Governing Against Type (Bush)

NY Times ^ | November 28, 2004 | EDWARD LUTTWAK

[neverdem]

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

With the prudent Colin Powell to be replaced by Condoleezza Rice at the State Department, and with the more warlike Donald Rumsfeld remaining as secretary of defense, many feel that President Bush is set to follow an even more forceful foreign policy in his second term.

As a re-elected president who will never again have to face the voters, and with loyal Republican majorities in Congress aiming to remove legislative impediments, Mr. Bush could, it seems, have a second term that would make the first seem tame. But a closer look at the history of second terms - and at Mr. Bush's current circumstances - shows that the conventional wisdom may not be that wise.

First, what do his critics fear that Mr. Bush will do? Some speculate that he will want to challenge Iran over its nuclear initiatives, spurning the freeze recently negotiated by Britain, France and Germany. Or they fret that he will unilaterally increase the pressure on North Korea after years of multilateral frustration. Some are more concerned that he will widen the campaign for democracy in the Middle East beyond Iraq: the obvious target for removal by military means being the Baathist dictatorship of Syria, which has exposed itself to retaliation by aiding terrorism in Iraq. And most assume that the president will want much wider action to suppress the insurgency in Iraq, with the re-conquest of Falluja only a first step.

All this seems logical. But while re-elected presidents who no longer have to face the voters are theoretically free to pursue their wildest dreams, in practice they never do. Consider the last two second-term presidents.

For the second Reagan administration, dovish pundits predicted an even tougher stance against the Soviet "evil empire," as well as a further acceleration of the arms race, led by the so-called Star Wars system against ballistic missiles. After all, in Reagan I, all the ceremonies of détente had been stopped, and a huge budget deficit had been accepted to build up the armed forces as quickly as possible. Some feared that Reagan II might escalate confrontation to outright war.

For Clinton II, the Cassandras warned of an even more passive foreign policy than Clinton I, during which the administration had refused to interrupt the Rwanda genocide, delayed intervention in Bosnia, and left Middle East diplomacy to the most tentative secretary of state anyone can remember, Warren Christopher. The president had shown enthusiasm for every aspect of domestic policy and an indifference to foreign affairs that not even live television coverage of preventable massacres could overcome.

Curiously enough, however, re-elected presidents tend to disappoint their most enthusiastic followers by changing direction: they go right if they started on the left (or vice versa); become active where they were passive; turn dovish if they were hawkish; and in all cases converge toward the center of gravity of American politics, as well as toward the mainstream foreign-policy traditions.

Instead of intensifying the arms race with the Soviet Union, the re-elected Ronald Reagan warmly welcomed the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev on the scene. He exploited the opportunity not, as the K.G.B. warned, to launch a surprise attack, but rather to press for outright nuclear-weapon cuts instead of mere limitations. His actions so scandalized the cold-warrior fraternity that when George H. W. Bush became president, a freeze was imposed on further American-Soviet talks while the Central Intelligence Agency investigated the theory that Mr. Gorbachev's entire policy was a giant deception intended to lull us into complacency.

Likewise, after the neglect of foreign policy in Clinton I, there was increasing engagement in Clinton II, reaching its absolute maximum when President Clinton appointed himself chief negotiator between the Israelis and the Palestinians. To less dramatic effect, but with better results, Mr. Clinton turned his policy-wonk attention to the major foreign issues, from NATO expansion to relations with Japan. As with Mr. Reagan, his turn to the mainstream left some true believers feeling betrayed - in this case, the global-law and antiwar crowds. In their eyes, Mr. Clinton ignored the United Nations Security Council, trampled on the concept of sovereignty, and shamefully relied on the strategic bombing of civilian sites to wage the 1999 Kosovo war with Serbia.

Why these reversions to the moderate mainstream? It is not a desire on the part of the president to be more widely loved, or to court the approval of future historians. Such things may have an influence on the margins, but they are overemphasized. Rather, the essential mechanism is simply entropy - the powerful tendency of any dynamic system to revert to equilibrium after being unbalanced. This applies no less to politics than it does to a glass of water.

Yes, Hitler, Mao and lesser dictators like Saddam Hussein strove mightily to avoid entropy, and they succeeded long enough to wreck their countries. But George W. Bush is not a mad dictator, nor does he rule without laws or legislatures, so reversion to the mean it must be. For example, he may want to spend much more money on defense, but because the deficit greatly increased in his first term, it will be almost impossible to get spending increases through even a friendly Congress over the next four years.

Likewise, President Bush may want to reconquer every Sunni city in Iraq, but the arithmetic of our forces requires him to plan for disengagement instead. Between the Army, reserves, National Guard and Marine Corps, American ground forces amount to about 800,000 troops. More than half a million are in training, procurement and logistics. That leaves no more than 300,000 for higher commands as well as corps, divisions and independent brigades. These combat formations in turn have their own headquarters, logistics and support echelons; hence the so-called "rifle strength" most relevant for Iraq is less than 180,000. That is just about the number already in Iraq, training to go there, or just returned. And with troops also needed elsewhere, from a few marines to guard embassies to many thousands in Korea and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is scrambling. There can be no widening of the fight in Iraq; on the contrary, troop levels must go down, and the Iraqis themselves must take over.

Another kind of entropy is likely to keep us out of war with Iran over its quest for nuclear weapons. Although skeptical American officials are loudly growling in the background, the so-called E-3 diplomacy of Britain, France and Germany that has failed in the past may now succeed. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said recently that "a united country does not need nuclear weapons." The Iranians look likely to go along with a real freeze on their nuclear weapons programs, if for no other reason than to wait out the Bush years before resuming them.

Thus, if an agreement with the West is reached, it will not really be subtle European diplomacy that achieves it, but the blunt threat of an American air strike. This, too, would be a process of entropy; centrist moderation would be effective because Mr. Bush went to extremes in his first four years - the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - and thus he does not need to attack Iran to gain concessions in the future.

Of course, nobody should expect a pacifist White House - and the Syrian regime should not rely on the magic of entropy to save it from punishment if it persists in aiding Iraqi terrorists. But with the administration's new focus on the Israel-Palestinian question, along with early signals that Ms. Rice will devote serious attention to the Europeans who did not support the Iraq war, we are seeing the natural tendency of democracies to revert to the moderate mean rather than go off the rails.

Edward N. Luttwak is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace."

[neverdem]

A golden oldie from the cold war!

[Allan]

Didn't read it and I don't intend to.

Luttwak disgraced himself during Gulf War I predicting 50,000 US casualties.

His opinions are no better than mine. Perhaps worse.

[clee1]

Why do I suspect this is alot of wishful thinking?

[acapesket]

Have to re-read! My first thought was.. "Who is this overblown fairwart and what does he do?"
My second thought was.. even the NYT actually gives him money..
What is the "MSM" coming to?
Best wishes, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

[glorgau]

Luttwack did manage to get Hitler into a column about Bush. As far as I can see that was the whole point of the exercise.

[anniegetyourgun]

"....the powerful tendency of any dynamic system to revert to equilibrium after being unbalanced."

Sophisticated code words on the part of the Left (so as to fool those idiots in red states) to mean: Not to worry, the pendulum will swing back from the "extreme right" that is Bush.

[Nonstatist]

The Iranians look likely to go along with a real freeze on their nuclear weapons programs

The guy's an idiot.

[anniegetyourgun]

Edward needs to have his luttwhacked....

[SunkenCiv]

"First, what do his critics fear that Mr. Bush will do? Some speculate that he will want to challenge Iran over its nuclear initiatives, spurning the freeze recently negotiated by Britain, France and Germany. Or they fret that he will unilaterally increase the pressure on North Korea after years of multilateral frustration. Some are more concerned that he will widen the campaign for democracy in the Middle East beyond Iraq: the obvious target for removal by military means being the Baathist dictatorship of Syria, which has exposed itself to retaliation by aiding terrorism in Iraq. And most assume that the president will want much wider action to suppress the insurgency in Iraq..."

The op-ed writer must suffer from cranial-rectal inversion. It isn't rational to fear any of these possibilities.

Iran isn't going to abide by any "agreement" the Eurodoofuses may think they have worked out.

During the buildup to the liberation of Iraq, while the low-life EuroNazis in France and Germany were claiming that the US didn't want to work with everyone and should, they were also saying the US should take unilateral steps with North Korea instead.

The Syrian monarchy (it used to be a single-party state dictatorship, but became instead an hereditary monarchy when the legislature there amended the constitution to permit the surviving son to succeed his father) should be removed, and the EU is going to go along with that when the time comes, in part because the Syrians never bothered to cut them in.

The US will use whatever force is necessary to crush the last terrorist cells in Iraq, and will have the support of the Allawi gov't to do so. The mystery remains why any of the so-called troops and police trainees ever surrender to the armed thugs, since they must be aware by now that they're going to be killed anyway. Rush the bastards en masse, and pull them down, then send them to Hell, which is where they belong.

[Truth Table]

Luttwak-

Here is your problem: We are in position to to appoint judges. That is our agenda in a nutshell. Appointments--that is the hand up mona-lisa's skirt. Think you can beat us? Cloture. Done.

SS reform, ownership society, tax code reform. All very laudable, and I hope we can get a few of those things (SS reform and tax reform in particualr) accomplished. But really, the court is where it is. If we get appoint a few sane judges to the courts, and keep a congress close, in the long run, We win, libs lose. They know it.

Pundulum Schmendelum.

[Theresawithanh]

"loyal Republican majorities in Congress..."

Yeah, uh-huh, you betcha.

[Boundless]

> Some are more concerned that he will widen the
> campaign for democracy ...

In case anyone thought that liberals actually supported
democracy, nothwithstanding the name of their party.

Conservatives: making the world safe for liberals.

[Starrgaizr]

I think it was the first week I ever listened to NPR, just before the Gulf War, hearing how we'd lose 40-50,000 dead. Another Vietnam fighting the "elite Republican Guard."

Remember how the left said if Reagan was reelected he would have no impediment to launching a nuclear war? It is lunacy. As if anyone but a power-mad Democrat of the Clinton ilk would place reelection ahead of a nuclear war plan. Not that Bush won't invade anyone else. Four year with a running start is a lot longer than 3 1/4 years from a dead standstill. The only thing is to make sure in the fall of 2008 that Iraq is a loyal and stable ally and another domino or two have toppled or are heading that way. Imagine in 2008 a democratic (little D) expanse from Afghanistan through Iran and Iraq. Could we hope for more? Maybe.

[polyester~monkey]

I know he's an idiot but is his estimate of 180,000 "rifle-strength" troops correct?

[Shermy]

Must be a cold war hack:

First, what do his critics fear that Mr. Bush will do? Some speculate that he will want to challenge Iran over its nuclear initiatives, spurning the freeze recently negotiated by Britain, France and Germany.

Funny. Does he think the USSR abided by its weapons treaties? Still?

"Or they fret that he will unilaterally increase the pressure on North Korea after years of multilateral frustration.

Alternate reality. The opposite is true. Indeed Kerry espoused the unilateral idea.

[Larry381]

George W. Bush is not a mad dictator

Nice touch

[section9]

It's not. Bush is not immune from larger forces around him that will effect the course of the Presidency. There is a manpower crunch, domestic spending must be restrained, and the economy must grow while the cost of the war on terror does not serve as a restraint to economic growth. Luttwak is correct in that an open-ended committment to Iraq with over a hundred thousand troops is a non-starter. Within two years, I would be very surprised if we had half as many troops in Iraq as we do now, especially once the people have granted an Allawi government a majority and the legitimacy that goes with it. However, bases in the western desert for Special Forces and recon troops are another matter.

Carrying out a military campaign against the terrorist international costs much less than a high-intensity armored/mech infantry campaign, and that is what you will see happen. Consider Afghanistan, which is still hot, but operates with far fewer troops, a smaller budget, and the cooperation of a friendly government that has legitimacy. Look there and you'll see our future in Iraq.

Once Iraq is on its way to an "Islamic" democracy can Bush insure that this country is ready to contest dominion of the Pacific Ocean with China in the next decade. That's the big battle coming up, although Luttwak mentions it not, and he is simply saying that any President lacks infinite resources to do what he wants.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[festus]

I thought bush was the ante-type......

[shubi]

We are at real risk of getting nuked with lamebrains leftists like this.