A C.I.A. Grunt’s Tale of the Fog of Secret War

I can't say I disagree with anything you've said there. I believe a lot of foreign policy also consists of trying to salvage or redirect the previous administrations' policies no matter how disastrous they've proven thus far, purely for the sake of saving face and refusing to admit them as mistakes (although Iraq is now certainly accepted as a mistake by most people). I believe the bigger problem is the insistence on projecting US power overseas no matter the cost or consequences. It's like there's some underlying belief that if you don't use it you lose it (which might be true in itself I don't really know)

"I have spent many hours arguing with conservative friends on why we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia in particular, but they trot out some arguments about oil and fears of ME instability (as though the status quo is fine)."

As I like to say, you can make anything look good by only considering the positives, and make anything look bad by only considering the negatives. I think we're hard-wired to generally consider the positives of the status quo and the negatives of any possible change, as part of our general hard-wiring to be loss-averse. Even when the status quo is already pretty bad, it's hard for most people to rationally contemplate change. I'm not targeting that at politicians in particular, it's hard for all of us, across all fields.

I often find myself contemplating it in a professional context when I see a team struggling with very poor processes (no automated testing, no CI, poor source control, etc., not necessarily "Process with a capital P"), but they can't contemplate any changes because all they see are the costs of the transition as well as the possible costs of failure, even as, objectively, the position that they currently are in is "deep in a hole and still digging".

It is, arguably, not as bad as it sounds; a constantly shifting foreign policy always chasing changes that we probably poorly understand is not necessarily a good idea either. In fact I'd suggest that the way the United State's foreign policy predictable and hugely shifts on a four-year cycle has always been a problem for us. (Though, again, not necessarily all bad; at least it prevents us from creating too many glorious Five Year Plans.)

Obama was all about "pulling-out" too, and yet it seems that the US is still meddling in the middle-east. At first I was in disagreement with the root-poster, and generally I am opposed to the entire notion of war and paying people to do it. But, on some other level I really wish that politicians would either just go all in or pull-out completely.

It does come back to the problem we're attempting to solve. What if you could side step all of the political and ideological hang ups most people have and still get what you want? All you have to do is refine your goals and what you're willing to do to get there.

One of Putin's most trusted advisors is Vladislav Surkov, who used to publish avant-garde poetry and loves deconstructionist art. He has now deconstructed war for Putin and advanced the Gerasimov doctrine [1] to create a very different work of art. He recently wrote a science fiction story called "Without the Sky" as a way to describe his thesis on non-linear warfare. Here is a quote from the translation by Peter Pomerantsev;

"""

It was the first non-linear war. In the primitive wars of the 19th and 20th centuries it was common for just two sides to fight. Two countries. Two groups of allies. Now four coalitions collided. Not two against two, or three against one. No. All against all.

And what coalitions! Not like the ones you had before… It was rare for whole countries to enter. A few provinces would join one side, a few others a different one. One town or generation or gender would join yet another. Then they could switch sides, sometimes mid-battle.

Their aims were quite different. To take over a disputed coastal shelf. To forcefully introduce a new religion. Raise ratings. Try out new lasers. To stop humans being divided into men and women as gender differences undermine the unity of a nation.

Most understood the war to be part of a process. Not necessarily its most important part.

- http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/peter-pomerantsev/non-l...

- http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing...

"""

Within this deconstruction, conflict is not a means to an end. Conflict is an end to itself. The fact that all sides are fighting all sides is desired and encouraged, as it ensures the strategic objective as a whole. For instance, the article mentions that in Syria the allies we arm are bombing each other. People armed by the Pentagon are bombing the group armed by the CIA. What if this was the desired state? Assad is weakened, there is continuous presence in Syria, allies use the US to ward off against other allies, creating voluntary strategic dependence without requiring any boots on the ground.

No one even needs to do regime change. The regime is weakened and if things fall apart too much, it can be strengthened with a deeper alliance to pay-off the expensive conflict. Strategically speaking, the end-state perspective over here is perhaps superior to that of a conventional war, as all of this can be theoretically accomplished without having any formal boots on the ground.

Simultaneously, can the Syrians really view us as the enemy in this new war? There are after all no American troops on the ground. Sure a lot of the parties have American backing, but they sought out that backing and letting it be known works to our advantage and with the right propaganda it can be cast as giving control of their homeland back to them with American help. Especially if troops never follow.

This new form of war is ideologically and politically safe, while being extremely effective.

[1] http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/...

I honestly don't know. It's probably not what is said publicly. It's whatever some document somewhere that requires a high clearance to read lays out.

For what its worth, I agree with you. I'm just trying to think about the problem from the other side. What do the people who are actually making this policy thinking? Clearly they aren't idiots, so why are they making the "wrong" choices repeatedly?

> The US presiding over a series of failed states throughout the world where they endless hunt for terrorists seems like an insane plan - but a plan which seems to be shaping up as the objective of US policy.

Interesting in context of the original comment: Russia is effectively doing the same in the Caucasus and attempting to do so in Syria and Ukraine, albeit as ineffectively as the US' attempts to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US has long presided over successful, or at least stable (if not at all laudable) states in the Middle East for some time, but is losing its ability to do so, as those states lose their ability to maintain control over their internal affairs and neighbors. Both actors' failure to establish or support viable states in those regions have led to resentment, instability and radicalization, manifesting in violence aimed at them (international terrorism) and those states they've attempted to create or maintain (domestic terrorism and/or civil warfare).

Neither has had any obviously obtainable military objective for some time--while both are able to win conventional battles easily, winning conventional battles no longer has much useful effect, as they are not fighting or attempting control or defeat states, they are attempting to fight and defeat and/or control populaces/nations, which is impossible unless you wish to enact a genocide. Any goals of engendering stable, successful, independent nation-states cannot be accomplished by military means, nor can Russia or the US accomplish anything by waging a conventional war against states of equal power.

I agree on governance, but disagree on how to get there.

One, I wouldn’t say SOCOM was the problem and call the operators assassins. The military started off stupid, dropping a bomb on every person planting an IED. Then people got smarter and realized that understanding a network and finding the leaders was more important than just killing low level people trying to feed their family. SOCOM did a good job of finding those leaders.

Two, I would focus on Army SF. Training locals to operate themselves is more important than direct action. I’d just move FID directly under SOCOM. The Navy and Air Force spent way more then they should have in these wars, costing the country trillions. The Army and Marines weren’t much better. Green Berets were built to work with the locals. And with an air power supplement they can prevent places from getting over run.

Three, governance requires other agencies. Start with a minimal footprint of SF and Airpower. Then try to bring in state and aid and other agencies quickly. Only bring in more mainline military units as needed and get them out as quick as you can. This will never happen with the budget flowing directly through the military.

I think SOCOM focusing on FID with a more limited budget then the entire military and getting in other agencies quickly would be a much better approach to governance. When the “big” military comes in, they come in for total war. You get fighter jets, bombs, and battalions.

Whether you need it or not, the military will find a place for everything to keep it’s spot in the budget. Sometimes you do need tanks and bombers, but not where you are trying to govern.

We need to differentiate between total war and governance with people getting shot at and always strive for the latter. I don’t think the military will ever be able to effectively govern, it’s not its job. So less ground troops and more SF and Airpower and more State Department please and get rid of SOCOM as soon as State is comfortable. That's the approach I'd vote for.

I agree. Follow the money. I think all war profit should be nationalized. No corporate gain from killing people in foreign countries. Then at least greed won’t be a motivation.

Are we safer? I’m not sure, probably not. We did deal with Al-Queda and it’s roots existed before ’96. ISIS became the new idiot on the block, but was that from the mishandling of Iraq or Syria, likely a bit of both. And I blame regional issues more than any US actions for the lack of safety. Safer is a tough term to define specifically but war doesn't generally make people safer, I'd agree with that.

If you terrorize the world long enough, like many of the groups in the middle east, you will get people that just want to give you what you want, in an attempt to make it go away. Others will even blame themselves: "Maybe I did something wrong. Why would they bomb my cities unless we did something to them??"

Terrorism seems to work most of the time. Quebec,Canada is a good example of this. In the 70s, there was a separatist group that set off hundreds of bombs and even kidnapped the vice chairman at the time (and ended up killing him). This was mostly because they didn't feel they should be forced to learn English and wanted the French culture and language to dominate.

Fast forward a few decades and the roles are reversed. French is required everywhere in Quebec and businesses basically have to communicate all in French and are subjected to massive fines if their signs are not in French (and it has to culturally make sense).

The separatists have won and it had nothing to do with equality. They wanted their culture to dominate and have the power..and now it does..all through the power of terrorist activities.

It even happened much earlier with groups like the Vikings. They were never really defeated. They stole, raped, and pillaged across the world, and countries gave them what the wanted and they even ruled entire nations.

Eventually, their children's children didn't want to lose wealth or power and didn't continue the violent ways of their ancestors.

To stop them, the world had to give them wealth and power...while they murdered the innocent. I guess it worked, but many innocent people had to die along the way.

If we listened to people like you, terrorist groups in the middle east would continue to conquer that part of the world and gain more and more power until we have no way to stop it.

I am shocked sometimes to see empathy here for anyone that would execute you by cutting your head off, stone women and homosexuals, and rule a nation with an archaic religion.

Especially since many here can't even tolerate humane corporal punishment in the US or a simple bible verse spoken in a public school.

The Bush administration's actions in the Gulf were based on a funny contradiction:they were confident they could push further than Gulf War I because it was so successful; the reason it was so successful in the first place because they did not push further

Everyone cares about it sure, but as much as everyone cares about say, I don't know, ... having neatly combed hair. It is it nice to have it, some might consider it importnat, but not at the expense of staying hungry, afraid, in prison, sick and so on.

Counterarguments would be neat. Or at least downvote me into the grey so I can stand with the other comments that get punished for calling out this particular butt naked emperor; unless HN shows one's own comments in black always, in that case nevermind, I'll just state that the grey comments are right IMO, and especially agree with danharaj.

But if you expect me to be not snarky in response to something like "the vast majority of mankind doesn't care about freedom, wouldn't know what to do with it, and will misuse it when given it.", then just ban me, get it over with. Something like this matters more to me than HN or computers ever could, and though I was being polemic I'm willing and able to back up every last word in that comment, and until proven otherwise I'll assume that's why I don't get challenged on it, but simply downvoted.

Its not so much that people dislike freedom, but that freedom is hard to define.

Out of WW2, the western world operated under a "freedom from" definition. Freedom from oppression and coercion.

But come the 80s onwards, it was a subtle flip to "freedom to". And with it came a resurgence of robber barons and corporate "colonialism".

So when someone in a suit stands on a podium and talks about freedom, you have to ask yourself what exactly he means by that term.

More and more the American meaning has been for the corporations to con, cheat and exploit without repercussions.

Great point, and apt that you refer to a strict hierarchy like the military. In Japan, young people are expected to carry heavy responsibilities and older people have fairly cushy managerial roles. (My friend is a CEO of a fairly large company here and he thinks Google is black magic.)

Keep in mind that the Middle East is increasingly less important to global oil supplies, particularly the US.

I wonder, are there bots trawling HN that up or downvote based on keywords or sentiment analysis? Or maybe people acting as such?

The other explanation for a five second response time could be that your comment just happened to have its downvote button right where a reader on a phone likes to swipe to scroll.

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As to the comment itself, I would like to see more discussion of the "really real" motives for ongoing non-war armed invasions, because all the stated motivations are clearly inane.

I've been meaning to get back to learning Arabic after one failed attempt. I'm into calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy is some of the most beautiful writing in the world.

Partially true, but that's not the whole story. Speaking as a non-American, I'd attribute another chunk of it to the fact that most USAns don't travel outside their own continent (where they've got Canada and Mexico and the Carribean islands with which to engage with "the rest of the world" if so inclined). With the partial exceptions of Mexico (the war on drugs) and Cuba (the war on Fidel Castro's beard), there's not much call for spying in those countries; the pool of US citizens with some degree of acculturation to truly foreign societies is comparatively small compared to those folks who live in places where you can drive 100 miles and cross two borders and three language barriers.

Well. Lets not forget that Soviet Russia had a nasty habit of killing millions of people, mostly IIRC its own inhabitants,-for all kinds of reasons.

In fact I guess Soviet Russia has killed a few tens of millions more people than USA.

Fear of the USSR was completely justified. (Sadly so was fear of USA in some countries.)

> You know, there is a reason people went to the press -- it's because when they followed the official route they were ignored, threatened and had the full force of the US government turned against them.

They were not ignored; their concerns were founded in an incorrect understanding of the Constitution and the law. They didn't follow the official route, which is to file a complaint with an inspector complaint. The government did nothing to them until they broke their oaths and the law.

There's a better quote in there:

> "Snowden could've come to me," says George Ellard, the NSA's inspector general. "In fact, he would have been given some protections."

It applies equally to Drake & Binney. Anyone has the ability to go to an inspector general and raise issues of misconduct. What folks don't have the right to do is invent their own Constitution and laws. Another good quote is:

> "Perhaps it's the case that we could've shown, we could've explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do," Ellard said.

But we're already far off the topic; this isn't the thread to discuss how Binney, Drake & Snowden shared a fatally flawed misunderstanding of what is & is not licit under the prevailing interpretation of the Constitution.

I'm just honestly glad that this young man actually fulfilled his oath. That really shouldn't be remarkable, but these days it is.