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If you agree it's time to re-orient "national security" around what actually harms Americans (guns, domestic terror, opioids, etc.), the book we pubished in April does this. @speechboy71
As an ethical issue, military planners and officials should not attempt to nudge presidents with how options are presented, but it's a long tradition.
This time, they got burned by Trump.
As noted here, Pentagon officials have always presented military options to presidents in an attempt to influence their decisions: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/18/nudging-the-president/ …
Most critically, it give the administration the power to construct the initial narrative upon which public debates follow.
It gives the appearance of an administration characterized by careful military policymaking process and thoughtful deliberation of pros and cons.
I've studied US military strikes for awhile, and never recall such immediate and detailed behind-the-scenes decisionmaking process provided to reporters.
Carefully developed and distributed to a range of news outlets.
Micah Zenko Retweeted
I don’t know anything about Iran or killing people with drones. But I do know cyber. If ddos is the price we pay for what actual experts say is an unprecedented event then that seems like a pretty good deal.
“No Big Power in all history ever thought of itself as an aggressor. That is still true today.” ― A.J. Muste, 1949
For Cog. members to pretend to be upset with Trump's preemptive strikes, apparently done w/out Big 8 notification, absolves them of their collective culpability that has bestowed presidents with nearly unchecked military power.
Congress has slowly quit exercising their oversight powers (research, investigatory, hearings, reporting requirements), and allowed the president growing war-making powers shrouded in greater and greater secrecy.
Cong. members upset Trump authorized escalatory preemptive strikes in Iraq w/out Congressional approval should be ashamed of themselves and their gradual abandonment of foreign policy oversight over past two decades.
Why would the Pentagon announce this? What positive signaling benefits does this send to Iran, Iraq, or anyone?
If policymakers tout alleged killings, get ready and check out:
-Joshua Epstein, "Horizontal Escalation: Sour Notes of a Recurrent Theme, International Security, 1983.
-Forrest Morgan, et al, Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century, Rand, 2008.
Great time for US policymakers to read @carsonaust book: http://bit.ly/2U2VqSU
What makes deescalation and restraint w/ Iran more likely is absence of acknowledgment, plausibly deniability.
Key Qs:
-What is threshold for "planning" attacks on US forces?
-Who determines when threshold has been met?
-What are predetermined targets (source of suspected threat, or broader category of Iran-linked assets)?
-Who has authority to authorize the preemptive strikes?
Sec. Esper: "If we get word of attacks, we will take pre-emptive action. The game has changed."
So any indication of Iran-sanctioned planning (an assessment that will be classified and not exposed to public scrutiny) justifies a preemptive war with Iran?
Unfortunately, many pundits and journos don't do the math. They accept policy pronouncements as factual, but rarely verify with open-source statistical data. It's quite easy!
Most critical lesson of the deployment of forces or using military force: You cannot reliably determine how targeted audiences will interpret your actions. #signaling
For a region that pundits have repeatedly declared the US is abandoning, Trump has sent a lot of troops to the Middle East...at least 14,750 since the summer.
