Five Lessons from McNamara's War

"The Vietnam War was, in important respects, a failure of American unilateralism. The United States acted virtually alone after 1954, despite the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), John Foster Dulles's fig leaf of a multilateral organization. President Eisenhower had told President Kennedy the day before Kennedy's inauguration that he – Eisenhower – preferred unilateral U.S. intervention in Vietnam to any kind of neutral arrangement. This was typical of Washington's cavalier attitude toward involving others in its schemes in Southeast Asia.

"The unilateral impulse intruded again in 1963, in response to French Pres. de Gaulle's offer to try to broker a neutralist arrangement in Vietnam, perhaps extending across all of Southeast Asia. De Gaulle knew something about Vietnam. Moreover, the French, as a signatory to the SEATO treaty, carrying the same obligations as the United States, should have figured doubly important in Washington's consultative process. But they didn't. Thus, there was in essence no consultative process worthy of the phrase.

"A second failure, rooted in the natural arrogance of the very powerful, was Washington's inability to appreciate the limitations of its high-tech warfare capability in confronting a "people's war" (the Vietnamese conception of armed resistance). Two aspects of this particular failure stand out: First, it seems to have been difficult for leaders in Washington and Saigon to even consider the possibility of suffering defeat at the hands of Vietnamese communists, whose war material was dwarfed by that of the United States; and second, U.S. civilian and military leaders did not anticipate – probably they could not even imagine – a people and an organization like the Vietnamese Communist Party, whose members and allies were willing to absorb horrific casualty rates yet carry the fight to the Americans.

"A third failure of the American superpower in Vietnam reflects, perhaps, more arrogance than either of the first two: the erroneous belief that so-called nation-building is possible through the use of military force and economic support. The Vietnam experience proves that this is untrue. South Vietnam was a "failed state," virtually from its inception [...] Washington failed to understand that such a flawed state cannot be saved by external military forces, no matter how well-armed.

"A fourth failure of the U.S. superpower is the failure to pursue in its foreign policy the democratic ideals it preaches and practices in its domestic political arrangements. One might have thought that the United States, given its history, would have been the last country in the world to sanction and sustain a royalist despot like Diem. Clearly this was what the Vietnamese participants in our dialogues believed followed from their reading of U.S. history and U.S. values, at least as proclaimed, from Jefferson onward. In effect, leaders in Washington, in supporting a despot, betrayed their own stated principles, in the name of fighting communism.

"Fifth, and finally, American leaders failed to understand the tenuous relationship that often exists between the application of military force and the achievement of political or diplomatic objectives. Even during the Cold War, American citizens only occasionally felt themselves physically at risk, for example, during the Berlin crisis of 1961 or the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that Americans, accustomed to the application of force elsewhere but unfamiliar with having it applied to themselves directly, should overestimate the political possibilities of using military force. Americans may be singularly unable to predict or understand the degree to which a people can and will resist having their political will bent through the application of military power."

– Robert S. McNamara, James G. Blight, Robert K. Brigham, Thomas J. Biersteker and Herbert Y. Schandler in Argument Without End, a critical appraisal of American strategy in Vietnam.

The New Global War Against 'Violent Extremism'

Robert Lambert is a respected figure in Britain's counterterrorism community. Formerly a member of the Special Branch of London's Metropolitan Police, his work in counter-extremist intelligence has helped thwart everything from IRA bombing campaigns to carefully planned al-Qaeda attacks.

In 2002, he teamed up with a colleague to create the Muslim Contact Unit, a special intelligence section designed to engage with communities to detect pockets of sympathy for Islamic extremism. The idea, according to Guardian columnist Seumas Milne, "was to avoid the mistakes made during the IRA campaign of alienating the Irish community, and to work with credible Muslim figures to isolate and counter those prepared to support terror attacks."

It's the bit about "credible Muslim figures" that made the MCU controversial and unique.

Detective Inspector Lambert and his men didn't reach out to mild-mannered moderates. They partnered with the folks most progressive Westerners run from – the guys not endorsed by the TV punditocracy: so-called "Islamists," fiery clerics, even a man Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought to declare persona non grata for his onetime support of Palestinian suicide attacks.

What Lambert had figured out was that while many of these men were representatives of an ossified orthodoxy, they weren't cheerleaders for al-Qaeda. In fact, most preached vociferously in their mosques against al-Qaeda's manipulation of Islam for violent political ends. They were not friends of the West by any stretch of the imagination. But their disdain for al-Qaeda, and their ability to speak in a language resonant with meaning for disillusioned Muslim youth, made them strategic allies in a common struggle. In the jihad against al-Qaeda, so to speak, these nonviolent "extremists" could be won over to the government's side.

The MCU did just that – and often with great success.

For example, prominent Islamist activists, such as British Muslim Initiative leader Azzam Tamimi, were brought in to play a crucial role in taking back the Finsbury Park Mosque in 2005 from supporters of hate preacher Abu Hamza. The Egyptian-born cleric – nicknamed "Captain Hook" by tabloid scribes for the hook that acts as his right hand – is now serving a seven-year jail term for inciting followers to murder non-believers.

As Lambert sees it, not all Islamists are necessarily enemies of the state. Some might be enlisted in the fight against violent radicals. The title of his 2008 paper – Empowering Salafis and Islamists against Al-Qaeda – published in the journal of the American Political Science Association, says it all. There must be, in his view, "a willingness to look to prior counterterrorism experience [...] to promote a measured, effective, and counterintuitive response to 9/11."

It's a contentious position, hotly debated in counterterrorism circles, with critics denouncing it as a kind of "ideological Stockholm syndrome." But the jury is still out on whether Lambert may have a point.

So why bring all this up?

Turns out, the Obama Administration may be positioning the United States to give these alternative approaches a try. In his monumental address to the Muslim world several weeks ago, the president referred consistently to the dangers of "violent extremism" – a radical departure from the Bush White House's rhetoric of "terror" and "Islamic fascism."

The formulation is not to be taken for granted. To quote commentator William Bradley, writing in a column for The Huffington Post, the term "bespeaks tolerance for religious extremism so long as it's not manifested in violence." That opens up the door for partnerships of the kind advocated by Britain's Lambert.

After eight years of poorly-targeted military adventurism, it's a change of course that may be long overdue.

Fighting for Peace?

Time magazine's Bobby Ghosh is shaking an angry fist at Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa. The island nation's Sinhalese president has given the world an example of how not to end an insurgency, he says, by "adopting strategies and tactics long discredited, both in the battlefield and in the military classroom."

In brutally crushing the separatist Tamil Tigers, Rajapaksa and his army demonstrated scant regard for civilian lives, damaging the country's democratic fabric and deepening the ethnic resentment at the heart of Sri Lanka's civil war. Not a formula for sustainable peace, Ghosh insists. In fact, he wants any country tempted to follow Colombo's lead to read the "warning label" on Rajapaksa's counterinsurgency doctrine: "Do not try this at home."

After all, the whole plan "seems ripped from a bygone era."

The notion that brute force can succeed where negotiated settlements have failed is medieval, without a doubt. And a policy that keeps journalists and aid workers at bay while tens of thousands meet violent ends ought to be deplored by an international community serious about human rights. Clearly, then, no good can come of such aggression, right?

Well, unlike Ghosh, I'm not so sure.

Whatever the cost in blood and treasure, Rajapaksa now exercises jurisdiction over a sovereign state. That's something no Sri Lankan leader has been able to do in more than 25 years, since the Tigers began their bloody rebellion. By reclaiming the country's volatile northeast, the central government has the unprecedented opportunity to return Sri Lanka to the rule of law while implementing constitutional provisions to mitigate tensions between the minority Tamils and the Sinhalese. If Rajapaksa moves quickly to address these political challenges, Sri Lanka might yet be saved.

As the Rutgers University political scientist Roy Licklider has observed, "assuming some sort of settlement is reached, [...] the nature of the polity which emerges from the settlement seems likely to affect its duration and what will follow it." What matters isn't necessarily how a settlement is reached but what follows the break in hostilities. Indeed, relatively less violent settlements can come to naught when followed by political inaction.

Iraq may be a case in point. The general failure of Shiite politicians to expand political participation to include Sunni groups is fuelling widespread discontent among many former insurgents. Some have vowed to take up arms as soon as U.S. forces withdraw.

"If we hear from the Americans they are not capable of supporting us [...] within six hours we are going to establish our groups to fight against the corrupt government," one commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Los Angeles Times. "There will be a war in Baghdad."

The point is that violence seems inescapable when political solutions fail. And lasting political solutions may only be possible under conditions of strong government and the rule of law. Weak governments cannot make the tough decisions and constitutional changes necessary to keep the peace.

That's why the Sri Lankan approach to conflict resolution may not be such a bad idea. If a decisive exercise of state power can create the space for political compromise, surely a lesser-of-the-two-evils argument might be invoked to justify its use.

I'm not insisting the Sri Lankan experience should renew our faith in military solutions. I'm just saying any approach is worth a shot.

Negotiating with North Korea?

"If we decide to talk again, American diplomacy should expand beyond nuclear talks to begin preparing for the outcome it wants: a democratic, unified and eventually nonnuclear Korea. As Korea expert Andrei Lankov has suggested, America's new approach could include the opening of cultural, educational and economic exchanges with the North.

"Western experts should be encouraged to teach at North Korean universities; North Koreans should be allowed to study in the West; and the United States, Japan and South Korea should undertake cooperative economic projects in the North. The United States should also open more radio and television broadcasts from South Korea and the West. In short, Washington's diplomacy with North Korea should focus on measures that raise North Koreans' standard of living and exposure to the West. This would keep our focus on long-term strategic objectives."

– Dan Blumenthal, resident fellow in Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a persuasive Washington Post op-ed last month arguing for direct diplomacy and constructive engagement with North Korea.

Kagan and Blumenthal want the United States to cut out the "middleman" in brokering a credible and sustainable peace between the two Koreas, assuring Tokyo and Seoul of Washington's active presence on the peninsula for some years to come. It's a fresh approach to an intractable problem that has stubbornly resisted resolution for decades.

Let's face it: Returning North Korea to the State Department's list of countries that don't play nice will do little more than hurt an already impoverished and desperate population. And urging the Chinese to put the squeeze on these people requires a certain blindness to the ensuing moral, humanitarian and practical consequences. Economic embargoes and punitive sanctions haven't succeeded in changing Pyongyang's behavior, and exercising a military option would be disastrous, to say the least. So maybe it's time we tried a different tack.

Sure, the Chinese may not react favorably to the notion of an American client state across their Yalu River border. But that might not be such a bad thing. Perhaps the threat of American proximity will goad them into taking more concrete steps to disarm their defiant neighbor.

Why the California Court Got it Right on Prop 8 – And What We Can Do About It

Anyone familiar with Ted Olson's legal resume will tell you he's no Rainbow Warrior.

The former solicitor general is an icon of the conservative Right, famous for his representation of the Republican camp in the very traumatic Supreme Court fight that sent George W. Bush to the White House. In effect, this is the guy who gave liberals everywhere an ulcer that took eight years to heal.

But don't wince just yet.

Dubya's man in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election case has emerged an unlikely champion for gay rights, joining forces with former rival David Boies to take the California gay marriage kerfuffle to the federal courts. Acting as representatives of two gay couples who want to marry, the high-profile legal team moved this week to block Proposition 8 after a state Supreme Court ruling upholding the measure. They've asked a federal judge in San Francisco to issue an injunction against the voter-sanctioned ban on same-sex marriages.

In an equally curious move, civil liberties groups and gay rights advocates are looking the other way, even discouraging Olson and Boies from pursuing the matter. As Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, put it to the San Jose Mercury News: "[...] We have only one shot at the U.S. Supreme Court, and any attorneys bringing a case that will affect the freedom and legal status of an entire community bear a very heavy responsibility to be certain they have fully considered the consequences."

Minter and other supporters of gay marriage would like to settle the issue at the ballot box. Personally, I think they have a point.

The problem with the opposition to the California court's ruling is that it confuses the content of Proposition 8 with the issue of process that was actually being decided. Many criticized the ruling as homophobic and discriminatory, when in fact it was neither. The question before the court, to quote its lengthy and nuanced opinion, had to do with "the scope of the right of the people, under the provisions of the California Constitution, to change or alter the state Constitution" through the initiative process.

The justices did not rule on "the validity (or invalidity) of a statutory provision limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman." Their decision was not so much a repudiation of gay marriage but rather an affirmation of the procedure by which California's constitution is amended.

If the argument is that California's constitutional protections are vulnerable to the tyranny of a democratic majority, I can only agree. But that's a different legal question for another day. Under the circumstances, I think the court did the right thing by limiting its ruling to the initiative process as it currently stands.

That said, the best way to deal with Proposition 8... is another proposition!

Californians should rejoice that they have a ballot process that allows state residents to change their minds. And what better way to guarantee enduring change than to decisively win over public support?

Taking gay marriage to the federal courts will raise the tenor of this already divisive debate. With more than half the country still opposed to the idea, and a moderate-to-conservative U.S. Supreme Court, the risks are significant – celebrity legal help notwithstanding.

They're Already in Our Backyard!

FBI Director Robert Mueller is fulminating against the president's plan to transfer Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons. There's a good chance they'll be radicalized, he told anxious members of Congress in testimony last week. They also might organize gangs and lead an extremist revolt. All told, there'll be terror in our neighborhoods and panic in our streets.

America, Beware!

Never mind the fact that our "supermax" federal penitentiaries house some of the deadliest and creepiest baddies known to modern man. Folks like Ted Kaczynski. Remember him?

The Unabomber made his own tools, fashioning homemade bombs out of handcrafted wood and metal. According to Wikipedia, he used smokeless explosive powders and a primitive trigger device that caused "a nail, tensioned by rubber bands [...] to slam into six common match heads when the box was opened. The match heads would immediately burst into flame and ignite the explosive powders."

Kaczynski even engineered a functioning pistol – which he intended using as a "homicide weapon" – working with only "a few files, hacksaw blades, small vise [and] a rickety hand drill." Many of his lethal creations are currently featured as part of the "G-Men and Journalists" exhibit at the Newseum in Washington. Nothing, it seems, could deter this Harvard-trained mathematician, with a 167 IQ, who now spends his days at the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo. He was committed to his diabolical plan to agitate an American rebellion. And yet you don't hear Coloradoans in Fremont County screaming for Kaczynski to be driven from their midst.

So we're comfortable with a devilishly intelligent and narcissistic American psychopath but not with a few frail brown men in orange jumpsuits? Really?

And what about Kaczynski's fellow inmates at the Colorado prison? There's Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the shoe-bomber Richard Reid; the "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam, who conspired to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999, and a host of other very bad men.

We're cool with these guys being held together – but not with the Guantanamo bunch?

If there's any logic informing the director's arguments, I confess I've failed to grasp it. All I can detect is a whiff of paranoia, reminiscent of the Bush era, of which Mueller is a relic.

Why 'Pakistan' Doesn't Exist – And Why Meddling May Not Help

The Obama Administration, by all accounts, is scrambling to fix the crisis in Pakistan.

The United States and Japan have each pledged billions to shore up the country's doddering economy. Special envoy Richard Holbrooke is busy drumming up international support for what is being described as a "global concern." Drones continue to pound militant hideouts in the lawless tribal region. And everywhere there's talk about the impending disaster set to unfold along the badlands bordering Afghanistan.

Some in the American foreign policy establishment have begun whispering ominous warnings about a nuclear-armed "failed state" sandwiched between a densely populated archenemy and a country both the U.S. and NATO are trying desperately to stabilize.

To be sure, the problem is deadly serious. And it's poised to get much worse.

Not long ago, the BBC reported that Taliban militants operating in the country's Swat region had expanded operations into nearby Buner, a part of the Malakand region, where strict Sharia law had been implemented under a peace deal with the central government. Here's the scary part: Buner is only some 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, where security forces have been placed on high alert. All told, the situation is terribly gloomy. But stepping in isn't necessarily going to make things better.

You see, the problem with Pakistan is not that it is a failing state, but that it is, in fact, no state at all. Think of it as a deeply fragmented assemblage of deeply fragmented provinces held together by the dual interventions of the mosque and the military.

Let me explain.

The Columbia University sociologist Saskia Sassen has theorized that the foundational components of modern states – territory, authority and rights – were built up through gradual processes with deep historical roots. For example, the divine right of kings emerged as an early expression of secular sovereignty when monarchs asserted autonomy against a controlling papacy. The territorial state was created to provide an autonomous base for secular authority at a time when church leaders refused to submit to monarchical control. Gradually, the Christian political communities of the past began to resemble the world of secular sovereign states we recognize today.

Squeezing the facts into a modular concept, Sassen has suggested that "critical capabilities" developed over centuries, at particular "tipping points," jump tracks and "become lodged in novel organizing logics."

The foundational changes eventually produce a political picture that is recognizably different from previous years. Empires give way to nation-states, nation-states form transnational unions; slowly, the world seems like a different place. But it all begins with those foundational components from long ago. Without them, there would be no "capabilities" to organize into any meaningful political whole.

So what does this have to do with Pakistan?

Consider the history of that tormented country.

From its inception in 1947, Pakistan has been something of an enigma. Fashioned out of two Muslim-majority wings in the eastern and northwestern regions of British India, the state was hurriedly and controversially cobbled together out of geographically and politically disjointed territories. Racked by internal divisions from the get-go, the country was never a "nation-state" in the traditional sense. Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus felt a strong connection to India. Those in the west were uprooted from their homes as their Muslim neighbors voted to join the new state of Pakistan; Muslims in East Punjab faced a similar plight.

In nearby Sindh, according to Wikipedia, Sindhi has been the sole official language since at least the 19th Century. Urdu – the "national" language – is spoken by only 18 percent of the population. As recently as 1967, a Sindhi literary movement contested the imposition of Urdu by the central government, urging Sindhi nationalists to unite around an autonomous "Sindhudesh" within a federated Pakistan. Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan's provinces, is a hotbed of ethno-linguistic separatism. The North-West Frontier Province is known to its nationalist Pashtun inhabitants as Pakhtunkhwa or "the land of the Pashtuns."

Put together, the country labeled "Pakistan" is a fiction without any of the "capabilities" – common language, cohesive history, territorial integrity etc. – that facilitate the organization of nation-states. The "tipping point" that marked its beginning was a failure of secular politics in the larger national community of British India. There was never an "organizing logic" giving shape to a distinctive nation-state of Pakistan. Seen this way, the country's troubles today merely reflect the circumstances of its founding. Pakistan, as it is known in the West, and traced on a map, arguably has never existed.

This is why intervening in the country's internal affairs is actually intervening in a complicated web of relationships between multiple warring nations. It is a mission for which the United States is wholly unprepared.

President Obama is correct in noting that bringing stability to Afghanistan will involve dramatic change in Pakistan. What he needs to remember is that the people who call these countries home do not see them exactly as they appear on international political maps.