2013 Patterson School Crisis Simulation

Introduction
Every spring semester, the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky launches a 24-hour policy crisis simulation. Thirty-five or so students are divided into 6-8 teams, each led by a faculty member or program graduate. Simulation Control, normally involving myself and one or more graduates or faculty members, manages the sim with a combination of remote and direct contact. The University of Kentucky School of Journalism coordinates with the Patterson School during the simulation, independently operating at least two news websites that cover the events in-sim. This year's simulation involved thirty-three students, five faculty members, three graduates, and a massive criminal conspiracy to steal defense-related intellectual property from U.S. firms.

The design philosophy of the Patterson School simulation concentrates on developing difficult decision-making scenarios for students. Students make decisions under conditions of time pressure, asymmetric information, inter- and intra- group dynamics, and exhaustion. Each scenario begins with a realistic premise, and the teams have realistic motivations and goals. Simulation Control feels free to abstract from reality, however, in order to facilitate this decision-making environment. In this case, abstraction was doubly necessary because of the highly technical nature of the subject matter, as well as the secrecy that normally accompanies policy work on the question. Obviously, we could not ask students to develop worms or conduct DDoS attacks against other teams, although some did employ innovative techniques for stealing passwords, such as observing and recording carelessly placed post-it notes.

The primary architect of the 2013 simulation was Patterson graduate Trevor Sutherland. Trevor was also my primary partner in conducting the simulation, and enabled the success of the project through his familiarity with the subject matter. We were also assisted by Dr. Alex Vacca of Northrup Grumman, who contributed in his capacity as a scholar of international affairs and cyber-security subject matter expert, and played an in-sim role as the head of the cyber-security firm "Germanicus."

Teams
The teams in this exercise fell into three categories: State actors, private firms, and non-governmental organizations. Teams included:

United States government (subdivided into departments)

Israeli government (subdivided into departments)

Green and Company Financial Services: A large American bank and financial services company, with significant interests in Canada and Israel

Smith, Smith, and Smith LLP (Smith3): A major New York law firm representing a wide variety of corporate clients, including Green and Co. and a number of defense contractors

Force Orange: A hacktivist collective that develops around the #opFreeEnoch movement.

An unnamed Russian criminal organization (RICO): An experienced and well-connected cyber-crime organization focused on the expropriation and sale of intellectual property

Websites associated with the simulation included:

International News Network: This is an international competitor to CNN, FNC, and the BBC.

BluWired: This is a tech and media oriented magazine.

Social Media Proxy (password protected): This site served as a proxy for general social media discussion of the ongoing crisis

Course of Simulation
The setting for the simulation involved an attempted terrorist attack (using an overcharged laptop battery) on an El Al flight. After the plane successfully landed, the terrorist explained that he had developed the idea for the attack by watching YouTube videos. As a consequence, the Israeli government attempted to ban a variety of similar videos from domestic distribution. This move sparked international controversy, which was exacerbated by the Israeli decision to arrest Enoch Moses Kaplin, an Israeli man who had disseminated software for evading the ban from his personal website. In response to this arrest, a movement developed around the hashtag #opFreeEnoch, targeting Israeli private and public institutions with a series of sustained DDoS (Dedicated Denial of Service) attacks. As news emerged that these attacks had spread to an Israeli branch of the U.S. financial services firm Green and Company, our simulation began.

The Israeli team quickly ascertained that many of the #opFreeEnoch attacks were coming from the United States, and placed pressure on the U.S. government to arrest perpetrators. The U.S. government followed through on this, while also monitoring the situation with Green and Company.  Green and Company took the step of shutting down Israeli operations completely, although the Force Orange attacks subsequently spread to the U.S. headquarters.

As these attacks proceeded, RICO took the opportunity to launch a prepared, sophisticated "spearfishing" attack against Smith3, targeting information about Smiths' defense contractor clients.  RICO had previously come to an arrangement with a Russian defense company wherein the latter would make implausible claims about American intellectual property holdings, in the hopes that U.S. contractors would enter into sensitive communications with their legal representation.  The Russians also launched an attack on Green and Co. just for the fun of it, managing to acquire some credit card, account, and password information.

These actions proceeded as planned until early Friday evening, when Force Orange determined that Smith3 represented Green and Co.'s Israeli interests and launched a DDoS attack.  This, combined with the previous Russian efforts, completely crashed Smith3's computer system, temporarily immunizing them from the Russian attack. This had additional effects, including making Smith3 aware of their vulnerability, and making the defense contractor clients nervous about the firm's reliability.  However, as the US government was focused on the Green and Co. situation, it paid little attention to Smith3's plight. In order to restore and improve access, RICO carried out a daring kidnapping of a Smith3 associate, prying out computer information that would assist with later attacks.

Late on Friday evening (early morning Israeli time), the Israeli government announced that most charges against Enoch Kaplin would be dropped, and that he would shortly be released from prison. The Israeli government also announced that it had received sufficient assurances from Google to allow full access to YouTube videos. This announcement substantially ended the #OpFreeEnoch operation, and slowed attacks on both Green and Co. and Israeli state institutions. However, disquiet at Smith3 persisted. Force Orange revealed that it had rejected entreaties from what it suspected to be a Russian criminal organization, although few took this revelation at face value.

After restoration of Smith3's servers, the Russian attack resumed. In consultation with the firm Germanicus, Smith3 noted an unexplained bump in .html activity, but undertook no immediate steps beyond contacting the U.S. government.  The U.S. government, having just apprehended a member of Force Orange, paid little attention to this contact. Force Orange responded by renewing its attacks on Green and Co., as well as by launching an SQLi attack against BluWired, a tech magazine and website. Israeli intelligence (in contact with some Russian assets) warned the United States that a security breakdown might be in progress, but the U.S. misinterpreted this signal by focusing on Pentagon defenses.

In the final hours of the simulation, Smith3 contracted with a private company to give advice on tracking the lost information. Although this took several hours, technicians eventually traced the loss to Liaoning, China, then to Tallinn, Estonia, where the trail went cold. Meanwhile, RICO began attempting to sell data to potential customers. A prior arrangement with a Russian state defense firm broke down over a price disagreement. The Russians pushed feelers towards Brazil and Israel before coming to an initial agreement with a Chinese defense firm for part of the information. At this point the simulation ended.

Lessons Learned
This section borrows heavily from Dr. Vacca's account of the simulation, as his views are largely in accord with my own.

Communication Breakdown: Perhaps due to the subject matter, paranoia set in early at the simulation.  Teams became reluctant to communicate with one another, and reluctant to convey their genuine concerns even while communicating.  Organizations which had suffered attacks were reluctant to reveal the full extent of those attacks, believing that a true account would undermine the credibility of their security.  This was especially true of Smith3, for which a reputation for security was a central asset.

Asymmetric Information: Communication breakdown enhanced the problem of asymmetric information, which is one of the hallmarks of these simulations.  The United States was unable to draw together the disparate information it received about the security attacks, in no small part because the information was difficult to decipher and came in small, seemingly discrete packets.

Creativity Pays: The RICO team had a great deal of freedom of action, and used it to good effect.  In order to make up for their lack of legitimate presence, the team (on its own initiative) developed a series of shell identities, which it used in collaboration with Germanicus to acquire intelligence about the other teams. RICO also responded in nimble fashion to the loss of access to Smith3, carrying out the high risk, high reward kidnapping of a Smith3 executive.  Although Smith3 managed the damage as well as it could, this helped accelerate RICO's theft efforts. Similarly, Force Orange took advantage of the lack of political constraints by engaging the other teams in a public manner:

People Make Mistakes: As noted above, the simulation is designed to mimic an environment in which decision-makers choose poorly.  As the simulation stretched into the early morning, the ability of students to process information and to maintain composure waned.  The teams demonstrated much greater energy and acuity after a short break allowed for some rest and recuperation.  Although seemingly obvious, this is a critical lesson for any organization; even crises that don't involve explosions can tax the wetware.

Consultants Will Outlast Us All: Germanicus, in the person of Dr. Vacca, received substantial (imaginary) cash payments from every team. Given the contradictory nature of team goals, this obviously meant working both sides of a problem at the same time.  In this exercise Germanicus acquired the veneer of respectability through his association with simulation management, but even in the real world the vetting of consultants and other third party actors can be difficult, especially in technologically challenging environments.

Conclusions
At the Patterson School we normally only run each simulation once; unlike the Army War College negotiation scenarios, we lack the opportunity to retool and tweak the scenario each time in order to improve outcomes. Were we to rerun this scenario, we would undertake some simple administrative changes, such as improving the access that each team had to information about the other (public) teams. In retrospect, I would not have paused the simulation at 2am,  instead pushing forward with some additional events to keep the teams awake, interested, and paranoid.

Altogether, however, the simulation represented a valuable use of our time. Students became familiar with a wide swath of terminology just as major concerns over cyber-security hit the New York Times and the Washington Post. The architect and the participants should all feel proud of their achievements. Next week Patterson will release a podcast giving some personal accounts of the simulation, as well as greater detail regarding the course of events.

My F-35 Question

A question on the F-35:

Perhaps more importantly, rules of engagement are inherently political. Civilian leaders, and their politically attuned senior military counterparts, will draw up guidelines for combat in context of political, not military, necessity. If the F-35 can only operate successfully in BVR context (and to be sure the networking capability of the F-35 make “BVR” a different proposition than with past aircraft), and if the civilians restrict the ability of the aircraft to operate under such conditions, then the utility of the fighter comes into grave question. This question is hardly academic, as potential peer competitors of the U.S. (including Russia and China) will undoubtedly take political steps to limit the ability of the F-35 to fight at full capability. Again, this may be even more true of the partner countries in the F-35 program, which often suffer from more rigorous political restrictions that U.S. forces.

Is the answer:

• The surveillance capabilities of the F-35 and associated systems are so impressive that the politically problematic aspect of BVR engagement disappears.
• The services expect to be able to muscle civilians into accepting their preferred ROE (perhaps using the F-35 as a cudgel in this effort).
• The integration of technological means with political ends has not been fully worked out.
• Some of the above.
• Other.

When You've Lost George Will.....

From George Will's column this morning:

"The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government’s size is at any moment, it is the bare minimum necessary to forestall intolerable suffering. At his unintentionally hilarious hysteria session Tuesday, Obama said: The sequester’s “meat-cleaver approach” of “severe,” “arbitrary” and “brutal” cuts will “eviscerate” education, energy and medical research spending. “And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf.”

“Forced”? The Navy did indeed cite the sequester when delaying deployment of the USS Truman. In the high-stakes pressure campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, U.S. policy has been to have two carriers in nearby waters. Yet the Navy is saying it cannot find cuts to programs or deployments less essential than the Truman deployment. The Navy’s participation in the political campaign to pressure Congress into unraveling the sequester is crude, obvious and shameful, and it should earn the Navy’s budget especially skeptical scrutiny by Congress."

Update:  In response to Bryan Clark's comment, I need to clarify something.  My reason for posting this was not to indicate agreement will Will's position or facts. Rather, I posted it to show the degree to which the sequester debate has alienated someone who is generally speaking, a Navy booster.  That said, Will is largely wrong on the facts and Bryan Clark is largely right.  There simply aren't a lot of options available to implement the sequester's spending cuts in a fraction of a year, which is why OM&N is a big billpayer. 

Bryan McGrath

Why Ship Numbers Matter, Part XXXVI

"Highlighting the continuing fallout from the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Libya that took the lives of four Americans, defense officials told NBC News on Wednesday that the U.S. Marine Corps is on the verge of announcing a new group tasked with crisis response in north Africa and eastern Europe. The group, which will be known as the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, will likely be based at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy.  The team will be capable of rapid deployment for responding to security threats throughout the region — including a U.S. embassy under attack."

And when you don't have enough of them, you do the next best thing, which is to land-base your force, subject to vetoes and restrictions from host-nations.

Bryan McGrath

The Unintended Consequence of the Earmark Ban

I have written here several times of my support for the discredited practice of "Congressional adds", or "earmarks".  Nothing gets me branded a RINO faster by my friends on the right than my continuing sense that earmarks were in many ways good for DoD (I don't have an opinion on their value elsewhere).  Earmarks were a method of keeping the bureaucracy on its toes, they contested the growing anti-competitive power of the federal labs, and they were a relatively efficient way of distributing resources MAINLY in helpful ways. 

But lets face it--earmarks served an even more important purpose, one whose absence is on full display as our system seems unable to get out of its own way.  Earmarks provided incentive to compromise.  Incentives provided leadership with tools to influence outliers.  Earmarks--to put it mildly--lubricated the system.

Committee assignments appear to be one of the few tools Congressional leadership has at its disposal to impose discipline, but as we saw in the Republican Caucus this year, even that isn't as powerful as "bringing home the bacon".  And as long as no one is "bringing home the bacon", there is no incentive to bend to the will of leadership and members simply have to answer to the folks back home, many of whom cheer their legislators (on both sides) along their paths to perdition. And there is little purchase in reaching across the aisle to fellow committee members to achieve goodness.  A necessary and efficient internal control is gone, and the system suffers. 

Now correlation is not causation, I'll grant that.  But the little I know about how the system works leads me to believe that the "relief valve" that was earmarks was essential to proper system operation.  Without it, the system has overpressurized and has ceased to operate effectively. 

Bryan McGrath

Sequester Looms: Congress Adjourns, President Golfs

One might think that the language of dire pain coming out of Washington last week would have been sufficient to steel our elected officials for the hard work of figuring out how to reverse their collective rectal/cranial inversion.  Instead, everyone left town (though the President is back).

For a couple of weeks now, I've been waving the red flag over my sense that DoD has become blatantly politicized by an Administration wishing to use it as a cudgel to achieve its broader policy goals, primarily that of additional revenue.  Additionally, there can be no question that the pure joy of appearing more pro-defense than the House Republican Caucus is good for several smiles a day in the White House Press Corps briefing room.  This battle is a two-fer for the White House, and in the process, they have hung the Service Chiefs out to dry--men who wittingly or unwittingly (I cannot say for sure) resisted what every bone in their body told them was the right thing to do (plan for the unthinkable). 

Along these lines, I received a couple of emails this week, the gist of which I'd like to share with you.

First, from a senior Air Force Official:

"The services had been prohibited from doing any planning until about three weeks ago when everyone started late nights, weekends.  Basically a Chinese fire drill because, at least in my service, and I'm guessing all the others, the real information fidelity is at the major subordinate commands, not in the Pentagon.  By us refusing to inform them and allow them to plan, you get the debacle you saw in testimony last week. I'm partucularly disgusted with Panetta, who I initially was a big fan of.  He, for purely political reasons, in my estimation, prohibited the Department from doing what it does best, plan and execute. We've been expressly prohibited from discussing ANY of the options with our civilian workforce. Since the FY is ticking away, the only way to get to the numbers of cuts is the draconian stuff described last week."

And then there's this, from a senior Navy Official:

"The administration has all along been trying to force the Congress' hand on Sequestration using the military, which some HASC members picked up on. For example, the reason we didn't plan was based on a desire to force Congress to act, and in hearings last week we were told to 'show the pain.' The reductions being undertaken now really are the only ones available due to having to cut $8.6B from about $20B remaining in operations and maintenance funding this year, but there has been pressure from the Administration to choose more high-profile reductions to make the hazards of sequestration more dramatic. Navy has resisted that pressure."

Charming.  I read this to say that the Navy is getting pressure to "fire teachers and cops" rather than lay off dog-catchers and dispatchers.  

I know, I know.  Many of you are saying, "hey McGrath, when did you all of a sudden become politically naive.  Of COURSE the Administration is doing this.  This is the way things are done in Washington.  Wake up."  I concede that naked exercise of power is common in this town, but the coin of the realm in getting things done is trust.  What I won't concede is the blithe politicization of the Joint Chiefs, jeopardizing their credibility and trustworthiness.  This goes too far, and institutional damage cannot be far behind.

Bryan McGrath 

Things I noticed from my China trip

I just got back from China this past Monday. I haven't been there for almost 7 years, so it's really a good opportunity for me to be on the ground to see for myself the issues that China and its citizens are dealing with. I've taken some positions on Chinese economy and government, so I wanted to talk to people there to see how they feel about different issues.

First of all, I will just talk a little bit about the small number of military related stuff I noticed while I was there. It seems to me that a good number of Chinese citizens think that a war with Japan might happen. Watching TV, it was interesting to see the number of political/military show talking about possible conflict with Japan. I also saw programs celebrating Chinese heroes from the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945. There is certainly plenty of anti-Japanese sentiment in China right now. There is a lot of pride within China over the achievements of PLA in the past year. Certainly, the commissioning of Liaoning and the first takeoff/landing of J-15 have received the most press. The recent test flight of Y-20 transport has also brought a lot of excitement. Also, I took a flight from Yantai to Beijing while I was in China, so used the Yantai/Laishan airport. Luckily, this also happened to be a civilian/military dual use airport. As my plane was taking off on the runway, I actually saw the JH-7A fighter bombers outside of their shelters, so I took a couple of pictures. I'm pretty sure they were the reason my flight got delayed.



Secondly, let's talk about some of the good things that I saw while I was back there. Xi Jinping's call for curb to extravgance is really working. While I was in Beijing, everyone was telling me about the reduction in these excessive banquets, gift giving and extravagance. A lot of local officials are going overboard in frugality in public in order to impress higher ups. Even in state companies, banks and universities, end of the year banquets are not being held with the fund being reallocated to those who really need the money. The official call for less waste seems to even affect the day-to-day lives. It's definitely good to see this kind of change after years of over abundance under previous administration. The other thing I noticed was how much richer everyone has become since my last visit. While I was in Beijing, it seemed like anyone that has good education and registered in Beijing are very well compensated even by first world standard. The living standard has definitely gone up a lot in the recent years. Even in some of the secondary and tertiary cities, you can find most of the products that you can find in the West. There is definitely a large and growing middle class who are enjoying their new found wealth. I don't know if this is a good indication, but there was a proliferation of Apple product everywhere I went. That's a welcoming news in light of China's desire to shift from an investment based to a consumption based economy. Along with this, it's quite apparent that the amount of available cheap labour has decreased a lot in the bigger cities. In previous times I visited, there were a lot of excessive labour doing jobs which really were not needed. For example, there were more typically more employees in restaurants than people eating there. There were also a person paid to press elevator buttons in pretty much every residential building. Due to the rising living cost and reduced number of cheap labours, businesses have become a lot more efficient. Finding employment is still a big issue for most municipal government, so I think the entire talk of drying up of Chinese labour pool is started by people who have never been inside the country.

A couple of other things I want to address are issues that I saw before I visited. I think the housing market is not as inflated as people think. I have often read about how real estate is overly inflated based on the cost of housing to average salary. I think that overlooks the fact that the actual salary is a lot higher than the officially reported numbers. What I noticed this time back is that secondary income (gifts + bribery) for a lot of well off people are many times their regular income. On top of that, people who have retired from state companies often get the same salary as if they have never retired. When it comes to purchasing real estate, this extra secondary income in addition to support from retired parents allow most couples of purchase places that their regular income would never be able to support. There are also rich people that buy many apartments in big cities because they like to own excessive number of properties to show off their wealth. So while real estate is inflated from market speculation and excessive liquidity, the situation is not as bad as the raw numbers would indicate. The other issue is the so called hidden debts in China. The idea that many Chinese banks carry debt from bad investment/non-performing loans and would need to eventually be bailed out by the government. What I noticed was that the lending practice in China is no where near as bad as what I read about in Western news. Also while there are probably 2 or 3 banks that Chinese government implicitly guarantee, it will allow other banks go under for their bad decisions. Either way, the Chinese banks (like their American counterparts) are making a lot of money at the current time.

Having said all of the above, there are also a lot of things that were worse than what I thought. I think that the entire registration system in China creates two class of citizens. In Beijing, those who are born there generally have good jobs, own properties and live comfortably. They also have access to public education system and health care. These privileges are not extended to migrant workers who do most of the hard labour jobs, because the Beijing government can't afford it. In order to address employment issues, certain jobs (like driving taxi) are only available to residents of Beijing, so migrant workers are left with jobs that Beijing folks don't want to do. While I was there, business all shutdown because all the migrant workers went home for Chinese New Years. There are also 4 major issues that I think are problematic to China:

• Pollution - This has to be the biggest problem. Most of northern China was under smog conditions for much of January. I wore a doctor's mask anytime I was outside and at least half of the people I saw were doing the same. During the first week I was there, it was uncomfortable to breathe when I was outside. Thankfully, wind from Mongolia blew away the smog for the second week, so things got better. I can see efforts by local government toward improving the environment, but it's hard to do so with increasing number of urban residents and cars. Most of the major cities in China are heavily polluted now. While my hometown improved since my last visit, Beijing was much worse this time around. People can't even do outdoor sports due to the bad air quality. There is no question this is a huge strain in the public health care system. China will also find it harder to attract foreign talents until they can clean this up a little bit.
• Corruption - This is almost as big of a problem as pollution. I think everyone knows that corruption embeds in the entire Chinese political system. In Beijing, anyone associated to government probably get more under the table than their official income. What I found shocking was how wide spread this corruption level is in other facets of the society. Pretty much anyone that has any kind of leverage will get gifts, red envelopes and other form of bribery under the tables. For examples, doctors get gifts (sometimes demand that) from patients, kickbacks from drug companies and equipment manufacturers. Any kind of procurement result in a lot of gifts for middlemen and those giving out the contract. Schools get bribes for allowing students with lower grades into their school. I was told that even people who don't want to take bribes end up doing so because they would otherwise be hard pressed to live a regular less style on their regular salary. It has become a regular part of life. Many people who gain from this system send their children abroad because they are concerned about being implicated in one of the anti-corruption campaigns. As one of my relatives said, "Unlike America, China is not a law based society. All the rich people send their family abroad because they are worried this system will turn against them. They want to have the option to leave the country if things turn against them or if China goes back to its former communist system. If I can send my family abroad, I would do so too." One of the major reasons that China has such stringent capital flow laws is because it's worried that money from all of the corrupted officials and rich people will flow out of the country. Chinese public has no trust toward their government but do have very high regard for the American systems. One of the people I talked to was surprised that I also have no clue how my local government is spending my tax dollars. Even with all of the reported corruption in the American political system, it's still child's play compared to the complete black box of the Chinese system.
• Piracy/Counterfeiting - While many people associate Chinese piracy/counterfeiting to Chinese copies of Western products or fake parts found in American military hardware, this problem is so much wider spread in China. I think many people have heard about the milk scandal in China from a few years ago, these problem of food/drink counterfeiting is everywhere. Brand name liquor like Maotai, Wuliangye and cigarette like Zhonghua are widely counterfeited due to their limit production and the rising income levels. In fact, it's very hard to find legitimate versions of these products. I was told that you can't find real Maotai in any of the restaurants in my hometown. Food counterfeiting has become so professional that even the lamb that people eat in hot pot are often pork soaked with lamb oil. The Chinese public have very low trust toward consumer products. When people buy brand name products, their biggest worry is not cost but fake products. This probably explains why brand name stores can charge outrageous prices for their products. One of the interesting part of this is Internet. While I was there, YouTube, Facebook and twitter were all blocked (Google services were inconsistent). According to the locals, there is a Chinese equivalent of every Internet service that I can find in the West. In the case of Weibo, it's probably even more popular than Twitter is here. While censorship is the official reason for the blocking of these Western websites, my feeling is that protecting local Internet industry is an equally strong reason. When counterfeiting is this far entrenched inside the country, it's not surprising that Western companies find their stuff getting copied in China.
• Inflation - First of all, China isn't experiencing hyperinflation like Iran currently or Zimbabwe from a few years ago, but prices have gone up a lot. Similar to their American counterparts, the Chinese government has been printing money like mad in the recent years and that has triggered increased income levels and massive inflation. While outsiders generally think RMB is undervalued, most Chinese people think RMB is overvalued. While the skyrocketing real estate prices have been widely reported, grocery, restaurant and consumer goods prices have also gone up a lot. Prices for good restaurants in Beijing has not yet reached New York level, but would be comparable to most other cities in America. While I was in a famous mall in Beijing, I checked out some stores (including Coach, Swarovski and Espirit) just to compare them to American prices. They were generally anywhere from 2 to 5 times to how much these things cost in America. It's not surprising that when Chinese tourists come to America, they spend mass amount of money buying brand name products here. Looking at this, it makes me wonder how the poor people in China and the migrant workers can afford to live in this kind of environment. The only things that are still relatively cheap are transportation (which is subsidized by the government) and rental cost (due in part to lack of legal protection for renters).

These are the things that really stood out to me from my visit. I know that some of my readers won't like what I say, but I can only report on what I saw and heard from people I talked to.

What Did DoD Know, and When Did It Know It?

For several days now, I have been (virtually) pounding the table, asking the question "what has changed?" in the past four months,  that DoD is now all of a sudden capable of exacting specificity as to the dire consequences of the sequester/continuing resolution bogies.  All of this, from readiness hits in the Army, to length of civilian furloughs, to cancellation of refuelings and deployments--was knowable in the Fall--as we stared down the barrel of what was then a "1 January" fiscal cliff, debt ceiling and sequestration trifecta.  Yet DoD officials restricted themselves to vague generalities about the consequences -- bound by an Administration gag-order that reportedly prohibited the Services/Agencies from planning excursions that would take these conditions under consideration, presumably fearful that such a dialogue would impact the President's re-election.

But now--now that the election is over, the "fiscal cliff" was averted with a $600B tax increase and the debt ceiling and sequestration issues were punted for a short period of time--DoD is bursting with specficity (as of mid January) about the dire consequences of sequestration and the CR, even as the President uses these Defense cuts as ammunition in his desire to obtain additional revenue to fund the government.  

Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va.) picked up on this during his questioning of the DoD panel before the full HASC today, using this graphic (provided by his office) to explicate his point:

With all due respect to DEPSECDEF Carter's earnest defense of his and SECDEF's warnings about the dangers DoD faced, there is a difference between general statements of woe and the actual, meaningful hits that the force will take that are now being released in an orchestrated manner to achieve political advantage.

One of two things seems to me to be true here.  Either planning was done and not released to the public or the Congress (presumably to limit political damage), or planning was not done in order to create plausible deniability about the obvious impacts that would follow (again, to limit political damage).  Perhaps there are other explanations, but none redound more to the benefit of DoD than either of these, and that isn't saying much.

General Odierno's statement in response to Rep. Forbes was classic, paraphrased here as "we didn't plan for it because we didn't think it would happen."

Congress (both parties) and the President created this mess, and I have some sympathy for those in DoD who are laboring to get through this disaster.  But the Department of Defense is complicit in the depth of the problem we face now--largely through its colluded silence.

Bryan McGrath

The Centrality of the Marine Corps in the Emerging Defense Posture

Modern post-war drawdowns have several repeatable features.  Among them: first, critics wonder aloud why we need two land armies--usually looking to minimize in some way the Marine Corps.  Second, USMC boosters wage a furious "waving the bloody shirt from Guadalcanal" effort to justify their existence.  For some reason, I think this drawdown is (and will be) different.

This post on National Review started out to me to be reminiscent of "bloody shirt" arguments we've heard in the past, summoning the ghost of Louis Johnson and others.  But then it moved itself onto a defensible strategic rationale for not only the existence of the Marine Corps, but for--in my opinion--the centrality of the Marine Corps.

America's overseas interests continue to be where they have always been; clustered at the land-sea interface where human endeavor predominates.  This is the environment of the Marine Corps.  As the United States wrestles with its capabilities, capacities and interests amidst serial legislative and executive malpractice in Washington,  we will come to rely on modern American Seapower more heavily to exercise influence and protect and sustain our interests.  Central to this Seapower is the world's most feared, middle-weight, sea-based military force--the Marines. 

The argument THIS time is unlikely to be "why a Marine Corps?".  It is the Army who now must ask deep and difficult questions of itself.  Is it mobile and transportable enough to be useful in theaters where the land to sea ratio suggests movement and force application from the sea?  Even if it were, does the US possess the means to move and transport it in operationally relevant ways?  Can it sustain itself logistically without co-located "iron mountains" from which it provides?

It is the Marine Corps that will provide operationally relevant land-power in the emerging defense security environment--short of war.  As our Army re-deploys to the United States following a decade plus of war in Asia, it must renew itself and rededicate itself to its traditional, historic role as a strategic reserve.  There are elements of the US Army that will be crucial in the emerging security environment--Air and Missile Defense, Special Forces, and Logistics among them--but but it will take significant institutional and cultural change in the Army to recognize and act upon these forces.

American Seapower will take on an increasingly heavy share of the load, and the Marines will be critical to this effort.  Those conflicts beyond the capability of deployed and available USMC forces backed by the Navy and Air Force, will require a robust US Army combat capability.  The questions before our leaders and strategists is how much, how ready, and at what cost?

Keep making sound strategic arguments, USMC friends.  They are convincing.  Leave the bloody shirt at home.

Bryan McGrath

Foreign Entanglements: Hybrid Warfare

On this week's episode of Foreign Entanglements, Pete Mansoor and I talk Hybrid Warfare and the sequester:

The book is to be recommended, although I wish that it had included more on the maritime cases of hybrid war.

Senator Warner Fumbles on Sequestration

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia gave a speech this morning to the Northern Virginia Technology Council in which he suggested that the defense industry shared blame (with the legislative and executive branches, presumably) for sequestration.  Here's the key graph:

“We have muffed this thing four times,” Warner said. “We blew it on the debacle, that was an embarrassment to be in Congress, on the debt ceiling. We blew it on the supercommittee. We blew it when they undermined the bipartisan efforts, and candidly, we blew it on New Year’s Eve. And yeah, we ought to get 80, 90, whatever percent of the blame. But you ought to take some of the blame too.
“Because every time there’s been efforts to try to build a broader coalition to say let’s go ahead and take this on, and get out of our individual political foxholes and get out of our individual industry foxholes, most of y’all have said, ‘Well, I don’t want to’ anger ‘this guy or that guy or this chairman or that chairman".

No doubt, Senator Warner accurately describes the efforts of industry lobbyists and influence peddlers; what he does not get right is that those activities are not appreciably different today (or in the past few years) than in the years preceding them.  What changed was the utter incompetence of the leaders on the Hill and in the White House to do what has always been expected of them--and that is reach agreements.

The pain we are now beginning to feel as a result of both the Continuing Resolution and the looming sequester is a surprise to no one in authority in the Department of Defense.  The cancellation of a deployment, the postponement of a nuclear refueling, the detriments to Army readiness--all of it was knowable AND KNOWN months ago, before the election.  Yet time and again, DoD officials spoke in vague generalities about what would happen while assiduously asserting that no sequestration planning was ongoing. What DID happen was that when a major defense contractor made preparations to send required notice to employees that their termination may be in the offing as a result of the sequester, the full weight of the Labor, Justice and Defense Departments came down on that contractor like a ton of bricks for even hinting at the very horrors that the Administration now dramatically grasps to its beating heart in order to win additional tax revenue as the price for any spending restraint.  

No Senator Warner--it may make you feel good to share some portion of the blame for where we are with the defense industry.  Perhaps it would make you feel better to apportion some share of it to the American people whose judgment resulted in the legislative stalemate we now endure.  But the fault is yours--along with your colleagues of both parties and the President.  Your suggestion that it is otherwise is weak.

Bryan McGrath

Hard to Believe

This comes from the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) Facebook page today.

Dear Families and Friends of TRUMAN,

As you may know, the Secretary of Defense announced yesterday afternoon his decision to delay the deployment of the Harry S. Truman Strike Group, which was scheduled for tomorrow.

At this moment, I do not know when we are set to deploy. However, as we start to receive more information and as dates start to solidify, we’ll be sure to inform your Sailors.

With our uncertain schedule, my focus is on our larger TRUMAN Team - our Sailors and their families. You have all done such a wonderful job preparing for a February deployment in an accelerated work-up cycle. From arranging long-term storage of your vehicle to changing your housing situation, I appreciate all the actions you took in order to ensure you were ready for extended time away from your loved ones.

I understand the impact this sudden change has on all of us, both logistically and emotionally. It is important to recognize the heightened stress levels we may all feel and seek healthy ways to cope with this change. We are committed to taking care of all of our Sailors and their families. For our single Sailors, we are investigating lodging opportunities ashore. Our Family Readiness Group, Ombudsmen and the Fleet and Family Support Center are always great resources available for you.

It is also significant to note that TRUMAN’s mission has not changed. We are still required to provide combat power from the sea and be ready when our nation calls us into action. Although we have been certified to deploy after successfully completing our Composite Training Unit Exercise, taking care of our Sailors and their families will always be a priority that will enable us to fulfill this mission. Additionally, we’ll continue to maintain our war fighting proficiencies through various training opportunities.
In the meantime, your Sailors have additional time off this weekend to take care of personal affairs. Whether it’s reinstating their cell phone plan or simply being with their families, it’s important to take time to decompress and make necessary adjustments.

I thank you so much for your flexibility, which I truly believe contributes to the strength of our Navy. You have certainly endured a few significant changes to our schedule. However, I have seen Team TRUMAN assemble into a well-oiled machine like no other. The nation asked us to be ready, and we are more ready now than ever. The love and support of our families have gotten us through each day, and knowing that you are by our sides provides us the motivation and fighting spirit to accomplish the mission.

I am proud of each and every one of your Sailors. Team TRUMAN is ready to overcome all obstacles, meet all challenges and give ‘em hell!

Sincerely,
Bob

CAPT S. Robert Roth, USN
Commanding Officer
USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75)

All indications are that Captain Roth found out that USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and USS Gettysburg (CG 64) were not deploying on Wednesday, the same day the press broke the news to the public. This is the official DoD press release.

“The secretary of defense has delayed the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), Norfolk, Va., and the USS Gettysburg (CG-64), Mayport, Fla., which were scheduled to depart later this week for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility.

“Facing budget uncertainty -- including a continuing resolution and the looming potential for across-the-board sequestration cuts -- the U.S. Navy made this request to the secretary and he approved. This prudent decision enables the U.S. Navy to maintain these ships to deploy on short notice in the event they are needed to respond to national security contingencies. 

“The United States will continue to maintain a robust military presence in the CENTCOM region, including the current carrier presence and a mix of other assets, to fulfill enduring commitments to our partners.  The U.S. military continues to stand ready to respond to any contingency and to confront any threat in the region.”

So let me get this straight, the US Navy was who asked OSD to cancel the deployment because of the budget, which of course implies the US Navy was completely unprepared for the impact of the Truman deployment to the budget and somehow couldn't get approval until just two days before the aircraft carrier deployed? If that is true, and I am struggling to believe it is, members of Congress should be demanding the head of whatever Admiral in the Navy or individual in OSD screwed over sailors for huge amounts of money. More than 5000 sailors on those ships have each spent hundreds of dollars preparing for a deployment and the Navy, facing well known budget problems, couldn't cancel the deployment before sailors had to spend all that money?

The Navy doesn't like the budget situation, but I reject as an assumption the Navy is so completely unprepared for the budget situation that they would screw 5000 sailors intentionally by waiting to the 11th hour to cancel an aircraft carrier deployment. There must be more going on that we don't know for this to make any sense.

I find it a bit hard to believe Navy leadership was who was pushing for this. If the Navy wanted to cancel a deployment, the Navy would have made the request over a month ago and put a hard deadline in mid January, before sailors started spending their money for storage, canceled cell phone subscriptions, etc. in preparation for the deployment.

So what we are led to believe is the cancellation of the deployment has nothing to do with anything except the budget? There are other events going on though, for example, the Administration is suddenly pushing General Mattis out of CENTCOM (see here, here, and here). I also find it hard to believe that only a few days after the SECDEF nomination hearing the Navy is supposedly pushing to cancel an aircraft carrier deployment, the implication being the Navy is pushing for the Navy to be used less. It has been reported that CENTCOM has reduced the 2 carrier requirement to a 1 carrier requirement in the region, but if I remember correctly, General Mattis was who asked for the 2 carrier requirement to be met.

Based on the DoD press release the Navy is apparently so disorganized and unprepared for the budget challenges facing the Navy, and despite the whole country being aware of the tight budget situation, the Navy needed to wait until more than 5000 sailors had spent their money preparing for deployment - the last possible moment - to cancel an aircraft carrier deployment.

That doesn't really sound believable when you say it out loud. Blaming the budget looks more like a convenient distraction.

At the same time we are seeing Mattis being pushed out, CENTCOM requirements for naval presence suddenly changing, and Hagel on his way in as the new SECDEF the US Navy is supposedly advocating for less US Navy? Seriously, who believes that? Sorry, but that DoD press statement is either total bullshit and spin, or someone in the Navy needs to be fired for being completely unprepared for the budget situation.

Bottom line, if that DoD press statement is true, either OSD or the Navy is led by unprepared, incompetent fools, because that is basically what the press statement is saying if OSD and the Navy didn't react to budget problems until 2 days before an aircraft carrier with 5000 sailors was set to deploy. Yes, I realize I am repeating the same point... because if you say it a few times to yourself and think about it, the budget reasons cited don't make any sense.

Unless people whom I know to be really smart have suddenly become really incompetent, it looks to me like there is a lot more going on than what is being said.

Panetta, Dempsey, and Syria

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey were on the Hill today, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) directly asked them if they had an any point supported arming anti-Assad rebel forces in Syria (something the President has thus far publicly resisted).  Both Panetta and Dempsey indicated that they had.

This of course, played right into Senator McCain's narrative, who appeared surprised by their direct and forthright answers.  That the President had the temerity to overrule the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs rankled Senator McCain, who said later in a press release, "What this means is that the president overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team.” 

Good for the President; so far, he is acting with wisdom on Syria, even in the face of the advice of many of his senior advisers.  Assad's a bad guy but the Rebels aren't a bunch of schoolboys.  Mr. Obama seems to recognize this, and he is moving with caution on a matter that is not vital to our national interests--at least not yet. Mr. McCain's suggestion that a President over-ruling his advisers should somehow be looked at askance strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of just who is in charge. 

We've discussed Republican foreign policy a bit in the past few weeks here on this blog, and we've seen quite a bit of it on display this week--book-ended by Senator McCain's activist stance at today's hearing and Senator Rand Paul's decidedly less-activist musings at Heritage earlier in the week.  Neither approach is a long-term winner for Republicans, and it is my hope that the Party begins to coalesce around a "via media" that places at its center the principle of strong American leadership, yes--exceptionalism--and then assiduously asserts that vital national interests--properly understood--are what drive our foreign policy. 

Left to Mr. McCain, Republican foreign policy would over-extend the nation and deplete its energies on lesser undertakings.  Left to Mr. Paul, the remaining power that the US does have at its disposal would slowly deteriorate, as the bar for its use steadily raised its price.  In both cases, the U.S. would ultimately end up weaker and less influential than it is now.

Before the good Lord takes him, George H.W. Bush and his team should hold a seminar for up and coming Republican foreign and defense policy thinkers about how the world's most influential superpower selectively engages based on its interests.  It is active on the world scene, it respects, shapes and leads international organizations, it acts when it should and it takes a pass on those issues that are secondary to its interests.  It is strong and unapologetic, but humble and collegial.  It is tolerant of other cultures and approaches, but without resorting to relativism.   It recognizes that Western Civilization has had a profoundly important impact on the lot of the average human on this earth, but that those who practice it do not have the market cornered on good ideas, or goodness.

Mr. Obama appears to practice some of the tenets I would claim for a Republican foreign policy, but in his statements and speeches, he skips the opportunity to defend Western values while scoffing at America's exceptional place in the world.  He is--at his heart--a selective engager, and that is why I believe his foreign policy has generally been one of the more successful elements of his Presidency.  Were Republicans to marry this general approach to a more direct and activist leadership role in the world, the makings of a sustainable foreign policy would appear.

Bryan McGrath

Iran vs. the World

It's been an interestingly under-reported week for the shadow war between Iran and well, pretty much every Western nation.  First, Bulgaria is set to place the blame on Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah for last year's bus bombing against Israeli tourists.  Of more interest to maritime-inclined audiences, 
on 23 January, Yemen (with a little help from 5th FLEET) intercepted and boarded an Iranian dhow which according to SECDEF was smuggling a treasure trove of weapons - including modern manpads - likely to northern Yemen's Houthi rebels.  The Huthis are Shia co-religionists who have waged at various times a hot and cold insurgency against Yemen's Sunni government. The Houthis are a small island of Shia on the mostly-Sunni Arabian Peninsula so unsurprisingly, the Saudis intervened in 2009 when the conflict began to get out of hand.

The video above shows some of the weapons from the interdicted vessel, which according to Yemeni authorities include:
"1) 199 explosive packages used for IEDs, in addition to electronic circuits, wires, transmitters and 12,495 12.7mm bullets for DSHK heavy machine gun.
2) Automatic rifle suppressors "silencers" effective for ranges less than 150 meters and 2,660 Kilograms of RDX explosives.
3) G9 artillery range finder and optics for land-sea targets with a 40 KM range and 7x military binoculars.
4) 122-mm Grad-type Katyusha rockets and Strela 1\2, Misagh-2 surface to air missile (SAM) and RBG 7 rockets.
5) 2,786 C4 packages (16,606 strips of explosives) and remote "bomb triggers" devices and 124,080 bullets 7.62mm.
6) PN-14K Night vision optic sights and laser range finders and other Iranian made goggles."

Iran uses pretty much whatever methods it can to smuggle arms to surrogates to fight its proxy wars, but the sea has historically been a favorite path.  Despite the ongoing international counter-piracy presence in the Indian Ocean, the maritime rat lines between Iran and the Red Sea/Med are largely intact, and successful interceptions like the above operation require a concerted, multi-lateral effort. 

With Syria falling apart, Iran's ruling Mullahs have very few remaining friends in the world.  Other than the usual third party suppliers (China, Russia, DPRK) that will hawk their advanced weapons systems willy nilly to whomever is willing to pay - including Iran's surrogates - there is little support for this increasingly desperate regime.  It is only a matter of time (admittedly, it could be a long time) until the Iranian people are able to undo the raw deal they've had from their leadership since 1979.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

More Speed!

Wake me up when the LCS program is about the mission, and not the features.

 The Navy’s fifth Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), Milwaukee, will be the first to benefit from new high-power density waterjets aimed at staving off rudder and propeller damage experienced on high-speed ships.

The product of an Office of Naval Research (ONR) Future Naval Capabilities (FNC) program, the waterjets arrived last month at the Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee (LCS 5) is under construction.

“We believe these waterjets are the future,” said Dr. Ki-Han Kim, program manager in ONR’s Ship Systems and Engineering Research Division. “Anything that we can do to keep ships ready to go will ultimately benefit our warfighters.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert’s 2013-2017 Navigation Plan calls for fielding improved ships to support counterterrorism and irregular warfare missions at sea and ashore. The LCS will play a big role in the Navy’s plan as a modular, adaptable vessel for use against diesel submarines, littoral mines and attacks by small surface craft.

Hopefully Dr. Ki-Han Kim is talking specifically about waterjets being the future of LCS, and not the fleet. Here is the problem.

Waterjets are incredibly loud, as in they can be so loud that a ship with waterjets is probably going to significantly reduce the effectiveness of a bow sonar. For LCS, the point is mute, because there is no bow mounted sonar... and waterjets is why there never will be.

Now ONR is going to deliver super waterjets, which may increase the speed of LCS a knot or two, who knows. Here is the problem though - waterjets are still loud like a rock concert, and one of the primary missions of the LCS is to hunt littoral submarines.

When will this program start being about mission and stop being about features?

If I was a submarine captain, I am pretty sure the safest place in blue water is going to be underneath a Littoral Combat Ship on diesels, because not only can the ship not hear or detect the submarine, but nobody else is going to hear a thing except these super awesome waterjets. Just saying.

Honest Opinions on China

At the USNI/AFCEA West Conference last week there was an excellent panel on the last day that focused on the operational challenges and partnership opportunities that exist with China. It started out as a casual discussion about China, but about 21 minutes into the panel Captain James Fanell, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence and Information Operations for US Pacific Fleet decided he was going to give his honest opinion.

In China it is illegal to give an honest opinion about China, and there are times I wonder if the same law exists in Washington, DC. Several folks are discussing Captain Fanell's comments, even if he is just a Captain. I leave my thoughts over at the USNI Blog.

Enjoy! And as you would expect, Toshi Yoshihara is great too. I highly recommend Toshi Yoshihara's book (coauthored by the always brilliant James Holmes) Red Star Over the Pacific for those who haven't read it.

IP and Military Diffusion

In this week's Diplomat column I return to a topic of interest, intellectual property and military diffusion:

1. The nature of intellectual property theft in the military sphere will change. Rather than purchasing (or otherwise appropriating) entire systems and then reverse engineering, future theft will likely involve cyber-attacks on states, companies, and even the law firms that protect patents. 
2.  While states such as India, China, and Russia have had strong incentives to defect from intellectual property compliance in the past, their status as producers and exporters will increasingly make them IP defenders, in general. In specific instances, however, they will continue to pursue the appropriation of critical foreign technologies, often through illicit means.
3.  There is potential for cooperation between the major arms producers on an international IP compliance regime, which would set guidelines or “rules of the road” for export. However, continuing political and strategic disagreement between these producers will limit the overall impact of such a regime.

I'll be coming back to this issue, particularly on questions of how intellectual property law will affect patterns of military technology diffusion. Until then, interested in everyone's thoughts on the topic.

Sea Shepherd's Southern Ocean Armada

The Sea Shepherd's 9th Southern Ocean Campaign - "Zero Tolerance" - is in full swing. To date, the reported highlights in this year's operations have only involved some strategic maneuver, a bit of deception, and lawfare.  Even so, the photograph above is fairly remarkable in that a non-state actor has privately assembled a maritime force of ocean-going ships, helicopters, and UAVs, sailed it once again into unforgiving Antarctic waters, and taken a photograph in a formation normally seen only with mainstream navies. Stay tuned.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Bring On The Sequester

The Republic has wrestled with its fiscal incompetence for some time now, and in the process created the monstrosity of "sequester" in order to create a gun of sufficient size against which each party's head would be pressed in order to ensure a coherent solution.  In the meantime, we had a National Election in which the people voted to continue divided government.  It would be improper to state that the American people chose the sequester, but it would not be improper to infer that they are complicit in bringing it on.  We get the government we deserve, and right about now we deserve what we are getting.

Therefore, I say, bring it on.  I know this is an intemperate stance, I realize I will receive criticism from several quarters, and I get that many of our national leaders disagree with me, the latest of whom (Secretary Panetta) today on Meet The Press called "shameful" the possibility that it might happen. 

But I sense we've reached the end of the line on reasoned compromise, with both parties held hostage by their more "fringey" elements, and no great threat on the horizon to create a sense of urgency.  While many of us believe a rising China is something to be wary of and something for which to be prepared, it is difficult to make that case for the immediate future.  Many people believe that we are beginning to put the great financial crisis of 2007-2011 behind us, so no great domestic crisis looms on the immediate horizon.

Both the debt bomb and the ascendance of China are in the "too hard" and "too far away" category, and so our elected leaders will have the compromise that they were unable to reach in a reasoned manner forced upon them by a suicide pact fitted by themselves.

That is however, overly dramatic, especially within DoD.  The magnitude of the cuts--roughly $60B a year for ten years, is serious, and it will force (or at least SHOULD force) new thinking.  But the manner in which those cuts are directed--basically horizontal cuts across most accounts--is the legislated instantiation of the folly of Jointness, and it will create a shrunken version of the military we have today; less capable, smaller, and able to impact events in fewer places. 

This is why every time I hear someone in the Pentagon talk about QDR 2014 as "QDR-lite"--pointing to the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance as having already answered most of the questions--I shake my head in disbelief.  If anything, QDR14 should be the most consequential QDR since Congress created the mandate.  We have not--since the fall of the Berlin Wall--had a greater need for strategic thinking on a grand scale.  Congress must not allow DoD to slow-roll them on this front. 

And so, bring on the sequester. Perhaps it will be enough to force both sides of the Potomac to engage in real strategic thinking and the making of tough choices.  If it doesn't, well then in the course of just a few short months, the incredible incompetence of our political class will result in nearly $2T of debt relief over ten years, which is not to be sneezed at. 

We get the government we deserve.

Bryan McGrath

Unqualified Should Mean Disqualified

Photograph: Christy Bowe/ Christy Bowe/Corbis

I described Jonah Goldberg as "remarkably sophomoric" for describing Chuck Hagel as "never overburdened with too heavy a reputation for insight, knowledge, or humility." I'll stand by that description of what Jonah Goldberg said, but after listening to the hearing today I will also admit that Jonah Goldberg apparently knew what he was talking about in regards to Chuck Hagel's insight and knowledge, but he may have been wrong on the humility part.

The profile I built for Chuck Hagel was built primarily using content in speeches he has given over the last decade, 14 different speeches to be accurate. I learned two things during today's confirmation hearing of Chuck Hagel. First, Chuck Hagel has had a really smart speechwriter for years, but second, it is hard to believe that anything Chuck Hagel has said in his speeches over the past several years are actually his ideas in his words, indeed it slowly became clear over the course of the day that Chuck Hagel doesn't appear to have any core beliefs he is willing to stand firm on, and it also became clear that Chuck Hagel doesn't know enough about the President's policies to suggest he stands firm with them either.

Chuck Hagel couldn't defend the positions he has made in the speeches he had given in the past, and when he tried to defend those arguments, he couldn't articulate the substance behind ideas he has been credited for without stumbling over his words or outright confusing the issue that was being discussed. Prior to his official nomination by the President, Chuck Hagel was a mess when trying to answer questions to the media about serious issues of defense policy, but I think a lot of people expected that once he got in the DoD and the DoD handlers and coaches were able to prepare him, he would be fine.

Not so, Chuck Hagel was even worse today showing no improvement at all in publicly discussing issues of policy, even after weeks of coaching and preparing for what amounted to fairly obvious questions. It didn't matter if it was a good question, a bad question, a hard question, or an easy question because to most questions on Thursday Chuck Hagel had very few good answers.

And lets be honest, those were either the smartest questions the Senate has ever asked a nominee for Secretary of Defense, or Chuck Hagel was completely unprepared. Every single question I heard, and granted I missed some of the hearing over the 8.5 hours, was a fairly predictable question. Senator Levin must be exhausted bailing water out of the Hagel canoe all day, because Chuck Hagel would find ways of taking on water with his responses to even the easy softball questions by Democrats who like and support the guy. It is hard to imagine the folks in the DoD didn't prepare him for the questions he was peppered with today, as it was all basic stuff about Israel and Iran that most professionals could have easy answered, dodged, or dismissed without looking foolish. No one expected any "Wow moments" during the Chuck Hagel confirmation hearing, but there were at least 20 such moments today in the hearing, and none of them were "Wow, that was smart!" - indeed all of them were "Wow, did he really just say that? What?"

What happened Thursday was all on Chuck Hagel, and it was so uncomfortable that it is going to be difficult to find an unedited video of Chuck Hagel's testimony that makes him appear prepared or qualified for the job.

I am less sure who Chuck Hagel is today than I was before the hearing, because it is not clear at all he has ever given a speech that represented his ideas or opinions, nor that he actually believes in the positions he has been associated with throughout the nomination process. It would be difficult for anyone to quote any speech he has given as representative of him after his testimony today. Not only could he not answer questions related to previous comments he has given, he often couldn't remember what he was trying to say or what he did say. Chuck Hagel is clearly not an articulate man, and this is the guy we want to send to talk to allies and competitors on defense issues? Chuck Hagel wasn't articulate when he spoke to the press prior to the official nomination, and he was anything but articulate in front of the Senate today. Not good.

When Senator Jack Reed - who supports Hagel - asked a super softball question about Chuck Hagel's discussions with President Obama during the nomination process, Chuck Hagel answered the question by saying "When he asked me why am I qualified, I said I'm not."

Obviously.

Something is wrong if Senate Democrats just rubber stamp this nomination choice by the President, as it is obvious to everyone, including apparently Chuck Hagel, that he should not be Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel was the least prepared, least articulate, and least intelligent sounding person speaking in a Senate Committee hearing on Thursday, and lets be very honest - someone has to work real hard to be the least intelligent sounding person in a Senate Committee hearing.

I admit I am pretty clueless when it comes to politics, but I wouldn't want Chuck Hagel on my team. This nomination makes little sense when the next person on the bench is Michelle Flournoy, who I think everyone knows would have been the smartest person in the Capitol building, much less the room, on defense issues had she been the nominee.

While the nation is still at war, Obama has picked the remarkably unimpressive and clearly unqualified Chuck Hagel who appears to be in way over his head as the Secretary of Defense nominee, when the administration could have picked the incredibly qualified and brilliant Michelle Flournoy to become the first female Secretary of Defense. I originally dismissed outright the absurdity of the President being peppered with questions on diversity on his cabinet last week, because his response was that his criteria for cabinet selection was based solely on merit. Well, I think today proved merit is not the criteria being used in the Obama administration's cabinet selection process, in fact today we must ask if merit is even a criteria at all.

It is starting to look like the Obama administration second term plan for defense is less money and fewer smart people. Plan accordingly.