Politico - Tillerson looking to eliminate dozens of special envoy posts

Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") did a nice piece of writing here.

Money quote(s):

"Tillerson notes that nearly 70 special envoy or similar positions exist at the department and that some have outlived their purpose. In many cases, Tillerson argues that existing State Department bureaus will be able to handle the same duties in a more efficient way."

Some of the special envoys duplicate offices or even U.S. ambassadors resident in other countries.

"Tillerson's attempts to reduce the number of special envoys has broad support within the State Department, where many diplomats nonetheless cringe at Trump's proposal to cut their budget by 30 percent. The general feeling is that the envoy positions have proliferated to the point where they are undermining existing State Department regional bureaus and other divisions that do similar work."

Yup.  And if eliminating those duplicative positions takes care of some of that 30 percent cut, it may save truly vital functions from getting the ax.

"Some of the special envoy positions are mandated by law, making Tillerson's reorganization process tricky. At the same time, many of the positions are supported by outside advocacy groups who fear that their elimination will undermine efforts to highlight those particular issues."

The articles cites "international labor affairs; cyber issues; rights for the disabled; implementation of the Iran nuclear deal; global youth issues; and the Northern Ireland conflict" specifically as special envoy positions to be eliminated.

re: "Obama Wants Double-Digit Cuts to Intel Budget: No Way, Says House Intel Chairman"

PETER SCHWEIZER at Big Peace highlighted the importance of our intelligence budgets.

Money quote(s):

"James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, reported earlier this month that the Obama deficit-reduction plan "calls for cuts in the double-digit range--with a B--over 10 years." Congressman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, responded today during the 11th Annual C4ISR Journal Conference outside Washington. While arguing that congress must find efficiencies that will cut costs, "I will not allow a cut in mission capability," he told the audience. "We have to save money. We have to get efficient. But I'm not going to nick the bone." He went on: "I am not saying do more with less. I'm saying we...need to do business differently to remain competitive.""

You don't do more with less, you accomplish less with less. Working "smarter" can tighten things up at the margins, but it's not a cure-all.

10/27

re: "Caption Contest!"

The Phibian at Cdr Salamander (" PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE TO SYNERGIZE A CONSISTENT DESIGN IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.") was not inclined to unnecessary panic.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he politicians have structured the budget such that the area easiest to cut to any degree is DoD. They are cutting DoD because it is easy and they can say they are doing something. They are not serious about debt reduction though – if they were you would see cuts everywhere; and you won’t. Additionally, no one is going to surround a Congressman’s car and pound on his hood, or march on Washington (pun intended) because the budget for the military is being cut."

&

"This is political in two ways; it feeds the blood-lust of the President’s supporters on the Left to punish the military by taking away money (though there is blowback already for not being enough), and it gives him talking points to the right about being concerned about the budget. There is no downside here for the President – especially as if you read the document there is a lot there that is good. Just watch the money." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"The Commander in Chief comes from the far-Left of the Democrat Party. If you need more help understanding what he is doing at Defense, review “Scorpion and Frog.” He has a long and clear record of opposing both the conduct and the ability of the USA to conduct extended ground combat overseas. He has a long record of wanting a much smaller military, he is just being consistent; elections have consequences. I do not subscribe to the line of thought that this is done with malice. The President just sees things differently than some when it comes to the place of the military in the American project. It is not an unusual perspective, it has a lineage that goes back to the founding of this nation."

&

"We have left the field in IRQ and soon will in AFG. A draw-down of land forces, like we saw a build-up when combat expanded, is natural.

What about his strategy? Well, you can read it here.

The actual bucket-o-money that goes to DoD will be determined by Congress, so we will just have to watch things as they develop. What is important is the Direction & Guidance that comes from the Commander in Chief. From that you will see planning revised and priorities set, as it should be."

&

"WWII and the Cold War are both over. Keep a few Combined training and logistics bases with our NATO allies and come home; lock, stock, and barrel."

What he said.

1/7

re: "Budget axe may kill our military’s edge"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") explained why defense cuts are fraught with peril.

Money quote(s):

"One of the things that concerns me with all of the talk about huge budget cuts to defense is the distinct possibility that such cuts will take away the edge our military now has and has enjoyed for decades.

That edge, or advantage, is something that has helped make our military successful in every sort of combat imaginable. But developing and maintaining that edge are both time consuming and expensive. Research, development, testing, field and support don’t come cheap.

Yet that seems to be what is being demanded in an increasingly technologically advanced and dangerous world. The edge we’ve developed technologically over the years is what makes our military so exponentially lethal. We’ve provided combat multipliers to our warriors and they’ve used them expertly.

But to maintain such an edge, we must also be willing to spend the money necessary to do so.

There are numerous examples of cuts being considered that are dangerous. They will not only make our military much less capable, but also threaten our national security. Not only that, the cuts could end up actually costing us more than they save by sticking the military with outdated equipment that requires more maintenance, has more down time and will need continued parts and support."

That last might seem counterintuitive, but really isn't. To those with any military experience whatsoever (which exempts most of Congress), it's obvious. Older stuff breaks more often, is offline or "deadlined" longer, and requires replacement of broken or wornout parts with greater frequency. It's why military logisticians go with 150 percent "redundancy": in essence, if you need two trucks, you'd better have three because one is always going to be "down" for maintenance.

McQ concluded:

"These are the things that should concern us all as we watch a group of politicians with vested interests in other areas, many of whom look at defense spending cuts as a way to pay for other programs they are interested in, get ready to swing the budget axe.

Do we keep and improve the technological edge which has made our military the most powerful and predominant military in the world for decades? Or do we refuse to pay the price necessary to keep our military’s edge and continue to make it the most powerful and flexible force in the world and risk our national security?

No one knows how many wars and conflicts our military has been able to avoid simply because we’re as powerful as we are. But if history is a teacher, as soon as we’re perceived to be in decline militarily, there are those who will test us. This is one area of the national budget with which we must be very careful. Budgetary fat is always fair game, but the systems that will be the heart and soul of our national defense capability for decades to come should not be cut heedlessly. To do so would be a tragic mistake."

10/26

re: "The Radical President's Radical Plans for the Pentagon"

Hugh Hewitt at Hewitt Blog ("Join the Hughniverse") blasted backdoor plans to hollow-out the military and navy.

Money quote(s):

"President Obama's plan to slash the size of the American military by at least 10% is dangerous and covered in a deceitful "strategic reassessment," which is a crude attempt to deflect attention from the bottom line of a much shrunken American military.

There is a fiscal crisis, but it isn't because of defense spending but because of entitlements which the president will not discuss in detail much less reform. Dramatic cuts in the number of soldiers, sailors and Marines are a substitute for the hard work of shrinking the payout state and cutting off the president's favored constituents. "

&

"The failure of the Supercommittee and the train wreck of the debt ceiling showdown this past summer has left the House GOP divided and its freshman caucus demoralized and apparently defeated. But the House GOP simply has to rally to save the Pentagon from the president's wildly irresponsible plans."

&

"A Harry Reid-led Senate so dysfunctional that cannot even pass a budget in three years ought not to be in charge of the nation's defenses and ought not to be allowed to cooperate in the gutting of the American military.

"Fund the Marine Corps not NPR" should be the theme of a growing pro-defense movement. The Ron Paul-led isolationist slice of the country has seen it voice amplified by the GOP debates, but the Iowa caucus showed again that it is a tiny, tiny part of the GOP and should be pushed aside by the traditional demand of Republicans for a strong and vibrant military defined by a 300 plus-ship Navy and the modern era doctrine of the ability to successfully fight two wars at the same time."

Fast forward to today, with just a few months before sequestration will take effect. All of which was completely predictable back when this can was kicked down the road to today.

"The reporters at the Pentagon didn't even go out and ask what it would mean to, say, the Marines to lose 10 to 15% of their troops, taking the Army from 570,000 to 520,000 and possibly as low as 490,000 and the Marines from 200,000 to at or below 180,000. To say, as the Washington Post did, that "new military strategy, contained in an eight-page document, will guide wrenching decisions on defense cutbacks," isn't reporting."

Well, they're journalists now, not reporters.

(Do try and keep up.)

1/6

re: "Showing contempt"

David Warren at DavidWarrenOnline ("Newspaper columns") wrote a column, the whole of which should be read.

Money quote(s):

"Perhaps we are all getting sick of the word "terrorism." The word is misused as if it represented an ideological faction, rather than a method for getting one's way; and at that, it is used evasively, to avoid naming one's enemy, which, under current strictures, counts as a faux pas." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Terrorism is a noun. It's not an enemy. Terrorism is how the U.S. was attacked on 9/11; terrorism isn't who attacked on 9/11.

"What the Iranian apostate Shia-Muslim revolutionary regime is accused of having plotted - an atrocity in a high-class Washington restaurant, whose focus would be the murder of the Saudi Arabian ambassador - was not exactly terrorism. It may never have been meant to work; it may have been meant to be discovered. In which case, it was pure diplomatic gesture, the meaning of which takes a moment to sink in." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's basically flipping us (the U.S.) the bird, and doing it so the Saudis can't help but be forced to see it.

"We have to believe that Barack Obama's people are saner than Ali Khameini's people; or else, where would we be?"

By "people," our Canadian friend (Mr. Warren) seems to mean all of us in the federal departments and agencies, not just the White House or the Democratic Party.

(Which is quite correct, regardless of how individual civil (and foreign) servants may choose to vote.)

"Yet here was an unambiguous act of war, against both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, that traces to Iran's "supreme leader" Khameini, according to State Department sources speaking anonymously but purposefully to the media. Perhaps not, they say, to the Islamic Republic's malicious clown of a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (leaving an opening for one of their pet "Iranian factions" theories)." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

As I read earlier today:

"the phrase "act of war" is really a political, rather than legal distinction."

Oh, and there are factions a-plenty in Iran, even within the Iranian government and power structure (which aren't quite congruent).

But evidence that any of these are particularly "moderate" (in Western terms) belongs primarily in the eyes of the beholders.

"(T)he U.S. is now showing the FBI evidence in foreign capitals; presumably to confirm what everyone long suspected: that Iran's leaders are (as we say in Persian) "Majnun."Unhinged they may be, but even a detached wooden door should understand the consequences of an unambiguous act of war. For that would be, war.

Did the Iranians think they wouldn't be caught, or did they think that, if caught, nothing would happen?

The first proposition is crazier than the second; for sad to say, "bad guys" all over the world have been learning that, since the last Stateside election, they can do anything they want to the U.S. with impunity. Unless, they are not actually heads of government, in which case they must watch out for drones." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

This problem goes much further back than the last election; it ebbs and flows with the political vicissitudes. Even Pres. Reagan, he of sainted Conservative memory, isn't remembered for getting much in the way of payback for the Marine barracks bombing (Beirut 1983).

"When the ayatollahs learn that senior figures in their elite Quds force may be denied visas, I'm sure they laugh. They probably laughed harder when Susan Rice, America's UN ambassador, marched into their New York mission Wednesday to deliver a solemn letter. They know the U.S. has no leverage, short of military force, and that for the foreseeable future, force is off the table.

They even know that the U.S. military is about to be asset-stripped, when the current congressional budget-cutting exercise fails: for huge defence cuts automatically kick in when the Democrats decide they don't like the Republicans' alternatives. America has been quitting its thankless old job as "world policeman," with the whole world watching.

The greater risk is now being on the U.S. side, as the Saudis have been nervously discovering."

Denying visas to unsavory corruptocrats is a form of "soft power" that has legs in some parts of the world, but not-so-much in a country like Iran. And anybody who thought that it was a sort of "magic bullet" might consider tendering bids on a certain bridge.

"That Iran has international reach, through agents that can sometimes act competently, should be part of general knowledge. There is, for instance, an under-reported Argentine dimension of the plot."

Iran, or at least "factions" therein, has seen itself as the vanguard of a worldwide (Shia) Islamic revolution since their fundamentalist takeover in 1979. And parallels between their post-revolutionary behavior and that of the Bolsheviks are not accidental, they are deliberate, studied, and intentional. And that includes fielding a revolutionary "international" to do their dirty work abroad.

"(T)heir primary target was the Saudi ambassador. That is the key. The fact this mission was to be carried out on U.S. soil, was meant as a gesture of contempt for American power."

10/15

re: "Pipeline, &tc."

CAA (that's me!) continued his response to Jeff Emanuel's post at RedState:, responding to romeg's comment of Thursday, February 9th at 7:13 AM EST(link).

romeg said:

"Saddam Hussein and his family was pilloried publicly in Western media.

While there may be dedicated career members of the Diplomatic Corps and serious-minded State Department employees, it is an agency that is rotten to its core and overrun with fops.

While they are downsizing missions abroad, they may want to consider making equivalent cuts here at home. Why is it that an agency with a budget as large as the State Department takes years to figure out if a pipeline can be built across the U.S./Canada border?"

Response:

"Do you really think that decision was made in Foggy Bottom and not at the White House?

Take another look at Departmental budgets. State is miniscule compared to others.

Oh, and thanks for entertaining the notion that State does include some dedicated employees. Seriously."


2/9

re: "Default, Dear Brutus, Is Not In Our Stars, But In Ourselves"

Iowahawk made predictions for a budgetary meltdown.

Money quote(s):

"State Department diplomacy becomes 38% less diplomatic."

Hmm. CAA already feels less diplomatic.



7/28

re: "Threatening Military Pay Emboldens Adversaries and Destroys Morale…Way to Go, Obama!"

Michael Angley at Big Peace had strong things to say about leadership in high places.

Money quote(s):

"(P)ronouncements (or lack of reassurances) not only demonstrate cowardice and an absence of leadership, they may suggest to a potential enemy that we are not going to fund a strong military, a situation fraught with dangerous potential. The mere fact that Obama failed to assure the military that it would get paid is a despicable action by a Commander-in-Chief, one that has already fostered low morale among the troops. This damage cannot be undone, and no matter what happens with paychecks, the fact that Obama did not prioritize troop pay will not be forgotten."

Never let a crisis go to waste; never let an opportunity to let something turn into a crisis slip by unexploited.

"Real leaders rise above petty party politics and reassure the American people that their lives will not be disrupted as the machine of government grinds its gears and debates heavy issues like the debt ceiling. Real leaders take care of seniors, soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and veterans. Real leaders signal to our adversaries that no matter what political issues simmer on the domestic front, that we are a United States of America and we will always have a military force with high morale and esprit de corps ready and capable of destroying any threat we face." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

7/19

re: "Can Kerry save the State Department on the “supercommittee”?"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside the Foreign Policy Machine") asked a very important question.

Money quote(s):

"Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) will be on the "supercommittee" that's charged with slashing government spending, but will he use that power to rescue the State Department from its looming budget nightmare?"

The world waits.

"Kerry, who always denies he is jockeying to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she steps down (probably after the 2012 election), certainly looks like the leading candidate for the post. He has traveled frequently to hotspots like Afghanistan and Pakistan on behalf of the administration, led the push for Senate ratification of New START nuclear arms reductions, and is beginning a new push to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. He even toed the administration's line that the war in Libya does not amount to hostilities.

The State Department, meanwhile, is preparing for what could be its worst budget year in a very long time. After two years of budget increases during the Obama administration, the dire fiscal situation has placed diplomacy and development funding on the chopping block. In April, the Obama administration voluntarily cut $8 billion from the State Department budget as part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown."

Sen. Kerry certainly seems, at least in the major media, to be a leading candidate to succeed Sec. Clinton if and when she decides she's spent enough years heading-up the State Dept. But presidents sometimes surprise with their appointments. And by "sometimes" I mean most-of-the-time.

(Well, at least I'm always surprised.)

"Whether Kerry is able to stand up for diplomacy and aid funding, in opposition to his GOP counterparts, will determine the functionality of the State Department he one day hopes to lead. "

(8/9)

re: "Preparing for Defense Budget Cuts"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") ponders defense spending and America's geo-strategery.

Money quote(s):

"I have always been a proponent of wise defense spending, and cutting where there is no reasonably feasible return on investment"

Congressional pork-barrelling notwithstanding, defense spending really isn't about spending money in everyone's district, or shouldn't have been (but is).

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has indeed warned against sweeping defense cuts"

Note the caveats with which Mr. Hershel follows that statement.

"(I)f we fail to stop Iran’s increased hegemony in the Middle East, if we fail to prevent Iran from going nuclear, if our military power and resolve isn’t sufficient to prevent Russia from invading Georgia again, if we relinquish the Pacific to growing Chinese Naval provocations, if we fail to deal a decisive blow to the Taliban and al-Qaeda aligned fighters in the AfPak region, there will be war. Israel cannot allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Eastern Europe is looking to the U.S. for direction, and our abandonment of a missile defense shield was indication that we aren’t serious about their security, much less entry into NATO. Russia is back up to their dirty tricks, and is poised to conduct yet another assault into Ossetia, and the Chinese still want Formosa."

That paragraph is a good a brief statement of America's current strategic challenges as any I have seen and is arguably better than some of the multipage national strategic papers with which the defense and intelligence communities have saddled themselves with.

"America has benefited from the defense doctrine of fighting our battles away from the homeland rather than allowing the threat to land on our own shores before we confront it. Troops are currently deployed in more than 100 countries, and while it may be a tantalizing prospect to withdraw from the entire world and focus inward, we should be careful what we advocate. It will be much more difficult to recreate that military presence and deterrent that it was to dismantle it, regardless of how much money we throw at the problems once they have become obvious.

Cuts are coming. That which cannot continue, won’t. That which cannot be sustained will fall by the wayside. The question is whether America will address the growing entitlement state, however painful, or retreat from the world, also painful, just in a completely different ways, and perhaps permanently."

Writers of speculative fiction such as John Birmingham have already started to make oodles of cash by considering just what a world without America, as a metaphor for American engagement in the world, would be like. Entertaining reading, but quite ghastly in long stretches.

re: "I remember Carter's Army"

Bill at Castle Argghhh! reminds us of the bad-old-days (before the Reagan build-up).

Money quote(s):

"We could probably scare the rest of you for hours with tales of how over 50% of our equipment was deadlined because there was no money in the budget for parts, maybe 30% of the remainder was parked in the Motor Pool because there was no money in the budget to pay for fuel for them, but it didn't matter much that we couldn't drive them to the training areas, because there was no money in the budget to pay for training ammo."

Yours Truly recalls how things improved as resources began to trickle down to the troop level during the early years of the Reagan administration, and as how things dried up again during the Clinton years.

"A reporter interviewing the commander of NATO's land forces asked him what equipment the Sovs would need to reach the English Channel if they decided to crash through Fulda, and he answered, "Shoes."

Carter's military, not just Carter's Army, was hollower than the Keebler elves' tree, and we all knew it. It still amazes me is that enough of us were yet willing to fight World War III if it happened..."

We happy few.

re: "Guns or butter? Saving food stamps at expense of national defense"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") lays out some facts about cutting defense spending.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here’s a whole lot of military spending going on in the world, and we do most of it.

But we’ve known that for decades. What the chart doesn’t tell you, for instance, is how much China’s spending has increased. China’s defense budget for the past few years has seen double digit jumps, with the only year in single digits being 2010 when it only increased the budget by 7.5%. This year, it’s back in double digits at 12.7%. So that wedge you see in this static chart is a rapidly growing wedge. As China’s economy has heated up over the years, so has China’s military spending.

Russia too is increasing its spending on defense. It plans on spending $650 billion on its armed forces over the next 10 years.

France, on the other hand, has been cutting its level of military spending consistently over the years since 1988. But a country that isn’t cutting its spending and which now spends more of its GDP on the military than does France, is Iran.

The point, of course, is that while it is evident that we spend an inordinately larger amount than any other country on defense, we’ve done that because we’ve assumed an international role that others can’t fill or we don’t want them to fill.

And that’s an important point. One reason that we’ve generally seen a peaceful 50 or so years (with most wars being of the regional, not world wide, type) is because we’ve been the country which has shouldered the burden of keeping the peace. Peace through strength.

Obviously there is certainly an argument that can be made that we shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden and it’s time we gave it up. But as soon as you say something like that, you have to ask, “but who will fill the role”?

Certainly not the Third World Debating society known as the UN. They’re inept, corrupt and incompetent. And certainly not NATO – as Libya has proven, they can’t get out of their own way.

So who keeps Russia in its place and stands up to China as that country flexes its newly developed muscle? What about Iran? Or North Korea?

That’s the problem with being about the only country standing of any size after a world war. So we have to ask ourselves, is it in our best interest to back out of our pretty dominant role and cut back drastically in our spending in that area? If we answer yes, we have to ask who we trust to pick up that slack. I know my answer to that – no one. But rest assured that power vacuum will indeed be filled. A dilemma for sure."

One of the fun facts about Russia is that the millions of dollars we've given them in aid to clean up, secure, and demilitarize their older nuclear force freed them to spend their defense budget (remember: money is fungible!) on modernizing and upgrading their new nuclear forces.

"We lead the world in spending but do not have the largest military – not by a long shot. In fact, our entire military is just a bit smaller than the Chinese Army alone. Looking at that, and considering the spending chart, what would it tell you?

It would tell me we spend the majority of our money on technology. It costs money – and a lot of it – to maintain our level of superiority. We spend it on things like 5th generation fighters, state-of-the-art naval vessels, and the like. Programs that are designed not only to give us the technological edge on the battlefield, but also to deter would-be enemies from even trying, given their inability to match our capabilities. It is obviously an intangible – we can’t really measure how much this has saved us from brutal and even more costly wars – but with the budget battles and the fiscal crisis, we’re in a position where we certainly have to clearly state our priorities."

One can place domestic politics and policies, re-election concerns, and "transforming America" at the top of one's "to do" list, but that doesn't make the rest of the world go away.

"Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and it is approximately 20% of the federal budget."

Just keep that part in mind. It's an important fact. Hmmm. If defense spending is twenty percent of the federal budget, what's the other eighty percent? Foreign aid? Not too likely, considering non-Defense "discretionary" spending is only nineteen percent of the federal budget.

(And according to the pie charts at Blackfive, Medicare & Medicaid are 23%, Social Security is 20%, other "mandatory" spending is 12%, and interest on federal debt is 6%.)

"And we’ve so overspent that we’re spending 6% on interest alone. So 62% of the budget – as designed by those brilliant legislators we’ve elected decade after decade – is untouchable by law. That leaves 39% that these yahoos want to “balance the budget” on. The elephant in the room is ignored to go after the dog. And only part of the dog." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(U)ntouchable by law" means untouchable-until-the-law-is-changed. Entitlements and mandatory spending are labels used by politicians to convince the public that transfer-of-wealth payments used to redistribute income are God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

(And they ain't.)

"Is it a core commitment of the government of the United States to protect and defend the citizens of the country as outlined in the Constitution of the United States, or is it a core commitment to take other people’s money and redistribute it?

Because that’s the choice we’re talking about here. Make the commitment to national security and, within reason, the cost that entails, or (snip) throw it under the bus in favor of redistribution of income instead." (Bold typeface in original text. - CAA.)

re: "House panel votes to defund the OAS"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside The Foreign Policy Machine") covers a possibly momentous development.

Money quote(s):

"The House Foreign Affairs Committee began its Wednesday markup of the State Department authorization bill by voting to end funding for the Organization of American States (OAS), with Republicans lambasting the organization as an enemy of freedom and democracy.

The one-hour debate over the GOP proposal to cut the entire $48.5 million annual U.S contribution to the OAS is only the beginning of what looks to be a long and contentious debate over the fiscal 2012 State Department and foreign operations authorization bill written by chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Democrats accused the Republicans of isolationism and retreat for their proposal, while the Republicans accused the OAS of being an ally of anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. The OAS Charter was signed in 1948 at a conference led by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall."

By their fruits shall you know them. Or something like that.

Despite the fine pedigree and charter, lots of international organizations have, to put it gently, not lived up to expectations. The OAS in recent years has acted more like a club of presidents rather than the umbrella group of Western Hemisphere democracies that it's billed as being.

This will, I expect, amount to nothing much. At least not this time. But it puts the OAS (and other international organizations who exist substantially on the U.S. dime) on notice. Personally, I'm rather fond of the OAS's Washington establishment. They do good work. Some of their principals' political wrangling, especially lately, had some pretty bad optics nonetheless.

When it comes to international fora and organizations in general, let's just say that CAA is a fan of the idea. As for the reality: they haven't come close to matching the vision, to say the least. It remains to be seen, in some cases, whether things would be better, in their individual areas of action/inaction, whether their absence would in fact be an improvement.

Be sure to read the whole article for the partisan play-by-play.

re: "Ties that bind Defense, State"

Michael Clauser at Politico ("published every day that Congress is in session") get this mostly right.

Money quote(s):

"(A) key Washington budget debate: the proportionality of military spending relative to nonmilitary international affairs spending.

The U.S. spends roughly 20 cents of every tax dollar on defense, compared with slightly more than a penny for nonmilitary-related international affairs activities.

Advocates of soft power bemoan Washington’s overly militarized approach to the world, while conservatives are critical of what they view as an ineffective bureaucracy run by establishment elites in Foggy Bottom. Yet of all national budget debates, the fratricide for funds between State and Defense is most puzzling as their roles are so intrinsically complementary."

As Mr. Clauser notes, SecDef Gates didn't exactly take a parochial approach to this dichotomy. He knew that there were some things that the military shouldn't do, at least not in more than a supporting role.

"Deficit and debt reduction are necessary, but not sufficient, to ensure long-term U.S. strength and well-being. And the price should not be forfeiture of essential hard or soft U.S. national security capabilities or America’s leadership role in the world."

Usually we wait until a war is over before cashing in on a peace dividend. The Clinton administration crippled the military services doing this, while shrinking our diplomatic force multipliers just when they should have been growing them.

What' do you call doing this when the wars are still ongoing?

"U.S. leadership requires both hard and soft power working in concert.

The past 10 years of unconventional conflict have reminded the military and its congressional overseers of the inherently political nature of war and the importance of nonkinetic capabilities — like civil affairs teams, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, rule of law educators, development and reconstruction specialists, counter-drug personnel and police trainers. These capabilities are as vital to contemporary conflict as some major weapons systems. Cutting funding for them is, therefore, a kind of unilateral disarmament."

Preach it. "(U)nilateral disarmament." And he doesn't see that as a feature; be secure in your appreciation that it is indeed a bug.

USAID (and the former USIA) need to be re-established as more than contracting and out-sourcing entities, and as independent agencies. The stealth assimilation of USAID into State is just as bad an idea as absorbing USIA was.

"(F)ederal and nongovernmental aid groups are coming to realize how much they rely on the military to provide security for aid workers in pre-, post- and active conflict zones. Human rights watchers admit that the use of force, as in Libya, can stave off grave human rights atrocities. U.S. diplomats know that their ability to “speak softly” hinges on the presence of “a big stick.” " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Being a superpower means people return your calls in a timely manner. Which is nice.

They don't need to necessarily fear you, just respect that you're big enough that you can squash them by accident if you're not careful.

"Federal budget politics remain the quintessential zero-sum game. As Congress considers where to identify savings, it must acknowledge that defense, diplomacy and development cannot be devolved to state or local-level government. Instead, Congress should redirect its scalpel to departments and agencies whose missions are not as intrinsic to the federal government and to key drivers of long-term debt."

Yeah, good luck with that.

"Granted, this is far easier said than done.

With so many domestic political constituencies benefiting from federal programs in housing, health, education, labor, pensions and agriculture, it is all the more important for advocates of strong and balanced U.S. leadership in the world to work together — and work harder to be mutually reinforcing about the importance to each other’s roles."

Defense and State lack domestic constituencies for their missions except in time of war or international crisis, when American citizens are forced to look beyond their normal everyday lives to the wider world. And State lacks the big ticket items like large domestic bases, expensive procurement programs, and the like that make it a cash cow for legislators looking for a little pork.

Being a continental power that is in fact continent-wide, America is fortunate to be so large that for many of us the outside world is just so far away it hardly seems real. You just have to drive across too many states to even reach an international border for other countries to seem more than something you watch on National Geographic.

_____

Hat tip to the Editors at Small Wars Journal ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field").

re: "Can we afford the Afghan war?"

Kori Schake at Shadow Governments ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") dissects a bad idea.

Money quote(s):

"The White House has opened a new front in the Afghan war - or, rather, in their effort to shed the burden of the Afghan war. The Washington Post reports that cost will be a new and major element for consideration. The $113 billion spent this year for Afghanistan is described as unsustainable; the article concludes, "To many of the president's civilian advisers, that price is too high."

This is preposterous from an administration that budgets a tripling of our national debt by 2018. President Obama has twice submitted budgets that never eliminate deficit spending, yet now claims it cannot sustain the $107 billion to fight a war the president described as "no idle danger; no hypothetical threat," but a vital national security interest to our country. The Obama White House is trying to seize on conservative momentum to reduce federal spending by cutting the only government program they don't support: winning the war."

All that is required, at this point, from our military efforts in Afghanistan and in Iraq is that we not lose.

That's all.

Much of the heavy lifting has been done. It's now a matter of finishing what we started and not letting ourselves be run out, by either Afghan or Iraqi insurgents or by our own "anti-war" faction at home, until we say we're done.

(After all, it's not over 'til we say it is.)

"The American military is not culturally predisposed to nation building. They undertake it because it creates the highest likelihood of achieving our military objectives. What the White House is attempting to do is paint that approach as profligate, contrasting it to the cost-effectiveness of a narrower counter-terror approach. They ought to ask themselves why none of our military leadership is supporting the approach."

&

"Responsible people can advocate different approaches to defending ourselves against the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan. They can also advocate further cuts to defense spending. But it is dangerous to argue the cost of prosecuting a war that, while high, is marginal to our expenditures and by no means the driver of our debt, cannot be afforded. "

re: "In Case You Needed Proof of Congress's Disdain for Federal Employees...."

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") highlights rudeness and incivility in high places.

Money quote(s):

"Coburn's reaction to overseas comparability pay is particularly infuriating..."it's going away." How someone who is supposed to represent Americans and who certainly benefits from the Foreign Service, particularly when he travels overseas, can be so glib about handing us a 24% pay cut is beyond comprehension.

I certainly hope that the next time he travels overseas, he travels economy class, because in his words, "we just don't have the money." And I hope he gets very little assistance from post, because he doesn't seem terribly interested in us."

Well, that's not too likely to happen.

re: "Telling Our Stories "

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") notes a recent Washington Post article you should read.

Money quote(s):

"This piece is exactly the kind of story the State Department and AFSA need to be getting out.

Our biggest problem, the reason we keep being the whipping boy for the budget cutters, is that we are no ones constituent. We are small and not well understood, so that makes us an easy target.

These kinds of stories help the American public get a better idea of the challenges we face."

We're small, elite (and perceived as elitist, which is even worse), deployed in dribs and drabs all over the world so we're out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind, not concentrated in any one congressional district, and we don't have big bases all around the country where we're stationed when we're not abroad.

When we're "home," 99% of the time that means we're in D.C., where we (deliberately) blend in with all the other government employees, riding the Metro to work and clogging the line at Starbucks.

"We have an awesome, exciting job that we are priviledged to get to do. We also have a frightening, challenging job that demands great personal sacrifice.

America needs to know."

It is an awesome job, often exciting and frequently meaningful.

I wouldn't trade it, and the chances its given me to "make a difference" for all the world, but.... it's still not fair to single us out for a 24% pay cut when we have the affrontery to actually deploy overseas to do our jobs.

Who else in government and military service does that?

re: "Gates: Any DefSec Who Proposes Wars Similar to Iraq and Afghanistan "Should Have His Head Examined" "

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ reacts to SecDef Gates' recent West Point speech.

Money quote(s):

"He also talks about "reshaping" (that is, cutting) the Army's and Marines' budget because he thinks a large conventional mechanized-units-vs.-mechanized-units war is unlikely.

I don't know about that last part. I'd say we'll have few of those wars. And more of the smaller-unit/guerilla war. But I'd say the likelihood of either is pretty high. The former's at like 70% and the latter's at 100%. Just because most fights will be small-unit engagements doesn't mean large-scale warfare isn't going to happen."

There's a way to break down threats like this, into four quadrants, where you evaluate possible events in terms of both probability (i.e., likelihood) and risk (i.e., hazard or cost) as being either High or Low. So you get Low Probability - Low Risk, High Probability - High Risk, Low Probability - High Risk, and High Probability - Low Risk.

The probability that major mechanized combat is going to happen in any given year may be low, but the risk is so high that you have to prepare for it. After all, you can't just excrete a major mechanized force and the ability to project it globally on 11 months notice; it takes literally decades to build.

"After eight years of pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm not at all sure we were right to depart from the basic idea that nation-building was a bad idea.

This is less about Iraq and Afghanistan and more about the next war, which just might be Iran. Personally, I'd be on board for military action, but I would strongly prefer to leave the pacification and nation-building to the Iranians. Pay 'em, arm 'em, give them targeting lasers to paint targets for jet strikes, but I wouldn't support a massive, decade-long police action in a country with more than twice as many people as Iraq.

We used to do this a lot. We would arm indigenous fighters, train them, feed them intelligence, offer assistance. After 9/11, I think the decision was made that we had to show a very, very bright-line distinction between the real soldier -- professional, uniformed, acting under orders, scrupulously avoiding (to the extent possible) civilian collateral damage -- and the terrorist, and that led us to conclude, I think, that we couldn't just depart Iraq after smashing the Baathist state and let the Iraqis fight it out. Because there would be a whole lot of terrorist, civilian-targeting attacks, and we'd be on the hook for that."

"American troops are of course the most disciplined, ethical, and heroic in the world. So heroic, in fact, we typically expect them to put their own lives in danger for the purpose of reducing the chance of collateral damage. Few other troops would even consider such rules of engagement; our guys might complain about it, but in the end, they follow orders.

So if American troops are the primarily force in a country, we can expect the lowest possible number of civilian collateral casualties. But the question I'm asking myself now is: How much do I really care about the fewest number of civilian collateral casualties? In Iraq, if the deaths of 3000 American soldiers (in the later post-war campaign) saved, let's say, 60,000 Iraqi civilians -- was that a good trade? Or, more importantly, because the more important thing to me is the doctrine going forward: Would I be willing to make that trade in a hypothetical pacification campaign in Iran? Would I trade 3,000 US soldiers to make sure the fewest Iranian civilians died in the chaos that ensued after a decapitation of the state?

I think I'd say the Iranians will have to fight it out themselves."

Gates is only reprising MacArthur's (and Vizzini's) "never get involved in a land war in Asia" dictum. Odd how no one noticed both Iraq and Afghanistan are Asiatic countries before now.

The mathematics are a bit cold. Thinking the unthinkable is like that. But the calculus is necessary.

"I wouldn't support an Iraq-style American-troops-as-primary-combatants pacification.
And I don't even think that it matters what I think -- I don't think any President, Republican or Democrat or Tea Partier, is going to propose such a thing. Which makes this question very important, because unless the country can accept that arm-your-proxies style of limited warfare, I think we're going to have a Vietnam Syndrome going forward. Given the choice between no military action at all and full-scale invasion plus pacification/nation-building, I think the country will select, by large margins, "no military action at all," and I think that is very dangerous.

We will need to fight another country again, most likely sooner rather than later. We need a doctrine about such a war that can actually gain popular support.

I just don't believe the country will undertake another Iraq or Afghanistan you-break-it-you-bought-it plan, at least not for a long time. So I think those who believe that warfare must always be a possible tool available to us (even if only occasionally used) must formulate a doctrine in which the post-war pacification campaign is specifically ruled out and our goals in the post-war scenario are achieved by means other than heavy presence of American troops as primary combatants.

I just don't think the Iraq model of post-war pacification is an option in the next five to ten years, at least, for political reasons."

Frankly, I suspect we'll have U.S. troops, at some level of strength, in both Iraq and Afghanistan for at least five of those years, so I'd envision that, barring a catastrophic event that "resets" U.S. grand strategy, five to ten years is a very conservative estimate.

"(I)f we actually want to credibly threaten a country like Iran -- and do more than merely threaten, should it come to that -- we need a doctrine that has a chance of getting the nation behind it, and we have to begin conditioning the nation to realize what happens when disciplined, heroic American troops are not the primary combatants -- a lot of civilians are going to die, most likely, because only American troops (and some other professional Western-tradition troops) are brave enough to put the lives of civilians before their own."