.A World of Issues Waiting, Obama and His Foreign Policy Squad Brush Up
CHICAGO — He has read “Ghost Wars,” the history of the long adventure by the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan and its fruitless effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He has sought the counsel of an old Republican realist — Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser — who has long argued against an ideologically driven foreign policy.
And he has one-upped President Bush’s six intelligence briefings a week by demanding seven, prompting Mike McConnell, who handles presidential briefings as the director of national intelligence, to joke, “I don’t know if there’s some kind of competition going.”
As Barack Obama gets ready to assume the presidency on Jan. 20, he has been boning up on the many national security issues that await his first day in the Oval Office. The list spans the globe, from the obscure — whether he should break with the Bush administration’s pro-Morocco policy in its dispute over independence for the region known as Western Sahara — to the familiar, as in whether his planned increase of troops to Afghanistan is feasible.
In his transition period, John F. Kennedy was meticulous about consulting his predecessor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, about national security issues. In his, President Bush sought out Condoleezza Rice and other so-called Vulcans, his team of foreign policy experts, for cramming sessions.
And Mr. Obama? “He has been voracious,” one senior adviser said. He has had several long sessions, on the telephone and in person, with Gen. James Jones, whom he has named as national security adviser, in what the general has described as a “walk around the world.”
On Monday, Mr. Obama went a step further, meeting for five and a half hours with his national security team. In addition to General Jones and Mr. McConnell, the assembly included Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who is just back from a trip to Iraq; Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the choice for secretary of state; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general-designate; and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations.
Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Obama has also been seeking foreign policy guidance from some Republicans and conservatives. Besides reaching out to Mr. Scowcroft, Mr. Obama has also called former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a Reagan administration official who is known in some foreign policy circles as the father of the Bush doctrine because of his advocacy of preventive war. It is unclear what the two men talked about.
Mr. Obama has sought advice from Richard L. Armitage (Colin L. Powell’s deputy at the State Department, who advised Senator John McCain in the presidential campaign), Gen. Tommy Franks (commander of the Iraq invasion), and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the onetime Democrat and now independent who supported Mr. McCain in the election and is known for breaking with Democratic criticism of the Iraq war.
But even as Mr. Obama moves to the center, some classic liberalism has also become a part of his study program. Mr. Obama, having finished Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars,” is now reading “Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet,” by the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. Mr. Sachs argues that big governments like the United States could successfully tackle global warming, environmental destruction and extreme poverty by refocusing just a small fraction of global income toward those issues.
Mr. Obama has also been making use of a military that he is soon to inherit as commander in chief. Three weeks ago, he called Admiral Mullen to Chicago for a 45-minute private session.
“It struck the chairman very much that the president-elect is working very hard to bring himself up to speed, that he’s willing to listen, and to learn as he moves his way through the education process,” said a senior military official familiar with the meeting.
Like many presidents before him, Mr. Obama expects the early months of his term to be dominated by the economy, Democratic advisers said, and indeed, the proposed auto industry bailout and the recession have controlled how he has spent much of his time. But he has also quickly learned — as his predecessors did — that issues of national security do not sit back and wait for the president to finish dealing with domestic policy.
“Mumbai was a little bit of a wake-up call,” one foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama said.
In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had spent far more time talking about Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan, particularly along the lawless border regions of the two countries, than Pakistan’s long-running dispute with India over Kashmir. The Mumbai attacks, which officials have attributed to the guerrilla group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been preoccupied with Kashmir, moved South Asia’s other simmering security crisis-in-waiting to the front burner.
On the day of the Mumbai attacks, Mr. Obama was in Chicago, getting ready to host 60 guests at his Hyde Park home for Thanksgiving the next day. He did not cancel his Thanksgiving plans, but ended up spending part of the day in briefings with two Central Intelligence Agency officials on the response to Mumbai. He called Ms. Rice several times to get updates about the crisis and the American response. One Bush administration official with knowledge of the conversations characterized Mr. Obama’s questions as “gathering information.”
“He wasn’t telling her how to run policy,” the official said.
And that Friday, Mr. Obama placed a 10:30 p.m. phone call to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, ostensibly to offer condolences about the loss of life in Mumbai..
Mr. Obama had already been accused in the Indian news media of giving India short shrift, by calling President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan before he connected with Mr. Singh, as he returned some of the hundreds of congratulatory phone calls from world leaders about his election.
Mr. Obama began getting daily intelligence briefings two days after his election victory, and quickly demanded that he receive seven intelligence briefings a week instead of the six that Mr. Bush gets.
“We go through a great deal of substance, on any topic you can imagine in the context of national security and potential threats to the United States,” Mr. McConnell told an audience at Harvard last week.
But Mr. Obama may have already discovered that the daily briefing is not enough, said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. “During the crisis in India, would the daily briefing suffice to tell Obama what was happening?” Mr. Dallek asked. “I don’t think so.”
Mr. Dallek said that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger once scoffed to him about the daily briefings. “He said, ‘If there was something vital or crucial or a crisis developing, these daily briefs end up being just pro forma business that didn’t bring you up to speed.’ ”
Mr. Kissinger, Mr. Dallek said, “didn’t think they always gave you an up-to-the-minute picture of what’s going on.”
NYT
And he has one-upped President Bush’s six intelligence briefings a week by demanding seven, prompting Mike McConnell, who handles presidential briefings as the director of national intelligence, to joke, “I don’t know if there’s some kind of competition going.”
As Barack Obama gets ready to assume the presidency on Jan. 20, he has been boning up on the many national security issues that await his first day in the Oval Office. The list spans the globe, from the obscure — whether he should break with the Bush administration’s pro-Morocco policy in its dispute over independence for the region known as Western Sahara — to the familiar, as in whether his planned increase of troops to Afghanistan is feasible.
In his transition period, John F. Kennedy was meticulous about consulting his predecessor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, about national security issues. In his, President Bush sought out Condoleezza Rice and other so-called Vulcans, his team of foreign policy experts, for cramming sessions.
And Mr. Obama? “He has been voracious,” one senior adviser said. He has had several long sessions, on the telephone and in person, with Gen. James Jones, whom he has named as national security adviser, in what the general has described as a “walk around the world.”
On Monday, Mr. Obama went a step further, meeting for five and a half hours with his national security team. In addition to General Jones and Mr. McConnell, the assembly included Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who is just back from a trip to Iraq; Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the choice for secretary of state; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general-designate; and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations.
Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Obama has also been seeking foreign policy guidance from some Republicans and conservatives. Besides reaching out to Mr. Scowcroft, Mr. Obama has also called former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a Reagan administration official who is known in some foreign policy circles as the father of the Bush doctrine because of his advocacy of preventive war. It is unclear what the two men talked about.
Mr. Obama has sought advice from Richard L. Armitage (Colin L. Powell’s deputy at the State Department, who advised Senator John McCain in the presidential campaign), Gen. Tommy Franks (commander of the Iraq invasion), and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the onetime Democrat and now independent who supported Mr. McCain in the election and is known for breaking with Democratic criticism of the Iraq war.
But even as Mr. Obama moves to the center, some classic liberalism has also become a part of his study program. Mr. Obama, having finished Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars,” is now reading “Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet,” by the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. Mr. Sachs argues that big governments like the United States could successfully tackle global warming, environmental destruction and extreme poverty by refocusing just a small fraction of global income toward those issues.
Mr. Obama has also been making use of a military that he is soon to inherit as commander in chief. Three weeks ago, he called Admiral Mullen to Chicago for a 45-minute private session.
“It struck the chairman very much that the president-elect is working very hard to bring himself up to speed, that he’s willing to listen, and to learn as he moves his way through the education process,” said a senior military official familiar with the meeting.
Like many presidents before him, Mr. Obama expects the early months of his term to be dominated by the economy, Democratic advisers said, and indeed, the proposed auto industry bailout and the recession have controlled how he has spent much of his time. But he has also quickly learned — as his predecessors did — that issues of national security do not sit back and wait for the president to finish dealing with domestic policy.
“Mumbai was a little bit of a wake-up call,” one foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama said.
In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had spent far more time talking about Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan, particularly along the lawless border regions of the two countries, than Pakistan’s long-running dispute with India over Kashmir. The Mumbai attacks, which officials have attributed to the guerrilla group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been preoccupied with Kashmir, moved South Asia’s other simmering security crisis-in-waiting to the front burner.
On the day of the Mumbai attacks, Mr. Obama was in Chicago, getting ready to host 60 guests at his Hyde Park home for Thanksgiving the next day. He did not cancel his Thanksgiving plans, but ended up spending part of the day in briefings with two Central Intelligence Agency officials on the response to Mumbai. He called Ms. Rice several times to get updates about the crisis and the American response. One Bush administration official with knowledge of the conversations characterized Mr. Obama’s questions as “gathering information.”
“He wasn’t telling her how to run policy,” the official said.
And that Friday, Mr. Obama placed a 10:30 p.m. phone call to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, ostensibly to offer condolences about the loss of life in Mumbai..
Mr. Obama had already been accused in the Indian news media of giving India short shrift, by calling President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan before he connected with Mr. Singh, as he returned some of the hundreds of congratulatory phone calls from world leaders about his election.
Mr. Obama began getting daily intelligence briefings two days after his election victory, and quickly demanded that he receive seven intelligence briefings a week instead of the six that Mr. Bush gets.
“We go through a great deal of substance, on any topic you can imagine in the context of national security and potential threats to the United States,” Mr. McConnell told an audience at Harvard last week.
But Mr. Obama may have already discovered that the daily briefing is not enough, said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. “During the crisis in India, would the daily briefing suffice to tell Obama what was happening?” Mr. Dallek asked. “I don’t think so.”
Mr. Dallek said that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger once scoffed to him about the daily briefings. “He said, ‘If there was something vital or crucial or a crisis developing, these daily briefs end up being just pro forma business that didn’t bring you up to speed.’ ”
Mr. Kissinger, Mr. Dallek said, “didn’t think they always gave you an up-to-the-minute picture of what’s going on.”
NYT
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