Aug 24

Aug 24 Comparing Biden with Trump in foreign policy & Afghanistan By James Bruno

“Policymaking” is the stuff that enraptures political scientists and wonky journalists - and bores just about everyone else to death. But it is the machinery that churns out decisions, good or bad. And if your process is bad, manned by inept officials, expect disaster. While sound policy process operated by highly qualified people of integrity doesn’t guarantee positive outcomes, it at least mitigates the potential for failure. If you think the Biden team is screwing up on the Afghanistan endgame, it’s nothing compared with what would have played out if Trump, et al. were still in charge. Here’s why.

First, the boring poli sci lesson (I’ll make it brief). Per the White House:

The National Security Council (NSC) is the President’s principal forum for national security and foreign policy decision making with his or her senior national security advisors and cabinet officials, and the President’s principal arm for coordinating these policies across federal agencies.

The NSC is chaired by the president and includes the vice president, the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy and Homeland Security, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, the attorney general, the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, the president’s chief of staff, and the national security affairs advisor. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of National Intelligence act as advisors. The CIA director and senior White House legal counsels also participate. Senior officials from other agencies may be called to attend NSC meetings depending on the subject matter.

Below the president top decision-making is carried out by the Principals Committee, comprising cabinet heads and chaired by the national security advisor. Secondary decision-making and policy coordination is done by the Deputies Committee, consisting of sub-cabinet-level officials. Policy implementation is overseen by an array of Policy Coordinating Committees, each in charge of regional matters, such as African affairs, to functional areas like cybersecurity.

The administration wasted no time putting in place an Interim National Security Strategy, which provides content and structure for policy - i.e., broad marching orders for relevant agencies. A complete NSS will be issued in coming months.

I could plumb down into the weeds of inter-agency meetings, task forces; briefing, decision and action memos, presidential decision directives, intelligence findings and so on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that meetings and paper flow lubricate the policymaking machinery. And, at the end of the day, this daily Niagara of official information ends up in permanent storage at the National Archives for posterity.

So, with National Security Decision-making 101 under your belt, let’s look at how the Biden administration has performed on Afghanistan in terms of process. The following is gleaned from press reporting as well as from examining the White House’s and State Department’s public calendars. It’s not complete but rather provides a glimpse into how the Biden team makes foreign policy.

Biden Team Stumbles Badly, Then Begins Getting Its Act Together

According to POLITICO,

Biden’s cabinet members and their deputies had held some three-dozen “scenario planning” meetings following the president’s April announcement that U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11.

They covered everything from how to secure the U.S. Embassy and handle Afghan refugees to how to best position the U.S. military in the region in case things spun out of control. Many more sessions were held at the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, the State Department, and other agencies.

As the situation began to unravel at an accelerating pace earlier this month, “Biden’s national security team had already held dozens of meetings on Afghanistan,” reports POLITICO. At one such senior-level meeting on August 11, the president tasked the intelligence community with preparing an assessment on the situation for the next morning. He further ordered SECDEF Austin and JCS chairman Gen. Milley to come up with a plan for sending additional troops to the region to evacuate Americans. Biden also ordered the State Department to expand the evacuation of Afghan allies.

The Principals Committee convened early the next morning in the Situation Room. After being briefed by national security advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden directed the Pentagon to send 3,000 troops to Kabul and additional units to be pre-deployed to bases in the Middle East and on naval craft in the region. SECDEF subsequently ordered further deployments.

Administration officials briefed congressional leaders regularly.

Finally, while the administration slipped up initially by blindsiding allies on the April decision to completely withdraw U.S. troops by September 11, subsequently accelerated to July, it now appears fully engaged diplomatically.

A G-7 virtual meeting is scheduled for August 24. The UN General Assembly meets in New York in September; the G-20 meets in Rome on Oct. 30; the UN Climate Change Conference (COP-26) will convene in the UK Nov. 1; a “summit of democracies” is being planned for December. All of these events will provide an opportunity for governments to coordinate on humanitarian, refugee and security issues.

So, while the president’s and his team’s judgment is justifiably being faulted, their decision-making modalities are largely less so. As they play catch-up in mitigating the evacuation mess, now meeting targets in getting people out of Kabul, the inter-agency coordinating efforts have greatly improved and are beginning to pay off in terms of results.

Now, let’s turn to Team Trump.

Trump: A Foreign Policy Based on Whim, Devoid of Process

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, written by well-meaning but doomed national security advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster, was discarded by his successor, John Bolton, and not replaced, preferring to wing it based largely presidential tweets and public outbursts.

Bolton hosted almost no Principals Meetings. Needless to say, there were few, if any, Deputies Meetings either. Policy coordination, as such, flew out the window.

Notoriously dismissive of diplomacy and the State Department, Bolton froze State out of decision-making, choosing to hold meetings at the CIA headquarters as a way to keep State officials from attending.

Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo established something called the “Commission on Unalienable Rights,” aimed at implementing a right-wing foreign policy agenda by bypassing State’s Legal Adviser and human rights bureaucracy.

“I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and his word, and the truth,” Pompeo said, as he froze out State’s talented career diplomats from policy issues.

A third of key State Department policy positions went unfilled. Of those filled, over 90 percent were occupied by political appointees vs 9 percent career. Almost half of U.S. ambassadorships were occupied by political hacks and campaign donors. Historically, that number is about a third.

Trump didn’t read his briefs. And his attacks on the intelligence community were beyond shameful, bordering on treasonous.

The policy decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan was revealed in a Trump tweet in October 2020. SECDEF Mark Esper appeared to have been caught off guard and was fired before he could resign. The decision-making that went into agreement the administration signed with the Taliban in February 2020 is murky at best and has been skewered by critics as a “surrender agreement with the Taliban.” (In a baffling decision, Biden chose to honor it.)

There essentially was no formal decision-making process in the Trump administration. It didn’t even reach Rube Goldberg standards. Typical of an autocrat, strongman-wannabe Trump made decisions on whim and delivered them by tweet. From his lone-wolfing it with Vladimir Putin to his embarrassing hobnobbing with the North Korean dictator, Trump certainly would have led the nation into a national disaster - likely disasters - had he won another term. God help us if he had gotten us into a nuclear confrontation with Russia, or a shooting war with North Korea.

And, frankly, with his sell-out deal with the Taliban, he shares blame for the current chaotic Afghanistan end-game.

Why the Wonks Are Right: Process is Important

Most historians and political scientists hold up the national security mechanism set up under President George H.W. Bush as the best one since the modern national security decision-making system was established during the Truman administration. Bush’s national security advisor, Adm. Brent Scowcroft, put in place a smoothly functioning apparatus manned by technocrats and almost devoid of oversized egos. The watchword was “no drama.”

Bush and his foreign policy team handled the U.S. role in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, dissolution of the Soviet Union, and German unification masterfully. Their high risk stewardship of the First Gulf War proved to be a smashing success.

In his appointing ego-lite experts to fill out his national security team, Biden appears to be emulating the Bush-Scowcroft operation. Whether they ultimately meet with success or failure is too soon say, but getting the people and process right is at least half the game.

James Bruno (@JamesLBruno) served as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department for 23 years and is currently a member of the Diplomatic Readiness Reserve. An author and journalist, Bruno has been featured on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, Sirius XM Radio, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, and other national and international media.