The Long Game (12 page)

The application of force is tangible and easy to measure: troops and equipment are deployed, resources are spent, and things get blown up. But that's not the only tool of American power, and it's often not the most important one. To see and appreciate the power of the other tools of influence is often difficult, so it can be hard to get credit for using them. As Obama admitted, “sometimes the results don't come overnight, they don't come the following day, but they come.”

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HIS EFFORT TO
recalibrate the instruments of US power did lead to tensions with military leaders. The intense debates over the surge in Afghanistan and the pace of withdrawal in Iraq (and later, what to do about Libya and Syria) stressed these relationships. But while they could be scratchy, they were hardly broken.

In fact, Obama's relationships with his military leaders were for the most part quite strong, and with many of them, personally warm. He and his closest advisers took great care to tend to civil-military relations, applying the lessons Democrats had learned during the early 2000s about how they approached the military. And during the course of his presidency Obama forged especially close bonds with his top military commanders, especially those like Army General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2011 through 2015, who was perceived by the White House as an astute, solid straight shooter who did not play games.

But as the Afghanistan and Iraq cases show, they did not agree on everything. Obama did embrace the basic strategy offered to him by
military advisers—the surge in Afghanistan and gradual withdrawal from Iraq—but in both cases put restrictions on how force would be used, and set deadlines for withdrawal that he was determined to stick with.

There is a natural tension between what the military demands in resources and what political leaders are ready to provide. There is also a fine line between civilians asking questions for greater specificity about military planning or fine-tuning options (to ensure they do not extend beyond the stated goals), and meddling in military decision-making. Obama appreciated the fundamental difference of perspectives, often saying that he understood why military commanders asked for the resources they did, but that his job was to consider such requests in the overall context of other interests, competing priorities, and the trade-offs between them.

While the military leadership bristled at troop caps and withdrawal timelines, they were necessary to disciplining the process to fit the strategy. As Gates recalled, “Without these controls, the number of deployed troops would steadily inch upward, not because of some military ruse but because of the inexorable pressure from commanders as other assets are required… I believe the [troop] cap was the only way to avoid having the president wake up one morning and discover there were 130,000 troops in Afghanistan rather than the 101,000 he had approved.”
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Again, fighting the “long war” is different than—and must be subservient to—playing the Long Game.

Sometimes, the heat of debate would cause these differences to boil over. The second Afghanistan policy review in 2009 is an example. Numerous press leaks about the troop numbers Pentagon leaders were requesting caused frustrations in the White House that the military was “jamming” the president by raising the costs for him of “rejecting” their advice and, in effect, reducing his options (Obama certainly believed this to be the case). Intentional or not, such leaks
accentuated these inherent tensions, leading to the impression that civil-military relations were more troubled than they actually were. Yet this was hardly the same kind of ugly struggle that plagued the Bush administration, when the “generals' revolt” over the direction of the Iraq war exploded in public, a factor that ultimately led to the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

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HE DELIBERATIONS OVER
the use of military power illustrated a second attribute of Obama's foreign policymaking that took shape during these early years: the dominance of the White House.

One constant theme of the critiques from many former officials and Washington pundits is that the Obama White House was overbearing and too prone to micromanaging. The result, these critics claim, is a policy process that stifled innovation and left the United States dithering while events passed it by. The easiest path for a pundit (or a disgruntled official) is to blame the process if you don't like the policy. To be sure, the Obama NSC process created its share of problems. As someone who was part of its decision-making for six years from the perspective of the State Department, Pentagon, and White House, I both experienced and am partly responsible for what's behind many of the complaints.

But one must consider these frustrations in a broader context and with more than a short-term memory. Every recent administration has been criticized for a flawed process, and by comparison, the dysfunction attributed to Obama's is fairly tame. There has been nothing like the kinds of breakdowns of the past. Just to cite a few examples, recall Henry Kissinger's paranoid machinations from the Nixon White House (e.g., wiretapping subordinates); the bitter disputes between Zbigniew Brzezinski and Cyrus Vance during the Carter years; the rogue Reagan NSC that made Oliver North a national figure and flushed through six national security advisers (two of whom were convicted of crimes conducted while in office); or the
epic battles of George W. Bush's NSC, with Vice President Cheney's staff operating a kind of parallel operation. This history is a reminder that while slinging criticisms comes easy, it should be done with some perspective.

In many ways, such frustrations are inherent, as every White House struggles with managing the rest of the government. White House officials tend to approach the bureaucracy in one of two ways: believing it is doing too much and going beyond what the president has decided, or that it is doing too little and not fulfilling what the president wants done. During my time in the White House, I found myself toggling back and forth between these concerns. The answer to both is more oversight, which can often evolve into bureaucratic overreach.

Most White House colleagues were conscious of not wanting to centralize power too much, and at times they would try to pare back responsibility to allow the bureaucracy to do its job—such as by trying to call fewer meetings and delegating more decisions. But too often this only worked in theory, especially on questions that concerned the use of military power. Even when the White House tried to focus more on the strategic issues and leave tactical implementation to the Pentagon or State Department, decisions would slowly gravitate back to the Situation Room. Given that the president would be the one held accountable by the public, press, and Congress, the incentives usually were for the White House to take more control, not less.

The tendency to hoard power could be exacerbated by personalities, especially high-intensity ones who clashed with the famously “no drama” presidential style. That was certainly the case during the debate over Afghanistan, where the Obama team's difficult relationship with the diplomat Richard Holbrooke—a mentor of mine—became for many a metaphor for White House meddling and mistrust.

It's true that the White House mishandled Holbrooke by isolating him and undercutting his position and, in doing so, feeding his insecurities, which only made the problem worse. As a consequence,
the Obama team never found a way to take full advantage of his considerable talents—something that, in retrospect, they regretted. Holbrooke's crucial patron, Hillary Clinton, understood the strains he could put on the process and worked to mitigate them. But the claim that the president doesn't like and cannot work with forceful, high profile (and sometimes high maintenance) personalities is overblown—consider the success of Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Robert Gates, and Leon Panetta.

Beyond individuals, there is also a structural imperative for the White House to dominate foreign policymaking, especially when the president is trying to execute a strategic move. A firm hand on the tiller is required to implement a policy that is sustainable and precise, and that really can only come from the White House. Moreover, some of the most delicate tasks require such secrecy and agility that they can only be managed by a tight circle at the White House (the diplomatic opening to Cuba in 2014 is a prime example).

There is also a fundamental constitutional point. Since the president is the only person who actually got elected, the idea that rigorous White House oversight is “meddling” or a “process foul” is odd. In many ways, a president can't win: act decisively, and you are criticized for going it alone and not including your advisers (e.g., the decision to go to Capitol Hill during the Syria red line episode); consult widely and exhaustively, and you are criticized as dithering (e.g., the months-long Af-Pak strategy review process); engage deeply on issues and refine options, and you are accused of micro-managing (e.g., any number of episodes involving the use of force). However the White House does not have the capacity, or often the expertise, to oversee everything, despite the compelling incentives to do so. There are numerous examples of the White House over-steering the process, allowing small details to overwhelm the big picture and getting too involved in decisions it would have been better off staying out of.

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HIRD AND FINALLY
, Obama's effort to transition American foreign policy from its overriding focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a broader conception of strength and interests revealed a fundamental dilemma—one of communications. Put simply, it is very hard to articulate a future of optimism while explaining a foreign policy of limits.

A key premise behind shifting from the “long war” to the Long Game was simple common sense: even when America is most powerful, there are constraints on what it can do. That's why it cannot overextend itself, especially militarily. Yet this is difficult to communicate without being criticized as defeatist or as denying America's inherent greatness. Obama often pushed back against the criticism that acknowledging limits was somehow new. After all, when was it the United States determined everything?

The truth is such a golden age never existed.
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Following the Second World War, when the United States enjoyed what historians describe as a “preponderance of power,” China collapsed to Communism, half of Europe fell under Soviet control, and America sent half a million soldiers to the Korean Peninsula to fight to a draw. During the Kennedy and Johnson years, the world sometimes seemed close to nuclear war and the United States could not save its ally, South Vietnam. During Reagan's presidency, the United States could not stop Communist uprisings in its own backyard in Central America. Even when America was criticized for being a “hyperpower”—in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and before the 9/11 attacks—it struggled to bring peace to the Balkans and failed, even after Bill Clinton's strenuous efforts, to conclude a deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Past administrations have also had difficulty talking about limits. In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's secretary of state, Cyrus Vance was pilloried for warning that the United States should “always keep in mind the limits of our power and our wisdom.” And during the Clinton administration, a senior State Department official, Peter Tarnoff,
ignited a Washington firestorm by arguing that the United States had limited resources and lacked leverage to solve every problem, and because of competing demands at home, it could not allow itself to become overextended abroad.
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Recalling these lessons, most conclude that instead of acknowledging limits, it is best to remain silent about them, talking (and often acting) as if they don't exist.

But Obama wanted to be forthright that there will always be constraints on what America can do. “[We] can't, at any given moment, relieve all the world's misery,” he has said. “We have to choose where we can make a real impact.”
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In Obama's view, speaking openly about these limits is not the same as conceding America's decline. In fact, it is the opposite: understanding limits is key to sustaining America's power and leadership for the long-term.

That's why Obama described the Afghanistan and Iraq decisions the way he did, returning to the theme of “nation building at home.” In this way, the main restraint on America's global leadership was its flagging domestic health. This was not acknowledging weakness; it was acknowledging reality. It was time, Obama insisted, to “turn the page” from the era that had been defined by Iraq and Afghanistan—the long war—to tackle challenges at home.

The problem is that no matter how appealing domestic renewal seems, it is often heard as the sound of retreat. Obama's August 2010 speech announcing the end of the combat mission in Iraq illustrated this dilemma. Addressing the nation from the Oval Office, Obama struck a somber tone, speaking of sacrifices and uncertainties. While he pledged that the United States would “honor commitments” abroad, it sounded as if it was something America would only do because it is obliged to do so, not because of its interests. Leadership seemed to be more of a burden than an opportunity.

This shows the challenge of defining foreign policy in negative terms—outlining what the country should not do, warning of the pitfalls to dodge—rather than in ambitious ones. How should a country
seize opportunities while resisting temptations and avoiding shortsighted mistakes? Obama found himself wrestling with this throughout his presidency, perhaps most famously with his admonition that his foreign policy could be summed up by the phrase “don't do stupid stuff.”

L
OOKING BACK, ONE
of the most effective descriptions at the time of America's aspirations in the context of limits came not from Obama, but Hillary Clinton. Listening to Obama's August 2010 Iraq speech, the secretary of state lamented that it was a downer. She thought that rather than speak to the country's hopes and opportunities, it went too far in setting a mood of pessimism and despair. She believed the message needed more “lift.”