If you're looking for a really good, crisp deconstruction of Bush's totally misbegotton War on Terror, you should read Harvard Professor Samantha Power's review of four new books in today's New York Times Book Review. She clearly shows how the United States is less safe "as a result of the Bush administration's rhetoric, conduct and strategy" in the War on Terror and she highlights some positive strategies to address the real threat of terrorism that we face.
review
More below the fold.
If you are like me, when Bush first started talking about the War on Terror you assumed it was metaphorical, like the War on Drugs. After all, how can you literally fight "terror?"
But in the terrorism context, war proved less a rhetorical frame than a strategic assertion that armed conflict (that is, ground and air invasions of other countries) was the main tool the United States should employ to neutralize terrorism.
With such an amorphous enemy, terror, how do you know if you're winning? Rumsfeld offered this performance metric early on:
"Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
Clearly it's failing, as Bush's own NIE shows. (We're creating more new terrorists than we're killing.) Power notes this.
The administration’s tactical and strategic blunders have crippled American military readiness; exposed vulnerabilities in training, equipment and force structure; and accelerated terrorist recruitment.
Bush's WOT has been a house of cards constructed of false premises, a frame that has "obscured more than it has clarified."
The war rhetoric has raised expectations that a "complete victory" is not only possible, but in fact necessary (even as Bush’s 2002 National Security Strategy preamble reminds us that it will be a "global enterprise of uncertain duration"). That same rhetoric has licensed the executive branch to remove itself from traditional legal frameworks and consolidate power in imperial fashion. And the torture, kidnappings and indefinite detentions carried out at the behest of senior administration officials have blurred the moral distinction between "us" and "them" on which much of Bush’s logic rested.
Another huge mistake using the WOT frame is how Bush does not distinguish among different enemies that all fall under this rubric.
Moreover, by branding the cause a war and calling the enemy terror, the administration has lumped like with unlike foes and elevated hostile elements from the ranks of the criminal (stigmatized in all societies) to the ranks of soldiers of war (a status that carries connotations of sacrifice and courage). Although anybody taking aim at the American superpower would have seemed an underdog, the White House’s approach enhanced the terrorists’ cachet, accentuating the image of self-sacrificing Davids taking up slingshots against a rich, flaccid, hypocritical Goliath.
In criticizing Bush's flawed WOT, Samantha Power recognizes that we do face a serious threat from terrorism that must be addressed, (a challenge more daunting now than six years ago, as we now have so much damage to undo), and the four books she reviews each provide a piece of the new toolkit that can help the next president take positive steps to protect the nation.
I strongly recommend you read the whole article, but here are a few highlights concerning each of the books:
U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
There are some gems of insights from this new manual (issued last December)--if only we would heed them.
Frankly, the key points seem obvious to me, but apparently are a new way for our military to think and behave.
The fundamental premise of the manual is that the key to successful counterinsurgency is protecting civilians. The manual notes: "An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of 50 more insurgents." It suggests that force size be calculated in relation not to the enemy, but to inhabitants (a minimum of 20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents). It emphasizes the necessity of coordination with beefed-up civilian agencies, which are needed to take on reconstruction and development tasks.
She calls some of the premises put forward in the manual "counterintuitive" and "breathtaking paradoxes" but, again, they seem almost self-evident to me.
"Sometimes, the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be." "Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is." "Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction."
Yes, clearly when you protect yourself behind the fortress of the green zone, when you use overwhelming force among a civilian population, you become a monster to the public you need to protect.
The downside is that to follow this strategy seemingly puts our soldiers at greater risk, getting out of the fortress of 'safety' more often, showing more restraint, out gathering intelligence etc. However, as noted in a forward to this manual,
if politicians continue to put young American men and women in harm’s way, military leaders have an obligation to enhance effectiveness, which in a globalized era cannot be disentangled from taking better care of civilians. Military actions that cause civilian deaths are not simply morally questionable; they are self-defeating.
Of course, the other solution here is for politicians not to put our soldiers in harms way in the first place, occupying another country and facing a counter-insurgency! But I digress. Next book:
CONTAINMENT: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror by Ian Shapiro
Since aggressive action has only helped terrorist recruiters,
Shapiro argues for a return to the cold war rubric of "containment" — a halfway house between "appeasement and the chimerical aspiration to achieve U.S. control over the global security environment."
I love the next point.
But generally the United States will invite fewer threats if, rather than attempting to achieve military hegemony, it employs economic, political and law-enforcement tools. "The idea behind containment," Shapiro writes, "is to refuse to be bullied, while at the same time declining to become a bully."
Yes, don't be bullied but don't become a bully (cough, George.)
Another major flaw of Bush policy highlighted in this book is W's way of lumping together a diverse array of enemies, without distinguishing their different drivers and agendas. To Bush's myopic vision, they're all "Islamic terrorists."
Shapiro says that very diversity presents us with opportunities, since it "creates tensions among our adversaries’ agendas, as well as openings for competition among them." To pry apart violent Islamic radicals, the United States has to become knowledgeable about internal cleavages and be patient in exploiting them. Arguably, this is what American forces in Iraq are doing belatedly — and perilously — as they undertake the high-risk approach of turning Sunni ex-Baathists against Qaeda forces.
The Bush crowd needs to, for once, see things from a perspective other than their own. For example:
A Bush administration that had stepped into Iran’s shoes might have toned down its inflammatory rhetoric, having seen that the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq would be, in Shapiro’s words, "as if the Soviet Union had occupied Canada and Mexico at the height of the cold war, and had its fleet anchored off Cuba."
And here's a gem on Bush squandering the resources we're going to need to pursue an effective strategy of containment:
In addition, for containment to work, Washington needs to be able to deliver credible threats. The irony of Bush’s flawed approach is that it has exposed the limits of American enforcement tools, stretching military and financial resources beyond recognition. This has a doubly negative effect: it emboldens those who need to be contained, and it deters those we once might have counted on for help in doing the containing.
Book three:
ON SUICIDE BOMBING by Talal Asad
Asad "argues that the distinction between what Bush calls 'us' and 'them' exists in the heads of Western leaders, publics and intellectuals, but not in reality."
He is understandably aghast that the American public has expressed so little shock over the bloodshed inflicted in its name.
The fourth book deals with our preparation to withstand an attack at home.
THE EDGE OF DISASTER: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation by Stephen Flynn
Flynn is concerned with the major gaps in our preparedness and competence to handle a catastrophe, and
reminds us of the importance of "resiliency" — the ability to recover from a disaster. "A society that can match its strength to deliver a punch with the means to take one," he writes, "makes an unattractive target."
He'd like to see open debate about our vulnerabilities and does not see that debate as helping our enemies but rather a necessary process to gain the political will to make important changes.
In Closing
Here's a parting thought from Samantha Powers:
One question in particular hangs over this discussion: Are the American and international publics so disenchanted with Bush’s effort to curb terrorism the wrong way that they will deprive his successor of the resources he or she needs to change course?