Military Operations | Council on Foreign Relations

United States

How the U.S. Military Thinks About Complexity

If you routinely read Pentagon reports, speeches, hearings transcripts, and news articles, you occasionally come across an assumption or claim that stands out. Yesterday, the Pentagon released a news article that summarized a speech given by Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. David Goldfein at the Brookings Institution. The article included the line: “Last year was the most complex year since 1968, the general said.” To understand what approach or metric led the U.S. Air Force three-star general to make such a definitive statement, I turned to text of his actual speech at Brookings: I had the joint staff historian go back and I asked him, ’Hey, from just a joint staff perspective, how does 2014 look like relative to other years as you’ve looked back?’ And he said, ’It’s number two in terms of the total number of issues that we’ve had to work. It’s number two only to 1968’ —in terms of as far as he could go back and look at the records. And in 1968, what did we have happen? Well, we had Russia invade Czechoslovakia—history rhymes right?—you had two major assassinations with RFK [Robert F. Kennedy] and Martin Luther King, you had the USS Pueblo, we had race riots across the country. So that joint staff was no doubt busy. This joint staff in 2014 was incredibly busy. This is an interesting way to think about complexity in the world, often described as “the strategic environment” by U.S. military commanders. Here, there is no apparent effort to characterize the world precisely, objectively, or with any degree of completeness. Rather, it is by the volume of total issues that the Joint Staff decided to work on. A more critical puzzle for the historian to examine would be why those issues were chosen and based on what prioritization, which were avoided and why, how they were tied to national and military strategic guidance, and how they were practically useful to inform civilian officials and military commanders. Conceiving of the world through the lens based on the quantity of issues is somewhat similar to conceiving of success on the soccer pitch through “work rate,” which is how much a player contributes by running and defending during a match when they do not have possession of the ball. A high work rate that is measured in terms of kilometers covered is not indicative of worthwhile contribution to the overall success of the team. It quantitatively proves that you put in a lot of effort, but not whether it was the most suitable or essential to achieve the desired objectives. There is also the question of whether the volume of issues selected by the Joint Staff to work on reflected the needs of the volume of employees. According to the most recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimate, the Joint Staff consists of 2,572 authorized positions—1,455 military and 1,117 civilian. It is impossible to know the size of this Pentagon headquarters organization in 1968—the GAO found that 2005 was “the first year we could obtain reliable data”—but it was markedly smaller, perhaps consisting of 400 to 500 personnel. If the world in 1968 was actually more complex—based upon a metric of total issues—it is remarkable that far fewer people working in the J-sections were able to deal with it. I would predict that this same time next year, the Joint Staff historian would find that 2015 will outrank 2014, given that that virtually all U.S. intelligence and military officials describe the world as perpetually becoming more complex and challenging. To what degree this is an accurate depiction of things, or how these officials project America’s role in the world, is worth a much fuller debate about U.S. grand strategy. Webster’s defines complex as both, “an emotional problem that causes someone to think or worry too much about something” and “a group of things that are connected in complicated ways.” The extent to which the military’s ideas about international complexity reflect the former or the latter is also worth considering.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko March 19, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Intelligence

You Might Have Missed: Drone Exports, Somalia, and JFK’s “Ordinary Mortals”

Department of Defense Press Briefing by Rear Adm. Kirby in the Pentagon Briefing Room, U.S. Department of Defense, February 18, 2015. Rear Adm. Kirby: These are actually proscriptions in place that we will follow and we will expect anybody that receives these systems to follow…It’s in our best interest to be able to have this kind of control, supervision, and scrutiny over the potential delivery of these systems because it’s a ubiquitous, now, capability. Not every nation has the same sophistication at it as we do, but this is a technology that’s not going away. So, it suits our interests, and I think it should suit the American people’s interests to know that we’re going to be involved, from soup to nuts, on how these systems are eventually transferred. (3PA: Kirby’s comments were in reference to a policy released by the State Department this week, which is the topic of my new column on ForeignPolicy.com.) Askold Krushelnycky, “ Ukrainian Forces Recover Downed Russian Drone,” The Intercept, February 17, 2015. A Russian drone was shot down over the weekend during heavy fighting against separatist forces near the government-held port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian forces.The drone was quickly identified as a Russian-designed and manufactured drone designated E08 by its manufacturer, the Enics company, whose logo and name appear in Cyrillic on its fuselage… Members of Ukraine’s 37th Mechanized Battalion, who brought down the drone, saw it crash into the Azov Sea, fringing the conflict zone. (3PA: In a recent Brookings Institution report on policies to preserve Ukrainian independence and prevent Rusian aggression, the authors noted that Ukrainian military officers claimed they have “no capabilities to jam or down Russian UAVs.” Of course, they do; drones are easy to shoot down.) Aisha Ahmad, “The Security Bazaar, Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia,” International Security, 39(3), Winter 2014/15, pp. 89-117. Since the collapse of its government in 1991, Somalia has suffered more than two decades of civil war along clan lines. For fiffteen years, these fierce tribal divisions were the main fault line of conflict. In 2006, however, a new Islamist movement emerged in the capital city of Mogadishu and quickly ousted the heavily entrenched clan warlords. Within the short span of six months, these newcomers accomplished what more than a dozen internationally sponsored peace processes could not: they centralized political control over the majority of the Somali countryside…(p. 90) The estimation results indicate that the price of security was significant in driving the Somali business community’s support for the Islamists over the warlords, and that both clan and Islamic identity may be overstated…(p. 105) This research suggests, however, that both ethnic and Islamic identity politics may actually be overstated in the existing literature, and that more work needs to focus on the pragmatic cost calculations of the business elite. By modeling civil war as a market for the provision of security, this article offers a practical, economic explanation for why Islamists may prove more competitive than groups defined by narrower identities. I argue that because certain Islamist groups have the ability to sell security to prospective buyers across ethnic or tribal divisions, they are able to charge the business elite lower rates than protection rackets that rely on a more limited ethnic or tribal base. By courting the valuable support of the business class, Islamists are thus able to monopolize the market for providing security. (pp. 114-115) Robert L. Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2015) pp. 413-414. In the midst of these maneuvers, for years the United States could not induce Pakistan to invade and occupy the militant safehaven in North Waziristan, which provided a base for groups whose primary targets were in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis lived in fear that to do so might drive those groups to join forces with others primarily focused on Pakistan, with potentially disastrous consequences to themselves. They had their own challenges, and were not about to take risks to defend foreigners, who—the Pakistanis reasoned—could take care of themselves. Over time, the efforts of Pakistan’s ISI [intelligence agency] to maintain links and to try to manipulate all these groups in defense of its own interests looked progressively to U.S. observers more and more like active Pakistani collusion with those who were killing Americans. In response, the employment of armed drones in the Pakistani Tribal Areas, which had once largely been limited to pinpoint strikes against foreign militants with operational ties to al-Qa’ida, was expanded, if press accounts and those of organizations dedicated to the subject are to be believed, to include attacks against groups of armed men apparently engaged in cross-border insurgency. Out of frustration with Pakistan’s unwillingness or inability to police its own territory, what once had been primarily a counterterrorism tool became a broad-based counterinsurgency tool. As the number of cross-border attacks increased, so did the number of drone strikes. The fact that such “signature strikes” were aimed at local, as opposed to foreign militants, and had a much greater propensity to generate collateral casualties among non-combatants, had the effect of greatly increasingly public outrage in Pakistan, and encouraging yet more militancy. (3PA: I first pointed this out six years ago, and am glad to see a senior CIA official responsible for overseeing these strikes acknowledge this now.) Arthur Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcour, 2002) p. 258. “If someone comes in to tell me this or that about the minimum wage bill,” [President] Kennedy said to me later, “I have no hesitation in overruling them. But you always assume that the military and intelligence people have some secret skill not available to ordinary mortals.”

Blog Post by Micah Zenko February 20, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Defense and Security

Obama’s New ISIS Strategy: Reflecting Reality

In his September 10 address to the nation, President Obama declared America’s war aims with regards to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL): “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” I wrote several pieces that pointed out how this was an unrealistic and unachievable strategic objective. Just as Presidents Bush and Obama previously vowed to “eliminate” or “destroy” several militant or terrorist organizations, and failed completely each time, I believed that it was a certainty that the United States would not destroy ISIS. My opinion was, in part, informed by conversations with State Department and Pentagon officials and staffers who unanimously thought that the “destroy” objective was unobtainable and should never have been articulated with such a maximalist term. Several Pentagon officials and outside experts were soon trying to convince senior White House officials to stop using “destroy” and replace it with the more plausible and undefined objective of “defeat.” The State Department special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, ret. Gen. John Allen, refrained from using the word, and it, not coincidentally, appears nowhere on the webpage that describes his activities. Legislation drafted by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to authorize the use of force against ISIS, which passed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 11, also excluded “destroy,” stating instead that the United States and its partners should “degrade and defeat ISIL.” Finally, during his confirmation hearing last week to become secretary of defense, Ashton Carter similarly never used “destroy,” but rather “defeat” several times, including in his prepared statement and in responding to Senators’ questions: “I certainly hope that we defeat ISIS quickly. But that won’t be a lasting defeat necessarily unless we have a political dimension to that defeat as well as a military defeat.” While the two strategic objectives may appear to have similar meanings, they are distinct both in military doctrine and in their common sense understandings. To “defeat” is to prevent an adversary from achieving its objectives through disruption and attrition, while “destroy” is to defeat an adversary to the extent that it ceases to function and can never be reconstituted. The latter is vastly more difficult and resource intensive, but it also sounds tough and decisive. Articulating tough sounding objectives for terrorist organizations—which have never been achieved—has been standard White House practice for over fourteen years, but that was no reason for President Obama to continue this misleading practice. Subsequently, I wrote an October 12 piece titled “Obama Should Change his Counter-ISIS Strategy,” in which I proposed that the president“be realistic and honest with the American people up front” and stop using “destroy.” I was pleased to see that this has been formally adopted in the White House’s new National Security Strategy. In Obama’s introductory letter, he writes: “We are leading over 60 partners in a global campaign to degrade and ultimately defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant;” and then later on page 2: “degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL;” page 10: “We have undertaken a comprehensive effort to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL;” and page 26: “With our partners in the region and around the world, we are leading a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.” It is noteworthy that this updated language is not only more in line with reality, but includes a temporal qualifier—“ultimately”—for when this less ambitious end state might be achieved. In other words, Americans should not expect this to occur on Obama’s watch. However, the president deserves credit for acknowledging that he made a strategic error on September 10, to the disappointment of many senior U.S. national security officials, when he declared an unachievable strategic objective. This is truly a “realist” foreign policy strategic change that should be admired and exemplified by future presidents.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko February 10, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action

United States

Guess Who’s Bombing ISIS?

Today, the New York Times reported that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) suspended airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in December, “citing fears for its pilots’ safety after a Jordanian pilot was captured.” The article states that the UAE will not participate until U.S. V-22 Osprey aircraft are based in northern Iraq, rather than Kuwait where they reportedly are now, so they can respond faster to execute a combat search-and-rescue operation to recover a downed pilot. The reason those V-22s are not in northern Iraq is that the airbases located there cannot be adequately secured from the potential threats from ISIS rocket, mortar, and small-arms attacks. Raising the overall level of the security of an airbase, including the approach and departure corridors, in order to station such a valuable air asset would require an estimated three to four hundred American troops. To be completely clear, the UAE is demanding that the United States place its troops at greater risk of being killed—in order to reduce the risks to its own pilots—before it will recommence airstrikes against ISIS. The UAE has two fleets of its own AW109K2 and AW139 combat search-and-rescue helicopters that it could station in Irbil, most likely, with Iraq’s permission. These are less capable than V-22s, but they could be used by the UAE if it wanted to immediately assure the safety of its pilots. Understandably, it would rather pass the risk on to U.S. troops and V-22 pilots. The UAE’s behavior is one of those expected dynamics of coalition warfare that I pointed out in October: Partners quit or significantly reduce their participation in direct military operations, impose strict limitations on how and where their combat forces will be deployed, and make demands of the more wealthy and powerful coalition partners in order to maintain their participation. Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm. John Kirby insisted yesterday, “Let me just more broadly respond to the idea that this is the United States’ war. It’s not. And I think a coalition of sixty nations proves that it’s not.” Indeed, many countries have declared some degree of support for the counter-ISIS coalition, but this is impossible to evaluate as this happens through unobservable and slow-acting policies. The commitment of providing kinetic military power is the most meaningful and consequential action that coalition members can take. Dropping bombs is immediately responsive, destructive, and relatively easier to document. How have the initial promises of the broad-based military coalition turned out? Yesterday, the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) which oversees operations against ISIS, graciously provided us with the updated data listed below. Note that the U.S. share of the burden has increased since September, when Maj. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian stated that the United States had conducted 74 percent of the 240 strikes against ISIS. Though there was no country break up provided in September, CJTF-OIR told us that the United States has provided 92 percent of the 1,011 strikes in Syria and 72 percent of the 1,236 strikes in Iraq. As the air war of attrition against ISIS continues, it is safe to assume that America will increasingly become the predominant actor in the air component of this military fight.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko February 4, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
United States

Should the United States Give Lethal Aid to Ukraine?

When reading the thoughtful report, Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do, ask: What political objective does it intend to achieve, and will the recommended policies achieve it? That objective is: “The United States and NATO should seek to create a situation in which the Kremlin considers the option of further military action in or against Ukraine too costly to pursue. The combination of closing off that option plus the cumulative impact of Western economic sanctions could produce conditions in which Moscow decides to negotiate a genuine settlement that allows Ukraine to reestablish full sovereignty over Donetsk and Luhansk.” Does the lethal and nonlethal assistance that the report recommends providing to Ukraine create this “situation” or produce these “conditions?” (There is another less concrete political objective—“preserving the credibility of security assurances for the future”—which credibility hawks can attempt to defend.) The report makes a convincing case, based upon the authors’ discussions in the region and their net assessment, that these military capabilities are indeed needed by the Ukrainian armed forces and could change the battlefield calculus, assuming that separatist and Russian forces themselves remain relatively static. But will the death of a few more separatists and destruction of Russian equipment achieve the political objective—changing the calculus of Putin’s thinking in order to compel him to endorse a genuine settlement. This is improbable, and there are two more troubling and foreseeable pathways that could unfold: it demonstrates that Ukraine is actually not that important to the transatlantic alliance, and this limited capability is the maximum of what the United States and NATO will do (this seems most likely); or, it triggers Putin to double-down on his support for separatist forces and non-uniformed Russian security forces in Ukraine to firmly establish facts on the ground before those capabilities are fully integrated into Ukrainian security forces, which could take nine to twelve months (this escalation concern seems less likely). (The report hints that the lethal aid should be rushed to deter “a new offensive [that] could be launched once the spring arrives in April/May.” This would be a highly ambitious, if not unprecedented, political and logistical effort.) Either the demonstration of the relative unimportance of Ukraine, or Putin’s escalation would result in a strategic failure in that it did not prevent “further military action in or against Ukraine.” Moreover, for a report premised on deterring further Russian aggression beyond Ukraine, it asks little of America’s NATO allies. “The U.S. government should approach Poland, the Baltic States, Canada and Britain regarding their readiness to provide lethal military assistance.” Presumably, these conversations have already taken place and, judging by the public comments of allied foreign and defense ministry officials, there may not be a commitment from them to provide lethal assistance. Notably, the authors do not propose approaching France or Germany, since their responses would be “no.” Furthermore, if European allies and Canada refrain, the report implies that the United States should provide this assistance, training, and sustainment on its own. The one specific recommendation that does square is “electronic counter-measures for use against opposing UAVs.” The Russians have tremendous redundancy built into such line-of-sight communications for small clusters of tactical drones. Ukraine would require a great deal of pinpoint jamming capabilities (and training) to effectively do this, and not fratricide their own communications. The enduring solution to preventing the Russian drone from collecting such battlefield intelligence—that supports their artillery and rocket fire—is to shoot down them down. The reason the report may not recommend shooting them down is the distinct possibility that it would result in further escalation. Recall the April 20, 2008, incident when a Georgian drone flying beyond a UN-monitored cease-fire line in the separatist region of Abkhazia was shot down by a Russian MIG-29 fighter jet. Less than one month prior, Abkhaz forces had similarly shot down a Georgian drone off the coast of Ochamchira with surface-to-air missiles. As the European Union fact-finding mission later determined, these drone incursions were “one of the sources of tension” that resulted in the military conflict that broke out between Russia and Georgia that August. This important report will be eagerly devoured on Capitol Hill, as there have been several Pentagon and U.S. European Command briefings for staffers and congressional members on what lethal and non-lethal aid the United States could provide to Ukraine and within what time frame. Whether there has been equal thinking about what impact, if any, this lethal aid would have on Putin’s calculus to endorse a ceasefire and eventual settlement is unclear. Many congressional members say that Putin has not been deterred, but he has, to some degree, because if he wanted to he could order the full-scale invasion of the entirety of Ukrainian territory. That he has kept Russian direct personnel support for the separatists’ brutal aggression relatively small (1,000 military and intelligence personnel by recent NATO estimates) demonstrates that his decisions are rational (to him) and done with some awareness of the likely consequences. It is conventional wisdom among these congressional members, though less so among staffers, that Putin will be deterred if just enough lethal aid is provided to Ukraine. But how much is that, exactly, and what if he is not deterred, since he retains an estimated forty-thousand well-trained ground troops and fleets of air-to-ground attack aircraft just across the border in Russia, which he could unleash quickly?

Blog Post by Micah Zenko February 2, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
United States

Challenging the Terrorist Safe Haven Myth

For thirteen years, U.S. counterterrorism strategy has relied on an assumption that arose after 9/11, but this assumption requires in-depth study.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko January 27, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action

Military Operations

You Might Have Missed: ISIS, Defense Contractors, and Yemen

Tim Starks, “Congress on Yemen,” Roll Call, January 22, 2015. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): ISIL is a bigger threat to us than anything I can think of right now. (3PA: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) has killed 3 Americans, while non-communicable diseases killed 2,337,280 Americans in 2013. For a list of much bigger threats than ISIS, see here.) Hearing on Global Challenges and U.S. National Security Strategy, Senate Armed Services Committee, January 21, 2015. MR. SCOWCROFT: I think we should not be more involved in the ISIS exercise. I believe that this is a case where the region is being threatened. And the powers of the region are being threatened. The states of the region are being threatened. And we ought to encourage and help them to respond, but not respond for them. And that’s a difficult line. But I think it’s an important one because the Middle East does belong to the Middle East countries. And we ought to encourage them to behave responsibly… SEN. MCCAIN: I might make mention that the head of MI5 recently gave a speech a week ago saying that he believed that ISIS is planning an attack on the United States of America. I don’t disagree with him. (3PA: As recent as January 12, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stated, “We have no specific, credible intelligence of an attack of the kind in Paris last week being planned by terrorist organizations in this country.” Why would McCain trust the assessment of the head of domestic intelligence in Britain, but not that of the head of homeland security?) “Air strikes killed 6,000 ISIS fighters: U.S. Ambassador,” Al-Arabiya, January 22, 2014. “We estimate that the airstrikes have now killed more than 6,000 ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq,” [Ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones] said. (3PA: When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was asked about this estimate, he astutely responded, “I don’t think it is the measurement. I mean, I was in a war where there was a lot of body counts every day. And we lost that war.”) Lisa Ferdinando, “Chairman: Terrorism, Russian Aggression Threaten European Security,” Army News Service, January 19, 2015. The threat from Islamic terrorists will not get any easier, [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey] said. “I think this threat is probably a 30-year issue.” (3PA: If Dempsey’s estimate is correct, it would mean the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria will be even longer than the Cold War—1947-1989 vs. 1998-2045.) “Defense Headquarters: DOD Needs to Reassess Personnel Requirements for the Office of Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, and Military Service Secretariats,” U.S. Government Accountability Office, January 2015. OSD estimated that there were about 3,287 contractor full-time equivalents throughout the organization, which represents about 55 percent of OSD’s total workforce in fiscal year 2013… Jeremy M. Sharp, “Yemen: Background and U.S. Relations,” Congressional Research Service, January 21, 2015, p. 29.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko January 23, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Defense and Security

You Might Have Missed: Drone Pilots, Press Freedom, and CIA Accountability

Daily Press Briefing, U.S. Department of State, January 15, 2015. MARIE HARF: So clearly, we think that media organizations should have the right publish what they want. Doesn’t mean they have to prove that they can. It’s obviously a decision for them to make. (3PA: The same day the State Department spokesperson said this, FBI director James Comey wrote a letter to the New York Times, which stated: “Your decision to grant anonymity to a spokesperson for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula so he could clarify the role of his group in assassinating innocents, including a wounded police officer, and distinguish it from the assassination of other innocents in Paris in the name of another group of terrorists, is both mystifying and disgusting…I fear you have lost your way and urge you to reconsider allowing your newspaper to be used by those who have murdered so many and work every day to murder more.” The hypocrisy between championing freedom of the press and demanding censorship never ceases.) “Cyber-crime and business: Think of a Number and Double It,” Economist, January 17, 2015. But how many businesses suffer from cyber-crime, and how much it ultimately costs them, are huge unknowns…If there were more disclosure, and thus more information on the amount, types and costs of cyber-crime, companies would know better how to spend their information-security budgets. It would also be easier to work out what sort of insurance cover to buy... Consider one from a 2014 study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington, DC. Cyber-crime, it concluded, bleeds between $300 billion and $1 trillion from businesses worldwide each year. One of the study team says that good data were so scarce, they had joked about publishing the findings along with an online random-number generator that readers could click on until it produced an estimate to their liking. “That was a little depressing”, he says. The study was sponsored by McAfee, a large American seller of antivirus software. Its own 2009 calculation of the global cost to businesses produced the figure of more than $1 trillion. This was roundly derided as bloated, even by researchers who had provided McAfee with data from which the estimate was extrapolated. One of them, Eugene Spafford, a Purdue University computer scientist, said he was “really kind of appalled” by the exaggeration. McAfee republished the number in 2011. It still circulates. State of the Air Force, U.S. Department of Defense, January 15, 2015. DEBORAH LEE JAMES, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE: The airmen who perform this essential mission do a phenomenal job, but talks with the RPA pilots and the sensor operators, and their leaders certainly suggested to me, that this is a force that is under significant stress from what is an unrelenting pace of operations. Now, these pilots, just to give you a little color on this, fly six days in a row. They are working 13-14 hour days on average. And to give you a contrast, an average pilot in one of our manned Air Force aircraft flies between 200 and 300 hours per year. Again, these are averages. But in the RPA world, the pilots log four times that much, ranging from 900 to 1100 flight hours per year. And again, this is very stressful operations because mistakes can cost lives. Finally, I learned that many of our experienced operators are nearing the end of their active-duty service commitment, which means they will have a choice in the not too distant future to either stay with us or leave the Air Force. QUESTION: Has the pressure and the strain on the RPA pilots led to a decline in the number of caps that you can put out there at any one time, or a slow-down in any hoped-for growth that you had in the number of caps? Has there been an operational effect? Obviously on these individual pilots, a lot of extra hours, but have you had to reduce what you can provide combatant commanders in terms of... GEN. MARK A. WELSH III, AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF: No, we had not. We’ve met the operational demand signal, but we’re doing it by putting people in a position where they’re now having a debate whether they want to continue doing this. And that’s not a healthy debate for us over time or for the combatant commanders over time… Final Report of the Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Network Agency Accountability Board, Central Intelligence Agency, released January 14, 2015. There is some confusion as to who in Senior Leadership authorized what action and when they issued these directives. The OIG told the Board that [name redacted] conveyed the D/CIA’s interest in the matter before [name redacted] had received feedback from the D/CIA, but other information before the board makes it appear there was regular dialogue with leadership as events unfolded. (p. 26) Remarks by Secretary Hagel at a Troop Event at Marine Corps Station Miramar, California, U.S. Department of Defense, January 13, 2015. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CHUCK HAGEL: The other part of what I’ve learned on this is you can’t force the United States value system and our values and our standards and our structures and our institutions down anybody’s throat. And we make huge mistakes when we think we can go around and make many USAs all over the world. It just won’t work, never has worked.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko January 16, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Military Operations

Guest Post: Obama’s Legacy-Troop Reductions or Drone Strikes?

Amelia M. Wolf is a research associate in the Center for Preventive Action and the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. In its latest edition, New York Magazine published “The Obama History Project,” in which fifty-three "historians" (actually a mix of sociologists, political scientists, journalists, etc.) responded to a questionnaire about how President Obama and his administration will be viewed in twenty years. Thirty were asked: “Which will prove to be more significant: the reduction of troops on the ground, or the increase in the use of military drones?” Though responses vary, fifteen believe the use of drones will be more significant in the long run, while ten believe it will be the reduction of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The remaining five respondents stated it will be both (three), neither (one), or that it cannot yet be determined (one). The historians responses are as follows: Edward Baptist: The reduction of troops on the ground and the increase in the use of drones are two sides of the same coin. Kai Bird: Unfortunately, the drone will forever be associated with the Obama presidency. Gordon Chang: The reduction of ground troops should be commended but the increase of drones is directly connected. Americans don’t want further combat deaths but neither do they want to endorse the difficult but necessary effort to construct a new foreign-policy attitude that addresses the real grievances against the United States around the world. Jonathan Darman: The increase in drones. Presidents will long note that a war-skeptic like Obama not only embraced drone warfare but paid essentially no price for it with his peace-loving base. Mike Davis: Drones. Mary Dudziak: Most significant because most enduring will be the way Obama has legitimated and institutionalized the use of drones, including for targeted killings, developing a secret set of rules about their use. Joseph Ellis: The reduction of troops. Drones, in fact, have made that possible, but the absence of oversight will haunt Obama’s reputation unless he imposes safeguards in his last two years. Annette Gordon-Reed: The increased use of military drones. We’ve reduced troops on the ground on many occasions throughout U.S. history. Using drones brings us into a Brave New World or a quite unsure new world. Aram Goudsouzian: The ramped-up use of military drones may trouble future historians, but in the big-picture narrative of the wars in the Middle East, the Obama administration will be responsible for dialing down the troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for dealing with the unforeseen consequences of the military intervention and withdrawal. Alexander Gourevitch: The reduction of troops on the ground. It set a new dynamic in play in Afghanistan and Iraq, while also freeing up troops for whatever wars and interventions the U.S. fights in the future. The drones are a terrifying image of techno-imperial domination, but they are not the core of American power abroad. David Greenberg: Reduction of troops. Thomas Holt: Drone warfare is likely to be the most unfortunate legacy of the Obama presidency (along with the expansion of the security state), having established precedents for future administrations, much as Bush’s aggressive military policies and “war on terror” left precedents for his. Paul Kahn: The reduction of troops. Drones target individuals; troops fight wars. David Kennedy: Drones. That’s where much of the future lies. Charles Kesler: Troop reductions. Stephen Kinzer: Another president might have decided to continue waging Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama may be remembered for being willing to face the reality of America’s defeat and the impossibility of long-term victory over locally based forces. James Kloppenberg: That depends as much on the next two years as the next 20. We’ll find out whether we can actually withdraw those troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (which looks less likely every day) and whether the drone strikes actually diminish the appeal and power of violent Islamic fundamentalism or merely feed the anger that generated that radicalism in the first place. If our allies as well as our enemies in the Middle East continue funding for those radical groups, it’s hard to see that any amount of conventional force or high-tech bombing will weaken them. We’ve had 13 years in Afghanistan with almost nothing to show for the trillions we’ve spent, and we’ve made Iraq little or no better than it was under Saddam Hussein. Why Obama deserves the blame for those failures remains a mystery to me. Matthew Lassiter: Military drones, although both would have happened regardless of the president. Jackson Lears: The use of drones will have a long-term impact, encouraging ill-advised interventions by making them seem cost-free. James Mann: The two are closely interrelated: The use of the drones enabled the reduction in troops, and the reduction in troops led to the use of the drones. The use of the drones has greater historical importance because it is a new form of warfare. But the reduction in troops carries far more practical and political importance: stationing American troops inside another country affects that country’s politics, more of its people, and more American military personnel. Alfred McCoy: Obama will be remembered as the progenitor of drone warfare and cybercombat. Lisa McGirr: The increase in military drones. Miriam Pawel: Reduction of troops on the ground. Kimberly Phillips-Fein: They’re flip sides of the same coin, in a way—but the use of military drones, which shifted the nature of warfare in ways that make it dangerously remote from human agency, will prove to be more significant. Jeffrey Rosen: Drones. Theda Skocpol: Wrapping up the ground war/occupation in Iraq was the most important Obama move, particularly if he continues to refuse pressures for a renewed ground invasion of that region, as I believe he will. Nikhil Singh: Drones. The arrogation of the right of the U.S. president to kill anyone, anywhere in the world, without due process is an abomination and suggests a government that still regards itself as above and beyond the law: the definition of a rogue state. Moreover, detailed on-the-ground analysis by the human-rights group Reprieve points out that U.S. attempts to kill 41 individuals in drone attacks have resulted in over 1,100 deaths. Even if assassination by drone were acceptable, these numbers (or anything approaching them) suggest a level of operational failure, a lack of accountability, and a sheer disregard for human life that should not be. Harry Stout: Reduction of troops on the ground. Stephen Walt: Neither one. It doesn’t matter which weapons the United States decides to use to kill people it regards as enemies; the critical question is whether it continues to conduct such actions in many far-flung corners of the world. And Obama’s willingness to expand targeted killings by both drones and troops will be a dark shadow over a mostly positive legacy. Robert Williams: Military drones. They will be emblematic of Obama’s colossal failure as president to make the country squarely confront or even really stop to think about what it meant to construct the 21st-century surveillance state along the identical patterns that had been laid out by his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Micah Zenko January 13, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Military Operations

Tracking Eight Years of Airstrikes in Afghanistan

This blog post was coauthored with my research associate, Amelia M. Wolf. On October 7, 2001, the United States and United Kingdom, as part of the military campaign to topple the Taliban, began conducting airstrikes in Afghanistan. The air attacks were carried out by five B-1 and ten B-52 bombers operating out of Diego Garcia, twenty-five F-14 and F-18 fighter aircraft launched from naval carriers in the Arabian Sea, two B-2 bombers from Whiteman air force base in Missouri, as well as some fifty cruise missiles fired from off shore. Those initial airstrikes were against thirty-one targets consisting of air defense radars, Taliban airfields and command-and-control facilities, and al-Qaeda training camps. After the Taliban was removed from power and remnants of concentrated al-Qaeda fighters had dispersed, airstrikes were significantly curtailed by the end of December 2001. According to the U.S. Air Force, during the initial 76 days of bombing, some 6,500 strike sorties were flown, with 17,500 munitions dropped on over 520 targets. Over the next several years, U.S. and NATO airstrikes continued, but at a much reduced tempo. The total number of strikes and bombs dropped are unknown because they have not been presented in a comprehensive manner to the public. Beginning in 2006, however, the U.S. Air Force Central Command (AFCENT) made this information available on a month-by-month basis, which allows for a better understanding of the trends in the use of air power in Afghanistan. Over the previous eight years, the United States and, to a far lesser extent, its Western partners have conducted 16,541 strike sorties and dropped 36,791 bombs. There also are no publicly available estimates of the number of suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda militants killed with these strikes, though there have been estimates of civilian casualties compiled by the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan. For example, in 2008 there were an estimated 552 civilian deaths as a result of airstrikes, and in 2014 (through November 15) there had been more than 78 civilian deaths. Although President Obama claimed two weeks ago that “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion,” U.S. airstrikes will continue, including for force protection and counterterrorism missions, and to provide close air support for Afghan forces.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko January 8, 2015 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Military Operations

You Might Have Missed: Civilian Casualties in Iraq, High-Value Targets, and Treaties

Department of Defense Press Briefing by Lt. Gen. Terry in the Pentagon Briefing Room, U.S. Department of Defense, December 18, 2014. Q: I was hoping you could clarify how airstrikes are being conducted without any JTACs [joint terminal attack controllers] on the ground in most cases. And also how you assess civilian casualties in those cases, if at all. Gen. Terry, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve: …We have some great capability in terms of precision. What’s in the balance here if you’re not careful is you can be precisely wrong. You could strike, you know, tribes. You could strike Iraqi security forces. And you could create a very bad situation. To date, we’ve got a very good record. I am tracking no civilian casualties. If we even suspect civilian casualties, we would immediately direct investigation, determine the cause, and then seek to understand the lessons learned from that and apply those lessons learned. (3PA: This is implausible, but, if true, totally unprecedented in the history of airpower: 1,361 airstrikes and no non-combatants killed. A good follow-up question would be to ask Lt. Gen. Terry if he would acknowledge civilian casualties when they occur.) “CIA Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Tool,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 7, 2009, released by Wikileaks, December 18, 2014. HVT [High-value target] strikes, however, may increase support for the insurgents, particularly if these strikes enhance insurgent leaders’ lore, if noncombatants are killed in the attacks, if legitimate or semi legitimate politicians aligned with the insurgents are targeted, or if the government is already seen as overly repressive or violent. Because of the psychological nature of insurgency, either side’s actions are less important than how events are perceived by key audiences inside and outside the country, according to an academic expert on counterinsurgency...(p. 2) Moreover, the Taliban has a high overall ability to replace lost leaders, a centralized but flexible command and control overlaid with egalitarian Pashtun structures, and good succession planning and bench strength, especially at the middle levels, according to clandestine and US military reporting.(p. 9) (3PA: The same day the report questioning the efficacy of killing high-value leaders was leaked, the Pentagon issued a press release touting, “Since mid-November, targeted coalition airstrikes successfully killed multiple senior and mid-level leaders within the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),” which “degrades ISIL’s ability to command and control current operations.”) Jennifer Kavanagh, “U.S. Security-Related Agreements in Force Since 1955,” RAND Corporation, December 17, 2014, pp. 22-23. The increase in the number of treaties in force has been relatively steady over the time period considered but does appear to increase at a more rapid rate around the 1991 collapse of the U.S.S.R. This trend is consistent with the trend in new treaties entering into force each year and is driven, at least in part...by the emergence of a number of new states with the break-up of the Soviet Union. Sandra I. Erwin, “Military Study Criticizes Direction of U.S. National Security Policy,” National Defense Magazine, December 13, 2014. The counterterrorism machine the United States stood up after the 9/11 attacks has become a bureaucratic juggernaut that struggles to adapt, [Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, commanding general of U.S. Army Special Operations Command] said. "We built a great apparatus for terrorism. It has huge advocacy. If someone questions it, you run the risk of taking on an entrenched infrastructure." The United States needs fresh ideas on how to make the nation safe, he said, and they can’t just involve military actions. "We keep adapting the existing tools the best we can but at some point we have to develop new tools, new ways to look at this problem." (3PA: Read this excellent, short RAND report on “Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War.”) “Defense Infrastructure: Risk Assessment Needed to Identify If Foreign Encroachment Threatens Test and Training Ranges,” U.S. Government Accountability Office, December 2014, p. 5. Military test and training ranges are used primarily to test weapon systems and to train military forces. Test ranges are used to evaluate warfighting systems and functions in a natural environment and under simulated operational conditions. Training ranges include air ranges for air-to-air, air-to-ground, drop zone, and electronic combat training; live-fire ranges for artillery, armor, small arms, and munitions training; ground maneuver ranges to conduct realistic force-on-force and live-fire training; and sea ranges to conduct ship or submarine maneuvers. In February 2014, DOD reported to Congress that it had 533 test and training ranges throughout the United States and overseas. These included 456 Army ranges, of which 384 were in the United States; 23 Navy ranges, of which 18 were in the United States; 40 Air Force ranges, of which 35 were in the United States; and 14 Marine Corps ranges, of which 13 were in the United States. Alexander R. Wieland and Adam M. Howard, eds., “Arab-Israeli Dispute, August 1978-December 1980,” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume IX (U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2014), pp. 60-61. 21. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter Washington, August 31, 1978 SUBJECT: Strategy for Camp David …7. Both Sadat and Begin must starkly see the consequences of success and failure if they are to make hard choices. —Failure brought on by Sadat’s intransigence would bring to an end the special US-Egyptian relationship. Even if Sadat is not held responsible for the collapse of negotiations, we would find it increasingly difficult to maintain the close ties of the past few years and the Soviet Union would find opportunities to strengthen its position in the area at Sadat’s expense as well as our own. Sadat must be told that we cannot afford more surprise moves by him if we are to work together effectively for a peace agreement. We expect to be consulted before Sadat takes new initiatives. —Begin must see that US-Israeli relations are based on reciprocity. Our commitment to Israel’s security and well-being must be met by an Israeli understanding of our national interests. If Israel is responsible for blocking progress toward peace in the Middle East, Begin should be told clearly that you will have to take the following steps, which could affect the US-Israeli relationship: —Go to the American public with a full explanation of US national interests in the Middle East (strategic relations with Soviets, economic interests, oil, cooperation with moderate regimes). —Explain the scale of US aid to Israel ($10 billion since 1973, or nearly $4000 for each Israeli citizen). Despite this, Israel is unwilling to reciprocate by showing flexibility in negotiations. —We will be prepared to spell out publicly our views on a fair settlement. —We will be unable to defend Israel’s position if the negotiations shift to the UN or Geneva. (3PA: It’s hard to imagine any White House administration exercising such leverage over Egypt or Israel again.)

Blog Post by Micah Zenko December 19, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Intelligence

How U.S. Officials and Congress Have Defended Drone Strikes in Light of the Torture Report

Press Briefing by the Press Secretary Josh Earnest, White House, December 11, 2014. Q: And finally, has the President ever sought a formal assessment from the intelligence community about whether the drone program is a net asset, either because of our moral authority, or in terms of creating more enemies than it takes off the battlefield? MR. EARNEST: Well, I’m not aware of any intelligence assessment like this. You can certainly check with the office of the Director of National Intelligence to see if they’re aware of anything like this that they could talk to you about. CIA Director John O. Brennan Holds a News Conference On the CIA’s Former Detention and Interrogation Program, Central Intelligence Agency, December 11, 2014. QUESTION: Your agency is involved in overseeing the drone program in which we know, from the government’s own statements, you know, that there have been some civilians, innocent civilians, killed alongside terrorists. I’m wondering if you feel that there’s enough control over those programs and that we’re not going to be here in a few years with another director having to answer these same questions about the loss of trust from the public, from policymakers. BRENNAN: I’m not going to talk about any type of operational activity that this agency is involved in currently. I’m just not going to do it. I will tell you, though, that during my tenure at the White House, as the president’s assistant for counterterrorism, that the use of these unmanned aerial vehicles that you refer to as drones in the counterterrorism effort has done tremendous work to keep this country safe. The ability to use these platforms and advanced technologies, it has advanced the counterterrorism mission and the U.S. military has done some wonderful things with these platforms. And in terms of precision of effort, accuracy and making sure that this country, this country’s military does everything possible to minimize to the great extent possible the loss of life of noncombatants, I think there’s a lot for this country and this White House and the military to be proud of. Interview with Maine Senator Angus King, CNN’s “The Situation Room,” December 11, 2014. BLITZER: As a member of the Intelligence Committee, the CIA. And so without revealing any classified information, the drone program is obviously very well-known. Do you have a problem, without going into specifics, and I don’t want you to break any of the classification rules, do you as a United States senator, who oversees this program, have problem with it? KING: I believe that the CIA is acting within the law and the intentions right now. That’s as far as I want to go. You’re trying to get me to say something I’m not... BLITZER: No, I don’t want you to break any rules. I don’t want you to violate sources and methods or anything like that. KING: And I’m not ducking the question. I’m just trying to follow the rules. BLITZER: Because, as you know, the critics of President Obama, they say, yes, he didn’t like the torture, he didn’t like the excessive interrogation, but these people, except for one that we know of in Afghanistan, they lived to talk about it, they’re still alive to this very day. When you send out a drone with a Hellfire missile and you go into Pakistan or Afghanistan or Yemen or someplace and you just kill them, in the process, you might kill relatives or family members. They’re not going to be interrogated. They’re just going to die. KING: Again, Wolf, I can’t confirm any information about the program. I’m sorry. Press Briefing by the Press Secretary Josh Earnest, White House, December 10, 2014. Q: You have repeatedly talked about moral authority. So can you explain how the President believes that it’s un-American to use these techniques but it was okay to ramp up the drone policy and basically thousands of people around the world, innocent civilians were killed. What’s the moral equivalency there? How do you have moral authority when innocent civilians are killed by drones? MR. EARNEST: Well, I think that the difference here, Ed—and this is a stark difference in the way that the United States conducts our policy and the way that terrorists around the world conduct their policy—that there is significant care taken and there are significant checks and balances that are included in the system to ensure that any counterterrorism action that’s taken by the United States of America does not put at risk innocent lives. Q: But they do in the end. I understand there are safeguards, but in the end, we’ve seen many cases around the world where U.S. drones have killed innocent civilians, despite those safeguards. So how do you have moral authority? MR. EARNEST: What I’m saying is that is a stark difference from the tactics that are employed by our enemies, who seek to use car bombs to actually target innocent civilians. Q: Yet you still kill civilians. No one is defending the terrorists’ tactics, but by your tactics— MR. EARNEST: But you’re asking about our moral authority, and I think there is a very clear difference…There is a very clear difference between the tactics that are used by terrorists and the counterterrorism tactics that are employed by the United States of America that go to great lengths to protect the lives of innocent civilians. In fact, many of these terrorists that we’re talking about—and, again, many of these counterterrorism activities that are used against terrorists are targeting terrorists that themselves have targeted local populations—that have targeted fellow Muslims in some situations. So the efforts that are taken by this administration to limit or to prevent innocent civilian casualties are consistent with our values and are consistent with our broader strategy for protecting the American people. “FBI: Torture Report May Spark Terror Threat,” CNN’s “The Situation Room,” December 9, 2014. SEN JAMES RISCH (R-ID): That’s true. And the more that’s reported and now affirmed by this report, it is going to damage our ability to go to our partners—and some of them are not necessarily allies—but also to allies and say, "Look, you’ve got this information. We’ve got this. Let’s work together on this." They’re going to be very reluctant to do that. A good example of that is the drone program today. You know, they talk about interrogation here. We don’t do that anymore. There’s no interrogation— WOLF BLITZER: There is interrogation, but not through these enhanced interrogation techniques. They question these terrorists. RISCH: They aren’t picking up prisoners anymore. What they do is when they identify a high-value target, the target is droned. There’s no terrorist left to interrogate. BLITZER: They’re not questioned, they just kill them, is that what you said? RISCH: That’s right. That’s what the administration— BLITZER: They don’t question anymore. I want to be specific here. So what you’re saying is President Obama has ruled out torturing prisoners, but he supports just killing them? Is that what you’re saying? RISCH: You’re saying that more directly than I would. Certainly, he has ruled out the torture, as has everybody. There’s nobody thinks that this is—this is a good thing to do. Having said that, when and if we get these people—and that is very, very rarely—they are interrogated. But more importantly, when we do identify these people, instead of trying to get our hands on them, they are subject to our covert drone program that’s out there. BLITZER: Which is targeted assassinations, killing of these suspects? RISCH: I wouldn’t call them assassinations. These are people in the fight against America. It is only people who we are engaged in conflict with, in war with that are identified and listed as possible targets for the drone program. Press Briefing by the Press Secretary Josh Earnest, White House, December 8, 2014. QUESTION: So what’s the difference between (inaudible) interrogation techniques and drones that kill civilians? EARNEST: Well, Nadia, the president gave a pretty detailed speech on this topic about a year and a half or so ago, where he talked about the desire to try to bring more transparency to some of the counterterrorism programs that are implemented by the United States. Despite that commitment to transparency, there are still some limits about what I can say from here, but I can tell you that the president does want to be sure, that as we execute the counterterrorism strategy that he has outlined, that we are mindful of the impact that those strategies have on our ability to win hearts and minds. Brian Bennett, “Dianne Feinstein Leaving Intelligence Job Amid Clash on Tactics Report,” Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2014. Feinstein also defended the CIA against efforts by the Pentagon to eclipse the agency’s covert drone program. She believes the CIA has a better track record than the military and more experience with the strikes. "They have the patience and they wait until the situation is right," Feinstein said. "There are not hot heads" making the decision on when to fire, she said. She has sent committee staff members into the CIA "more than 50 times" to make unannounced visits to watch the operation of the drone program, she said. The number of civilians killed in CIA strikes has declined in the last few years, she said. "Collateral damage is low," Feinstein said, which was one of her goals when she increased oversight of the targeting-killing program after she took control of the committee.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko December 12, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Intelligence

The CIA’s Torture Report Response

There will be a tremendous number of reactions to the graphic and troubling findings contained in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) study’s executive study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. There will be far fewer reactions to the CIA response to the SSCI, in the form of a June 27, 2013, memo that the CIA released today. According to a forward from Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan, “The CIA’s comments on the Study were the result of a comprehensive and thorough review of the Study’s 20 conclusions and 20 case studies.” However, there is one CIA acknowledgment that should be as disturbing as anything that is contained within the SSCI study itself. Page 24 of the CIA memo addresses the SSCI’s conclusion that the “CIA never conducted its own comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA’s response: We agree with Conclusion 10 in full. It underpins the most important lesson that we have drawn from The Study: CIA needs to develop the structure, expertise, and methodologies required to more objectively and systematically evaluate the effectiveness of our covert actions. We draw this lesson going forward fully aware of how difficult it can be to measure the impact of a particular action or set of actions on an outcome in a real-world setting. Therefore, the CIA admitted that—as late as June 2013—it was simply incapable of evaluating the effectiveness of its covert activities. This apparently made it impossible for CIA officials and those within the Counterterrorism Center (CTC), who were responsible for detaining and interrogating the 119 known detainees, to examine and assess if this detention and interrogation program was working at all. Given that the CIA has acknowledged this so recently, it should cast doubt upon all previous responses from Intelligence Community officials that defended and justified the program. If they had, by the CIA’s own admission, the wrong structure, expertise, and methodologies to evaluate the program, then what was the basis upon which they claimed it was needed and successful? Moreover, this also directly implies that the CIA lacks the ability to adequately evaluate its much larger, more lethal, and more consequential covert program: its role as the lead executive agency for drone strikes in Pakistan, and many of those in Yemen. Based upon the best publicly available information, the CIA has killed an estimated 3,500 people in non-battlefield drone strikes since the program began on November 3, 2002—the rest were killed by the U.S. military. In early 2013, before signing the CIA’s response to SSCI committee—that, again, admitted to the Agency’s inability to evaluate its covert programs—John Brennan gave an extensive interview to Gentleman’s Quarterly. When asked about public criticisms of the CIA’s drone program, Brennan replied sharply: There are a lot of people who talk about these issues very callously, on the outside. Because they’re not a part of it. And it’s easy for people to criticize, to lay blame…Sometimes you need to take these types of kinetic actions, because you’re trying to give these other efforts time and space. Yet, as he would acknowledge in June of that year, analysts on the inside were apparently incapable of evaluating when they would need to take those types of “kinetic actions.” I have spoken with former and current National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) officials and analysts, who have always been uneasy with having CIA analysts evaluate CIA covert programs. Specifically, they claim that—compared to the NCTC’s own analysis—CIA analysts are more likely to discount claims of collateral damage and the thesis that drone strikes creates blowback in the form of enhancing terrorist recruitment. Naturally, you should not have people with an institutional interest in the outcome of a covert program also serve as the analysts of those programs. As I have pointed out for years, there are many crucial reforms to U.S. targeted killing programs that President Obama must still implement, given that almost every one of the alleged drone reforms he announced in May 2013 never went into effect. (This also should lead Americans to question the value or objectivity of the CIA’s analysis that was provided to Obama before he made that speech.) Finally, since the CIA admits it was unable to evaluate covert programs before June 2013, there should be a comprehensive survey of America’s covert drone program, conducted either by the committees on governmental affairs or intelligence. If the 119 detainees who entered the rendition and interrogation program—26 of whom were wrongly detained—deserve a public accounting, then don’t the 3,500 who have been killed deserve this as well? Or, is the United States simply more comfortable with torturing suspected terrorists than killing thirty times more of them?

Blog Post by Micah Zenko December 9, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Military Operations

America’s 500th Drone Strike

The most consistent and era-defining tactic of America’s post-9/11 counterterrorism strategies has been the targeted killing of suspected terrorists and militants outside of defined battlefields. As one senior Bush administration official explained in October 2001, “The president has given the [CIA] the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now underway.” Shortly thereafter, a former CIA official told the New Yorker, “There are five hundred guys out there you have to kill.” It is quaint to recall that such a position was considered extremist and even morally unthinkable. Today, these strikes are broadly popular with the public and totally uncontroversial in Washington, both within the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. Therefore, it is easy to forget that this tactic, envisioned to be rare and used exclusively for senior al-Qaeda leaders thirteen years ago, has become a completely accepted and routine foreign policy activity. Thus, just as you probably missed the tenth anniversary—November 3, 2012—of what I labeled the Third War, it’s unlikely you will hear or read that the United States just launched its 500th non-battlefield targeted killing. As of today, the United States has now conducted 500 targeted killings (approximately 98 percent of them with drones), which have killed an estimated 3,674 people, including 473 civilians. Fifty of these were authorized by President George W. Bush, 450 and counting by President Obama. Noticeably, these targeted killings have not diminished the size of the targeted groups according to the State Department’s own numbers.

Blog Post by Micah Zenko November 21, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
Conflict Prevention

You Might Have Missed: Drones, Obama on Proxies, and U.S.-China Military Relations

Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference, White House, November 16, 2014. Obama: But we’re also very firm on the need to uphold core international principles. And one of those principles is that you don’t invade other countries or finance proxies and support them in ways that break up a country that has mechanisms for democratic elections. (3PA: The United States led coercive regime change invasions in three countries in the past thirteen years. Moreover, the international community has been funding and training proxies in the Syrian civil war for almost two years, and on September 19 Obama signed legislation to include the Pentagon in training the proxies. Presumably, these core international principles apply exclusively to other countries.) Steve Coll, “The Unblinking Stare: The drone war in Pakistan,” New Yorker, November 24, 2014. There are many reasons to be skeptical of the C.I.A.’s unpublished, lower estimate. According to former Obama Administration officials, the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, which oversees the agency’s drone operations, generates an after-action report, which includes an assessment of whether there was collateral damage. The center has a specialized, independent group that conducts post-strike investigations. The investigators grade the performances of their colleagues and bosses—not exactly a recipe for objectivity. But it seems clear that, over time, the Administration’s record improved significantly in avoiding civilian casualties… “The drones create a lot of misery in our area,” one student said. “So do the Arabs.” He meant Al Qaeda. “Why are the Arabs coming to our country? Why are they not fighting in their own countries? But we also say to America: If you say the Taliban are terrorists, yes, we agree. They are. But who created them?”… North Waziristan residents and other Pakistanis I spoke with emphasized how difficult it would be for a drone operator to distinguish between circumstances where a Taliban or Al Qaeda commander had been welcomed into a hujra and where the commander had bullied or forced his way in. If the Taliban “comes to my hujra and asks for shelter, you have no choice,” Saleem Safi, a journalist who has travelled extensively in Waziristan, told me. “Now a potential drone target is living in a guest room or a guesthouse on your compound, one wall away from your own house and family.” “You can’t protect your family from a strike on a hujra,” another resident of North Waziristan said. “Your children will play nearby. They will even go inside to play.” The researcher in Islamabad said, “There is always peer pressure, tribal pressure, to be hospitable.” He went on, “If you say no, you look like a coward and you lose face. Anyway, you can’t say no to them. If a drone strike does take place, you are a criminal in the courts of the Taliban,” because you are suspected of espionage and betrayal. “You are also a criminal to the government, because you let the commander sleep in your hujra.” In such a landscape, the binary categories recognized by international law—combatant or noncombatant—can seem inadequate to describe the culpability of those who died. Women, children, and the elderly feel pressure from all sides. A young man of military age holding a gun outside a hujra might be a motivated Taliban volunteer, a reluctant conscript, or a victim of violent coercion... Cheryl Pellerin, “Fiscal Crisis, Threats Test DoD Strategy, Readiness,” U.S. Department of Defense, November 16, 2014. One such area, particularly because of the ISIL fight in Iraq and Syria, [Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael G. Vickers] said, is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR. “There is just not enough of that capacity to go around right now,” he said, adding that primary reconnaissance aircraft in demand include the Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles. “We’re making due,” he added, “but we’re taking more risk in some areas. The demand now in Iraq and Syria is very high and we have challenges in Yemen and Libya and elsewhere, so we’re working hard to fix this but it’s not something you can get out of right away.” Without going into specific shortfalls, the intelligence official said, “we’re concluding that we will need more [drones] going forward than we might have thought a year ago if we hadn’t had Iraq-Syria and this situation.” Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States of America Department of Defense and the People’s Republic of China Ministry of National Defense on Notification of Major Military Activities Confidence-Building Measures Mechanism, U.S. Department of Defense, November 12, 2014. The United States Department of Defense and the People’s Republic of China Ministry of National Defense (hereinafter referred to as the “sides”): Reaffirm the commitment to the development of a new model of U.S.-China military-to-military relations, which is an integral part of the bilateral relationship: …The United States Department of Defense and the People’s Republic of China Ministry of National Defense (hereinafter referred to as the “sides”): Affirm that notifications should aim to reduce misunderstanding, prevent miscalculation, and manage risk and crisis effectively; and Establish a mechanism to inform when both sides would exchange notifications of major military activities on the basis of the principles of constructive cooperation, mutual interest, mutual trust, mutual benefit, and reciprocity, consistent with accepted international norms of behavior… Gen. Wesley K. Clark (ret.), Don’t Wait for the Next War: A Strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2014) p. 39. “Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary [Paul Wolfowitz],” I opened. I paused. It felt a little awkward as he looked up at me. I thought I better put it in context. “Sir, when you visited us out at the NTC in January, you said I should stop by to say hello when I got back to the Pentagon.” I paused. No reaction. I tried again. “Well, I just wanted to stop by and say congratulations for all that was done overseas. You must be very proud of the operations and the troops.” I wasn’t one of those troops, and, sure, that was a little disappointing. I’d been held in position at the National Training Center during the war to continue the training activities for our mobilizing National Guard forces. But I was proud of what our team and the Army had accomplished. Now Wolfowitz was engaged. He looked up at me intently. “Yes,” he said, “of course….But, we didn’t get Saddam Hussein. President Bush says his own people will take him out….Maybe, but I doubt it.” I knew there was a rebellion underway as the Shiites in southern Iraq took advantage of Saddam’s defeat to rise up against his control, and I had read there was some argument as to whether or not President Bush had flinched and called a halt too soon, or should have ordered General Normal Schwarzkopf Jr. to Baghdad. But I wasn’t prepared with an opinion one way or the other on Saddam’s future. “Still, we did learn one thing,” Wolfowitz continued. “We learned that we can intervene militarily in the region with impunity, and the Soviets won’t do a thing to stop us.” (p. 39)

Blog Post by Micah Zenko November 17, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action