Author Archive
For Obama, Peace in the Morning, War in the Afternoon
Hours after thanking the world for the Nobel Peace Prize this morning, President Obama will gather with his war advisers to ponder sending 60,000 more troops into a country where our national security objectives are unclear at best.
Instead of embracing General McChrystal’s proposal for a substantial increase in the U.S. military presence — or even adopting a “McChrystal-Light” strategy — the Obama administration should begin a phased withdrawal of troops over the next 18 months, retaining only a small military footprint relying on special forces personnel. Otherwise, America will be entangled for years — or decades — in pursuit of unattainable goals.
We need to “define success down” in Afghanistan. That means abandoning any notion of transforming ethnically fractured, pre-industrial Afghanistan into a modern, cohesive nation state. It also means reversing the drift in Washington’s strategy over the past eight years that has gradually made the Taliban (a parochial Pashtun insurgent movement), rather than al Qaeda, America’s primary enemy in Afghanistan. A more modest and realistic strategy means even abandoning the goal of a definitive victory over al Qaeda itself.
Instead, we need to treat the terrorist threat that al Qaeda poses as a chronic, but manageable, security problem. Foreign policy, like domestic politics, is the art of the possible. Containing and weakening al Qaeda may be possible, but sustaining a large-scale, long-term occupation of Afghanistan and creating a modern, democratic country is not.
More here:
More Anti-Drug Aid to Mexico?
The Washington Post reports that despite reports of widespread violence and human rights abuses since Mexico increased its fight against the drug trade, the U.S. government is considering pumping more money to their failing efforts:
The Obama administration has concluded that Mexico is working hard to protect human rights while its army and police battle the drug cartels, paving the way for the release of millions of dollars in additional federal aid.
The Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion assistance program passed by Congress to help Mexico fight drug trafficking, requires the State Department to state that the country is taking steps to protect human rights and to punish police officers and soldiers who violate civil guarantees. Congress may withhold 15 percent of the annual funds — about $100 million so far — until the Obama administration offers its seal of approval for Mexico’s reform efforts.
…In recent weeks, after detailed allegations in the media of human rights abuses, the Mexican military said that it has received 1,508 complaints of human rights abuses in 2008 and 2009. It did not say how the cases were resolved, but said that the most serious cases involved forced disappearances, murder, rape, robbery, illegal searches and arbitrary arrests. Human rights groups contend that only a few cases have been successfully prosecuted.
Sending additional anti-drug aid to Mexico is a case of pouring more money into a hopelessly flawed strategy. President Felipe Calderon’s decision to make the military the lead agency in the drug war–a decision the United States backed enthusiastically–has backfired. Not only has that strategy led to a dramatic increase in violence, but contrary to the State Department report, the Mexican military has committed serious human rights abuses. Even worse, the military is now playing a much larger role in the country’s affairs. Until now, Mexico was one of the few nations in Latin America that did not have to worry about the military posing a threat to civilian rule. That can no longer be an automatic assumption.
Washington needs to stop pressuring its neighbor to do the impossible. As long as the United States and other countries foolishly continue the prohibition model with regard to marijuana, cocaine, and other currently illegal drugs, a vast black market premium will exist, and the Mexican drug cartels will grow in power. At a minimum, the United States should encourage Calderon to abandon his disastrous confrontational strategy toward the cartels. Better yet, the United States should take the lead in de-funding the cartels by legalizing drugs and eliminating the multi-billion-dollar black market premium.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General
Drug Related Gun Battle in Acapulco Leaves 18 Dead
A wild shootout over the weekend in Acapulco indicates that the drug-related violence in Mexico is spreading.
The Washington Post reports:
Suspected drug traffickers trapped in a safe house fought a furious gun battle with Mexican soldiers early Sunday in the beach resort city of Acapulco. As terrified residents and tourists cowered in their rooms, the firefight raged for two hours, leaving 16 gunmen dead. Two soldiers were also killed and several bystanders were wounded.
The gunmen, suspected members of one of Mexico’s major cartels, threw as many as 50 grenades at the advancing soldiers, and both sides fired thousands of rounds from assault rifles.
Mexican officials have long argued that while there has been serious turmoil in some cities along the border with the United States, the main tourist resort areas are safe. Even before the Acapulco incident, though, events over the past year had cast some doubt on such complacent assurances. A few months ago, a retired general who had just been appointed to direct anti-drug efforts in Cancun was assassinated, and there have been other troubling developments. The main Gulf coast and Pacific resorts are certainly safer than the war zones in such places as Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, and Ciudad Juarez, but American tourists should not be lulled into thinking that those areas are immune from the drug violence.
President Felipe Calderon’s decision nearly three years ago to launch a military offensive against the drug cartels has backfired. The strategy has not stemmed the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, it has merely caused a spike in the violence and made Mexico a more turbulent, dangerous place for everyone.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Law and Civil Liberties
White House Czar Calls for End to ‘War on Drugs’
This morning in The Wall Street Journal:
The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
…Gil Kerlikowske, the new White House drug czar, signaled Wednesday his openness to rethinking the government’s approach to fighting drug use.
Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems.
…The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.
Well, that’s at least a modest step in the right direction. However, I want to see how policies change (if they do) under the Obama administration. A change in terminology won’t mean much if the authorities still routinely throw people in jail for violating drug laws.
As for the international war on drugs, everyone in the Washington area is welcome to join us this Friday on Capitol Hill to discuss the consequences of the war on drugs abroad.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General; Law and Civil Liberties
Military Manpower Problem Solved!
Americans who worry that the U.S. military has been stretched to the breaking point to wage the endless war in Iraq and fulfill a vast and growing number of commitments around the world can rest easy. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has found a vast new pool of military personnel–in Montenegro. Skeptics might point out that Montenegro has a population of 630,000, and may, therefore, not be much help on the manpower front. But such people are just the chronic defeatists we hear so much about.
Admittedly, it might seem a tad humiliating for the secretary of defense of the world’s sole remaining superpower to go, hat in hand, to a tiny country and ask for military assistance. But when said superpower insists on fighting unnecessary and counterproductive wars, it can’t let pride get in the way of seeking aid. With Iraq and Afghanistan both heating up, though, we need more realistic options than to court mini-states as strategic partners.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security
Lieberman Mangles History — Again
The Democratic Party’s most notorious hawk has struck again.
During the NATO military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) embraced the notorious Kosovo Liberation Army, asserting that “fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values” (Linda Wheeler, “Marchers Strut Support for Independent Kosovo,” Washington Post, April 28, 1999). The KLA-dominated government in Kosovo has since proven his point by ethnically cleansing more than 240,000 Serb and other non-Albanian inhabitants of the province.
Lieberman has now brought his acute powers of analysis to bear again. Responding to the disruption of the latest terror plot in the UK, he opined that Islamic terrorists pose an even greater threat to America’s security than did the Soviet communists during the Cold War.
That comment exhibits historical illiteracy. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the world’s number two military power. Its conventional forces could have overrun Europe and condemned hundreds of millions of additional people to communist slavery. Its arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons was capable of killing tens of millions of Americans and effectively ending American civilization. The USSR was a strategic threat of the first magnitude.
Entangled in Iraq until 2016?
The Washington Times reports that U.S. military commanders believe American forces will be needed in Iraq until at least 2016.
There often are bad ideas in the arena of foreign policy. Sometimes there are very bad ideas. Occasionally, there are even monumentally bad ideas. Staying in the Iraqi snake pit for another decade belongs in the third category. As Cato scholars explain here, here, here and here, the Bush administration needs to adopt a strategy for a prompt exit from this unnessary and ill-conceived mission.
We need to have our forces out of Iraq in a matter of months, not years. And no reasonable person should want to keep our troops in harm’s way for another decade. Given the casualty rates during the first three years of this war, staying until 2016 would mean another 8,000 dead Americans. At that point, U.S. fatalities in Iraq would exceed the number the Soviet Union suffered during its ill-fated intervention in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
Remaining in Iraq for another decade while the country descends into sectarian civil war is a policy that should appeal only to masochists.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General
Dick Cheney, Dove?
Rumors continue to swirl that North Korea is about to conduct a test of its long-range Taepodong 2 missile, which would be capable of reaching targets in the United States. The prospect of Pyongyang having not only a small nuclear arsenal but the means eventually to deliver such weapons at great distances has understandably generated agitated commentary in the United States and East Asia.
The latest entry is a Washington Post op-ed by former Clinton administration defense department officials Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry. Carter and Perry suggest that if the North Koreans do not heed U.S. warnings to refrain from conducting the missile test, the Bush administration should launch preemptive air strikes to take out the missile while it is still on the launch pad. Surprisingly, Vice President Dick Cheney rejected their idea.
It is clear that extremist and reckless proposals have come to dominate a policy debate when Dick Cheney is the resident dove. The Carter-Perry article provides more evidence (as if we needed it) that foreign policy irresponsibility is not confined to neoconservatives in the Republican Party.
Afghan Drug War Follies
The Associated Press reports that 16 Afghan soldiers have just graduated from a new program at Fort Bliss that trained them to fly helicopters in drug eradication campaigns. They will now return to their homeland, the world’s top opium producer.
Washington’s increasing pressure on the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to wage a vigorous war on drugs is the latest installment in a prohibitionist strategy that has failed for decades. The international drug war is a terrible policy wherever it is tried, but it is an especially unwise venture in Afghanistan. As a recent Cato Institute policy study notes, the drug trade accounts for more than a third of that country’s economic output. Regional warlords who originally backed the Taliban and Al Qaeda but switched their allegiance to the Karzai government derive much of their revenue from the opium trade. Even more important, hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers base their livelihood on drug crops. They will not look kindly on the Karzai government if it tries to drive their families into destitution.
U.S. policymakers need to keep their priorities straight. Our overriding objective in Afghanistan should be to eliminate the remaining Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. The drug war undermines that objective and may drive otherwise friendly Afghans into the arms of our enemies. There is a troubling correlation between the upsurge of violence in Afghanistan in recent months and the intensification of drug-eradication efforts during that same period. Indeed, the upsurge has been greatest in the main drug-producing provinces.
Even those Americans who remain wedded to a prohibitionist policy as a general principle ought to realize that an exception needs to be made in Afghanistan. Otherwise, the Taliban-Al Qaeda insurgency will grow, and we will replicate the Iraq debacle in that country, too.
Is Taiwan Finally Getting Serious about Defense?
The government of Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian has proposed a surprisingly large (20 percent) increase in the island’s defense budget. It is a modest, long-overdue step toward enhancing Taiwan’s ability to deter military coercion from China. Yet, it merely boosts spending from a absurdly anemic 2.5 percent of GDP to a still anemic 3 percent.
The Taiwanese need to do far more–for their best interests and ours. Beijing maintains that Taiwan is merely a renegade province, and Chinese leaders in recent years have become increasingly vocal about using military force, if necessary, to compel reunification. As I explain in my latest book, Washington’s implicit commitment to help defend the island places this country right in the middle of a looming armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait sometime in the next decade. Although Americans can and should sympathize with the plight of a plucky democracy facing possible conquest by a dictatorial neighbor, maintaining the island’s de facto independence is not a vital American interest. It certainly is not worth risking war with a nuclear-armed China.
Taiwan’s inadequate commitment to its own defense encourages China to contemplate coercion, thereby increasing America’s risk exposure. Unfortunately, even the Chen government’s tepid proposal to boost military spending may not become reality. Chen’s approval rating in his country is even lower than George Bush’s rating in the United States. Even worse, the national legislature is controlled by the opposition Kuomintang Party and its ally, the People First Party. Their obstructionism has blocked for nearly 5 years funding of an arms package offered by the United States in 2001. The KMT and PFP apparently believe that Taiwan’s defense budget should consist of money to purchase a telephone to call Washington in the event of a crisis and urge the United States to send planes, ships, and troops forthwith. They are the ultimate security free riders.
U.S. officials should stress to Taiwanese of all political persuasions the need to get serious about their own defense. The most effective way to do that is to make it clear that the American cavalry is not about to ride to the rescue if trouble breaks out between Taiwan and China.
Two Very Restrained Cheers for Mexico’s New Drug Law
Mexico’s Congress has just passed legislation that would decriminalize the possession of small quantities of illegal drugs. If President Vicente Fox signs the legislation (and it appears that he will), Mexico will join the ranks of the Netherlands and several other countries that have abandoned the “zero tolerance” model embraced by the United States. Under the new law, possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about four joints) or 0.5 grams of cocaine (about 4 “lines”), for personal use would no longer be a criminal offense.
That legislation is a step in the right direction. One of more odious features of the war on drugs is the practice of filling the jails with small-time (often recreational) users. But Mexico’s proposed decriminalization measure does not get to the root of the growing problems of drug-related corruption and violence in that society. As I have documented in my book Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America and more recently in a Foreign Policy Briefing, Mexico Is Becoming the Next Colombia, most of those problems are caused by the enormous black market premium in the illicit drug trade. Unfortunately, Mexican leaders show no willingness to legalize the manufacture or sale of marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs. Indeed, they have argued that the new law will enable law enforcement agencies to devote more resources to supressing trafficking. That means the huge potential profit in the drug trade will persist—and so will the corruption and violence that is tearing Mexico’s society apart.
The new law is a small step in the right direction. But Mexico (and other countries) need to abandon the entire prohibition model to produce truly meaningful benefits.
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