July 2009 Archives

Last week's Senate vote to end production of the F-22 fighter -- reversing an earlier vote to keep building the $361 million jets -- was hailed as a triumph for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had won a presidential promise to veto any Defense bill including the airplane. A subsequent Senate vote cut funding to develop a second, alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, another Gates win. Meanwhile, Gates announced an increase of 22,000 soldiers to the Army, which formally implemented his cancellation of its Future Combat Systems armored vehicle program, to be rebooted as a blank-slate new design. It's been a good week for Gates -- but what comes next?

What kind of military is Gates shaping? Is he merely trimming deadwood on the margins, or does he offer a vision of a positive alternative to business-as-usual? How substantial, as opposed to symbolic, is his progress so far? And how far, realistically, can he get before the next presidential election in 2012?

12 responses: Michael F. Scheuer, Larry Korb, James Lewis, Michael Vlahos, Dov S. Zakheim, Michael Brenner, James Jay Carafano, Ron Marks, Daniel Gouré, Joseph J. Collins, Loren Thompson, Winslow T. Wheeler

The revelations of a targeted killing "program" at the CIA, which appears to have envisioned roving hit squads to kill terrorists at close range, begs this question: How is this any different than the kinds of killing the CIA has been doing since 9/11? True, there's a logistical distinction between shooting someone on the ground and dropping a bomb on him from a drone or airplane in the sky. But he ends up dead either way. So, what's the issue here? Is it whether our intelligence agencies and military services should be killing terrorists? Or is the debate over how to do it? Is it "assassination" to kill a leader of an international criminal organization that has murdered innocent civilians and signaled its intention to strike again? Is it preferable to kill a terrorist close-up and thereby minimize collateral civilian casualties, the kind that so often attend aerial raids? There's no reason to believe that the CIA and the military are going to get out of the terrorist-killing business altogether. So, going forward, how should they do it? Or should they do it at all?

18 responses: Brian Michael Jenkins, Michael Brenner, Dov S. Zakheim, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Ron Marks, Shane Harris, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., Michael F. Scheuer, Col. W. Patrick Lang, James Jay Carafano, Daniel Byman, Michael Brenner, Steven Metz, Joseph J. Collins, Milt Bearden, Robert Baer, Vincent Cannistraro, Ron Marks

When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup after he attempted to change the country's constitution to allow him to run for re-election, the leftist leader turned in an odd direction for help -- to Washington. Rather than give the American critic a cold shoulder, the Obama administration met with Zelaya in Washington, brokered negotiations aimed at ending the crisis, threatened the coup leaders with a cutoff of U.S. aid, and joined Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in supporting a United Nations resolution demanding Zelaya's immediate reinstatement.

The contrast with the approach of recent Republican administrations is stark. President Bush stayed quiet but obviously hopeful in the aftermath of an attempted military coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002, for instance, appointed anti-Castro stalwart Roger Noriega as his first representative to the Organization of American States, and tightened sanctions against Cuba. Ronald Reagan was so dogged in his opposition to leftist regimes in Latin America during the Cold War that he stumbled into the Iran-Contra controversy, the worst crisis of his presidency.

Which approach is more suited to today's circumstances? The democratic wave that swept through Latin America at the end of the Cold War has subsided, and Chavez leads a pattern of leftist elected leaders who change constitutions to strengthen their power and weaken the opposition. This pattern is now on view in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Does that argue for a return to a harder line against leftist, but elected, governments in Latin America? Or is the Obama administration's outreach and offer of diplomatic engagement a policy more suitable to the times?

15 responses: Col. Robert Killebrew, Col. Robert Killebrew, Michael Brenner, Gordon Adams, Rachel Kleinfeld, Andrew Bacevich, Col. Robert Killebrew, Eric Farnsworth, Gordon Adams, Dov S. Zakheim, Col. Robert Killebrew, Steven Metz, Michael Brenner, James Kitfield, Gen. Barry McCaffrey

Is the Iraq War really over? The recent withdrawal of U.S. troops from major urban centers in the country has taken place amid a flare-up of violence in Baghdad and elsewhere. More fundamentally, there still appears to be the absence of a genuine political reconciliation between the feuding Sunni and Shia camps. With Iraqi army and related security forces now primarily in charge of keeping order, will these forces prove up to the job? Are remaining U.S. troops (about 130,000) still an essential glue to keep Iraq from re-fragmenting? And what, if anything, can the White House, Pentagon and State Department do to keep Iraq on a relatively stable path, if not an entirely peaceful one, given the overriding Obama administration policy imperative of a large-scale withdrawal of U.S. troops, with combat forces due to be out of the country by August 2010?

15 responses: Paul Starobin, Daniel Serwer, Ron Marks, Loren Thompson, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Wayne White, Michael F. Scheuer, Michael Brenner, Gordon Adams, Joseph J. Collins, Steven Metz, Michael Vlahos, Col. Robert Killebrew, Dov S. Zakheim, Larry Korb