In the presence of the General

General Brent Scowcroft that is. The Japan Society hosted the General, where he spoke about the challenges facing the Obama administration's foreign policy objectives. Due to the time constraint, Scowcroft outlined three major challenges:

1. The current mood in the US toward Obama's foreign policy decisions and the mood of the international community toward the US;
2. The general atmosphere of the international political economy, and;
3. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The first challenge is a bit self explanatory; the second and third will need some explaining. By the general atmosphere of the international community, what Scowcroft is trying to say is that it depends on how the international community is interacting with each other. Currently it is very interconnected due to globalization (a term he used quite frequently) and that all citizens of our globe are more aware of the world in which we live. This is a fact due to technology- communication is fluid, the internet abounds, the whole world has a cellphone and knows how to take pictures and tweet from them. It is quite a phenomenon, and it appears the world will only become more interconnected as technology progresses.

The third challenge - Iraq and Afghanistan - are obvious foreign policy challenges. According to him, Afghanistan is the worse of the two, and Iraq is going well with Iraqi forces increasingly able to back themselves fundamentally. The main problems in Iraq is the political spectrum and trying to get the new government to solves its problems, form a coalition if need be, and seat itself to lead the country. The US needs to stay in Iraq because the US has the power to aid the political parties in compromising and making concessions so that the government can be seen as legitimate and begin legislating. If the US leaves prior to this (the draw-down has begun), then the Iraqi government will be hurting.

Scowcroft then moved to Afghanistan, saying Obama made Afghanistan his war and that it was a good strategic move to move from counter-terrorism tactics to counter-insurgency tactics. The difference between the two is that the former consists of finding bad guys and killing them no matter what (see here, apparently still counter-terrorism in Iraq) whereas the latter will not kill bad guys if civilians are around. Further, the US military needs to clean out Taliban-populated areas and hold them as a way to promote security among the local Afghanis.

Before taking questions, Scowcroft spoke briefly about the Iran situation. (He also mentioned the US-Japan relationship out of courtesy to the Japan Society, which is peachy-keen for the most part.) He noted that Iran is a problem because it is located in a place where the US has troops stationed fighting wars (Iraq/Afghanistan), meaning that it knows the US troops are over-extended and also can exert its influence in both these countries - which it has. Thus the US should man up, and try to talk with the Iranian government over a way to reconcile the Iraqi issue so that the US can then fully focus on Afghanistan. The issue with the nukes is that if they remain on the same path and pursue the bomb, it will most likely lead to an arms race in the region with Turkey and Egypt definitely following. Destroying Iran's nuclear capability is only a short-term solution and won't do much later.

The only critique I have is the challenge with globalization. Perhaps I understood him incorrectly, but globalization is inevitable and the world will continue to become smaller as technology, communication, and travel expands. Globalization should not be a challenge, but a constant that we need to utilize to our advantage to reach out to those that are skeptical and even marginalized by US foreign policy. I am sure General Scowcroft would agree with this, he is a very reasonable and intelligent man.