The Lincoln Plawg

Sunday, October 27, 2002 09:17 p.m.

Yale Prof on Bush Strategy - Be Afraid.....

There may be an assumption abroad that, cheerleaders aside, the professional academic community specialising in international relations is taking a sober and historically-informed view of the President's foreign policy.

Those under that illusion may be surprised to read the view of Professor John Lewis Gaddis of Yale University, who has a piece on the NSS in the upcoming edition of Foreign Policy.

To start with, he high-fives preemption through without the slightest consideration to

the international law restrictions on preemptive attacks; or
the practical consequences (eg, in Indo-Pak relations) of the hegemon's endorsing a broad view of the permissibility of preemptive strikes.

There is no necessary reason for the US in 2002 to be bound by the rule established in 1842 by the Caroline case (and here); but to assume as beyond discussion that the rule was now abrogated seems equally mistaken.

He then goes on to assert, and approve of, US hegemony, as enunciated by the President at West Point:

America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge

The definition of hegemony that I have is rather more modest:

preponderant influence or authority over others.

One has to (as Gaddis does not do) distinguish between defence and attack (preemptive or other). And between foes.

For example, though there is no suggestion that deterrence is not effective against the PRC (China), he's not, I assume, suggesting that the US could successfully invade and capture the country? Turf counts for a great deal, as Vietnam showed. The fact that a particular nation represents a zero effective offensive capability against the US does not mean it has a zero defensive capability.

I'd have liked a little exploration from Gaddis of these variables.

He then touches on the question

why there's still no anti-American coalition despite the overwhelming dominance of the United States since the end of the Cold War.

Evidently, he feels that this is quite a question because, leading in to the point, he's pleased to point out that

the Bush team seems to have absorbed some pretty sophisticated political science

But, however much some middle-sized powers - in Europe and Asia, mostly - may dislike the US, their leaders are generally above kindergarten age; hence, there has never been the remotest chance that this dislike would be translated into an

anti-American coalition,

let alone a coalition planning or executing military action against the US.

Other, lesser nations may have more motivation and less inhibition; but lack the military, financial and political resources to establish such a coalition.

It's a straw-man, in fact. Why would Gaddis be concerned with discussing a straw-man, for Heavens' sake?

Then, we come to the really scary part:

Bush insists, the ultimate goal of U.S. strategy must be to spread democracy everywhere. The United States must finish the job that Woodrow Wilson started.

If Bush is insisting, Gaddis is not exactly doing much nay-saying!

JKF pledged his country to

pay any price

(and look how well that worked out). GWB (why is he never referred to that way?) pledges his country to

spread democracy everywhere.

Just in case readers have not already lost their lunch, Gaddis namechecks the albatross of US foreign policy, Woodrow Wilson. The propagator of that global Balfour Declaration, the right to self-determination: only proper, perhaps, that the last Progressive in the White House should enunciate the foreign policy equivalent of that domestic Progressive policy par excellence, Prohibition.

But no more sensible in 2002 to adopt his policies on foreign affairs than those on race.

In order to underline his other-worldly mode of thinking Gaddis urges that

Terrorism--and by implication the authoritarianism that breeds it--must become as obsolete as slavery, piracy, or genocide

Anyone with the least knowledge of current affairs would know that none of the three are the least bit obsolete (ie no longer in use ): chattel slavery still exists in Mauritania and Sudan, if not elsewhere (and debt slavery is widespread in South Asia); piracy is rife in the South China Sea (often with the backing of government elements of littoral states); and Rwanda was only in 1994! What planet is this guy on?

Doubts only intensify as he goes on to discuss 'What the NSS Doesn't Say'.

He refers to the 'axis of evil' reference in the State of the Union address, but goes on to question

why containment and deterrence would not work against [Saddam].

Since the whole Iraq policy is posited on the assumption that neither would work, bit's alarming that he should leave this essential question without further exploration.

More alarming still is that he lurches into historical analogy - possibly the most grotesque and least well-founded of any spawned by the present conflict.

He starts soundly enough:

Despite his comment that this is "a guy that tried to kill my dad," George W. Bush is no Hamlet.

But then....

Shakespeare might still help, though, if you shift the analogy to Henry V. That monarch understood the psychological value of victory--of defeating an adversary sufficiently thoroughly that you shatter the confidence of others, so that they'll roll over themselves before you have to roll over them.

For Henry, the demonstration was Agincourt, the famous victory over the French in 1415.

Professor of Naval and Military History he may be; but not, I suspect, 15th century history.

Henry V was certainly engaged on an offensive strategy, designed to re-establish English control over lands previously held in feudal tenure from the French king (the idea of obtaining the French crown is, I think, generally believed to have come later). But, so far as I am aware, there were no other states whose confidence he had to shatter. France was a large enough target, even in the eyes of so ambitious a warrior as Henry.

A hundred and a half history books will tell that Agincourt was not a battle that Henry (whose army was then in pretty poor shape) had planned on fighting. Had he not been challenged, he would have scuttled back to England, via Calais.

It gets worse:

The Bush administration got a taste of Agincourt with its victory over the Taliban at the end of 2001.

First, one is in the realm of Soviet tractor factory statistics to suggest that it was

the Bush administration

that beat the Taliban. No doubt, US forces shortened hostilities considerably with all sorts of specialist assistance; but most of the fighting was done by Afghans, on their own account and not as subcontractors for Bush.

Secondly, any resemblance between Agincourt 1415 and Afghanistan 2001 entirely escapes me: a successful defence by a retreating army, and the liberation of their homeland by a large tranche of its inhabitants are not apples and oranges, they're apples and modems!

But he's not finished with the 15th century:

How, though, to maintain the momentum?

he asks. Never fear, he has an answer:

This, I think, is where Saddam Hussein comes in: Iraq is the most feasible place where we can strike the next blow. If we can topple this tyrant, if we can repeat the Afghan Agincourt on the banks of the Euphrates, then we can accomplish a great deal.

One of the clear public signs that Lyndon Johnson had lost his marbles when it came to Vietnam was his reference in his 1965 Johns Hopkins speech to a TVA on the Mekong:

repeat[ing] the Afghan Agincourt on the banks of the Euphrates

makes an MVA sound a positively modest ambition!

The most disturbing point arising from the Agincourt analogy - and the only one that descends from cloud-cuckoo-land to impinge on the Earth in AD2002 - is that the French at Agincourt were vastly superior in numbers of men and matériel; and were under the impression that victory over the exhausted, disease-ridden and under-equipped English was to be something of a formality.

They were arrogance personified. To such details as the condition of the ground (a vital matter in so trivial a pursuit as horse-racing, for crying out loud!) and the narrowness of battlefield (which made effective fighting near impossible for the French) they gave no apparent heed.

It was a disaster waiting to happen - and one entirely brought by the French on themselves!

Repeating for the benefit of those who may require it:

Agincourt was a defensive battle fought by a retreating army;
England at the time had no other territories in mind to give lessons to;
the Afghans, not the US, substantially fought the war against the Taliban;
Agincourt was a bad loss for the side superior in arms but inferior in sense and humility.

Having awarded himself a Pulitzer for his analogy, he leaps over the messy business of fighting and winning

Agincourt on the banks of the Euphrates

and proceeds to list the benefits of an assumed easy victory. Amongst other things,

We can set in motion a process that could undermine and ultimately remove reactionary regimes elsewhere in the Middle East, thereby eliminating the principal breeding ground for terrorism.

Even Gaddis caveats this nirvana - 'can', 'could' and 'ultimately'. But he fails to notice the possibility that a win over Saddam might result in a reinforcement of some

reactionary regimes

based on an appeal to nationalism; a fillip to the Wahabi scourge worldwide; other regimes (Egypt, say) assailed not by card-carrying democrats but by Islamist groups; a rise in militancy in ex-Soviet Central Asia (a key area to US strategists for expansion of oil and gas production) - and that's just off the top of my head. Ivy League professors have the resources to come up with tons better stuff, surely?

But on he gushes like a schoolgirl:

If I'm right about this, then it's a truly grand strategy.

The guy should acquire a blue pencil stat!

What appears at first glance to be a lack of clarity about who's deterrable and who's not turns out, upon closer examination, to be a plan for transforming the entire Muslim Middle East.

Anyone concerned with that lack of clarity, he implies, is a narrow-minded pettifogger, unable to see the big picture; as, no doubt, is anyone who questions how the transforming plan shall be implemented.

This is recommended reading for those of like mind to the Professor.

Lest he be thought utterly entranced by the NSS, he continues with some reservations.

To the question, Can it work? he answers

The honest answer is that no one knows

which, though true so far as it goes, is scarcely a satisfactory answer.

He cites various weaknesses:

the conflict between the anti-terror campaign (in conjunction with unpleasant regimes) and saving the world for democracy;
the possibility that the Iraqis may not put out the welcome mat to US forces (strangely, he only mentions Baghdad, whilst Bush's NSS obviously goes much wider than just Iraq):

'If we aren't [welcomed], the whole strategy collapses'.

A serious point indeed. But is he downhearted?

'Who's to say, for certain, that this will or won't happen?'

Again, true; but, if it's that critical, you'd want much more intelligence on the issue before invading. And I strongly suspect that there's little or nothing available that's reliable.

So it's down to hoping and praying and clapping very hard, then? Not a line I've noticed Rummy pushing.....
he lays stress on the desirability of the US retaining the high moral ground.

Can we count on multilateral support if things go badly?

he asks. And, offers little comfort, given US isolation on Kyoto, the ICC, etc.

Gaddis identifies potentially terminal problems, but does not seem too excited by the flaws he cites.

Finally, the upsum: if it works, it would

be....the most important reformulation of U.S. grand strategy in over half a century.

There are plenty of pitfalls.

There's certainly no guarantee of success - but as Clausewitz would have pointed out, there never is in anything that's worth doing.

A modicum of Homeric nodding is understandable; but this is surely begging the question on a vast scale: how can you tell whether the thing is worth doing before you've measured the risks?

And this is far from splitting hairs: if one has a mental model of the decision-making required that treats the risks separately to the objective, you get a ludicrous variation on Zeno's Paradox: you say, Getting rid of Saddam is an excellent objective; but it carries some risks; however, there are risks in

anything that's worth doing;

so you go ahead and invade.

The only sane model is one which integrates the risks - the percentage chance and the cost or benefit to which the percentage attaches - into the decision. The more serious the cost, the lower the percentage need be to cause the plan to be aborted.

Utility theory: it's a model that high school business studies students would be familiar with, surely?

There is a fundamental disconnect between Gaddis's acknowledgement of serious flaws in the strategy, and the preacherly tone he takes in reaching sweeping conclusions inconsistent with those flaws.

There is a compellingly realistic reason now to complete the idealistic task Woodrow Wilson began more than eight decades ago: the world must be made safe for democracy, because otherwise democracy will not be safe in the world.

A sophomoric chiasmus nails down the degree of maturity inherent in these words.

If one of his students turned in an essay like his Foreign Policy piece, I'd hope, for Yale's sake, that Gaddis would insist on a rewrite!

[Link via Instapundit and Daniel Drezner]