No More Supplemental Appropriations Abuse?

Most of President Obama’s speech to Congress last night focused, quite appropriately, on the current economic crisis, a launching pad he also used to propose very ambitious plans in areas like energy, health care, and education. Toward the end of the speech, as he was talking about budget responsibility and deficit reduction, he added a little nugget that may be overlooked (unless he highlights in subsequent foreign policy speeches) but deserves more prominent mention: the use, and in the case of the Bush administration abuse, of supplemental appropriations to finance government operations, and notably the war in Iraq.

The supplemental appropriation is a very old and time-honored budgeting device. As the name implies, it covers additions (or supplements) to the money government spends that are not covered in the regular federal budget (I have discussed this phenomenon in National Security for a New Era, 3rd edition). In that book, I quote a useful definition from OMB Watch of what supplementals are: “spending legislation, generally but not exclusively requested by the President, intended to address a need not known or foreseen when the annual budget for a given fiscal year was drawn up.”  The clearest example of a supplemental appropriation would be emergency funds for a natual disaster such as the response to Hurricane Katrina, and indeed, much of the initial relief effort for that event was provided for by a supplemental appropriations bill. Historically, supplementals were accompanied by “offsets,” reductions in spending elsewhere to compensate for emergency expenditures. 

The problem is that the supplemental appropriations process has been extended beyond unforeseen emergencies to entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) non-emergencies. Over the past several years, the most obvious example has been funding for the Iraq War, most of which has been funded, directly or indirectly, “off budget,” as the process is sometimes referred to. It has also been accomplished without offsets.

Why has this been the case? The major reason is that it obscures the amount of federal spending generally and for specific purposes, if it is the desire of any administration to do so. Supplemental appropriations spending does not appear in the annual accounting of federal spending versus revenue collections, meaning it is not calculated into the federal deficit for any given year. The money is spent just like regular budgetary allocations, but when the books are closed, it does not appear as an inflationary impact on federal deficits. This alone made it a particularly attractive device for a Bush administration that was running up record deficits without the impact of supplementals. It also made the cost of the Iraq War and defense spending gnerally appear much more modest than it in fact was. Moreover, the Bush administration generally provided no offsetting reductions to moderate the impact. Finally, supplementals generally receive nowhere near the public scrutiny of the regular budget, making them an attractive device for in effect hiding potentially controversial expenditures of public funds. Iraq certainly qualifies in that regard.

Obama, in discussing his ten-year budget projections, specifically rejected this form of funding future defense efforts. Specifically, he said there would be public accounting of all expenditures on Iraq (an by extension, other military adventures) through the regular budget cycle. Although he did not say it in so many words, what he appeared to mean is that defense spending (except, presumably, for real emergencies) will no longer be underwritten by distorting the supplemental appropriations process. Members of Congress knew what he was saying, but the general public probably did not.

If he follows through on this pledge, it will be one of the most significant reforms he proposed in terms of its effect on government transparency and on government spending. In effect, he pulled back the curtain on the Bush administration’s attempt to hide the extent of the government’s spendng on Iraq, and he promised  not to let it happen again on his watch. Let’s make sure he follows through on this pledge!

Are We Losing in Afghanistan?

With public attention understandably directed at the election campaign and the credit meltdown, the war in Afghanistan has faded from the public view. Only a trickle of press reports are being published, and the news they contain is not particularly good. Are we losing the war in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has, of course, been a minor “theater” in the election campaign “wars.” The Obama campaign has made a point of arguing that we have “dropped the ball” in Afghanistan by diverting attention from there to Iraq. Obama proposes roughly 8,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to correct the problem. McCain acknowledges the need for more forces in Afghanistan as they become available during an Iraq drawdown, but, as a champion of the Iraq war, he can hardly agree the problem was Iraq.

Will additional American forces in Afghanistan make a decisive difference in the effort there? The answer is that it depends on what the problem is, and what can be done–if anything–to correct it.

The problem in Afghanistan is conceptualization. What is the United States (and the NATO allies) doing there? There are two possible answers. One is that the United States is engaged in a counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban, who are attempting to overthrow the Karzai government the United States helped put in power and now supports. The other is that the United States is engaged in a counterterrorism campaign, the object of which is the destruction of Al Qaeda. The two are by no means the same thing, either as a concptual objective or as a military problem. In fact, they may even be contradictory goals if pursuing one makes the other worse (which it may well be doing).

What is the political objective in Afghanistan for the United States? Since, as Clausewitz taught us nealy two centuries ago, the objecives in wa are always post-war political situations that we favor, the answer is important both for framing our actions and telling if we have achieved them (or “won”). If the objective is defeating the Taliban, the news is not very encouraging: the Taliban is resurgent, claiming control over widening amounts of territory, and issuing a broader appeal than it did in the past. If it is the destruction of Al Qaeda, the news is not much better.

What is the problem here? Assuming the two goals (effectively countering the Taliban insurgency and pursuing Al Qaeda) are compatible, the problem is not an ambiguity of objectives (part of the problem in Iraq), but rather how to develop military obejectives and (especially) strategies to achieve the objectives.

The cointerinsurgency (in the vernacular, COIN) problem is more familiar and is the subject of FM 3-24, the Army and Marine Corps’ doctrinal statement issued over David Petraeus’ name. Successful COIN requires control of territory (denying it to the insurgents) and the transfer of loyalty from the insurgents to the government. The former requires lots of toops (far more than is proposed) and is problematic even under the best of circumstances. The simple fact is that COIN efforts only succeed when the insurgency has very little support (Che Guevara in Bolivia, for instance). If the insurgency has the support of a goodly part of the population and its suppression is attempted by foreign, racially distinct forces, those efforts have never succeeded since 1945 (see Snow, Distant Thunder, for a detailed explanation). Moreover, Karzai is widely viewed as an American puppet, further undercutting his appeal. The COIN being proposed smells decidedly like South Vietnam. If it is achievable, the strategy that will achieve is not evident; FM 3-24 does NOT provide the guidance to ensure its success.

If the real objective is destroying Al Qaeda, the problem changes. Seven years of experience suggests that we do not know how to carry out an effective counterterror effort in the peculiar circumstances that surround the hunt for Usama bin Laden. Military efforts have failed and havecaused more ill will than anything else: botched bombing attacks that kill civilians and produce new Taliban and Al Qaeda recruits, incursions into Pakistan that violate that country’s sovereignty and create anti-Americanism within the government and the people. It is possible that military efforts are simply “feel good” exercises with little prospect of success. In that case, would it not be better to pull back and negotiate with the governments to provide the assistance needed to suppress the terrorists?

It is entirely possible that the missionary zeal quite naturally created by 9/11 has put the United States in an untenable position in Afghanistan. The situation is untenable if there is no realistic way the political objectives–either defeating the Taliban insurgents or destroying Al Qaeda–cannot be translated into effective strategies that will accomplish those goals. That aspect of the problem deserves a much more thorough airing than it has gotten to this point. It is time to quit breast beating and to face the problem of Afghanistan more soberly.

During the Vietnam War, Richard Rovere borrowed the lyrics from an old work song, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” to describe America’s deepening involvement there. As the song put it, “We’re waist deep in the  big muddy, and the damned fool said to go on.” In Afghanistan, we are at least thigh deep. Should we wade deeper, or turn around and go back to shore? 

Donald M. Snow, Distant Thunder (2nd ed). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.

Pamela Constable. “A Modern Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan.” Washington Post (online), September 20, 2008.

The Logic and Language of the Iraq War

“‘War is the continuation of political activity by other means,’ the Great Prussian strategies Carl von Clausewitz wrote over a century and a half ago. His famous dictum, so disarmingly simple and straightforward, is mimicked constantly in discussions about the role of military force in accomplishing the goals of groups or states. Despite its obvious truth and power, it is a statement shallowly comprehended and constantly forgotten.” Dennis Drew and I wrote those words to begin the 2000 edition of our joint collaboration From Lexington to Desert Storm and Beyond (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe), and the statement remains equally true as we ask questions about the outcome of the Iraq War.

The campaign of Republican John McCain has brought into stark relief the question of what constitutes the purpose of the American military action in Iraq. Senator McCain talks about the necessity of something he calls victory, but what does he mean by that assertion? How exactly can we tell when (or if) we have achieved success sufficient in extent to constitute victory? What will the battlefield look like? What will the political situation in Iraq be like? If we are to stay in Iraq until victory is achieved, when will we know we can come home?

Senator McCain’s pronouncements on the subject have not been entirely helpful in answering these questions. Although one can debate the veracity of his claims, he is much more explicit about the consequences of not winning, which he sometimes conflates with losing. Thus, the United States, he argues, cannot abandon Iraq prematurely because the results would be disastrous: Iraq would likely spin into violence and chaos, the terrorists (presumably Al Qaeda in Iraq) would proclaim victory over the United States, and worst of all, they would even pursue retreating American forces back to U.S, soil to carry out terrorist attacks that continued American vigilance in Iraq would presumably prevent. Defeat, he thus argues, is unacceptable.

These evocations are very vivid and colorful, but they do not speak to what the victory he extols would look like. Clausewitz can be helpful here. The major import of the Prussian dictum is that war is a political act, and that the use of military violence is one way for a state to achieve its political objectives (in the historical American mind, force as a last resort when all other methods fail, a rejoinder not clearly followed in Iraq). Clausewitz drew the distinction between the logic and language of war. The logic of war referred to the reasons for going to war and is expressed in the achievement of the political objectives (generally speaking, political conditions or policies the opponent would be forced to accept). By this measure, war is won when its logic prevails: when the enemy either accepts or is compelled to accept the reasons for which war against it was waged in the first place. As discussed at length in What After Iraq? these objectives have various been publicly described as ridding Iraq of WMD and terrorism and instituting political democracy to unexpressed goals like controlling Iraqi oil. The language of war refers to the military actions taken to contribute to achieving the political objectives. The key notion here is the contributory nature of military action: military success (sometimes confused with victory per se) can contribute to victory by facilitating achievement of the political goals. The language of war does not, however, substitute for the logic.

When Senator McCain talks about victory (including the negative statement of avoiding defeat), he seems to concentrate on actions related to the language of war. How can we know that we are moving toward victory, for instance? The answer is that the surge is working. But the surge is an expression of the language, not the logic, of war. It is not enough to say that the United States is enjoying some success in moving toward conditions where it may be possible to advance the political agenda toward some conditions that might constitute achievement of the logic of the war. First, one has to specify where the logic leads. Until that is done, the assertion of progress must be met with the question, “progress toward what?” Your answer, Senator?