21 June 2014 –

Turkey Is the Key

The President has mishandled the crisis in Iraq.   Never mind that the previous administration probably should not have invaded Iraq in 2003.  Never mind that the previous administration waffled until 2007 before committing sufficient troops to create the conditions necessary for nation-building and long-term peace.  Presidents inherit situations and become personally responsible for them.   

What matters now is, that stability in Iraq was finally achieved by 2007, that President Obama inherited a legitimate chance to solidify that stability, and that his inattention threw that chance away.  Now, he faces chaos and must do something to regain the confidence of the American people.  But, where is his strategy?  His record is one of throwing tactical solutions at strategic problems, publically hoping that crises will pass.  Hope, however, is not a strategy.  

What should be the U.S.’s strategy to protect vital U.S. interests in the region?  We must first identify those vital interests.  I suggest the following: 1) the unimpeded flow of oil out of Iraq; 2) the suppression of jihadist violence against the U.S. and her allies; 3) the protection of Israel’s sovereignty; 4) stability among the myriad players in the region. 

Next, we must identify major players who share our common interests and can actually help us achieve it.    

First. Iran benefits if Iraq’s southern oil production is disrupted or if Iran controls it.  Iran openly supports jihadist violence against the U.S. and our interests, proven by Iran’s long-term funding of radical violence in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and elsewhere.  Iran continually declares its intention to wipe Israel off the map, using its soon-to-be-deployed nuclear weapons.  Clearly, Iran foments violence to achieve its objectives. 

There is no common area in which the U.S. should work with Iran to achieve our objectives.  Iran is an enemy, period. 

Second.  Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated government under Nouri al-Malaki is incapable of helping the U.S. achieve any objectives.  It could have evolved into a capable friend if President Obama had continued with the Bush administration’s commitment to professionalize the Iraqi Army, institutionalize the rule of law, and create a nation-wide sense of being Iraqi.  It’s too late for that now.  President Obama, always playing catch-up, must “reset” his thinking to mitigate the chaos resulting from his pullout of U.S. troops.  Iraq is quiet about it now, but it still refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist. 

There is no common area where the U.S. can rely on the Iraqi government to help achieve our objectives. 

Third.  Saudi Arabia stands to gain if Iraqi oil production is disrupted.  Saudi Arabia also is the world’s biggest funder of Sunni jihadist violence throughout the Middle East and Africa.  The Sunni-dominated Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may have gone too far in Iraq to suit some in the Saudi government, but the current pressure on Iran and the Shi’ites in Southern Iraq is welcomed by the rulers in Riyadh.  Of course, Saudi Arabia has always refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist.  Finally, the Wahabbist Saudis view unrest in the region as acceptable as long as it advances their form of medieval Islam. 

There is no common area in which we can work with Saudi Arabia to achieve U.S. objectives in the area.

Fourth.  Turkey benefits from a continued flow of oil from Northern Iraq and Kurdistan through Turkey to the Mediterranean.  Turkey is the U.S.’s formal NATO ally and has worked with us to condemn jihadist violence in the West.  Even under Prime Minister Erdogan’s increasingly radical and corrupt direction, Turkey understands that Israel’s sovereignty ultimately benefits Turkey.  Finally, Turkey’s geographic prominence has enabled the Byzantines to the Ottomans to the Turks to dominate the Levant by controlling northern access into the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.  Our not working openly with the Turkish government from the beginning of the Syrian conflict, in order to prevent radical expansion into Iraq, showed our shallow understanding of how to build and execute workable strategies in this complicated region.  

Turkey has a military trained, manned, and equipped to NATO standards.  It is the obvious choice as our lead partner.  A Turkish-U.S. force could move into Northern Syria and Iraq, cut off ISIS from its base of operations, and cause it to wither all along the southern borders of Turkey.  Our combined force could then stabilize the Turkish and Arab community in Northern Iraq, ensure continued oil production in Northern Iraq and Kurdistan, and facilitate oil delivery through Turkey to world markets.  The world would then focus on a separate conflict south of Baghdad, with Iran as the obvious villain. 

Oil flows, terrorism and the Syrian conflict are contained, Iran is discredited, and Turkey and the United States benefit. 

Turkey is the key.  Where are we?  

18 June 2014 - Wrapping Up the Trifecta 

The Strategic Picture - Part Three

The third major strategic threat to U.S. sovereignty, after our federal debt and our failure to deal with illegal immigration, is our dependence on unreliable sources of foreign energy.  This threatens our sovereignty because some of the very countries that sell us oil, use their petrodollars to fund Islamic jihadist attacks on the United States.  As well, our reliance on these foreign sources of energy puts pressure on our foreign policy process to try to solve intractable problems in places like the Middle East and Africa.  Our dependence on foreign energy overly complicates what should be a more straightforward, effective foreign policy and more secure sovereignty. 

The solution to this energy dependence is not complicated: we drill for oil everywhere we can in the United States and in its sovereign waters.  The increase in natural gas and petroleum production in the U.S. during the last decade has come from entrepreneurial drilling on private lands.  Now, the President should immediately lift the moratorium on drilling on leased federal lands, and even encourage expansion of the program by stipulating that companies that do not start exploration and drilling within a year will lose their federal leases.  He should also allow drilling in places like Alaska’s Coastal Plain, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).   

The President should facilitate the building of new oil and natural gas refineries in such ports as Houston, Long Beach, and Seattle.  He should encourage this construction by taking back the billions of federal dole dollars now being wasted on failed alternate energy production and give that money back to the energy industry in the form of lower taxes.   

The President should lead out in creating a long-term accord with Canada and Mexico to coordinate their energy production and export systems with those of the United States.  This North American Petroleum Exporting Countries (NAOPEC) pact would further cement our friendship with Canada and promote a much firmer friendship with Mexico.  This last step obviously should include the immediate building of the Keystone pipeline from Canada to Texas.  The pipeline will create jobs, infuse money into the economy, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.  Such increase in exploration and production would give the United States the independence, flexibility, and market dominance it does not now have, and would help secure our sovereignty in the world.    

In addition to increasing prosperity, a burgeoning energy industry would fortify U.S. sovereignty by reducing the flow of dollars into countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.  These nations use dollars to fund terrorist activity against the United States, and they finance radical Islamic jihad movements in their neighboring states.  If we bought far less of their oil, the terrorists and rebels—domestic and international—would have far less money for weapons, logistics, and training.  With far less money, Middle East conflicts would continue to simmer but would explode far less often.   

The petrodollar-funded jihad of the last several decades is just the latest campaign in the thirteen-hundred-year war between Western civilization and the civilization of Islam.  Radical Islamists hate the U.S. – the Great Satan – with a fervor that most westerners refuse to understand or accept.  Using petrodollars, they plot greater, bloodier wars against us. We cannot change their minds or win their hearts; therefore, it would be prudent for us to defund their campaign. 

With fare less reliance on foreign sources of oil, our decision matrix for U.S. involvement in Middle East and Africa’s messy, centuries-old, intractable, hostile-to-infidel religious and tribal conflicts would change.  No matter the crise du jour, a compelling case for involvement would be harder for either interventionist or do-gooders to make.  We would continue to make mistakes because that is the nature of foreign policy decision-making.  But, those mistakes would not have the effects on our sovereignty that our mistakes are having now. 

Oil is our defining strategic interest in the Middle East, and it is also the fuel for Islamic jihad.  Both sides of that petro dollar erode our sovereignty.   If the President really wants his domestic and foreign policy legacy to endure the next generations, he must enable our energy independence, not stifle it. 

Then, in our increased safety and prosperity, many more Americans will be playing golf as much as he does.   

Comments can be sent to mac.coleman.colonel@gmail.com

16 June 2014 –

The Strategic Picture – Part Two

The second major strategic threat to U.S. sovereignty is our leaders’ disregard of constitutional principles of governance in their handling of illegal immigration.  Webster’s New World Dictionary best defines sovereignty as “independent of all others.”  Our Founders refined the lessons of history and created a nation where the People, for the first time, were sovereign.  The People would decide, through an elected Congress passing laws and an indirectly elected President dutifully enforcing them, how best to govern themselves.  The American People would then be independent of any other influence.  Today, our sovereignty is being dismantled along our southern border. 

For decades, millions of illegal immigrants have been crossing into the United States, breaking U.S. law, and overwhelming the capabilities of our border forces, local governments, and society to deal with them.  Illegal immigrants’ reasons for wanting to come to the United States may be compelling to all; but, their reasons are irrelevant to our sovereignty.  This crisis is not about them; it is about us, Americans, deciding our ultimate fate. 

Illegal immigration threatens U.S. sovereignty in at least two ways. 

One.  Governments from Central America to Mexico not only have encouraged such mass movement, but also have colluded with criminal elements to facilitate it.  For their own corrupt reasons, they are exploiting our government’s dissolute immigration policies.  In very real ways, they now determine who is an American citizen and who is not.  If that is not a foreign attack on and seizure of U.S. sovereignty, then nothing is.   

Two.  In the past thirty years, illegal immigration has increased and decreased, but rarely because of responsible government action.  Neither Congress nor the administration has done its constitutional duty to pass and then implement effective immigration laws.   Both branches of government have abused one of the fundamental elements of vibrant U.S. sovereignty, the rule of law.  America and Americans are not defined not by race or culture, but by rule of law.  If we don’t have that, we are nobody special.     

Most recently, while Congress has dithered, the President has disregarded his constitutional duty to faithfully implement the immigration laws that Congress has already passed.  He has refused to protect our southern border from an assault by foreigners.  He flaunts his illegal actions by saying that current immigration laws are bad.  He says that he, as the executive branch, has the right to create new laws, by pen and by telephone.  The President is seizing power that the Founders deliberately and wisely gave to Congress as the representatives of the People.  He is molding himself and his office as this nation’s sovereign.    

Simply put, borders and the laws that create them matter.  Fences define personal property, and borders define nations.  Our government exists to protect our personal rights and property and to protect us as a nation.  We, the People, determine, through the laws that our elected representatives pass, who we are as a nation.  If the President doesn’t like the existing immigration laws, he should heed the sage example of a predecessor, Ulysses S. Grant.  He faced the enormous task of reestablishing the sovereignty of a divided and contentious nation after the Civil War.  In his 1869 inaugural address, President Grant confirmed his constitutional role by affirming what the Founders had intended: “…all laws will be faithfully executed…whether they meet with my approval or not.” 

President Grant also suggested how the executive branch could influence Congress to change onerous laws: “Laws are to govern all alike…those opposed as well as those who favor them.  I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.” 

Today, the President must return to his constitutionally prescribed limits.  Within those limits, he could convince Congress to fund the appropriate agencies sufficiently to seal U.S. borders completely and, thereby, recover sovereignty from foreign sources.  He could even ask Congress to provide assistance to destitute migrants but only if they sit on the other side of the border.  The President also could convince Congress to sufficiently fund the appropriate agencies so that he could then lead them to faithfully and vigorously enforce laws that further strengthen our sovereignty.  By doing this, he could show leadership consistent with constitutional governance.  What he is doing now is dividing our sovereignty among foreign despots and aggrandizing his increasingly regal office.  We, his subjects, are the losers.     

14 June 2014 - 

The Strategic Picture - Part One

Before commenting on the last fortnight of international developments, a short review of the largest threats to our sovereignty is in order. 

The following, in priority order, are the three major strategic threats to U.S. sovereignty.  It is well within our capabilities as a nation to resolve these threats, but we refuse to do so.  1) The huge national debt, created by profligate government spending, erodes our sovereign ability to act without bowing to the lenders’ self-serving influence.  2) Illegal immigration erodes our sovereign ability to defend our borders and to determine who is and is not an American.  3) The reliance of the United States on foreign sources of energy, particularly on those from Muslim states that use their receipts to fund the latest campaign in a 1300-year war between Islamic and Western Christian Civilization, erodes our ability to decisively stop all who threaten U.S. interests.        

I want to focus on the most dangerous threat.  According to FactCheck.org, these are the overall U.S.’s 2014 economy, debt, and budget numbers.  They should scare you. 

Total US economy: $17. 5 Trillion.  Total Federal debt: $17.7 trillion.  We owe more than we make, and our debt is increasing in FY 2014 by another $744 billion to $18.5 trillion.  How far would your personal “full faith and credit” influence a loan officer if you owed more credit card debt than your yearly income?  By the way, a trillion is a one followed by twelve zeros: 1,000,000,000,000.  This ain’t Monopoly money! 

Federal Tax Receipts:  $3 trillion.  Income Taxes – 46%.  Payroll Taxes (Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid) – 34%.  Corporate Taxes – 11%.  Excise, Customs, and Miscellaneous Taxes – 9%.  We are collecting more revenue than ever before, but are spending even more.  Revenue is not the issue; spending is.    

Federal Spending: $3.77 trillion.  Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid – 42%.  Defense – 20%.  Interest on the National Debt – 6%.  Everything else – 32%.  Hmm, even this French Literature major sees the big gap between income and outgo, particularly in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  They account for 34% of total receipts but 42% of total spending.  In actual dollars, our payroll taxes take in just over one trillion dollars, but the programs they support spend $1.58 trillion.  That deficit of $580 billion accounts for over 75% of FY 2014’s total federal budget deficit of $744 billion.  We must reform the entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, or they will bankrupt us, no matter how we parse the rest of our revenues. 

Our Creditors.  We owe $17.741 trillion to the following:  Social Security Trust Fund – 16%; foreign countries – 34%; Federal Reserve and other federal government agencies – 25%; mutual funds, other funds, state and local governments – 23%. 

Not only have we seriously underfunded Social Security spending, but we also have looted over 2.8 trillion dollars from its trust fund to pay other bills.  That is like borrowing against your retirement fund to pay utilities, car payments, credit card interest, and lawn care, because you don’t earn enough money to live the way you feel you are entitled to.      

We owe $6 trillion to foreign countries, including well over $1 trillion to both Japan and China.  If such borrowing continues, who will control strategic negotiations in an international crisis, the debtor or the banker? 

We owe nearly $4.5 trillion, 29% of our total debt, to the Federal Reserve and other government agencies.  Not only have we gutted our Social Security program and gone with hat-in-hand to the world to pay our bills, but we also have printed tons of extra greenbacks to pay for our wastrel lifestyle.  Isn’t printing extra money to pay bills a primary cause of inflation?  Could there be such a thing as a $1 trillion bill?  Yup.  I bought one in Zimbabwe in 2010 for $2 U.S., and I think I paid the tourist price. 

Accumulating such debt is a classic definition of the loss of national sovereignty.  Debt may be necessary in a crisis, but paying off credit cards before interest charges kick in is what responsible, prudent, wise grown-ups do.  It is what true leaders do.  Spending more than one earns year after year after year after year is what oppressive, third-world dictators and self-serving socialists do.  To satisfy the masses, such leaders define giveaways as “entitlements”, something citizens—or illegal immigrants—deserve rather than earn.  Such leaders destroy short-term gain rather than build for long-term security.  Today, our incredible debt and profligate spending are the number one strategic threat to the sovereignty of the United States. 

Soon to follow are the effects of strategic threat #2, illegal immigration, on U.S. sovereignty.  Comments directed to mac.coleman.colonel@gmail.com.

5 June 2014 –

Incredible Incompetence

Our focus in this recent prisoner exchange debacle should be on the President’s track record of foreign policy failure.  I’ll try to explain it using the military planning model of vision, strategy, operational planning, tactical execution, and replanning.  

President Obama’s foreign policy vision is blurry at best, fundamentally flawed at worst.  Most Americans rightfully believe that our nation is exceptional and should lead the world.  But, during crises, President Obama fails to speak in a way that enlists the support of most Americans; leading from behind and being one among equals does not create a winning team in the U.S. or among international friends.  His naïve, shallow vision weakens the United States by opposing a world order that he inherited from his more able predecessors.

A strategy consists of goals and objectives that should fulfill a president’s vision.  To build their foreign policy strategies, previous presidents in both political parties selected far more competent staffs and foreign policy advisors than has President Obama.  Most past presidents have demanded that their staffs carefully draft and mercilessly vet their foreign policy strategies for the clear and common sense goals that encourage at least a modicum of bipartisan support from Congress.  President Obama has yet to do so.  Therefore, he has no goals or objectives to refer to when confronted with a decision.   He also fails to demand factual accuracy from his senior advisors’ public statements defending his decisions.  But, I suppose that accuracy is irrelevant when one’s target is beyond one’s vision.   

My experience says that most of the world sees the U.S. as exceptional.  Yet, Team Obama’s “make-it-up-as-we-go-along” strategists display ordinary weakness and ignorance to our friends and enemies.  The President either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that leading the world with clear vision and strategic commitment enables our friends to close ranks with us, causes our enemies to fear us, and maintains peace.  But, our confused and reticent president has caused our friends to hedge their bets to protect their own interests.  He also enabled Russia to take the Crimea, China to bully our Pacific allies, and the Taliban to control the tempo of the war in Afghanistan—Obama’s War.  The Taliban has now orchestrated an embarrassing prisoner exchange when there was no compelling reason for the U.S. to participate. 

   

An operational plan based on a blurry vision and a nonexistent strategy is impossible to maintain.  Professional planners in the Departments of State and Defense, therefore, have little to work with when to try to clarify missions, build operational-level plans, and justify congressional funding.  Diplomatic negotiations become meaningless.  Justification for military manpower, training, and equipment levels becomes impossible.  It is proven, however, that a military organization and culture, adrift without a clear mission, becomes an enticing petri dish for progressive social engineering, further eroding our ability to pursue U.S. foreign policy objectives when responding to a crisis.  

   

A clear vision, a sensible strategy, and well-rehearsed operational plans set the conditions in which flexible, tactical commanders successfully plan the actual fight.  Tragically, Team Obama’s failure to provide these building blocks has created battlefield irrelevance.  Tactical victories by our military forces and by our local diplomats, without a clear strategy, only forestall defeat.  In a real sense, our more-focused enemies now control the tempo of their campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa.  They may indeed enable their victory as well.        

“The plan is nothing; planning is everything.”  When the shooting starts, wartime planners rely on a clear vision and a well-thought-out strategy to adjust actions in the battlespace.  Today, our diplomats and soldiers struggle because Team Obama has yet to produce them.  In every international crisis, President Obama challenges adversaries then backs off.  He misreads or ignores critical events worldwide.  He whimsically adjusts, if forced to, and then fails to clarify.  He organizes nothing.  He continues to ignore this portion of the planning process with which conflicts are won or lost.   

    

Finally, Team Obama’s incredible misread of everyone’s response to its recent prisoner exchange is a mistake of strategic proportions.  The exchange violated well-proven policy, probably exacerbated conditions in Afghanistan, and upset both opponents and supporters in Congress.  No crisis compelled President Obama to act on the edges of his authority and release dangerous prisoners from Guantanamo Prison.  What is compelling, however, is that for the last four years, the Taliban have dictated the timing and tempo of the war and of the negotiations for prisoner exchange. They had a plan.  Our commander-in-chief did not.  In the words of the great sage and prophet, Bugs Bunny, “What a Maroon!”