Study Sprawl

(WARNING: Long and winding post ahead)

On Monday I penned a brief post on the study published by the Army War College that questioned the need to go to war with Iraq, and called into question the scope of the war on terror.

Initially I thought that the study merited consideration, but after digesting it Monday night I was left with a very different impression. It really is nothing more than an extended editorial with footnotes. To Fisk the whole thing would require a Bergian effort that I have neither the time nor desire to undertake. The study is over forty pages in length, not including the introduction or the endnotes. But there are items in it that stand out and deserve mention.

The author the study is Dr. Jeffrey Record, who is a professor at the USAF's War College as well as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute. He worked for Democratic Senators Sam Nunn and Lloyd Bentsen as well as the Brookings Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Hudson Institute. He also has written several books and has a another titled, Dark Victory: America's Second War Against Iraq, coming out later this year.

Yesterday on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Frank Gaffney described Dr. Record as a respected scholar, but cautioned that the fact that the Army War College published this study in no way construed an official endorsement of it.

Of course this is what the media has been focusing on. A
story on the study in the Washington Post, and an editorial in the Star Tribune that referenced it, both cherry picked selected quotes from the study, while noting the Army War College connection in order to give it more legitimacy.

My problems with the study concern the political bias that Dr. Record brings to it, unsupported assertions that he takes as fact, the manner in which he employs hypothetical situations, and finally his tendency to criticize rhetoric and not reality.

Given Dr. Record's background, it seemed possible that he might have a partisan axe to grind. Reading the study confirmed for me that indeed he does.

The President himself endorsed this objective before the war, in his February 26,2003, speech before the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute...

And later:

The prominent neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, for example,...

When you use the label neo-conservative you are doing more than simply describing the political leanings of the organization or individual concerned. While I don't agree with David Brooks' contention that using it is somehow anti-Semantic, I also don't buy the argument that it's just another descriptor like liberal or conservative. Why not just use conservative then? When you use neo-con you're doing a little wink-wink nudge-nudge with your readers. He's one of THOSE people.

And besides what the hell does the term mean anyhow? If you're talking about Irving Kristol, a self-described neo-con, it's fairly clear. But is the American Enterprise Institute neo-conservative? I read their magazine each month, and while I suppose some of their writers could be called neo-cons, the magazine also features articles by the likes of Grover Norquist, a man not often associated with neo-conservative thought.

So what's in the use a name? Or in this case a label? I believe it shows that the author is not coming at this study from a wholly objective viewpoint.

Later Record deals with the difficulty in defining terrorism and makes it clear that he doesn't subscribe to the "simplistic" Manichean definitions of good and evil:

Morally black and white choices are scarce in a gray world. One man 's terrorist can in fact be another's patriot. "Is an armed Kurd a freedom fighter in Iraq but a terrorist in Turkey?" asks Tony Judt.

"Were al-Qaeda volunteers terrorists when they joined the U.S. financed war [against the Soviets ] in Afghanistan??"

Defining terrorism can indeed be a little tricky but I think the answer here isn't as gray as Record makes it out to be. If the Kurd in Iraq or Turkey is carrying out military operations against the armed forces of those countries he is a freedom fighter. If he blows himself up on a bus with women and children in Baghdad or Ankara, he's a terrorist. The al-Qaeda volunteers who fought Soviet and Afghan government forces? Freedom fighters. If they would have started bombing apartment buildings in Moscow as Chechens have? Terrorists.

Indeed,they do not regard what they are doing as terrorism."The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist, "Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yassir Arafat declared before the U.N.General Assembly in 1974,"lies in the reason for which he fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders,the settlers and colonialists,cannot possibly be called a terrorist." (Similarly, the recently executed anti-abortion terrorist Paul Hill denied that killing an abortionist was even an act of violence, much less terrorism."I was totally justified in shooting the abortionist, because he was actually the one perpetrating the violence,"he told Jessica Stern. "I would not characterize force being used to defend the unborn as violence." )

This is a study on the global war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. How can this little anecdote on an anti-abortion fanatic in the U.S. be considered anything other than a gratuitous shot at those who oppose abortion?

Later he also includes this statement which one could quite easily imagine coming from our "friends" in Paris or Berlin:

Americans have historically displayed a view of war as a substitute for politics,...

We have? Then why all the fussing with the UN, GTO, NAFTA, etc. etc. etc. over the years? We don't need none of that fancy talking, we can just bomb 'em all to hell.

One more point on the political leanings of Record.

These numbers minimize the problem,however, because the CBO is legally required to base its projections only on existing laws. Thus, the CBO projection assumes the scheduled expiration of the huge 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, although most observers believe they will be extended. (Both the White House and the Republican congressional leadership favor making the cuts permanent.)

This is a minor quibble but when you describe the tax cuts as huge I believe you reveal your true feelings about them.

Now for some "facts" from the study.

Thus even though the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes were militarily smashed, combat continues, even escalates, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Escalates? Compared to what? Certainly not to the earlier period of time when significant combat operations were taking place in either country. Obviously the situation in Iraq has changed from the time Record completed the study, but even then I have a hard time accepting as fact his escalation statement.

As it approached war with Iraq, the administration insisted on co-conspiratorial links between the Saddam Hussein regime and al-Qaeda; repeatedly raised the specter of the dictator's transfer of WMD to al-Qaeda; and encouraged the view that Saddam Hussein had a direct hand in the 9/11 attacks.

The question of whether the Bush administration tried to link Saddam and 9/11 was discussed ad nauseam last summer. No conclusion evidence was ever presented to document it. Record tries by citing examples of incidents when Bush mentioned 9/11 and the threat from Iraq at the same time. But in almost every instance it's a case of Bush saying something along the lines of "after 9/11 we can no longer wait for an attack to respond". To say that this is enough to show that Bush tried to tie Iraq to 9/11 is grasping at straws. Record does nothing to further the argument but just presents it as an accepted fact.

Note should be taken that the administration has displayed no enthusiasm for arms control treaties, and that it appears to have little confidence in the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) to prevent even signatory states (including Iraq and North Korea) from launching nuclear weapons programs in contravention of the NPT. It overlooks the NPT regime's considerable success in restricting and even reversing proliferation and is determined to use force if necessary to do what the NPT was never designed to do.

Yes, clearly North Korea has been a rousing success of the NPT. They have nuclear weapons, but they haven't used them. Nothing to worry about on the Korean peninsula is there? In my eyes North Korea shows the failure of the NPT rather than its success.

As to the NPT's achievement is reversing proliferation, I assume Record is speaking of South Africa and Brazil. Not exactly rogue states.

Then there is what I call "attacking the rhetoric and not the reality".

Insistence on moral clarity once again trumps strategic discrimination. Even if all terrorism is evil, most terrorist organizations do not threaten the United States.Many pursue local agendas that have little or no bearing on U.S. interests. Should the United States, in addition to fighting al-Qaeda, gratuitously pick fights with the Basque Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (E.T.A.[Fatherland and Liberty ]), the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Sendero Luminoso, Hamas, and Hizbollah? Do we want to provoke national-and regional-level terrorist organizations that have stayed out of America's way into targeting the U.S.interests and even the American homeland?

Record is now criticizing rhetoric rather than reality. To my knowledge the U.S. has not "gratuitously picked fights" with the Basques separatists, the IRA, the Tamil Tigers or any other terrorist group not linked to Islamist terrorism. Although if he was as interested in building alliances as he claimed, Record might want to consider that the Brits and Spaniards probably wouldn't mind a little assistance in dealing with their terrorism problems. When Bush makes speeches about fighting all terrorism throughout the world he is trying to rally support for the U.S. He is not saying that the U.S. itself will get involved in every terrorist problem throughout the world.

Just for the record (no pun intended) both Hamas and Hizbollah have killed American citizens in the past, and there is no reason to suspect that they would hesitate to do so again in the future. And I suppose that the existence of Israel has "no bearing on U.S. interests".

Clearly in the inherently unrealistic category, for reasons already discussed, are the goals of destroying all terrorist organizations of global reach, including the nexus of their regional and national analogs, and terrorism itself. These goals not only lie beyond America's means to achieve them,but also gratuitously pit the United States against "enemies "that have not threatened U.S. interests.

Again is this really a goal of the U.S.? Or another case of the attacking the rhetoric and not the reality?

One of the problems with a study such as this is the media's penchant to grab bits and pieces that fit the template that they're looking for without providing context. And the way that Record includes hypothetical situations makes it likely that exactly that will happen.

Consider this line from the Washington Post story:

The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."

Doesn't sound good does it? Well here is what Record said about the Army being stretched too thin:

If the Iraqi deployment is significantly reinforced to provide additional order and stability for reconstruction, some critics believe this will threaten the army's ability to provide a rotation base for its overseas deployments and strip it of a strategic reserve for contingencies elsewhere.

That's an awfully big IF especially given the events of the last month. Granted, the continued conflict in Iraq is stressing the Army's resources quite a bit, putting added burdens on the Guard and Reserve, and limiting its ability to respond in the event of another large scale conflict elsewhere (say Korea), but is it "near the breaking point"? Hard to say, although Record does indeed state just that. But when he seeks to prove it, he introduces a hypothetical situation that does not reflect the current reality.

Fiscally, something's got to give in the coming years, and that something may well be a reduction of U.S.ambitions in Iraq. Such a reduction would be especially likely if more and more Americans come to see a cause and effect relationship between outlays for Iraq, spiraling federal deficits, and bad economic news at home (such as sharply rising interest rates).

Again he introduces another hypothetical to sell his point of view. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with using them, but in this case he makes assumptions about deficits and interest rates that are not widely accepted, and presents what is close to a "worst case situation". While that might be appropriate for a Molly Ivins editorial I'm not sure if it is for a detailed study such as this.

Finally there a few other statements in the study that don't fit into any of the main problem areas that I have defined, but should be mentioned anyway. (Okay, this has taken on Bergian length) A number of them involve the prospect of creating a democracy in Iraq that may serve to transform the Middle East:

So the potential policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous Middle East, if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very distant future.

So why even try? Of course establishing a democracy in Iraq is going to be a long, difficult process but when I read this I'm reminded of the old adage that every long journey begins with a small step.

Are U.S. strategic interests in the Muslim world really better served by hostile democracies than by friendly autocracies?

By "friendly autocracies" I assume Record means Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc.. Yeah, those guys are not part of the terror problem at all. As the Left likes to remind us, where did most of the the 9/11 terrorists come from again?

Home-grown terrorism is certainly no stranger to the democratic West (the second deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history was Timothy McVeigh 's destruction of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people),and at least one study concludes that the incidence of nonstate terrorism is higher in free societies than in nonfree ones. (Nonstate terrorism was notable for its absence in Saddam Hussein 's Iraq.)

This is one of Record's more curious arguments. Yes, there was little nonstate terrorism in Saddam's Iraq. There was also little freedom, little opportunity, and little hope. Hitler's Germany (before WWII) and Stalin's USSR certainly had less terrorism that Germany and Russia do today.

Leaving aside the inherent perils of making analogies between the hypothetical future experience of Iraq and the Middle East and the past experience of Germany and Europe, the assumption seems to be that democracy is so catching that the establishment of just one big one in the Middle East will trigger a rush to emulate. The basis on which this democratic domino theory rests has never been explicated, however. Is it hope? Neo-conservative ideological conviction? How would democracy spread to the rest of the region?

Hmm...Domino theory. Now where have a heard that before? Oh yes, VIETNAM. It must be a quagmire. A neo-con inspired one at that.

At times he also sounds like one of the Democratic hopefuls at a debate:

Similarly, the United States may have to accept a genuine internationalization of its position in Iraq. A UN-authorized multinational force encompassing contingents from major states that opposed the U.S.war against Iraq would both legitimize the American presence in Iraq as well as share the blood and treasure burden of occupation/reconstruction, which the United States is bearing almost single-handedly.

And this UN multinational force is going to be composed of whose soldiers exactly? This is a question that I would love to have answered. How many French? How many Germans? What type of soldiers? How will they get to Iraq? Who will supply them?

Then there is the question of the effect of the war in Iraq on other rogue states:

The question is difficult to answer because the declared U.S.policy of "anticipatory self-defense " is so new and because the deterrent effects, if any, on other rogue states of the U.S.preventive war against Iraq are not yet evident.

It's probably not fair to beat up on Record for events that hadn't transpired at the time that he finished his study, but I'll do it anyway. Libya, Iran, and North Korea appear to all have been impacted to some extent or another by the toppling of Saddam. As I said, it was probably tough for Record to foresee these events so he can't really be faulted for not addressing the question of whether the U.S. policy of "anticipatory self-defense" was working. Or can he?

In fact, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM appears, at least so far, to have had the opposite effect on North Korea and Iran. Even before the war, North Korea, perhaps in response to having been declared an "evil "state and in anticipation of being second on the U.S.attack list after Iraq, announced that it was accelerating its nuclear weapons program. Iran also revealed a potential nuclear program more advanced than most suspected.

So it was too soon to make a call and yet he made one anyway? A call that appears to be quite incorrect.

In summary his position is:

In conflating Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda,the administration unnecessarily expanded the GWOT by launching a preventive war against a state that was not at war with the United States and that posed no direct or imminent threat to the United States at the expense of continued attention and effort to protect the United States from a terrorist organization with which the United States was at war.

Back to that imminent threat thread. The interesting thing is that, other than saying that the money spent on the war in Iraq and the occupation could better have been spent of homeland security, Record does little to prove that it was waged "at the expense of the continued attention and effort to protect the United States" from al-Qaeda.

Having said all this I still believe that the study is worth reading. It would be a mistake for supporters of the war in Iraq to dismiss all criticism of it, and not address legitimate critiques such as Record's. Statements such as this from the WaPo story are not helpful:

Larry DiRita, the top Pentagon spokesman, said he had not read the Record study. He added: "If the conclusion is that we need to be scaling back in the global war on terrorism, it's not likely to be on my reading list anytime soon."

Rather than ignoring studies such as this or hoping that they just go away (given the state of the media today they won't), they need to examined and, if possible, refuted.

On great point that Record makes that I first heard mentioned by Claudia Rosett is the name of the war itself.

The chief problem with this GWOT goal, however, is that terrorism is not a proper noun.

On this, I could not agree with Record more. The "war on terrorism" is a horribly inadequate phrase.

UPDATE: For more on Record's study check out this post by Jan Haugland.