It is not
yet apparent in one document how the Obama Administration will approach
National Defense or Counterterrorism Strategy.
These strategy documents do not have an Obama version and analysts must
glean the strategic thinking piecemeal from actions, speeches and
testimony. There is no Counterterrorism
link on the White House web site, a change from the Bush Administration and
there is no updated Counterterrorism policy – the latest being from the Bush
Administration, “The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.”
Counterterrorism
is important in the current global situation and will be for years to come, a
strategy must recognize that fact and be more durable over the years, while
remaining flexible in its approach. Counterterrorism requires a layered not a
stovepiped approach, so familiar to government, across several elements. These elements are root conditions of
terrorism, gauging and eliminating the capabilities of terror-using
groups, gauging and blunting the intentions of terror-using groups and
establishing defenses. All four elements
use a combination of soft and hard power or the current term of reference, smart
power – which must include both hard and soft elements.
It is fine
for the White House counterterrorism advisor to make great speeches that
contain most of these elements, it is quite another to have a thoughtful,
cogent strategy that will turn the wheels of government toward a new CT
strategy, policy and action. An article
by the Atlantic Council demonstrates the President is approaching the foreign
policy aspects of a strategy. Action in Afghanistan and Pakistan demonstrates willingness
to blunt terrorist capabilities, but other CT elements are not necessarily on
display. A strategy would help.
The Bush
Administration had a great policy, presumably the one still in force, they just
could not make the more subtle concepts work within the larger defensive and
military aspects of the strategy – mitigating root conditions for example. The iron
fist tended to go ungloved. The Obama
Administration has shown a willingness to use the iron fist, gloved and
ungloved, but the efforts lack a strategic framework and seem reactionary more
than operations based on a broader vision.
It is
important for the President to think through a grand strategy, publish it and
make it operational, soft power, hard power or smart power, across and through
every governmental stovepipe.
John Brennan’s
Remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Atlantic
Council article on Obama Foreign Policy
http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/obamas-national-security-strategy-unfolding
National
Security Strategy for Combating Terrorism
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/policy/national/nsct_sep2006.htm
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