Anatomy of Decisions
In the spirit of election season I’m going to express one of my deepest worries about the Bush administration. I want to do that with a disclaimer firmly implanted at the beginning; I don’t have enough information (and doubt anyone does) to prove my worries, which is why I state them precisely as worries rather than conclusions. My hope here is to convince my reader that a specific problem, sketchy though our evidence may be, is worth considering from either side of the political isle before going to the ballot box. My worry concerns the organization of the decision making process in the Bush administration. I am bothered by the possibility that the very way information is being analyzed and collected in the Bush Whitehouse precludes a thorough review of all the information concerning especially (but not necessarily only) foreign policy. My information is only coming from only a few sources, yet in my frequent though by no means exhaustive perusal of what passes for investigative journalism in this country, none of the information I have seen rebuts my concerns.To understand my concern I’d like to go back in time a bit to Vietnam. The right and left can generally agree that LBJ bungled Vietnam, even though they tend to disagree whether the bungling was a failure to increase military pressure effectively, follow a more well planned military strategy, or exit the war entirely. Whichever conclusion you come to, the same president was sitting in the Whitehouse making those errors. Why did he make them?
There are no doubt numerous answers to this question, but one particularly compelling version is offered by George Herring in his LBJ and Vietnam (1994). Johnson may have been one of the greatest politicians, in the Machiavellian sense of that term, in the 20th century. He was a master at brining people to the bargaining table despite themselves, at begging, yelling, hugging, and forcing politicians to vote his way. A better backroom politician is difficult to imagine than the gruff Texan.
Ironically precisely these skills served LBJ poorly in making decisions about the war. LBJ’s cabinet was—on paper at least—one of amazing daring and intellect. They should have been very good at managing to ask tough questions and come to new conclusions about the war. They should have been excellent in finding new strategies. But LBJ always regarded his cabinet warily. His years of convincing cagey politicians to vote his way taught him to value consensus over debate, comitment over evidence. When LBJ listened to his cabinet he wanted to here one basically similar positive story about the war; he didn’t want political enemies and rivalries to surface from inside his government.
All of this, Herring explains, helped lead Johnson to never fully understand the complexities of the war. Because he valued unanimous decisions, he didn’t spend enough time worrying about the right decision. Consequently the Johnson administration was always fighting with one hand behind its back.
I want here to make a simple point; one can have the best experts and information in the world, but decision making still relies on hearing that evidence presented intelligently, and comprehensively.
So, how does the Bush administration deal with evidence? Is the top priority keeping the ship sailing in one certain direction, in maintaining consensus, or is it on hearing as many sides as possible? Detailed information is hard to come by, but the reports aren’t hopefull.
I’ll relate two specific examples from one source. According to former marine captain Josh Rushing the media center in Baghdad had two very interesting characteristics. The first was that Rushing himself; a complete novice in media relations was assigned the task of corresponding with Al Jazeera. Why would a wet behind the ears captain get the nod over a more qualified and experiences person who might do a better job of convincing a crucial audience that America really has the Islamic world’s best interests at heart? Because the more experienced personnel were off doing other things including reporting to a domestic audience. Where does this suggest the priorities are, the long-term objective of international policy or the more immediate problem of domestic politics?
Perhaps even more disturbingly, Rushing claims that the media operations at Centcom were under the command of a political insider sent in (and given the equivalent a 2 star ranking) by the Bush administration. This young man in his thirties was select not for his expertise on international affairs, Iraq, or the Islamic world, but for his impressive performance in spinning American mainstream news. What we have here are central areas of policy being dictated by what appear to be the machinations of a thorough and excellent political machine.
Does Bush really demand that all information be presented in one page or less? Do the different sides of the administration engage in meaningful debate during meetings with the president present? Are decisions being made from the perspective of an effective and media savvy politician, or from the perspective of a thoughtful long-term international agenda?
I don’t have the information to answer these questions authoritatively. But the evidence in front of me is not encouraging.
posted by Michael Benson @ 2:23 PM
8 Comments:
And yet this simpleton who doesn't listen to advice or invite discussion has achieved some extraordinary geopolitical successes. Charles Krauthammer made a piece of this argument this week:
Within days of Sept. 11, the clueless airhead president that inhabits Michael Moore's films and Tina Brown's dinner parties had done this: forced Pakistan into alliance with us, isolated the Taliban, secured military cooperation from Afghanistan's northern neighbors, and authorized a radical war plan involving just a handful of Americans on the ground, using high technology and local militias to utterly rout the Taliban.
President Bush put in place a military campaign that did in two months what everyone had said was impossible: defeat an entrenched, fanatical, ruthless regime in a territory that had forced the great British and Soviet empires into ignominious retreat. Bush followed that by creating in less than three years a fledgling pro-American democracy in a land that had no history of democratic culture and was just emerging from 25 years of civil war.
This is all barely remembered and barely noted. Most amazing of all, John Kerry has managed to transform our Afghan venture into a failure -- a botched operation in which Bush let Osama bin Laden get away because he "outsourced" bin Laden's capture to "warlords" in the battle of Tora Bora.
Outsourced? The entire Afghan war was outsourced. How does Kerry think we won it? How did Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar fall? Stormed by thousands of American GIs? They fell to the "warlords" we had enlisted, supported and directed. It was their militias that overran the Taliban. I would agree that the Bush administration has a problem with hubris and a hostility to the alternative scenario, but how many adminstrations have overthrown two regimes with casulaties in the low-four figures? The U.S. lost 100,000 troops in a year of fighting in WWI, 400,000 in WWII, 58,000 in Vietnam...and Bush is somehow bad at planning and listening and handling information because he (quelle horreur!) removed the Taliban and a totalitarian Iraqi regime from power with remarkable speed and with remarkably few casualties.
They're doing something right in there, yes? The Soviets did what John Kerry says Bush should have done, pouring troops and heavy equipment into Afghanistan; they broke their military in a heavy, large-scale war. Bush issued orders to wage a war with far fewer troops, focusing on Special Forces and other light fighters and relying on Afghan warriors (what Kerry calls "outsourcing").
Doesn't this suggest that Bush learned from history?
"And yet this simpleton who doesn't listen to advice or invite discussion has achieved some extraordinary geopolitical successes."
That's a straw man Chris. I never claimed Bush was an idiot. Indeed I compared him to one of the smartest presidents we have ever had.
Now as to the rousing success of invading:
Removing a regime that has vastly inferior weapons, morale, and technology and little to no real popular support is easy. Building and maintaining a new one is hard. That was the problem the Soviet's faced in Afghanistan, that the U.S. faced in Vietnam and now that the U.S. faces again in Iraq. Let's hope we do better than those imperialist ventures did.
Fair enough. Still, I think the point about Afghanistan holds: Bush is adopting a far different approach than the Soviets took, which suggests he (or the administration) has learned from history. Or from something.
I would agree that, from where we sit and with what we know, Bush appears to be hubristic and pointlessly stubborn. But I doubt that we have the full picture, and overthrowing the Taliban isn't nothing. I do remember that many, many commentators were ready to cry "quagmire" from the opening bell, and the quagmire doesn't exist. Again, two wars in two countries (two countries that have caused spectacular harm to other adversaries) with casulaties that are, in the context of history, astonishingly light.
I doubt that this is comforting to the people who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we should still note that far more troops have died in a day, even an hour, in other U.S. wars. At this rate, Bush will have to fight for a couple more decades to lose as many soldiers as Robert E. Lee once lost in 45 minutes at Gettysburg. For another example, the U.S. lost 500 soldiers/marines/sailors/airmen/coasties a week at the height of the war in Vietnam. Why are casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan so (comparatively) low? Does someone get credit for that? Is it a consequence of the administration's plans and policy, or do we only allow that something is a consequence of the administration's plans and policy when we're apportioning blame?
I take exception to many of the statements that Chris Bray made or quoted. (Let me start by saying that I think that OEF was a major success overall and Bush's greatest success but I think some of his supporters greatly exaggerate what was accomplished.)
- "forced Pakistan into alliance with us" No, Bush didn't "force" Pakistan into an alliance. Two things changed that led to our alliance with Pakistan, such as it is. First, the unprovoked attack on the US made it extremely difficult for any regime to oppose legitimate requests for assistance against those who were plainly responsible. Second, the attack reduced resistance to an alliance with a despotic, repressive government that supported terrorism and contributed to WMD proliferation. Prior to 9/11, it would have been politically impossible (and undesirable) to ally with Pakistan.
- "isolated the Taliban" The Taliban was already one of the most isolated regimes in the world. 9/11 and their refusal to kick al Qaeda out eroded what little support they had previously had. I can't think of anybody who would have had trouble isolating the Taliban under those circumstances. Dan Quayle could have handled that job.
- "President Bush put in place a military campaign that did in two months what everyone had said was impossible" First, this is another straw man. "Everybody" didn't say it was impossible. The Northern Alliance was not strong enough to win on their own, but they were able to hold part of the country and had even attacked Kabul prior to our support. Our forces (particularly our air power) just pushed them over the top. Arguments were mostly over various approaches and the casualties, time frame, eventual outcome (victory wasn't in doubt but the degree of success was), and ensuing problems of each. Many in the military (including me) thought that the minimalist approach would take longer than a more traditional attack (it didn't), would make us beholden to unsavory people (it did), would make it more difficult to capture al Qaeda terrorists (I think it did), and would make it take longer to achieve stability (unclear).
- "in a territory that had forced the great British and Soviet empires into ignominious retreat" Taking Afghanistan has never been a real problem. Holding Afghanistan has been. Both the English and Soviets successfully installed friendly governments with relative ease. It's been making those governments successful and self-supporting in the long term or occupying the country that's eluded people. The Soviet example is particularly inapt since the insurgency in that case had major official support from the Arab world and from the US, neither of which applied in this case. I have great hopes for positive long-term change in Afghanistan but I don't think the mission is complete yet.
- "how many adminstrations have overthrown two regimes with casulaties in the low-four figures?" How many have carried out two wars, one of the completely optional, during a single term? But, in answer to your question, several have overthrown one or more regimes with virtually no US casualties (through covert CIA support for coups, insurgencies and the like).
- "The Soviets did what John Kerry says Bush should have done, pouring troops and heavy equipment into Afghanistan; they broke their military in a heavy, large-scale war." Completely wrong. First, the Soviets successfully took the country with about 500 advisors. They were the very model for the course we took. The heavy military came later as they tried to shore up their puppet government. I just hope we don't make the same mistake. Second, the Soviets were fighting a group heavily supported by numerous Arab governments and the US. That doesn't apply here. And last, John Kerry hasn't said that the US should have "poured troops and heavy equipment into a large-scale war". He hasn't even said we shouldn't have cooperated with the Northern Alliance in taking down the Taliban. He said we should have sent in enough troops to carry out the search for al Qaeda without depending so heavily on the warlords. That would have required neither heavy equipment nor massive numbers of additional troops. Maybe twenty thousand more light infantry could have had a huge impact on sealing the Afghan-Pakistan and Afghan-Iran borders with adequate troops for effective sweeps of the areas we had cut off.
Bottom line, if someone makes a fifty-fifty choice and gets it right, it could mean either he was smart or lucky. When he makes two fifty-fifty choices and only gets one of them right, I think the evidence starts pointing strongly toward the side of luck.
Mojo
Chris said, "Why are casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan so (comparatively) low? Does someone get credit for that?"
Because you're making the wrong comparison. Advances in military equipment and tactics have radically changed the number of casualties the superior force takes. And this case isn't anything like most of the examples you cited. The Civil War, WWI, and WWII were between forces that were on a relatively equal technological level and with similar equipment. This war was against a technologically inferior opponent whose military was dramatically degraded by a decade of sanctions and whose armed forces had suffered a dramatic defeat at our hands in recent memory (as well as periodic additional attacks against which they'd been completely helpless). A better comparison would be with the Balkan war. ("Does someone get credit for that?") There are some parallels with Vietnam, but there isn't another country providing major material and military support for the enemy, the enemy in Vietnam was well-established before we got there so a better comparison might be French casualties during the first 18 months of their war, we've learned a thing or two since Vietnam and have equipment US forces of that era could only dream of, and our casualties during the early years of Vietnam were very light in any case.
Mojo
Mojo,
I'm not a Bush supporter. I'm didn't vote for him, and I'm not going to vote for him. But I do think that he's had some significant successes, balanced by more significant failures, and I appreciate that you can acknowledge his success in OEF. This is all that I'm asking for: let's acknowledge the man's successes. I admit that I'm reflexively attacking criticism of Bush, because I've heard so many refexive attacks (not Michael's, btw); I'm doing the thing I can't stand.
A couple of points, briefly:
First, when Kerry says that Bush moved on to Iraq before finishing the job in Afghanistan, taking his eye off the ball (or words to that effect), I read that as a claim that the war in Afghanistan required more bodies and resources. Otherwise the war in Iraq did nothing to interfere with the war in Afghanistan, yes? Iraq constituted an act of taking our eye off the ball because it drained resources -- that's all I can take that criticism to mean.
This impression is supported by Kerry's talk about "outsourcing" at Tora Bora. The Soviets "won" in Afghanistan with a small force, then poured in far higher numbers (ultimately rotating through more than 600,000); my impression is that Bush has declined to escalate, and has maintained a strategy of what Kerry calls "outsourcing." Kerry decries this so-called "outsourcing" (which I would be more inclined to regard as "relying on allies" and "mercifully limiting American casualties") and sees a war in Afghanistan that apparently calls for a higher level of commitment -- since military commitments elsewhere detract from that effort. What do you think he means by that?
Second, high casualty figures aren't unknown in more recent wars. Granting that the U.S. military is far better trained and equipped than the Russian military, we can still note that, for example, the Russians lost an entire armored brigade in Grozny in a single short engagement, just about a decade ago. Disaster is always possible. Based on no more than what I read in the newspapers, my understanding is that the U.S. military has strategically pulled back strategically on several significant ocassions in Iraq, choosing to skip some immediate fights in favor of looking for a better opportunity. That suggests to me an environment in which political leaders aren't banging on military leaders to produce immediate results or else. (And I note that Dick Cheney was, as secretary of defense, the guy who compared Schwarzkopf to McClellan, so I doubt the much-favored claim that Bush is Cheney's puppet.)
Finally, I suspect that you're right here more than I am. But I say again that Bush seems to me to be achieving more success than we often acknowledge, and I doubt that his administration is as bad as it is so often portrayed.
Knock on wood.
Apologies for typos or inelegance in this post -- I'm in a hurry.
This is entirely off the point of Michael's original post, rather in reaction to Chris' point about giving Bush credit for his successes.
The question is, how much credit does a president deserve for military successes achieved during his administration? Just as they say the president is rewarded or punished at election time based on the state of the economy (which he has little real control over), is the same more or less true of military camapigns?
Assuming that the president sets the policy and then turns the military loose to pursue that policy, the credit (or blame) belongs to the military for how things turn out, especially in a brief conflict. Where the president really makes a difference is in a long-term conflict, where his ability to keep the country motivated and moving ahead may be a critical factor.
My opinion on a few president's and their wars:
Lincoln: credit due. Had a poorly performing military team, but persevered for 4 years against all odds.
Wilson: credit not really due. USA not in it long enough to need compelling leadership. Time, place and execution of conflict already written in stone before our troops got there.
FDR: credit due. People loved the guy. He'd been the head cheerleader for two terms before the war even started. Had a competent military team, but more importantly, set the agenda and sold it to the public.
Truman/Eisenhower: I don't know enough about Korea, but I'd say both men botched it somewhat. At least Eisenhower knew he wanted the US out, and took action.
Johnson: blame due. According to what I've read (and seen in 'The Fog of War') he's to blame for turning Vietnam into the big mess it became, when he could have avoided it.
Nixon: blame due. Kept fighting a losing war simply to keep up appearances during negotiations, when ultimately we caved in anyways.
Bush II: In Afghanistan, made the call to go in, but I haven't read anything that indicates he had an active hand in it after that. I give him credit for vision, and the military credit for execution. In Iraq, it may be too soon to tell completely. If it fails, Bush gets the blame (he could have chosen not to invade), and if it succeeds (not sure by what standard) he should get the credit.
Ross
Chris; I know exactly what you mean when you say, "I admit that I'm reflexively attacking criticism of Bush, because I've heard so many reflexive attacks". I grew up in Arizona when the local paper was run by Dan Quayle's grandad and Barry Goldwater was sometimes criticized for being too liberal, then spent the next quarter century in the military and the last ten in Texas. As a result, I sometimes do the same thing you're talking about but from the opposite end of the spectrum. It's nice to have a forum like this though, where people will support their claims with actual evidence that can potentially be countered rather than blind claims of righteousness.
Mojo
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