White House to Unveil ‘Grand Strategy’ on National Security
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:00 am

Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan (EPA/ZUMApress.com)
John Brennan has a tough rhetorical job ahead of him Wednesday morning. Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brennan, President Obama’s most influential terrorism and intelligence adviser, will attempt to reconcile the harder edges of Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan and his enthusiastic embrace of drone-enabled assassinations of terrorists with the broader approach to grand strategy that the White House will finally unveil this week. Some wonder if that reconciliation is even possible.
The National Security Strategy will be formally unveiled on Thursday. And Brennan won’t be the only senior official previewing it and amplifying its themes. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, just back from a wide-ranging trip to China, will present it to the Brookings Institution. Vice President Biden will do the same on Friday, to the graduating class of Navy midshipmen at Annapolis. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, has said that the “defining feature of our foreign policy” is that the U.S. is “willing to commit to a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect.” He’s finalizing the details of his own National Security Strategy-related speech.
Brennan tried this once before — at CSIS, in fact, last August. But back then, Brennan was more interested in articulating discontinuities with the Bush administration in how Obama handled terrorism, such as eschewing a war-centric construct for viewing the conflict and taking it away from Islam. One senior administration official, Dan Benjamin, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, has urged an expansion of that critique, arguing last June that U.S. strategy needs to “shift away from a foreign and security policy that makes counterterrorism the prism through which everything is evaluated and decided.” The National Security Strategy is supposed to be that prism, but it remains to be seen how the administration’s counterterrorism efforts can be viewed through it.
Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University and a non-resident scholar at the Center for a New American Security, grapples with that reconciliation in a forthcoming paper for the influential think tank, and doesn’t come away with particularly easy answers. “The problem they face is they make a series of pragmatic decisions, each on its own terms, and you can see the logic behind any of them,” Lynch said. “But add it all up, and you see the implementation is clearly at odds with the philosophy.”
All of which are unilateral actions that have met with significant opposition overseas. None easily fit within the framework of “a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect.” A senior Republican congressional aide agreed that that framework was the “essence” of Obama’s foreign policy. “There are norms and there are laws and ways of doing things in the world that we in the U.S. have in large part put into place, and sustain,” summarized the aide, who declined to speak for attribution. “Those laws, norms and ideas are above every nation and every nation has a responsibility to uphold them. So we need to do better at meeting our responsibilities and so too, incidentally, does the Iranian government.”
Obama’s approach to Afghanistan might not be such an anomaly, even if the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize inherited the war he has escalated. That’s because even though Obama has nearly tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan, by July 2011 the so-called “extended surge” will begin to give way to more of a supporting role for U.S. forces. What’s more, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington two weeks ago highlighted, Obama has recast relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan in terms of long-term diplomatic, economic and security cooperation, beyond just counterterrorism. What’s more, not only is military action in Afghanistan a multinational affair operated by NATO and not the U.S. alone, it is specifically legally authorized by the U.N. Security Council. Lynch, a former Obama campaign adviser and a critic of the Afghanistan war, observed, “Afghanistan is a big hole in the strategy in all kinds of ways of ways that matter, but not in a conceptual way.”
Heather Hurlburt, an administration ally at the progressive National Security Network, said that the problem is indicative of an inherent tension between a rules-based international order and the prerogatives of a superpower. “What any administration says is the strategy and what the national-security apparatus does on a day-to-day basis are not necessarily the same thing, especially early on,” Hurlburt observed. The role of a National Security Strategy isn’t necessarily to eliminate those tensions, but rather to bring the military and the intelligence services into rough alignment with the broader vision. “It’s a very powerful signaling mechanism across the government and outside of it, to say ‘We’re serious about this rules-based multilateralism, this human rights stuff, this non-proliferation stuff, and you can’t outlast it.’”
But if the administration keeps granting itself exceptions to following the international order for the exigencies of terrorist emergencies, Lynch said, it will be left without the intellectual underpinnings — and, accordingly, the public support — for an appropriate response if a terrorist attack ultimately succeeds. “What i’m afraid of is that as soon as you get turbulence — like an actual terrorist attack — there’s going to be a big backlash and you can’t hold the overall structure in place,” Lynch said. “Right now, Obama’s got the rhetoric, but they’ve done precious little to institutionalize it and put on durable legal foundations.”
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[...] That’s how John Brennan capped his presentation Wednesday morning on counterterrorism’s role in the forthcoming National Security Strategy, and the often intense White House senior counterterrorism adviser smiled a bit as he said it. His exploration of the administration’s pathway for getting there was mostly familiar. “A broad, sustained integrated campaign” making use of “every tool of American power: military, civilian, kinetic and diplomatic, and indeed, the power of our values and partnerships,” will sustain “pressure” on al-Qaeda in “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond” while addressing the “political, economic and social forces” that can create either demand for extremism among populations or acquiescence to it. Judge for yourself how that fits within the broader National Security Strategy. [...]
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Comment posted May 26, 2010 @ 9:27 pm
“Those laws, norms and ideas are above every nation and every nation has a responsibility to uphold them. So we need to do better at meeting our responsibilities and so too, incidentally, does the Iranian government.”
“Carthago delenda est.”
Up until that last part, it was difficult to determine that was a Republican saying that.
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Comment posted May 27, 2010 @ 9:58 pm
KIM JUNG ILL KNOWS HIS ENEMY
Now, we read an article by Richard C. Bush III, a third can you imagine being a third, and old Rich III, is the Director, at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, who wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled The Mind of Kim Jung ILL, and he quoted The Chairman of the [PRC] Peoples Republic of China Mao Tse-tung, quote There is great chaos under heaven and the situation is excellent, unquote, and even stated that Mao would have been proud of Chairman Kim Jung ILL of the [PRK] Peoples Republic of Korea, and is that an understatement, we suggest a read of the article we got a laugh at Rich III expense, the guy is clueless. The Chairman of the [PRC] preformed a Coup d’etat, to the idea of the ability of the Israeli-America Empire know simply as the [EMPIRE], to any long project its Military Power, while at the same time sealing the existence of the new reality of [SPHERES OF INFLUENCE] of which the [PRC] is a member, the [PRC] is a member of the [BRIC] Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, and The Peoples Republic of China Spheres of Geo-political power, the new reality in the [21st] Century.
Now, Rich III, thinks that Chairman Kim Jung ILL is worried about the Media Messiah Imperial President of the [Empire] that the Chairman has over-stepped or created doubt with his tough approach, this was in fact the most brilliant approach to once and for all end the myth of the [EMPIRE’S] military prowess in the [21st] Century, to bring to and end any doubt within the [PRC] Peoples Republic of Chine’s Sphere of Influence, were the true power lay, as the [SOSE] the Secretary of State of the Empire Hillary Diane Rodham-Clinton, had to talk first with the [PM] Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of the [PRC] and took [NO ACTION] beyond that of calling for Sanctions once again against yet another nation, that no one is going to in reality comply with. Make no mistake the action of Chairman Kim Jung ILL was a brilliant act of international craftsmanship that even Sun Wu Tzu would have been proud, quote [Know the enemy know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat] unquote.
So, what has been achieve by Chairman Kim Jung ILL, as we have already stated that the Empire in incapable of any longer projecting its military power into the Peoples Republic of China’s Sphere of Influence, that the Spheres of Influence are the [21st] Century’s answer to the end of the Empire. But, beyond this are more immediate benefits, these events have not been lost upon others within the Sphere of Influence of the [PRC], the [3] Three players who must now come to grips with a new reality, Japan, Nationalist China, and The Republic of Korea;
* Japan has stated that it wanted to distance itself from the Empire and establish a closer relationship with the [PRC], that can’t be accomplished as long as it is Cuba East, an occupied nation within the Sphere of Influence of the Peoples Republic of China, acting as an ally to the Empire, and at this moment in time the question of the continued presence of Empire troops within the Land of the Rising Sun is one that looks to be heading to the fall of its Central Government in Tokyo.
* The Breakaway Province of Taipei, over which the [PRC] has sovereignty, and will bring once again under its control by force if that is the way of things in the [21st] Century, which to date has been under the protection of the Empire, without the Empires ability to any longer project its military power within the Sphere of Influence of Mainland China, the end is nearing and they will not have missed the change from the [20th] Century reality into the [21st] Century reality, The [Empire] decided not to sell [66] Sixty-six [F-16’s], worth [€3.7B] Three-Point-Seven Billion Euros, as not to upset the [PRC].
* [ROK] The Republic of South Korea, will not have missed or misunderstood the facts as they now exist the end is approaching, the Peninsula of Korea will be reunited into [1] One unity government, it will now fall upon them to decide how that will happen, will combat again between broken family units of the North and South, or thru political settlement.
If anything the Mind of Chairman Kim Jung ILL, is one of a brilliant Geo-Political Sphere tactician, who has proven he knew his enemies weakness and then thru action unveiled that weakness to the world, a weakness that the [PRC] is using both itself and its Sphere of Influence to high light ready and will to take increasingly aggressive actions now and in the future against the [EMPIRE], which with each passing day is less and less able to pack any punch at all, from May to May there will be Hell to pay, as the [EMPIRE] slides into a steep decline, and all roads now lead to Beijing.
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
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Comment posted June 3, 2010 @ 6:22 pm
PREEMPTIVE STRIKE NUCLEAR FOOTHOLDS
[When you got a good thing]
In any war if you can get in a punch faster and harder than the other guy you have the advantage, and that hold true even more today than at any other time in history, the Israeli-American Empire has the policy of First Strike. So what does this have to do with Japan, basically everything, we read in an article from Japan the during the [1950’s-1960’s] the Empire had stored atomic weapon in both Okinawa and Ogasawara Islands, and that doesn’t mean that nuclear weapons don’t still remain there, and in fact there is no good reason to suspect that they still aren’t there, when you got a good thing going why stop, we know that there are nuclear weapons in the other Foothold Europe, Germany and they want them out. Now, this has been basically called keeping the genie in the bottle cold war thinking, and the genie of course is one of the [BRIC] Sphere of Influence the [PRC] Peoples Republic of China, and since they have Nuclear Weapons in one Foothold, come on, do you really think they don’t have them in the other?
[Bull Halsey]
Japan, is a Preemptive First Strike Nuclear Attack Foothold Far East pointed directly at its biggest threat in the [21st] Century the [PRC], the Empire can now arm aircraft from Japan’s [ADIZ] Air Defense Identification Zone, directly into and over the [PRC] breakaway province of Taiwan, and the island of Yonakuni and directly to targets in the mainland of the [PRC] in minutes, distance is time and time is distance, as a preemptive first strike. The Japanese only represent a military advantage to the Empire over the [PRC], Adm. “Bull” Halsey was a boxer and believed you hit them first, you hit them hard and you just keep hitting them, and Japan represents the first punch below the belt.
[William Wallace]
The problem with the grand plan is that there is always some guy name William Wallace, and in case anyone forget that the Scot from Braveheart, the Scot who decided one day after his wife was murdered by troops of occupation, to pick a fight with those who occupied Scotland. Well history has an odd way of repeating itself if its ignored and lessons aren’t learned, William Wallace wasn’t the first in history to go an pick a fight with foreign troops of occupation, and seeing as history is full of the same action happening over and over again we suspect that Japan will be just another of those Braveheart historical moments waiting to be repeated, the Japanese are more concerned about its their land, their nation, and they don’t want foreign troops of occupation, on them. And then there is Germany the Foothold Europe nation, the question that Germany must now ask is this the way things are going to be, if this is how it is with Japan, is this what Germany can now expect, troops of occupations to remain indefinitely?
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
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Comment posted June 7, 2010 @ 9:20 am
Why does the Washington Independent have this article on their front page when it is old news and this article… http://washingtonindependent.com/85916/americas… …has been posted?
It's your choice, but do remember you have people that will choose (or not) to read your website.
Oh, and I'm sick of HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN who is always off-topic and I don't give a crap what you say when you are off-topic. Go cry somewhere else. We are busy here on THIS topic.
Comment posted June 8, 2010 @ 10:30 pm
THE GRAND-CHILD
[GC] Grand-Pa, those men over there daddy says are not ours, and are bad men, and to stay away from them, why is daddy say that?
[GP] Well, they are not ours they are American Troops of Foothold Occupation, your father may have use the wrong word by saying they were bad, they are more dangerous than bad, but your daddy is correct in saying you should stay away from them.
[GC] Grand-Pa what does Troops of Foothold Occupation mean?
[GP] Well, lets start out with Occupation, the word occupation in this case it mean they are staying in our country, a foothold is an iron grip on something, and troops are a fighting force, so if we put it all together they are a fighting force which is not ours, staying in our country, with an iron grip.
[GC] Oh! But all the family all my aunts and uncles and my other Grand-Pa and Grand-Ma, and all my friends and their families say they break our laws, and don’t belong here and should go home, they commit crimes like assault, robbery, drug possession, rape and murder, that they have weapons our government won’t let our soldiers have, they pollute the environment with noise from their planes, and other laws of our country they simply don’t obey.
[GP] Well, that’s a hard one, the answer is yes they do, do all those bad things, none of us want them in our country, and by reading blogs and their newspapers in our language on the computer even their own mothers and fathers don’t want them here, but after having [2] Two Wars with them and having been beaten [2] Two time by them with a great loss of life on both sides, their government and other governments feel that an iron grip has to be continued to make sure there isn’t another war with us. These are very dangerous individuals, and can do very bad things, and that’s why your father told you to steer clear of them.
[GC] Oh! But why did we go to war with them [2] two times?
[GP] Well, the short answer is wars happen when the politicians can’t do their jobs, and talk things out or have an agenda of their own, then war breaks out, but you will learn all about that in school.
[GC] Oh! Grand-Pa what’s an agenda?
[GP] It’s something they want to get done, something they want to do.
[GC] Grand-Pa, if their mommies and Daddies don’t want them here and we don’t want them here, why don’t they go home, can’t we just tell them to go home?
[GP] Well, it’s like with your mom and dad they tell you to go too your room, or wash your face and behind your ears you have to do it or your in big trouble, well if they don’t come here to place an iron grip on our country, then they will be in trouble, so they are doing what their government is telling them. We, that is our government does not have the authority to tell them to go home.
[GC] But, Grand-Pa you said that their families didn’t want them here either, so why doesn’t their government tell them to come home?
[GP] That’s a good question, an no one has an answer to that one, we simply don’t know when or if they will ever leave our country, one of their leaders a mommy by the name of Hillary Clinton, said they will leave when they decide to leave.
[GC] And, how long have they been here Grand-Pa?
[GP] As long as your Grand-father has lived.
[GC] But Grand-Pa, your OLD, really, really old, you mean they will be here that long?
[GP] Well, not all that old, but yes they could be, and maybe longer.
[GC] But, Grand-ma was talking to mom and said your so old that since you retired, and stopped working so has everything else, she told mom that you can’t see without your glass’s, you can’t hear worth beans without your hearing aides, you teeth aren’t yours, you use a walking stick and say it’s what elderly men do, but she say’s you need it to walk, and if it wasn’t for the little blue pill nothing would work at all, and that only works for a very short time, you mean that long?
[GP] Oh! Your Grand-mother and mother said that about me, well were just going to have to have a little chat about that, your Grand-mother, mother and Grand-Pa, sorry but yes, and when you have a Grand-child you better remember this conversation, it may or may not help you explain why those dangerous men are still in our country.
[GC] Well, I think they are BAD! And they should GO HOME!
[GM-Grand-mother] Dear, his mother is here to pick the child up.
[GP] Look, why don’t you go out in the back yard for a little while and play, Oh, Sweetheart, why don’t you and Pumpkin come in here, we have something to discuss, Old, OLD MY FOOT!
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
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Comment posted August 4, 2010 @ 3:56 am
Oh, and I'm sick of HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN who is always off-topic and I don't give a crap what you say when you are off-topic. Go cry somewhere else. We are busy here on THIS topic.
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