« July 2011 »

by
Kuba Wrzesniewski

On April 28th, the White House announced a long-anticipated reshuffle of senior security staff - Robert Gates has retired as Secretary of Defense, and has been replaced by Leon Panetta; Gen. David Petreaus replaces Panetta as Director of the CIA; Gen. John Allen replaces Petraeus as overall commander in Afghanistan; and Ryan Crocker becomes the new US Ambassador to Afghanistan, replacing Karl Eikenberry. These appointments, coming a little over two years into his presidency, represent President Obama's first major attempt to substantially influence the conduct of security policy and recast the staff in accordance with his security agenda. Although the number of appointments may give the impression that a broad shift is occurring, the choice of well-seasoned personnel also maintains continuity with existing approaches.

Robert Gates, a Republican ex-CIA chief originally appointed by George W. Bush, was retained by President Obama to maintain continuity of leadership during the sensitive early day of his Presidency, but the Defense Secretary's caution and deliberation proved to be a sound match for Obama's political style and security agenda. His replacement, Leon Panetta, shares Gates political moderation - he started out as a Republican, working under President Nixon early in his career before changing parties in 1971. Since then, he has been a consummate DC insider, occupying a variety of influential Congressional posts throughout the 70s and 80s before being picked up by the Clinton White House for a number of senior positions on the executive staff, culminating with a term as Chief of Staff. Since 2009 he has served as the Director of the CIA, where the Wall Street Journal reports he received a “rock star welcome.” This is likely to be one of, if not the final appointment of his career - Panetta turns 73 this year. All told, his hands are a safe pair, and nothing in his policy record or public statements suggest a rupture with existing strategies.

Gen. John Allen is a similar case. A Marine Corps general, his career has mirrored that of Gen. Petraeus, the man he's replacing, with distinguished tours in Iraq and US CENTCOM.. Ryan Crocker, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush, is a career foreign service officer with postings throughout the Middle East and a record of constructive collaboration with Gen. Petraeus in Iraq. The man he replaces, Karl Eikenberry, was seriously compromised by leaked cables which show him harshly criticizing Hamid Karzai. Crocker's appointment can serve to repair the breach created between Washington and Kabul.

The most noteworthy appointment by far is the selection of Gen. David Petraeus as Director of Central Intelligence.

Continue reading "The Security Shuffle" »

Despite a successful and improving record of effectively countering terrorism, the Obama Administration's recently released strategy memo suggests that the president's team is more interested in engaging in stalled domestic political debates than clearly articulating ways to defeat terrorist threats.

Barack Obama began his tenure as Commander in Chief by ordering the daring sniping of Somali pirates attempting to gouge a hefty ransom out of western oil companies and their insurers. In the next years, his counterterrorism team foiled and weathered multiple plots on Americans, including two failed plots involving commercial jets and another fizzling attempt targeting Times Square. Most recently, Obama directed a special forces unit, Navy Seals Team 6, to carry out the action-cinema-worthy elimination of Osama bin Laden. And all the while, the President has racked up a significant number of terrorist kills using precision drone strikes that, by some credible counts, have not generated an unintended civilian casualty in nearly a year.

Though many of these successes have made headlines, the President has not harped on them, his rivals have ignored or downplayed them, and his political allies to the left have been reluctant to cheer them, instead quietly grumbling to themselves about Obama's failure to implement the entire civil libertarian agenda they had envisioned together during his campaign. As a result, many of the greatest CT successes realized during Obama's watch have enjoyed less news coverage than local issues or mini-scandals like the Casey Anthony verdict or Kanye West's outburst at the Grammy Awards.

Obama's reluctance “to spike the football,” as he put it in response to a reporter's question about why he was not releasing photos of the deceased bin Laden, has played into a strategic communications approach seeking to productively engage with modernizing forces in majority-Muslim countries while undercutting the appeal of anti-western groups there. Thanks to this approach together with surgically-targeted special operations and drone strikes, an endogenous Muslim backlash against al Qaeda, and the timely Arab Spring, the administration finds itself positioned to push the Hirabi theocratic movement over the brink into irrelevance. The most recognized brand of that movement, al Qaeda, apart from when it was ludicrously scapegoated by outgoing Libyan dictator Muomar Ghadaffi, has only made recent news for the defeats it has suffered.

If the trend line continues, al Qaeda will next become an off-brand among a set of increasingly unpopular Hirabi theocratic groups mostly focused on their own national and regional ambitions. Intelligence from bin Laden's compound even shows that he was beginning to doubt the appeal of the brand, apparently considering renaming the loosely networked organization.

In their recently released "National Strategy for Counterterrorism," Obama and his chief CT adviser, John Brennan, touch on several ways they might continue to undermine the appeal of Hirabi terrorism, even itemizing the multiple regionally-dispersed factions of al Qaeda they seek to hive off and eliminate. Kudos.

But their articulation of their strategy is disappointing in its lack of ends/means correspondence.

Continue reading "Obama/Brennan CT Strategy Memo Underscores Stalled Debate" »