After an extended hiatus punctuated by a series of field exams, I am back to blogging – and the time is opportune.  As early as this week, the Obama Administration will be releasing its first national security strategy.

National security strategies in the US are formal documents submitted to the US Congress on an annual basis in fulfillment of a legislative mandate established by the Goldwater-Nichols Legislation of 1986.  In practice, however, the NSS is only revised two or maybe three times in a President’s term.  After all, any strategy that lives up to its name should remain relevant for at least a few years.  The last NSS was issued in 2006 by the Bush Administration.

Before parsing statements from National Security Advisor Jim Jones and the President himself this past weekend to preview the broad sweeps of the strategy, it is worth asking why the NSS is important in the first place.

WHY THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY MATTERS

First, the NSS is a capstone document that sits atop a hierarchy of national strategy documents.  To the extent that these strategies do have real-world policy and budgetary effects, they are very important indeed.

The Federal Government supports a cottage industry of strategy-generating offices and bureaucracies.  We have strategies for everything from combating weapons of mass destruction to securing cyberspace to controlling drugs.   Each of these strategies, and the departmental budgets and priorities that they support, are theoretically subservient to the priorities outlined in the NSS.  In practice, this relationship is maintained through the issuance of “implementation plans” that spell out how departments and programs support the priorities enshrined in the strategy documents in mind-numbing detail.  These documents tend to be classified.

Second, the process of generating a coherent NSS serves an important function within the administration.  By definition, the NSS process requires policy-makers to look beyond the day-to-day crises, articulate their assumptions about the security environment, assess America’s priorities, and formulate a theory regarding how America’s security is best advanced.  Eisenhower once quipped that although plans are often useless, planning is essential.  Much the same could be said about policy-planning.

Lastly, the NSS creates a common lens or shared “mental map” among policy-makers that colors how they perceive the world around them.  The principles and priorities enshrined in the NSS become an intellectual touchstone that shapes how the American leadership understands, shapes, and reacts to external events.

President Bush’s first NSS in 2002 described transnational and state-based threats in the starkest terms, endorsed the notion of prevention under the aegis of preemption, and issued a call-to-arms declaring that:

History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action.

One need only to review American foreign policy choices from 2002 through 2006 (when the next NSS was issued) to conclude that the NSS is in fact a prescient indicator of an administration’s approach to foreign-policy decision-making.

Obama’s first NSS is expected to constitute a significant break with the previous administration’s strategies.  Yet, much of Obama’s national security policy to-date has borne a striking resemblance to that of the Bush Administration.  It will be interesting to see where the Administration acknowledges continuities and seeks to create conceptual and policy breaks from the past.  If history is any guide, these distinctions will be reflected in a big way down the road.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written a few posts and articles about the importance of explaining and defending U.S. use of drones to conduct targeted killings.  In a recent speech before the American Society of International Law, Secretary Clinton’s top lawyer — Harold Koh– did precisely that.  After explaining how the use of drones clearly respects the principles of distinction and proportionality, he launched into the heart of his defense:

In U.S. operations against al Qaeda and its associated forces – including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles – great care is taken to adhere to these principles in both planning and execution, to ensure that only legitimate objectives are targeted and that collateral damage is kept to a minimum.  …

[S]ome have suggested that the very use of targeting a particular leader of an enemy force in an armed conflict must violate the laws of war. But individuals who are part of such an armed group are belligerents and, therefore, lawful targets under international law….

[S]ome have challenged the very use of advanced weapons systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, for lethal operations. But the rules that govern targeting do not turn on the type of weapon system involved, and there is no prohibition under the laws of war on the use of technologically advanced weapons systems in armed conflict – such as pilotless aircraft or so-called smart bombs – so long as they are employed in conformity with applicable laws of war….

[S]ome have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force. Our procedures and practices for identifying lawful targets are extremely robust, and advanced technologies have helped to make our targeting even more precise. In my experience, the principles of distinction and proportionality that the United States applies are not just recited at meeting. They are implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law….

Fourth and finally, some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the long-standing domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems – consistent with the applicable laws of war – for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defense or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute ‘assassination.’”

Overall, the argument unfolds exactly as one might expect.  Most moderate observers will probably find it reasonable.  However, critiques are likely to focus on two aspects of this defense:

First, the notion that the laws of war are the appropriate legal construct to apply to the struggle against terrorism is contested within legal circles.  Yet, this probably isn’t a showstopper and not everyone will agree on this no matter what we do.

Second, the principle that the U.S. Government can waive due process to engage in targeted killings anywhere outside the United States, even against American citizens, is tenuous.  Clearly, combatants are not entitled to any sort of legal proceeding.  But then the important question becomes:  how do we determine whether or not someone is a combatant?

Historically, even traitors in the United States have been entitled to due process before execution.  In practice, however, we seem willing to discard this traditional interpretation of law in favor of a more pragmatic policy that waives certain legal impediments when apprehension of a possible combatant is unlikely and the risk of injury to American interests seems real.  This strikes me as an entirely reasonable argument but it should still be an argument debated in the open.

Herein lies the problem – without being more transparent about the processes and protections that constrain the targeting process, we are ultimately mounting a weak defense of targeted killings.  It seems we could still strike a better balance between protecting operational methods and establishing transparent norms and principles to guide future UAV use.  After all, we’re not the only ones that have UAVs today and we won’t be in the future.

Thomas Friedman’s recent op-ed in the NY Times brings up a few points about domestic political reform that expose a surprising paradox in American domestic and foreign policy.  Friedman argues that the political system is “broken” because it systematically prevents Republicans and Democrats from compromise and consensus-building.  He advocates two political reforms to remedy the situation:  making electoral re-districting an apolitical exercise by removing it from the hands of politicians and “alternative voting” wherein voters rank their preferred candidates.  The first reform would reduce the imperative for politicians to cater to the most radical elements of their base while the second would make third-party candidates more viable in general elections.

The profoundly divisive passage of the health care bill earlier this week underscored how politically divided the parties are on domestic policy.  One would expect that this division would extend into the realm of foreign policy but that is simply not the case.  Since at least the Vietnam War, a number of political science studies have documented a persistent polarization between Republican and Democratic visions for American foreign policy.  Even just a few years ago, the bitter disagreements over the origination and conduct of the Iraq war suggested that the bipartisan foreign policy consensus was a relic of the past.

Yet, over a year into the Obama Presidency, political disagreement is rarely extending beyond America’s shores.  Granted, there are some issues that remain contentious – torture, the trial of terrorism suspects/enemy combatants, and Guantanamo among others.  But on the big geo-political issues – setting a deliberate approach to relations with China, containing Iran, unwinding North Korea, withdrawing from a stable Iraq, and prevailing in Afghanistan – there is broad bipartisan consensus.

Although this pleasant state of affairs is undoubtedly temporary, it is worth asking whether or not bipartisan consensus on foreign policy is always a good thing?  Is there a constructive role for political tension in the foreign policy process?

I would argue that political tension is important, particularly in the realm of foreign policy.  Unlike in most domestic matters, there are fewer checks and balances in the conduct of foreign policy.  The legislative branch checks the executive but is entirely dependent on the executive for the information on which it bases its decision-making (this point was amply demonstrated in the run-up to the Iraq war).

However, I would suggest that today’s bipartisan consensus on foreign policy is healthy.  It is not devoid of the constructive tension that generates competing ideas, tests assumptions, and slows decision-making to a deliberative pace.  Equally important, it is unified enough that it conveys a certain resolve to America’s adversaries.  For a country engaged in nation-building in Iraq, counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, brinskmanship with Iran, and a global struggle against terrorism, resolve has never been more important.

A short piece I wrote on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones has been featured on the Harvard National Security Journal website.  The long and short of it:  If the U.S. wants to retain UAVs as an effective tool of national security policy, we will need to be more transparent about the moral, legal, practical, and strategic considerations we use to justify UAV operations.

Oh, and we should also begin thinking about how the way we use them today will influence how they’re used by our adversaries in the future.  That one doesn’t get enough attention…

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann at the New America Foundation have released what appears to be the most comprehensive analysis of the U.S. policy of UAV drone strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan to-date. The highlights:

Bergen and Tiedemann estimate that approximately one out of every three fatalities caused by drone strikes is civilian.  Their estimate, like most other sources, is based on “reliable news media reports.”  In contrast, the Pakistani Government has alleged a civilian fatality rate as high as 98% while other sources, like the Long War Journal, suggest figures as low as 10%.  The morality and legality of the drone strike policy hinges on the veracity of these conflicting estimates.

The pace of drone strikes continues to increase.  A total of 58 strikes were launched in Pakistan in 2009 and 18 have been launched this year thru Feb. 24.

Tactically, the U.S. Government has clearly assessed that drone strikes are effective at disrupting al-Qaeda and Taliban operations.  However, Bergen and Tiedemann dispute this assessment with a number of observations:

• al-Qaeda continues to train Western recruits in Pakistani camps
• Taliban operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan continue
• Drone strikes have lost the element of surprise
• The U.S. loses valuable intelligence by killing rather than capturing terrorist and insurgent leaders

Bergen and Tiedemann conclude, like many COIN experts before them, that the drone campaign may be a tactical success belying a strategic failure.  Kilcullen and Exum made precisely this claim in an op-ed some months ago.  They argued that the U.S. preoccupation with killing terrorist leaders both distracts from and undercuts what should be the core American mission in Pakistan – reducing Taliban and al-Qaeda success at intimidating the Pakistani populace into submission.

However, most analysts, Bergen and Tiedemann included, believe that drone strikes will continue unabated in the near-term.  The tentative signs of convergence between American and Pakistani interests in countering the Taliban only make this more likely.

The Harvard National Security Journal, an organization I work with, will be hosting a symposium on this very topic later this week:  http://www.harvardnsj.com/symposium/.

Slate is running an interesting five-part series on the capture of Saddam Hussein in post-invasion Iraq.  Journalist Chris Wilson argues that social network analysis was the key to Saddam’s apprehension and provides a lengthy, well-researched narrative to back it up.

Two interesting conclusions struck me upon reading the first three installments of the piece.  First, it seems that one of the principal obstacles to the US pursuit of Hussein was the assumption that he would rely on high-ranking former regime officials to maintain his security post-invasion.  In fact, he eschewed contact with most of those he had surrounded himself with in the years before the invasion for reasons of operational security.  Instead, he chose to rely on a cadre of relatively anonymous, predominantly-Tikriti bodyguards (numbering about 40) to manage the insurgency and keep him out of American hands.

Second, Wilson’s narrative demonstrates the utility of routine interrogation against even the most uncooperative suspects.  Maddox, a US interrogator, relates how suspects would inadvertently divulge valuable information in their efforts to protect what they thought was more important information:

In piecing together a trail through his network, Maddox says detainees often simply told him what he wanted to know. “They’re not going to tell me about the insurgency,” he explained. “But they’ll talk about who’s drinking buddies with who.” In thinking that they were deflecting the interrogators, lower-level operators were in fact leading Maddox closer to his target. These detainees, in a way, were making precisely the same mistake that the American military made at the start of the Iraq war. Institutional information about the insurgency wouldn’t bring coalition troops closer to Saddam’s hiding place. The social information that these lower-level Musslits provided was much more valuable. Maddox wanted to know the names of Saddam’s friends, not his former colleagues.

Wilson’s implicit endorsement of social network analysis as a method of combating insurgencies is well-received.  However, his piece also demonstrates the overwhelming weakness of this analytic technique: it requires a tremendous amount of high-quality information inputs.  Furthermore, it is rarely apparent when you have “enough” good information to assign high-confidence to the conclusions arising out of a network analysis.  As Wilson makes abundantly clear, in the case of Iraq, this information could only be gleaned through a series of risky raids.

Patrick Meier, the leader of Ushahidi’s Haiti crisis mapping project, has posted a detailed explanation of his team’s crisis mapping capability.

The functionality of the Ushahidi platform is pretty breath-taking.  In effect, Ushahidi stood up a “911″ emergency response system in a country that has never really had one.  This alone is a staggering feat.  But when you consider that this was accomplished in the wake of a horrific earthquake and was orchestrated from thousands of miles away, it is all the more impressive.

This type of innovation–borne in the harshest circumstances–could eventually change the way mature 911 systems do business on an everyday basis.

This week’s capture of the Afghan Taliban Commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi has been hailed as a leading indicator of a new Pakistani willingness to take on the violent extremists within its borders.   There seems to be a cautiously optimistic sense here in the US that this is the case.

The English language Pakistani press is quick to echo America’s most optimistic assessments.

The Washington Post quoted US officials and anti-terrorism experts as suggesting that Pakistan’s cooperation in the effort to capture Mullah Baradar “could prove a turning point in the Afghanistan war”.

The Indian press is less charitable:

Regional experts are already suggesting that the story is just a cover for Pakistan facilitating US contacts with the Taliban or interposing itself in US-Taliban engagement. Pakistani intelligence agencies have known his whereabouts for a long time, according to Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid.  Others are suggesting that the military-ISI combine has “sacrificed” Baradar to the Americans to win Washington’s trust and secure for itself a role in Afghanistan.

Either way, the US has struck a significant blow to the Afghan Taliban insurgency.  Baradar was a savvy leader who appreciated the finer points of COIN.  His loss will likely result in infighting and disorganization in the Taliban insurgency in the immediate short-term.  In the long term, the loss of his strategic guidance will degrade the Taliban in important ways.  Specifically, the risk of the Taliban over-playing its hand, much like al-Qaeda in Iraq did in Anbar a few years ago, has just increased significantly.

In the medium term ( three to six months), I would expect the insurgency to grow more fractious, violent, and hardcore.  Baradar was a relative moderate who might have been more open to a negotiated settlement than most of his prospective replacements.

The process of succession in terrorist and insurgent organizations can be messy and drawn out.  Historically, it has tended to result in a “race to the bottom” where prospective leaders attempt to prove their mettle by increasing the audacity, lethality, and tempo of their operations.  The new leader of the Afghan Taliban, regardless of who he is, will be shaped by organizational imperative to be exceedingly violent and uncompromising.  Paradoxically, this might be a good thing for those anticipating the Taliban’s demise.