In an uncertain world, there is one thing we can always count on: Joe Biden will be wrong about major foreign policy moves.

As long as President Obama continues to do the opposite of what his veep recommends, he should do alright.

Pakistani's Army Service Book Club every year picks one book and apparently sends it to all commissioned officers as well as some civilian officials, with the cost automatically deducted from their salaries. Interestingly, this year's pick is Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars.

No one seemed to notice it, but this comment, made by Sen. Lindsey Graham during Sen. Webb's Sept. 14 hearing on bloat in the general officer corps, is especially interesting because it comes from a conservative South Carolina Republican who is also an Air Force Reserve JAG officer:

SEN. GRAHAM: ...one thing I would say, in my little area of the world, is that a two-star judge advocate general position did not serve us well during Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay discussions. Because there's a real tension, and this is -- goes beyond party politics -- between the office of the general counsel, who serves the secretary of Defense, and each service chief. They're civilians. And the military uniformed lawyer, loyalty lies to their commander.  

And we had a very bad problem in the Bush Administration that the Obama Administration, quite frankly, has corrected. The civilian lawyers in the Bush Administration, in my view, shut out military legal advice and tried to make a power grab, saying that the judge advocate general had to clean -- clear their legal advice to their commanders through the civilian office of general counsel. That, to me, was an exercise of control of legal independence.

Is it time for a military journal or law review to step up and do an in-depth look at the Bush Administration vs. the JAGs? (If you know of such an overview and analysis, please let me know.)

My personal theory, based on some interviews I did at the time with JAGs, is that they became the first line of defense against the use of torture and other Bush Administration transgressions because they were "double professionals," heedful of their dual duties both as officers and as lawyers. This made them more likely to refuse to break the law or tell others to do so.

Here is a response from AEI's Tom Donnelly to my calling him out yesterday:

By Tom Donnelly
Best Defense guest defendant

I won't presume to respond for AEI as a whole, but I don't see why providing for the common defense correlates to tax rates on the rich or to the percentage of GDP owned by the top 1 percent of earners. We have to weaken our military until the rich pay their "fair share," whatever that is? What about corporations who pay little or no tax? Do we have to cut defense spending until General Electric pays its fair share? What about lower-income Americans who pay no income taxes at all? What about the subsidies and distortions in the tax code? If defense spending is the hammer for every political occasion, why don't we make cuts commensurate with the tax revenues lost, for example, subsidizing second-home-in-Maine mortgages?

Personally, I would be happy to see some rise in federal tax revenues in trade for a long-term solution to the problem of runaway entitlement costs -- costs that are already triple the core defense budget but rising, thanks to Baby Boomer retirements, rapidly and inexorably. That would at least link the government's income to its largest expenditure.

But even if we can't resolve the political impasse over how to get our fiscal house in order and have to keep borrowing, I'd prefer to be investing in an adequate defense, the ultimate common good. Even people at AEI would rather be safe than rich.

By Emma Sky
Best Defense roving Middle East correspondent

I took my seat alongside hundreds of others yesterday at Fort Myer for the ceremony to mark the Change of Responsibility from General Dempsey to General Odierno, the new 38th Chief of Staff of the Army.

The Units that paraded before us were reminders of America's history: the 3rd United States Infantry (The Old Guard), the United States Army Band (Pershing's Own), the Fife and Drum Corps, the Commander-in-Chief's Guard, Salute Battery, Continental Color Guard, State and Territorial Flags.

There is no other country in the world where a grandson of an immigrant could rise to the highest level of the military. General Odierno is the American dream. With General Odierno at the helm, I have every confidence that the Army will become smarter, more agile, and fitter to face future threats -- while taking significant cuts to its budget. General Odierno has proven himself a versatile commander, leading both the surge of troops into Iraq and also the draw down. There is no one who better understands the Army as an institution or its soldiers as people.

But as we have witnessed since 9/11, America cannot impose its will by force, and how America wields its power determines how it is perceived around the world. There had to be a response to 9/11. Some will argue that we should have treated it as a criminal act, rather than an act of war. The responses would have been different. And many question whether the way in which we went about trying to make ourselves safer did in fact serve to create more enemies.

What I have no doubts about, however, is the extraordinary endeavors of America's men and women in uniform, who year after year volunteered to serve in war zones, and who went to such efforts to make America safer and to bring stability to the areas in which they operated. Many lost their lives, and many more their limbs. The cost has been great. We get to chose the way we live our lives -- but not how we die. And for many soldiers, if they had one day left to live in this world, they would volunteer to spend it out on patrol, with their comrades on their right and on their left, who would be willing to take a bullet for them, and vice versa.

Before 9/11, I had never met an American soldier. Today, at Fort Myers it was wonderful to be back among so many familiar faces, soldiers I served with in Iraq and Afghanistan year after year - soldiers who welcomed me into their tribe and made me feel one of them.

There is no one who understands soldiers better than General Odierno, and the stress this last decade has put on the military and their families. He will ensure that his term as 38th Chief of Staff of the Army marks the transformation of the Army into a leaner but smarter organization, able to defend the nation and to take care of its soldiers.

"First to fight for the right
And to build the Nation's might
And the Army goes rolling along."

Baroness Sky has served several tours in the Middle East, including one as General Odierno's political advisor in Iraq during the surge.

By Richard Fontaine
Best Defense directorate of long-term grand strategy

Secretary of State Clinton's swing through India points again to the tremendous potential of an Indo-American strategic partnership over the long term. But it also demonstrates how tough some of the challenges will remain over the next couple of years. 

Secretary Clinton is in India at the helm of a large, high-level government delegation for the second annual Strategic Dialogue. The first round, held in Washington last year, started to pull the bilateral relationship out of its previous doldrums and set the stage for President Obama's successful visit to India last fall. This round is aimed at sustaining last year's progress and implementing the many commitments both sides took on.

That's tough to do. Many of the big policy changes on the American side have already been made -- the United States has supported Indian access to civilian nuclear technology, a change that required amending domestic law and international agreements; it modified its export controls so that India has greater access to American technology; it now supports India's membership in the four international nonproliferation regimes; and the president endorsed Indian permanent membership on the UN Security Council. There is always more to do, to be sure, but these are serious moves.

On the Indian side, most of the expected policy changes are stuck, largely due to domestic politics. The civil nuclear deal is not operational because of a flawed liability law. Key defense agreements remain incomplete. India has granted little in the way of market access, despite repeated American hectoring. And the United States bemoaned the fact that the two American companies bidding on a major fighter jet program were knocked out of the competition.

Read on

By Matthew Irvine
Best Defense bureau of keeping your eye on the ball

The Obama administration rolled out the unclassified version of its long-awaited counterterrorism strategy document on Wednesday.

Put simply, this is a war plan against al Qaeda. The document is al Qaeda-centric to the point of being al Qaeda-obsessed. What is striking about the strategy is not so much what it says about al Qaeda or its repeated mentions of killing Osama bin Laden (5 of them), but what it left out about counterterrorism more broadly:

Terrorists who aren't AQ: The document mentions "other terrorist concerns requiring focus and attention" such as Hamas, Hizballah, the FARC, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, the document does not address these groups in a substantive way.

State-sponsors of terror: While recognizing that some states (Iran and Syria) support terrorist organizations, the strategy does not spell out what this means for broader foreign policy towards these countries. Pakistan is notably absent from this list despite its established ties to the Haqqani Network, Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Mexico: The growing violence in Mexico did not make the cut in the new strategy. With more than 35,000 dead over the last five years, including numerous government officials, kidnappings, and car bombings, Mexico is emerging as a principal security question for folks on both sides of the border.

The Internet: Cyberterrorism and the increasingly active use of the internet as a virtual safe haven got only lip-service in the unclassified version of the White House report. As Spencer Ackerman at DangerRoom points out, this is not an adequate treatment of what is a growing problem. Domestic Terrorism: Despite DHS calling attention in 2009 to the resurgence in right wing extremism, the new CT strategy does not address this very distinct threat. You don't have to go too far back in time to see the Unabomber, Tim McVeigh, the rise of right-wing militias as a pre-eminent counterterrorism concern.

Pakistan: The President's counterterrorism advisor John Brennan argued on Wednesday that "there's no alternative to us or to the Pakistanis to ensuring that we continue engaging with them." I'm left asking: What happens if the United States and Pakistan don't make up? The United States and Pakistan suffered a bitter divorce in the 1990s. What's to stop that from happening again?

Lastly, what comes next? Brennan also declared "al Qaeda is in its decline," but went on to warn of an adapting enemy and AQ network that will pose a persistent threat. The 9/11 Commission cited a failure of imagination as one of the primary faults in U.S. counterterrorism thinking ten years ago. After reading the 2011 CT strategy, (and the 2003 and 2007 documents) I am left asking the question: What comes next? What are we missing? What are we failing to imagine?

I never would have expected that the Obama Administration's Justice Department would prosecute a National Security Agency whistleblower but decline to investigate cases in which people died while being interrogated by U.S. officials. The case against the NSA official fell apart like a cheap suit, by the way. Viewing things as I do through the prism of national security, I think that of the entire administration, Eric Holder and his Justice Department have been this administration's least valuable player.  

I still consider myself an Obama supporter, but mainly for non-national security reasons. In that arena, my worries grow. I hear Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute is leaving the White House soon. You may not have heard of him, but his departure may prove significant, because from what I hear, he is one of the few generals who has felt not only heard but understood by this White House. And he was a carryover from the previous administration, which may indicate that this team has not on its own found anyone in the military with which to have candid exchanges. This crop of White House officials may or may not be politically astute (I am not a good judge of that) but in the area I know, I fear they are in the D range in their handling of policy deliberations with the military. That's LBJ territory. So far this hasn't caused any major problems, but it could: In a sustained crisis, their failure to build relationships of trust and understanding with today's four star officers will hurt us all, but especially those out at the sharp end of the spear. And it may be later than you think: By August 1965, the American phase of the Vietnam War was just months old, but Johnson had made the two negative decisions that would lose the war and break the Army -- to not pursue the enemy into his cross-border sanctuaries, and to not activate 100,000 reservists or extend the enlistments of active-duty forces.

What especially worries me is that I fear the Libyan intervention may be the wave of the future: A small, messy operation in which the United States is a minority partner, providing unique capabilities such as ISR and refueling, but not leading the action or dominating multilateral discussions of the way forward. Yet so far I have to meet a single person in the military who thinks intervening in Libya was the right thing to do. Again, this is a recipe for trouble down the road.

Here's one short-term test: Will Lute be replaced at the White House by another general? If so, who will it be?   

By Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent
Rebecca Frankel

As President Obama made his announcement this week about the troop drawdown this week, allied forces in Afghanistan are on the topic table again. European allies responded positively to the president's announcement. U.K. prime minister David Cameron, who announced his own plan for British troop withdrawals in May, was quick to applaud Obama, adding: 

We will keep UK force levels in Afghanistan under constant review. I have already said there will be no UK troops in combat roles in Afghanistan by 2015 and, where conditions on the ground allow, it is right that we bring troops home sooner."

Britain has approximately 10,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan -- the second highest number after the United States. Working alongside Cornish soldiers on the frontlines out of Camp Bastion -- Britain's largest military base in the country -- are a troop of 70 military dogs. So what's life like for a British military dog in Afghanistan? Actually, not too shabby.

Read on

What struck me most about the president's speech is not that he plans to cut the American presence in Afghanistan but that he committed us to staying there for several more years.

And again, the Lincolnesque rhetoric.

Obama last night:

"Now, let us finish the work at hand. Let us responsibly end these wars, and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story. With confidence in our cause; with faith in our fellow citizens; and with hope in our hearts, let us go about the work of extending the promise of America -- for this generation, and the next."

Lincoln in 1865:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

(HT to RF)

I continue to think that intervening in Libya was the right thing to do, but I still don't think this Obama administration statement to Congress passes the laugh test. Firing cruise missiles at someone isn't an act of war? And I wonder if the Air Force and Navy know that it ain't a war if it doesn't involve ground troops.

The twisted logic here reminds me of the Bush administration's legal rationale for embracing torture. 

The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of 'hostilities' contemplated by the Resolution's 60 day termination provision. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of a United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorizes the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.

(HT to BB)

I did this last year, but we can learn about military affairs from Warren Buffett every year. The military is not a business, and should not be run like one. But still, the defense establishment could learn a lot from a person as wise as Buffett.

If I could, I would ban all those business fad management books I see senior officers reading and instead make them study the annual reports from Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. You may not know Berkshire Hathaway, but if you buy insurance from Geico, drink Coca-Cola, eat See's Candies, read the Buffalo News, use goods transported by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, or wear Fruit of the Loom underwear, then products and services of companies owned in part or whole by Berkshire are touching your life.

For example, the U.S. military, and especially the Army, have been plagued by micromanagement since the mid-1950s, so long that no one now in the Army has much experience in any other way to run it. I see generals constantly scurrying endlessly to meetings where they often sit in the dark while subordinates read aloud to them bedtime stories (AKA Powerpoint briefings). Well, there is another way, and it is laid out by Buffett in his annual report for 2010:

At Berkshire, managers can focus on running their businesses: They are not subjected to meetings at headquarters nor financing worries nor Wall Street harassment. They simply get a letter from me every two years…and call me when they wish. And their wishes do differ: There are managers to whom I have not talked in the last year, while there is one with whom I talk almost daily. Our trust is in people rather than process. A "hire well, manage little" code suits both them and me.

Berkshire's CEOs come in many forms. Some have MBAs; others never finished college. Some use budgets and are by-the-book types; others operate by the seat of their pants. Our team resembles a baseball squad composed of all-stars having vastly different batting styles. Changes in our line-up are seldom required.

(p. 7)

Imagine a military run like that, that trusted people rather than process, a military where the Army chief of staff could boast that XVIII Airborne Corps is run so well that he has kept the commanding general in place for several years, and hasn't seen him in two years or even talked to him in one. But, the chief of staff would continue, he does talk to the Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan daily, in part because they need his help, and in part because he isn't distracted by checking on the XVIII Airborne Corps. My view: People who spend most of their days in regularly scheduled meetings too much probably are wasting their time and others'.

Also, because Buffett keeps successful people in place, staffs and subordinate managers are not constantly in turmoil and adjusting. Instead of constantly adapting to new bossses, they can focus on the tasks at hand. And the boss can leave them alone because he knows how to tell when they need help and when they don't.

Sen. John McCain knocks down the idea that torture -- specifically waterboarding -- was essential in getting bin Laden:

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that "the intelligence that led to bin Laden … began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information -- including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden." That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti -- the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden -- as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed's real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator -- none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee -- information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden -- was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

President Obama on 60 Minutes: "And you know, there were big chunks of time in which all we were doin' was just waiting. And it was the longest 40 minutes of my life with the possible exception of when Sasha got meningitis when she was three months old, and I was waiting for the doctor to tell me that she was all right. It was a very tense situation."

By chance, last night I was reading some material on the failed hostage rescue operating in the Iranian desert in 1980. It was heartbreaking for all concerned, and politically crippling for President Carter. I think one of the unexpected side benefits of getting bin Laden will be that the U.S. military has greater faith in Obama as commander in chief-and Obama in his military:

Q: How much did some of the past failures, like the Iran hostage rescue attempt, how did that weigh on you? I mean...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I thought about that.

Q: ...was that a factor?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I mean you think about Black Hawk Down. You think about what happened with the Iranian rescue. And it, you know, I am very sympathetic to the situation for other presidents where you make a decision, you're making your best call, your best shot, and something goes wrong -- because these are tough, complicated operations. And yeah, absolutely. The day before I was thinkin' about this quite a bit.