Kori Schake

Kori Schake

Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is also Associate Professor of International Security Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Her areas of research interest are national security strategy, the effective use of military force, and European politics.

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    • Caveat Inauguror

    | May 10, 2012 | 10:10 am

    The government of China has just given yet another reason investors should be wary of operating in the Chinese market.  The Chinese Ministry of Finance has announced regulations, requiring western auditing firms to give control to local partners by the end of 2012, effectively ending the independence of firms operating in the Chinese market.

    This comes on the heels of several high-profile cases of accounting fraud in recent years, and the Securities and Exchange Commission charging accounting firm Deloitte for refusing to hand over documents in a fraud case of a Chinese firm listed in the U.S. (Deloitte claims it would violate Chinese law to do so).  The Finance Ministry’s action will be read as validating concerns about the opaque and often corrupt practices of Chinese firms.

    Given the collusion of Chinese government and business, both through state-owned firms and politicized decisions on everything from bank lending to police investigations, the regulatory take-over of auditing firms bodes ill for investors getting reliable information on the business practices of companies in which they take an interest.

    Academics and politicians often marvel at what French Finance Minister (and later President) Valery Giscard d’Estaing called the “exorbitant privilege” that accrues to the United States by the U.S. dollar being the world’s major holding currency.  And it is a privilege, often undeserved by us, as now, when our government proves unwilling to make sensible choices about economic fundamentals such as debt reduction.  But it merits remembering that American dominance is not alone a function of American choices.  It also results from the choices of others.

    For all the talk of a rising China, they are making quite a number of choices that will keep the dollar a safe harbor of value and call into question the reliability of information so important to encourage investment.  China may not rise either so far or so fast as predicted unless they reform the crony authoritarianism that looks to be the hallmark of their economic model.

    Sarkozy’s Troubles

    | April 23, 2012 | 9:01 am

    France held the first round of its presidential elections over the weekend, and it spells real trouble for President Sarkozy — and German Chancellor Merckel.  Sarkozy took only 27% of the vote, bested by the socialist party candidate, Francois Hollande.  The far left candidate pulled in 11% and can be relied on to offer that to Hollande.  The far right took 18%, but their leader shows no inclination to back Sarkozy.  Absent an April Surprise, it’s difficult to see how Sarkozy gets reelected on May 6th.

    Hollande, the socialist, has run a campaign critical of Sarkozy’s divisiveness, and of the EU approach to its financial crisis.  He got a boost early on from German Chancellor Merckel endorsing Sarkozy — French voters prefer the image of a smart French rider astride a strong German horse to that of a bossy teuton meddling in French elections.  Hollande campaigned vigorously on his opposition to the “Merkozy”

    In an effort to stave off Eurozone collapse, Chancellor Merckel has intimidated other European leaders into an austerity first strategy.  It is now reaching its political limits of acceptability not only in the political periphery of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, but also in the bedrock of the Eurozone.  The honeymoon is over for technocratic governments in Greece and Italy; both are threatened by elections to overturn austerity.   Spain failed to meet its budget cuts and the newly elected government is facing a public backlash.  Even the Netherlands is likely to call elections after their government failed to agree on needed spending cuts.

    Click to read more.

    Spain at the Precipice

    | April 15, 2012 | 12:14 pm

    Tuesday of this week the government of Spain must return to financial markets to auction 12- and 18-month treasury bills.  Thursday the Spanish government will float two- and ten-year bonds.  While the specific amounts are not yet announced, the government has only financed half of its 2012 debt needs.

    Just released Bank of Spain data shows that Spain accounts for 28% of all European Central Bank lending since December, when the ECB set about injecting a tidal wave of liquidity into the seizing European banking sector.  Spain has soaked up $316 billion of the roughly $1 trillion the ECB pumped into Europe in the past six months.  Despite even that injection of capital, Spanish borrowing costs are once again what they were before the ECB effort, and the pace at which banks are resorting to the ECB has tripled since November.

    The political maneuver decided on by the ECB — to offer cheap loans that banks could use to purchase government debt (shielding government from markets) — was necessitated by the EU treaty’s prohibition on the Bank loaning money directly to governments.  And the triangulation has actually worked.  But the European Central Bank has concluded its priming of the pump and has neither plans nor money in its bail out funds to revisit that decision.  Nor would Spain meet the EU bail-out criteria, having just announced it is increasing its deficit projections for the year beyond that agreed with the EU.

    The bank data reveal that markets have deserted both Spanish government securities and Spanish banks.  Banks could not raise cash in the market; government bonds were not being bought other than by Spanish banks.  It also means the ECB has huge exposure to a Spanish default — virtually guaranteeing that the European Union will need to bail Spain out, if only to prevent the ECB from crashing when Spain falls.

    If Spain should fail to meet its capital requirements on Tuesday and Thursday, it could easily trigger a flight from Spanish banks, government intervention to prevent their collapse, and then necessarily an EU bailout of Spain to keep the ECB from being dragged down by a Spanish default.

    Further Politicizing Intelligence on Iran

    | April 08, 2012 | 9:00 pm

    Sunday’s Washington Post featured an extensive article titled “U.S. Sees Gains in Iran Intelligence,” that details efforts by American intelligence services to penetrate Iran’s nuclear program by both technical means and human agents.  Sources in the article describe U.S. drones flying undetected over Iran, the CIA working through countries in the region to place spies in Iran and connect to knowledgeable Iranians.  The tone of the article is self-assured, conveying the message that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb.  It might more accurately be titled We Know What We’re Doing, under the Obama Administration’s byline.

    The article is anonymously sourced by “seven current or former advisers on security policy who agreed to discuss U.S. options on Iran.”  Far from being a journalistic scoop of clandestine intelligence operations, the article should be read as a policy gambit by the Obama Administration.  They are attempting to discredit the need for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

    Click to read more.

    Back to the (Uncertain) Future

    | April 07, 2012 | 7:19 pm

    President Obama has not taken our country’s precarious debt situation seriously. When forced by Congress to revise his budget earlier this year, Defense was the only department targeted for cuts. Last summer’s Budget Control Act legislated further reductions for this year’s budget and portends even more significant cuts in the out years of the coming decade. Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently unveiled a sensible set of choices for the coming year, but unfortunately failed to account for hundreds of billions of dollars that still must be found under the terms of last summer’s legislation. Unless they provide a better blueprint for spending, across-the-board cuts will come into effect in January 2013. And, as Panetta himself has said, not just the budget choices but the entire Pentagon strategy would collapse with any further cuts.

    In addition to producing a budget willfully ignorant of further cuts, the White House has avoided any serious discussion of the hazards of cutting spending this deeply. The president is trying to have it both ways, cutting defense while pretending there is no risk associated with the cuts. At his Pentagon press conference in January, Obama said that “yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know—the United States is going to maintain our military superiority.” But neither he nor Panetta has produced a plan that gives credence to the claim.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    Slow waltz on Syria

    | April 04, 2012 | 10:01 am

    The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, former Secretary General Kofi Annan, reported to the Security Council yesterday that the government of Bashir al-Assad has agreed to a cease-fire commencing April 10th. Annan also reported there has been no abatement of the violence by the government of Syria against its citizens. Assad’s government is estimated by the U.N. to have killed more than 9,000 people in the past year, when Syrians began demanding the rights we Americans consider universal.

    In that year, the Obama administration has gingerly moved away from defending Bashir al-Assad. When thousands of people had already been victims of murder by their own government in Syria, Secretary of State Clinton described Assad as a "reformer" who should be supported by the United States. Astonishingly, she contrasted him with Arab despots we supported protests against.

    While Obama administration policy has improved somewhat with the advance of revolutions in the Middle East, it continues to chase rather than positively affect change. Our president now concedes that Assad should step down, but endorses a U.N. peace plan that would leave the murderer of nine thousand in power. Moreover, the Obama administration considers itself restricted from intervening in Syria because Vladimir Putin shields a fellow despot with Russia’s vote in the U.N. Security Council.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    Afghan Leaders and Troops Need Time

    | April 04, 2012 | 8:49 am

    It’s been a discouraging several weeks in the Afghan war, but we absolutely should not speed the pace of our withdrawal. All of the evidence suggests that if we walk away from Afghanistan without securing it, terrorists will return it to what it was in 2000 (or worse), their narratives about American decadence will be reinforced, and America’s trustworthiness as a partner to struggling societies will be badly compromised.

    Counterinsurgency wars are difficult to win: they take a long time, rely on the indigenous government to develop the capacity to achieve our aims, and on our ability to persuade a war-ravaged society that we are better than our enemies — to trust us and not them. It’s difficult to see progress even when it’s occurring. But there’s a reason our enemies force us to fight this way: if they fought to our strengths, they would lose decisively and quickly. The
    only way the states and organizations we are worried about can defeat us is by eroding our will to prosecute the war. And they are currently succeeding.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    NATO’s Doing Better Than We Think

    | March 27, 2012 | 11:06 am
    Senators McCain and Shaheen hosted an event on Capitol Hill recently to discuss NATO issues in preparation for next month’s NATO summit meeting.  Here’s my statement from the record:

    One of the very best historians of the NATO Alliance, Stanley Sloan, used to say that the most predictable refrain in the West was that NATO is in crisis.  Because persuading ourselves that the Alliance is in crisis is how we motivate ourselves to fix problems that emerge.  And problems always emerge, not because NATO is in crisis, but because the nature of the threats we address changes with time, and the partnership we have forged in NATO is deep and enduring.  NATO has become the means by which the twenty eight countries that constitute its membership manage their collective security.

    Yes, NATO has shortcomings — they are numerous.  It fails to address many security problems.  Currently it is avoiding tackling cyber threats, even though a NATO ally has been the victim of a cyber attack.  It talks too little about emergent threats like Iran.  It has only barely overcome the tendency to indulge in theoretical debates the medieval Catholic church would marvel at for pointlessness.  It has not prevented the slide in defense spending by most of its members.

    But that does not mean NATO is in crisis, going out of business, in desperate need of a new formula for burdensharing, or irrelevant.  Because the basic NATO bargain remains sound: the United States wants Europe secure and Europe wants American involvement in its security.  It was true in 1949, and it is true now.

    In fact, the NATO bargain has dramatically expanded to the benefit of the United States in the past twenty years.  With the end of the Cold War many on both sides of the Atlantic questioned whether NATO remained necessary.  The German government seemed willing to trade its NATO membership for reunification, the French eager to replace NATO with a solely European defense, the Russians ambitious to parallel the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact with removing the U.S. from Europe.

    But instead of dissolving, NATO Allies persuaded themselves their security against all threats, not just the Soviet threat, was the purpose of the Alliance.  This expansion of the mandate was clearly beyond the original intent of the Washington Treaty.  The framers that would be most surprised by today’s NATO would be its American fathers.  The treaty describes the area of application because the U.S. refused to underwrite the colonial claims of its European allies.  We not only refused in principle, we refused in practice: President Eisenhower materially impeded Britain and France’s effort in the 1956 Suez war.

    Wars in the Balkans were the first test of NATO’s broader vision of its security.  The Alliance passed, if just barely: the time we took persuading ourselves to intervene allowed brutality to take hold in the unraveling of Yugoslavia, the means by which we intervened was subject to ideological rigidities that reduced our military effectiveness and exasperated our politicians with each other.  But the Alliance was working through an understanding of a whole new kind of mission set, determining whether and how the practices that govern NATO would be applied beyond the NATO area.  Europeans seemed to predominantly want subjugation of NATO to other international institutions; the U.S. questioned why the influence Europeans have over the U.S. in NATO should be extended to wars that would not be fought on the territory of European countries.

    For all the acrimony of those debates, the Alliance did negotiate its way through to a sensible and politically stable new pattern of cooperation.  NATO got past the doctrinal impasse over whether NATO was “AN essential pillar of European security” or “THE essential pillar of European security.”  Foolish as it sounds, the Alliance spent six months on that issue when it crafted its 1991 Alliance Strategic Concept.  But tiresome debates on these kinds of issues are the way NATO builds a collective approach to problems.  That actually is what NATO does.  And it’s incredibly important, because those internal negotiations are what make our political commitments in NATO durable.  We argue each other to a common understanding.

    If the framers would be surprised by the expansion of NATO’s mandate, they would be deeply gratified that the result of the new mandate would be Europeans allies demonstrating their willingness to defend the territory of the U.S. and Canada, and fight alongside us in wars far beyond Europe.  They would be amazed to know the first invocation of NATO’s Article 5 guarantee that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all came in response to an attack on the United States.

    NATO’s framers were signing up to commit American power to defend Europe; they had no real expectation that European military forces would be called on to defend the United States.  And yet, they did.  Not only did NATO invoke its mutual defense clause on September 12th, NATO countries also led the effort to bring other countries and international institutions into alignment supporting the United States, at a time when the American government was in shock and focused on preventing other attacks.  That, too, is an important benefit for the United States of the NATO alliance: our allies see what is in our interests even when we might not, and they work to help us.

    Surely that help would come from some, even from many, NATO allies bilaterally.  For the U.S., it is often easier to work bilaterally, especially when considering military action beyond Europe.  We have military commands organized and involved in operations all over the world, with experience working closely with the countries in which operations occur.  To suggest (as many NATO advocates did in 2001) that a war in Afghanistan should be run by the European commander strikes Americans a unreasonable.  But it is illustrative that ten years into the war in Afghanistan, the ISAF commander is the NATO commander, it is NATO allies that remain the main force contributors, it is NATO governments that hold the strategy together when setbacks occur or domestic politics buffet a contributing country, it is NATO’s integrated military command that ensures contributing forces have the organization and training and equipment to be interoperable.

    One last advantage of NATO is that it provides a legitimating stamp of approval for the use of military force.  We disagree both among Allies and within governments about the need for legitimation — the Obama Administration is currently in hot water with this legislative body about its stated belief that approval from international institutions is necessary but approval from Congress is not — but it is clearly preferable to have an institutional mandate where possible.  And for Americans, having NATO allies agree to fight alongside us probably matters more than approval from any other international organization.  We are less persuaded than other countries that the United Nations is virtuous; we know NATO is because it is comprised of democratic governments whose values as well as their interests drive their policies, and both their values and their interests are in large measure aligned with our own.

    That is why NATO isn’t actually in crisis, why it doesn’t really matter what the Chicago summit concludes about “smart defense” or expanding membership or command restructuring or negotiating proposals for limiting tactical nuclear weapons.  We should do those things, of course.  They are the sinew of Alliance management, the continual adjustment of our activity to the threats and opportunities we face.  But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that NATO is actually doing very well.  Prospering, even.  It has made the crucial realignment to the end of the Cold War and established a strong foundation for the future of security cooperation and operational effectiveness among its members.

    To conclude, I’d like to briefly discuss two areas likely to get significant attention at the summit: the capability gap, and nuclear forces.  In both areas over-heated rhetoric has the potential to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    The Capability Gap 

    We in NATO spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the capability gap between the military forces of our European allies and those of the United States.  It’s a serious subject, cause of difficulties in functional interoperability and risk sharing.  Interoperability is always a challenge.  But in our concern about the interoperability gap between Europe and the United States, we often overlook an even more important capability gap: that between Europe and any country our allies would be fighting against.  That is the more important comparison.  Our NATO allies have a war winning advantage against anyone they would conceivably fight.

    They may not be able to fight wars in the ways we would fight them.  And these differences have consequences for the risk allies run, both individually and collectively. But we are very near persuading ourselves that nothing can be done unless it is done the way American military forces would, and that is both wrong and dangerous.

    Libya operations exemplifies this: in an operation in which the US did not want to lead or play a major role, it fired nearly all of the cruise missiles that destroyed Libya’s air defenses in advance of allied strike missions, provided  the great majority of the aerial tankers and nearly all of the surveillance and electronic warfare elements on which allied flights depended, flew 25 per cent of all sorties, rushed precision munitions to allies, and loaned officers trained at identifying military targets to NATO headquarters.

    Without American support, the Libya operation could not have been fought in the way that it was; but that does not mean that it could not have been fought at all. Can anyone really doubt that the military forces of Britain, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Greece, and Romania could force the capitulation of a dictator who was fighting a domestic insurrection?  Moammar Gadhafi spent $1 billion a year on his military, most of that badly; Britain alone spends $45 billion and well.

    Twenty years of fretting about capability gaps is persuading us that Europe can do little militarily without that United States, and that is fundamentally untrue.  It is also corrosive to the willingness of Europeans to use military force.  The United States needs capable European allies.  We have capable European allies.  Denigrating their ability to fight affects their willingness to fight.  There are an awful lot of problems on the horizon that military force will be important in contending with, and the United States should be encouraging our European allies and setting them up to be successful.

    Nuclear Forces

    There is a strong tendency to avoid discussing nuclear weapons and their role in NATO strategy.  Political leaders in both Europe and the United States hesitate to argue the need for use of weapons that devastate large areas, kill indiscriminately, and raise difficult questions of proportionality.  But NATO has a great story to tell about its management of nuclear strategy and forces.  Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has unilaterally reduced its nuclear weapons by 90%.  It has had three rounds of reviewing its strategy, and in each instance reaffirmed the importance of nuclear deterrence in preventing war.  In the past two years, NATO government have persuaded themselves anew of the importance of NATO allies sharing in the risks associated with nuclear missions and the stationing of nuclear forces in Europe.

    The Russians maintain a stockpile of deliverable tactical nuclear weapons more than ten times NATO’s, and continue to deploy those weapons predominantly west of the Ural Mountains.  Their military doctrine increasingly emphasizes nuclear weapons as a substitute for the crumbling capability of their conventional military forces, and they are unresponsive to overtures for negotiated reductions and increased transparency.  While Russia is no longer the main driver of NATO defense plans and activity, the Alliance yet has work to do on old-fashioned Article 5 threats like Russian nuclear weapons because Russia’s truculence continues to be a threat to us all.

    Politics as Policy

    | March 21, 2012 | 12:03 pm

    Michele Flournoy’s extravagant campaign spin on the president’s foreign policy is politics, not policy, which inclines me against replying. But the outsize claims the campaign is attempting to peddle that America is “more secure, safer and more respected” deserve to be tested. The president’s record is not nearly as good as this campaign puffery suggests, nor is it as thoroughly bad as his most boisterous critics claim, in part because the Pentagon has been effective in shaping policy on the war in Afghanistan and other key areas. Some of the credit for that is due to Michele herself, who handled her portfolio is a creditable way. But Michele Flournoy the policymaker is much more credible than Flournoy the campaign spinner.

    First and foremost, it merits remembering that the counter-terrorism policies that made America safer are almost in their entirety policies that Barack Obama opposed in the Senate and campaigned against when running for president: long-term detention of terrorists, trial by military tribunal, support for the Patriot Act, Executive Authority to kill American citizens engaged in terrorism. Where he sought to change those policies, such as closing Guantanamo or prosecuting intelligence agents for torture, he was prevented by the Congress from doing so.

    Second, the administration’s claim of the president’s unique courage in approving the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed is deeply unfair to President Bush. Can they really believe their predecessor, who bears the scars of having been in command during the attacks of September 11th, would not have made the same decision? It is uncharitable in the extreme, especially for a politician who claimed he would return civility to our public life.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    The President finally leads the war effort

    | March 16, 2012 | 10:16 am

    It’s been an alarming few weeks for the Afghan war: American servicemembers videotaped disrespecting Afghan corpses, coalition forces assassinated by Afghan National Security Forces, American servicemembers burning Quran provoking deadly Afghan riots, an American shamefully killing Afghan civilians, and President Karzai demanding Coalition forces be confined to bases. Given all these events, Americans can be forgiven for doubting we are making any progress in the war effort, or that the mission in Afghanistan is worth what we are paying for it in lives, effort, and money. Which makes it all the more meritorious that President Obama and his national security team have not used these events to rush for the exits.  It is easy to imagine the president reprising his Iraq end game: summoning a stentorian tone and explaining that we can’t want this more than Afghans do, that the time has come to give Afghans the opportunity to determine their own future, etc. Thankfully, he did not. Because the mission in Afghanistan really does matter, and difficult as it is, remains worth the effort. The United States and its allies went to war in Afghanistan not simply to retaliate for an attack on our own country, but to ensure the territory of Afghanistan ceased to be a terrorist training ground and operating base. Our military operations have forced al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations to focus on their survival, which diminishes their attention to plotting, training for, and conducting attacks. There should be no doubt that the objectives of these groups remain deadly and directed at us. Continue reading Kori Schake…

    (photo credit: White House photo by Pete Souza)

    Are the Saudis Playing Both Sides of the Street in Iran?

    | March 15, 2012 | 6:14 am

    A hugely consequential development in the Obama Administration’s “sanctions only” strategy for Iran has been Saudi Arabia’s assurance to purchasers of Iran’s oil that Saudi — the only country with the capacity to do so — would meet all calls for supply.  That has given buyers the confidence to forego contracts with Iran knowing their needs will be met.

    The Saudi pledge was essential in persuading EU countries to commit to shifting away from Iranian oil purchases.  Europeans are among the largest purchasers of Iranian oil, and the biggest purchasers are Europe’s shakiest economies.  Even with their economic worries and the deadline for giving up Iranian oil not kicking in until June, Italy has already reduced its purchases by 12% and Spain by 37%.

    But Saudi Arabia’s oil minister appeared to be drawing back from their substitution pledge, saying, according to the Wall Street Journal, that the kingdom will respond to its customers’ demands for more oil, but “it doesn’t want to get involved in the politics behind the sanctions.”

    What accounts for the recalibration of Saudi Arabia’s position on Iran?  News reporting has focused on posturing in advance of a producers meeting that includes Iran at which quotas will be renegotiated, but that is an unlikely precipitator.  The Saudis are pretty far down the road of supporting both sanctions and the threat of military force against Iran (recall the memorable leak from U.S. diplomatic documents in which the Saudis tell us to “cut the head off the snake.”)

    It seems likelier an incidence of timing in the wake of President Obama’s declaration to American-Israeli Political Action Committee that U.S. policy will not settle for containing a nuclear Iran.  The President’s earlier basketball court tough talk that he doesn’t bluff wasn’t adequate to dispel concern that has bluffing about preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and so at the AIPAC meeting he publicly disavowed the policy option favored by many in his administration, and many of his supporters outside it, who argue that Iran can be contained as a nuclear-armed Soviet Union was contained, as a nuclear-armed China is contained, as a nuclear-armed North Korea is being contained, as a nuclear-armed Pakistan is being contained.

    That President Obama felt the need to rule out acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran is not at variance with Saudi policy.  But the Saudis may be getting uncomfortable at the extent to which talk of Iran is a tense and visible U.S.-Israeli dialogue.  More than once the Saudis (and other Arab states) have suggested they would look the other way if Israel were to attack the Iranian nuclear program.  But it is significant that they are beginning to hedge their political support even for the sanctions regime.  We may be reaching the limit of what the Saudis are willing to sign up for, and that will place significant restrictions on the Administration’s current strategy.

    (photo credit: A. Davey)

    Crying Wolf

    | March 03, 2012 | 8:01 am

    In the course of Congressional testimony this week supporting the Obama administration’s $525 billion defense spending request for FY 2013, the Pentagon leadership was dire about the consequences of any further cuts to defense. In particular, Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey are seeking to prevent the law going into effect that would require an additional $500 billion to be cut across the coming decade.

    The Pentagon leadership professes itself fine with this year’s cuts. Panetta has said "the United States military will remain capable across the spectrum. We will continue to conduct a complex set of missions ranging from counterterrorism, ranging from countering weapons of mass destruction, to maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent. We will be fully prepared to protect our interests, defend our homeland and support civil authorities." General Dempsey fully endorsed the new guidance. Yet they both insisted no further cuts were possible without grave damage to our national security.

    In seeking to persuade members of Congress to repudiate the 2011 Budget Control Act that established the topline spending levels, Panetta’s tactic was to shame: "We have made no plans for sequester because it’s a nutty formula, and it’s goofy to begin with, and it’s not something, frankly, that anybody who is responsible ought to put into effect." To be clear, he is declining to comply with the law.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    A Good Deal, Perhaps

    | March 01, 2012 | 1:38 pm

    North Korea surprisingly has agreed to stop enriching uranium, not to test nuclear weapons or long-range missiles, and to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to return to the country.  In return, the U.S. has agreed not to advocate the overthrow of the North Korean government and to deliver 240,000 tons of food aid.  This has the makings of a good deal, if the North Koreans comply.

    It is dissatisfying to hold off calling for the overthrow of one of the world’s most repressive governments.  But the United States clearly has no intention of overthrowing the North Korean government.  To the contrary, the last three U.S. administrations held their breath and did nothing while the venal dynasty of the North built and tested nuclear weapons, disseminated their knowledge and parts and delivery systems and laboratories to countries like Pakistan and Syria.

    That’s even before getting to the repugnancy of North Korea starving and removing any vestige of human rights from its own people, provoking South Korea with military aggression, kidnapping South Koreans and Japanese.  Still, there has been no indication across the past fifteen years that the United States would do anything that might provoke a collapse.

    Since we clearly aren’t interested in turning the screws on the North Korean government, a deal that reduces the suffering of the North Korean people and gains some information on — and even possible control over — their nuclear programs is worth having.

    But North Korea is a serial violator of agreements.  Their pattern under Kim Jong Il (predecessor of the current leader) was to provoke an international crisis and then barter away the provocation they had changed the status quo with, so that every deal gave them a little more money or food for returning to the status quo.  Like father like son may yet prove true.

    What does the North Korean deal tell us?  Where this most foreign and isolated country is concerned, it is almost impossible to know.  It could mean the Great Successor, in power less than two months, is firmly in control of the security apparatus.  Or it could mean the exact opposite: it acted while he was too new to be in control.  Or he may never gain control but instead be a puppet shielding from view the forces making decisions.

    It could mean the leadership feared they could not control public outrage over food shortages.  Or — more likely — there were rumblings from the military about too little food even for them (you will recall the Great Successor’s first act was to declare the military had first priority on food).  Or it could mean Kim Jong Un is a new kind of North Korean leader, genuinely interested in ruling his country beneficently.

    It could mean the North Koreans no longer value nuclear weapons.  Or it could mean their nuclear arsenal is now so large they have concluded there is no need for further uranium processing.  It could mean they intend to diversify their economy away from proliferation of missiles and nuclear components as their sole export.  Or it could mean they have diversified their program sufficiently that allowing inspectors into the facility at Yongbyon is no constraint on their enrichment activity elsewhere.  It could mean they have been priced out of the proliferation market.  Or it could mean non-proliferation regimes and financial tracking are tight enough to squeeze them beyond even their profit margin.

    The agreement was preceded by weeks of nasty propaganda about South Korea.  That could indicate North Korea’s leadership was shoring up its anti-South credentials before compromising on its nuclear program.  Or it could mean they are seeking to separate us from South Korea, increasing the danger to our long-standing ally in the south.

    The talks were held in Beijing, the Chinese midwifing this deal.  That could illustrate the influence of China’s diplomacy, delivering to us something we could not achieve for ourselves these past ten years.  Or it could illustrate the limits of China’s influence, if the North Koreans crave our acceptance or need our material assistance.  It may show growing tensions in the Chinese-North Korean alliance that Pyongyang, the Chinese incapable or unwilling to support them.  Or it may show growing trust that Kim Jong Un trusted Beijing enough to make this deal with us.

    The truth is that we just don’t know the answer to any of these questions.

    (photo credit: Karl Baron)

    Being wrong differently this time

    | February 27, 2012 | 11:29 am

    The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Friday that Iran has in recent months more than tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium beyond what provides fuel toward that which is only used for weapons, begun enrichment at facilities in Fordow designed to withstand military attack, cannot account for significant amounts of raw uranium, and has refused international inspectors the ability to inspect suspicious facilities or interview scientists working on the nuclear program.

    Yet the Director for National Intelligence insisted in Congressional testimony there is no evidence Iran has decided whether to develop a nuclear weapon.  Given that U.S. intelligence agencies are a major source of information for the IAEA and other international organizations (U.S. agencies discovered the Fordow facility in 2009), how is it that our intelligence services come to such a seemingly contradictory conclusion from the IAEA?

    As Thomas Sowell so nicely summarized the sub-prime mortgage crisis: only politics can create this problem.  American intelligence services are still so singed from having been wrong about the Iraqi nuclear weapons program that it appears they are emphasizing their skepticism.  The most flagrant example of that phenomenon was the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from 2007, in which it was concluded that Iran had halted its overtly military programs in 2003, the reason a complete mystery but unrelated to our invasion of Iraq.

    Intelligence work is difficult and inherently speculative.  Our intelligence professionals have to make judgments based on incomplete information and understanding, and policymakers decide hugely consequential issues on the basis of their information. Accepting that they will be wrong — perhaps even often wrong — is surely one of the most difficult responsibilities for both policymakers and intelligence professionals to accept.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    Good News From Afghanistan

    | February 18, 2012 | 4:16 pm

    So much bad news emanates from Afghanistan — terrorism, drug trafficking, corruption, incapacity of the government, public support for the Taliban, attacks on coalition forces by the Afghan police and military we are training, the damage done our strategy by the President’s politically-driven withdrawal timelines — that the good news is often overlooked or deemed unimportant.  This is a mistake generally, wrongly coloring attitudes about the war and our progress in it.

    This week something small but hugely important occurred in Afghanistan: their military leadership concluded an investigation into the attacks on U.S. and other coalition forces, and has made policy recommendations to their government to reduce the incidence of attacks.  Principal among their recommendations is requiring the families of Afghan security forces to reside in Afghanistan.

    If adopted by the Karzai government, the policy would require tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and potentially police (if the policy is applied to all security forces) to either leave their employment or relocate their families from Pakistan back to the country in whose armed forces they are ostensibly serving.  The restriction will predominantly affect Pashtun Afghans, who now comprise 40% of the military, roughly equivalent to their proportion of the population.  But Pashtun comprise a far higher percentage of the Taliban: it is essentially a Pashtun movement.

    Infiltrators are a major problem in the Afghan military and police.  Coalition forces have been attacked by their Afghan counterparts 45 times since May 2007.  Al Qaeda and the Taliban are losing the military campaign and so are adapting their approach toward creating fear and distrust between coalition forces and Afghan security.  And it’s working: the French accelerated their withdrawal timeline after Afghan security forces being trained by France killed four French soldiers.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy said “the French army isn’t in Afghanistan to be shot at by Afghan soldiers.”

    Give the bad guys credit, it’s a smart and sophisticated approach, probing for the politico-military vulnerability of our strategy, which relies fundamentally on building the capacity of Afghan security forces to take over the work we are currently doing.  We have recruited 350,000 Afghans for the security forces, and are budgeted to spend $11.2 billion next year to recruit, train, and equip them.  To the extent that President Obama will allow the advice of our military commanders to affect his timeline, the pace of our withdrawal will be dictated by the success of that Afghan training program.

    Several things are important about the Afghan military recommendation to require residency in Afghanistan for its security forces.  First, that the Afghan military even conducted the review means they understand how debilitating to our support these attacks are.   Our review concluded the attacks are often motivated by personal disrespect or grievance; the Afghans chose a more systematic and plausible explanation.  Their review identifies a strong correlation between Pakistani residence and attacks.  Soldiers with families in Pakistan have greater exposure to Taliban living there, have families that can be made hostages, and have less allegiance to Afghanistan.  Their review documents the connection and claims a broad consensus within the military to act against it.

    Second, not only have the Afghan military understood the threat infiltration attacks pose, they are taking responsibility for their occurrence.  It sounds like a small thing, but getting Afghans to take responsibility for what is occurring in Afghanistan is a major shift.  The cultural tendency among Afghans is to try and shift responsibility rather than confront their own failings. The military leaders are not considering themselves pawns in our strategy, but active participants in it.  We should understand as a measure of the success of our military training program that the Afghan military is the first part of the government to make this cultural shift.

    Third, the Afghan Army recognizes the safe haven problem and did not shy away from a politically uncomfortable conclusion that has the potential to aggravate sectarian tensions in Afghanistan, and political friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  They want to limit their vulnerability to infiltration by forcing Pashtun to show more commitment to the government of Afghanistan.  Nearly two million Afghans have fled to Pakistan and the border remains porous.  But the military have compiled lists of soldiers that travel frequently across the border and are confronting them.  Which means they are improving at military intelligence, border control, and the coordination of their activities.  The policy is a smart response, addressing their vulnerability and showing they can adapt to confront changing Taliban tactics.

    The assessment and policy prescriptions announced this week by the Afghan army illustrate that they are becoming a responsible partner.  That is one necessary condition for our success in Afghanistan.  It is not sufficient — much remains discouragingly needed in improving the capacity for governance, reducing corruption, structuring transparent elections, in addition to continuing to fight the insurgency.  Our civilian efforts need to bring the same kind of focus and resourcing that we are bringing to the military elements of our strategy.  But news from Afghanistan this week does show that our military effort is succeeding, and not only in the fight itself where the Taliban are no match for our forces, but in creating an independent and capable Afghan military with the skills to carry on this fight when we leave.

    (photo credit: The U.S. Army)

    One More Reason Not To Want This Iranian Government In Possession of Nuclear Weapons…and to Have Hope For Iran’s Future

    | February 10, 2012 | 6:43 pm

    The people of Iran have endured an awful lot in the 33 years since they overthrew the Shah: hijacking of their revolution by the ayatollahs, eight years of war with Iraq, their government becoming the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, progressive narrowing of their civil liberties, rule by an erratic cabal under the pretense of elections, economic hardship resulting from international sanctions, crushing of their hopes for change after the 2009 election, and the dispiriting voyeurism of change they pioneered blowing past them to become an Arab Spring.  They may yet have worse to face, either in the form of their own government’s repression or an attack on their country to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons.

    In the midst of all that discouragement, Iranian civil society shows us flashes of all that might be in an Iran whose government was not a threat to its own people and to us.  Iranian movies have a fascinating poignancy and power in the past decade, its artists telling stories of Iranian life that compel attention while showing both what is unique to Iranian culture and so much that is universal in human aspiration and experience.  Ashghar Farhadi’s The Separation, nominated for the best original screenplay Oscar, is a wonderful example of the struggle to be truthful when the strictures of repression punish in many ways.

    My favorite recent example of the Iran that might be is less weighty, but no less important for that: the Cardboard Khomeni.  In one of the weirder — so weird it’s North Korean worthy — choices of the Iranian government, on February 1st they reenacted Ayatollah Khomeni’s  1979 return from exile to Iran.  Khomeni being long dead, the state ceremony used a larger than life cardboard likeness, escorted off the airplane (check it out http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/246257) and in other events commemorating the establishment of Iran’s theocracy.  The Iranian blogosphere has been lit up ever since with Cardbord Khomeni’s hilariously photoshopped into events like the moon landing and Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, standing on the Berlin Wall as it was torn down.

    Mel Brooks was once asked whether it wasn’t in poor taste to mock Nazism as he did in the play The Producers.  His answer was that ridicule plays an important and liberating part in the sociology of confronting evil, taking away its awe and thereby making it something humans can challenge.  That’s always felt right to me, and I hope it holds true for the people of Iran as they struggle to wrest control of their government.  May their humor fuel their willingness to continue resisting a government that withholds from them freedoms they claim as universal human rights.  Three cheers for the perpetrators of the Cardboard Khomeni satires!

    Congress Needs to Demand a Plan (for Iraq)

    | February 10, 2012 | 3:33 pm

    The strategy we should have had for Iraq was to slowly transition from military presence by building Iraqi capacity to maintain security and grow political institutions that would frame and ensure representative governance in Iraq. President Obama’s rush to the exits precludes that outcome. The arbitrary timelines for withdrawal coupled with desultory political engagement produced a predictable Iraqi political crisis. Politics at their highest level have seized up and are fracturing along sectarian lines, an occurrence precipitated and taken advantage of by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

    This is not what Iraqis wanted, not what they voted for. The political culture of Iraq was trending toward trust beyond sectarian lines, political leaders seeing electoral benefit in reaching across religious communities and emphasizing the achievements of governing.

    For the Obama administration, the exit is the strategy for Iraq. What can be done within the political, economic, diplomatic and military parameters set by the administration’s disinterest? First, we must stop turning a blind eye to Prime Minister Maliki’s creeping authoritarianism. Maliki returned from his White House meeting declaring the end of the war and issued an arrest warrant for his vice president. The White House was silent, as it has been on Maliki’s earlier unconstitutional arrogation of power and political machinations, such as arresting hundreds of Sunnis and striking candidates from electoral lists. While it is probably too much to expect the Obama administration to vigorously contest what is occurring in Iraq’s internal politics, we ought at least to bear witness. We have no less responsibility in Iraq — more, in fact — than in other countries where leaders abuse power to the detriment of their population.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    So much for leading through civilian power

    | February 08, 2012 | 3:43 pm

    According to the New York Times, the administration is reconsidering its commitment to maintain in Iraq the largest civilian mission the U.S. has ever attempted. Drawing down the U.S. mission in Iraq is the right choice. But while the Time‘s article attempts to cast the policy shift as the result of declining U.S. influence in Iraq, it is really more a story of incapacity by the State Department to scope, plan, and carry out diplomatic missions of the breadth and difficulty posed by circumstances in Iraq. Those circumstances are largely of the Obama administration’s making, as they set arbitrary timelines for our military drawdown that exacerbated tensions within Iraq while ignoring Prime Minister’s al Maliki’s creeping authoritarianism.

    The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review championed the mission in glowing terms: "In Iraq, we are in the midst of the largest military-to-civilian transition since the Marshall Plan. Our civilian presence is prepared to take the lead, secure the military’s gains, and build the institutions necessary for long-term stability." None of those objectives has been achieved. It was an odd choice by the State Department to make Iraq the flagship of "smart power," given that the White House has consistently conveyed that President Obama just wants Iraq off the agenda. The president never invested in getting from Congress the resources necessary — even if the State Department had the capacity to carry out its ambitious plans.

    Nevertheless, the State Department’s plan for maintaining two thousand diplomats — protected and supported by 15,000 other civilian personnel — was a terribly cost-ineffective program fraught with potential for disaster.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    Post-Sovereign Europe?

    | February 01, 2012 | 9:32 am

    The crisis of the European monetary union has unfolded at roughly the same time as the Arab Spring, and their geneses illustrate a striking contrast in those societies’ views of government. Whereas people in the authoritarian countries of the Middle East and North Africa are insisting on governments more accountable to them, the people of Europe are agitating to reduce government sovereignty, replacing it with a commitment among governments. The juxtaposition demonstrates the extent to which nearly all European governments believe they no longer—or should no longer—have the power to act as sovereign governments.

    David Cameron made a big bet that the other EU governments are mistaken in that view. Britain refused to agree that the EU should be allowed to supervise its choices on how much money to spend. Whipped by the turbulent financial markets and the public’s outrage at bailing out other Europeans, Europe’s creditor states demanded the right to establish limits on the amount of debt a country could accrue. The EU proposal, adopted without Britain, is that national budgets would be submitted for review by all other EU countries and, failing to gain their support, states would be fined for infractions of the rules.

    Cameron thinks that Britain is likelier to prosper by setting its own rules than allowing a collective of countries—even those with similar interests—to set the rules. He points out that the structure of Britain’s economy gives it a greater reliance on financial services industries, something the governments of France and Germany would like taxed more heavily. He doubts that his fellow European governments will serve Britain’s interests better than Britain itself. He is surely right, although the argument depends fundamentally on whether states still have the capacity to chart their destinies.

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

    The implausibilities of Panetta’s budget

    | January 31, 2012 | 3:07 pm

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced last week the main outlines of the Pentagon’s 2013 budget that will implement the $487 billion reduction in spending eventuated by spending limits in the law passed by Congress last summer. Secretary Panetta’s budget represents a sensible set of choices in an environment of budget constraint likely to be of extended duration. Unfortunately, the budget does not constitute a program that carries out the law: DOD has produced a budget that cannot be implemented should any reductions beyond the 2013 topline occur. As Secretary Panetta himself has said, not only the budget choices, but the entire strategy collapses with any further cuts.

    Panetta essentially flipped his predecessor’s priorities, accepting risk in the near-term to preserve procurement of systems considered central to long-term risk management (i.e., preserving our technological and innovation edge as China rises). The programmatic choices consist of three main elements: decreasing the size of the force, improving long-range strike capabilities and relying on them to carry the burden of combat, and shifting to special operations the mission of training friendly forces.

    However, DOD’s plans contain several elements unlikely to survive contact with reality. First, as the Pentagon not only admits but trumpets, this strategic guidance is unexecutable if further defense cuts occur. On what possible basis does Secretary Panetta believe the law outlining sequestration cuts of an additional $600-800 billion to national security will not be enacted? Congress passed the Budget Control Act by large margins (269-161 in the House, 74-26 in the Senate). The Select Committee proved incapable of reaching a deal that would prevent sequestration. The president has threatened to veto any changes to the distribution of sequestration cuts in the existing law. Secretary Panetta himself has supported the president’s veto threat. Where is the basis for believing the law will not come into effect?

    Continue reading Kori Schake…

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