National Security Musings
| Fri Nov. 21, 2008 9:57 AM PST
NATIONAL SECURITY MUSINGS....I don't have a lot of independent comment on this, but here's a bit of miscellaneous rumormongering on the national security front. First, Joe Klein:
Lots of news from Obamaland on the national security front in the past 24 hours — Hillary Clinton "on track" to become Secretary of State, retired General Jim Jones said to become National Security Adviser (while Republican realist Brent Scowcroft has been advising Obama on National Security)...and some strong flutterings that Obama wants to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense as first reported here last summer, which seems especially credible because no other name has been floated as a potential SecDef.
If true, this is an extremely strong, and wise, national security team. It would reflect a powerful desire on Obama's part to return to the tradition of bipartisan foreign policy, with politics stopping at the water's edge. And it would reflect a growing centrist consensus in the foreign policy/national security spectrum that includes most members of the Bush 41 and Clinton teams — in favor of the primacy of diplomacy over militarism, ready to begin talks with those the Bush Administration considered pariahs (the Taliban, Syria, Iran), but not averse to the use of force — against Al Qaeda, in particular — when necessary.
Hmmm. Here's Andrew Sullivan on John Brennan:
Marc reports the Republican, former chief-of-staff for George Tenet (who authorized war crimes as CIA head), admirer of Dick Cheney, CEO of the company one of whose contract employees improperly accessed Obama's and McCain's passports, and defender of renditions and "enhanced interrogations" is still Obama's front-runner pick to head the CIA. No, I'm not making this up.....Why is such a man even considered for the post under Obama? This man cannot end the taint of Bush-Cheney. He was Bush-Cheney.
From across the pond, Alex Massie considers Obama's views more broadly and concludes that we're not likely to see any dramatic change:
Viewed from outside the United States, the foreign policy "debate" in Washington is a curiously curtailed affair. It concentrates on means, not ends and this rather tends to obscure the fact that, on many and perhaps even most issues, there's less between the parties than might be thought.
....When you get down to the bottom of it, Obama hasn't yet given much indication that he either wants to, let alone will, break from the broad thrust of the Washington foreign policy consensus. That being so, why should hawks on either side of the aisle have anything to fear from him? Means matter, of course, but so do ends.
I'm not yet in the mood to make any thundering pronouncements on any of this stuff. None of these people have actually been announced yet, for one thing, and the rumor mill might be wrong. And even if these do turn out to be Obama's picks, they aren't the whole team. And anyway, Obama never pretended to be some kind of Noam Chomsky acolyte. He's a mainstream liberal American president.
Still — and keep in mind that I'm speaking as someone who's only modestly left of center on foreign affairs — this is a disturbingly hawkish team taken as a whole, isn't it? I get the whole "water's edge" thing, as well as Obama's desire to bring back some kind of consensus in the national security arena, but it would be nice to see at least one or two really serious progressives getting some high profile national security positions that have the president's ear, wouldn't it? I mean, that is why most of us voted for him, right?
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Comments
"this is a disturbingly hawkish team taken as a whole, isn't it?"
Indeed. And I'm someone who tends to be a hawk!
Mostly, as is becoming the case with all the rumor mills appoitnments, there is NO new blood except for the man in charge. That's disappointing.
I can`t figure out why the President-Elect should tell us anything before January 20th considering how irrational and juvenile the traditional "fourth estate" has behaved up to now. Never mind the fever swamps that are the non-traditional media.
You can`t handle the truth.
That clearly covers it.
"...We have had 30 years of class warfare, in which the wealthy strip-mined the middle class...." Joe Klein
Maybe he has so much faith in his personal liberal convictions that he thinks he will stand firm in the face of so much disagreement? Otherwise, it looks like we're in for another long four years =(.
Lets start a list of progressive countries with immigration policies that favor ex-americans.
Remember, Obama can actually think. He enjoys arguments. He demands the full picture. He doesn't want his staff to sum everything up in a nice package and present him with three options and ask him to pick one and go take a nap. So...bottom line, I don't worry at all.
Keven, I would like to direct your attention to your own posts, just below, about Citi and other aspects of the financial crisis.
And I would like to ask you or anyone else reading this how precisely - given the economic factors there indicated - it could be possible financially for the United States to continue anything remotely resembling the current "Let's Cook Up another Cold War So We Can Justify Our Massive Military" American foreign policy strategy.
Obama, and Hillary, and Gates, and all these other dudes can huff and they can puff - but there is simply no way they can blow this house down.
Realpolitick doesn't mean being evil, it just means being real. That doesn't mean there aren't people wo made realistic assessments and then proceeded to act in evil or blinkered ways.
Scowcroft was tossed from the Republican echelon when he warned the Iraq war would be a big mistake. So it does show he is not dumb and not reflexively hawkish.
Unfortunately, it looks like people are starting to drink of the same panic and hysteria that existed after the Dems won Congress in 06, but before they took over in 07.
I am with KW: Obama has continually shown good judgment, so relax. Wait till he orders the implementation of bad policy before criticising instead of worrying that he talks to Realists.
Scowcroft said in '98 on why they did not go to Baghdad: "Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." He helped manage a peaceful conclusion of the Cold War. He might have some useful insight.
Brennan gives rise to concern, but Obama is clearly opposed to torture. I think that he is one to keep an eye on, and his potential involvement in CIA torture deserves scrutiny. But for the moment, we are just parsing and getting flustered over speculations.
Obama can't staff every position with Obama.
Does Obama think that having Republicans and conservative Democrats on his foreign policy team will somehow insulate him from criticism by the right or make the Republican opposition in Congress easier to deal with? If that's what he thinks, I'd like to know 1) what he's smoking, and 2) where I can get some.
Foreign policy is trickier than domestic policy. We don't understand each other well enough, and we certainly don't understand others well at all.
Obama is not particularly deep in foreign policy experience. Before, during and since the campaign he has been soaking up a lot no doubt. He may feel he needs the steady players responding to his ideas and instincts, and then conveying his ultimate policy abroad with authority.
Tapping these people has more to do (hopefully) with pursuing a successful foreign policy than reacting to right wing criticism of any particular nominee.
Submitted by Agorabum (not verified) on Fri Nov. 21, 2008 12:37 PM PST.
Republicans weren't always so dumb and ideological before Bush. Regan went in to lebanon, took casualties, decided the place was a mess, and left.
And right on cue, Scowcroft has an editorial in the Post emphasizing mid-east peace (not "transformative" war).
Key statement on what Obama's Isreal peace goals should be: "1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR200811...
On the evidence so far, the liberal impulses of the Obama administration will be exercised entirely on social issues (if anywhere). Which is about how it was in the Clinton administration. What's funny is that, if you look at the Republican coalition, it's the hawks and neocons who got us into Iraq, and the pro-business libertarians who got us into this financial mess, and the social conservatives who are going to get screwed.
Gee, Kevin, help us out here & tell us who you have in mind.
The whole "America is, & should be, the sole superpower" thing is something I think we will need to abandon. Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of us still believe in American Exceptionalism. Anyone Obama chooses will be so much better than what we have had for the past 8 years that I will be reasonably satisfied. In this administration, it is the boss who will make the final decisions, not the subordinates.
Duncan Kinder, I think you might want to consider that it was WW II, & the massive debt we ran up, that finally ended the Great Depression. A prolonged economic slump will make a new Cold (or Hot) War more likely, not less.
Hi Bob.
The United States, in WWII, was credit worthy and most of the borrowed funds came from within the United States, so interest payments flowed back home. It involved mobilizing the surplus capacity which, previously, we had not been able to use.
Today, there are serious doubts about the US credit ( there are actually credit default swaps against a US default, which have increased in price ). Most available credit for the trillions we would need would have to come from the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Arabs. It is quite possible that the economic crisis would overwhelm even them.
Even if they were able to finance the deficit, they would doubtlessly attach strings to their loans. And there is no reason to believe that supporting the US military is part of their agenda. Interest payments to them would flow abroad, further draining our resources.
Besides which, reviving the American ecomony today would require massive investment in green and other new technologies - not restarting surplus factories. So this is a very different problem from WWII.
WWII was a long time ago in a different world. Americans are going to have to learn that those times are gone.
I have heard this complaint elsewhere, like at the Nation, but I never actually see names.
Who are these mystery progressives that Obama is snubbing so brutally? Who is the alternate candidate to run the modern CIA that A: understands the CIA and B: has no Bush taint (heh).
And where is it written that these folks won't be in his government somewhere else? It's not like he's trying to appoint Cheney and Rumsfeld here. He seems to be appointing people that match up with his stated policy proposals. I keep hearing wailing that he's not appointing someone who vows to radically transform the US defense posture and pull out of most overseas bases, but he never promised that.
I'm with KW on this. Kevin and the rest, aren't you getting just a wee bit tired of being wrong about Obama? There seems to be a trend of breathless worry building up about some supposed Obama mistake. Then poof. Events come to show that his judgment was not faulty after all.
Even when he has made a misstep, he seems to be able to acknowledge it, correct it and move on.
Playing chicken little does not become y'all.
A Progressive in the higher reaches of the National Security apparatus? One name please.
Posted by: esrose on 11/21/08
The list is very short. Dems and Progressives or Liberals have been shut out for a very long time.
In lieu of those I'd take a technocrat like Gates or Scowcroft with good presidential leadership.
Maybe that's the dilemma Obama is facing.
Thanks Mark H.
Just my point. I would take Gates too. Apparently, Obama is close to doing the same.
And I think, from what I read, that Scowcroft is already in there very close. He has been talking to Obama for quite some time.
The thing that pisses me off is that we voted for Obama, what, three weeks ago and now we want to second guess everything.
For now, I am following my chosen leader.
Obama doesn't want to be Jimmy Cartered by the hawks in the press and national security apparatus.
If the hawks don't get their way, they kick up a lot of dirt, stamping their little feet.
Who knows if it's wise - I'd like to see the neo-cons/liberal hawks marginalized for all time - but they OWN the press and establishment foreign policy/national security bureaucracies. Start talking like you wanna negotiate in good faith in the Arab/Israeli conflict, for instance, and Obama would be written off as a naive wimp before he even took office.
Look, Joe Klein likes the appointments! They must be good!
"the fact that, on many and perhaps even most issues, there's less between the parties than might be thought."
That is pretty much true. Bush senior was a realist. Bush junior was a raving neocon in his first term, but when things turned bad in Iraq was forced to turn much more realist-pragmatist, though his rhetoric was largely unchanged.
A lot of people can't see this because they mistakenly think there are only two possible IR philosophies: dovish leftism and hawkish American imperialism. Actually, most people in the foreign affairs field don't follow either of these schools.
All these floated names are an artfully executed, very deft, literal confidence game.
Every name so far is meant to instill confidence somewhere- Geithner to the markets and the world, Gates, jones, and Brennan to Republicans, Daschle to Congress and employers, Clinton to Obama (by placing her ON his team), Napolitano to both sides of the immigration worriers, and Holder to the legal system. I'm betting we see several more names that have the same effect, of making people relax a little, have just a litle more confidence that this isn't going to be a wild-eyed throw-the-capitalists-out, revenge-of-the-hippies-tantrum.
But so far, only Geithner and Daschle seem to be done deals. How many of the others might be great head fakes to keep the Republicans calm until after the GA senate revote, when the new Congress is actually sworn in, and it might not matter anymore what they think?
I'm with Mark H - This man managed to get himself elected President of the United States while being a mixed-race Hawaiian from Chicago with a Harvard JD. The only really foolish thing he's done so far was to believe he could do it in the first place. Why should we believe he'll start screwing it up now?
I mean, that is why most of us voted for him, right?
Well, no. Some of us voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils (three if you count Nader), and after the last eight years less evil sounded pretty good. That said, I'm cautiously encouraged by the fact that Obama is putting together a team of experienced veterans. What is he supposed to go up there with, a bunch of rookies like Bill Clinton did? WJC didn't have much else to choose from. Obama does.
After producing a two part story, I was the first to coin the "cult of celebrity" phrase that drowned out the desires of average American voters during this election.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y44dtUCMf2E
Why did I talk about it? Because progressives ignored the story while protecting their own. Now the phrase is catching on but I am waiting for the left to realize who really controls the "cult" and how progressives have been sucked into it themselves.
Interesting that President Elect Obama in code, seemed to plead over and over for Americans to help him govern but instead he is only surrounded by those who are serving the same global corporate masters that pimped out not so bright George Bush.
While the left point fingers at Obama those same globalists have managed to pluck its consciousness and dress that stuffed turkey with "ego". Get ready for a very difficult ride. Or wake up and help Obama.
I take the point that there are very few progressives with relevant experience in govt; we've had eight years of goofy neocons and witless nincompoops and eight years before that of poll-driven right-of-centrists. But how are we going to get progressives with experience, except by getting them where they'll get experience? Is there really no place in an Obama administration for Samantha Power? Has no-one thought of bringing Paul Krugman on board? You don't get new wine out of old bottles--and some of those bottles are really old!
