That was a very good article. Thank you.

Good article. Hard headed, hard nosed and dispassionate. The contrast with both the democrat and the Neo-Con world view could not be more clear or more devastating.

Since the beginning of the talk about war with Iraq, I have been waiting for analysis like this to come out of Washington. All I have seen is the ridiculous, "Let's throw some chocolate and Nylons off the tanks and the people will love us", self-deluding fairy tale foisted upon us by the ignoramuses that call themselves Neo-Cons. It infuriates me.

We need a foreign policy that is much less simplistic, naive and one dimensional and dare I say it, a lot more cynical and a lot less messainic than the one we have been following since the end of Bush One. Drop the democracy to the Middle East nonsense. It is a loser.

Sadly, there seems to be no sign in the Republican Party that they are willing to rid themselves of the Pollyanna-like Neo-Con apostasy. More over,many don't even view Neo-Con Weltenschung as such.

I think the Russians have been doing very well in foreign policy recently. Unfortunately, This article and the perspective it takes shows why.

For what it is worth, I do not see how the Democrats enter into this debate since they don't appear to have any foreign policy at all.

How Ruski can you get?

Actually, Joe, I prefer Pepe Escobar's perspective at Asia Times Online.

Looks like we're all getting in touch with our inner thug.

(But thank the powers of be for the U S of A, which will always be there to blame, when necessary.)

"I think the Russians have been doing very well in foreign policy recently"

If you consider making frightened enemies of your neighbors and your own nation an international pariah, I suppose theyve been fantastically successful. International opinion polls that cost nothing may list the US as the least trusted nation, but its not Russia's door nations go knocking on in need. Or even to ask politely not to go murdering political enemies in their capitals. Russian foriegn policy has been disasterous for everyone but Putin and his thugocrats- mostly for the Russia people.

#5 from Mark Buehner at 2:57 pm on Oct 29, 2007

Foreign Policy is not a gentleman's game and expecting one's rivals to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules won't change things. Russia has been a totalitarian state since its inception. The Middle East has been a battleground for competing tribes, empires and religious zealots since the beginning of civilization. Dealing with states like this is not done by being an innocent abroad.

As far as Russia being an international pariah is concerned, quite a bit of the world's states are in that category. In Russia's case the fact that they have oil and nuclear weapons causes people to overlook their "failings". I don't like this but this is reality.

The Neo-Cons came up with this might makes right scenario in which we could use our status as the world's only remaining superpower to wield it as a moral force, ala Reagan vis-a-vis Soviet Union.

When I started hearing this garbage, it crossed my mind that these guys must have gotten their geostrategic theories out of T. H. White's The Once and Future King.

I am a firm believer that the theories of Sun Tzu are far superior and more sophisticated than those of von Clausewitz in todays world. Take the world as it is and use your energies as sparingly and efficiently as possible. The invasion of Iraq was the polar opposite of this.

I just find it hard to believe after our tying down an expeditionary force in an area like Iraq and in the process strengthening our enemies and weakening our friends and continuing to do so for the foreseeable future, without having a clear goal delineated or discussed, and a clear picture of what the scenario for our exit will look like makes any sense.

The fact is that Russia is becoming more and more of a major player on the world stage, thugs or not. As you say, "International opinion polls that cost nothing may list the US as the least trusted nation", doesn't that make you stop and think for a moment that maybe, just maybe, something might be wrong with our Foreign Policy?

Fascinating article, Joe: a bit rough-edged in the prose (poor translation?) - but maybe that's just the Russian way. But still, it's interesting to see FP analyses that for once, get away from the myopic and egocentric America-obsessed viewpoint which all too many domestic commentators can't seem to avoid.

One bit in Satanovsky's piece puzzled me, though:

bq In fact, Iraq, which has a national flag, a government, a budget, and which maintains embassies in various countries, can no longer be called an integral state because it cannot protect its citizens. Moreover, the U.S.-British-Georgian occupation authorities are unable to accomplish this objective

"US-British-Georgian" authorities? I had no idea the Georgians had such influence in our (or our and the Brits') Iraq policy? Or has Jimmy Carter been messing around again?

"Foreign Policy is not a gentleman's game and expecting one's rivals to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules won't change things."

Clearly. On the other hand neither unbridled agression nor gunboat diplomacy have such a unmarred history of success either. The Soviets didnt fare so well at the end of the day after all.

"Russia has been a totalitarian state since its inception. The Middle East has been a battleground for competing tribes, empires and religious zealots since the beginning of civilization."

So had Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and so on. Every state was totalitarian... until it wasnt.

"I am a firm believer that the theories of Sun Tzu are far superior and more sophisticated than those of von Clausewitz in todays world. Take the world as it is and use your energies as sparingly and efficiently as possible."

Didnt we go that route at least twice in the previous century? Sun Tzu was never an advocate of allowing your enemies to do as they will until the knife is to your throat. Quite the opposite.

I just find it hard to believe after our tying down an expeditionary force in an area like Iraq and in the process strengthening our enemies and weakening our friends and continuing to do so for the foreseeable future, without having a clear goal delineated or discussed, and a clear picture of what the scenario for our exit will look like makes any sense.

"The fact is that Russia is becoming more and more of a major player on the world stage, thugs or not."

Hell, North Korea is a player. That doesnt mean anybody in their right mind wants to be in NK's shoes, even as the dictator. There is a difference between being a player and being successful. Russia has managed to self-fufill its own insecurities. Why are the Baltic states, Ukraine, and increasingly the Caucus states diving into the US's pocket? Russia's geopolitical strength has dwindled, not increased, largely of their own doing. Russia might have been the USA to their former provinces and Satellites Europe, a leader of the East. Instead they are the bully on the block increasingly hedged in by Western allied power. That is not an improvement, but it is why Russia is lashing out so pathetically as it can manage.

Russia is exactly what we dont want to be, and ironically the recipe you propose would indeed lead us down that road.

""US-British-Georgian" authorities? I had no idea the Georgians had such influence in our (or our and the Brits') Iraq policy?"

America has its irrational hangups.

So do the Russians.

Just different ones.

"Russia has managed to self-fufill its own insecurities."

You could just about title each page of a history of Russia with that header.

"Foreign Policy is not a gentleman's game and expecting one's rivals to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules won't change things."

Clearly. On the other hand neither unbridled agression nor gunboat diplomacy have such a unmarred history of success either. The Soviets didnt fare so well at the end of the day after all.
*********************

Look, I am not going to champion either the Soviets or the Putin clique. I do think that this cast of characters are a lot brighter than the Stalin to Brezhnev Group. Not any less ruthless and murderous, but brighter.

They have reappeared on the world stage, thumbed their noses at us at every turn and seem to have done a pretty good job in reviving the KGB zombie in the form of the Russian state. Their foreign policy has strengthened them over the past 10 years and it is working. We may not like that but it is true. As far as the end of the day is concerned, well the Soviets just fired an ICBM today. maybe we declared the end of the Cold War prematurely.
______________________

So had Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and so on. Every state was totalitarian... until it wasnt.
***********************
Japan was liberated from totalitarianism by two nuclear expulsions and an decades long American occupation the remnants of which survive today.
Every single city in Germany was leveled. The expeienced famine and like the We make certain that Gemany doesn't re-arm to the extent that it could. that survives to this day. Every city in Germany was leveled. They experienced famine and like the Japanese experienced the same sort of occupation. Me make very sure that neither one, to this day re-arm to the extent to which they are capable.

Is this what you are suggesting to do to bring democracy to the ME? As far as South Korea, Taiwan, Poland and the Ukraine are concerned, we did not invade any of these places, so I do not see them as in any way a parallel.
______________________

Didnt we go that route at least twice in the previous century? Sun Tzu was never an advocate of allowing your enemies to do as they will until the knife is to your throat. Quite the opposite.

**********************
Sun Tzu makes 2 key points which in my opinion are his key points. one near the beginning of the second chapter, where he states that there is no case in history where a country has benefited from prolonged warfare. And a second at the end of the first chapter, where he talks about planning. That good planning wins and bad planning loses. I think out foreign Policy has violated both these rules.

Can you please tell me how you interpret where we are going in this war, specifically, as told to you by our Foreign Policy establishment.

Your knife to the throat image is a bit overwrought and even if it were true it does not allow one the latitude for fuzzy thinking.
______________________

Hell, North Korea is a player. That doesnt mean anybody in their right mind wants to be in NK's shoes, even as the dictator. There is a difference between being a player and being successful. Russia has managed to self-fufill its own insecurities. Why are the Baltic states, Ukraine, and increasingly the Caucus states diving into the US's pocket? Russia's geopolitical strength has dwindled, not increased, largely of their own doing. Russia might have been the USA to their former provinces and Satellites Europe, a leader of the East. Instead they are the bully on the block increasingly hedged in by Western allied power. That is not an improvement, but it is why Russia is lashing out so pathetically as it can manage.

Russia is exactly what we dont want to be, and ironically the recipe you propose would indeed lead us down that road.
******************************
Who said we want to be Russia? I do not even see why you would throw anything so irrelevant intop the discussion.

What I am saying is that they are playing the cards that they have been given very well, whether you or I like them or not. Ten years ago this was a failed, mendicant state. That is not true today.

There is nothing that I like about Putin. But there is no way that you can say that Neo Soviet power, militarily, economically and diplomatically is not on the rise.

Sun Tzu makes 2 key points which in my opinion are his key points. one near the beginning of the second chapter, where he states that there is no case in history where a country has benefited from prolonged warfare.

There's been a lot more history since his time, and I still can't think of an exception.

And a second at the end of the first chapter, where he talks about planning. That good planning wins and bad planning loses.

Unfortunately, this is tautological. Without understanding planning you can say that planning which won was good planning and planning which lost was bad planning. Telling the difference ahead of time is often harder. We can tell a lot about our iraq planning from the fact that there was no approved plan for what to do after the victory until well after the victory.

"Sun Tzu makes 2 key points which in my opinion are his key points. one near the beginning of the second chapter, where he states that there is no case in history where a country has benefited from prolonged warfare. And a second at the end of the first chapter, where he talks about planning. That good planning wins and bad planning loses."

Sun Tzu was wrong on that point. Britain made a career of sticking out bad wars until her enemies imploded. It works both ways too- its another truism of war that both sides often think they are losing and the side that believes it more ends up being right.

But this is hardly a prolonged war. There have been sieges that lasted longer, even in Sun Tzu's age. It is we who are short sighted.

Sun Tzu wrote a great deal about not giving your enemy what he desires, simply because he desires it. Running out of Iraq and (assumedly) the region is clearly what our enemy wants.

I would turn this around- withdrawing and allowing our enemy the field to do as he pleases will extend this war. Neither Sun Tzu nor any great general ever advocated abandoning the decisive field to the enemy. If we crush AQ in Iraq and withdraw in any kind of orderly fashion with an even mildly friendly and even somewhat representative Iraqi goevernment in place, we will have perhaps defeated AQ entirely. It is HE who has committed himself to victory or defeat. How can we leave him to claim the field? Surely not out of necessity on any realistic level for a nation of our size and power.

"Can you please tell me how you interpret where we are going in this war, specifically, as told to you by our Foreign Policy establishment."

Malaya, thats where we are going with this war. If we do it right and dont lose our nerve. Look, I was screaming bloody murder a month after the invasion that we were screwing up the occupation- its well documented on this site. I was despondent beyond words right up until last year when the long succession of the clueless finally ended and a general who understands small wars took command. Now AQ is despondant and a very real change is taking place. Its insane to talk about giving up on the cusp of potential victory. Insane. i dont give a damn about what our foriegn policy objectives and strategies were 4 years ago- any more than what Napoleon did when he faught at Austerlitz instead of Vienna as he'd assumed. In war everything always changes. You dont pack your ball up and go home and call it a stratagem.

#12 from J Thomas at 10:27 pm on Oct 29, 2007

And a second at the end of the first chapter, where he talks about planning. That good planning wins and bad planning loses.

Unfortunately, this is tautological. Without understanding planning you can say that planning which won was good planning and planning which lost was bad planning. Telling the difference ahead of time is often harder. We can tell a lot about our iraq planning from the fact that there was no approved plan for what to do after the victory until well after the victory.

I understand. I made the statement rhetorically.

First of all, Mark it is nearly impossible discuss things with you because you make connections like: If I say Russia's foreign policy has been more successful than ours you intimate that I am somehow saying that we should be like Russia. Or, If I don't like how our foreign policy is handled it means that I want leave the field to the enemy.

This idea of, if you do A then Z will happen, which is closely tied to exaggerated comments like a knife is at out throats so we must do this or that is symptomatic of what is wrong with our thoughts on Foreign Policy.

I, as a citizen of the U.S., lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for decades and I never heard this sort of rhetoric coming out of Washington to explain their policies. I will go even further by saying I resented the President's comments about WWW III. We weren't talking about the loss of a city to a terrorist attack. We were talking, literally, about the absolute destruction of civilization and quite possibly the end of human life on the planet

So, I can't relate to loaded statements like "if we don't lose our nerve". I was 16 years old going to high school in Miami waiting for the fatal 11 o'clock in the morning rendevous between our naval ships to confront the Soviet ships bring Missles to Cuba. They didn't even give us the freaking day off to celebrate the end of the world.

In the worst years of the Red scare, even McCarthy didn't fear-monger like these guys. Even McCarthy didn't throw around Communist like these guys throw around terrorist. Nor, at this point can anyone be blamed for frustrated with the "flavor of the month" excuse for our overall strategy failures in the ME.

I sincerely hope that Petraeus will be able to pull our chestnuts out of the fire. Nor do I have a problem about how the army has responded throughout the deployment. But I think that Gen. Sanchez' statements about the naivete of the civilian leaders in Washington and the lust for power that they have shown cannot help but ring true to anyone who is paying attention. This has been an incredibly inept bunch. As far as the Neo-Cons are concerned, I doubt if any of them have ever even been in a fist fight. You want a strong defense, a strong foreign Policy, a strong Republican Party, trust me, you are not going to get any following these Neo-Con babboons.

"If I say Russia's foreign policy has been more successful than ours you intimate that I am somehow saying that we should be like Russia. Or, If I don't like how our foreign policy is handled it means that I want leave the field to the enemy."

Ok, maybe its me jumping to conclusions- or maybe you arent being very clear. When you compare Russia foriegn policy favorably to our own, somehow i get this crazy idea that you are praising it. I know that is odd. If you mean something different please do me a favor and explain it. Or if you have a better idea for what we do after evacuating Iraq to the tender care of Al Qaeda.

And as far as going A-to-Z, when you get back from the cuban missile crisis, McCarthyism, and neo-con fists fights, please let me know.

What exactly is Russian foreign policy? blasting Grozny into a fine powder, that gave us in short
order 9-11 (Al Midhar, Al Hazmi, Moussaoui, Zubeydah, were all motivated by those events ; Nord Ost and Beslan Sch. # 4. They did
clip Vandarbichev in Doha, Basayev,
& Khattab. On the other hand, they
continue to provide materials and
technical assistance to Iran; continue to embrace Sudan through
Gazprom.

"it is nearly impossible discuss things with you because...the worst years of the Red scare, even McCarthy didn't fear-monger like these guys. Even McCarthy didn't throw around Communist like these guys throw around terrorist."

TOC: Just an observation here, but I wouldn't be complaining about how hard someone else is to talk to if I wasn't trying to be amusing and ironic.

In terms of propaganda, it makes much more sense to call AQ criminals. They are of course international criminals. It doesn't particularly make sense to declare war on a non-nation, less sense than trying to get criminals arrested in other countries or extradited.

In terms of actual tactics, it's harder to say what would work since we haven't found anything that exactly works yet. We invaded panama to grab one particular criminal there, we've done that sort of thing before and it sort of worked -- we got Noriega and mostly got out, and panama put together a semi-democratic government again pretty much like the last time. They're kind of used to getting invaded by the USA, they know what to expect.

But I'm sure we could do anything we thought we needed to do while we called AQ criminals. It wouldn't take a whole lot of creativity to come up with precedents and criminal labels to fit whatever we chose.

Chances are, traditional organised-crime methods would work better than most things. Like, you explain very clearly why they're criminals and what they've done is wrong. And you also post big rewards for information leading to their capture. Mostly people won't get involved just to help catch dangerous criminals, and they mostly won't sell out their neighbors and acquaintances just for money, but when it's both at once very often somebody will tell. And that works easier against criminals than against political dissidents -- if you think it's a war and you take the foreign side you feel like a traitor. If you can make yourself believe you're only turning in criminals then it's easier.

There are stories that AQ itself had debates after 9/11 about it. Do they do better to work at home trying to take over at least one arab government? Or do they do better to do grandstanding attacks in the USA that don't actually accomplish anything but that get a lot of attention? They weren't sure the result was worth the cost. I don't know whether they'd have had that debate if we treated them as criminals rather than the biggest threat we've ever faced. I don't know for sure that they did have that debate, the reports about it may have been disinformation. But there hasn't been another US attack since; all they've done is release videos designed to encourage US voters to vote Republican. Very subtle attack there, depending on the GOP to attack america for them.... I want to say that if we took the criminal approach that they'd have stayed away from the USA for a long time, but I don't know that it's true. If they did manage to take over an arab nation then they'd have an address and we could invade if we wanted to.

The islamofascism existential threat approach gives muslims the idea that we think Q has a decent chance to win. That encourages them to support AQ if they have a grievance against us. I'm saying it again, better that we take the stand they're only criminals. People at war do bad things because they have to, for the war. Criminals have no obligation like that. We want the emphasis to be that they have done terrible crimes (like 9/11) and they continue to do terrible crimes, and we have a right to demand that they be stopped. If it's a war that either side might win, that clarity is blurred.

Incidentally, a lot of people in the third world believe that our government is controlled by Wall Street. So stockbrokers in the WTC seem as valid a target as congress or the president. They don't understand that if hundreds or even thousands of stockbrokers get killed we'll just train a bunch of new ones in about 6 months. AQ would have been better off to only hit the stockbrokers and not destroy the whole building. We've done pretty well at emphasizing the innocent victims who weren't stockbrokers.

"Chances are, traditional organised-crime methods would work better than most things."

They worked so well in the decade leading up to 9/11.

"Incidentally, a lot of people in the third world believe that our government is controlled by Wall Street."

Have you actually lived in the third world? Because it really doesn't sound like you are speaking from personal experience.

#16 from Mark Buehner at 2:45 am on Oct 30, 2007

Mark,
This was in the original post:

A Russian Analysis of Turkey-Kurdistan
by Joe Katzman at October 29, 2007 8:29 AM

Reminder and newsflash: The rest of the world acts according to its own motivations, and sets plans/ reactions in motion without waiting for America. Being a big player doesn't make you the only player. Get over it. The rest of the world also plays by a pretty ancient and hard-edged set of rules, and let's not kid ourselves about that either.

I responded with this:

#2 from TOC at 1:16 pm on Oct 29, 2007

Good article. Hard headed, hard nosed and dispassionate. The contrast with both the democrat and the Neo-Con world view could not be more clear or more devastating.

Since the beginning of the talk about war with Iraq, I have been waiting for analysis like this to come out of Washington. All I have seen is the ridiculous, "Let's throw some chocolate and Nylons off the tanks and the people will love us", self-deluding fairy tale foisted upon us by the ignoramuses that call themselves Neo-Cons. It infuriates me.

We need a foreign policy that is much less simplistic, naive and one dimensional and dare I say it, a lot more cynical and a lot less messainic than the one we have been following since the end of Bush One. Drop the democracy to the Middle East nonsense. It is a loser.

Sadly, there seems to be no sign in the Republican Party that they are willing to rid themselves of the Pollyanna-like Neo-Con apostasy. More over,many don't even view Neo-Con Weltenschung as such.

I think the Russians have been doing very well in foreign policy recently. Unfortunately, This article and the perspective it takes shows why.

For what it is worth, I do not see how the Democrats enter into this debate since they don't appear to have any foreign policy at all.
***************************

The Russians work from their perspective which is based on a pretty nasty history of totalitarianism. I do not like their methods but they seem to be playing their Oil, nuclear weapons, U.N. veto cards and support of rogue regimes pretty well. There foreign Policy has been succeeding recently. Because,

The Russians act "according to their own motivations, and sets plans/ reactions in motion without waiting for America."

I am praising Russian Foreign Policy. Not for its methods, but because doing well playing

"by a pretty ancient and hard-edged set of rules, and let's not kid ourselves about that either."

My saying that does not mean I support their actions or that I think we should mimic their methods. They play the game from their perspective we play from ours.

We have played our cards very poorly recently. The underlying philosophy of the Neo-Cons was flawed, delusional and naive. The result
1. has seen us allied with the Shia, whether we liked that or not, which put us in direct opposition to our traditional Sunni allies in the region
2. put us on the side of the landlocked Kurds, who have never had a state and are surrounded by enemies as ancient as they come.
3. Set the stage for a conflict between our most loyal ally in the region, the Turks. and ourselves as occupiers of Iraq.
4. Strengthened Iran.
5. Forced us into a prolonged occupation.
6. Tied down an expeditionary force for the foreseeable future.

I could go on. but suffice to say, if these were my consultants, I would not only fire them, I would clearly distance myself from them.

Ironically, it was these same Neo-Cons that threw the President under the bus the minute things started to go sour.

Good article. Love the bonus anti-Georgian propaganda! Wasn't expecting that.