Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

Protesting NATO. Why?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is meeting in Chicago on Sunday, May 21 and Monday, May 22.  It’s a big deal, and a lot of protesters are expected.  I’m not exactly sure why all these protesters are coming to Chicago.  Chicago police are going to look at this as a chance for baton target practice – just kidding.

Seriously, though, I do wonder what it is about NATO that the protesters don’t like.  Most recently, NATO has been fighting in Afghanistan.  I realize President Karzai is pretty marginal, but compared to the Taliban, he’s not so bad.  Unless you like things such as girls not being allowed to go to school, etc.

NATO has been involved in the Balkans, too, stopping fighting there.  The operations in Libya were perhaps the most controversial – and maybe questionable – thing NATO has done but they are over now.

In any case, Afghanistan and these other operations are not what NATO is really about.  If you are protesting against NATO, that means you are protesting against things such as:

• NATO helping maintain peace in Europe for over forty years after World War II, while giving the nations of Western Europe the chance to do what they wanted to do, instead of what the Soviet Union wanted them to do.
• NATO members working with the United States and West Germany to facilitate the peaceful reunification of Germany after the Wall fell in 1989.
• NATO supporting the people of Eastern Europe in their efforts to bring freedom and democracy to their countries when they finally had a real chance to achieve it.  And not just countries like Poland and Hungary, but Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, too.  Mind-boggling.
• The nations of Eastern Europe becoming members of NATO.  As soon as they could, members of the old Warsaw Pact, and even some republics of the USSR, joined NATO.  Why?  So the security promise that had protected western Europe for so long would now protect them, too.

When you protest against NATO, this is what you are protesting against.  I can see why Vladimir Putin might not like NATO, but protesters in Chicago?

I suppose some of the protestors may think that they are protesting against inequality and that they are supporting the 99% against the 1%.  Except that is not what NATO is about.  Protesting against those things at a NATO meeting misses the point.

But that is the main story of the protests:  The protestors are missing the point.  They don’t understand NATO: they don’t understand what it is, and they don’t remember all the good if has done over the years.  It sort of makes you wonder if they really know what they are doing at all.

A Meeting of Nobel Peace Prize Winners – And Those Who Were Not There

There was a World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Chicago last week.  Attendees included Lech Walesa, the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Oscar Arias Sanchez (former president of Costa Rica), F.W. de Klerk (former president of South Africa and co-winner with Nelson Mandela), and Jimmy Carter.

It was a very impressive group, but perhaps more impressive were those who were not there because they were never awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.  I understand the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mikhail Gorbachev.  He played a critical role in the transformation of Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  But he did not do it alone, and he didn’t succeed in what he was trying to do.  Instead of reforming the USSR, he killed it.  But the way he acted in the process of doing what he was trying to do was worth a share of a Nobel Peace Prize.

But that is the point.  It was only worth a share.  Because he should have shared it with two other people.  The Axel Springer publishing group understands this point and they get it right in the collection of busts outside their headquarters in Berlin.  They call them the “Fathers of [German] Unity,” but they are really the fathers of the peaceful transformation of Europe:

 
[Picture by Jennifer Allen, December 20, 2010]

Mikhail Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush and Helmut Kohl.  It was Helmut Kohl who drove the engine of German unification and worked to get the Soviet Union’s consent for this incredible accomplishment.  It was George H.W. Bush who provided the support to Chancellor Kohl and who set U.S. policy to help achieve German reunification and bring democracy to Eastern Europe, including even the Baltic states, peacefully.  And it was Mikhail Gorbachev, supported by Kohl and Bush, who was able to stay in power long enough so that his policy of non-interference in eastern Europe gave those countries the time to choose freedom and democracy.

The achievements of Kohl and Bush were outstanding.  They did something that could not have been reasonably foreseen even a year before 1989.  And Kohl and Bush did it in peace.  It was truly amazing.  They were accomplishments that truly deserved at least a share of a Nobel Peace Prize.

But I doubt either Helmut Kohl or George H.W. Bush really care.  At one point, George H.W. Bush was asked what he was proudest of.  He said it was that his kids came home.  I am sure that they still do, and I am sure that George H.W. Bush considers than more important than a Nobel prize.

As for Helmut Kohl, I think that being known as the father of German unification is much more important than winning a Nobel prize – and he’s right.

So What Do We Do About Syria? – A Follow-Up

I am still concerned about Syria and what some people are urging us to do.  Doing something in Syria would not be easy.  It would be much harder than Libya, and look how long that took.  It is hard to believe something could be done in Syria without ground troops.  Finding enough ground troops, from us and our allies, wouldn’t be easy with Afghanistan going on and with threats from Iran and North Korea.

In the case of Libya, the Obama administration did not act until both the Arab League and the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions.  While the Arab League is acting in the case of Syria, the Security Council has not done so because of vetoes by Russia and China.

But there is one other possibility that could open the doors legally to US action in Syria – and which might just about require us to go into Syria.  I have not seen this raised in the US media (though I could have missed it), but I did read it in a London paper.

Syria has already shot at Syrian refugees in Turkey.  I believe the firing has injured Turkish nationals, too.  If Syria really attacks into Turkey or people in Turkey, Turkey could raise Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which provides:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

I understand this language talks about attacks “in Europe or North America” and “maintain[ing] the security of the North Atlantic area.”  However, the only time Article 5 has been invoked, the result was NATO attacks against Afghanistan.  It was right after 9/11, and it was the United States who invoked Article 5.

If Syria really attacks Turkey and Turkey invokes Article 5, would we respond?  There would, I believe, be an arguable legal basis for doing so.  But what about other reasons?  Well, Turkey suffered over 3,000 casualties fighting with us in Korea.  (After South Korea and the United States, only the United Kingdom suffered more casualties than Turkey.)  Turkey was a very important ally for the United States and NATO during the Cold War.

What would we do?  I don’t know, but the NATO Treaty does raise an issue that needs to be thought about.  It’s not easy.

So What Do We Do About Syria?

Unfortunately, I’m not sure there is much we can do about Syria.

First, it is not surprising that Kofi Annan’s peace plan is not working.  Actually, as The Washington Post noted in an editorial on Monday, the idea that Mr. Annan’s peace plan would work was naïve – in the extreme.  Syria negotiates to stall, and Bashar al-Assad is an expert at it.  It was so obvious that the effort was going to fail that I don’t fully understand why people are so upset it failed – or why they wasted their time on pursing it.  Maybe the plan had to be tried before other, better, things could be done.  That would be just about the only excuse.

The Washington Post, and others, are calling for the United States and NATO to get involved, a la Libya.  It’s a nice thought, but we can’t do it.  Iran and North Korea are more important – and we are still in Afghanistan, even if the Administration seems to have already checked out mentally.  The Syrian government is bad, but mostly to its own people.  Iran and North Korea, on the other hand, have the potential to be dangerous to the whole world.  And besides, North Korea is much worse to its people than Syria is to its.  And if Syria, why not the Congo or Mali?  (There is a revolt going on in Mali that seems to have started when mercenaries from Mali that Gadhafi hired were sent home after Gadhafi was overthrown.  How’s that for an unintended consequence?)

Realistically, all we can do in Syria to continue to impose sanctions and try to isolate its leadership, though without Russia’s and China’s help I am not sure how much good that will do.

One other thought:  I hope all those people saying the United States needs to “do” something in Syria are also telling the Obama administration that it needs to reverse its planned cutbacks in Defense Department spending.  Because I don’t know how we are going to do all the “somethings” that people want us to do without the troops and weapons to do them.

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Update (4/12/12 12:35 pm): It appears that the ceasefire in Syria is taking effect to some extent.  Shooting has quieted down, but the Syrian army has not withdrawn from certain locations as I guess it is supposed to.  In any case, my prediction is that the ceasefire will only last as long as Bashar al-Assad thinks it is to his benefit to have it last.  If the opposition appears to be gaining from the cease-fire, President Assad will claim the protesters have violated some aspect of the agreement and will start shooting again.

Also, I still say that the United States is not in a position to commit its military to doing anything in Syria.  Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea are more important.

Obama to Medvedev: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

I had been planning on posting a few comments on Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which he presented last week, but that will have to wait because this exchange between President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in South Korea today comes first:

“President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir [Putin].”

In spite of White House spokespeople tried to spin (see here), I think the point is pretty clear.  President Obama is willing to give up on our missile defense systems against countries such as Iran and North Korea, the latter of which has announced it will be putting a satellite in orbit next month, i.e., testing an intercontinental ballistic missile.  Russia doesn’t like these missile defense systems.  The Russians claim the systems are directed against them.  They aren’t, but some variations of these systems have involved eastern European countries.  Russia doesn’t like that because Russia thinks they ought to be the dominate power in eastern Europe, and they don’t like the United States being there.

President Obama is apparently willing to give up our missile defense systems.  He just can’t do it before the election.  I guess he figures the American people would rather have a possible defense against rogue missiles.  So he is asking Dmitri to tell Vladimir that he needs some “space”.  But once the election is over, he will “have more flexibility”. 

In other words, it looks like we will have to re-elect President Obama to see what he will do in his second term – because he’s not going to tell us before the election.

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Update (3/27/12 8:15 am: Added quotation marks at the end of the quote in the title.

We’re Coming Home From Afghanistan – And We Didn’t Get the Job Done

It’s pretty clear that the United States, and its allies, are leaving Afghanistan as soon as they (decently-?) can* and that, other than rooting Al Qaeda out initially (and killing Osama Bin Laden), we didn’t get the job done. We have no good reason to believe that the Afghan government will survive Taliban attacks once we leave (and I would not be surprised to see attempts by President Karzai, et al., to negotiate with the Taliban even as we are packing up to go). Whether Al Qaeda comes back after that will depend mostly on the Taliban’s views of its future interests. The whole area, i.e., Afghanistan/Pakistan/etc., will be a mess, and the level of the United States’ influence will be affected by the way we are leaving.

Clearly, President George W. Bush did not do a good job in Afghanistan. He was focusing on Iraq and did not pay enough attention to Afghanistan. But we also did not have enough troops to do both. Which raises a separate question as to why the Obama administration wants to cut the number of soldiers and Marines we have by 100,000. I know that nobody wants to do another Iraq or Afghanistan, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. (As every parent has explained to their children at one time or another.) How are going to do what we may have to do in the future with 100,000 fewer soldiers and Marines?

But back to Afghanistan: Once operations in Iraq slowed down (and eventually ended), why didn’t we do better in Afghanistan? Afghanistan was, after all, the “good war,” at least according candidate Barack Obama. Even if George W. Bush did a poor job there, why hasn’t President Obama done better?

For example, I realize we cannot control Afghanistan, but why didn’t the Obama administration do more to make sure the 2009 elections in Afghanistan were honest, instead of the fraud that re-elected President Karzai? Sure we pressured President Karzai to allow a run-off after the fraud in the first round, but what did we do before it happened?

If we were stuck with President Karzai, and if we thought he was little unstable or erratic at times, why did President Obama end the regular personal communications that President Bush had with him? Is that the way to treat the person you need to have a good relationship with to make sure things go right?

And why did so many of our people in Afghanistan have a bad relationship with President Karzai? I realize that President Karzai may be difficult to deal with (to say the least), but you have to deal with the people you have to deal with. Except we didn’t. The only person who seemed to have a decent relationship with President Karzai, General Stanley McChrystal, was fired for insulting President Obama. Which he did. But was President Obama so threatened by what General McChrystal said, that he had to fire the one person who had a good relationship with President Karzai? (President Obama’s hero, Abraham Lincoln, would not have done that – and didn’t. See, for example, President Lincoln and General George McClellan.)

Why did President Obama have to state, when he announced in December of 2009 that we were sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the date the troops were leaving at the same time he announced he was sending them in? How did that demonstrate commitment? Was that going to make the Afghanis trust us?

But most of all, as The Washington Post said last week, and as I have asked, why hasn’t President Obama been out talking to the American people and explaining to the American people about how important Afghanistan is? We have troops over there. They are committing themselves. Why hasn’t President Obama committed himself to explain this war to the American people?

The bottom line is that President George W. Bush did not do enough in Afghanistan when he had the chance. And neither has President Obama. And President Obama had the last clear chance.

And so, as liberals have been trying to claim for so long (even though it was wrong until just recently), Afghanistan is going to wind up like Vietnam. It didn’t have to, but it will. And the biggest legacy of Afghanistan will be what the legacy of Vietnam was for so long: Can the United States be trusted to keep its word? Or, as The Economist put it on February 4, 2012: “[T]he whole sorry story will send a chilling message everywhere about the worth of Western commitments.”**

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* If most Americans, or at least most Democrats, view staying in Afghanistan as a mistake, I wonder when John Kerry will be asking President Obama: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

** “The spectre of comparisons,” The Economist, February 4, 2012.

Leaving Afghanistan

I see that we are leaving Afghanistan earlier than expected, and possibly before the job is done, and that Defense Secretary Panetta told the news media before we told our allies.*  The latter is somewhat similar to what we did back in 2009, when we abandoned the ABM system we were planning against missiles from Iran and other such countries.  Important parts of the system were to be located in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the governments in those countries had taken huge political risks by agreeing to participate.  But we just changed our mind and too bad for them.**  (A couple more things like this, and we’ll need that "Reset button" for our friends.)

Basically, it appears that Afghanistan just isn’t that important to President Obama any more.  Or at least it isn’t as important as it was back in 2008 when he could use the “good war” of Afghanistan to beat up the Republicans in comparison to the “bad war” of Iraq.

I certainly understand that relations with Afghani President Karzai are not good, but diplomacy was where the Obama administration was supposed to be so much better than George W. Bush.  And if President Karzai was elected in a corrupt election, why didn’t we do more to make sure the Afghani presidential election in August of 2009 was honestly run?

In any case, the Administration says we can cut back in Afghanistan because we are succeeding.  Things do appear to be getting better in some parts of Afghanistan, but I doubt we are “succeeding” enough to justify the cutbacks that President Obama seems to want, both in terms of the number of troops in Afghanistan and what they should be doing.  It would be great if the Afghani forces were ready by next year to allow U.S. troops to switch to a purely advisory role, but I don’t think many people believe they will be.  And if we try to turn the fighting over to the Afghanis before they are ready, the result won’t be good.

But President Obama also says that we have to cut back in Afghanistan because we need to spend the money at home.  No, that’s wrong.  If we need to be in Afghanistan, we have enough money to be there.  Defense comes first, not last.  If our defense requires it, we can do it – if we want to.

Which brings me back to where I started.  As I said above, when President Obama was running for president, he would compare the “good war” of Afghanistan with the “bad war” in Iraq.  When he first came into office, he sent more troops to Afghanistan, and he affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy we had belatedly started to implement in Afghanistan.  Later in 2009 year, after a very long further review of our policy in Afghanistan, President Obama once again affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy, and he sent more troops to Afghanistan for a surge.  But this time he hesitated a little.   He didn’t send as many troops as were requested, and he announced when they would be coming home at the same time he said they were going.  This was a little unusual.  The idea of counterinsurgency operations is to protect the people.  But here was President Obama telling both the Afghani people we were going to protect and the enemy we were going to protect them from, when the protection was going to end.  There was a disconnect between those that I have yet to figure out.

But now, we are apparently done with counterinsurgency operations (based on the President’s defense budget for next year), and we are coming home from Afghanistan, apparently even faster than we previously said (or at least faster than we led people to believe).  Which makes me wonder why we did all that we did in Afghanistan over the last 2-1/2 years if we are leaving now in what seems like a bit of a rush, and regardless of whether we have accomplished what we set out to do.

So why are we leaving now?  Is President Obama tired of Afghanistan?  I understand why the American people have gotten tired of Afghanistan, especially when the Administration hasn’t spent much time explaining why what we are doing there is important.  But presidents are not supposed to give up just because they are tired.  Certainly, the American people got tired of Obamacare, but the President didn’t stop on that one.  Why is Afghanistan different?  If it was important to be there before, why is it not important now?

And don’t tell me it’s because the job is almost done.  As I said before, nobody really believes that.  Don’t tell me it’s because Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden.  Hiding out like he was, he couldn’t have been providing real leadership to Al Qaeda for years.  Certainly, when George W. Bush was president, there were plenty of Democrats willing to say that killing Osama Bin Laden was all that important.  I can’t believe that they changed their mind just because we have a Democrat in the White House.

So why are we leaving now?  I don’t want to be cynical, but I almost wonder if it’s just that President Obama doesn’t care about Afghanistan now that it’s not an issue to use against President Bush.  Or maybe he really didn’t know what was going on in Afghanistan when he was running for president, and it has taken him three years to decide what he wants to do.

Whatever the reason for our leaving, and the clumsy way we are doing it (or at least announced it), if we are leaving before the job we promised to do id done, the results will not be good – either for the people of Afghanistan or for the United States.

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* Adam Entous, “Panetta Draws Fire Over Afghanistan Shift,” The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2012.

** Marc Champion and Peter Spiegel, “U.S. Missile U-Turn Roils Allies,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009; “Obama’s Missile Offense,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009.

“More Drones, Fewer Troops”

The title of this post was the second headline on which I wanted to comment.  This article begins: “The Pentagon plans to expand its global network of drones and special-operations bases in a fundamental realignment meant to project U.S. power even as it cuts back conventional forces.”*  And it continues: “The plan … calls for a 30% increase in the U.S. fleet of armed unmanned aircraft” and a reduction in “the size of the active duty Army from 570,000 to 490,000”.

This article and what the Obama administration is doing with respect to defense policy deserves many posts – and by somebody more knowledgeable than me.  But I really want to make a couple of comments because this is an incredibly important issue and the policies the Administration is implementing could leave the United States less safe.

First, while our drones and our special forces have had fantastic successes recently (first Osama Bin Laden and now the rescue of two hostages from Somali pirates), drones and special forces have significant limitations on what they can do.  Among other things, in order to act, special forces need intelligence; they need information.  If we have to rely on other countries for the information (as opposed to getting it from our own people), we could wind up with more of the situations like we had in Yemen.  Our drones attacked on the basis of information from the Yemeni government.  After the attack, however, and upon finding out that a significant Yemeni civilian opposition leader was among those killed, the question arose as to whether we had been deliberately given false information by the Yemenis so that the opposition leader would be killed.** 

Second, the article quotes the Pentagon as saying that even at the smaller size the Army would have more than enough power to fight at least one major, troop-intensive ground war.  Except that is not true.  When General David Petraeus pushed for the surge in Iraq in late 2006/2007, we didn’t have as many troops as he really needed to get the job done.  And that was at a time that we had very few troops in Afghanistan.  If we didn’t have enough troops in early 2007, why would we think that the numbers being proposed is enough now?

Third, we may not want to fight another war like Iraq.  We may think drones and counter-terrorism forces are the way to go.  But, when it comes to defense, you have to remember that “the enemy gets a vote, too.”  We may not get to fight the war we want; we may have to fight the war we are given.  The Obama plan, however, by cutting the number of men and women in the Army (and the Marine Corps), is going to put us in a difficult situation if the enemy wants to fight a war other than the one we are planning on.

Fourth, I know we are in a difficult economic position, but defense comes first.  We may not have enough money for everything, but we have enough money for defense.  Because, in the long run, the cheapest defense is one that is strong enough that it doesn’t need to be used.

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* Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Siobhan Gorman, “More Drones, Fewer Troops,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2012.

** Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Margaret Coker, “U.S. Doubt Intelligence That Led to Yemen Strike,” The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2011.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz Wouldn’t Be That Hard

In response to a new U.S. law increasing sanctions against Iran, Iranian officials have threatened to retaliate by stopping oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.  Since approximately 20% of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz, stopping these shipments would be a big deal.  And the fact is it wouldn’t be that hard for Iran to do it.

Regardless of who owns the oil being shipped, oil shipments are generally made in ships owned by private companies.  These companies insure their ships against loss.  If they can’t insure their ships for certain uses or in certain areas, they won’t let them be used for that purpose or in that area.

It wouldn’t take much for Iran to do something that would either dramatically increase the insurance rates for oil tankers or make insurance effectively unavailable.  They probably wouldn’t need to sink a tanker.  It could easily be enough to just make a serious threat to sink a ship.  Mining the Strait of Hormuz, or threatening to do so, could be enough, too. 

In fact, the question of what it takes to effectively close the Strait for purposes of oil shipments could depend more on how the insurance markets react than on real military capability.  If insurance rates become too high – or insurance becomes unavailable – the oil tankers could stop moving and that means the Strait is effectively closed.

The solution at that point, I suppose, would be for the United States and its allies (the “coalition of the willing” - ?) to either provide naval protection to oil tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz or provide the insurance for the shipowners themselves – or both.

I hope the Obama administration has thought this through.  Because there won’t be much time to react if Iran does try to do something.

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Note: Stopping oil shipments by making insurance on the oil tankers either too expensive or unavailable, reminds me of the old Bill Cosby story about Noah and God.  God tells Noah that he is going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.  Noah interrupts and suggests that God should just have it rain for seven days and then let the sewers back up.  Letting the insurance markets do your dirty work for you is much the same thing.

 

The Cost of Deficits – Part 2

Ten days I wrote a post worrying about a call by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for China to support the European Financial Stability Facility.  A couple of days ago, there as an even scarier story on Reuters.  Here is an excerpt:

“Without directly referring to the euro zone's bailout fund [i.e., the European Financial Stability Fund], [Russian] Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that Russia would not be willing to lend directly to it, preferring to channel any support through the IMF.

Lavrov added that this was the joint position of the so-called BRICS* caucus of emerging markets nations that have accumulated trillions of dollars in foreign reserves to insure against external shocks.

‘Our countries are ready to take part in joint efforts, including the provision of credits, under those rules and channels that exist in the International Monetary Fund,’ Lavrov told a news briefing in Moscow.”

Europe and the IMF are looking to borrow from Russia?  China might lend, at least in part, to help keep its markets in Europe from collapsing going, but Russia is run by Vladimir Putin, who called the dissolution of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century.”  And: “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”

We need to get our budget and our deficit under control.  We need to spend less and we need to collect more taxes.  Republicans who won’t collect more taxes (by getting rid of special interest deductions and credits and corporate welfare, among other things) are wrong.  Democrats who won’t cut back on spending (to levels of just a few years ago) are wrong.  And all of them are risking our future.

Because being indebted to a Vladimir Putin-led Russia is scary.  Very scary.

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* Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa