The National Security Team

So we now have Obama's national security team, and for the most part, I like it. Gates staying at Defense is a strong choice, from what I've read. He has started to turn the department around, he actually respects and listens to the military more than Rumsfeld ever did, and seems able to work with people instead of maneuvering around them. I believe he comes from the classic realist school of foreign policy, so the Iraq War is something that he would probably have been skeptical about from the beginning. And yet he has also come to understand the inescapable reality of the 21st century where America will need to be deeply involved in the world for the foreseeable future. Retreating inside fortress America and worrying about narrow economic and military interests is not an option.

Eric Holder seems like perhaps an excellent choice. Here is someone capable, and more importantly, someone who might actually care about the law, the constitution and executive power, someone who has pointed out that the Justice Department must stand with some distance from the rest of the White House, and who said today that Justice plays a, "unique role," in the administration and that, "it is incumbent those of us who lead the department to ensure not only that the nation is safe but also that our laws and traditions are respected." I'll take it with a grain of salt until I see actual results, but he feels like a clean break from Bush enablers like Gonzalez and Mukaskey.

Of James Jones I have read little except that he's opinionated and another foreign policy realist who's come around to seeing things a little differently, like Gates. He should not be the failure that Rice was. He will hopefully have the strength to wrangle the heavyweights Obama has chosen.

Lastly, of course, is Clinton. My feelings about her as Secretary of State are mixed. She has star power and intelligence and toughness, all of which help her new job. But she was a terrible manager of her campaign and is a... Clinton, which always means ego and potential for distracting, high drama (and it always means Bill!). On that tack I hope Obama knows what he's doing. I really, really do. And, on substance, while I initially wondered why he chose her, I'm starting to see that it fits with Obama's foreign policy beliefs and general character. During the campaign, they were never that far apart on policy, but there were some interesting, and telling issues where they differed, and where I agreed with him more: on Cuba, where he was for greater openness and rapproachment, on nuclear proliferation, where he was more clearly for significant change (I think), and on the initial vote to go to war, of course. These are not major differences, at least not now (though they disagreed on the vote for war, that's not a barrier to them agreeing on getting out), but still they made me wonder if the two saw eye-to-eye on that as much as they should.

After listening to Obama today, it occurs to me that to focus on these issues is to miss the forest for the trees and ignore who Obama is. He and she may have differences on some things, but as he said today, on the overall course U.S. foreign policy should take, they are in, "almost complete agreement." The point here is that what he really cares about is the overall shape of his foreign policy. The other, individual issues are simply not that important to him. He's focusing on grand strategy, as is his tendency: Obama has always tended to "go big" on issues and ignore or compromise or postpone dealing with smaller issues. Even if he would like to, say, have a closer relationship with Cuba, he has too many other problmes of global scope on his plate to have his main goals disturbed by a regional issue. On the broad strokes, I bet Clinton really does agree with him and that is why he chose her and she accepted. She has always been a bit of a hawk, but he has also made somewhat aggressive, or just plain agressive, comments: on killing jihadists inside Pakistan, on Russia invadeing South Ossetia, on the issue of Jerusalem in any Israeli/Palestinian agreement. When it comes to overall foreign policy I think he's actually a pretty pragmatic realist who wants diplomacy to work, but has no problem using physical force when necessary. (Obama has been known to admire George Bush, Sr.'s foreign policy, and has received advice from Brent Scocroft.)

Finally, part of the reason for agreement I think might also be that, because things are in such a bad place right now for the U.S. in the world, the different branches of U.S. foreign policy (minus the crazies -- isolationists or neoconservatives) have come into closer agreement on what that policy should be. Both progressives, liberal hawks and realists all feel that we must: pull out of Iraq, repair our international relationships, shift more of our resources away from military spending and more towards aid and diplomacy, and take greater action on issues such as climate change, energy security and nuclear proliferation. The previous eight years have just made these issues very clear and a rough consensus has emerged. At least for now. If Obama is successful and a good part of these issues is taken care of, then, ironically, I wonder if more cracks will start to show as everyone's differences become magnified. It's entirely possible that this team works precisely because the U.S. is in such a bad place that what we have to do to get out of it is obvious to everybody. What happens later is a different story.