Tom Friedman has a pretty good column today on the future of Sino-American relations, in effect warning that unruly nationalism in China could spell trouble down the road. Money quotation:

The days when Nixon and Mao could manage this relationship in secret are long gone. There are a lot of unstable chemicals at work out here today, and so many more players with the power to inflame or calm U.S.-China relations.

A Sino-American Cold War is not inevitable, perhaps, and it is easy to think of reasons why the two largest economies (and over time, two most significant military powers) might manage to keep their competition within safe bounds. Optimists invoke the usual liberal antidotes to conflict: the growing economic ties between the two countries, China's "socialization" into existing institutions, and the possibility that China will one day become a democracy. Or one may hope that Beijing will realize that overly assertive behavior will quickly provoke balancing behavior by China's neighbors (moving them to align more closely with each other and with the United States), thereby leaving China isolated and worse off overall. And if the United States manages to extricate itself from its Iraqi and Afghan morasses and devotes more attention on Asia, then there might be even less chance of a Sino-American train wreck down the road.

But here's why I'm less optimistic. Assuming China continues to grow economically, it will also increase its military power and thus its capacity to threaten certain U.S. interests. Like any great power, it will tend to view its own "vital interests" more expansively as its power rises, and it will want to do what it can to ensure that others cannot threaten those interests. For example, a rising China that is increasingly dependent on overseas resources and markets will naturally want to make it harder for others to threaten these vital sea lines of communication. To be concerned by these things is not a sign of aggressive expansionism; it is just typical great power behavior. And given that U.S. leaders think they have "vital interest" in virtually every part of the globe, this sort of behavior ought to be easy for Americans to recognize.

Now, if one also assumes that both the United States and China will always be governed by mature, far-sighted, and sensible politicians who won't succumb to xenophobia or threat-mongering, won't be swayed by narrow interest groups, won't let propaganda from self-interested allies warp their judgment, and who will manage each and every crisis with restraint and aplomb, then one might easily conclude that any future rivalry will remain fairly muted.

But if one assumes that occasionally an impulsive, weak, or rambunctious leader will come to power in one of the two countries, or that either state's foreign policy apparatus might at some point be overly influenced by people with more dangerous agendas, or that at some point one of the two will hit a rough patch and tempt the other to seize an advantage, then you'd obviously be more concerned about trouble down the road. And what if this happened in both countries simultaneously?

Now: based on what you know about these two countries, which assumption do you think is more reasonable? Based on past history, I think its safe to assume that sooner or later one side or the other is going to do something stupid. Friedman is clearly worried about social forces in China that might make conflict more likely; I'm also worried about the judgment of people at the top and some of the social forces here at home. And not just today, but for a long time into the future.

Obligatory IR Theory footnote: the discussion above in effect combines a structural realist analysis with a sensitivity to the impact of domestic politics. Structural theory tells you why a rising China creates greater potential for security competition between Washington and Beijing: in the bipolar world that a rising China is gradually creating, the two most powerful states will naturally eye each other warily. But structure alone doesn't make intense conflict (let alone all-out war) inevitable. That will be determined, at least in part, by how well each country's foreign policy apparatus manages things. But note that "managing" doesn't just mean accommodation: it will also require displays of resolve and a careful drawing of "red lines," which also creates the possibility of misunderstanding and miscalculation. And don't forget: If this emerging bipolarity lasts a long time, the challenge lies in managing relations not just for a year or two, but for many decades. Based on what I know about each country's foreign policy establishment, it's hard for me to believe that one (or both) won't blow it sooner or later and lead us into a serious security competition.

As we all know by now, President Obama and General Petraeus hope to win the war in Afghanistan through a strategy of escalated counterinsurgency warfare. Yesterday, I suggested that they ought to be thinking about a Plan B in case (or when) their approach fails. With splendid timing, on Wednesday the New America Foundation will provide that Plan B, in a report entitled "A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan." (You can watch a press conference on the report at 12 noon on Wednesday here, or read study director Steve Clemons' summary here.)

Full disclosure: I was a member of the Study Group, so you won't be surprised to hear that I agree with most of its contents. But don't let that stop you from reading the report and pondering its arguments carefully.

To whet your appetite, here are the Study Group's five main recommendations:

• Emphasize power-sharing and political inclusion.
  The U.S. should fast-track a peace process designed to decentralize power within Afghanistan and encourage a power-sharing balance among the principal parties.
• Downsize and eventually end military operations in southern Afghanistan, and reduce the U.S. military footprint.
  The U.S. should draw down its military presence, which radicalizes many Pashtuns and is an important aid to Taliban recruitment.
• Focus security efforts on al Qaeda and domestic security.
  Special forces, intelligence assets, and other U.S. capabilities should continue to seek out and target known al Qaeda cells in the region and be ready to go after them should they attempt to relocate elsewhere or build new training facilities. In addition, part of the savings from our drawdown should be reallocated to bolster U.S. domestic security efforts and to track nuclear weapons globally.
• Encourage economic development.
  Because destitute states can become incubators for terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and other illicit activities, efforts at reconciliation should be paired with an internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy.
• Engage regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and foster regional stability.
  Despite their considerable differences, neighboring states such as India, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from being dominated by any single power or being a permanently failed state that exports instability to others.

But wait, there's more! The Study Group also identified eleven important "myths" in the current debate on Afghanistan. Here they are (I've omitted the Group's assessment of what the reality on each one is): 

• The United States can afford to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to win.
• The Obama administration has a feasible strategy and a clear timetable to end the war.
• The "surge" in Iraq proves that counterinsurgency strategies can work; all we have to do is "stay the course."
• The Taliban is a group of religious fanatics who can never be appeased through negotiations.
• There is no meaningful difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda.
• If we leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will take over, al Qaeda will re-establish itself there, and new and deadly attacks on America will be more likely.
• Our large-scale presence in Afghanistan is the only thing that will ensure women's rights.
• Withdrawal from Afghanistan will be seen as a victory for al Qaeda and enhance its prestige.
  If we scale back our engagement in Afghanistan, they will simply follow us home.
• Scaling back the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan will threaten Pakistan's stability and jeopardize control of its nuclear arsenal.
• Reducing the military effort in Afghanistan will cause allies to doubt our credibility and staying power. Some might even be tempted to cut deals with our adversaries.
• If the Obama administration scales back the mission in Afghanistan, Republicans will portray it as "soft" and the Democratic party will pay a big political price in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know why I think a lot of these claims are mistaken. If you want to know what the realities are, read the full Study Group report. And kudos to Steve Clemons and the other members of the Study Group for providing the administration with an alternative approach. We're going to need one.

When great powers intervene in minor countries, sometimes they win quick and fairly decisive victories. (Think U.S. in Grenada). When this happens, the only short-term problem is where to hold the victory parade and how many medals to give out. But when a war of choice goes badly, then national leaders have to decide either to cut their losses and get out or to "stay the course." If the opponent is an insatiable great power like the Third Reich, there may be little choice in the matter. But if the enemy is an insurgency in a relatively weak and unimportant state, and the challenge is nation-building in a society that you don't understand very well, it's a much trickier decision.

As we've seen in Iraq and are seeing again in Afghanistan, getting out of a quagmire is a whole lot harder than getting into one. Indeed, I'd argue that this is a general tendency in most wars of choice: they usually last longer than the people who launch them expect, and they usually cost a lot more. I'm hardly the first person to notice this phenomenon, which does make you wonder why it keeps happening.

In any case, now that we are (supposedly) leaving Iraq, here are my Top Ten Reasons why wars of choice last too long, and why it's so hard for politicians to wake up, smell the coffee, and just get out.

1. Political leaders get trapped by their own beliefs. All human beings tend to interpret new information in light of their pre-existing beliefs, and therefore tend to revise strongly-held views more slowly than they should. Having made the difficult decision to go to war (or to escalate a war that is already under way) it will be hard for any leader to rethink the merits of that decision, even if lots of information piles up suggesting that it was a blunder.

2. Information in war is often ambiguous. Another reason wars of choice last too long is that the case for cutting one's losses is rarely crystal-clear. Even if there is lots of evidence that the war is going badly, there are bound to be some positive signs too. Remember all those "benchmarks" the Bush administration developed for measuring progress in Iraq? If you have enough of them, you can always find a few items on the list where things are looking better. When the evidence is mixed (as it usually is), leaders are even less likely to rethink their beliefs that the war is worth fighting.

Read on

If you're looking for another realistic counter to the official optimism about Afghanistan, check out Christopher Layne's op-ed from two days ago in the Chicago Tribune.  In a handful of sharp, short paragraphs, Layne reminds us that 1) the "surge" in Iraq (the approach now being adapted to Afghanistan) didn't work, 2) the current emphasis on counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare misdiagnoses the origins of our troubles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and 3) our current fascination with COIN "sets exactly the wrong strategic priorities for the United States." 

Smart piece. It will take some time before this view become the conventional wisdom, but I'm still betting that it will.  Unfortunately, it will be many billions of dollars and thousands of lives too late.  

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has sensibly concluded that when the United States: 1) Is facing massive federal budget deficits, combined with a looming fiscal crisis at the state and local levels, 2) Is already spending more on national security than the rest of the world combined, and 3) Faces no "peer competitors" or dangerous great powers nearby, then it makes sense to make a few modest cuts in its military spending.

Of course, patriotic Congressmen will now fight tooth-and-nail to preserve spending in their states or districts, so it's not even clear how much money will ultimately be saved. But it's a step in the right direction, and Gates deserves credit for seeing where the wind was blowing and for addressing the problem, even if only in a modest way.

Just don't lose sight of the real issue, which is not so much the amount of money we devote to national security as the purposes for which we use these capabilities. It doesn't make much sense to cut spending if you're going to continue to use the military on ill-advised missions; in fact, if you have a very ambitious foreign policy, then you ought to expect to spend a lot of blood and treasure on it. As the Times noted this morning, the White House backed Gates's plan, saying that "his plan would free money that could be better spent on war fighting." And when some key elements of your foreign policy make you very unpopular in large swathes of the world, it will probably fuel anti-American terrorism and create dangers that might not exist otherwise, or at least might not be as large or as difficult to address.

In other words, the debate that is about to occur about Pentagon cuts is mostly a disagreement about the allocation of pork and short-term priorities. Gates did not propose any change in the roles and missions of the U.S. armed forces, in our international commitments, or even our overall force levels. His proposals do not invite a debate about the fundamentals of U.S. grand strategy. And until that debate occurs, don't expect major changes in America's force posture or its underlying belief that it has the right and/or responsibility to intervene in far-flung corners of the world, even when vital interests are not at stake and when we don't really have any idea how to run these places reliably.

On the latter point, I hope you caught the delicious irony on General Ray Odierno's statement that U.S. forces in Iraq were now there "to prevent foreign powers from meddling with Iraq's new government" (h/t Yglesias and Greenwald). It's easy to lampoon such a comment -- weren't we "meddling" just a bit when we invaded in 2003? -- but the real lesson is that this is how virtually all imperial powers tend to see their own conduct.  Great Britain claimed to shoulder the "white man's burden" (i.e. to bring civilization to its benighted colonial subjects), and the French saw their colonial role as "la mission civilizatrice." The former Soviet Union thought it was helping spread the benefits of socialism to its Third World clients, and the United States has convinced itself that it is spreading freedom, democracy, liberty, the rule of law, "world order," etc.   

I don't know if countries tell themselves this sort of thing in order to rally support for interventionist policies, or to convince other states that their actions are inspired by noble aims rather than the self-interested dictates of realpolitik (probably both). Whatever the motivation, I remain convinced that the United States would be better off if it devoted more attention to nation-building here at home, and somewhat less to fruitless efforts to do so abroad, especially in those places where the preconditions for Western-style liberal democracy are sorely lacking.

I've been thinking about U.S. grand strategy again, and pondering some big questions that ought to be central to the debate on America's global role. Some of these big questions are researchable, others are by their very nature more speculative. How you answer some of them also depends on the theories you think are most powerful or applicable (i.e., realist theory suggests one set of answers, liberal approaches offer a different set, etc.), and the answers your get should have profound implications for what you think U.S. grand strategy ought to be.

So here are Five Big Questions about contemporary world politics.

1. Where is the EU project headed? The construction of the European Union was a major innovation in global politics, but new doubts have arisen about its long-term future. Pessimists such as Notre Dame's Sebastian Rosato believe the highwater mark of European unity has already been passed, while optimists like Princeton's Andrew Moravcsik think that Europe's current difficulties are likely to encourage further steps towards integration. The answer matters, because the re-emergence of genuine power politics within Europe could force the United States to devote more attention to a continent that some argue is "primed for peace" and no longer of much strategic concern.

2. If China's power continues to rise, how easy will it be to get Asian states to balance against it? Balance of power (or if you prefer, balance of threat) theory predicts that weaker states will try to limit the influence of rising powers by forming defensive alliances against them. China's rise is already provoking alarm in many of its neighbors, who look first to the United States and possibly to each other for assistance. But how strong will this tendency to balance be? If China gets really powerful, and the United States disengages entirely, some of China's neighbors might be tempted to bandwagon with Beijing, thereby facilitating the emergence of a Chinese "sphere of influence" in Asia. But if China's neighbors get support from each other and from the United States, then they'll probably prefer to balance. 

But here's the question: Just how much support does the United States have to provide, given that this issue ought to matter more to the Asian states than it does to us? If you think balancing is the dominant tendency (as I do), then the United States can pass a lot of the burden to Japan, India, Vietnam, etc. It can "free-ride" to some degree on them, instead of the other way around. But if you think these states will be reluctant to balance, then the United States might have to do a lot of the heavy lifting itself.  

To make matters more complicated still, both the United States and its Asian allies may be tempted to do some bluffing with each other, to try to get their allies to pay a larger share of the burden. Asian states will quietly threaten to realign or go neutral if they don't get more backing from the United States, and U.S. leaders may drop hints about disengagement if they don't get what they want from the allies they are helping protect. And this means figuring out just how large and iron-clad the U.S. commitment needs to be in order to sustain a future balancing coalition is a tricky business, and there will be lots of room for disagreement.

Read on

I hope that all of the people who helped push the UnitedStates to invade Iraq in 2003 read the front-page story in Sunday's New YorkTimes about a courageous soldier, Specialist Brendan Marrocco. It is heart-breaking. He lostboth arms and both legs to a roadside bomb in Iraq and is now in rehabilitation. Tens of thousands of others havesuffered or died in that unnecessary and foolish war. Marrocco's story, however, brings us face-to-face with war's horrible consequences and reminds us of the price that is paid when policymakers blunder into war.

I can't help but wonder what George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, James Woolsey, and Doug Feith will think when they read about the damage done to Specialist Marrocco's life and his family? Do they feel a secret shame, which they are too proud or afraid to voice? Do they have any regrets for the pain that they have caused him? Do they still believe they were right, even though so many Iraqi and American lives have been shattered, and Iraq is still a wreck of a country? Or do they simply turn the page without reflecting on the consequences of their actions, and hope that the rest of us will forget the role they played?

Wars are sometimes necessary, but that was certainly not true of the Iraq war. War should always be a last resort, because many of those who get caught up in the maelstrom suffer and die. The decision to send our armed forces into combat should never be made in a half-baked way. The decision should only come after there has been a vigorous and serious public debate about the costs, benefits, and possible alternatives to fighting.

Of course, that is not what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war. Instead, we went to war on March 19, 2003 because a narrow clique of neo-conservatives dreamed up a bizarre scheme to "transform" the Middle East by spreading democracy across the region at the end of a rifle barrel, and eventually managed to sell that idea to a naïve and gullible president. We went to war because the Bush administration and its friends in the media and Congress deceived us about the dangers Iraq posed, and because they misled us about how easy it would be to win a decisive victory and exit Iraq. We went to war because the mainstream media, which is heavily into cultivating favor with influential policymakers, hardly ever asked our leaders hard questions about the case for war.  Indeed, many influential pundits became enthusiastic cheerleaders for the invasion. We went to war because many politicians in both parties were so worried about their careers that they were afraid to raise doubts about the war, even though some of them had serious reservations about whether we would succeed. And we went to war because experts who craved influence in Washington or future careers in government wanted to show how tough and resolute they were. 

The United States is a remarkably powerful and sheltered country, which is why it can afford to fight stupid wars in places like Iraq and Vietnam at only modest cost to its overall security. But we should never forget the human cost of these follies, which are paid by brave patriots like Brendan Marrocco as well as the 58,000-plus names on the Vietnam Memorial. And when the same people start telling us we need to attack someone else, we should remember just how foolish and ignorant their advice was in 2002 and remind ourselves that they show no sign of either learning or remorse.

Contrary to what many (but not all) commentators seem to think, the firing of Stanley McChrystal and his replacement by General David Petraeus is not that significant. To be more precise, it will only be a significant event if Obama uses this shift as an opportunity to move towards withdrawal. Otherwise, we'll just rearrange some deck chairs and watch the war effort continue to founder.

Until the Rolling Stone article surfaced, there was little sign that Obama was unhappy with McChrystal's handling of the war. (Gareth Porter of IPS reports that there was in fact growing discontent within the administration over the lack of progress, but it hadn't surfaced in any visible way.) More importantly, there was no sign that Petraeus had serious problems with McChrystal's performance or visible doubts about the need to continue the fight until "victory" was achieved. Don't forget that Petraeus's status and prestige is based on his knowledge of and commitment to counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare, and COIN is exactly what McChrystal was doing too. Unlike the "surge" in Iraq, which involved a fundamental shift in U.S. strategy and tactics, there is no reason to expect Petraeus to implement a fundamentally different approach in Afghanistan. The subhead in today's New York Times says it all: "Obama Says Afghan Policy Won't Change after Dismissal."  Uh-oh.

There is also no reason to believe Petraeus will achieve significantly different results because the problem in Afghanistan is not the quality of our generals. Bad leadership can hamper a war effort, of course, but it is a fallacy to think that all we need to do is get the right leader in place at the top and then all will be well. (Military history is often written in ways that glorifies the role of the "great captains," but there's a lot more to military success than just a smart and inspired commanders).

The real problem is that our campaign in Afghanistan is like trying to nail jelly to the wall. The Karzai government is a liability, not an asset, and we have no way of making it perform better. Similarly, we have no way of forcing the Taliban to sit still and fight us out in the open -- where they would be easy to beat -- when confronted by superior force, they simply melt away and wait us out. Although troop morale seems to be good, our forces have been fighting a long time and burnout is beginning to set in. Our NATO allies are leaving the field, and Americans are beginning to realize that the costs of continuing this fight exceed either the benefits of victory or the risks of withdrawal. "Victory" in Afghanistan -- whatever that might mean -- wouldn't make al Qaeda a lot weaker; and "failure" wouldn't make them much stronger either. Putting a new general in charge doesn't change that calculus at all.

Third, some prominent commentators like Andrew Sullivan now worry that Obama is in effect hostage to Petraeus, because the latter's stature and prestige will make it almost impossible for Obama to overrule him should he ask for more troops or seek to continue the war indefinitely. That is an obvious danger, but that same prestige and stature also makes Petraeus the best person to help Obama sell a prudent decision to cut our losses and get out.  Moreover, Petraeus' stature is based primarily on the supposed success of the 2007 "surge" in Iraq, a campaign that achieved the tactical objective of lowering the level of violenace but did not achieve the strategic goal of political reconciliation. If Iraq goes south again as U.S. forces withdraw, some of Petraeus's current luster is bound to diminish and Obama's freedom of maneuver might increase.

In any case, the only important question here is what Obama is telling Petraeus to do. In essence, McChrystal's gaffe has given Obama a chance for a "do-over." He made the wrong choice in the fall of 2009, when he agreed to escalate the U.S. presence despite all the obvious pitfalls.  Has he learned from the results of the past nine months?  Does he now realize that he is not the master of events in Afghanistan, and that he cannot achieve success there simply by giving inspiring speeches and sending more troops? And has he begun to sense that this war might not be winnable at acceptable cost, and that continuing the fight is putting his entire presidency at risk?

If he has, he'll tell Petraeus that his mission isn't to pacify Afghanistan, build a stable central government there, or even "defeat, disrupt, and defeat al Qaeda" (which isn't in Afghanistan anymore). Rather, his mission is to find a way for the United States to end this futile and unnecessary adventure in social engineering, so that we can turn our attention (and our finite resources) to more pressing problems. 

If Obama hasn't learned that lesson, then he will find himself stuck in the Afghan quagmire for the remainder of his time in office. As with Johnson in Vietnam and Bush in Iraq, the war will suck the life out of his presidency and make it impossible to achieve more urgent domestic and international priorities. And because he's now had two opportunities to chart a different course, it will have been entirely his own doing.

If the United States reduced its defense budget significantly, how would this affect international affairs? I raise this point because one of the primary justifications for America's disproportionately high level of defense spending is the idea that U.S. military dominance is an essential stabilizing force in contemporary world politics. This argument has been advanced by scholars like William Wohlforth and Michael Mandelbaum, was implicit in Madeleine Albright's infamous characterization of the United States as the "indispensable power," and runs throughout the Clinton, Bush and now Obama versions of the National Security Strategy. It is also one of those well-established verities that are rarely questioned in the American foreign policy establishment.  

Given our current budget situation, however, that assumption really ought to be questioned.  The United States spends more on national security than the rest of the world combined, and a substantially larger fraction of its GDP than other major powers do. According to the 2010 edition of the IISS  Military Balance, in 2008 the US spent about 4.9 percent of GDP on national security, and the defense budget has grown in real terms by about 3 percent per year since 2001.  By contrast, China spent about 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense, Russia 2.4% Great Britain only 2.3 percent , and German and Japan roughly 1.3 percent and 0.9 percent respectively. Lucky them.

Meanwhile, the United States has been piling up impressive amounts of red ink in recent years. The federal deficit reached 10 percent of GDP in FY2009 (the highest level since 1945), and various projections suggest that total U.S debt could reach 80 to 100 percent of GDP by FY2020. (My thanks to Gordon Adams of the Stimson Center and George Washington University, the author of an unpublished paper from which I drew these numbers). This situation led President Obama to form a bipartisan commission to study ways to reduce the federal deficit, and the president and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have both made it clear that defense spending has to be part of that process.

No doubt defense contractors and congressional hawks will try to insulate DoD from significant cuts, but that position will be politically untenable if other sectors are being slashed.  In fact, if we were really serious about trying to close the deficits mentioned above, we'd be looking at cuts similar to the "peace dividend" that accompanied the end of the Cold War.  Measured in constant dollars, for example, the DoD budget fell 36 percent in constant dollars between 1985 and 1998, accompanied by comparable reductions in the active-duty force and the Pentagon's civilian workforce.

So here's my question: Would similar cuts today produce a dangerous shift in the structure of world politics and invite all sorts of nasty regional instability? I don't think so. If the U.S. cut defense by 20-30 percent (an enormous reduction), it would still be devoting roughly $400 billion per year to keeping Americans safe.  Our national security spending would still be six times larger than China's, ten times larger than Russia's and a whopping forty times larger than Iran's.  And because many militarily consequential powers are U.S. allies, its actual position is even better than those crude comparisons suggest. Thus, even seemingly draconian defense cuts would still leave the United States far stronger than any current rivals, especially if the reductions were done intelligently.

Moreover, if you look region-by-region, it's not obvious that reductions of this magnitude would change things very much. It would have little or no effect on Europe, because a large U.S. presence isn't central to European security any longer. There's little danger of serious conflict in Europe these days (and certainly no potential threat that the European states can't handle), and all that's needed from the United States is a mostly symbolic presence to help hold NATO together and remind Europeans not to let security competition reignite on the continent. And please don't try to tell me that Putin's Russia poses a resurgent threat to the rest of Europe.  NATO Europe spends roughly $300 billion on defense each year compared to Russia's $40 billion; if our European allies can't handle Russia's not-very-impressive military, then they don't deserve U.S. help.

Read on

A quick shout-out for two studies you should look at, particularly if you're interested on how the United States could spend less money on defense without making itself dangerously insecure. The first is Debts, Deficits, and Defense: A Way Forward, and is from the Program for Defense Alternatives here in Boston. The second is a study by Patrick Cronin of the Center for New American Security, entitled "Restraint: Recalibrating American Strategy."   There are points I might challenge in both studies, but each one shows smart people wrestling with the fiscal and strategic realities that are going to shape U.S. national security policy in the years and decades to come. To their credit, the authors of both studies are not wedded to inside-the-Beltway orthodoxy and they recognize that the United States will be much better off once it reduces its current level of over-commitment. 

Back in May 1967, the Egyptian government led by Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered a blockade of the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israeli shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba. This action crossed a "red line" for Israel, and was a major escalatory step in the crisis that led to the Six Day War. President Lyndon Johnson considered sending U.S. warships or some sort of international flotilla to challenge the blockade and defuse the crisis. But even though the United States had previously given Israel certain assurances about protecting freedom of navigation in the straits, Johnson ultimately declined to take decisive action to defend Israel's navigation rights. The United States was already bogged down in Vietnam and Johnson feared getting trapped in another volatile conflict. So he dithered, and Israel ultimately chose to go to war instead.

Had Johnson used U.S. naval forces to challenge the blockade, the Six Day War might not have occurred. Egypt would not have dared to challenge U.S. warships, of course, and sending a U.S. fleet to break the blockade would have given Nasser a way to back down but save face (i.e., he would have been backing down to a superpower, and not to Israel). And had the Six Day War been averted, many of the problems we are wrestling with now -- including the disastrous occupation of the West Bank -- might never have arisen.

Remembering this previous failure got me thinking: why doesn't the United States use its considerable power to lift the blockade of Gaza unilaterally? It's clear that the blockade of Gaza is causing enormous human suffering and making both the United States and Israel look terrible in the eyes of the rest of the world. It has also failed to achieve any positive political purpose, like defeating Hamas. So why doesn't the United States take the bull by the horns and organize a relief flotilla of its own, and use the U.S. Navy to escort the ships into Gaza? I'll bet we could easily get a few NATO allies to help too, and if money's the issue, we can get some EU members or Scandinavians to help pay for the relief supplies. And somehow I don't think the IDF would try to stop us, or board any of the vessels.

The advantages of this course of action seem obvious. The United States has been looking both ineffective and hypocritical ever since the Cairo speech a year ago, and many people in the Arab and Islamic world are beginning to see Barack Obama as just a smooth-talking version of George W. Bush. By taking concrete steps to relieve Palestinian suffering, Obama would be showing the world that the United States was not in thrall to Israel or its hard-core lobbyists here in the United States. What better way to discredit the fulminations of anti-American terrorists like Osama bin Laden, who constantly accuse us of being indifferent to Muslim suffering? The photo ops of U.S. personnel unloading tons of relief supplies would go a long way to repairing our tarnished image in that part of the world. Remember the Berlin airlift, or our relief operations in Indonesia following the Asian tsunami? Doing good for others can win a lot of good will.

Second, having the U.S. and NATO take charge of a relief operation would alleviate Israel's security concerns. The Israeli government claims the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from being smuggled into Gaza. That is surely a legitimate concern, but if the United States and its allies are bringing relief aid in, then we can determine what goes on the ships and we obviously won't bring in weaponry.

But wait a minute: wouldn't bringing relief aid to Gaza end up strengthening Hamas? Not if we arrange for the relief aid to be distributed through the United Nations or other independent relief agencies. Some of it might end up in Hamas's hands indirectly but most of it won't, and reducing the level of deprivation and suffering would undercut the influence Hamas gains as a provider of social services.

It's true that a relief operation of this sort will probably require some U.S. officials to have some minimal dealings with Hamas, but this would actually be a good thing. If the United States is really serious about a genuine two-state solution, it is going to have to bring Hamas into the political process sooner or later and this is a pretty low-key, non-committal way to start. And while we're at it, we can tell them to get busy fixing that Charter of theirs and take a humanitarian gesture or two of their own, such as releasing captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

In short, using American power to end the blockade of Gaza could be a win-win-win for everyone. The United States (and Obama himself) would demonstrate that we really did seek a "new beginning" in the Middle East, and correct the impression that the Cairo speech was just a lot of elegant hooey. Israel's security concerns would be addressed, it would look flexible and reasonable, and we would be providing Netanyahu with an easy way to extricate himself from a position that is increasingly untenable. (It's one thing for him to lift the blockade himself, but quite another to do it at Washington's behest). And of course the long-suffering population of Gaza would be much better off, which should make us all feel better.

The more that I think about it, the more attractive this approach looks. All it takes is an administration that is willing to take bold action to correct a situation that is both a humanitarian outrage and a simmering threat to regional peace. That probably means that it has zero chance of being adopted. And of course you all know why.

I have only one thing to say about Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsythe Jr.'s op-ed in today's New York Times, published under the title "An Arsenal We Can All Live With."  

Amen.

Schaub and Forsythe argue that the United States could satisfy all its legitimate security requirements with an arsenal of 311 nuclear warheads, dispersed among bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and ICBM's. Not a thousand. Not 1,550 plus a few thousand more in reserve. Only 311. That's all.

Actually, I think that number might still be too large, because you only need a very small handful of nuclear weapons (e.g., maybe a dozen?) to inflict a level of damage that no political leader could tolerate. As former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy famously wrote:

A decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one's own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history; and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable."

American policymakers clearly understand the compelling logic of minimum deterrence, or else they wouldn't be so worried when states like North Korea or (maybe) Iran seek to join the nuclear club. U.S. leaders recognize that even a handful of nuclear weapons in the hands of a hostile country constrains what we can do to that country (which is of course why some states want to get them in the first place). But if a very small number of weapons can induce such sobriety on our part, why exactly do we need thousands, especially when our conventional forces are already far stronger than any other country on the planet?

Of course, the fact that deterrence isn't sensitive to the actual number of weapons also implies that having more weapons than we need isn't that dangerous, provided that you are very, very certain that you won't lose one, that your large arsenal won't encourage others with less reliable security arrangements to build up, and provided you have lots of money to pay for an arsenal you don't really need. But since I like saving money, would prefer that other states either didn't get nuclear weapons or kept their own arsenals small (and therefore easy to guard), and believe that decreasing the number of warheads in the world is an important step in improving overall nuclear security, I think Schaub and Forsythe's article should be taken seriously.   

But I doubt it will. Schaub and Forsythe's analysis is based on careful strategic reasoning, and their conclusions challenge both the bureacratic interests of the professional military and the more atavistic instincts of the body politic. A serious attempt to implement their recommendations would elicit howls of protest from hawkish politicos and pundits, who will maintain that the world's only superpower also needs the biggest pile of (unusable) bombs in order to preserve its capacity to swagger, even if they can't actually explain how we would ever use that many weapons or how we derive any practical political benefits from this alleged "superiority." In the hothouse world of political commentary, insisting that "size doesn't matter" isn't a winning argument, even when logic and evidence are overwhelmingly on its side.

Back when I started writing this blog, I warned that the idea of preventive war against Iran wasn't going to go away just because Barack Obama was president. The topic got another little burst of oxygen over the past few days, in response to what seems to have been an over-hyped memorandum from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and some remarks by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, following a speech at Columbia University. In particular, Mullen noted that military action against Iran could "go a long way" toward delaying Iran's acquisition of a weapons capability, though he also noted this could only be a "last resort" and made it clear it was not an option he favored. 

One of the more remarkable features about the endless drumbeat of alarm about Iran is that it pays virtually no attention to Iran's actual capabilities, and rests on all sorts of worst case assumptions about Iranian behavior. Consider the following facts, most of them courtesy of the 2010 edition of The Military Balance, published annually by the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London:

GDP: United States -- 13.8 trillion
Iran --$ 359 billion  (U.S. GDP is roughly 38 times greater than Iran's)

Defense spending (2008):
U.S. -- $692 billion
Iran -- $9.6 billion (U.S. defense budget is over 70 times larger than Iran)

Military personnel:
U.S.--1,580,255 active; 864,547 reserves (very well trained)
Iran--   525,000 active; 350,000 reserves (poorly trained)

Combat aircraft:
U.S. -- 4,090 (includes USAF, USN, USMC and reserves)
Iran -- 312 (serviceability questionable)

Main battle tanks:
U.S. -- 6,251 (Army + Marine Corps)
Iran -- 1,613 (serviceability questionable)

Navy:
U.S. -- 11 aircraft carriers, 99 principal surface combatants, 71 submarines, 160 patrol boats, plus large auxiliary fleet
Iran -- 6 principal surface combatants, 10 submarines, 146 patrol boats

Nuclear weapons: 
U.S. -- 2,702 deployed, >6,000 in reserve
Iran -- Zero

One might add that Iran hasn't invaded anyone since the Islamic revolution, although it has supported a number of terrorist organizations and engaged in various forms of covert action.  The United States has also backed terrorist groups and conducted covert ops during this same period, and attacked a number of other countries, including Panama, Grenada, Serbia, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.

By any objective measure, therefore, Iran isn't even on the same page with the United States in terms of latent power, deployed capabilities, or the willingness to use them. Indeed, Iran is significantly weaker than Israel, which has roughly the same toal of regular plus reserve military personnel and vastly superior training. Israel also has more numerous and modern armored and air capabilities and a sizeable nuclear weapons stockpile of its own. Iran has no powerful allies, scant power-projection capability, and little ideological appeal. Despite what some alarmists think, Iran is not the reincarnation of Nazi Germany and not about to unleash some new Holocaust against anyone.  

The more one thinks about it, the odder our obsession with Iran appears. It's a pretty unloveable regime, to be sure, but given Iran's actual capabilities, why do U.S. leaders devote so much time and effort trying to corral support for more economic sanctions (which aren't going to work) or devising strategies to "contain" an Iran that shows no sign of being able to expand in any meaningful way? Even the danger that a future Iranian bomb might set off some sort of regional arms race seems exaggerated, according to an unpublished dissertation by Philipp Bleek of Georgetown University. Bleek's thesis examines the history of nuclear acquisition since 1945 and finds little evidence for so-called "reactive proliferation." If he's right, it suggests that Iran's neighbors might not follow suit even if Iran did "go nuclear" at some point in the future).

Obviously, simple bean counts like the one presented above do not tell you everything about the two countries, or the political challenges that Iran might pose to its neighbors. Iran has engaged in a number of actions that are cause for concern (such as its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon), and it has some capacity to influence events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, as we have learned in both of these countries, objectively weaker adversaries can still mount serious counterinsurgency operations against a foreign occupier. And if attacked, Iran does have various retaliatory options that we would find unpleasant, such as attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf. So Iran's present weakness does not imply that the United States can go ahead and bomb it with impunity.

What it does mean is that we ought to keep this relatively minor "threat" in perspective, and not allow the usual threat-inflators to stampede us into another unnecessary war. My impression is that Admiral Mullen and SecDef Gates understand this. I hope I'm right. But I'm still puzzled as to why the Obama administration hasn't tried the one strategy that might actually get somewhere: take the threat of force off the table, tell Tehran that we are willing to talk seriously about the issues that bother them (as well as the items that bother us), and try to cut a deal whereby Iran ratifies and implements the NPT Additional Protocol and is then permitted to enrich uranium for legitimate purposes (but not to weapons-grade levels). It might not work, of course, but neither will our present course of action or the "last resort" that Mullen referred to last weekend.

According to the New York Times, that viral video of a U.S. Apache helicopter attacking a group of people in a Baghdad suburb -- an attack that killed two Reuters reporters -- has now been viewed at least two million times on YouTube. I was one of those two million viewers, and it's pretty horrifying, especially when you know as you watch that the targets were in fact innocent victims.

But you should watch it anyway, if you want to understand why many Iraqis now want us out of their country and why the United States is less popular than its citizens and leaders think it ought to be. For me, the most remarkable thing about the video is the business-as-usual dialogue between the pilots and crew of the Apache and the ground controllers that are guiding their actions. Although they clearly perceive this as a combat situation -- and there were insurgents operating in their vicinity -- nothing in their exchange suggests that the situation is unusual or that they were in imminent danger themselves. The tone is calm, with occasional moments of frustration at not having a clear shot and elation after the targets are hit.

It is the "banality of combat." The crew followed normal procedures, obtained authorization to shoot before firing, maneuvered to get a clean line of fire, and then unleashed a devastating fusillade. (If you're unfamiliar with the firepower of modern weaponry, the video is graphic and revealing). The self-congratulatory banter and occasional laughter following the attack -- after the violent death of fellow human beings -- is downright chilling.

This tells me that this incident wasn't unusual, which is of course why no disciplinary action was taken against the personnel involved. What is different in this case is that two Reuters journalists got killed, and eventually a video got leaked and put on the internet. And if this particular episode is just one among many, there must be plenty of Iraqis who lost relatives to American firepower or at least had reason to fear and resent it. Not too hard to figure out why pressing for a rapid U.S. withdrawal now wins votes there.

Notice that I am not suggesting that the personnel involved failed to observe the proper "rules of engagement," or did not genuinely think that the individuals they were attacking were in fact armed. Rather, what bothers me is that they were clearly trying to operate within the rules, and still made a tragic error. It reminds us that this sort of mistake is inevitable in this sort of war, especially when we rely on overwhelming firepower to wage it. When we intervene in other countries, this is what we should expect.

One last point: one of the fundamental problems for a country with an interventionist foreign policy is that it frequently does things that others don't like and sometimes resist. If U.S. citizens do not know what their own government is doing, however, they won't understand exactly where that hostility is coming from. Instead of recognizing it as a reaction to their own policies, they will tend to assume that foreign opposition is irrational, a reflection of deep ideological antipathies, or based on some sort of weird hostility to our "values." Believing ourselves to be blameless, and motivated only by noble aims, we will misread the sources of anti-Americanism and overlook opportunities to reduce it by adjusting our own behavior.

It is therefore vital for American citizens to know about the various things that are being done in the name of our national security. We need to know about drone strikes, targeted assassinations, civilians killed by mistake, support for corrupt or vicious warlords, "covert" actions against foreign regimes, etc., as well as similar activities undertaken by allies with whom we are closely identified. Whether those various policies are still justifiable and/or effective is a separate issue (i.e., the benefits may be worth the price of greater hostility, though I am personally skeptical) but at least we won't be surprised when those who have experienced the sharp end of American power are angry at us, and we won't be as likely to misinterpret it.

And that means that organizations like Wikileaks are performing a public service, by exposing incidents and activities that the government would rather you didn't know about. The administration and the Pentagon are very good at telling us about the positive things that they do (and don't get me wrong, there are plenty of them), but an intelligent republic needs independent, tough-minded journalists (and bloggers) to tell us the rest. Because it is more difficult for entrenched interests to control or manipulate, the Internet and the blogosphere is a major asset in the fight for greater public awareness. For more on this latter point, I find Glenn Greenwald convincing.