Seeing eye to eye on Afghanistan: Bowe Bergdahl and Robert Gates

Five days before his disappearance, Bowe Bergdahl poured out his disillusionment with the US effort in Afghanistan in a long email to his parents, quoted at length in Michael Hastings' June 2012 profile. It included this indictment:

In the second-to-last paragraph of the e-mail, Bowe wrote about his broader disgust with America's approach to the war – an effort, on the ground, that seemed to represent the exact opposite of the kind of concerted campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of average Afghans envisioned by counterinsurgency strategists. "I am sorry for everything here," Bowe told his parents. "These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live." He then referred to what his parents believe may have been a formative, possibly traumatic event: seeing an Afghan child run over by an MRAP. "We don't even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks... We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them."

Does that sound harsh? Compare Robert Gates' account in Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War of how he saw the U.S. war effort at just about exactly the same point, the summer of 2009:

What the Saudis want from the U.S.

The next time you read about the Saudis bitching about the U.S. showing insufficient zeal for military adventure in the Middle East, recall this encounter between Robert Gates and the Saudi King in the summer of 2007, as recounted by Gates in his new memoir. I offer it without comment, just as a benchmark and reminder to be returned to when appropriate.

It was also the only encounter with a foreign leader in which I lost my cool. Abdullah, a heavyset man in his eighties with a history of health problems, was very sharp and did not mince words as he smoked one cigarette after another. He wanted a full-scale military attack on Iranian military targets, not just the nuclear sites. He warned that if we did not attack, the Saudis “must go our own way to protect our interests.” As far as I was concerned, he was asking the United States to send its sons and daughters into a war with Iran in order to protect the Saudi position in the Gulf and the region, as if we were mercenaries. He was asking us to shed American blood, but at no time did he suggest that any Saudi blood might be spilled. He went on and

Does Robert Gates know what's in Menendez-Kirk?

In interviews following the publication of his new book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Robert Gates appears to oppose legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran.  But it's not entirely clear that he knows what's in the Menendez-Kirk bill that's currently been endorsed by 59 senators. Or rather, he does not direct his rather vague criticism at the actual provisions of that bill -- which, its proponents would argue, does exactly what Gates is calling for.

Gates told the Wall Street Journal*:

I think that the Senate's effort to pass additional sanctions now, that would become effective now, is a serious mistake, but unlike the administration, I would support the Senate, or Congress, voting additional sanctions, but that would be triggered only with the failure of the negotiations, so that it lets the Iranians know that if this negotiation doesn't work it's not just going back to the way things were at the beginning of the negotiations -- it will be worse for them.  So I think it strengthens the president's hand. We worry all the time about strengthening hardliners on the opposite side of the table. Maybe we oughtta tell the other side of the table that they oughtta worry about some of our hardliners (my transcript).

The summary of Menendez-Kirk circulated on Capitol Hill claims:

The bill does not violate the Joint Plan of Action.  New sanctions would only be imposed if Iran violates the interim agreement or does not reach a final agreement regarding its nuclear program.

Gates, the un-Rumsfeld

Back in December 2008, I thought I saw a subtext in one of the core themes in Gates' writings about Pentagon procurement:

Gates: Have the army you'll go to war with

Defense Secretary Robert Gates' precis of the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy in Foreign Affairs, A Balanced Strategy, can be read as an extended inversion of Donald Rumsfeld's fatalistic "you go to war with the army you have." Gates' mantra: have the army you'll go to war with. Here as in many speeches, he spotlights the imperative to reform the Pentagon bureaucracy so that it responds more swiftly to the immediate needs of soldiers in the field -- and can think past ingrained assumptions about what kinds of conflict the U.S. needs to prepare for in the future. Hence his subtitle: "Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age."

Five years later, no sooner did I crack open (okay, conjure on-screen) Gates' new memoir when I came across the same inversion of Rumsfeld's infamous mantra, this time in Gates' own voice. At the outset, elaborating on his book's title, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates enumerates several "wars" he had to fight in office, ending with this:

And finally, there was my bureaucratic war with the Department of Defense and the military services, aimed at transforming a department organized to plan for war into one that could wage war, changing the military forces we had into the military forces we needed to succeed (Kindle locations 52-54).

That "war," in Gates telling, emanated from what seems to be the book's core autobiographical claim: that Gates was driven by, indeed obsessed with, safeguarding the welfare of the troops that Bush's bungling (he doesn't put it that way, but the substantive indictment is clear) put and kept in harm's way.  Some of what he did on the troops' behalf is compressed by Fred Kaplan in a remarkable review of Gates' book:

Gates' America, no longer pearly

Here is Robert Gates' final word on Congress in his 1996 memoir, From the Shadows:

In the final analysis, though, for all its obstructionism, criticism, and complicating actions, Congress approved the weapons programs, covert actions, arms control agreements, and other measures requested by Presidents to pursue— and control— the struggle with the Soviets. Congressional continuity was, in fact, a reflection of the broad consensus of the American people. And this enduring broad public support was the great underlying strength of the United States in the long struggle with the Soviet Union.

The obstructionism and complicating role of Congress, however, did have a useful function. I sat in the Situation Room in secret meetings for nearly twenty years under five Presidents, and all I can say is that some awfully crazy schemes might well have been approved had everyone present not known and expected hard questions, debate, and criticism from the Hill. And when, on a few occasions, Congress was kept in the dark, and such schemes did proceed, it was nearly always to the lasting regret of the Presidents involved. Working with the Congress was never easy for Presidents, but then, under the Constitution, it wasn’t supposed to be. I saw too many in the White House forget that (p 559).

And here is Robert Gates in an excerpt from his new memoir Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War I, due out Jan. 14:

George H.W. Bush's good son

It seems clear America has had its fill of Bushes -- hence Jeb's conspicuous absence from a weak field of GOP presidential candidates challenging a vulnerable incumbent.

Bush Pere does have an heir, though -- a good son intent on restoring the 50-year American foreign policy consensus of which GHWB was arguably the apotheosis (as Robert Gates presents him in his memoir, From the Shadows).  His name is Barack Hussein Obama.

As Jay Leno put a bunch of softballs up on a tee for Obama last night, the President, while swatting a few victory drives, made it very clear that he saw himself restoring the old multilateral, America-first-among-equals tradition -- after a period of aberration presided over by Guess Who.

In fending off the "leading from behind" rap, Obama characterized the Libyan operation in terms that could be used to describe Bush Sr.'s conduct of the first Gulf War. My italics below (transcript here):

The empire pares back

In occasional posts about Robert Gates' speeches, I've noted that he takes a risk management approach to military spending.  In Pentagon debates regarding how to much focus on building conventional military capabilities to counter strong rival nation-states (i.e., China in 10-20 years) versus asymmetric conflict in failed and failing states, he has worked to weight the scales in favor of the latter, arguing that "the most likely catastrophic threats to the U.S. homeland -- for example, that of a U.S. city being poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states." He has served as a kind of antidote to Rumsfeld's "you go to war with the army you have"; his mantra might be have the army you're going to war with. And war, for the foreseeable future, is asymmetric conflict in failed/failing states.

Last week, in his final testimony before Congress, Gates adjusted this approach to deal with the new reality of long-term deficit reduction pressure -- in particular, Obama's proposal to save $400 billion from currently projected military spending over twelve years.  Since personnel costs account for the bulk of military spending, cuts of that magnitude mean reductions in troop levels, which in turn means reduced ability to fight Iraq/Afghanistan-type wars -- which from a certain (probably wrong) perspective means reduced focus on the risks Gates has defined as primary.

The new budgetary pressure requires a different kind of triage from the counterinsurgency-versus-big-ticket-weapons emphasis Gates has pushed for in recent years. The budget-cutting imperative means doing less (military) counterinsurgency -- which means, according to Gates, accepting additional risk. That means that the U.S. must be prepared to do less militarily -- and focus on doing it well:

Afghan Taliban: "Symbiotic" with, or sick of, al Qaeda?

Not to pretend to any great insight here, but this gives me vertigo:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said bin Laden's killing near Pakistan's capital vindicated his government's growing opposition to U.S.-led combat operations in the Afghan countryside.

"Osama was not in Afghanistan: they found him in Pakistan," Mr. Karzai said. "The war on terror is not in Afghan villages…but in the safe havens of terrorism outside Afghanistan." 

That has been true for many years. Woodward's Obama's Wars begins with Mike McConnell briefing President-elect Obama on the 150 terrorist havens strung through Pakistan's tribal areas -- a network far outstripping that available to bin Laden before 9/11.   It's hard not to wonder: If Karzai is itching to get the troops out and strike a deal with the Taliban, by what Kafkaesque logic would we persist in working against his will to transform his government into something it will never be and clear out adversaries he regards as compatriots? And how can we drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan when they're so comfortably ensconced across the border?

Obama on Libya: all-but-vital interests

Some quick notes on Obama's speech on Libya tonight:

1) In the wake of Robert Gates' weekend assertion that "vital interests" are not at stake in Libya, he threaded a needle between "vital interests" and "interests and values"  - a combination of humanitarian concern and, shall we say, not-quite-vital strategic interest:  

There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are.

Gideon Rachman on Richard Milhous Obama

Gideon Rachman levels a serious (if slightly conditional) charge against Obama and his AfPak policymakers:

"When western politicians talk about “credibility” in Afghanistan, it is often their own credibility they are worrying about most."

Rachman compares the US approach to Somalia, where the "central government controls little more than a few blocks around the presidential palace in Mogadishu and the airport," and implicitly suggest that the US should

apply the Somali model to Afghanistan. That would mean accepting that outside military intervention is often counter-productive, that its human costs are too high, that state-building is unlikely to work and that the west should concentrate on bottling terrorism up, rather than trying to defeat it on the battlefield.

Why the Obama Administration won't cut defense spending

Today's Times has front-page article reporting the first whispers in U.S. government that defense cuts may have to be part of any long-term deficit-reduction plan. The end note brings the assumptions precluding those cuts into into sharp relief.

First, the terms of debate. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has long spoken, written and acted on the need to reform Pentagon priorities and procurement practices and eliminate nonessential weapons programs, has called for real growth of 1% per year in the Pentagon budget. Gates does not envision any force reduction, and personnel costs account for two thirds of the Pentagon budget. Some budget planners are beginning to talk about reductions in "end strength" (total personnel) once Obama begins reducing troops in Afghanistan.

Why not? The U.S. significantly reduced military spending during the Clinton years. Outgoing budget director Peter Orzag responds:

“During the end of the cold war, one could imagine a significant downsizing of the American military,” Mr. Orszag said. “That is a fundamentally different proposition than the situation we find ourselves in today.”

Why is our situation "fundamentally different" today?  Gates himself has stressed that we will not face any significant major-power competition in the foreseeable future. He wants the money for the kinds of war we are in -- without apparent end. Here's what he told the Heritage Foundation about major-power competition in May 2008:

Gates, like Obama, invokes Eisenhower as prudent steward

Robert Gates at the Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas, on May 8:

Finally, this Department’s approach to requirements must change.  Before making claims of requirements not being met or alleged “gaps” – in ships, tactical fighters, personnel, or anything else – we need to evaluate the criteria upon which requirements are based and the wider real world context.  For example, should we really be up in arms over a temporary projected shortfall of about 100 Navy and Marine strike fighters relative to the number of carrier wings, when America’s military possesses more than 3,200 tactical combat aircraft of all kinds? Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners?  Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?

These are the kinds of questions Eisenhower asked as commander-in-chief.  They are the kinds of questions I believe he would ask today.  And they are the kinds of question that we must all – civilian, military, in government and out – be willing to ask and answer in order to have a balanced military portfolio geared to real world requirements and a defense budget that is fiscally and politically sustainable over time.

That is one of several cruxes in a speech relentless in its resolve to control Pentagon spending without compromising the military's ability to address the threats it's likely to face.

Lest anyone think that Gates is tailoring his priorities to those of the President he serves, compare his speech to the Heritage Foundation, 5/13/08:

God cop/bad cop in Pakistan, cont.

Based on a released excerpt, it's unclear exactly whom Hillary Clinton is threatening here:

We've made it very clear that if, heaven-forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," Clinton tells Pelley....

Clinton says Pakistan's attitude toward fighting Islamic terrorists has changed remarkably. "We've gotten more cooperation and it's been a real sea change in the commitment we've seen from the Pakistan Government. [But] We want more. We expect more," says Clinton. 

Who suffers the consequences of such an attack -- the Pakistani Taliban or the government? Or does the government "suffer" by means of U.S. action against the Taliban unconstrained by current ground rules? 

Meanwhile, in a good cop role that he's been playing for years, Robert Gates strikes a far more conciliatory tone:

The contortions of Brooke Buchanan

I would not like to be John McCain's spokesperson Brooke Buchanan these days.  Between her boss's disregard for facts and his complete reversals of past positions, the poor woman's got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Here's Brooke (via TPM) after McCain insisted on TV last night that Christmas bomber Umar Abdulmutallab bought a one-way ticket to Detroit -- two weeks after being corrected on air for making the same mistake:

McCain spokesperson Brooke Buchanan tells us that the senator is "aware now" that Abdulmutallab was not on a one-way ticket.

"The initial reports are where Senator McCain was taking the information was from," she says. "He's actually focused on bigger things, like making sure this doesn't happen again."

 That is, he's too focused on the problem to bother with facts.

Brooke also had to go into action after McCain declared himself "disappointed" that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen both stated unequivocally that they supported repeal of the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy for gays in the military.

Back from the cliff's edge: Rory Stewart hails Obama's limited goals in Afghanistan

There is perhaps no one writing about U.S. and allied policy in Afghanistan who exhibits a subtler and more comprehensive grasp at once of the realities on the ground and of the dominant conceptual frame of Western policy there than Rory Stewart. Armed with that understanding, he has taken the measure of Obama's policy review and redefinition and put his finger on the extent to which Obama has revolutionized U.S. aims and therefore, over the long haul, the likely means of fostering those aims.

In some ways, Stewart's latest assessment of U.S. policy and likely outcomes seems like a course reversal of his analysis prior to Obama's speech (in Senate testimony in September  and in The London Review of Books in July). Then, he warned that the U.S., gearing up for a troop surge, was preparing to drive off a cliff and pondering only details akin to whether or not to wear a seatbelt.  Then, too, he deployed a withering ventriloquism to expose what he regarded as circular logic in maximalist counterinsurgency aims:

Are the Taliban and al Qaeda "symbiotic"? A famed jihadist says no

What's all this about "symbiosis" between the Taliban and al Qaeda?

Robert Gates told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 3:

While Al Qaeda is under great pressure now and dependent on the Taliban and other extremist groups for sustainment, the success of the Taliban would vastly strengthen Al Qaeda’s message to the Muslim world: that violent extremists are on the winning side of history. Put simply, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have become symbiotic, each benefiting from the success and mythology of the other. Al Qaeda leaders have stated this explicitly and repeatedly.

Richard Holbrooke made substantially the same point to the Counsel on Foreign Relations on December 15 (George Packer reports):

Holbrooke called the nine weeks of recent White House meetings on the war “the most careful, detailed, methodical policy review I’ve ever been involved in.” The basic conclusion: “You can’t separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda at this point. Our judgment is that if the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan, they will bring back Al Qaeda with them,” as well as score an enormous psychological victory for extremists worldwide.

According to a legendary Jihadist, counselor and confidante to Mullah Omar and at times to Osama bin Laden, they're completely wrong.

Obama's Afghan course: risk or risk management?

The Times has an in-depth reconstruction of Obama's exhaustive Afghan policy review -- and the alchemy Obama wrought on the options presented to him. The crux of the change he forced, recounted below, reminds me in particular of one key moment in the speech:

There was no consensus yet on troop numbers, however, so Mr. Obama called a smaller group of advisers together on Oct. 26 to finally press Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gates. Mrs. Clinton made it clear that she was comfortable with General McChrystal’s request for 40,000 troops or something close to it; Mr. Gates also favored a big force.

Mr. Obama was leery. He had received a memo the day before from the Office of Management and Budget projecting that General McChrystal’s full 40,000-troop request on top of the existing deployment and reconstruction efforts would cost $1 trillion from 2010 to 2020, an adviser said. The president seemed in sticker shock, watching his domestic agenda vanishing in front of him. “This is a 10-year, trillion-dollar effort and does not match up with our interests,” he said.

Still, for the first time, he made it clear that he was ready to send more troops if a strategy could be found to ensure that it was not an endless war. He indicated that the Taliban had to be beaten back. “What do we need to break their momentum?” he asked.

Four days later, at a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 30, he emphasized the need for speed. “Why can’t I get the troops in faster?” he asked. If they were going to do this, he concluded, it only made sense to do this quickly, to have impact and keep the war from dragging on forever. “This is America’s war,” he said. “But I don’t want to make an open-ended commitment” (my emphasis).

Here is the part of Obama's speech that lays out the thinking behind this change of plan:

As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests. And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I don't have the luxury of committing to just one. Indeed, I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

Obama channels Gates to defend timeline

There may be a bit of Gates-think -- or at least, Gates-speak -- in Obama's response to the chief Republican line of attack on his AfPak strategy, as reported in the WSJ:

The American military has long resisted hard and public timetables for ending military missions, on the assumption that a deadline merely lets the bad guys know how long they have to wait out American troops before moving in. That precise criticism was immediately heard from Republicans.

Mr. Obama, in a lunch at the White House with a few columnists hours before he delivered his nationally televised speech on Afghanistan policy, countered that in this case the deadline for an American withdrawal is crucial to create leverage on Mr. Karzai to move with real urgency to improve his government and its security forces so they can take over the task of fighting the Taliban.

"That's exactly why we thought a timetable was so important," Mr. Obama said. "Because in the absence of a time frame, if the view in Afghanistan is this is an open-ended commitment or an indefinite commitment, then I think we have very little leverage" over the Afghan leader.

In April 2007,  when Republicans partisans were crying treason at Democrats seeking to impose a timetable on U.S. troop presence in Iraq, Gates famously said,  “Demands in the U.S. Congress for a timeline to withdraw American troops from Iraq are constructive because they exert pressure on Iraq’s leaders to forge compromises.” He added: “The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact . . . in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.”

Obama, as it happened, seized on this perspective from Gates in a press release:

“After the President has repeatedly ignored the will of Congress and the American people, his own Secretary of Defense now recognizes that the only way to pressure the Iraqi government toward a political settlement is to make clear that American troops will not be in Iraq forever.

The cross-fertilization in the thinking of Gates and Obama has been going on for quite some time.

The incredible shrinking Afghan surge

There was once a series of Peanuts comics in which Snoopy reflected on a tussle with a cat (who ripped him to shreds). In each comic, Snoopy doubled the weight of his antagonist -- that 50-pound cat, that 100-pound cat, that 200-pound cat (if memory serves...).

Something of the opposite seems to be happening in newspaper reports of Obama's "final" decision on a troop surge in Afghanistan. Two days ago, CBS News reported an "exclusive" that Obama had decided on 40,000 additional troops. The White House furiously denied it. Yesterday, the Times' Elisabeth Bumiller reported that Gates, Mullen and Clinton were "coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops." Now, this evening (Nov. 11), Bumiller and Mark Landler are out with a story claiming that Obama and team "have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces," prompted in some degree by reservations expressed by Karl Eikenberry, current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and once the top U.S. commander there.

As a complement, the Times also reports tonight something I've long suspected - that much of this angst is choreographed to put some pressure on Karzai and his government. Noting that the U.S. in one sense has precious little leverage, Helene Cooper reports:

Officials said Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan review took weeks longer than expected in part because officials were unhappy about reports of fraud in the Afghan elections, and they implied that even after the new Afghan strategy is announced, details will not be final.

“I’m not saying that we’ll be in a perpetual state of review, but the time the president has taken so far should signal to people that he will not hesitate to take a hard look at things and question assumptions if things are not moving in the right direction,” a senior White House official said.

Indeed, an AP story by Ben Feller and Anne Gearan, which claims that Obama has rejected all options presented to him in their current form, suggests a search for further leverage in the crevices of troop deployment:

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely...

The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government. Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.

Leverage, leverage, leverage. Cooper's story suggests a search in other directions:

While they declined to go into many specifics, the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the Afghanistan review is not complete yet, said they had a range of diplomatic, financial and economic options if the targets were not met.

One lever, they said, would be to shift money from Mr. Karzai’s central government to provincial leaders who perform better than their national counterparts. And although a complete withdrawal of American troops is not considered an option, Mr. Obama might endorse a partial withdrawal that would lead to a more limited counterinsurgency strategy initially advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

It would seem that Obama wants Karzai in a Skinner box. At the same time, he does not sound like a man preparing to disengage.

Obama at Fort Hood: Embracing 'The Long War'?

The President at Fort Hood today did not sound like a man planning to scale back American military commitments:

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations – all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.

In today's wars, there is not always a simple ceremony that signals our troops' success – no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed. But the measure of their impact is no less great – in a world of threats that know no borders, it will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that is extended abroad. And it will serve as testimony to the character of those who serve, and the example that you set for America and for the world.

Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to thirteen men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home. Later today, at Fort Lewis, one community will gather to remember so many in one Stryker Brigade who have fallen in Afghanistan.

Long after they are laid to rest – when the fighting has finished, and our nation has endured; when today's servicemen and women are veterans, and their children have grown – it will be said of this generation that they believed under the most trying of tests; that they persevered not just when it was easy, but when it was hard; and that they paid the price and bore the burden to secure this nation, and stood up for the values that live in the hearts of all free peoples.

There is nothing jingoistic or chauvinistic about this. But note the assertions of linked fate: to protect our people, while giving others half a world a way the chance to live a better life....But the measure of their impact is no less great – in a world of threats that know no borders, it will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that is extended abroad.

Note also the verb tense sequence: perfect (past leading to present moment), present continuous, and a use of the future that is thematically akin to the future perfect -- looking back at the present from a time ahead. There's a grammatical fusion of his own administration's commitments with Bush''s and perhaps with those of presidents to come.

Note too, that like Shakespeare Henry V before the battle of Agincourt, Obama pulls the commander-in-chief trick of inviting the men to envision their future satisfaction in a triumph that has yet to happen:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian...

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...(HV IV, iii).

Perhaps Obama has absorbed Gates' concept of "the long war" -- which, Gates told West Point in April'08, "is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity," adding, "This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable."

Gates moderates an expansive sense of mission with a determination to leverage allies, aid and diplomacy to leverage a minimalist use of military force. In an article outlining his strategic vision in Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb '09, no longer available free), he wrote:

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, worldwide irregular campaign -- a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation. Direct military force will continue to play a role in the long-term effort against terrorists and other extremists. But over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory. Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented, from whom the terrorists recruit. It will take the patient accumulation of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies.

In one sense, this mission is unexceptionable, as the U.S. will doubtless continue to attempt to foster development and democracy throughout the non-rich, nondemocratic world. The hard questions have to do with means -- with the assumption of a "prolonged, worldwide" military campagin . Rory Stewart, Afghan minimalist, wants to foster better governance and development in Afghanistan - he just wants to do it with 20,000 troops and selective, decentralized aid, rather than with 100,00 and a client state relationship. Stewart mocks maximalist assumptions like those expressed by Gates - that with the right combination of tools the U.S. can drain every failed-state swamp where terror breeds.

Obama certainly shares Gates' sense of the scope of the U.S. role in the world, as well as his predilection to "subordinate" military effort to diplomacy and aid. But is he signed up for "the long war"? It's starting to look that way.