Hagel uncontrollable and unpredictable

On Wednesday, the Atlantic Council hosted a conversation with former Secretary of Defense Hagel. He detailed the policy issues and challenges that arose during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, discussed his relationship with the Obama Administration, and provided advice to US policymakers going forward. Fred Kempe,  President and CEO, Atlantic Council, interviewed the Secretary and moderated the discussion.

Kempe began with some background about Hagel’s tenure as Secretary of Defense. He was the first Secretary of Defense in decades to face shrinking budgets at a time of increased demand for US military force. Sequester began on his third day in office. He also faced the Russian invasion of Crimea, the fight against ISIS, a difficult US-Egypt relationship, and the Iran negotiations.

Kempe asked Secretary Hagel to provide his thoughts on Iran’s capture and subsequent release of US sailors this week. Secretary Hagel said he doesn’t have the intelligence information he once had, but that the US is pleased with the sailors’ release. There will be an investigation of what happened and why. He strongly supported the nuclear negotiations with Iran. This incident put the deal in jeopardy, especially since the removal of sanctions commences this weekend. If the Iranians hadn’t released the sailors, they would have put sanctions relief in jeopardy.

Hagel described what he saw as a new world order developing now. We are witnessing the greatest diffusion of economic power in history combined with rapid demographic changes. The world order that the US and its allies built post-Word War II has done well; there has been no World War III or nuclear exchange.  These alliances will become even more important in this century. As the world has progressed, more people have greater expectations regarding what their rights are.

The world is unpredictable. Leaders need to build margins into their planning. While the US is the most powerful nation on earth, we shouldn’t dictate or impose. Most Americans were born after World War II and expect an America that dominates in every way. But we’ve made big mistakes stemming from not paying attention to other cultures. American leadership is indispensable, but Americans must be humble about this. We can’t fix every problem, but countries do rely on American leadership to bring them together.

American leadership is essential for global stability. We should remain engaged, but not be afraid of other countries becoming successful. We need to adapt to the world’s shifting demographics without abandoning our values. We shouldn’t impose our specific brand of Western democracy on all countries. As Kissinger has said, we need to help countries develop their own democracies for their own contexts. The common threads of all democracies are dignity for all, freedom of initiative, and incentives for hard work and responsibility.

Kempe wanted Hagel to review his recent article in Foreign Policy in which he criticized the way he was treated by the Obama Administration. Hagel did not want to rehash everything he said in the article, but stated that all administrations try to dominate their cabinets. In this sense, the Obama Administration is no different from previous administrations, but each successive administration in recent years has tried to dominate more.

This is unhealthy because it undercuts governing. Governing is not the same as domination. Every institution requires the support of good people and those in charge need to trust these people and rely on them to govern with them. The two most important jobs in every administration are the National Security Advisor and the Chief of Staff because all decision making flows through them. The Secretary of Defense doesn’t make policy but is the implementer and operator of the policies that the President wants. When the President dominates those whom he/she is supposed to rely on it impedes his/her ability to govern. In addition, there were too many meetings with too many people in the room; this creates chaos because everyone wants to talk and show how smart they are.  Every President faces challenges, uncontrollables, and unknowables.

Every President also has his/her own style. But it’s hard to bring in the best people if they think they will be overloaded with meetings, micromanaged and second-guessed.

Given the fact that sequester began on day three of Hagel’s tenure, Kempe wanted to know how much time he spent on budgets and if the military has enough funding to ensure American security. Hagel reminded the audience that sequester remains in effect, though cuts to military spending have been adjusted. The Pentagon requires the certainty of long-term budgets on the order of 20 years to plan the purchase of weapons systems. Sequester meant an immediate $50 billion of budget cuts, so Secretary Hagel commissioned a review to understand what was most important in the budget, both from Pentagon officials as well as from field commanders. Secretary Hagel originally though he would have to furlough his employees for 21 days, but managed to cut this down to 3-5 days. He had to halt maintenance and training for a few months.

That was followed by a 16-day government shutdown, which was irresponsible on the part of politicians. Hagel refused to comply with the shutdown, though some employees were absent for 16 days. It is terrible to damage the security of the US to make a political point. It hurt the Department of Defense. The employees ultimately got paid anyway by virtue of the unions.

Budgets took up a lot of his time. We are perilously close to not having enough funds to defend our national security interests. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have to testify in front of Congress to give their opinion on whether the current budget is sufficient to guarantee American national security interests; they are getting close to having to say no. We can do with fewer submarines, for instance, but that will come with a long-term price. Once we have two presidential candidates, they must be clear about what they think the US role in the world is and what our national security interests are.

Kempe wanted to know if Obama’s red line on chemical weapons in Syria hurt his credibility. Hagel said it did hurt Obama’s credibility; to those around the world, when the President of the United States says something, it means something. The President must be clear when he says something about foreign policy, the ability of foreign leaders to govern, or red lines. We carefully analyzed whether Assad had used chemical weapons in Syria and determined that he had. To make announcements about red lines and not follow through hurts the President’s credibility. We did work out a way to get the precursors and chemical weapons out of Syria, though 100% of them were not likely removed. This was nonetheless a significant achievement. Hagel will let history judge whether or not this was the correct decision.

Kempe reminded the audience that Secretary Hagel was one of the first top US official to truly appreciate the gravity of the threat posed by ISIS. Secretary Hagel described his realization that ISIS was the gravest non-state threat the US has every faced as coming in the form of a mosaic piece by piece. These pieces included:

1. The sophistication of their social media efforts
2. Their tactical sophistication
3. Their funding and resources
4. Their use of distorted ideology to appeal to the disaffected
5. The weakness of the Iraqi government, which squandered years by not doing what they said they would do

These risk factors developed over a long period. ISIS was a force we’d never been up against. We didn’t know how to deal with it. We can’t solve this problem with airstrikes alone. We must deal with the deeper problem of disaffection.

Hagel related that he focused a lot on Asia because Asia will be increasingly important in the new world order that is forming. India will overtake China as the most populous country; it is a critical time for India. India is part of offsetting China and an essential part of the pivot to Asia. With a new leader like Prime Minister Modi, there is much potential. When Obama met with Modi, most of the deliverables came from the Department of Defense.

Hagel was the first Secretary of Defense to invite his 10 counterparts from ASEAN to a summit in Hawaii. Many senior officials from other government departments were there as well, so it was about more than just military to military cooperation. Most of these countries are suspicious that we just want to use them for bases, so we need to focus on building partnerships based on common interests. Five of the seven US treaty obligations are in the Pacific. The US has always been a Pacific power; we’re not retreating from elsewhere in the world, but we are balancing our interests and responsibilities to suit today’s realities.

Kempe asked what the US could have done better in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. Hagel stated that he gives Obama a lot of credit for not overreacting to the situation. Obama is careful, which is one of his strongest foreign policy assets. He has not let the US get caught in downdrafts of crises. Once the US military is engaged, it is difficult to scale that engagement down; that engagement usually increases. The US has made blunders over the years as a result of not asking difficult questions. It is easy to send in the military, but not all problems have a military solution.

Russia violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law. Twenty years of bad leadership and corruption in Ukraine also played a role. Russia began as Kievan Rus, so Russians have always seen Ukraine as part of Russia. But that is no excuse for what Putin did. Obama was clear that we shouldn’t go to war with Russia over Crimea; Hagel agreed with this. We did bolster the deployment of forces on NATO’s eastern border and Obama was clear that we would activate Article 5 if necessary. Hagel had many conversations with Russia’s defense minister. The White House didn’t really want them to talk, but Martin Dempsey believed it was important to keep some military to military communications open. The US could have assisted the Ukrainian army more by giving them non-lethal defensive weapons. But we didn’t want to send the Ukrainians the wrong signal that we were truly coming to their aid. Obama deserves credit for walking a tough line. At this point, ISIS, Syria and Iraq have taken attention away from Ukraine. This speaks to the significance of uncontrollable and unpredictables, as well as the importance of not getting mired in crises.

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Kempe asked Hagel what advice he had for Donald Trump and the other presidential candidates. Hagel spoke about the importance of uniting the US and not dividing it. Most leading candidates have focused on dividing the country; this only creates more problems. Hagel no longer knows what the GOP’s unifying philosophy is. It’s no longer the party he started out in; it has become an amalgamation of tribes. The GOP will ultimately regain its center of gravity, but it may take until 2020. He didn’t run for a third term in the senate partially because he was tired of the chaos and absolutism in both parties, but especially the GOP. Politicians shouldn’t come to Washington to try to tear it down; they should come here to govern. They should look to improve the country, compromise when necessary, and get things done.

John Warner, the former Republican senator from Virginia, commented that Congress needs to make a decision regarding the use of force against ISIS and must develop a joint plan with the President. Hagel agreed that Congress has a responsibility to go on the record with a decision regarding the use of force against ISIS. It’s hypocritical that Congress can’t go on the record about this while candidates make campaign speeches about how terrible ISIS is.

Barbara Slavin, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, asked Hagel what he would do about the situation in Syria. Hagel stated that there won’t be a solution without some degree of stability first. The Russians, the Iranians, the US and the Arabs must all be part of a solution. That requires close cooperation with the Russians and the Iranians. We have been paralyzed by our previous statement that Assad must go. Assad was never our enemy. He must leave eventually but that shouldn’t preclude us from working on other issues.