Star Wars and Me

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself quoted in one of the latest “Moments in Diplomatic History” published online by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST). 

While working in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) during the Reagan Administration my main responsibility was to work on space arms control issues.  About halfway through my assignment, President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) called “Star Wars.”  As you can see from the ADST article, the announcement came as a surprise to almost everyone in the foreign affairs and defense community of the government.  It was at least partly inspired by private conversations between Reagan and physicist Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. 

One of my jobs at ACDA was to write an “Arms Control Impact Statement” on space arms control.  Reagan’s Star Wars announcement threw a monkey wrench into that statement, since it proposed violating at least two arms control agreements, the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty and the Treaty on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.  What made it even worse was that the statement had to be approved by the Defense Department, which meant Richard Perle, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. 

Perle was opposed to almost any arms control agreement.  I have long believed the urban myth that at Reykjavik, after Reagan and Gorbachev had agreed to mutually eliminate all land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBNs), Perle kept Reagan up all night talking him into rejecting the deal the next day.  This ADST note sheds some light on that issue, which may be mildly favorable to Perle.  It says that in return for eliminating all these missiles, Gorbachev wanted Reagan to drop the SDI program, and Reagan was unwilling to do that, because he liked the SDI program so much.  However, the article also says that after the tentative Reagan-Gorbachev agreement, Richard Perle and General Robert Linhard hauled Reagan into a bathroom and told him “it was an impractical thing to do, especially at a time when the Administration was trying to convince Congress to fund a new generation of land-based missiles, the MX.”  So, maybe there is some truth to the urban myth about Perle. 

In any case, Perle was going to make it very difficult to say anything bad about the arms control implications of the SDI.  I think that after a number of tries to get Defense Department clearance, the statement was so watered down that it hardly said anything. 

While I was working on this issue at ACDA, I attended the only National Security Council meeting that I ever attended.  It was on SDI, and I went as the back bench support for the main ACDA representative.  I don’t remember exactly what was discussed, but I think NSC deputy Robert McFarlane chaired the meeting, and one of the main speakers was General James Abrahamson, who was famous for being the officer who oversaw the F-16 development program for the Pentagon, one of the most successful aircraft ever developed.  People hoped he could do the same thing for SDI, but even he couldn’t do it. 

http://adst.org/2015/11/the-strategic-defense-initiative-the-other-star-wars/

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/14/cakewalk

Veneration of Veterans

I thought this op-ed in the Washington Post was right on the money.  A lot of this current veneration of veterans is just for show, to make the people who express it feel better, not to help the veterans.  Most businesses that make a show of hiring veterans do it as publicity to win customers, rather than as a service to veterans.  Colorado claims to be veteran friendly, but seeing what is happening with the VA hospital here, Senators Gardner and Bennet and Governor Hickenlooper would hardly be less supportive of veterans than if they went around and punched each veteran in the nose. 

Here’s my comment on the Washington Post op-ed by Will Bardenwerper:

If you have to choose between the homecoming for Iran & Afghanistan vets of sham love and support and the homecoming for Vietnam vets of hostility, I would choose the former.  But you can't expect too much.  The 1946 movie "The Best Years of Our Lives" illustrated the shallowness of public support for even veterans of much venerated World War II.  If you choose to fight for your country, that probably has to be reward enough.  Others should be nice, but you probably have to content yourself with believing that virtue is its own reward.  Perhaps Vietnam vets (like me) can take some solace in the fact that Vietnam has become a functioning member of the community of nations while Iraq has become a snake pit of anti-American hatred and hostility.  

Turkey and the Kurds

The US has to decide what course to take regarding Turkey as the recent suicide attacks illustrate the growing instability of the country.  The main issue facing Turkey is how to handle the Kurds, both the ethnic minority inside Turkey, and their Kurdish brethren in Syria, Iraq and Iran.  Turkey has for years declared the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a terrorist group, and the US and NATO have also listed it as a terrorist group.  Currently, however, the Kurds in Iraq and Syria are America’s best allies in fighting ISIS.  Can the US support the Kurds in those countries while acquiescing in Turkey’s opposition to them in Turkey, and probably across the border, too?  The Turkish air force has been suspected of striking the Kurds while it was supposedly supporting US efforts against ISIS in Syria. 

If it were not for Turkey, the US could support the creation of a greater Kurdistan consisting of the Kurdish parts of Syria and Iraq.  We would probably be happy if the Kurds tried to annex part of Iran, if we could avoid getting involved.  However, we are involved in Turkey, which is a NATO member.  Turkey would not be happy giving up a significant amount of its territory to a greater Kurdistan. 

Adding to the problem for the US is the decline of the Turkish government.  It has become more religious, and President Erdogan has become more authoritarian, producing unhappiness among the Turkish people.  His party no longer holds a political majority, and the country is facing new elections as he tries to get a majority.  Thus, Turkey faces internal instability and destabilizing pressure from outside.  The US cannot easily abandon Turkey, a longtime NATO ally, especially when we need Turkey’s support in the battle against ISIS just across the border. 

The US could  lean heavily on the Kurds in Syria and Iraq to reign in their brothers in Turkey.  We could offer more and more military support, if they keep the Kurds in Turkey from making trouble.  We could even wink and imply that if they behave today, we might look the other way if they try to form a greater Kurdistan later.  Meanwhile, we should work with the Turkish government to calm the situation there, to tone down its campaign against the Turkish Kurds.  But Erdogan probably sees the Kurds as the greatest threat to his power, and the recent suicide bombings, with whispers of Turkish government complicity, illustrate the problems with that course of action.  

Kunduz Hospital Bombing

The shelling or bombing of the Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, reminds me of my time in an artillery battery in Vietnam.  In general we only fired at targets that had been precleared by someone in our chain of command, or we fired for forward observers who were engaged with the enemy.  In a few cases, working with our quad-50 machine gun crew, we would have to seek clearance to fire at someone who we thought was sneaking around our perimeter, just in case it was a South Vietnamese unit wandering around. 

We had a number of no-fire areas marked on our maps and charts, indicating the locations of towns and bases.  I don’t think we ever fired into one of these no-fire zones.  It would have required all kinds of special clearances. 

From the discussion it sounds as if the question in Kunduz is whether the Afghan or US forces were taking fire from the hospital.  Even if they were taking fire from the hospital, would that warrant calling in an air strike on it?  In Vietnam there was supposedly a pretty rigorous process for clearing a fire mission on a target that was not engaged in actual combat.  American liaison officers checked with Vietnamese contacts about whether there were any civilians or friendly troops in the area. 

The situation would have been complicated in Kunduz because the city had been friendly until the Taliban takeover.  The entire city would have been a no-fire area, and there would have been to reason to fire into it.  With the Taliban attack, the whole city would still be considered a no-fire area because there would be civilians everywhere.  However, if friendly troops were taking heavy fire, there would have been a debate about whether it was necessary to accept “collateral damage” in order to neutralize the enemy.  It would seem that a decision of that nature should have been made pretty high up. 

Doctors without Borders claims that no one was firing from the hospital.  In that case, there seems no justification for attacking it.  However, if they are wrong and there was firing, then maybe there was justification, but Doctors without Borders legitimately would want to know who decided that they were expendable.  I guess that is what the military review will try to determine.  I am inclined to give our troops the benefit of the doubt in the fog of war, but screw-up do happen. 

In Vietnam one night someone came up on our radio channel asking if we were firing at certain coordinates.  We were not, but we could hear him asking other batteries if they were firing there.  Finally one battery answered and said that they had just finished a “battery three-by-three” on that target.  The stranger on the net said that it was a small town, which was now destroyed.  A “battery three-by-three” means that an entire artillery battery, probably four large or six small guns, fired nine volleys in the shape of a box around the target.  Obviously something went wrong in the clearance process for that fire mission.