India West

Obama’s Task: Reprioritizing U.S. Foreign Policy

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:14:00 -0500

While the battered state of the economy in the days winding down to the presidential election determined the fortunes of Senator Barack Obama in his victory over Senator John McCain, it was arguably his pragmatic foreign policy vision that helped him edge out the heavily favored Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

As Obama assumes the presidency in January, he will need to tap into that pragmatic foreign policy vision, trading hubris for modesty, by operating with a principle of what grand strategist Barry Posen terms “strategic restraint.” This requires reducing America's costly engagements and overextended forces and resources while prioritizing the challenges that threaten America's national security in the short and medium term. In terms of our rebalancing our engagements, the Obama administration will need to continue the drawdown of forces in Iraq, hold steady in Afghanistan, and refrain from unnecessarily deploying in other parts of the world, particularly the Darfur region of the Sudan.

In Iraq, Obama largely has it right to withdraw combat forces over 16 months given the costs that add up to over 4,000 American lives, a price tag of roughly $3 trillion, and a battered American reputation in the world. Though the surge of 2007 has been touted for security improvements, it has not improved the strategic outlook with a real path for political reconciliation and integration of forces.

Moreover, the sources of the surge's tactical success are quite varied and unclear, including factors external to the U.S. such as the stand down of the Sadr's Mahdi army, the Sunni “awakening” councils' decision to turn on al-Qaeda, and Iran wielding more constructive influence. Nevertheless, this tactical upswing, the growing strength of Iraqi armed forces, and the rising oil-revenue-generated economic prospects all provide an opportunity to declare “victory” and begin to draw down combat troop levels.

In Afghanistan, Obama must not make the mistake of transferring a “surge” strategy and deploying more troops by drawing on the wrong lessons of Iraq. As Lt. Commander Jon Lindsey writes, “Merely surging in Afghanistan in the absence of other violence-reducing factors will probably fail to deliver the desired results. It is much more important to address the hard problems -- mediation of tensions between India and Pakistan, improved coalition and interagency coordination, greater focus on non-kinetic operations -- which are independent of force ratios.”

Moreover, the mission has crept from taking out al-Qaeda and its bases to a lengthy counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban, a real political actor (whether we like it or not) which commands a fair amount of support in the southern provinces and tribal regions of Pakistan, as well as counter-narcotics operations and a wholesale re-engineering of Afghan society. At some point, scaling back will have to be considered, as efforts to “drain the swamp” have only widened it by taking on more enemies in the tribal frontiers.

As an aside, given Obama's previous statements, stability in Pakistan -- a nuclear power with more than five times the population of Afghanistan and a history of conflict with its nuclear neighbor -- is far more important than Afghanistan. Forcing concessions or cross-border incursions that weaken the Pakistani government's legitimacy or military control of their territory are simply not worth the few targets they yield. Investing in greater cooperation, joint training, and intelligence sharing would provide far greater returns to both countries.

Though both Obama and McCain both pledged greater support of the Darfur region and the issue is very dear to Obama and a number of his national security advisors, it is vital for the Obama administration to refrain from further engagements and not to get bogged down in Darfur. The political, military, financial, and reputational costs to the United States would be too great.

What is happening in Darfur is a crime against humanity, it is not a near or medium threat to the United States, which no longer has the luxury of intervening anywhere for the sake of lofty humanitarian goals given our own entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the looming threats on the horizon to which this current administration has given short shrift.

Moreover, the moral imperatives are much more complex than first sight. Sudan is fighting a brutal counterinsurgency on the cheap against armed rebels, who have refused on more than one occasion to internationally negotiated peace deals, to prevent a precedent of violent regional secession. To intervene on behalf of one side without a full appraisal of the conflict dynamics risks a moral hazard problem of encouraging further rebel resistance and prolonging the conflict.

Finally, the perception of a U.S. occupation of another Muslim Arab country would only compound our troubles in the Middle East and Islamic world, scuttle what is left of our international reputation, and provide a recruitment boon to jihadists. Bolstering the current international mission composed of African Union and United Nations forces with financial, logistical, intelligence assets, and military equipment resources (like helicopters) to ensure a ceasefire would be far better for everyone than sending in the marines.

Meanwhile, the United States needs to begin to refocus on two other pressing issues that have been on the back burner for sometime. First, we need to seriously attend to the problem of nuclear proliferation by ensuring the disablement of North Korea's nuclear reactors and halting Iranian nuclear enrichment (perhaps in exchange for a fuel bank and a small scale enrichment research lab).

The North Korean and Iranian challenges (not to mention Obama's plans for climate change and energy security) cannot be adequately addressed without the support of China and Russia, requiring us to modify our position on relations that have ranged from neglect to outright belligerence over the past eight years. Though it may appear callous at times, strategic prioritization requires steering clear of unnecessary conflicts and entanglements (even in rhetoric) over less critical regions like Georgia, Tibet or Sudan to focus on more pressing issues with wider consequences.

The other major priority is the challenge that lies in the Middle East. Reinvigorating the peace process between Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Syria by resuming America's role as an honest broker can be the game-changing move that stems the tide of instability and creates a virtuous cycle of events throughout the region. Such a move can undercut the animating backdrop of jihadist terrorists, bolster the credibility of moderate states and reform-mind leadership, defang Iran by detaching Syria and Lebanon from them, convene a contact group of regional actors to assist in stabilizing Iraq and the Gulf, and restore American leadership prestige to the region.

America's economic downturn is not a normal business cycle and will require the Obama administration to redirect attention inward to rebuilding the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, which is the bulwark of U.S. power abroad. Consequently, his administration will have to scale back U.S. commitments abroad, prioritize challenges, and focus on the greatest threats to the United States.

Obama’s Foreign Policy Toward South Asia: Some Suggestions

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:54:00 -0400

Should an Obama-Biden administration take office in January 2009, their top foreign policy priority will have to focus on the situation in Iraq, which has consumed U.S. lives, treasure, military readiness, and credibility. They will also need to address the derivative strategic dilemmas that have both resulted from and compounded the situation in Iraq, including a resurgent Iran, a reconstituted al-Qaeda, and an Arab-Israeli peace process unraveling by the hour. But though the U.S. might seem consumed with the strategic quagmire in the Middle East, it would be wise to simultaneously attend to the risks and potential opportunities that lay waiting in South Asia.

Speaking at a conference Denver, Colorado, Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University suggested resurrecting the antiquated State Department concept of India as part of the Middle East in order to ordain it a strategic anchor that could shoulder greater regional responsibility. The current administration, with the support of Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden, has pursued this objective partially through brokering the US-India nuclear deal. The deal seeks to remove obstacles to a strategic partnership that would allow for greater security cooperation on vital regional issues as well as provide a measure of geopolitical pluralism while China rises as a leading global power.

Since the nuclear deal recently cleared the Indian parliament and the Nuclear Supplier's Group by a hair's breadth, the next round will require significant political capital and hand-holding of the U.S. Congress and the Indian government to reassure skeptics and finalize the deal, a task akin to herding cats. Since Congress is unlikely to approve this before they break for recess at the end of September, an Obama/Biden administration would have to be committed from day one to get this through. Valid concerns still remain over the bill such as the vagueness of language and ambiguity over future testing. Ultimately, it is in the interest of both parties to secure a deal that appears to bolster rather than undermine the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Even India is concerned about proliferation and its cascading effect, particularly in its own backyard.

Despite the promise of this deal, U.S.-India relations cannot operate in a vacuum as the U.S. faces a greater challenge (and simultaneous opportunity) in Pakistan. The current administration has thus far compartmentalized its India and Pakistan policies when in fact they need to be linked to a broader regional strategy. Vice presidential candidate Sen. Biden has suggested that Pakistan poses the "real" front in the war on terror. While this is true, it has been poorly conceptualized, obscured due to a myopic focus on Afghanistan, counterterrorism tactics, and the Pakistani military as the sole interlocutors and partners.

To reconcile these tensions, the United States first needs to ditch the "war on terror" trope that has been roundly criticized for being strategically bankrupt and inviting both regional backlash and legal dilemmas. Instead, the U.S. should adopt what the former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry described at the Democratic National Convention in Denver -- a strategy of global counterinsurgency. Because counterinsurgency, as described by leading military theorists and practitioners, is 80 percent nonmilitary, the concept places a premium on political efforts to win over populations by addressing grievances and providing economic relief and development.

Next, the approach to Pakistan requires three principal tactics: 1) work closely with the Pakistan military, which continues to be one of the most professional and efficient institutions in Pakistan, to build long-term cooperation and support for the U.S. military; 2) refrain from taking political sides at the ballot box that compromises our brand, our long-term relationship, and invariably becomes the embrace of death for any Pakistani politicians; and 3) seriously start to invest in Pakistani people and institutions for the long term with much greater economic support for education, employment, and infrastructure development to afford the average Pakistani a real stake in the U.S. relationship. Sen. Biden proposed last fall for building real prospects (particularly in the poorer frontier provinces) to combat listlessness and disenfranchisement, but now his charge as vice president will be to turn that into a reality.

An outside the box maneuver would be to bring the Saudi government into the process of Pakistani development as they also have a long-term stake in combating the extremism that seeks to topple their regime. The Saudis have a spotty record in Pakistan with their track record of funding the mujahideen and radicalizing madrassas (though often aided and abetted by the U.S.). However, the Saudis have a credibility in Pakistan that the U.S. lacks. The reformist, internationalist King Abdullah has been deploying Saudi wealth from the recent oil boom into education, employment, and infrastructure investments throughout the Middle East, and might welcome the prospect of a joint U.S.-Saudi program to invest in the Pakistani development agenda.

Finally, because the strategic opportunities and dilemmas in India and Pakistan are tethered to each other, they must be approached in a comprehensive fashion. As is often said of the Middle East, one cannot address security problems in South Asia a la carte, and in this case, the path to dealing with both is by working to orchestrate an Indo-Pakistan peace deal. Such a move would quell the ever-looming threat of an escalatory nuclear exchange and alter the strategic calculus that currently incents the Pakistani military to provide some material support to the Taliban and other radical elements for strategic depth. Though the cause of the Indo-Pakistan peace process was brought further along by former Pakistani President Musharraf, the U.S. has not actively championed this front since President Clinton. A President Obama would be wise to send a Vice President Biden to begin the work on this comprehensive framework in South Asia.

One quick way to jump-start the Indo-Pakistan peace process early in an Obama administration would be to drop U.S. objections to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, which has stalled in part due to U.S. pressure on India. This could be leveraged in exchange for some further concessions on the India nuclear deal while propping India up as a regional stabilizer in the Middle East. And the more the U.S. does to foster positive relations between Iran and its neighbors, the more likely it is to allay fears of strategic encirclement, particularly by nuclear states, which in part feeds Iran's own nuclear ambitions.

In the end, a U.S. long-term engagement in South Asia is the only way to meet pressing strategic objectives related to the Middle East and misnamed "War on Terror." Engagement on strategic cooperation, politico-economic institutional development, and the peace process is the chief interest of all parties in the region. But the primary inhibitor to this virtuous cycle of cooperation will be if this is viewed as a zero-sum game rather than a win-win proposition. If an Obama administration takes office in January, the Indian and Pakistani governments need to rise above their political infighting and meet the U.S. halfway to inaugurate a new round of regional stability.