Iraq's New Old Chemical Arsenal

Yesterday, a student asked me about the recent news reports indicating that Iraq did, in fact, have "weapons of mass destruction" back in 2002 and 2003 when the U.S. was attempting to justify a "preemptive" war. The New York Times reported that American soldiers were injured in the past decade by chemically-armed munitions found in Iraq.

Already, a slew of articles in the media have debunked the claim that this vindicates George W. Bush and his Iraq misadventure. This Washington Post piece is perhaps the best since it primarily quotes Bush administration claims from the pre-war period.

The Times piece certainly does not try to claim that Bush is vindicated:

The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government’s invasion rationale. 

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims. 

Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. 

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them. 

In case after case, participants said, analysis of these warheads and shells reaffirmed intelligence failures. First, the American government did not find what it had been looking for at the war’s outset, then it failed to prepare its troops and medical corps for the aged weapons it did find.

Read the piece and it offers more reason to believe that these revelations do not help the save the Bush administration's reputation:

Participants in the chemical weapons discoveries said the United States suppressed knowledge of finds for multiple reasons, including that the government bristled at further acknowledgment it had been wrong. “They needed something to say that after Sept. 11 Saddam used chemical rounds,” Mr. Lampier [“a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war”] said. “And all of this was from the pre-1991 era.” 

Others pointed to another embarrassment. In five of six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies.

A decade ago, when I was blogging regularly about this, the media would occasionally report about old chemical munitions found it Iraq. I posted this passage on May 19, 2004:

What is very clear is that there was no vast infrastructure of WMD programs and no readily deployable arsenal. The nuclear program was dead. No one denies Iraq had chemical weapons in the 1980s and that scientists could again make them. What is the appropriate level of threat justifying preventive war? 

I ended up writing and publishing a number of pieces about that question and the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of "preemptive war." In one of them, I quoted from this exchange involving David Kay, who was the head of the Iraq Survey Group in 2003 (the original team looking for WMD) and then-U.S. Senator Mark Dayton:

DAYTON: Which weapons of mass destruction qualify in that upper echelon of truly mass destruction? 

KAY: Well, I think all of us have and would continue to put the nuclear weapons in a different category. It's a single weapon that can do tremendous damage, as opposed to multiple weapons that can do the same order of damage. As you know, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, in terms of number of people killed, was roughly equivalent to a single bomb in Nagasaki, but it took a lot more aircraft to do it. 

So I still treat, and I think we should politically treat, nuclear as a difference. But I must say, the revolution of biology, some developments in cyber -- I think we're going to have a blurring out there of capabilities. And that makes the control and makes the intelligence problem far more difficult to estimate. 

DAYTON: Just based on your general knowledge, how many countries would you say in the world today would qualify under the category of developing weapons of mass destruction-related program activities or having such activities?

KAY: Senator Dayton, I hesitate to give you an off-the-cuff number because I know it'll probably is going to be like the 85 percent; I'm going to have to live with it for longer than I want to.I would say that in the nuclear area, in addition to those that we know have possessed nuclear weapons, that includes India... 

DAYTON: I want to go to the vernacular that we're using in this broader category. 

KAY: The broader category. Oh, I suspect you're talking about probably 50 countries that have programs that would fall somewhere in that broader vernacular. 

DAYTON: So if we're going to take out those countries or their governments which are engaged in what we would call weapons of mass destruction-related program activities, we're going to be cutting quite a world swathe. 

KAY: Well, Senator Dayton, I think you're on to the issue. We no longer are going to be living in a world in which we can control capabilities. Intentions are what are going to be important.

Kay is correct. The war was primarily justified based on the threat allegedly posed by Iraq's nuclear program. If the bar for preemptive war is lowered to justify attacks against states with potentially menacing chemical or biological capabilities, then states with such preemptive doctrines could launch attacks against thousands of universities or industries in dozens of states.


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Interviewed About Syria, Use of Force, and Norms

Monday, Christopher Flavelle of Bloomberg interviewed me about the various norms at stake in the Syria debate. We discussed international norms limiting the use of force and the implications of using force to punish chemical weapons use. I'm not confident that a US retaliatory strike would meaningfully deter future use of chemicals. It might be an effective military action in Syria (by destroying capabilities), but would future dictators be deterred?

Flavelle ended up quoting me in his story published September 10:

In fact, the norm against the unauthorized use of force may be more important than the norm against chemical weapons, which are held by a small number of countries. By contrast, "norms limiting the use of force are seen as centrally important to most states," according to Rodger Payne, chairman of the political science department at the University of Louisville.

I was accurately quoted, though Flavelle and I talked about the problem of Security Council authorization. Essentially, one permanent member can block action desired by a global consensus.  The international community needs to figure out a way to authorize the use of force that is at least somewhat less onerous than the current procedure. States acting collectively ought to be able to prevent future Iraq-type invasions, if opposed by a very large number of states, but allow potentially desirable actions, such as limited interventions to protect civilians or prevent certain kinds of terrorist or WMD attacks.

Also, we didn't really talk about this, but chemical weapons are relatively easy to manufacture (their use dates back a century, after all), which means that dozens of states could make them if they wanted. That means the proposed strike might have implications for many other states in the future.

Finally, I also stressed that the norm against chemical weapons has actually been solidified if not strengthened these past few weeks by the fact that so many members of the international community are outraged by the alleged Syrian use. There are many other ways to signal the international community's displeasure, including sanctions, resolutions condemning the action, etc.


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Bush Memoirs

Over at Duck of Minerva, I've been blogging about revelations from the George W. Bush memoirs.

On Friday, November 12, I posted "Drip, drip, drip," which focused on Bush's acknowledgement of the Israeli destruction of a Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007. Did the Bush doctrine have limits?

Saturday, November 13, I blogged "Bush: McConnell plays politics with national security." Bush says the Kentucky Senator wanted to withdraw troops from Iraq so the GOP would not lose Congress in 2006 -- even when he was publicly condemning Democrats for proposing the same reductions.

Updated: Monday, November 15: "(Head of) State Secrets." It is about Bush's accusation that German Chancellor Schroeder flip-flopped on the Iraq war -- and the former German leader's reaction. Put simply, someone is lying.

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Read these posts...

Today, on the Duck of Minerva group IR blog, I posted "The Latest on U.S. Militarism," concerning the high profile positions attained by many former generals and admirals within the civilian foreign policy bureaucracy.

March 10, I posted "The Hurt Locker, again," which is my interpretation (and review) of the Oscar-winning film.

On March 8, I blogged "Foreign Policy Charade" about the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine and the indirect U.S. support of that policy.

February 27, you can find "Biological Weapons," which is a bit of shameless self-promotion concerning my latest coauthored journal article, "The Illogic of the Biological Weapons Taboo." I wrote the piece for Strategic Studies Quarterly with former student (and biochemist) Phil McCauley. It considers whether the Bush Doctrine is still alive and well and ready to take the U.S. to war over bioweapons.

Finally, on March 12, I posted about "Comic book sensibility" at the Climate Change blog I write for e-IR. You know, "one for all and all for one." The phrase was used in an important climate speech by chief U.S. negotiator Todd Stern.


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Is Nuclear Deterrence Dead as the Dodo Bird?

The title of this post is also the title of one of my papers for next week's International Studies Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans. I've been a bad blogger for weeks because in the past 6 to 8 weeks, I've completed a draft chapter on the Iraq war (from a critical theory perspective), a coauthored chapter on the politics of climate change, another ISA paper on "Teaching Global Politics Through Film: The Role of Comedy" and this paper.

Here's the revised abstract:

Supporters and opponents of nuclear deterrence are clearly engaged in a renewed “contest” about the status of a long-standing normative idea in international relations. While the reality and logic of nuclear deterrence is often taken-for-granted, recurrent debates about the meaning and effectiveness of the norm arguably reflect an ongoing legitimacy crisis. Academic critics of nuclear strategy have for the most part simply revealed and explained the many contradictions in deterrence theorizing and practice. Most of these critics seek to correct, perfect, and reinforce the fundamental logic of deterrence. In contrast, the primary concern here is whether the growing recognition of the contradictions, irrationalities, and even absurdities of nuclear deterrence might usher in the strategy’s demise—and potentially create the conditions for, and/or provide the impetus to, a world free of nuclear weapons. Empirically, much attention is directed at the anti-nuclear activism of numerous prominent former and current public officials and military leaders who have condemned nuclear weapons and called for a world without them. Alternatively, the paper explores whether the death of deterrence might merely assure the long life of preventive war strategies (like the “Bush Doctrine”)? In terms of international relations theory, this paper serves as an immanent critique of nuclear deterrence.

Comments welcome.

I'll try to be a better blogger in the near future.

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Ducking in

Today, at the Duck of Minerva group IR blog, I posted "Cheney: The Most Dangerous Veep Ever?" It concerns the political stunts he pulled -- and lies he told -- to promote war against Iraq.

Thursday, June 25, I posted "Is Obama channeling Bush?" The post is about the latest increase in heated rhetoric from President Obama about events in Iran.


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Palin and the Bush Doctrine

Charlie Gibson of ABC asked Governor Sarah Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

After a deer-in-the-headlights pause, she replied, "In what respect, Charlie?"

When that happens in my seminars, I know the student has no clue.

Of course, none of them are a "heartbeat from the presidency."



Perhaps I'm a poor judge. After all, I've blogged about the Bush Doctrine dozens of times and published a handful of articles about it.


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Hypocrisy watch: Georgia edition

Because of Iraq, American officials are having a hard time explaining their opposition to Russia's intervention into Georgia.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, quoted by CNN on August 11:

This is completely unacceptable and crosses a line...The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe -- those days are gone,"

Watch it here. As Jon Stewart pointed out last week on The Daily Show, the entire war would apparently have been OK outside Europe.

Secretary of State Condi Rice, August 13, 2008:

I am not going to sit here and judge each Russian military operation. I am going to say that when you start bombing ports and threatening to bomb airfields and bombing a city like Gori and bringing troops in a flanking maneuver on the western flank of Georgia and tying up the main roads between Georgia – between Tbilisi and Gori, that’s well beyond anything that is needed to protect Russian peacekeepers. And that is why Russia is starting to face international condemnation for what it is doing.

This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed. And so, what Russia, I think, is seeing is that to the degree that this is about South Ossetia, about even Abkhazia, let’s accept that it is time to move the forces back. Let’s accept that it’s -- first to end the fighting, move the forces back to August 6th, and then have an international mediation to try to resolve these conflicts within the context of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia.

Watch it here. Rice almost seems to be implying that Russia could not justifiably attack Georgia simply because Russia is too weak in the post-cold war world.

President George Bush, August 15:

The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us. A contentious relationship with Russia is not in America's interest. And a contentious relationship with America is not in Russia's interest.

With its actions in recent days Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century. Only Russia can decide whether it will now put itself back on the path of responsible nations, or continue to pursue a policy that promises only confrontation and isolation. To begin to repair its relations with the United States and Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must respect the freedom of its neighbors.

Watch it here. Again, was the behavior only bad because Russia attacked a neighbor?

John McCain, August 13, 2008 (via Yglesias):

"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations."

Watch it here.

Back in 2002 and 2003, a lot of critics (pdf alert) warned that states like Russia, India and Israel might take the logic of "preemption" from the Bush Doctrine in order to justify wars that would otherwise be seen as illegitimate.


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Preventive war update: NATO edition

January 22, The Guardian newspaper ran a story about what they called "a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists."

General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK

What was their report about? According the The Guardian,

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

That's newsworthy, eh?

The document is now available on-line. This is the money quote from the newspaper, p. 97 of the report:

"Regrettably, nuclear weapons - and with them the option of first use - are indispensable, since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world. On the contrary, the risk of further proliferation is imminent and with it, the danger that nuclear war-fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible. This development must be prevented. It should therefore be kept in mind that technology could produce options that go beyond the traditional role of nuclear weapons in preventing a nuclear armed opponent from using nuclear weapons. In sum, nuclear weapons remain indispensable, and nuclear escalation continues to remain an element of any modern strategy."

The report clearly states that nuclear proliferation poses such a great threat that it "must be prevented."

Interestingly, to justify their favored policies, the report authors use the language of deterrence. However, it is clear on pp. 95-6 that they are changing the traditional meaning of the term. It is now going to be the idea that enemies can never feel safe -- and the uncertainty/threat will be generated by proactive denial as well as reactive response to undesired action (like proliferation of WMD).

Orwellians should love these sentences:

"As deterrence might occasionally either be lost or fail, the ability to restore deterrence through escalation at any time is another element of a proactive strategy.

Escalation is intimately linked to the option of using an instrument first. A strategy that views escalation as an element can, therefore, neither rule out first use nor regard escalation as pre-programmed and inevitable."

The authors go on to use a phrase often used by Colin Gray and others 25 years ago: "escalation dominance."

The report also fairly clearly reserves the right for preemptive war -- and preventive war, arguably blurring the difference as the Bush administration has done. On p. 98, the authors go out of their way to say that force need not be a last resort. It "might very well be the first option to be used." Then, on p. 99, they note that "early decisive action" may be necessary and that a "coordinated media campaign" might pave the pathway for preferred action. Given the paragraphs prior to their discussion of media campaigns, it seems obvious that such an effort would apparently be needed to blur the lines between reactive preemption policies (which are clearly legal) versus proactive preventive action (the question of legality "remains unanswered").

Finally, on p. 106, they write that "

most democratic nations will consider enforcement as politically acceptable if

*no other option is left to achieve the agreed political objective, because the crucial interests of a nation or an alliance are at stake;

*an attack is imminent or has taken place by state or non-state actors launched from the country or region in which enforcement will be conducted;

*no other option exists to prevent or terminate genocide."

Given the third bullet point, it seems clear that the authors are not listing multiple requirements for enforcement actions. They do not include "and" in this section.

The following paragraphs, in fact, go on to describe threats that are not imminent, but that might nonetheless require action. A specific named possibility is acquisition of WMD -- even though that threat is "unlikely to lead to UN authorisation for a preventive military operation" (p. 107).

In the case of likely UN Security Council deadlock, they say that enforcement "action taken by an individual state or group of states might be the answer."

The Europeans have been moving toward the Bush Doctrine logic on preventive war for some years, the problem is they disagree with the US about agent of decision and action. This document hints that at least some Europeans might be willing to relent on these points.


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Musharraf to US: Bush Doctrine = Invasion

If the US applies the Bush Doctrine to al Qaeda forces in Pakistan, President Musharraf will consider that an act of war against his state.

CNN International, January 12, 2008:

The New York Times reported last Sunday that the Bush administration is considering expanding covert operations in the western part of Pakistan to shore up support for [President] Musharraf's government and to find bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"Nobody will come here until we ask them to come and we haven't asked them," Musharraf told the [Singapore] Strait Times this week.

Strait Times reporter Anthony Paul asked Musharraf: "If the Americans came, would you treat that as an invasion?"

"Certainly," Musharaff said. "If they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan."

Musharraf says if the US sent its own forces into the mountains of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, then it would "regret that day." Last month, he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last month that "it is Pakistan's forces which will act" if there is "actionable intelligence" that senior al Qaeda leaders are in Pakistan

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Edwards on the use of force

John Edwards told the Council on Foreign Relations that he would revamp the Bush Doctrine (May 23, 2007):

We must be clear about when it is appropriate for a commander-in-chief to use force. As president, I will only use offensive force after all other options including diplomacy have been exhausted, and after we have made efforts to bring as many countries as possible to our side. However, there are times when force is justified: to protect our vital national interests...to respond to acts of aggression by other nations and non-state actors...to protect treaty allies and alliance commitments...to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons...and to prevent or stop genocide.

The ellipses appear in the text -- I'm not editing his words.

In any case, Edwards seems to embrace just war principles.

Note that when asked how he would use force as President, candidate George W. Bush had a restrictive interpretation back in 2000. From the October 3 debate with Al Gore:

Well, if it's in our vital national interest, and that means whether our territory is threatened or people could be harmed, whether or not the alliances are -- our defense alliances are threatened, whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would be a time to seriously consider the use of force.

Readers may recall that candidate Bush was opposed to some uses of force -- for humanitarian purposes, especially, including nation-building. Bush often repudiated the so-called Clinton Doctrine.

Edwards would apparently bring back the Clinton Doctrine.


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Pakistan & the Limits of the Bush Doctrine

U.S. government officials continue to limit the Bush Doctrine. Recently, some have pointed out that the U.S. would likely only attack Pakistan if the threat is nearly certain -- and if Islamabad agrees to the strike.

The Washington Post story of July 26 (by Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick) is illustrative:

R. Nicholas Burns, the State Department's undersecretary for political affairs, suggested that a unilateral strike would be a last resort.

"Given the primacy of the fight against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, if we have in the future certainty of knowledge, then of course the United States would always have the option of taking action on its own," Burns said during questioning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "But we prefer to work with the Pakistani forces, and we, in most situations -- nearly every situation -- do work with them."

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry continues to be strongly opposed to an American military strike:

"We have stated in the clearest terms that any attack inside our territory would be unacceptable," the ministry said in a formal statement released Tuesday in Islamabad.

In a separate story from the July 31 Post, David Ignatius finds a former CIA officer who wants the CIA to mount a covert effort against Pakistan -- just as it previously did in Afghanistan.

[Henry Crumpton argues that] The right model for a Waziristan campaign is the CIA-led operation in Afghanistan, not the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers are best suited to work with tribal leaders, providing them weapons and money to fight an al-Qaeda network that has implanted itself brutally in Waziristan through the assassination of more than 100 tribal leaders during the past six years. It would be better to conduct such operations jointly with Pakistan, but if the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf can't or won't cooperate, the United States should be prepared to go it alone, Crumpton argues.

"The United States has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens," says Crumpton. "We either do it now, or we do it after the next attack."

Crumpton proposed a detailed plan last year for rolling up these sanctuaries, which he called the Regional Strategic Initiative. It would combine economic assistance and paramilitary operations in a broad counterinsurgency campaign. In Waziristan, U.S. and Pakistani operatives would give tribal warlords guns and money, to be sure, but they would coordinate this covert action with economic aid to help tribal leaders operate their local stone quarries more efficiently, say, or install windmills and solar panels to generate electricity for their remote mountain villages.

Ignatius wants to see a plan somewhat like JFK's "Alliance for Progress" in Latin America -- but he clearly wants to act now, rather than later.


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The next war

Pakistan is definitely under the spotlight right now, both on this blog and in the foreign policy world of Washington.

Sunday, the president's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, told Fox News that the White House might use force against Pakistan:

WALLACE: If our enemies are regenerating their safe haven in Pakistan, under the Bush doctrine of preemptive military action to take out any threat, why aren't we doing everything we can — special operations forces, pilotless drones — why aren't we doing everything we can to take out that safe haven?

TOWNSEND: Well, Chris, just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing many of the things you're talking about...Job number one is to protect the American people, and there are no options that are off the table...I will say to you there are no options off the table. The president's committed to the most effective action that we can possibly take in the FATA [federally administered tribal area] to deny them the safe haven.

In January 2006, the U.S. attacked a village in Pakistan with Hellfire missiles in an alleged effort to kill al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. It turned out that he wasn't there after all, though five women and five children were among the 18 to 25 dead.

Pakistan wasn't happy about the strike. The BBC:

"We cannot accept any action within our country which results in what happened over the weekend," Prime Minister Aziz told journalists in the capital, Islamabad.

"So the relationship with the US is important, it is growing, but at the same time such actions cannot be condoned."

An unwelcome missile strike is an act of war.


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War with Pakistan

Pakistan has long been a concern on this blog -- both for its pre-9/11 ties to al Qaeda and its horrible nonproliferation record.

What should be done about Pakistan?

Like the Washington Post's editorial board, former Iraq Study Group co-chair Lee Hamilton sounds like he's calling for war against Pakistan -- or at least invocation of the Bush Doctrine.

The Christian Science Monitor reported some of his recent comments on July 19:

"I think that our relationship with Pakistan needs to be reconsidered, reevaluated.… What has driven our relationship with Pakistan has been the fear that the alternative to Musharraf would be a radical government with a nuclear bomb. I think that fear is overstated…. I believe it is necessary for the United States to be able to go after the sanctuaries in Pakistan," he said.

When he was asked whether such action could cause the Musharraf government to fall, Mr. Hamilton responded, "It is a risk, and it is a risk I would be willing to take."

Hamilton continued:

"The thing that is most worrisome to me about Al Qaeda is the sanctuary. It seems to me that, if anything, we have learned that we must not permit the terrorists to have a sanctuary from which to regroup, train, plan, and launch strikes within Europe or here or elsewhere," Hamilton said.

Listen carefully and you can hear the drums of war beating.

They may not be pounding for Iran.


Note: Photo credit, US Department of State

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The Emerging Consensus for Preventive War

Yesterday, I returned to the office for the first time since May and found the latest copy of Survival, which is published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Summer 2006 edition includes my latest coauthored piece with Peter Dombrowski, "The Emerging Consensus for Preventive War." Here's the abstract:

After 11 September 2001, the George W. Bush administration declared that the United States had adopted a ‘pre-emptive’ military doctrine to address new threats posed by terrorists and ‘rogue states’ armed with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. However, the so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’ met substantial international opposition when it was proposed – and even more resistance when it was applied to the case of Iraq. Subsequent events in Iraq have not made the idea any more popular. It is somewhat startling, then, that numerous states and international organisations seem now to support the call to revise long-held international understandings about when force might be used. A sizable number agree that the risk of calamitous surprise attacks, especially with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, might justify preventive strikes or wars against terrorists or their state sponsors. A new international norm may thus be under construction, though states continue to disagree about the agents of decision and action.

I've blogged frequently about this topic, so some of the piece will be familiar to long-time readers of this website.

I don't yet have a pdf, but I'm sure I can send reprints soon, if anyone is interested. Just email me at my university address.

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Filed as: Preventive war

The vision thing

Today is the third anniversary of Iraqi Freedom Day. Recall, April 9 was the day a small group of U.S. soldiers helped a small group of Iraqis take down the statue of Saddam Hussein.

Let this date serve as yet another opportunity to re-examine the Bush Doctrine and the competence of the current administration.

Sy Hersh was on CNN earlier today explaining his latest New Yorker piece. President Bush is apparently thinking seriously about war with Iran:

"This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," Hersh quotes an unidentified senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror as saying.

CNN showed some footage of both Bush and Cheney making very hawkish comments about Iran.

So let's get this straight.

It was impossible to forecast the 9/11 attacks, despite the fact that the "system was blinking red," a potential hijacker was already in FBI custody, an agent (as well as Tom Clancy) had hypothesized something much like the very threat that played out, and a Presidential Daily Briefing in August 2001 was titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S."

It was impossible to forecast the potential effects of Hurricane Katrina, despite the fact that the President was briefed on the implications before the levies broke. And federal emergency management officials had at least since 2001 considered this one of the three most likely catastrophic natural disasters.

In contrast, it was possible to forecast in 2002 and 2003 that Iraq posed a "grave and gathering threat" to the U.S. -- despite the fact that it did not. Neither Bush nor Condi Rice wanted the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud, despite the fact that the IAEA, operating virtually unfettered in-country, had already dismissed the uranium-from-Africa story and visually inspected the uranium tubes and high power magnets. Also, numerous sources inside the U.S. government dismissed the severity of the alleged nuclear threat.

So why should anyone believe the Bush administration about the threat from Iran? The leaked intelligence suggests that Iran is a decade away from a bomb.

Not to mention the fact that all sorts of non-violent options to this "problem" remain available: (1) nuclear deterrence; (2) UN-imposed international economic sanctions; (3) horse-trading, the U.S. could offer WTO membership; and (4) conflict resolution. There are undoubtedly more.

President George Herbert Walker Bush was often criticized for lacking the so-called "vision thing." His son, by contrast, is often praised for his instincts and vision.

However, it certainly looks like the young Bush has very serious trouble with the most difficult questions. His administration not only misses very real threats that more competent public officials might have handled very differently, but it also has an established record of trumping up a false threat, leading to a costly and dangerously prolonged war.


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Filed as: Bush vision

China and the Bush Doctrine

On a number of occasions, I've blogged about international reactions to the Bush Doctrine.

Other states frequently admonish the administration for its over-reliance on military power and unilateralism. However, some politico-military factions within some states clearly think that it might be in their state's interests to emulate the "preemptive" strike strategy.

This post is about China's potential emulation. I was only recently directed to this op-ed piece by Rob Radtke, who is/was "vice president of policy and business programs for the Asia Society, a nonprofit educational organization promoting understanding of the Asia-Pacific region." It appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, May 8, 2003:

China is calculating how successful use of preemption by the US in Iraq can be applied to Taiwan. In recent months, China has demonstrated considerable forbearance as Taiwan's fall elections approach. However, any action that moves Taiwan further from China or closer to de jure independence - for example increasing US arms sales or including Taiwan in a regional missile defense system - will trigger a strong reaction from Beijing.

Having set the precedent of preemption where vital national interests are at stake, the US can expect China to follow suit. China has always framed the Taiwan question as one of vital national interest and territorial integrity. For better or worse, the US has put preemption on the table as a tool of statecraft. China will use it if pushed.

FYI, Pete Dombrowski and I have a nearly-completed manuscript (originally presented in March 2005 at the International Studies Association meetings), which concludes that most other great powers, many middle powers, and key international organizations have generally embraced the American understanding of the threat of surprise attacks by terrorists armed with WMD and agree that some sort of preventative action might be needed to head off this action. Most of the rest of the world, however, favors multilateral authorization before preventive force might be employed.


Note: Apparently, I may have some new readers among the college debate community. Maybe this post will prove helpful to them in some small way.

New Orbis

Readers: stop by your local news stands for a copy of the current issue of Orbis, A Journal of World Affairs, dated spring 2005. You might find the lead article interesting: "The Bush Doctrine is Dead; Long Live the Bush Doctrine." The authors are Donald C.F. Daniel, Peter Dombrowski, and me.

Daniel teaches at Georgetown and Dombrowski is at the Naval War College.

Don't get too excited about the title. We're not enthusiastic supporters of preventive war. Rather, we argue that the US and other states should be discussing the appropriate circumstances that might justify (likely multilaterally approved) preventive measures against certain kinds of threats.

Absent significant change to the Bush Doctrine, it is a dead letter.

I'm going to look in Harvard Square to see if it is on the racks.

Montreal ISA: Day Four

I'm back home, but this morning I had a panel on "Assessing the 'American Imperium': Historical and Analytical Perspectives." I primarily focused on the limits of the Bush Doctrine -- the US is very unlikely to launch another preventive war any time soon.

On that note, Don Daniel, Pete Dombrowski and I just learned that our piece, "The Bush Doctrine: Rest in Peace" will appear in June's Defence Studies. Since not many will see it there, I thought I'd mention it on the blog. I should have a copy of the manuscript on my academic website next week.

The other panelists included Dan Nexon (he organized it), Alex Cooley, Paul MacDonald and Torbjørn L. Knutsen.

Each panelist presented interesting arguments, though I cannot readily recount them here right now. I especially enjoyed the Q&A time after the presentations, when panelists focused on land versus sea empires, contemporary policy implications and other interesting topics.

The Bush Doctrine is Dead

On "Fox News Sunday" today, David Kay declared that the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is dead.

Specifically, Kay said that a preemption strategy depends upon strong intelligence and the US obviously didn't have that in Iraq. AP ran this story (and I got it from yahoo):

Flawed intelligence undermines the Bush administration's policy of striking first if U.S. interests are threatened, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq said Sunday.

"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly cannot have a policy of pre-emption," David Kay said. While the United States always has reserved the right of a first strike, President Bush has elevated the strategy of pre-emption to a central part of his foreign policy doctrine.

"Pristine intelligence, good accurate intelligence is a fundamental bedstone of any sort of policy of pre-emption to be even thought about," Kay told "Fox News Sunday."

Kay said that until it is clear how prewar intelligence about Iraq's cache of banned weapons ended up being off the mark, the public will be dubious of claims by the government that Iran, North Korea (news - web sites) or Syria, for instance, pose grave dangers.

"I think most of us would have greater doubts," Kay said. "I would hope even the president would have greater doubts until we understand the fundamental causes" of the flawed intelligence.

The National Security Strategy document from September 2002 acknowledges that preemption relies upon "timely, accurate information on threats, wherever they may emerge." NSS 2002 even says the US must "coordinate closely with allies to form a common assessment of the most dangerous threats."

This has profound implications for policy. As the authors of NSS 2002 wrote:

"Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat—most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack."

The French were right. Domestic anti-war activists were right -- and the Bush Doctrine is dead.

Update: I found a transcript excerpt on the Fox News website. Kay was even more critical of the Bush administration than I first thought. Look at this Q&A with Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: Let's look at the other side of it, though, the second part. Did the president and his top officials hype the intelligence that they were told?

I have read the parts of the National Intelligence Estimate that were declassified in October of 2002. And let's take a look at part of it.

The State Department said it could not find a compelling case that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. And yet, we were never told that by the administration.

KAY: Well, I think that's true. There are caveats that clearly dropped out, dissenting opinions that clearly dropped out, as you moved higher up and people read the headline summaries.

But Kay attempts to explain away the State Department's (people like Greg Thielmann) correct reading -- Iraq had no nukes, and was not a serious WMD threat.

WALLACE: But explain that. If, in fact, there was a dissenting opinion in this particular case about whether Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons. Here was the State Department coming out in the National Intelligence Estimate and saying, "You know, we can't make a case for this." Why was it that it was dropped out?

That's a fairly serious thing, if there was a difference of opinion at the analyst level, but at the top officials level there wasn't that reflection.

KAY: Well, I think what you will find, as we walk back through that process, is the State Department, after all, has no operatives in the field. It's an analysis shop. That, in fact, the bulk, the CIA, DIA analyst, who actually have direct contact with collection, thought, in fact, there was a program there.

I think we've got two things to look at: How did the bulk of the analysts come to a conclusion that turns out to be wrong? And what is the process for feeding to top-level decisionmakers both the majority opinion and caveats, minority opinions, as they exist? Clearly there were failures on both.