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Obama's Latest Foreign Slip
Shakh Aivazov / AP Photo
So much for resetting relations with Russia. The president’s decision to send Georgian troops to Afghanistan will infuriate Moscow—and reveals his lack of appreciation for exactly what it takes to accomplish big priorities.
Any time Washington makes a truly dumb foreign policy move, it generally looks plausible on the surface. So when the Pentagon announced that Georgia would dispatch 750 troops to Afghanistan to fight terrorists at America’s side, it sounded just fine. Besides, these Georgians would actually be empowered to fight, unlike most of our mandate-restricted NATO allies. It all seemed like such a no-brainer that only The New York Times and a few others even bothered to report the good news.
To reset relations with Russia requires a host of key decisions, and it’s not clear that all or most of them have been made.
But like too many foreign policy no-brainers, this one was fraught with potential perils and bad omens. Moscow will surely stew over American interference in its nasty relations with its Georgian neighbor. And this will surely retard Obama administration efforts to “reset” ties with Russia to allow for cooperation on key issues like Iran. And it might even cause Georgians to miscalculate American military support against Russia and foolishly provoke Moscow. And because it puts all these things at risk for token help in Afghanistan, it sets off alarm bells about the Obama team’s understanding of priorities and strategy.
There’s an iron law of decision making in Washington: Whenever an administration does anything spectacularly dumb, there’s a “good” reason for it.
And so to the roots of the story, which probably began in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. Some bright Georgian who might have studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School says: “I’ve got an idea. Obama keeps asking for help against the Taliban, and America’s NATO allies aren’t helping much. We want membership in NATO, so let’s show what good friends we are. If we help them there, they’ll be under greater obligation to help us here” on the disputed provinces that led to Russia’s crushing Georgian forces a year ago. “You know how easy it is to manipulate the Americans.”
When the troop offer arrived in Washington, three schools of thought, as it were, nestled into the bureaucratic flow: the strategic view, the anti-Russian view, and the political perspective. The strategic school argued that what seems good is in fact bad because it will irritate Moscow and will likely hinder Obama’s plan for new strategic links with Moscow. That will make it harder to obtain critical Russian help to pressure Iran on its nuclear program and reduce Russian incentives to be nice to Georgia and Ukraine, for that matter. Let’s just thank Tbilisi and ask them to send civilian advisers to Afghanistan instead.
The reasonable arguments of the strategic schools are generally no match for the anti-Russian school, even in these post-Cold War days. There’s still surprising backing for being “tough” with Moscow because Russian leaders are such thuggish bad guys. “We can’t let them push around the little guys like Georgia and Ukraine,” they say to receptive Washington ears. Some members of this school even wish to give NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, mainly to irritate Moscow. Irritation is obviously their real intent, since not one of them advocates actually sending U.S. forces to fight for their independence.
The political school almost always weighs in—to bad effect, as it did in this case. They let it be known (one can’t really talk politics openly at a White House meeting) that the Obama team couldn’t possibly reject Georgia’s generous offer. “We’re forever asking other nations to help us in Afghanistan and usually being turned down,” they say. “And here’s one that's coming to us and promising to fight rather than hide, like so many of the NATO helpers.”
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Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
mcmchugh99
I wonder if the Russians hate the Islamic fascist types more than they do NATO? I lived in the former Soviet Union a while myself, and I know they have no great love for those folks down south of them--especially when they're Islamic.
RicoSuave
I find it curious how a seasoned hand like Leslie Gelb left out of his "three-point" assessment something much more important: the geo-political factor. Gelb's entire triangulation seems utterly wrapped up in cynical "soft" political calculations. But he ignores hard geo-politics.
Geo-politics is very much a "let chips fall as they may" set of hard calculations, and this is where the Obama administration has come down in most foreign policy matters, but particularly here, on this issue of of allowing Georgia to assist in intervening in the stabilization of its southern neighbor, Afghanistan.
It comes down to this: Georgia wishes to assist in stabilizing their own back yard. The Russian apparatchicks don't like it? Worse, for nationalistic ego reasons? Tough. We got a job to do, and if it bruises the egos of the former Soviet dick-waggers, they will get over it.
But don't for a second think that Russia will ever cooperate in reigning in Iranian fascism, nuclear or otherwise. Iran is the only chip the former Soviet Union still has to play, and they will play it until... well, until Russians are all speaking English.
al-nafs
Rewind. Last year, Republicans were bashing Obama for not jumping to Georgia's defense, so as not to allow Russia to bully them out of joining NATO, among other things. McCain in particular was praised for coming to their defense so quickly, while the measured wait-and-see response from Obama was criticised as indecisive from the right.
Now that Obama is including them in the fight in Afghanistan, this is to be seen as a weakness because we don't want to anger Russia? Had Georgia offered troops and if Obama did not include them out of respect for Russia's wishes, I'm sure you would have complained that he was weakly kowtowing to a foreign power.
Basically you're going to find something to complain about no matter what.
tehixe
And come on, we can't talk about Obama's foreign policy ineptitude without remembering Bush -- he ignored Afghanistan to fight a useless war in Iraq, he ignored Iran and North Korea to focus on the one power without WMDs, and he pissed off our closest allies everywhere in the entire world. By comparison, Obama is the foreign relations messiah. By the author's own admission, this might not even turn out to be a slip-up, and if it does, it will be a small one that leads to irritation, not a Bush-style flushing of America's diplomacy down the crapper.
mahalapril
This is not Obama's decision. This is an advice from the military just like Afghanistan's surges. Obama is therefore aware now of all the dangers of all our enemies in the world. So Obama is now following Bush's policies. He has no choice. As Biden and Hillary said during the primaries " Obama is naive,inexperienced and not fit to be commander-in-chief and they were not lying then.
tehixe
He's following Bush's policies? So that means he's ignoring Afghanistan, talking up military action against Iran, trying to isolate North Korea, and giving the middle finger to all of our allies around the globe?
Maybe it's time for a reality check for you mahalapril. During the campaign, Obama promised to draw down Iraq and step up Afghanistan. And now that he's doing that, you think it's because it's a Bush policy? Even though Bush didn't ever follow it?
All in all, the whole thing is flat out loony. We voted for Obama, who promised to make Afghanistan a priority. Now that he's fulfilling his promise, people on the left can't stop carping about it. To all my fellow lefties: THE TALIBAN WAS PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9-11, REMEMBER? THAT WAS THE JUSTIFIED WAR, AND WE OUGHT TO FINISH IT. WE SUPPORTED IT THEN, IT WAS IRAQ THAT WAS THE POINTLESS DIVERSION. OBAMA IS FULFILLING HIS PROMISES THAT YOU VOTED FOR, SO PLEASE STOP ACTING LIKE HE'S BETRAYING YOU. IT'S THIS KIND OF BRAINLESSNESS WHICH EXPLAINS WHY WE HAVEN'T YET MANAGED TO CRUSH THE REPUBLICANS.
jus1drun
jeez, give the man a break. domestically things are chaotic and i'm not happy with obama's treatment of britain or isreal. and there was that strange apology strut but for crying out loud if you have any fantasy the russians really care to work with us you must have looked into mr. ex-kgb's face and seen his heart (are you in the bush family tree?)
ricosuave and al-nafs have it right. i am admittedly now disappointed with potus for other reasons but certainly not for this. this gratuitous pilling on is bs.
submarinemn
Wrong. McCain would have asked to 4,000 troops and stuck it in Russias eye. I see the screw up issue as the new administration having done something it didnt intend to do. Whether any move is th eright one is only clear in hind sight. The entire war in Iraq is totally up in the air - though a few have rushed to judgement and decided it was a mistake before it has begun to unfold.
JDK-JDK
It was wrong to go in there at that time. There was no sane justification for doing that.
Judgement: mistake.
sonofloud
As usual, Obama has failed to live up to hype.
majormoderate
And how many times have the Russians done things to piss off Washington in our region of the world? This was a calculated effort to show strength towards Moscow; that we will support countries like Georgia. Bowing down to Russia is not the answer.
Cymatic
The constant flip-flopping by neocon supporters is making me dizzy. Obama's too soft on Iran he should be hardline. Obama's too hard on Russia, he should be more diplomatic. Obama's too soft on North Korea he should be a hardliner... etc. Every time he gets tough, they say he overstepped and every time he is diplomatic they say he wimped out. Too bad so many people have the attention span of a gnat, they might actually notice the pattern.
MikeyJ
Couldn't help but to agree with Rico, especially on Iran. Leslie seems to forget that the U.S. is prosecuting a war in Afghanistan and needs allies especially local ones to run an effective counterinsurgency lesson. A lesson that must be learned from the past is to closely monitor these types of allies after the end of offensive action to mitigate any unintended consequences,
feverel
My question is: Is Gelb the only sane man in D.C.?Where is this kind of intelligent analysis in the NYT or elswhere?
I think he has hit on a key issue,Russia, and a critical problem with Obama.Lets imagine the foreign policy team of Obama, Biden and Clinton (Hilary) trying to analyse this issue.
Mission Impossible.Biden, he of the reset button, gave an on the record interview completely dissing Russia just after Obama comes back from Russia.
The level of stupidity if it keeps up is going to make George Bush look good which seems impossible. Reading this article combined with the August 6th one by Gelb on Afgan. policy really does make one begin to seriously wonder about what planet let alone country Obama is really from.Away from the teleprompter it looks like he doesn't have a clue as to what to do.
loupgarous
Les Gelb is the guy who has little or no understanding of what's at stake. The Russians have been playing us all this time, not the Georgians. They've been the one-stop shopping center for the Iranian military, providing everything from fissiles to missile technology to Ahmadinejihad; and if that wasn't enough, they've made military threats against the United States and her allies which would have been unthinkable in the darkest days of the Cold War because we dare to build a missile defense system to stop Iranian missiles from striking the West.
If a "reset" button needs to be pushed, it's the one which resets our appeasement of Vladimir Putin and his cronies in Moscow. It's time to let the Kremlin know that "change" includes looking Putin in the eyes and seeing him for the sociopath that he is. Obama actually made a good call (but not enough of one - we don't owe the Russians any reassurances at all over our military links with Georgia, and none should have been forthcoming).
The Georgians should beware, however. Under George W. Bush, they got verbal support and that was about it, while Putin sent troops into Georgia. Obama's administration has been nothing if not sycophantic towards Russia so far - Tbilisi may wind up with nothing but frequent flier miles for its military for their support of the Coalition in Afghanistan, instead of the sort of reciprocal military support Les Gelb is terrified Obama may feel obligated to give them.
redlotus2
This is another prime example of the US stirring up trouble where it isn't needed. Last year, Georgians provoked Russia, and got caught out because America wasn't stupid enough to make an enemy of Russia again. Now, The Americans are provoking their old enemies again by playing a very dangerous game. If I were a member of the Russian executive, I would be furious with this ridiculous, offensive, and counterproductive notion.
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