An Obama doctrine?
With less than a year to go in office, President Obama — Nobel Peace Prize winner and wartime commander in chief — still doesn’t have a distinct national security doctrine by which his presidency will be remembered. Perhaps this is because he has, for the most part, simply borrowed bits and pieces of his predecessors’ doctrines — and all too often the least effective parts.
For example, he has spoken of the “containment” concept from the Truman Doctrine, but the nimble networks at war with the United States and its allies today can and do strike anywhere in the world. They are hardly containable. Roguish nations interested in aggression can avoid containment by employing covert measures, such as those Comrade Putin has trotted out in Crimea and Donetsk. No, containment just will not do.
Then there is Obama’s reboot of the Nixon Doctrine, which aimed at assisting others in the development of selfdefense capabilities to a point at which no American military presence need be considered. Known best by the catastrophic failure of “Vietnamization” more than 40 years ago, the Nixon Doctrine still has a siren call for those with a distaste for having any boots on the ground. Indeed, the Obama defense team has tried very hard to form up effective Afghan and Iraqi armies — costly efforts that have proved quite problematic. So much so that it is hard to conceive of security, much less peace, returning to either country without the small but continuing presence of the American military. So much for the Nixon Doctrine and its descendants, “Afghanization” and “Iraqization.”
A third part of Obama’s doctrinal triad was provided by his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, in the form of W’s belief in regime change as a tool for transforming the international environment. While this doctrine turned out badly, at heavy human and material cost in Iraq, Obama did not hesitate for a moment to support the overthrow of Moammar Khadafy in Libya. That country is now a hothouse for breeding terrorists. And Obama has doubled down when it comes to Syria, where he is still pushing, if no longer immediately, for the overthrow of Bashar Assad. So very odd that W’s strategic imprint has lasted, given that it works so poorly.
Clearly, Obama needs to come up with a fresh doctrine.
One clue to a workable way ahead that might prove useful in a number of settings can be found in his diplomatic success with Iran. While controversial, the agreement to de-nuke Iran appears to have gained sufficient support in and compliance from leaders in Tehran. The tacit cooperation with Iran in fighting the Islamic State is another sign that the open hand, extended toward even an adversary, may prove more effective than the mailed fist. In this respect, Obama’s reaching out to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani seems very much a page taken out of President Ronald Reagan’s playbook for dealing with Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev 30 years ago. Not bad at all.
But there is one more thing Obama is doing that, at a strategic level, is unique to him and has very good chances of providing sustainable security in a world fraught with many diverse perils. This is his decision to build security networks, something the former head of Special Operations Command, Adm. William McRaven (now chancellor of the University of Texas), pushed for over many years. Now it is on the verge of becoming a reality in the form of the recently announced reconfiguration of American military bases around the world along hub-and-spoke network lines — with larger outposts (not envisioned to be more than 500 soldiers at any one site) centrally supporting widely dispersed smaller deployments. As Defense Secretary Ash Carter put it in an important (but little reported) speech last fall, “these regional nodes — from Morón, Spain, to Jalalabad, Afghanistan — will provide forward presence to respond to a range of crises.”
A good example of how this huband-spoke model can work is provided by the very light American military presence in Djibouti, which supports special operations across a range of settings from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, and in the dangerous seas between. This network has helped to defeat piracy in the region, beat back al-Shabab in Somalia, and keep the Yemeni civil war from burning out of control.
This strategic innovation recognizes the hopelessness of trying to contain adversaries. Instead, it provides rapidresponse “coverage” around the world. And it does so at very low cost, given that many of the small-presence nodes in the network may consist of just a relative handful of special operations forces.
This networked approach — opposed by some on the right because of the worry that the forces will be too small and by some on the left because of its intent to foster an ability to intervene anywhere in the world — is the most unique aspect of the strategy. Despite such opposition, the president still has time to order and oversee creation of the global network, even though it won’t be completed on his watch.
If historians one day write of an Obama Doctrine, it will happen only if the president jettisons his predecessors’ doctrines — they no longer work — and if his successor embraces the network concept. If so, the world will enjoy its best chance for security against a host of fresh perils — and prospects, perhaps, even for peace.
John Arquilla is professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. The views expressed are his alone. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at www.sfgate.com/submissions.