by hilzoy
Both Obama and McCain made major foreign policy speeches today. It's worth reading both in their entirety. They are very interesting, and very different. Obama got at one of the most important differences here:
"Our men and women in uniform have accomplished every mission we have given them. What's missing in our debate about Iraq - what has been missing since before the war began - is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq and its dominance of our foreign policy. This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe. (...)Senator McCain wants to talk of our tactics in Iraq; I want to focus on a new strategy for Iraq and the wider world."
This is exactly right. If you read the two speeches together, it's striking how much Obama focusses on understanding our foreign policy goals not just one by one, but in terms of their relation to one another, and to our broader interests: the costs of the war in Iraq to Afghanistan, to our military, and to our broader interests; the importance of having a good Pakistan policy to Afghanistan, terrorism, and nuclear nonproliferation; the relationship of our energy policy and our alliances to each of these things.
If you look at McCain's speech, by contrast, it does not have much strategic vision at all. (It's worth noting that his major new proposal is to create separate Czar-ships for Iraq and Afghanistan: to separate, not to combine.) Here, as best I can tell, is what he says about the relationship between Iraq and Afghanistan:
"Senator Obama will tell you we can't win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan."
I take it that by the claim that Obama thinks "we can't win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq", McCain is referring to the idea that we can't send more troops to Afghanistan until we bring some of them home from Iraq. This is, of course, true, and it's worth asking whether McCain's Iraq policy makes enough troops available to allow him to do what he says he wants to do in Afghanistan. He does not consider that question, as far as I can tell. And that's the only way in which he discusses the impact those two wars have on one another.
The relationship he's really interested in is quite different: it's not about the effects our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have on one another, but the idea of using what we did in Anbar province as a model for Afghanistan:
"It is by applying the tried and true principles of counter-insurgency used in the surge -- which Senator Obama opposed -- that we will win in Afghanistan. With the right strategy and the right forces, we can succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I know how to win wars. And if I'm elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory."
McCain also notes that there are differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, and that these need to be taken into account. That's good, since a lot of his speech consists in saying: we need to take the approach that has worked in Iraq, and use it in Afghanistan. And at times, he doesn't take nearly enough account of those differences. For instance, he says -- apparently about Pakistani tribes -- that "We must strengthen local tribes in the border areas who are willing to fight the foreign terrorists there -- the strategy used successfully in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq." But there are huge, huge disanalogies between these two cases. One is that we are, thank God, not occupying Pakistan, which means both that we have a lot less control over what's going on and that thr tribes do not in any way have to deal with us. Another is that the Sunnis in Anbar province were facing the threat of an extremely hostile government composed of people they believed to be dedicated to their destruction, and needed our protection and support while they beefed up their militias. Nothing of the kind is true in Pakistan.
But to my mind, the most important difference between the two speeches, apart from the enormous differences in policy, is that Obama consistently relates one foreign policy goal to another, while McCain seems to view them in isolation. As for the policy differences, they're pretty obvious. Obama:
"I strongly stand by my plan to end this war. Now, Prime Minister Maliki's call for a timetable for the removal of U.S. forces presents a real opportunity. It comes at a time when the American general in charge of training Iraq's Security Forces has testified that Iraq's Army and Police will be ready to assume responsibility for Iraq's security in 2009. Now is the time for a responsible redeployment of our combat troops that pushes Iraq's leaders toward a political solution, rebuilds our military, and refocuses on Afghanistan and our broader security interests.George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq - they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops "surrender," even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government - not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq's borders. (...)
So let's be clear. Senator McCain would have our troops continue to fight tour after tour of duty, and our taxpayers keep spending $10 billion a month indefinitely; I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That's victory. That's success. That's what's best for Iraq, that's what's best for America, and that's why I will end this war as President."
Exactly.
One more bit from Obama's speech is also worth thinking about. I've put it below the fold.
"The attacks of September 11 brought this new reality into a terrible and ominous focus. On that bright and beautiful day, the world of peace and prosperity that was the legacy of our Cold War victory seemed to suddenly vanish under rubble, and twisted steel, and clouds of smoke.But the depth of this tragedy also drew out the decency and determination of our nation. At blood banks and vigils; in schools and in the United States Congress, Americans were united - more united, even, than we were at the dawn of the Cold War. The world, too, was united against the perpetrators of this evil act, as old allies, new friends, and even long-time adversaries stood by our side. It was time - once again - for America's might and moral suasion to be harnessed; it was time to once again shape a new security strategy for an ever-changing world.
Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.
We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.
We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.
We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.
We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.
We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.
We could have secured our homeland--investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.
We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.
We could have done that.
Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats - all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks."
But I was responding specifically to the CiC aspect of the job. I think that a couple of decades on the Armed Services Committee is very good experience for that, with or without personal military experience.
Yeah, but why? What specifically about the ASC is good experience for being President?
Here's the nut of my argument. The ASC does lots of things. But it is also an opaque institution to some extent. That means that some people on the ASC do lots of work and some people do nothing. To be bipartisan, I'd presumptively label those groups as "staffers" and "Senators" respectively. But even for Senators that do lots of work, I still haven't seen any explanation of what work they do on the ASC and why that prepares them for the Presidency. And I still haven't seen an explanation for how we know that McCain actually does useful work on the ASC as opposed to just delegating everything to subordinates. I mean, getting into the nuts of procurement policy just doesn't seem very useful for a President. The Senate hasn't exactly distinguished itself in terms of oversight these last few years.
I can imagine some particular Senate careers being good training for the Presidency, but it all hinges on the details and not a blanket statement that 20 years in the Senate is good experience for being President.
Turn it around though. A young charismatic Republican with experience as a community organizer, some time in the state legislature, and three years as a Senator (much of which was spent running for president) is running against Ted Kennedy. Republicans are claiming that Kennedy’s experience in Congress doesn’t really count as any kind of experience to be president…
I'd be very wary of making the experience argument. If I did make it, I'd phrase it in terms of what Kennedy had actually accomplished in the Senate and what those accomplishments told us about his character. But if Kennedy had been a mediocre Senator who never accomplished anything I was proud of, I wouldn't be saying anything about experience.
Normally I’d say you are correct. OTOH there was a war on and McCain did volunteer for combat. I haven’t read the survey reports on the first three incidents so I have no opinion on whether they may have been due to pilot error or not. Still, he survived the Forrestal, got the shrapnel removed from his chest and legs, and immediately volunteered for duty on the USS Oriskany, resulting in the mission from which he did not return for 6 years.
You have a good point, but I'm wary of giving a young John McCain (or indeed, a young George Bush) too much credit for bravery. You and I are at the point in our lives and have the intellectual ability to assess risks like adults; I don't think these two guys were when they were flying. Heck, if you offered me the chance to fly fighter jets when I was 22 with the caveat that I'd get shot at, I would've jumped at the chance. But doing so wouldn't have made me (personally) brave: it would've made me a stupid 22 year old who thought he was invincible and wanted to do this incredibly cool thing. And while I'm sure Bush and McCain knew pilots who didn't come back, I'm not sure they've ever understood statistics to the point where they could reason enough about their own risk to be scared. After all, I'm sure that they had good reason to explain the failures of every single pilot they knew who didn't come back; no doubt none of those reasons implicated their own skills or safety.
Both Bush and McCain were drinking a lot during their flying years; Bush at least was also driving. To me, that suggests a failure to comprehend and deal with risk properly. That's not the sort of behavior one engages in when one believes that they are mortal and still has a functioning brain.
Also, the other thing with McCain is that he didn't exactly have tons of options. He had to make a career in the military in order to ensure the approval of his family. And lets face it: he was not terribly bright, so the odds of getting command of anything larger than an aircraft during wartime were really small.
Finally, the real problem with using family connections in this case is that as a pilot, McCain was responsible for the safety of other people. If he passed over more qualified people to get into those cockpits, then that means other people's lives were in more danger than they would have been. Personal heroism is great and all, but if the only way you can be heroic is by recklessly and needlessly endangering the lives of other people in order to feed your ego, then you're a dick. You might be a hero, but lots of heroes are also dicks.
Some heroism really can disqualify you from further service. If I set my neighbors house on fire, waited for the flames to get going, and then burst in and rescued her, I'd be a hero, but I'd also be an arsonist and I'd deserve both a medal and a very long prison sentence.
Posted by: Turbulence | July 16, 2008 at 10:25 AM
At least one feminist blog tracked down the background of a bunch of sockpuppets claiming to be Clinton supporters who were going to vote McCain in protest, and discovered that they were all in fact posting from an IP address that belonged to a conservative website.
It might be good if you gave us a link if you had it on hand. It seems that people who do that would automatically be violating the posting rules.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | July 16, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Turb: Yeah, but why? What specifically about the ASC is good experience for being President?
I was going to gather some detail on that but the official website of the Senate Armed Services Committee appears to be down. Given that they can’t keep an official government website online I’m thinking of retracting. ;)
From wiki:
The Committee on Armed Services is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defense, military research and development, nuclear energy (as pertaining to national security), benefits for members of the military, the Selective Service System and other matters related to defense policy.
Sub-committees:
Airland
Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Personnel
Readiness and Management Support
Seapower
Strategic Forces
With 20+ years on the committee and as the current ranking member – you’d have to soak up a fair amount of information just via osmosis. But at a minimum it positions you to have more familiarity with various threats and our capabilities to meet those threats. IMO that puts you in a better place to assume CiC responsibility than someone lacking that same inside track.
But if Kennedy had been a mediocre Senator who never accomplished anything I was proud of, I wouldn't be saying anything about experience.
Given that “McCain-Feingold” is the only legislation I can think of with his name on it I guess I’ll reconsider the point. ;)
On the rest of your comment, fair points all. But I already conceded that military service doesn’t necessarily equate to good experience for the presidency. This was just an offshoot of the “5 planes” bit.
Posted by: OCSteve | July 16, 2008 at 10:57 AM
Think she's talking about this item.
Posted by: gwangung | July 16, 2008 at 11:12 AM
With 20+ years on the committee and as the current ranking member – you’d have to soak up a fair amount of information just via osmosis.
Point taken. But no matter how long we shared an office, my officemate couldn't really do my job. In my experience, people learn by doing and by struggling...osmosis doesn't sound like much of a struggle, unless you mean the struggle of concentration gradients ;-)
But at a minimum it positions you to have more familiarity with various threats and our capabilities to meet those threats. IMO that puts you in a better place to assume CiC responsibility than someone lacking that same inside track.
True enough, but this is the bit that worries me. The DOD deals with a subset of threats and has institutional prerogatives that favor certain types of responses over others. How much work did the ASC do on Al Queda before 9/11? Or was it not on their radar at all? I mean, Richard Clarke and the CIA were freaking out, but I suspect those issues were never raised before the ASC. Work that civilian agencies did tracking and then drying up terrorist financing was more effective at making Bin Ladin's life difficult than half our army in Afghanistan. Likewise, I'm sure the ASC spends a fair bit of time dealing with incredibly useless projects that have nothing to do with American security but that require lots of time because of the money involved: the Zumwalt destroyer, increased production of F-22s, and missile defense don't match up with the threats we face at all. So decades of ASC service does worry me: it might give people lots of insight into programs that do nothing for our security (while convincing them otherwise) and it definitely ignores very real threats that DOD lacks the ability or interest in addressing.
Maybe during the Cold War ASC time made more sense, but the Cold War is over, even if our defense budget hasn't yet heard...
I'll happily concede your point though that in terms of optics, a long Senate career, especially one with time on the ASC, looks super impressive. I have no idea how Obama can best combat that vision.
Posted by: Turbulence | July 16, 2008 at 11:16 AM
Maybe during the Cold War ASC time made more sense, but the Cold War is over, even if our defense budget hasn't yet heard...
True enough. So maybe that is Obama’s counter. McCain has decades of the wrong type of experience. ;)
Posted by: OCSteve | July 16, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Mr. Tomorrow has the Bill and Ken number.
Because of this exchange: "It's a maximum of eight years, after all, and I think that some experience in life outside of politics could possibly be useful.""Government" and "politics" overlap, but are not synonmyous. The Secretary of State is not supposed to primarily be a politician, for instance.
Posted by: Gary Hussein Farber | July 16, 2008 at 01:48 PM
From the Making Light link:
Republicans have failed miserably this decade to keep up with critical technological advances
They have kept up with voting technology. They can use it to twist votes like no-one else.
Posted by: Jeff | July 16, 2008 at 03:43 PM
"They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down."
They'll leave when the oil leases are apportioned.
Posted by: DJ | July 17, 2008 at 05:25 PM
In the 1950s, in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan, Pakistan obtained a 125 megawatt heavy-water reactor from Canada. After India’s first atomic test in May 1974, Pakistan immediately sought to catch up by attempting to purchase a reprocessing plant from France. After France declined due to U.S. resistance, Pakistan began to assemble a uranium enrichment plant via materials from the black market and technology smuggled through A.Q. Khan. In 1976 and 1977, two amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were passed, prohibiting American aid to countries pursuing either reprocessing or enrichment capabilities for nuclear weapons programs.
These two, the Symington and Glenn Amendments, were passed in response to Pakistan’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability; but to little avail. Washington’s cool relations with Islamabad soon improved. During the Reagan administration, the US turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon’s program. In return for Pakistan’s cooperation and assistance in the mujahideen’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Reagan administration awarded Pakistan with the third largest economic and military aid package after Israel and Egypt. Despite the Pressler Amendment, which made US aid contingent upon the Reagan administration’s annual confirmation that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons capability, Reagan’s “laissez-faire” approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program seriously aided the proliferation issues that we face today.
Not only did Pakistan continue to develop its own nuclear weapons program, but A.Q. Khan was instrumental in proliferating nuclear technology to other countries as well. Further, Pakistan’s progress toward nuclear capability led to India’s return to its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, an endeavor it had given up after its initial test in 1974. In 1998, both countries had tested nuclear weapons. A uranium-based nuclear device in Pakistan; and a plutonium-based device in India
Over the years of America's on again off again support of Pakistan, Musharraf continues to be skeptical of his American allies. In 2002 he is reported to have told a British official that his “great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.” Musharraf was referring to Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia ... etc., etc., etc.,
Taking the war to Pakistan is perhaps the most foolish thing America can do. Obama is not the first to suggest it, and we already have sufficient evidence of the potentially negative repercussions of such an action. On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid. Pakistan has 160 million Arabs (better than half of the population of the entire Arab world). Pakistan also has the support of China and a nuclear arsenal.
I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?
The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty. Beyond being wrong, it just isn't very smart. We all agree that slavering in this country was wrong; as was the decimation of the Native American populations. We all agree that the Holocaust and several other other acts of genocide in the twentieth century were wrong. So when will we finally admit that American military intervention in the Middle East is also wrong?
Posted by: John Maszka | July 19, 2008 at 09:24 AM