With Chiang Kai-shek 1956 Chao Chi, Taiwan

Crisis Management and Its Absence Under GW Bush

National security crises are managed bureaucratically in advanced countries by so called crisis management centers; sometimes ad hoc and usually composed of members of the political/military elites – the US has certainly had its crises under nearly six years of President GW Bush, but there has been very little successful management. As a matter of fact, crises manage GW Bush.

The National Security Staff (NSC) in the US was established for interagency policy formulation and to run a national security crisis when necessary. It has as such, a legal mandate, and is seated in plush historical offices in an old French Third Empire style grey stone building adjacent to the White House. Most recently, headed by men such as Scolcroft, Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Berger who made errors, but got it right most of the time. Unlike GW Bush's picks of Condoleezza and Hadley who get it wrong all of the time. Outrageously, they still were promoted to reward their incompetency: Condoleezza went from NSC head to Secretary of State and Hadley, as assistant NSC to head NSC – no accountability for failure...

Most agree Condoleezza and her assistant Hadley blundered from the outset of the Bush administration. First they appeased the Red Chinese on the Chinese violation of forcing down a US reconnaissance aircraft over international waters. What we lost was state-of-the-art intercept equipment in their eagerness to please the Chinese; once the plane was evacuated on Chinese territory, it should have been bombed and destroyed. Instead, US inaction set the stage for Chinese domination of the Bush administration which is playing out in a massive trade imbalance favoring the Chinese. Chinese failure to assist the UN in curbing its North Korean satellite's nuclear aspirations is another by product of this early ambivalence to Red Chinese depredations. China is in Cuba, South America and on the shoulders of the Panama Canal; and, this Red Dragon has nuclear teeth.

Then came the strategic intelligence warning on 9/11 on which Condoleezza failed to act. As the facts are coming out, she was warned by CIA more than once. Looming in the background is a tell-all-book by former CIA Director Slam Dunk Tenet – Slam Dunk was paid 4 million for a book advance which has been delayed as he allegedly gathers more perspective. Since the Bush administration has made him the fall guy for 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, he is rumored to have regretted accepting the Presidential Freedom Medal. The thought of Slam Dunk telling the truth eventually should make Condoleezza bat her eyes even faster and make her voice even higher pitched.

And then there was the burst of the Iraqi debacle with its gross misrepresentations to the American people. Despite CIA objections and warnings, the NSC staff of Rice and Hadley pushed the fabricated Niger Yellow Cake nuclear link into Bush's State of the Union speech. GW Bush later had to apologize for the disinformation, but congress had approved the war resolution and Bush was at war in Iraq. Condoleezza also bought into snake Chalabi’s spurious sources on Iraq that were clearly discounted by CIA at the time.

Chalibi still remains an enigma. He was very actively promoted by the pro Israeli, mostly Jewish American, neocons as the new leader of Iraq. This backfired on the neocons as it now appears he was an Iranian agent who plotted to destroy Saddam who stood in the way of Iranian expansion. Doubt the Israelis feel safer now that Saddam is gone. Chalabi was asked why he provided false information for the US in the run up to the Iraqi war, he replied he was a hero of error. He was right. He did whatever it took to dump Saddam and to involve the US in the invasion. Meanwhile the US has lost nearly 3000 men and billions of dollars; so far, there is no prospect of the war ending as Bush blindly stays the course.

We have unmanaged crises with terrorism, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, but the crisis de-jour is the proliferation of nuclear weapons capability in North Korea. Condoleezza and the NSC response to the crises is like a little girl telling the teacher that a boy pulled her pigtail; instead of the teacher in this case, it is the UN and the international community. North Korea does not give a rip for world public opinion and has tightened its economic belt enough to withstand economic sanctions; that is, as long as Red China provides energy and food. And China will continue... Since multi-lateral negotiations have not worked to stop nuc weapons development, the US might want to try direct talks with the North Koreans. Bush now appears to have lowered his expectations and now just wants to prevent North Korea from transferring nuclear weapons.

China's strategy is to control the whole Korean peninsula and drive a strategic dagger in the back of Japan to neutralize it. North Korea is an Army with a country. It has been preparing for war for over 50 years. Like Napoleon said you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them. Once North Korea has solved its nuclear delivery issue, it is almost certain it will strike or blackmail South Korea into submission to a one sided unification. US airpower with B52 carpet bombing will not deter the extensively dug in North Koreans any more than the Israeli bombing of Lebanon deterred Hetzbollah. For the US to employ tactical nucs, it must consider radiation blow back and contamination of the whole region, which makes their employment unlikely.

The only realistic strategy left to the US is to threaten to tighten trade with China by drastically raising tariffs on goods imported into the US from China as a quid pro quo for curbing North Korean nuclear aspirations.

I spent 15 months closely embedded with Nationalist Chinese forces on Taiwan during the Chiang Kai-shek period. Here are my politically incorrect observations: Chinese always keep two sets of books, one for themselves and one for inspections or tax collectors. Every Chinese has a sense of cultural superiority over white Europeans – 10,000 years of civilization etc. Chinese think in centuries not years. Chinese have an anthropomorphic calendar that
imputes animal personalities to those of humans. Europeans are referred to commonly as FOREIGN DEVILS or the BIG NOSES. Chinese take great pride in hard work and business acumen. They maintain strong associations with overseas Chinese communities. Chinese readily accept dual citizenship, but believe once a Chinese, always a Chinese. Chinese love ancestors, dragons, – especially five-toed ones – and gongs, bongs and fireworks. All Chinese passionately gamble, almost to a point of recklessness. Chinese seem to keep a soft place in their heart for Chairman Mao. Chinese angrily deplore losing face, but are unemotionally stoic when many men are lost in battle or in industrial and natural disasters. The Chinese view of paradise on earth is an American house, a Chinese cook and a Japanese woman,

I pass this imperfect wisdom on to to the girlie-boys at the State Department and the NSC for their use in coping with Chung Kuo and the inscrutable Middle Kingdom. Fortune cookie anyone? Colonel Robert E Bartos Colonel USA RET