Security (Including Immigration) – Page 11

2006/10/042010/05/31

Review: State of Denial–Bush at War Part III

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Stake in the Heart of the W Presidency

October 4, 2006

Bob Woodward

Here are the highlights I drew out that make this book extraordinary and worth reading even if it leaves one with a political hang-over:

1) The Federal Government is broken, and was made worse by a President who knew nothing of foreign policy, a Vice President who closed down the inter-agency policy system, and a Secretary of Defense who was both contemptuous of the uniformed military and held in contempt by Bush Senior.

2) My opinion of the Secretary of Defense actually went UP with this book. Rumsfeld has clearly been well-intentioned, has clearly asked the right questions, but he let his arrogance get away from him. Given a choice between Admiral Clark, a truth-telling transformative person, and General Myers, an acquiescent warrior diminished to senior clerk, Rumsfeld made the right choice for his management style, and the wrong choice for the good people in our Armed Forces. I *like* Rumsfeld's Anchor Chain letter as it has been described, and wish it had been included as an Appendix. Rumsfeld got the control he wanted, but he sacrificed honest early warning in so doing.

3) This book also improves my opinion of the Saudis and especially Prince Bandar. While I have no tolerance for Saudi Royalty–the kind of corrupt debauched individuals that make Congressman Foley look like a vestal virgin–the Saudis did understand that Bush's unleashing of Israel was disastrous, and they did an excellent job of shaking up the President. Unfortunately, they could not overcome Dick Cheney, who should resign or be impeached for gross dereliction of duty and usurpation of Presidential authority.

4) Tenet's visit to Rice on 10 July is ably recounted and adds to the picture. It joins others books, notably James Risen's “State of War,” “Hubris,” FASCO” and “The End of Iraq in presenting a compelling picture of a dysfunctional National Security Advisor who is now a dysfunctional Secretary of State–and Rumsfeld still won't return her phone calls…..

5) The author briefly touches on how CIA shined in the early days of the Afghan War (see my reviews of “JAWBREAKER” and “First In” for more details) but uses this to show that Rumsfeld took the impotence of the Pentagon, and the success of CIA, personally.

6) The author also tries to resurrect Tenet somewhat, documenting the grave reservations that Tenet had about Iraq, but Tenet, like Colin Powell, failed to speak truth to power or to the people, and failed the Nation.

7) Rumsfeld recognized the importance of stabilization and reconstruction (and got an excellent report from the Defense Science Board, not mentioned by this book, on Transitions to and From Hostilities) but he vacillated terribly and ultimately failed to be serious on this critical point.

8) This book *destroys* the Defense Intelligence Agency, which some say should be burned to the ground to allow a fresh start. The author is brutal in recounting the struggles of General Marks to get DIA to provide any useful information on the alleged 946 WMD sites in Iraq. DIA comes across as completely derelict bean counters with no clue how to support operators going in harms way, i.e. create actionable intelligence.

9) Despite WMD as the alleged basis for war, the military had no unit trained, equipped, or organized to find and neutralize WMD sites. A 400 person artillery unit was pressed into this fearful service.

10) General Jay Garner is the star of this story. My face lit up as I read of his accomplishments, insights, and good judgments. He and General Abizaid both understood that allowing the Iraqi Army to stay in being with some honor was the key to transitioning to peace, and it is clearly documented that Dick Cheney was the undoing of the peace. It was Dick Cheney that deprived Jay Garner of Tom Warrick from State, the man who has overseen and understood a year of planning on making the peace, and it was Dick Cheney that fired Garner and put Paul Bremer, idiot pro-consult in place. Garner clearly understood a month before the war–while there was still time to call it off–that the peace was un-winable absent major changes, but he could not get traction within the ideological fantasy land of the Vice Presidency.

11) Apart from State, one military officer, Colonel Steve Peterson, clearly foresaw the insurgency strategy, but his prescient warnings were dismissed by the larger group.

12) General Tommy Franks called Doug Feith “the dumbest bastard on the planet,” –Feith deprived Garner of critical information and promoted Chalabi as the man with all the answers.

13) The author covers the 2004 election night very ably, but at this point the book started to turn my stomach. The author appears oblivious to the fact that the Ohio election was stolen through the manipulation of 12 voting districts, loading good machines in the pro-Bush areas, putting too few machines in the pro-Kerry areas, and in some cases, documented by Rolling Stone, actually not counting Kerry votes at all on the tallies. Ohio has yet to pay, as does Florida, for its treasonous betrayal of the Republic.

Today I issued a press release pointing toward the Pakistan treaty creating the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan as a safehaven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda as the definitive end–loss of–the war on terror, which is a tactic, not an enemy. As Colin Gray says in “Modern Strategy,” time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced. As a moderate Republican I dare to suggest that resigning prior to the November elections, in favor of John McCain, Gary Hart, and a Coalition Cabinet, might be the one thing that keeps the moderate Republican incumbents, and the honest Democrats–those that respect the need for a balanced budget–in place to provide for continuity in Congress, which must *be* the first branch of government rather than slaves to the party line.

It's crunch time. This book is the last straw. The American people are now *very* angry.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: Open Target–Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack (Hardcover)

5 Star, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)

Stovepiping and Failure to Share Informaiton THE Threat,

May 31, 2006

Clark Kent Ervin

I actually like the “Tedious and Flawed” review even though I do not fully agree with that characterization of this book. That review is useful as a counter-balance to blind acceptance of the author's assertions as well as my own praise of this book.

However, as a 30 year veteran of the U.S. Government, and as the lead Amazon reviewer on national security matters, I have to give this book five stars and opine that on balance, this author is closer to the truth than the U.S. Government might wish us to believe.

The key assertion in the book, which most reviewers fail to note, is that stove-piping and a failure to share information is the key threat to our Nation. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) appears to understand this assertion, and the ONLY thing about the DNI that impresses me is the focus on information sharing standards and processes being devised by the DNI CIO. The author gives this information sharing blockage more weight when he discusses the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ten different intelligence units out of the 22 agencies it manages, yet the Secretary of DHS (then Tom Ridge) refused to do what Congress asked him to do, which was to be the lead for coordinating and consolidating intelligence about threats to the homeland. Little wonder that years after 9-11 we still do not have a consolidated watchlist of suspected terrorists.

The author says on page 175 that DHS suffers from a clear failure to take intelligence matters as seriously as they should be, and he cites testimony to the effect that DHS gets a grade of 5-6 on a scale of 10. A memorable quote on page 11 sets the stage for the book: “Instead of connecting the dots, the Secretary of Homeland Security was passing the buck.” Exactly right, and Hurricane Katrina, which the author does discuss, proves the point. DHS is a charade, line the DNI, the Secretary of DHS is simply a figure-head, a placebo for public.

EDIT of 28 June 2007: I reread this book by accident while at the beach, having forgotten I went over it earlier, and this time one additional observation jumped out at me: the author, in the chapter on intelligence failure, documents how the lawyers working for the original Secretary of DHS refused to allow DHS to execute its mandate to be the sole authority in bringing together all the terrorist watchlists. The national counter-terrorism center is in my view unnecessary, counter-productive, overly obsessed with terrorism, and oh, by the way, five years later, they have a gift shop but they still do not have a consolidated terrorist watch list.

I happen to sympathize with the author, and there are no doubt many that will consider this book to be self-serving, but when the author says on page 15 that “doing your job can ruin your career,” he is speaking for many. Today the Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court has ruled against government employees being entitled to freedom of speech, even when they are attempting to report criminal actions by their organizations or leaders. The U.S. Government has, in my view, become corrupt with respect to the integrity of the information and the transparency and accountability of all the Cabinet departments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are the rule, not the exception, and we are long overdue for a massive housecleaning. I have seen too many good people driven out of government through “fitness of duty physicals,” transfers to dark corners, and other punitive measures that should be illegal and punishable by prison or at least impeachment. The U.S. Governments shoots the messenger and plays politics with the truth, and that is a fact.

In that regard, the authors slams Senator Joe “never met a Republican I cannot love” Lieberman, and Senator Collins, for not being serious about their oversight roles, for being too intent with “going along” with what according to this author, the Inspector General charged with knowing such things, were not only fraud, waste, and abuse, but MISSION FAILURE.

I was impressed that the author established a separate IG unit to focus on information technology, and distressed that like the rest of the US Government, he does not seem to recognize the extraordinary value that the Government Accountability Office (GAO, an investigative arm of Congress) can offer as a partner in rooting out fraud, waste, abuse, and plain incompetence.

In the intelligence arena, my primary area of int3rest and my main reason for reading this book, the author has real credibility with me when he states that the U.S. Intelligence Community has NOT been fixed (as of 2006, five years after 9-11), and that DHS is a minor and abysmally incompetent player in the US IC–the “last to know” anything relevant to defending homeland security.

The book has excellent notes and an extremely poor index. I would normally reduce the score of this book to four stars for such a poor index, but the importance of this topic, and the authenticity of the author's experience and shared knowledge, cause me to leave it at five stars. I recommend the book be read with Stephen Flynn's America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism, which I have also reviewed, some time ago, very favorably.

2004/08/132009/12/04

Review: Osama’s Revenge–THE NEXT 9/11 : What the Media and the Government Haven’t Told You

4 Star, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, America (Anti-America), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad

Third of Three “Must Reads” on Bin Laden and Threat to USA,

August 13, 2004

Paul L. Williams

This is the third of three books that I am reviewing today and that I strongly recommend be read by every adult in America. The first two, in order of priority, are Mahmood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror and CIA Anonymous Executive Analyst, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. I should add that terror is a tactic, not an enemy, it is impossible to win a war against a tactic.

What this book does is piece together all of the English-language reports over the past ten years or so regarding the probabilities and specifics of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's having acquired several forms or portable nuclear devices. Although some reviewers have slammed this book for being fictional, they do not know what they are talking about. The FACTS are that the Soviet general officer responsible for the 100 suitcase nuclear bombs designed for Spetznatz use, some pre-positioned in the USA, has said publicly, in writing, and on more than one occasion that 66 of those are unaccounted for.

I took one star off for excessive reliance on two secondary sources, both excellent but never-the-less cited too often, and the commensurate lack of attention to foreign language materials that could have deepened this study considerably, especially when one takes into account the CIA executive analyst's comments in IMPERIAL HUBRIS regarding the straight truth-telling that can be found in Bin Laden's Arabic-language postings. “Nuclear hell storm” is out there (the author does cite this), and we had better take this more seriously than our government has.

The author opens with a notional “letter to America” from Bin Laden that is based on Bin Laden's actual statements (as itemized in IMPERIAL HUBRIS) and is alone worth the price of the book. If we don't take a long hard look at ourselves and correct the misbehavior that is radicalizing over a billion Muslims, we will not (not!) win this war.

The author does a really fine job, not just of amassing and stringing together a coherent story of Bin Laden's likely possession of nuclear capabilities, but also of showing the inter-relationship between the Afghanistan drug fields that the U.S. Government has stupidly allowed to flourish, the Pakistani production facilities that take the opium to a “Number 4” level of quality, and criminal organizations as well as corrupt governments everywhere that facilitate Bin Laden's operations. The roles of Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan (especially Pakistan) in facilitating the storage, refurbishment, and technical maintenance of the purchased nuclear elements are covered in a manner that persuades me–this is a very real threat.

The book is a useful compilation of both mistakes by the US, and events taking place from 2002-2004, and it ends with full translated copies of the 23 Aug 96 Fatwa and the related 23 Feb 98 World Islamic Statement. Within the book are some extracts from Al Qaeda training manuals, one portion of which make it clear that the “sleepers” now in the US are specifically forbidden to go to mosques or appear Islamic in any way.

Bottom line, totally consistent with the other two books I recommend: the US needs to meet Bin Laden's reasonable demands, and redirect its focus from occupying Islamic countries toward cleaning up its own homeland. [I realize that calling Bin Laden's demands “reasonable” in going to infuriate many people, but I have to say, based on all three books taken as a whole, that all three authors agree on this point, and they have persuaded me. We cannot win if we persist in supporting 44 dictators, occupying Muslim lands, demanding cheap oil at the expense of the Muslim populations, and supporting an Israel that is racist as well as terrorist in nature toward the Palestinians. It is what it is–the sooner we stop deceiving ourselves, and demand that our government get back to the ideals of moral capitalism and truly representative democracy, the sooner we have a chance to avoid this “nuclear hellstorm” that I believe this book credibly documents as a very real possibility.]

2004/07/142009/12/04

Review: The Pentagon’s New Map–War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century

4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution, Military & Pentagon Power, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration)

Young Man, Big Ideas Finally Refined in 2007,

July 14, 2004

Thomas P.M. Barnett

EDITED 8 July 2007 to add rave review of the author's newest incarnation, his presentation given to TED (URL in the comment). He has finally distilled and refined his ideas into a world-class presentation that is a fantastic stage-setter for more substantive and detailed presenations (see second URL in comment). His current (2007) brain is beyond five stars. I am so very pleased to see this brilliant development.

Old Review (Still Valid on the Book Itself)

This is another of those books that started as an article and should have stayed there. The author, who appears to be either unfamiliar with or unwilling to credit works from earlier decades as well as more recently that present ideas similar to and often superior to his, has essentially three good ideas that can be summed up as follows:

Idea #1: World can be divided into a Functioning Core and a Non-Integrating Gap. The disconnected gap is bad for business (risky) and the US military can protect its budget by getting into the business of exporting security so that Wall Street can do more business safely.

Idea #2: Connectivity or disconnectedness are the essential means of defining and influencing which countries are able to move into the Functioning Core and which remain in the Non-Integrating Gap [too state-centric for my taste, but a good point–my 1990's call for Digital Marshal Plan remains valid.]

Idea #3: Economic relationships have replaced military power as the essential attribute of relations among nations–for example, we cannot deal with China as a military power without first having a comprehensive economic strategy and economic tools with which to influence them.

There are many points where I agree with the author, and I give him credit for thinking of all of this on his own, without much attention to decade's worth of scholarship and informed professional opinion in the military journals. He is absolutely correct to note that we cannot fence the Gap, we must stabilize it. Of course, Joe Nye and Max Manwaring and Mark Palmer and Bob Oakley and Jonathan Schell, to name just 5 of the 470+ national security authors have made important points along these lines, but their work is not integrated here. This is one massive Op-Ed that should have remained an article.

The author has irritated me with his low-key but obvious assumption that he is the first to break out of the box and “get it.” On page 63 he goes on at length with the view that America has lacked visionaries, and the implication that he is the first to come forward. Not true. From John Boyd to Chuck Spinney to Bill Lind to GI Wilson to Mike Wylie we have had many visionaries, but the military-industrial complex has always seen them as threats. We tend to dismiss and shoot our visionaries, and I am truly glad that the author's personal relations with Cebrowski and a few others–as well as his fortunate association with a couple of naval think-forward endeavors–has given him some running room.

There is actually little of substance in this book. The article has been expanded, not with substance, but rather with very long descriptions of this young man's engagement in the process of the Pentagon and the process of strategic reflection. His discussions of the many forums that he found boring if not hostile to free thinking are excellent, and that aspect of the book takes it to four stars where it might normally have only received three.

Two weaknesses of the book, perhaps associated with the author's urgent need to “stay inside the wire” in order to keep his job:

1) All his brilliance leads to just two forces being recommended: the “big stick” force and the “baton-stick” (constabulary) force. In fact, were he more familiar with the literature, he would have understood that from diverse points we are all converging on four forces after next: Big War, Small War including White Hat/Police Ops, Peace War, and Cyber-Economic War. Inter-agency strategy, inter-agency budgeting, and inter-agency operations, with a joint inter-agency C4I corps under military direction, are the urgently needed next step.

2) The author is delusional when describing and praising our operational excellence in defeating well-armed enemies. Were he more familiar with the after action reports from Iraq, particularly those done by the Army War College (clearly on a different planet from the Navel War College), he would understand that Iraqi incompetence was the foremost factor in our success, especially when Rumsfeld insisted on throwing out the sequence of force plans and sending us in light and out of balance. He also ignores the vulnerability of complex systems and relies much too heavily on University of Maryland and CIA unclassified publications that are completely out of step with European conflict studies and other arduously collected ground truths about the extent of state and sub-state war and violence.

I disagree with his concluding recommendations that place Africa last on the list of those areas to be saved. His overall recommendations are simplistic, focusing on the standard litany for Pentagon go-alongs: Iraq, Korea, Iran, Colombia, Middle East, China, Asian NATO, Latin American NATO, Africa.

I note with interest his use of the term, “the military-market link.” I believe this refers to an assumption, matured by the author in the course of his Wall Street wargames, and certainly acceptable to the neo-conservatives, to wit, that the U.S. military exists to export security so America can do business. I would draw the reader's attention to Marine Corps General Butler's book, “War as a Racket”, and his strong objection to having spent his career as an “enforcer” for US corporations.

I do want to end with a note of deep sympathy for the author. On the one hand, he overcame a period of time when his sanity was questioned by ignorant Admirals and other “lesser included” Captains of limited intellect. On other he is trapped in a system that does not like iconoclasts but rewards those who innovate on the margins. His book is most useful in describing this environment, where people who rely on secrets are completely out of touch with reality, and service chiefs focus on protecting their budgets rather than accomplishing (or even defining) their mission. He appears to have discovered the Catholic mafia within the naval services, and his several references throughout the book lend weight to my belief that we need to do religious counter-intelligence within the government.

2004/06/292009/12/04

Review: Shake Hands With The Devil–The Failure Of Humanity In Rwanda

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Diplomacy, History, Humanitarian Assistance, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Genocide is SYMPTOM–Lack of Public Intelligence is CAUSE,

June 29, 2004

Romeo Dallaire

I read this book with the eye and mind of a professional intelligence officer long frustrated with the myopia of national policy constituencies, and the stupidity of the United Nations Headquarters culture. General Dallaire has written a superb book on the reality of massive genocide in the Burundi and Rwanda region in 1994, and his sub-title, “The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” is where most people end up in reading this book.

I see things a little differently. I see this book as a massive indictment of the United Nations culture of “go along gently”, as a compelling documentary of how ignorant the United Nations is about impending disasters because of its persistent refusal to establish a UN intelligence secretariat as recommended by the Brahimi Report, and as a case study in how the Western nations have failed to establish coherent global strategies–and the intelligence-policy dialogues necessary to keep such strategies updated and relevant.

According to the author, 15 UN peacekeepers died–over 800,000 Rwandans died. The number 15 is not larger because Belgium, Canada, and the US explicitly stated that Rwanda was “irrelevant” in any sense of the word, and not worth the death of a single additional Western (mostly white) soldier.

Although there has been slight improvement in the UN since LtGen Patrick Cammaert, NL RM became the Military Advisor to the Secretary General (see General Cammaert and other views in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, the reality is that the UN is still unintelligent and unable to muster the strategic intelligence necessary to get the mandate right; the operational intelligence necessary to get the force structure right; and the tactical intelligence necessary to achieve the mission on the ground. Just about everything General Dallaire writes about in this book with respect to UN culture and UN lack of intelligence remains valid today: they still cannot get decent maps with which to plan a campaign or execute the mission; UN administrators are still anal-retentive bureaucrats that will not issue paper and pencils, much less soft drinks for diplomatic encounters; UN “seniors” still like the first class lifestyle on the road (they pretend to be austere only in NY); UN civilian mission leaders still misrepresent military reporting, as Booh-Booh did to Dallaire; and the UN is still ineffective in creating public intelligence with which to communicate directly to national publics the reasons why humanitarian operations must take place early and in force.

General Dallaire concludes his excruciatingly detailed book, a book with enormous credibility stemming from the meticulous manner in which he documents what happened, when it happened, and what everyone knew when (including advance warning of the genocide from the “third force” that the UN leadership refused to take seriously), with two thoughts, one running throughout the book, the second in the conclusion only:

First, and perhaps because of the mental toll he himself paid for this mission, there are frequent references throughout the book to the urgency of understanding the psychology of groups, tribes, and cultures. This is not something any Western intelligence agency is capable of today. The closest I have seen to this is Dr. Marc Sageman's book on Understanding Terror Networks We urgently need a global “survey”, with specific reference to the countries plagued by ethnic conflict and other sources of instability, and we need to start taking “psychological intelligence” very seriously. We need to UNDERSTAND.

Second, he concludes the book by emphasizing the urgency of understanding and then correcting the sources of the utter RAGE that characterizes hundreds of thousands if not millions of young men around the world, all of whom he says have access to guns and many of whom he says will ultimately and unavoidably have access to weapons of mass destruction.

As I contemplate the six-front hundred-year war that America has started by attacking Iraq instead of addressing the social networks and sources of terrorism, I cannot help but think that this great solider and statesman has hit the nail on the head: Rwanda is coming to your neighborhood, and nothing your policy makers and military leaders are doing today is relevant to avoiding that visitation. Remember the kindergarten class in Scotland? The Columbine shootings and Oklahoma disasters? Now magnify that by 1000X, aggravated by a mix of angry domestic militants, alienated immigrant gangs, hysterical working poor fathers pushed into insanity–and the free availability of small arms, toxins, and simple means for collapsing the public infrastructure….

The complexity of society, which has lost its humanity, is leading to unpredictable and difficult to diagnose and correct collapses of all the basic mechanisms of survival. General Dallaire's book is not about Rwanda–it is about us and what will happen to us if we persist in being unintelligent about our world and the forces that could–if we were wise–permit billions to survive in peace.

In addition to this book I recommend the PKI book mentioned above, Jonathan Schell's book on The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People Bill Moyer's on Doing Democracy, and Tom Atlee on The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All. If we do not take back the power and restore common sense to how our nations behave and how our nations spend our money around the globe, the plague of Rwanda will visit our neighborhoods within the decade.

2003/07/092012/10/27

2003 Information Peacekeeping & The Future of Intelligence: The United Nations, Smart Mobs, and the Seven Tribes

Articles & Chapters, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Chapter 13: “Information Peacekeeping & the Future of Intelligence: The United Nations, Smart Mobs, and the Seven Tribes” pp. 201-225

2003/07/042009/12/04

Review: The Search for Security–A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Future, History, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Brilliant, Coherent, Holistic, and Above All, Sane,

July 4, 2003

Max G. Manwaring

This book is a gem, and it is worth every penny, but it is a pity that it has not been priced for mass market because every U.S. citizen would benefit from reading this superb collection of chapters focused on how to keep America both safe and prosperous in a volatile world of super-empowered angry men, ethnic criminal gangs, mass migrations, epidemic disease, and water scarcity.President David Boren of the University of Oklahoma, himself a former Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provides a non-partisan foreword that clearly indicts both Democrats and Republicans for what he calls a “zig-zag” foreign policy that is guided by TV images and weekly polls, rather than any coherent and calculated evaluation of ends, ways, and means.

Divided into three parts, the book first addresses the Global Security Environment (2 chapters), then discusses elements of a grand or total strategy (5 chapters), and concludes with a prescription (2 chapters). Every chapter is good.

Chapter 1 by Richard Millet does an outstanding job of discussing the global security environment in terms that make it crystal clear that the highest probability threats are non-traditional threats, generally involving non-state actors in a failed state environment. These are not threats that can be addressed by a heavy metal military that is not trained, equipped, nor organized for humanitarian or constabulary operations. Among his most trenchant observations: America can not succeed when the local elites (e.g. Colombia) are not willing to pay the price for internal justice and stability; sometimes the costs of success can exceed the costs of failure (Afghanistan?); what America lacks today is any criteria by which to determine when to attempt coalition building and when to go it alone; the real threat is not any single government or non-state organization, but the millions of daily decisions (e.g. to buy cocaine or smuggle medicine) that incentivise crime and endless conflict.

Chapter 2 by Robert Dorff dissects existing U.S. national security “strategy” and shows clearly, in a non-partisan manner, that the U.S. does not have a coherent inter-agency capability for agreeing on ends, ways, or means. He calls what we have now–both from the past under Clinton and in the present under Bush, “adhocery” and he makes the compelling point that our failure to have a coherent forward-looking strategy is costing the U.S. taxpayer both money and results.

Chapters 3-7 are each little gems. In Chapter 3 Max Manwaring suggests that our existing assumptions about geopolitics and military power are obsolete, and we are in great danger if Americans cannot change their way of thinking about national security issues. He suggests five remedies, the most important of which is the establishment of a coherent inter-agency planning and operational control process for leveraging all sources of national power–political, diplomatic, economic, military, and informational–simultaneously and in balance. In Chapter 4 Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring offer a fine discourse on why legitimate governance around the world must be “the” end that we seek as a means of assuring American security and prosperity in the face of globalization. Chapter 5 by Leif Rosenberger addresses the economic threats inherent in globalization, including free flows of capital, concluding that fixed exchange rates divorce countries from reality, and that the US must sponsor a global early warning system dedicated to the financial arena. Chapter 5 by Dennis Rempe is good but too short. He clearly identifies information power as being the equal of diplomacy, economics, and military power, going so far as to suggest an “International Information Agency” that could eventually become a public good as well as an objective arbiter of “ground truth.” I like this idea, in part because it is consistent with the ideas I set forth in NEW CRAFT, to wit that we need to migrate from secret intelligence intended for Presidents (who then manipulate that intelligence and lie to their people) toward public intelligence that can be discussed and understood by the people–this makes for sounder decisions. Chapter 7, again by Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring, discusses deterrence in terms of culture, motive, and effect–they are especially good in pointing out that traditional deterrence is irrelevant with suicidal martyrs, and that the best deterrence consists of the education of domestic publics about the realities of the post-Cold War world.

The book concludes with 2 chapters, the first by Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring, who discuss how values (education, income, civic virtue) must be the foundation of the American security strategy. They then translate this into some specific “objectives” for overseas investments and influences by the U.S., and they conclude that the ultimate investment must be in better educating both domestic and international audiences. They recommend the legitimacy of all governments as a global objective; End-State Planning (ESP) as the way to get there; and a new focus on holistic and long-term programs rather than “adhocery” as the best way to manage scarce means. One can only speculate how differently Afghanistan and Iraq (and Haiti, now discarded for a decade) might have turned out if the US had rolled in with a Marshall Plan or Berlin Airlift equivalent the minute organized hostilities ceased. Robert Dorff closes the book by pointing out that state failure is not the root cause, but rather the symptom, and that the U.S. must intervene before a state fails, not after.

I recommend this book, together with Colin Gray's “Modern Strategy” as essential reading for any national security professional. The publishers should consider issuing a more affordable paperback (books cost a penny a page to produce, perhaps a penny a page to market, so anything over $5 on this book is pure profit). This is a book, like Harry Summers on strategy, that should be available for $15 in paperback–if it were, I would buy 200 for my next conference.