powers Act? No, Congress Did"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") analyzed an analysis from the Washington Post.

Money quote(s):

"Ackerman and Hathway make the same mistake that many people wh(o) analyze this issue do in that they view the Presidency’s power grab int he area of war powers as a completely one sided matter. They forget that there is more than one branch of the Federal Government. As I noted when the debate over the Libyan engagement began (which was roughly an hour after the President announced it), Congress has nobody to blame but itself for the fact that Presidents have essentially written them out of the war powers process over the past 60 years"

Mr. Mataconis also made an on-target criticism whose underlying basis changed just this week past.

"With but a few notable exceptions, two of which happen to share the last name Paul, no Senator or Congressman of either party has stood up and said anything over the past two months about the President’s decision to commit American military forces to action in a nation that did not attack us and poses no threat to us or our interests, in a conflict where we still aren’t even sure if the “rebels” are any better than the government they’re trying to overthrow. Nobody in Capitol Hill with the power to do so has help hearings on the engagement, or suggested that the matter be put to a vote in the House and the Senate."

He concluded:

"The problem is what this means for the future. Once again, Congress has abdicated in the face of a Presidential power grab and that means that, in the future, this President and his successors will feel much more free to act without considering either the desires, or the existence, of Congress. One day, maybe Congress will wake up and realize what’s happened, and when they do they will only need to look in the mirror to find the party responsible for this disaster."

re: "White House’s ‘Libya Isn’t A War-War’ Defense Not Going Over Well In Congress"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") describes the push-back by Congress.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Obama Administration responded to Congressional demands for more information regarding the mission in Libya by saying that the War Powers Act doesn’t apply because American forces are not engaged in hostilities in or near Libya. Not surprisingly, that explanation has not gone over well among Congressional critics of the Administration’s policy"

"(T)he House may consider cutting off funding for the Libya mission if the Administration does not further clarify its position"

IIRC, that's kind of what the Constitution envisions in a situation like this.

"The White House, meanwhile, has basically said it doesn’t intend to respond any further to the House"

Yeah, ignoring Congress is a win-win of a strategy. (Oh wait: I meant just the opposite.)

"(W)e may be headed for some kind of real confrontation between the House and the White House over the mission in Libya. Frankly, it’s already gone further than I expected. Usually, Congress just rolls over and plays dead on these sorts of things but it’s clear that the hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington, combined with the fact that the Libya mission remains decidedly unpopular, have emboldened Boehner and others to actually take a stand here.

If that’s the case, I’m glad to see it. It’s been far too long, since the passage of the War Powers Act really, that Congress has acted in any decisive manner to try to reign in the Executive Branch’s power grabs in the war making department. Regardless of the outcome of this particular policy dispute, the fact that Congress, or at least part of it, is acting with some backbone here is a welcome sight, especially in light of the specious reasoning that the Administration uses in its report."

Not to be too hung-up on process when results do matter, but since the only oaths or vows I've ever publicly sworn have been (in order) to the Constitution and to Madame-At-Arms, I take Constitutional processes pretty seriously. (That's just how I roll.) But let's look at results as well:

Qahdafi has been on my better-off-dead list since at least the 1980's. He's just that bad of a "blackhat." But realities of international politics and diplomacy have meant that we've let him stay alive lo all these intervening decades.

Pres. Bush (#43) even managed to get the guy, after publicly naming Libya as part of the Axis of Evil and then taking down Saddam's Iraq in about a week, to give up his WMD programs and start playing responsible adult (as much as the murderous tyrant was capable of portraying, anyhow).

So going on the warpath and trying to take out Qahdafi (while saying we're doing something else, but that's another argument) just doesn't make sense to me from an American perspective. Does. Not. Compute. Arab Spring or no, we had Muammar Qahdafi in the box we wanted him in, not troubling us and not looking to trouble us.

And now, any other dictator with WMD has got to wondering how it's to his benefit to give that up.

So how does this make sense?

"(T)he idea that the President can engage in hostilities with a nation that has not attacked us and poses no threat to our interests, and then fund the military war without Congressional appropriations seems to defy any reasonable reading of the Constitution."

I'm pretty good at reading comprehension (less so reading-between-the-lines) and I concur with Mr. Mataconis' assessment

re: "Ten Congressmen Sue President Obama Over Libya Mission, War Powers Act"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") gives a factual assessment of the suit's merits and standing.

Money quote(s):

"Ten Members of Congress, represented by George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, have filed a lawsuit against President Obama seeking a Declaratory Judgment that he has violated the War Powers Act by failing to get Congressional approval for the mission in Libya"

It'll be quite interesting to see how (and when) the court rules. Don't be surprised if this gets slow-rolled.

"There are few things more important than the Separation of Powers between the Executive and Legislative Branches and the question of the proper extension of the War Power. Unfortunately, this lawsuit is most likely destined to fail just as all previous attempts to resolve this issue in the Courts have failed."

As much as the judicial branch likes to order one or the other of the executive and legislative branches (not to mention the several states), ordering around both branches seems to be a bit more than they like to bite off.

"(G)iven the Court’s reluctance to get involved in disputes between the Legislative and Executive Branch over war powers in the past, it seems highly unlikely to me that the standing issue will be any less of a problem now than they were in 1999. In some sense the court in Campbell is right, if Congress believes the President has acted unconstitutionally, they have the power to cut off funding for the Libyan action, or even to impeach the President, if they have sufficient votes to support that action. if they don’t, I’m not at all certain that getting judges involved in this particular policy area makes any sense at all."

Good luck with all that.

re: "President Obama To Congress: War Powers Act Doesn’t Apply To Libya"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") considers the question.

Money quote(s):

"Taking a position that is certain to raise eyebrows, the White House sent a response to Congress today regarding the request for further information about the military action in Libya that argues that the War Powers Act is inapplicable to current American involvement there"

Curious. Mr. Mataconis quotes from the New York Times article explaining this position before continuing.

"The question then is whether United States United States military forces are still involved in “hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.” There seems to be no real contention by anyone that American forces, or NATO forces for that matter, are actually on Libyan territory or in Libyan territorial waters. The Administration seems to be arguing that since there are no American ground troops and no American fighter planes involved in action over Libya, then the answer to that question is no. As John Cole notes, though, we are using Predator drones to launch missiles at Libyan target on an as-needed basis, so the idea that we’re completely off the grid on this mission isn’t entirely true."

&

"(F)or the Obama Administration it’s not just a question of how Congress reacts, but also how the public reacts. A response like this could potentially be spun as the Administration trying to get around the requirements of the law by means of a technicality. The fact that we are still engaging in offensive action in Libya, albeit in a limited fashion that doesn’t endanger American forces, makes this kind of legal argument hard to sell — it’s a war they’re saying, but not a war war. That doesn’t strike me as something that’s going to play very well with the public, especially given how unpopular the Libya mission is to begin with."

re: "Southerners Not Happy to Have Lost Civil War"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") gets this just about exactly right.

Money quote(s):

"This isn’t actually all that complicated: A significant number of Southerners continue to feel a deep attachment to the region and its culture. This is especially true of those who have generations-long attachments to the South. It’s hardly shocking, then, that they would fail to celebrate their ancestor’s loss in a bitter war.

And Jamelle’s right: Almost none of those ambivalent about the Southern defeat have any fondness for slavery, much less a desire to re-institute it. Additionally, these people are some of the most patriotic Americans, seeing zero contradiction between loving America and her flag and also celebrating an insurrection against it several generations ago.

Then again, for today’s Southerners, the Civil War wasn’t about slavery.

Don’t misunderstand: There’s simply no debate that slavery was sine qua non for the South’s secession and the onset of war. All of the political debates and pronouncements surrounding the Election of 1860 and the run-up to secession make that crystal clear. Other justifications were calculated myth created by a Lost Cause movement shortly after the war.

But the political cause of a war seldom has much to do with why individual people fight. Only a tiny fraction of the soldiers of the Confederacy owned or had any prospect of owning slaves. Mostly, they fought because there was a war on and they chose their homeland over a mythical nation-state that wouldn’t come to exist in its modern sense for another several decades.

So, it’s quite easy for Southerners to distinguish between the Civil War and slavery. In their minds, their ancestors weren’t fighting to preserve a wicked institution but rather for some combination of independence, “state’s rights,” and clan loyalty."

re: "Obama vs. Pentagon on Libya"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") comments on civilian-military relations.

Money quote(s):

"The administration has a set of foreign policy goals that can be achieved by military force but domestic considerations are limiting the type and amount of force it is willing to commit. The military leaders understand that intuitively and are insisting on either lowering the goals to those achievable by military force or eliminating the caveats in order that they might achieve the goals." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

This is yet another aspect of expectation management.

re: "Military-Academic Conflict"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") discusses the contradictions in military higher education.

Money quote(s):

"Thomas Ricks has had a series of blog posts over the academic quality and integrity of the Air War College and its parent Air University in Montgomery, Alabama. It was sparked by a book chapter written by disgruntled retired AU professor named Daniel Hughes, which prompted Ricks to argue for closing the college."

See my earlier post on this topic.

"The war colleges simply have to be hybrid institutions, blending the best cutting edge scholarship with practical training. Each of the services now sends a large number of promising mid-career officers to civilian universities and Washington think tanks (including my own) to broaden their horizons. And that’s great! But the vast number of young colonels and captains need to learn to be strategic thinkers in today’s environment. That means being around really smart scholars who’ve had the luxury of thinking really hard about Iraq, Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, military interventions, and a host of related issues. There just aren’t many institutions in the country with more than one or two of these people on staff.

Now, here’s where my own bias comes in: Anders’ arguments for having most of the faculty at the war colleges consist of active duty officers are well taken. While almost by definition they’re less accomplished scholars than some of their civilian peers–it’s not their chosen career after all–it’s perfectly reasonable to have senior officers training the next generation at these institutions.

But, as Anders notes, Congress stepped in two decades ago and mandated that a certain percentage of the faculty at the various professional military education (PME) schools and the service academies (West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force) be civilian academics. The rationale was obvious: leaven the faculty with professional scholars to move the education-training balance further in the direction of the former while at the same time broadening the perspectives to which students are exposed."

Read the whole thing.

re: "Disadvantages of an Elite Education"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") contributes some thoughts to a discussion on elitist institutions.

Money quote(s):

"(W)hile the Ivies and their elite cousins confer many advantages on their graduates, they also wall them off from normal people and create an entitled, out-of-touch elite. As a product of decidedly non-elite institutions working to put my daughters on an elite path, much of it rings true."

"The closest thing in my personal experience to the “you are special” indoctrination is the year and a half I spent at West Point. While admission was largely meritocratic and more economically diverse that our brethren at the Ivies, the notion that we were an elite vanguard was inculcated in us from the earliest days. (Rather odd in hindsight, since they also spend the first year doing their best to make cadets feel inadequate.) Not only were we a cut above our civilian college brethren but the Army and the country were depending on us to guard its virtue. While academy graduates were a small part of the officer corps, we would be like a drop of ink in a barrel of water, changing the character of the whole Army.

Even though I nearly drowned in that environment and wound up finishing at a podunk regional school for financial reasons, it took me a couple of years to fully shake off the notion that, simply having been selected to go to West Point, that I was special. So, I can certainly see how someone who spends years in that sort of environment–and years in select schools competing to get there–would have an enormous sense of entitlement."

Sadly, in my many years in and around State Dept., I've seen many examples of the entitlement syndrome. Back before I joined the Foreign Service, I was even known to theorize that the "A" in "A-100" (the traditional but unofficial* designation of the Foreign Service Officer Orientation course, which as an actual course number completely different from that) stood for "arrogance." As in it was the capability being taught in that course.

That's not actually the case, but we do get quite a few "special snowflakes" joining the service and they can have some adjusting to do as they proceed abroad to some very non-elite assignments as junior officers.

Selection into the Foreign Service is almost completely meritocratic. Plenty of us come from non-elite backgrounds. And the only reason I say "almost" is because of the Qualifications Evaluation Panel phase which is now part of the FSO accession/selection process. It was implemented some years after I was hired and I find it just a little bit opaque, something of a "black box" in the process.

Personally, I've had the privilege of being part of several "elite" groups in my professional life over the years, culminating most recently in my career as an FSO and in some of my assignments therein.

(Oh, and attending an "elite" educational institution was not one of them until fairly late in life)

What those experiences taught me was that, as smart as I think I am or believe myself to be, there are folks even smarter than that and it's never a good idea to think you're either the smartest guy in the room or that you already know everything there is to know about something or that you can't learn something from people who might not be as smart as you are.

"(W)ell-connected graduates of elite schools often get on the fast track right from the outset. There are people working at the White House, Congressional staff, and the Joint Chiefs with less subject matter expertise and real world experience than I had fifteen years ago. There’s simply a huge degree of path determinacy at work."

In D.C., in certain "social circles," one encounters the youngest versions of these folks, the "Hill rats." As in "Capitol Hill." More than one FSO has come away from encounters with these, and some of their more senior brethren, convinced that many bear a serious chip on their shoulders about the Foreign Service, a grudge dating back to when they were unable to either pass the FS examinations or otherwise make it through the selection and appointment process. None of us could prove it, but the impression has come across to many different FSOs around the world at various times.

(I should mention, just to be clear, that I've also had tremendously positive professional encounterss with various Hill and Executive Branch staffers. They tended to be the ones experienced enough to know what the Foreign Service does and what FSOs can do for them assisting the completion of their own responsibilities.)

"Moreover, the degree is always a trump card. I’m well past the point where anyone cares where my undergraduate degree is from. Unless I’m applying for an academic job, it’s at the bottom of my resume. But people who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, and the like are still getting credit for it decades later."

He concludes:

"It’s very easy for those in the professional class to live in a bubble of their own creation and, especially, to put one around our kids. And, frankly, the incentives to do so are powerful. There has to be a balance between making providing opportunities for your kids and walling them off from reality."

re: "Barack Obama’s Imperial Presidency"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") has a better understanding of the war powers issues than most.

Money quote(s):

"I suppose it is smart for a Member of Congress to avoid getting too involved in foreign policy matters because the possibility of being wrong is so much greater. However, that doesn’t make the abdication of responsibility proper. Largely though its own lack of willingness to act over the years, Congress has ceded vast discretion to the President when it comes to committing American military forces to overseas conflicts that don’t directly threaten the national interests of the United States."

"(E)very President since Richard Nixon has taken the position that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional because is infringes on the President’s powers as Commander in Chief. Obama is merely adopting the position of his predecessors, and while it may seem odd that a President who ran against the Iraq War to be acting like this, it is not at all surprising. Once they have been asserted, Executive Branch privileges are seldom curtailed" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA)

The bolded portion is a key bit of history that seems to be evading many commenters on this but forms an essential component of what I was originally taught about the War Powers Act. Every president complies with the Act's requirements, but does so while saying he doesn't have to.

"As for what will happen with regard to Libya, I think that’s pretty easy to figure out. Congress will do nothing. With American forces committed abroad, and the increasing possibility that ground troops may be necessary at some point, no Congress is going to step in and tel the President he can’t do this, no matter how much they believe that to be the case."

He may be right about this, but I think this will break differently should there be any U.S. casualties.

re: "Libya Exit Strategy"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") should know better than this.

Money quote(s):

"an elementary concept on war planning, the requirement for an exit strategy."

Actually, although it apparently took Sec. Rumsfeld until 2005 to say it, the Weekly Standard discussed it as early as 2003: you want a victory strategy, not an "exit strategy."

"It’s a fundamental precept of national security policy going back to at least the writings of Carl von Clausewitz that wars are fought to achieve political ends and it follows that military strategy must be tailored to achieve political ends. Indeed, countries can lose wars in which their armies are absolutely dominant on the field of battle–as American forces were in Vietnam–if the fighting does not achieve the sought political objectives.

In order for military planners to match tactics and strategy, they must know what the end game is. In the case of total war, such as we fought in World War II, that’s pretty simple: The unconditional surrender of the enemy. In the case of humanitarian interventions, counterinsurgencies, and stability operations, however, it’s much harder.

The concept of an exit strategy is designed to spotlight this dilemma. Simply put: How do we know when we’ve won the damn thing and can stop fighting?"

I'm as Clausewitzian as the next guy (perhaps more), and agree with Mr. Joyner about that. It's the notion of an exit strategy versus one for victory or even a set of objectives or goals, an end state that is worth all the trouble, blood, and treasure that vexes me.

Language is important. The very use of the word "exit" together with "strategy" messages our essential unseriousness about the dead serious business of warfare, and causes our allies many sleepless nights. It signals that our most important objective is to leave, to be uninvolved, even as we commit men and materiel to a conflict.

"The bottom line is that the colonels Ricks is hearing complaining about the lack of an exit strategy aren’t asking for all the answers, just the most important one: What are they fighting for?"

Here we agree. What is our strategic grand objective? From that all lesser operational and strategic issues must necessarily flow.