Does The Onion Now Have a Foreign Policy Editor?

That bastion of satire The Onion has been on a roll lately regarding foreign policy. Did they get a new writer or editor with more foreign policy, or is Afghanistan just really easy to mock because no obvious answers exist? Here's a quick round up, but keep your eyes out for others.

"Obama Weighs Options in Afghanistan" -- my favorite is "Not only learn the lessons of Vietnam, but apply them as well"

"Heroin Addicts Pressure President to Stay the Course in Afghanistan"

"Afghan Presidential Election A Celebration Of All Forms Of Government" -- "Afghanistan has become a shining beacon of democracy, theocracy, autocracy, and authoritarianism in an otherwise troubled region."

Perhaps the best is "U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan"

This video of course is similar to my idea about Call of Duty: Counterinsurgency.

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

Of course the greatest Onion foreign affairs article ever, written just before George W. Bush took office and proving to be all to prophetic, remains "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over.'" It gets sadder and more true every time I read it.

CNAS Conference Round-Up

I spent all day at the Center for a New American Security's annual conference. The think tank has become the de-facto bench for a lot of top Obama Pentagon officials (Flournoy, Miller, etc, etc), so the room was packed with people waiting to see what future policies might look like (although quite a few people left after keynote speaker General David Petraeus was done).

The event featured four panels, each on a recent report the organization has produced, on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, natural security, and North Korea.

Overall I thought the event was very well run. I got to meet two of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Exum and Tom Ricks. Both panelists and the audience raised some very interesting points. The fact that I didn't get satisfactory answers to my questions is beside the point. I thought topics missing from the reports/panels included:

1. How much can we trust Pakistan's government? What leverage do we have for increasing accountability and governance in Pakistan? What metrics should we use for how responsive and cooperative Pakistan's government is, and can we tie aid to those metrics?
2. Lots of organizations are writing reports about how climate change and natural security are related to national security. Of course they are. These groups are great at saying "you think that's bad, let me paint an even worse scenario for you." I get that it's bad. How about some solutions or policy prescriptions. I already drive a hybrid car, but I want something on a bigger scale. CNAS' project is just getting started, so hopefully they can come up with some answers.
3. One reason China may be reluctant to get tough with North Korea, or allow us to really tighten the screws, is that they fear a humanitarian crisis and refugees flooding across their border if North Korea really goes downhill. What can we (the United States or the international community) do to lessen that possibility, in order to enable China to take action? The panel said that South Korea is even more worried about refugees than China. Fine, I get that, but what can we do?

If any of my readers has answers or opinions, I'd love to hear them.

The COIN Surge

Everyone interested in national security policy should read Celeste Ward's article in today's Washington Post. Ward talks about how prevalent counterinsurgency doctrine is these days--to the point that General McKiernan was fired in part for being too focused on "conventional" warfare--and how counterinsurgency is seen as a universal band-aid for any problems in Afghanistan.

I strongly agree with her main points. Although more knowledge of counterinsurgency doctrine and unconventional warfare is essential, they are not in and of themselves a solution to all our problems. Likewise, counterinsurgency is not some monolithic one-size-fits-all doctrine that you can just drop onto Afghanistan and hope it works. As I've been arguing recently, we need a real plan in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Get to work civilian advisors.

...counterinsurgency doctrine is again the proposed answer.

But to what question? Washington's ultimate objectives in Afghanistan remain unclear.

Well put.

Obama's Pro-War advisors

John Mearsheimer--guest posting for Stephen Walt--makes an interesting point: none of President Obama's senior foreign policy advisors publicly opposed the Iraq War at the time.

The Bush administration is principally responsible for these twin disasters, but the fact is that most of the Democratic Party's foreign policy experts -- certainly the more senior ones -- supported President Bush's decision to invade Iraq and to do massive social engineering across the Middle East. Consider, for example, Hillary Clinton, Richard Holbrooke, and Dennis Ross -- three key players on the Obama team. They were all strong supporters of the Iraq war, and they had little inkling that we would end up getting bogged down in Iraq or that we would squander our initial success in Afghanistan. In fact, not one of Obama's principal foreign policy advisors opposed the Iraq war, although the president did. It seems that almost all of the senior foreign policy experts in the Democratic Party have been "marinated in the [same] inside culture" as their Republican Party counterparts. What this effectively means is that Obama and the country will have to depend on a group of individuals who helped create the Afghanistan and Iraq disasters -- albeit in a small way -- to get us out of them. That is not a reassuring thought.

Ah yes, the one dissenter, the President himself. I certainly applaud him for his opposition to the Iraq War, and think it may have been the biggest factor in helping him win the Democratic primary, I wonder why Obama hasn't been able to surround himself with more people who shared his foresight/concerns about the war. The President has so far largely left foreign policy to his admittedly capable senior advisors while he attempts to deal with the global financial crisis, but the fact that alternative voices have not been included on a senior level (see the Chas Freeman affair) is somewhat disturbing.

One reason I became interested in national security during my undergraduate days is that during the discussion prior to the Iraq War most Democrats either rolled over and agreed with the Republicans, or disagreed simply based on party without offering alternative policies or explanations. I'm proud to be a part of the growing group of younger progressive national security experts.

Cost-effective counterinsurgency

An article in today's New York Times notes that many of the former Sunni insurgents the U.S. and Iraqi governments were paying not to fight still do not have real jobs.

After months of promises, only 5,000 Awakening members — just over 5 percent — have been given permanent jobs in the Iraqi security forces. Those promises were made last year when Iraq was flush with oil money.

Many fighters join insurgencies because they are unemployed and are paid to fight. In those circumstances it makes sense to offer alternative jobs--especially if the jobs are doing something that contributes to everyday life, such as building roads or other infrastructure. It can be much cheaper to pay someone not to fight than to have to defeat them. But we need to follow through on those commitments. People won't wield shovels forever, and certainly not with no pay.