4/13/09

The successful operation to free Captain Richard Phillips off the coast of Somalia is a small but significant victory for the Obama national security team.  Presidents are often faced with unexpected foreign policy crises early in their terms.  Even – or especially – when the event itself is of little significance, a new president’s reactions send a powerful signal to the rest of the world and can be a harbinger of things to come.  Bill Clinton’s early handling of Somalia and Haiti hurt his credibility and made it more difficult to accomplish other foreign policy objectives later .  George W. Bush’s reaction to the Hainan Island incident was a harbinger of a more unilateral and confrontational foreign policy that became a hallmark of his presidency – especially the first term.  Obama’s handling of the hostage standoff suggests a comfort with the tools of US power and confirms the “no drama” leadership that he brings to the Oval Office.  It will also stifle irresponsible conservative critics, such as the Wall Street Journal, who were so eager to criticize the President as weak while Captain Phillips was still in the water.

However, this small incident represents a much larger and continuing problem, stemming from what the Enough Project describes as “eighteen years of anarchy, warlords, refugee flows, chronic poverty, intermittent famine, piracy, proxy wars, and rising Islamic extremism.”  Somalia has been an intense but under-the-radar concern for US policymakers and international organizations.  The challenge going forward will be addressing piracy in the context of Somalia’s greater problems and the US’s many competing priorities -- and finding approaches that will be effective in the context of the difficult US history there.   

Pirates present Obama an early test in crisis management, which he passed with flying colors. The Associated Press reports, “President Barack Obama's ‘no drama’ handling of the Indian Ocean hostage crisis proved a big win for his administration in its first critical national security test.”  USA Today says, “Had yesterday's rescue at sea gone badly, the political damage for Obama might have been severe. But aides said the outcome should be seen as a success. ‘This is the latest indication that the national security team is working well together,’ a senior White House official said last night. ‘These folks have spent a lot of time together, including with the president, in the first couple months, and they have a good working relationship.’” The Washington Post reported that “Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue. ‘The president's focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain,’ one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called ‘the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain.’ On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an ‘additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions.’ A top military official, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet, explained that Obama issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain's life was in immediate danger…” and “the result -- a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces -- left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.”  [USA Today, 4/13/09. Washington Post, 4/13/09.  AP, 4/13/09]

Every president is presented with early international crises that are not necessarily top tier national security concerns, but present early and powerful symbolic tests of the President’s leadership abilities.  As the Washington Post recalls this morning, “It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president – a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences. Clinton's efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president's reputation. For President Obama, last week's confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.”  President Clinton also struggled with Somalia early on in his presidency.  As the AP writes, “Indeed, the last Democratic president to unleash American military might against Somalis suffered miserably from the failure of that operation. Portrayed in the book and movie ‘Black Hawk Down,’ a U.S. peacekeeping mission ordered by President Bill Clinton ended with a humiliating withdrawal of troops after a deadly clash in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.”  George W. Bush went through a similar test in 2001, after a midair collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet caused the spy plane to land on Hainan Island.  Although the incident was resolved successfully, Bush’s initial instincts were an indicator of things to come:  “He made some mistakes early: sounding a bit too bellicose at first, which spooked the stock market and angered Chinese leaders, and speaking out before his government knew all the facts, which caused him to do a bit of backtracking. ‘Our initial step was [faulty], putting all the blame on the Chinese,’ argues David M. Lampton, director of China studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.”  [USA Today, 4/13/09. Associated Press, 4/13/09. CNN, 4/3/01. TIME, 4/3/09.  Business Week, 4/16/01]

The event provoked over-the-top critics, who have now been stifled by Obama’s reaction.  During the hostage standoff the WSJ Editorial Board wrote:  “As we wrote yesterday, a Spanish judge may soon order arrest warrants for six Bush Administration officials on dubious charges under the preposterous theory of "universal jurisdiction." So far, however, the Obama Administration hasn't spoken a word in their defense. If the U.S. government won't protect American citizens from the legal anarchy of postmodern Europe, how can we expect it to protect American sailors from the premodern anarchy of Somalia, much less the tyrannies of Tehran and Pyongyang?”  A less extreme but still problematic critique came from Robert Kaplan who tried to connect incident to the state of the US defense budget: “[t]hat a relatively small number of pirates from a semi-starving nation can constitute enough of a menace to disrupt major sea routes is another sign of the anarchy that will be characteristic of a multipolar world, in which a great navy like America’s — with a falling number of overall ships — will be in relative, elegant decline.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/9/09. Robert Kaplan, 4/12/09.]

Piracy incident spotlights a much larger problem that must be effectively managed.  Piracy off the coast of Somalia is not some free-floating consequence of multipolarity but is closely linked to a specific, daunting set of challenges existing on land.  After civil war, Al Qaeda penetration, Ethiopian invasion, and under-staffed African Union peacekeeping, the Enough Project describes Somalia’s complicated set of challenges: “Desperate levels of humanitarian need exist alongside armed conflict and assassinations, political meltdown, radicalization, and virulent anti-Americanism. Whereas Somalia’s past political violence was local in scope, it is now taking on global significance. Reversing these dangerous trends in Somalia will be extremely difficult, and will require both sustained commitment and coordinated, nuanced policy-making from the United States—two things that have proven elusive to date.”  To date, US Somalia policy has focused on counter-terrorism; any effort to reassess and broaden that will have to be measured against other challenges we face and the costs and risks of increased involvement. [The Enough Project, Somalia]

What We’re Reading

Political violence escalates in Thailand.  The army opened fire on protesters after demonstrations forced the prime minister to declare a state of emergency and cancel an important regional summit.

Tehran’s top nuclear negotiator says that Iran welcomes nuclear talks with the West.

Cuba is likely to be a topic of intense debate at the Summit of the Americas, which begins Friday.

U.S. soldiers begin to feel the effects of President Obama’s troop increase and new priorities in Afghanistan.

George Mitchell, special envoy to the Israeli-Arab conflict, began his first visit to the Middle East since Benjamin Netanyahu’s government took over.

China’s cabinet released the nation’s first two-year human rights action plan.

The Defense Department, the largest consumer of energy in the United States, prioritizes finding alternative fuel resources.

Commentary of the Day

The New York Times calls for a judicial review process for detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Roger Cohen interviewed IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei and discusses realism and realpolitik for Iran.

The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force say it’s time to move beyond the F-22.

John M. Ackerman argues that in his upcoming visit to Mexico, President Obama should focus on helping Mexico build effective government institutions and judicial procedures instead of on short-term military goals.

Jim Wallis and John Prendergast look at how U.S. leadership can make a difference in Darfur.