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Gla*s Half Full on Obama's New National Security Team (http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8696/the-new-rules-gla*s-half-full-on-obamas-new-national-security-team) By THOMAS P.M.BARNETT | World Politics Review
President Barack Obama reshuffled his national security team last week, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive.The White House proclaimed that this was the "strongest possible team," leaving unanswered the question, "Toward what end?" Obama's choices represent the continued reduction of the role of security as an administration priority.That fits into his determined strategy to reduce America's overseas military commitments amid the country's ongoing fiscal distress.Obama foresees a smaller, increasingly background role for U.S.security in the world, and these selections feed that pattern.
First, there is Leon Panetta's move from director of the Central Intelligence Agency to secretary of defense.When you're looking for $400 billion in future military cuts, Panetta's credentials apply nicely: former White House chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton, and 9-term congressman from defense-heavy California.But, truth be told, Panetta wasn't the president's first choice -- or his second, third, fourth or fifth.
According to my Pentagon sources, the job was initially offered to Hillary Clinton, who would have been a compelling candidate for the real task at hand: working to get more help from our European allies for today's potpourri of security hotspots, while reaching out to the logical partners of tomorrow -- like rising China, India, Turkey, South Africa and Brazil, among others.She would have brought an international star power and bevy of personal connections to those delicate efforts that Panetta will never muster.But Clinton has had enough of nonstop globe-hopping and will be gone at the end of Obama's first term.
Colin Powell, next offered the job, would have been another high-wattage selection, commanding respect in capitals around the world.But Powell demanded that his perennial wingman, Richard Armitage, be named deputy secretary, and that was apparently a no-go from the White House, most likely for fear that the general was set on creating his own little empire in the Pentagon.Again, too bad: Powell would have brought a deep concern for the future of U.S.national security that Panetta -- with the "green eye shades" mentality of a budget-crunching guy -- lacks.
Three others were then offered the job: Rhode Island Sen.Jack Reed; former deputy secretary of defense and current Center for Strategic and International Studies boss John Hamre; and former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, who was long rumored to be Obama's preferred brainiac to ultimately replace Gates.But Reed feared exchanging his Senate seat for a short stint in the Pentagon if Obama loses; Hamre had made too many commitments to CSIS as part of a recent fund-raising drive; and Danzig couldn't manage the timing on the current appointment for personal reasons.
All of this is to suggest the following: Panetta has been picked to do the dirty work of budget cuts through the remainder of the first term and nothing more.If Obama wins a second term, we may still see a technocrat of Danzig's caliber, such as current Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy, or a major-league star of the Clinton/Powell variety.But for now, the SECDEF's job is not to build diplomatic bridges, but to quietly dismantle acquisition programs.And yes, the world will pick up on that "declinist" vibe.
Moving Gen.David Petraeus from commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan to director of the CIA has puzzled many observers, and more than a few have worried that this represents a renewed militarization of the agency.But here the truth is more prosaic: Obama simply doesn't want Petraeus as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, something conservatives have been pulling for.By shifting him to CIA, the White House neatly dead-ends his illustrious career.
As Joint Chiefs chairman, Petraeus could have become an obstacle to Obama's plans to get us out of Afghanistan on schedule, wielding an effective political veto.He also would have presented more of a general political threat in the 2012 election, with the most plausible scenario being the vice-presidential slot for a GOP nominee looking to burnish his national security credentials.As far as candidate Obama is concerned, the Petraeus factor is much more easily managed now.
Once the SECDEF selection process dropped down to Panetta, the White House saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone.Plus, Petraeus, with the Iraq and Afghanistan surges under his belt, is an una*sailable choice for an administration that has deftly "symmetricized" Bush-Cheney's "war on terror," by fielding our special operations forces and CIA drones versus al-Qaida and its a*sociated networks.If major military interventions are out and covert operations are in, then moving "King David" from ISAF to CIA ties off that pivot quite nicely.
The other two major moves announced by the White House fit this general pattern of backburner-ing Afghanistan and prioritizing budget cuts.Amba*sador Ryan Crocker, who partnered with Petraeus in Iraq during the surge, now takes over the same post in Afghanistan.Crocker is supremely experienced at negotiating withdrawals from delicate situations.Moving CENTCOM Deputy Commander Gen.John Allen over to replace Petraeus in Afghanistan is another comfort call: Allen likewise served with Petraeus in Iraq during the surge, when he was the key architect of the Sunni "awakening." Low-key and politically astute, Allen will be another quiet operator.
Obama has shown by his handling to date of the NATO-led Libyan intervention that he is not to be deterred from his larger goal of dramatically reducing America's global security profile, putting it more realistically in line with the country's troubled finances.What the president has lacked so far in executing that delicate maneuver is some vision of how America plans to segue the international system from depending on America to play global policeman to policing itself.
Our latest -- and possibly last -- "hurrah" with NATO notwithstanding, Obama has made no headway on reaching out to the world's rising powers, preferring to dream whimsically of a "world without nuclear weapons." In the most prominent case, he seems completely satisfied with letting our strategic relationship with China deteriorate dramatically while America funnels arms to all of Beijing's neighbors.And on future nuclear power Iran?Same solution.
It's one thing to right-size America's global security profile, but quite another to prepare the global security environment for that change.Obama's recent national security selections tell us he remains firmly committed to the former and completely uninterested in the latter.That sort of "aprп
President Barack Obama reshuffled his national security team last week, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive.The White House proclaimed that this was the "strongest possible team," leaving unanswered the question, "Toward what end?" Obama's choices represent the continued reduction of the role of security as an administration priority.That fits into his determined strategy to reduce America's overseas military commitments amid the country's ongoing fiscal distress.Obama foresees a smaller, increasingly background role for U.S.security in the world, and these selections feed that pattern.
First, there is Leon Panetta's move from director of the Central Intelligence Agency to secretary of defense.When you're looking for $400 billion in future military cuts, Panetta's credentials apply nicely: former White House chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton, and 9-term congressman from defense-heavy California.But, truth be told, Panetta wasn't the president's first choice -- or his second, third, fourth or fifth.
According to my Pentagon sources, the job was initially offered to Hillary Clinton, who would have been a compelling candidate for the real task at hand: working to get more help from our European allies for today's potpourri of security hotspots, while reaching out to the logical partners of tomorrow -- like rising China, India, Turkey, South Africa and Brazil, among others.She would have brought an international star power and bevy of personal connections to those delicate efforts that Panetta will never muster.But Clinton has had enough of nonstop globe-hopping and will be gone at the end of Obama's first term.
Colin Powell, next offered the job, would have been another high-wattage selection, commanding respect in capitals around the world.But Powell demanded that his perennial wingman, Richard Armitage, be named deputy secretary, and that was apparently a no-go from the White House, most likely for fear that the general was set on creating his own little empire in the Pentagon.Again, too bad: Powell would have brought a deep concern for the future of U.S.national security that Panetta -- with the "green eye shades" mentality of a budget-crunching guy -- lacks.
Three others were then offered the job: Rhode Island Sen.Jack Reed; former deputy secretary of defense and current Center for Strategic and International Studies boss John Hamre; and former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, who was long rumored to be Obama's preferred brainiac to ultimately replace Gates.But Reed feared exchanging his Senate seat for a short stint in the Pentagon if Obama loses; Hamre had made too many commitments to CSIS as part of a recent fund-raising drive; and Danzig couldn't manage the timing on the current appointment for personal reasons.
All of this is to suggest the following: Panetta has been picked to do the dirty work of budget cuts through the remainder of the first term and nothing more.If Obama wins a second term, we may still see a technocrat of Danzig's caliber, such as current Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy, or a major-league star of the Clinton/Powell variety.But for now, the SECDEF's job is not to build diplomatic bridges, but to quietly dismantle acquisition programs.And yes, the world will pick up on that "declinist" vibe.
Moving Gen.David Petraeus from commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan to director of the CIA has puzzled many observers, and more than a few have worried that this represents a renewed militarization of the agency.But here the truth is more prosaic: Obama simply doesn't want Petraeus as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, something conservatives have been pulling for.By shifting him to CIA, the White House neatly dead-ends his illustrious career.
As Joint Chiefs chairman, Petraeus could have become an obstacle to Obama's plans to get us out of Afghanistan on schedule, wielding an effective political veto.He also would have presented more of a general political threat in the 2012 election, with the most plausible scenario being the vice-presidential slot for a GOP nominee looking to burnish his national security credentials.As far as candidate Obama is concerned, the Petraeus factor is much more easily managed now.
Once the SECDEF selection process dropped down to Panetta, the White House saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone.Plus, Petraeus, with the Iraq and Afghanistan surges under his belt, is an una*sailable choice for an administration that has deftly "symmetricized" Bush-Cheney's "war on terror," by fielding our special operations forces and CIA drones versus al-Qaida and its a*sociated networks.If major military interventions are out and covert operations are in, then moving "King David" from ISAF to CIA ties off that pivot quite nicely.
The other two major moves announced by the White House fit this general pattern of backburner-ing Afghanistan and prioritizing budget cuts.Amba*sador Ryan Crocker, who partnered with Petraeus in Iraq during the surge, now takes over the same post in Afghanistan.Crocker is supremely experienced at negotiating withdrawals from delicate situations.Moving CENTCOM Deputy Commander Gen.John Allen over to replace Petraeus in Afghanistan is another comfort call: Allen likewise served with Petraeus in Iraq during the surge, when he was the key architect of the Sunni "awakening." Low-key and politically astute, Allen will be another quiet operator.
Obama has shown by his handling to date of the NATO-led Libyan intervention that he is not to be deterred from his larger goal of dramatically reducing America's global security profile, putting it more realistically in line with the country's troubled finances.What the president has lacked so far in executing that delicate maneuver is some vision of how America plans to segue the international system from depending on America to play global policeman to policing itself.
Our latest -- and possibly last -- "hurrah" with NATO notwithstanding, Obama has made no headway on reaching out to the world's rising powers, preferring to dream whimsically of a "world without nuclear weapons." In the most prominent case, he seems completely satisfied with letting our strategic relationship with China deteriorate dramatically while America funnels arms to all of Beijing's neighbors.And on future nuclear power Iran?Same solution.
It's one thing to right-size America's global security profile, but quite another to prepare the global security environment for that change.Obama's recent national security selections tell us he remains firmly committed to the former and completely uninterested in the latter.That sort of "aprп
