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Elizabeth Turpen: Isn't it Ironic...
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Monday, Aug 08 2005, 8:33PM
So, here's my just-in-time submission that will pick up on a couple themes from recent posts. It was an honor to be asked to contribute to TWN in Steve's absence. I've never blogged before, so I await the potentially well deserved keyboard lashings in response to this rant.
I will start with my recommendation for Peter, "duck and cover." However, before I get rolling, let me simply state that insufficient attention to the threat of nuclear terrorism started with daddy Bush, continued through Clinton, and W is simply a continuation of the trend. Let me, however, point to one major advantage W has that annihilates any excuses for not doing everything, absolutely everything, possible to prevent a reenactment of 9-11 with nukes. With public attention focused on the terrorist threat, W, if he really wanted to, could easily garner support for laser-like focus and a corresponding allocation of resources to address the problem. (Vastly different than the Clinton cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan in August of 1998 that were viewed as a "wag the dog" scenario to detract from the Lewinsky scandal.)
As you all will recall, in the introduction to the 2002 National Security Strategy, President Bush wrote that the greatest threat lies "at the crossroads of radicalism and technology." Now here's the first irony that makes me want to cry. We currently spend roughly $1 billion annually on the Nunn-Lugar programs to address the most likely source of "loose nukes." (As aptly cited in Peter's TNR article, the collapse of a heavily WMD-armed Soviet empire continues to serve as a veritable "Home Depot" for terrorists.) By contrast, the budget request for missile defense in FY2006 alone hovers at $9 billion. A conservative estimate of the total price tag for Iraq and Afghanistan in the first four years is $75-80 billion annually. Per month we're willing to spend $83 million to address the most likely source for terrorist acquisition of nuclear bomb-grade materials (as well as nasty bugs and chemical munitions); $750 million on missile defense; and $5 billion on war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And another example that's a pet peeve of mine: expenditures for hi tech intelligence gathering hardware as opposed to the language specialists and analysts requisite to decipher the incoming data. In December last year, Senator Rockefeller caused a stir by questioning projected allocations estimated at $9.5 billion for a satellite imaging system that many viewed as largely duplicative of existing capabilities and a questionable allocation of scarce resources in light of today's threat. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office has determined [PDF] that the shortfalls in foreign language specialists within our national security apparatus (Army, FBI, State Department, etc.) are as high as 50 percent in some cases. The irony in this example is that technological advances increase the amount of data being collected, thereby increasing the need for foreign language specialists by 30 percent each year. The contrast with respect to long-term investments in human resource needs? Although individual agencies offer training and incentives for recruitment of foreign language specialists, only one federal program, the National Security Education Program, is specifically designed to train and recruit language specialists into our national security agencies, and it is funded at somewhere between $8 and $15 million per year. Now I realize that analyzing satellite images doesn't require foreign language skills. My point here is one of endless investments in hi tech hardware of dubious utility versus the human resource needs to adequately understand and effectively respond to the challenges.
Examples like this abound. A simple look at the trends in our federal budget allocations underscores the point that we do not have a "coherent, national policy that attacks this threat multi-dimensionally." Our current national security investments represent a 13 to 1 ratio in Pentagon spending to the amount spent on everything else we do in the world (our diplomatic corps, contributions to the UN and international financial institutions, bilateral aid, the Millennium Challenge Account, HIV/AIDS, etc.). If there's a political dimension to the GWOT (actually GWIZ is my favorite from the array of catchy acronyms found on this blog), then we need to do some serious retooling of budget allocations to achieve a multi-dimensional response.
This budget profile represents a Cold War hangover intensified by the political sloganeering that allowed W to be a "war president" ad infinitum, but was wildly inaccurate and misleading as to what this struggle really entails. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution". According to Myers, future efforts required "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power". The solution was "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military", he added. Exactly. But four years out, we're no closer to achieving an appropriate balance among our instruments of power. In fact, any hopes of achieving balance look increasingly grim.
This imbalance in our instruments of power is not solely the Administration's doing. The President's FY2006 budget request included a thirteen percent increase for the foreign affairs account – the largest single percentage increase in any of the stovepiped functions that comprise the US federal budget. (You go, Condi. That's the insider advantage for sure.) Problem is that such increases have insufficient support in Congress from right to left. Right-wingers hate it, well, because it's foreign aid, UN contributions, etc. The left won't support it because similar increases are not forthcoming for domestic needs. This is not a guns versus butter thing. It's domestic butter versus international instruments that's currently at issue. (If you think the "soft" security accounts don't matter, just look at Indonesians' attitudes about the United States pre- and post tsunami. A little disaster relief can go a long way in improving a badly tarnished image.) And, true to form, if the House has its way, the foreign affairs account will get slashed back to its rightful place – about a four percent increase from FY2005 allocations.
I'll rely on Karl Rove's own eloquent summary here. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." A coherent, multi-dimensional strategy would have done both - prepare for war and understand our attackers. Instead, GWOT gave us a War President, desired increases in the regular Pentagon budget, two wars with insufficient attention to everything that followed "major combat operations", a drain on the national treasury via supplemental requests, and little progress in achieving any coherence. GWOT, in fact, makes for a particularly lousy Grand Strategy [pdf].
I was working for a conservative Senator during September 2001, and I don't remember conservatives "preparing for war." I do recall that on September 12, 2001, we were told it was our patriotic duty to go shopping. As to who is making the sacrifices beyond our decreased tax burden, the following notices from Defense Department flowed into my inbox from late Friday, August 5, to this morning.
Killed in Afghanistan were:
Pvt. 1st Class Damian J. Garza, 19, of Odessa, Texas;
Pvt. John M. Henderson Jr., 21, of Columbus, Ga.
In Iraq:
Pvt. 1st Class Nils G. Thompson, 19, of Confluence, Pa.;
Gunnery Sgt. Theodore Clark Jr., 31, of Emporia, Va.;
Spc. Jerry L. Ganey Jr., 29, of Folkston, Ga.;
Spc. Mathew V. Gibbs, 21, of Ambrose, Ga.;
Sgt. 1st Class Charles H. Warren, 36, of Duluth, Ga.;
Sgt. 1st Class Victor A. Anderson, 39, of Ellaville, Ga.;
Staff Sgt. David R. Jones Sr., 45, of Augusta, Ga.;
Sgt. Ronnie L. Shelley Sr., 34, of Valdosta, Ga.;
Staff Sgt. Chad J. Simon, 32, of Madison, Wis.;
"Conservatives" didn't prepare for war. The KIAs listed above prepared for war. Karl Rove conservatives were busy (re)tooling slogans for posturing and political gains. And, the U.S. public continued to live very comfortable lives, while those paying close attention sought therapy for themselves due to the insanity of it all.
-- Libby
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How do we get rid of them? Can we have a coup, like Mauritania? Please??
Lugar has been in an uphill fight against his own party on this issue for over a decade. His pictures of nukes that fit in a briefcase are downright disturbing. The GOP believes that only States are threats and terrorists will only get nukes if states allow it. The GOP believe that federal tax dollars should only go to corporate welfare for American companies and that any money spent on Russia for securing nukes or whatever, is money that could have gone to corporate welfare instead.
The GOP is too busy supporting corruption to bother with sound policy.
BTW- How does it feel to see an energy bill signed in NM that is nothing but corporate welfare, won't do anything for car fuel efficiency or gasoline prices and scoffs at conservation? The GOP has no soul.
As to the imbalance between budgets for hardware procurement and analysis, the old Eisenhower "iron triangle" comes quickly to mind. Careers -- bureaucratic, military, industrial, and political -- are advanced by purchasing glamorous hardware, but not by poring over scribbles in foreign languages.
The corollary, of course, is that those who set these priorities care more about advancement of careers and domestic political interests than national security. (One could tie this to the Kennedy-Khruschev theory of mutually beneficial opposing hard-liners, but that would probably be too much historical allusion for one comment.)
One step in the right direction was the announcement Porter Goss just made about a major push to expand open source intelligence. About time, needless to say.
Of course, that's terribly labor/specialist-intensive, so it's going to mean dedicated medium-term resources and a considerable period to ramp up. As you note, the proof will ultimately be in whether the Admin and Congress rejigger the budget allocations away from technical collection.
bleh:
You could have made your point sharper, it seems to me, by observing that very likely the case that big defense contracters make more profit on fancy hardware, esp. with cost+ contracts, forgiveness for overruns, &c., than they would on these other, probably more useful endeavors, such as securing Soviet era nukes in Russia, and training translators. Profit before needs, that's the Capitalist way...., and this seems to me a pretty good illustration of the point.
To follow up on the career interests of those in the "iron triangle" and the profit motives of defense contractors, it has to be understood that the only way to build a strong Congressional constituency for "pouring over scribbles in foreign languages" and other core intelligence work is to contract it out and for what absolutely cannot be contracted out, is to geographically disperse it. There is simply no political "juice" in hiring more analysts on the federal payroll in Washington or overseas. Ideal, no--realistic, yes.
Isn't it Ironic...
No, it isn't:
ironic adj. 1. characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is; "it was ironical that the well-planned scheme failed so completely"
Say Hello to Alanis.
LANGUAGE SPECIALISTS
In the mid 1960's, when I was an intel guy studying Cambodian, the DoD had more than 60 people a year going through the 53 Week Iraqi Arabic course at the Defense Language Institute (WC) in Monterey, California. For the preceding 15 years we had been training about the same number in Iraqi Arabic (there were separate streams for Maghrebi Arabic, Levantine Arabic and Egyptian Arabic). This meant that we had a solid 500 -750 Iraqi Arabists on-the-shelf in our national security inventory. Some were assigned with NSA as "listeners", some were working in Defense Attache offices around the Arab world, some were doing other intel work, some were assigned to Special Operations groups, and some were just stashed away.
The Cold War led us to make these kinds of investments in all sorts of languages (we certainly weren't planning to go to war with Iraq in the mid 60's --- we just wanted to stay one step ahead of the Russians there and elsewhere in the region). I became an Arabist in the 70s when this impulse was still strong in our national security arena. In fact the USG invested 5 years and many dollars in teaching me quite a long list of languages over my career. This level of investment is no longer the order of the day.
The truth is that we can easily afford the manpower and the training costs to have a large stable of language qualified folks on hand if we want to --- we just don't seem to want to. The Soviets seemed better able to concentrate our attention than modern trans-national threats.
Interestingly, many of the folks we trained in Iraqi arabic in the 1960s are now working for American contractors to the Intel Community translating both documents and intercepts ---- but they are codgers in their 60's ( like me) and mostly not interested in being deployed to the front lines.
JohnStuart (writing from Gaza where the weather and the politics are both hotter than in Washington)
Good post. No keyboard lashing here, although if you insist, we could make an appointment...
I agree with you that Bush has wide latitude to budget money for common sense solutions to wmd issues. I have 2 misgivings, though. The whole Haliburton thing has made me deeply suspicious of any large amounts of money going to "fix" anything. This is followed closely by my dubious opinion of the goverment's ability to buy and put into place large computer systems that work. Ever. And as we all saw post 9/11, lots of people has the pieces, but no resources to put it all together.
A dirty nuke would take a lot of people to pull off. Integrated information in real time is essential, as in the BBC China seizure. Do you think this congress is willing and non-corrupt enough to do that?
Thanks, JohnStuart, for the concrete details. An important point: It is not "we" who do not want to "have a large stable of language qualified folks on hand." It is the Bush administration, the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate, and the Republican majorities in both chambers. They are in charge, it is their responsibility, and if it is not getting done, some vague "we" is not to blame. Republican leaders in the executive, Republican Representatives and Republican Senators are.
LANGUAGE CAPABILITIES
Doug,
Sadly, the "we" in our national failure to maintain language skills includes all administrations since the fall of the Soviet Union:
*** the final years of Bush 41
*** eight years of Bill Clinton
*** five years of Bush 43
Our national security investments in language training tapered off sharply in 1990 and never recovered. Sadly, it is not only Republicans who are to blame.
In an odd way, the old Soviet Union gave extraordinary impetus to the internationalists on both sides of the aisle. With the passage of the Soviet threat, both parties have become more parochial, less internationalist, and more inward looking.
Perhaps Steve's new effort to build a centrist/realist foreign policy consensus can help to begin the process of moving us out of this sorry state.
JohnStuart (still in Gaza)
Related to all of this, I was thinking about the degree to which the terrorists are said to use the net. Obviously there are good reasons to try and break into their training and planning circles, but I was also thinking about the human tendency to gossip or show off on open channels. And if we have people who can read the language they can sit there and watch, figure out various individuals, realy get to grassroots, but we won't ave the "luxury" to do this because most translators wil be hurriedly trained at the DLA and pushed into urgent jobs.
And it would probably be hard to get a priority for this kind of job even if you had Arab volunteers. Which also makes me wnder why we aren't recruiting like crazy in those communities?
Excellent points! Oh I wish I were reading this as the wapo editorial as well.
Steve: She's a great guest blogger!
JohnStuart (still in Gaza), thanks for pointing to the continuities. I, too, hope that the efforts here and elsewhere will help the internationalists on both sides of the aisle.
Right now, of course, power and responsibility are only on one side of the aisle. And with the exception of a brief, razor-thin Democratic majority supported by an independent in the Senate, power and responsibility have been on only one side of the aisle since GWB's election. If there's a problem with present USG policy, there's only one party right now that can fix it. The buck stops with the Republicans.
There's heaps of interesting, innovative and responsible things happening in Democratic foreign policy circles. Problem is, none of it's going to become policy anytime soon unless the Republicans steal the ideas. If there are any moderate, internationalist Republicans left, it is high time they got a wiggle on.
SOME GOOD NEWS ON THE LANGUAGE FRONT
The commandant of the Marine Corps has booked 50 slots for Marines to take the 63 week intensive Arabic course in Monterey. See his directive below. JOHNSTUART
FM CMC WASHINGTON DC(uc)
TO AL MARADMIN(uc)
SUBJ/ ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL SEAT ENLISTMENT RETENTION
INCENTIVE//
RMKS/1. PURPOSE. TO ESTABLISH AN INCENTIVE TO ASSIST COMMANDERS WITH RETAINING HIGH QUALITY MARINES.
2. BACKGROUND. ACQUIRING AND MAINTAINING ADEQUATE NUMBERS OF MARINES WITH THE ABILITY TO SUPPORT THE REQUIREMENT FOR QUALIFIED
ARABIC LINGUISTS IN OUR FORCE IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT.
HQMC AND LEADERS THROUGHOUT THE CORPS MUST SHARE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IDENTIFYING, RETAINING AND TRAINING THESE MARINES AS A TEAM.
3. ACTION
A. HQMC HAS ACQUIRED 50 ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL SEATS TO UTILIZE AS INCENTIVES FOR MARINES REENLISTING IN THEIR CURRENT PRIMARY MOSOR EXTENDING THEIR CURRENT ENLISTMENT CONTRACT. MARINES WHO LATERALLY MOVE ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR 24 MONTHS FROM LAT MOVE PMOS ATTAINMENT.
B. MARINES ACCEPTED TO THE PROGRAM WILL PCS TO
MARDET, DEFENSE FOREIGN LANGUAGE INSTITUTE, PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY,
FOR APPROXIMATELY 63 WEEKS OF LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION.
C. ALL ELIGIBLE MARINES ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY. PRIORITY
ACCEPTANCE TO ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL WILL BE GIVEN TO MARINES IN THE
(1) MARINES RETURNING FROM DEPLOYMENTS IN SUPPORT OF OEF OIF.
(2) MARINES REENLISTING AT THE FTAP.
(3) ALL OTHER REENLISTMENTS.
(4) MARINES
D. THE FOLLOWING EXECUTION REQUIREMENTS APPLY:
(1) THE FOLLOWING PREREQUISITES APPLY FOR ALL MARINES
APPLYING FOR AN ARABIC SCHOOL SEAT:
(A) MINIMUM DLAB SCORE OF 100 OR MINIMUM GT SCORE OF 105
(NON DEPLOYED MARINES MUST STILL TAKE THE DLAB). DLAB TESTING IS
AVAILABLE AT ALL BASE EDUCATION CENTERS, AND TESTING LOCATIONS IN
KUWAIT AND BAGHDAD. REF (A) CONTAINS ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE FOR
TESTING RELATED ISSUES.
(B) MINIMUM REENLISTMENT LENGTH OR OBLIGATED SERVICE FOR
PROGRAM ELIGIBILITY IS FIVE YEARS FROM DATE OF PROGRAM ACCEPTANCE.
(C) MARINE MUST BE ELIGIBLE FOR SECRET SECURITY
CLEARANCE BASED ON A NATIONAL AGENCEY CHECK.
(2) ALL PACKAGES SUBMITTED FOR AN ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL
SEAT QUOTA WILL BE ENDORSED BY THE MARINE'S COMMANDING OFFICER.
(3) CAREER RETENTION SPECIALISTS AND COMMANDING OFFICERS
SHOULD ENSURE MARINES MEET THE COURSE PREREQUISITES PRIOR TO
FORWARDING THE PACKAGE. THE COMMAND ENDORSEMENT MUST STATE THE
MARINE MEETS ALL ARABIC LINGUIST COURSE PREREQUISITES.
(4) ALL PACKAGES WILL BE ROUTED VIA CHAIN OF COMMAND AND
I/IOP FOR ENDORSEMENT AND THEN TO MMEA FOR FINAL APPROVAL.
(5) SCHOOL SEAT ASSIGNMENT AND PCS APPROPRIATION DATA WILL
BE PROVIDED BY HQMC MMEA ONCE THE MARINE HAS REENLISTED OR EXTENDED.
MARINES SHOULD NOT CALL THE SCHOOL HOUSE FOR SEAT ASSIGNMENT OR
APPROPRIATION DATA.
4. UPON ATTAINMENT OF MINIMUM L2-R2 LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY MARINES
WILL BE AWARDED THE SECONDARY MOS 8611 AND BE ENTITLED TO
PROFICIENCY PAY UNDER THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY PAY (FLPP)
PROGRAM AS A CATEGORY II LINGUIST AS OUTLINED IN REF (B). CURRENT
FLPP FOR CATEGORY II LINGUISTS RANGES FROM $75 TO $125 PER MONTH
BASED UPON PROFICIENCY LEVEL.
5. UPON COMPLETION OF LANGUAGE TRAINING MARINES WILL BE REASSIGNED
IN THEIR PRIMARY MOS, BUT WILL BE SUBJECT TO SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT AS A
LINGUIST-INTERPRETER. MARINES ASSIGNED SPECIAL DUTIES AS
LINGUISTS-INTERPRETERS WILL CONTINUE TO BE PROMOTED IN THEIR PRIMARY
MOS BUT WILL RECEIVE PRECEPT CONSIDERATION ON SUBSEQUENT PROMOTION
BOARDS FOR ANY TIME SPENT OUTSIDE THEIR PRIMARY MOS AS A
LINGUIST-INTERPRETER.
6. MARINES FAILING TO COMPLETE THE COURSE OF STUDY IN ARABIC WILL
NOT BE ELIGIBLE TO TRANSFER TO OTHER LANGUAGE PROGRAMS. RECYCLE
WITHIN THE ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL MAY BE CONSIDERED. MARINES DROPPED
FROM THE ARABIC LANGUAGE SCHOOL WILL BE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PCS
REASSIGNMENT AT THE DISCRETION OF MMEA.
7. MARINES WILL BE REQUIRED TO EXTEND THEIR REENLISTMENT IF AT
ANYTIME AFTER REPORTING TO DLI THEY HAVE LESS THAN 36 MONTHS
OBLIGATED SERVICE REMAINING FROM THEIR PROJECTED GRADUATION DATE.
8. FY05 PRIOR SERVICE ENLISTMENT PROGRAM (PSEP) MARINES ARE ELIGIBLE
FOR THIS INCENTIVE, PROVIDED THEY ARE RETURNING IN THEIR PREVIOUS
MOS.
9. THIS MESSAGE IS NOT APPLICABLE TO THE MARINE CORPS RESERVE.//
That directive is a nice start.
At the risk of sounding like Brad DeLong, though, why oh why wasn't it issued at least three years ago?
More time has now passed since Sept 11, 2001 than passed between Pearl Harbor and VJ Day. And the Marines are just now getting around to sending 50 people a year in for intensive Arabic? WTF?
MARINES INVEST IN INTENSIVE ARABIC
Doug, this is actually a story about initiative. Normally the Defense Department planning processes identify requirements like Arabic capability and set quotas and timelines for the services.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not task the Joint Staff with doing this planning.
It took the personal iniative of the commandant of the Marine Corps to make this move. As you know, the Marines don't carry the freight in the major language-related tasks (Intel, PolMil and Civil Affairs) ----- so the Commandant was, in a sense, acting out of school in making this decision.
Yes, it should have come sooner. More importantly, it should have come from the top. Better yet, we shouldn't have stopped maintaining our large Arabic inventory way back in 1990.
Lots of blame to pass around, but I would buy the Marine Corps Commandant a drink for his initiative in this instance.
JohnStuart
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