MR. TAYLOR:  A group is an associated force if, first, it is an organized armed group that has entered the fight alongside al-Qaida, and second, it is a co- belligerent with al-Qaida in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. Individuals who are part of this recognized enemy may be lawful military targets.

…

We take extraordinary care to ensure that all military operations, not just the exceptional cases of those against U.S. citizens, are conducted in a manner consistent with well-established Law of Armed Conflict principles, including humanity, which forbids the unnecessary infliction of suffering, injury or destruction, distinction, which requires that only lawful targets, such as combatants and other military objectives, may be intentionally targeted, military necessity, which requires that the use of military force, including all measures needed to defeat the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible, which are not themselves forbidden by the law of war, be directed at accomplishing a valid military purpose, and proportionality, which requires that the anticipated collateral damage of an attack not be excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage from the attack. These well-established rules that govern the use of force in armed conflict apply regardless of the type of weapon system used.

From a legal standpoint, the use of remotely piloted aircraft for lethal operations against identified individuals presents the same issues as similar operations using manned aircraft. However, advance precision technology gives us a greater ability to observe and wait until the enemy is away from innocent civilians before launching a strike, and thus minimizes the risk to innocent civilians. Before military force is used against members of al-Qaida, the Taliban and associated forces, there is a robust review process which includes rigorous safeguards to protect innocent civilians.

…

MR. SHEEHAN: At this point, we’re comfortable with the AUMF as it is currently structured. Right now it does not inhibit us from prosecuting the war against al-Qaida and its affiliates.  If we were to find a group or organization that was imminent — that was targeting the U.S., first of all, we would have other authorities to deal with that situation.

I was in the government prior to 9/11 when we conducted strikes against groups before we had the AUMF specific post-9/11 authority. So we could use other authorities to take on those types of organizations. But for right now, for our war against al-Qaida, the Taliban and other — their affiliates, the AUMF serves its purpose.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, under the definition of enemy, do you agree that mere sympathy with al-Qaida is not sufficient to be associated — to be an associated force for purposes of the AUMF?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, Senator. Sympathy is not enough as Jeh Johnson and others have mentioned in public. It has to be an organized group and that group has to be in co-belligerent status with al-Qaida operating against the U.S.

SEN. LEVIN: Is there any good reason why both Congress and the public should not be informed of which organizations and entities the administration has determined to be co-belligerents of al-Qaida and to promptly be informed of any additions or deletions from that list?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, I think that the appropriate role for the Congress is in its oversight regarding the designation of groups. A lot of these groups, as you know, Senator, have very murky membership and they also have very murky alliances and shifting alliances and they change their name and they lie and obfuscate their activities. So I think it would be difficult for the Congress to get involved in trying to track the designation of which are the affiliate forces.

We know when we evaluate these forces what they’re up to. And we make that determination based on their co-belligerent status with al- Qaida and make our targeting decisions based on that criteria rather than on the shifting nature of different groups and their affiliations.

SEN. LEVIN: Is there a list now, is there an existing list of groups that are affiliated with al-Qaida?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, I’m not sure there is a list per se. I’m very familiar with the organizations that we do consider right now are an affiliate of al-Qaida and I could provide you that list.

SEN. LEVIN: Would you give us that list?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, we can do that.

…

SENATOR MCCAIN:   What this hearing is about is about a resolution that was passed now coming up on 12 years ago. And I think it’s important for all of my colleagues to read that again, which says the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorizes, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations or organizations.

This authorization was about those who planned and orchestrated the attacks of 2011. Here we are 12 years later and you and the secretary come before us and tell us that you don’t think it needs to be updated. Well, clearly, it does.

And I would refer to you this morning’s Washington Post editorial, revising the terms of war, the authorization to use force against al-Qaida should be updated, not discarded.

And because it’s been so long and because of the changing nature, which I think, General Nagata, you would agree the nature of this conflict has changed dramatically, spread throughout Northern Africa, throughout the Maghreb, it’s penetrating into other nations, all throughout the Middle East, the situation is dramatically changed. So free to come here and say, well, we don’t need to change it, I think, or revise or update it, I think, is, well, disturbing.

And that’s why we have people like Senator Dick Durbin last month, one of the highly respected individuals, I quote Senator Durbin, “None of us, not one who voted for the AUMF could have envisioned we are about to give future presidents the authority to fight terrorism as far-flung as Yemen and Somalia.”

Mr. Taylor, in your legal opinion, could the 2001 AUMF be read to authorize lethal force against al-Qaida’s associated forces in additional countries where they’re now present, such as Somalia, Libya and Syria?

MR. TAYLOR: As I indicated, there are — we must comply with domestic law –

SEN. MCCAIN: I think it’s a pretty straightforward question, Mr. Taylor. Do you want me to repeat it?

MR. TAYLOR: On the domestic law side, yes, sir.

SEN. MCCAIN: You believe that the 2001 AUMF authorizes lethal force against al-Qaida associated forces in Somalia, Libya and Syria, so we can expect drone strikes into Syria if we find al-Qaida there?

MR. TAYLOR: On the domestic law side, sir, I said if — you know, I hate to speculate on a hypothetical, but –

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, the president, in your view, the president has the authority to do that.

MR. TAYLOR: In my view, we are — the AUMF authorizes us to be at war with al-Qaida, the organization behind the 2001 September 11 attacks, and that organization continues and it has associated forces, forces that have joined with that organization. And yes, sir, we are authorized to attack associated — those who have chosen to associate with that organization.

SEN. MCCAIN: You rightly say in your statement that the 2012 NDAA reaffirmed the AUMF with respect to the authority to detain al- Qaida and Taliban and associated forces. Is the authority to detain the same as the authority to kill, because that was not in the defense bill?

MR. TAYLOR: It’s related; it is not the same.

SEN. MCCAIN: Wouldn’t it be helpful to the Department of Defense and the American people if we updated the AUMF to make if more explicitly consistent with the realities today, which are dramatically different than they were on that fateful day in New York and Washington?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, I think there’s a good case to be made that we should review this as the war goes on, and we have reviewed it. And as of right now, I believe it suits us very well. And if there comes an opportunity where we need other authorities, we should come forward for those.  I would like to add, though, the al-Qaida that attacked us on September 11th, 2001 was an al-Qaida that previously attacked us from East Africa, from Yemen –

….

SEN. MCCAIN: We are now killing people in the Haqqani Network, right? Is that correct, Mr. Secretary?  The reason why I bring that up, we didn’t even designate the Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization until 2012. And there are published reports which are not as a result of classified briefings that I have had, that we have killed people that their association or direct association with al-Qaida is tenuous. In fact, there’s one story that we killed somebody in return for the Pakistanis to kill somebody.

So as you stated, Congress is briefed from time to time, and I appreciate that. But the fact is that this authority, which I just read to you, has grown way out of proportions and is no longer applicable to the conditions that prevailed that motivated the United States Congress to pass the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that we did in 2001.

So I guess I must say I don’t blame you, because basically you’ve carte blanche as to what you are doing throughout the world. And we believe that it needs to be — it doesn’t need to be repealed, but it’s hard for me to understand why you would oppose a revision of the Authorization to Use Military Force in light of the dramatically changed landscape that we have in this war on Muslim extremism and al-Qaida and others. And it needs to be done, and I hope that this committee will address it, either in a separate fashion or as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act.

…

GEN. NAGATA: As I track the orders and direction the secretary has given his combatant commanders, I’ve never encountered a moment where they didn’t have sufficient legal authority to implement those orders.

…

GEN. GROSS: I would agree with General Nagata. I mean, from what I’ve seen in my military practice, the current AUMF has been adequate to meet the enemy we’ve seen to date so far.

…

SEN. UDALL: If the negotiated settlement between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban were to be signed, would the AUMF still apply to the Taliban? In other words, could we be in a situation in which Afghanistan is no longer at war against Mullah Omar’s Taliban, but we still are? Or if we also accept such a negotiated settlement, could we be in a situation in which we are at war with al-Qaida, but not the Taliban?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, again, hypothetical, but I would envision — if the question you asked, could that be the case, and the answer would be yes, it could be the case.

…

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, I think the AUMF currently structured works very well for us. So I guess we would be concerned that any change might restrict our combatant commanders from conducting their operations they have in the past. So right now we’re comfortable. And I think Senator Inhofe said if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I would subscribe to that policy.

…

SEN. GRAHAM: Do you agree with me the war against radical Islam or terror, or whatever description you like to provide, will go on after the second term of President Obama?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, in my judgment, this is going to go on for quite a while, and yes, beyond the second term of the president.

SEN. GRAHAM: And beyond this term of Congress?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, sir. I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.

…

SEN. GRAHAM: OK. Could we send military members into Yemen to strike against one of these organizations? Does the president have that authority to put boots on the ground in Yemen?

MR. TAYLOR: As I mentioned before, there’s domestic authority and international law authority. At the moment, the basis for putting boots on the ground in Yemen, we respect the sovereignty of Yemen and it would –

SEN. GRAHAM: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about does he have the legal authority under our law to do that.

MR. TAYLOR: Under domestic authority, he would have that authority.

SEN. GRAHAM: I hope the Congress is OK with that. I’m OK with that. Does he have authority to put boots on the ground in the Congo?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, he does.

SEN. GRAHAM: OK. Do you agree with me that when it comes to international terrorism, we’re talking about a worldwide struggle?

MR. SHEEHAN: Absolutely, sir.

SEN. GRAHAM: Would you agree with me the battlefield is wherever the enemy chooses to make it?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, from Boston to the FATA.

SEN. GRAHAM: I couldn’t agree with you more. We’re in a — and do you agree with that, General?

GEN. GROSS: Yes, sir, I agree that the enemy decides where the battlefield is.

…

SEN. DONNELLY: Do we feel today that al-Nusra is threatening our security?

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, I believe that I don’t want to get in, in this setting, the decision-making we have for how and we target different groups and organizations around the world.

SEN. DONNELLY: OK. If a terrorist group is AQ-affiliated, does that inherently mean that they are threatening the United States?

MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, although it’s a bit murky, I hate to say, because there are groups that have openly professed their affiliations with al-Qaida, yet, in fact, as a government, we haven’t completely grappled with that as of now. And so — but generally speaking, if — as for AUMF, as we mentioned, it has to be an organized force, first, and secondly, that that organized force has to be co-belligerently joined to al-Qaida to threaten us. So when both of those factors are in place, then we have the — we can move forward on AUMF.

SEN. DONNELLY: If that AQ-affiliated terrorist group is operating wholly within another country and their actions to date have involved only that country, does the AUMF still apply to them?

MR. TAYLOR: Senator, as we indicated, we would do a fact- intensive careful consideration. And as Secretary Sheehan mentioned, one of the conditions is that they become co-belligerent with al-Qaida in its hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, and that’s –

SEN. DONNELLY: Is that a call that you make as you see it?

MR. TAYLOR: Yes, sir, after a very intensive, careful review, careful consideration of the intelligence and threat assessments.

MR. SHEEHAN: And Senator, you ask a good question because when a group aligns itself with al-Qaida and al-Qaida has an express intent to attack Americans, home and abroad, but then do not take the next step to be involved in that co-belligerency then we have a judgment to make.

…

SENATOR KING: I’ve only been here five months, but this is the most astounding and the most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today. The Constitution Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 clearly says that the Congress has the power to declare war. This authorization, the AUMF, is very limited.

And you keep using the term associated forces. You use it 13 times in your statement. That is not in the AUMF. And you said at one point, it suits us very well. I assume it does suit you very well because you’re reading it to cover everything and anything. And then you said at another point, so even if the AUMF doesn’t apply, the general law of war applies and we can take these actions.

So my question is how do you possibly square this with the requirement of the Constitution that the Congress has the power to declare war?

…

MR. SHEEHAN: I’m not a constitutional lawyer or a lawyer of any kind, but let me talk to you a little — take a brief statement about al-Qaida and the organization that attacked us on September 11, 2001. In the two years prior to that, Senator King, that organization attacked us in East Africa and killed 17 Americans at our embassy in Nairobi with loosely-affiliated groups of people in East Africa. A year prior to 9/11, that same organization, with its affiliates in Yemen, almost sunk a U.S. ship, the U.S.S Cole, a $1 billion warship, killed 17 sailors in the port of Aden.

The organization that attacked us on 9/11 already had its tentacles around the world with associated groups. That was the nature of the organization then. It is the nature of the organization now. In order to attack that organization, we have to attack it with those affiliates that are its operational arm that have previously attacked and killed Americans and high-level interests and continue to try to do that.

SEN. KING: That’s fine, but that’s not what the AUMF says. You can — what I’m saying is we may need new authority but don’t — if you expand this to the extent that you have, it’s meaningless and the limitation and the war power is meaningless. I’m not disagreeing that we need to attack terrorism wherever it comes from and whoever’s doing it, but what I’m saying is let’s do it in a constitutional way, not by putting a gloss on a document that clearly won’t support it. It just doesn’t — it just doesn’t work.

I’m just reading the words. It’s all focused on September 11th and who was involved and you guys have invented this term associated forces that’s nowhere in this document. As I mentioned, in your written statement, you use that — that’s the key term, you use it 13 times. It’s the justification for everything and it renders the whole war powers of the Congress null and void.

…

MR. TAYLOR: Wee are a sovereign state in a system of sovereign states. We benefit greatly by respect for each nation’s sovereignty. We are bound by treaty to — that is the U.N charter, to respect the sovereignty of other states. And there are, as recognized in the U.N. treaty, there is the inherent right of self-defense, but that’s one basis for overcoming a state’s sovereignty, if it’s necessary for us to exercise our inherent right of self-defense. Another basis is the consent of the host country and that is a very important basis for our operations outside of Afghanistan.

SEN. LEVIN: The issue has been raised about other entities using — than the DOD — using remotely piloted aircraft strikes. And my question is should the use of these drones be limited to the Department of Defense or should other government agencies be allowed to use such force as well, for instance, the CIA? Now let me, I think, ask either one of you, Secretary or Mr. Taylor.

MR. SHEEHAN: Mr. Chairman, the president has indicated that he has a preference for those activities to be conducted under Title 10. We’re reviewing that right now but I think we also recognize that that type of transition may take quite a while, depending on the theater of operation.

…

MR. SHEEHAN: Senator, just one clarification. When I was asked whether the president had authority to put boots on the ground, which by the way is not a legal term, boots on the ground, and when I said they did — he did have authority to put boots on the ground in Yemen or in the Congo, I was not necessarily referring to that under the AUMF. Certainly, the president has military personnel deployed all over the world today, in probably over 70 or 80 countries and that authority is not always under AUMF. So I just want to clarify for the record that we weren’t talking about all of that authority — subject to AUMF.

For U.S. diplomats and military officials who were involved in training a Congolese army unit, a troubling question loomed: Would the 391st Commando Battalion serve as protectors of the population or would they revert to acts of sexual violence once on the battlefield?

A United Nations report released this week indicates that their worst fears have been realized and that efforts at building up a Congolese unit of benevolent soldiers has failed. The report, issued Wednesday by the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office, accused members of the 391st Commando Battalion — which was trained by special forces troops assigned to U.S. Africa Command — and other Democratic Republic of Congo troops of engaging in a range of atrocities, including the mass rape of women and young girls in eastern Congo.

(3PA: Read the UN joint report.)

John Bennett, “‘Fragile’ Pursuit of a Grand Bargain,” Defense News, May 12, 2013.

Yet another reason the Senate — and even senior House members say a grand bargain will have to originate in the upper chamber — has so far failed to begin work on the big long-term budget measure is the institution’s inability to multitask.

“The attention span around here is about that of a 4-year-old,” McCain told Defense News. “I think that’s why there hasn’t been as much attention on a grand bargain as you might have suspected.”

Aram Roston, “Targeted Killing: CIA’s Fleet of 80+ UAVs Unlikely to be Transferred to Military,” Defense News, May 15, 2013.

The Obama administration has floated the idea of putting the CIA’s controversial targeted killing operations under the control of uniformed armed service. But sources familiar with the still-classified program, which uses unmanned aircraft to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen, say the shift would be difficult to implement and would make little difference…

People familiar with the UAV program say that when it comes time to pull the trigger on a weapon aimed at a suspected terrorist, no matter whether the mission is run by the CIA or the Air Force, the action is always conducted by military officers. It is U.S. government policy that only uniformed personnel can be the “trigger pullers,” the sources said.

One former intelligence officer points out that the most important part of the entire program isn’t the UAVs at all. It’s the intelligence that officials use to pick their targets. And that’s the part the Air Force would have the most difficult time getting, if it were not for the CIA.

(3PA: Why transferring CIA drone strikes to the military is a good idea.)

Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “U.S. Policy Toward Iran,” May 15, 2013.

Sen. John McCain: On the [Iran arms shipments to Syria] overflights that were mentioned, I think we should be frank with the American people and the Congress. We’re not stopping those overflights, and we are not getting inspections. And those that are inspected are preplanned so that the inspection shows that there are no weapons being delivered from Iran to Syria. The fact is we know — absolutely know — that roughly one flight a way is going into Damascus filled with arms and weapons for the use of Bashar Assad…

Wendy Sherman [Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs]: We currently assess that it would take Iran a minimum period of approximately one year if it made a decision today to acquire a nuclear weapon. And we assess that they have not yet made that decision, and it would be made by the supreme leader.

That effort to acquire a nuclear weapon would involve both the production of a sufficient amount of highly enriched uranium for one nuclear weapon and the completion of various weaponization activities needed to fashion a working nuclear device that could be fitted into a ballistic missile…

Sen. Christopher Murphy:  What are the things that would change that decision? And amongst those, what are the things that may be outside of our control that relate to the internal political dynamics of an upcoming election and a very fluid political situation on the ground within Iran?

Sherman:… I don’t think the supreme leader has made the strategic decision to, in fact, deal on their nuclear program. I believe it is all part of a broader projection of power and assertion of Iranian authority and point of view, not only in Iran but in the region, and ultimately in the world.

I think that we do believe that the imposition of sanctions and the pain that is being put on the Iranian regime is having an effect, perhaps not yet enough of an effect to change the calculus of the supreme leader, but on its way potentially to doing so…

I certainly think that the fall of the Assad regime will have a profound impact. It will either make them feel more or less secure. I think that you are quite right that they will look for a way to maintain a presence even after Assad falls, because Assad will most decidedly fall at some point in this process. And they will look for a way to recover, because they need that position in the region.

I think there are other actions that could be taken and other agreements made. If there is an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority for peace in the Middle East, it may change the calculus of many players in the world; where we are in Afghanistan. What happens to DPRK’s program is watched by Iran.

So there are any number of factors that I think probably affect their calculus. But at the end of the day, my own experience is that this is ultimately about regime survival and survival of the choices they have made about how their country is governed, ones that we find extraordinarily repressive to their people. And it will be that regime’s survival that will affect their calculus.

Karen DeYoung, “Policy on Drone Strike Authorization Doesn’t Need to Change, Defense Official Says,” Washington Post, May 17, 2013.

A senior Defense Department official said Thursday that the Pentagon sees no need to change the broad congressional authorization under which the military conducts lethal drone strikes against terrorist targets and estimated that the war with al-Qaeda could continue for up to two decades.

“At this point we’re comfortable with the AUMF as it is currently structured,” Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan said of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress in 2001. “Right now . . . it serves its purpose,” he said.

Craig Whitlock, “Obama Deplores Sex Crimes in the Military, Says There’s ‘No Silver Bullet’,” Washington Post, May 16, 2013.

“The Army is failing in its efforts to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, said in a blog post addressed to his 540,000 soldiers. “It is time we take on the fight as our primary mission.”

“Yemen Police ‘Dismantle’ al-Qaeda Cell,” Al-Arabiya, May 12, 2013.

Yemeni police Sunday raided a house in the southern city of Aden, killing one suspected Al-Qaeda militant and arresting three, an official said, adding that the cell was plotting attacks on vital installations.
“We have dismantled a terror cell in one of the houses near Mansura district” in Aden, the security official said.
“Security forces managed to kill one of its members who tried to blow himself up using two explosive-laden belts.”
Three other suspected members of the cell were arrested and police seized dozens of explosive belts, he said, adding that the cell had been planning attacks on strategic installations in Aden.

(3PA: Apparently, members of Al Qaeda can be captured in Yemen.)

On Friday, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), vice chairman of the house armed services committee (HASC), introduced a bi-partisan bill with twenty-nine co-sponsors. The full text of the bill (H.R. 1914) was only made available today by the Library of Congress. The “Oversight of Sensitive Military Operations Act” essentially formalizes into law existing oversight procedures for non-battlefield capture or targeted killing operations conducted by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) forces. As Thornberry acknowledged last week, “We’ve been doing a lot of this oversight anyway,” with the military briefing the HASC’s subcommittee on intelligence, emerging threats, and capabilities within “hours or days” after drone strikes or other “lethal targeting actions.” This is much faster reporting than required under current law—a “global update on activity within each geographic combatant command” every three months.

Thornberry’s public descriptions of the HASC’s oversight procedures were the first instance that a defense committee leader has touted congressional oversight of JSOC targeted killings. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the senate select committee on intelligence, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chair of the house permanent select committee on intelligence, have repeatedly proclaimed how their committees exercise careful oversight of CIA drone strikes. Rogers even claimed that he reviews every single counterterrorism airstrike, whether conducted by the CIA or JSOC. Meanwhile, Feinstein asserted that her committee watches “the intelligence aspect of the drone program…literally dozens of inspections…The military program has not done that nearly as well. I think that’s fact.”

Therefore, Thornberry’s unprecedented comments and bill could be an attempt to get credit for oversight that the armed services committees are doing anyway. And as I previously noted, officials with exposure to how the CIA and JSOC report targeted killings to their prospective committees claim that the latter makes available a much broader range of information to the staffers and members.

The bill would mandate that the secretary of defense “promptly submit to the congressional defense committees notice in writing of any sensitive military operation following such operation.” “Promptly submit” is not defined. The bill goes on to state, “The term `sensitive military operation’ means a lethal operation or capture operation conducted by the armed forces.” The bill also contains a reporting requirement, whereby sixty days after its passage into law, the secretary of defense would have to submit “a report containing an explanation of the legal and policy considerations and approval processes used in determining whether an individual or group of individuals could be the target of a lethal operation or capture operation.”

Expanding and formalizing congressional oversight of targeted killings is overdue and should be lauded. Thornberry’s bill would cover JSOC operations in Yemen, Somalia, and any future JSOC lethal operations conducted in the Middle East, North Africa, or who knows where else. It would establish and make public the mechanism for congressional oversight of all targeted killings, if they were all transferred from the CIA to the military—which President Obama should authorize.

Leon Panetta had unique and unprecedented access into U.S. targeted killing programs as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (February 2009–June 2011) and secretary of defense (June 2011–February 2013). As Daniel Klaidman revealed last year, one procedural change implemented early in the Obama administration was that “the CIA director would no longer be allowed to have his deputy or the head of the counterterrorism division act as his proxy in signing off on strikes. Only the DCI would have sign-off authority.” While he was the director of the CIA, Panetta personally approved roughly two hundred drone strikes in Pakistan.

Before leaving the secretary’s suite in the E-Ring of the Pentagon, Panetta made a series of statements that were either confused or misleading about the scope of U.S. targeted killings. (See especially Marcy Wheeler for more on this.) Panetta was recently interviewed by Fareed Zakaria for a CNN special—“Beyond the Manhunts: How to Stop Terror”—in which he made the following statement:

ZAKARIA: “How do you make sure you only kill soldiers on the battlefield? Leon Panetta, the CIA director from 2009 to 2011, says that after an Al Qaeda target list had been vetted, the decision was ultimately his to take the shot.

PANETTA: At the time that I was director of the CIA, we made very clear that if there were any women and children in the shot, we were not to take it and that we were to only go after those that we knew were identified as targets and, therefore, enemies of the United States.  Was there some collateral when you’re hitting a particular target and you’re not sure of all–you know, the situation, especially when you’re going after compounds? Sure. There may have been some collateral. But it was minimal.”

This statement is puzzling on several fronts. First, the “women and children” line is false, as a U.S. official acknowledged to NPR when Panetta first made this claim in February of this year. Second, this description defies the widely-known—though never acknowledged—practice of signature strikes, which do not require the positive identification of suspected militants before they can be killed. As Mark Mazzetti wrote regarding the CIA’s classification: “If a group of young ‘military-aged males’ were observed moving in and out of a suspected militant training camp and were thought to be carrying weapons, they could be considered legitimate targets.” It was only after Panetta left the CIA that the Obama administration reportedly tightened the rules somewhat for those who could be killed with drones in Pakistan.

Finally, Panetta offers the disturbing reversal of causality, in which everyone killed by CIA missiles are “therefore, enemies of the United States.” It is one thing to claim that all military-age males were legitimate targets under the international humanitarian law criteria of distinction, but another to contend that upon their death they then met the principle of military necessity.

Remarkably, many policymakers and analysts are demanding that the White House declassify the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s relatively minor enhanced interrogation program, yet remain silent about the glaring need for a similar study into the CIA’s vastly more expansive targeted killing program. CIA accountability, which many demand for allegations of torture, must also be expanded to include drone strikes. Such a study could begin with asking Panetta: “Who exactly did you authorize to be killed? And why?”

Gates’ readable and combative 1996 memoir From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How they Won the Cold War, included one of my favorite observations about how civilians and military officials differ in their conceptions of military force:

“It was my experience over the years that one of the biggest misimpressions held by the public has been that our military is always straining at the leash, wanting to use force in any situation. The reality is just the opposite. In more than twenty years attending meetings in the Situation Room, my experience was that the biggest doves in Washington wear uniforms. Our military leaders have seen too many half-baked ideas for the use of military force advanced in the Situation Room by hairy-chested civilians who have never seen combat or fired a gun in anger.”

Gates was interviewed this weekend by Bob Schieffer for Face the Nation, and included his normal realist-based, wry commentary. He also made several pointed statements that one only hears from comfortably retired former senior government officials. As a former Air Force officer, long-time intelligence analyst, dedicated cold warrior who really believed the Soviet Union was evil, acting CIA director, and deputy national security adviser, Gates’ voice is worth listening to.

On Benghazi:

Gates: “I only know what I have read in the media. I haven’t had any briefings or anything. And I think the one place where I might be able to say something useful has to do with some of the talk about the military response. And I listened to the testimony of both Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey. And frankly had I been in the job at the time I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were. We don’t have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, despite all the turmoil that’s going on, with planes on strip alert, troops ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. And so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And frankly, I’ve heard ‘Well, why didn’t you just fly a fighter jet over and try and scare ‘em with the noise or something?’ Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from Qaddafi’s arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances.

With respect to sending in special forces or a small group of people to try and provide help, based on everything I have read, people really didn’t know what was going on in Benghazi contemporaneously. And to send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous. And personally, I would not have approved that because it’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way. And there just wasn’t time to do that.”

On Syria:

Gates: “For us to think we can influence or determine the outcome of that, I think is a mistake. I thought it was a mistake in Libya. And I think it is a mistake in Syria. We overestimate our ability to determine outcomes, even if we had intervened more significantly in Syria a year ago or six months ago. I think that caution, particularly in terms of arming these groups and in terms of U.S. military involvement, is in order.

Schieffer: Well what should we do?

Gates: Well, my question back to you is: Why should it be us? There are other powers in the region, Turkey and others, that have military capabilities. You have Europeans that are much closer and whose interests are equally affected. I understand our broad interests in the Middle East. And I understand the risks to us of chaos in Syria and of an ethnic cleansing there once the civil war comes to an end, no matter who wins it. But the question that you asked me is the question we don’t have a satisfactory answer to. What should we do? What can we do? I believe that if we’re to do anything, it is to pick and choose the opposition groups that we think have some moderation and would, you know, espouse what we think is in the best interest of the region– provide them with intelligence, with basic military equipment, work through Turkey and other countries perhaps in providing some basic military equipment. But I think our direct involvement and particularly our direct military involvement would be a mistake. You know, I oversaw two wars that began with quick regime change. And we all know what happened after that. And as I said to the Congress when we went into Libya, when they were talking about a no-fly zone, ‘It begins with an act of war.’ And haven’t we learned that when you go to war, the outcomes are unpredictable? And anybody who says, ‘It’s gonna be clean. It’s gonna be neat. You can establish the safe zones. And it’ll be– it’ll just be swell.’ Well, most wars aren’t that way.”

On the biggest threat to the United States:

Gates: “I think that the greatest threat to us right now is the inability of our political leaders to come together on bipartisan solutions, long-term solutions to the very real problems we have. Whether it’s the deficit, whether it’s government spending, whether it’s entitlements, immigration, infrastructure, education, that broad middle band that used to be so strong in the Congress, of members of Congress, center left, center right, people I used to call bridge builders. That’s where the country has always been governed from. The country has moved forward based on great ideas from both the left and the right. But it’s been the centrists that have translated those into law through compromise. That’s the foundation of our political stability and of our political system. The American Constitution is built on compromise and created a political system that demands compromise. And unless we can come together on policies to deal with these problems that can survive one Congress and one Presidency, then I think we’re in real trouble.”

Olga Khazan, “Interview: NATO Supreme Allied Commander on Syria and Soft Power,” The Atlantic, May 9, 2013.

But one strike is a very different proposition than launching a big campaign. The benefit of surprise and stealth and a single-point strike may or may not tell us a good deal about Syrian air defense, broadly conceived. Syria has about 10 times the air defense capability that Libya had, and it’s compressed into about one-fifth the space of Libya. It would be a challenging air defense environment.

(3PA: On April 30, Gen. Martin Dempsey chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that compared to Libya: “In Syria you’ve got five times more air defense systems, some of which are high-end systems, which means higher altitude, longer range. More importantly, they’re all collapsed into the western one-third of the country. So it’s a much denser and more sophisticated system.”  Which is it? Stravidis: 10 times and one-fifth, or Mullen: five times and one-third?)

Julian E. Barnes, “Shrinking Budget Forces Army Into New Battlefield,” Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2013.

“It is almost like the Army needs a therapist,” said a senior Army official. “Go lie down in a dark room and think about what does the nation expect of me and how am I going to do that.”

“The Use of Armed Drones Must Comply With Laws,” International Committee of the Red Cross, May 10, 2013.

“How to Generate Distrust on Drones,” New York Times, May 9, 2013.

President Obama says he wants greater transparency for the clandestine killing of terrorists overseas, largely using missiles fired by drones. There has been little public action on this pledge, but if he is serious, he should consider many of the recommendations made this week by a former legal adviser to the State Department, Harold Koh. Speaking at Oxford University on Tuesday, Mr. Koh said the legal standards and procedures of the killing program are far too secret, even to Congress and American allies. That has fostered a growing sense that the program is “illegal, unnecessary and out of control,” he said.

(3PA: For my thoughts on Koh’s remarks, see “Talking in Circles.”)

Dexter Filkins, “The Thin Red Line,” The New Yorker, May 13, 2013.

Still, Obama has said that he is worried that arming the rebels will have unintended consequences: a genocide against the Alawites; weapons falling into the hands of Islamist extremists, as happened when the U.S. armed Afghan jihadis in the nineteen-eighties; or a rapid political collapse that demolishes the state’s institutions. “If we’re not careful about who gets weapons, we’ll be cleaning that up for years,’’ the senior White House official told me. “We saw that movie in Afghanistan.”

Ernesto Londono, “Special Ops Halted From Responding to Benghazi Attacks, U.S. Diplomat,” Washington Post, May 6, 2013.

As the weakly protected U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya came under attack the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the deputy head of the embassy in Tripoli 600 miles away sought in vain to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in a show of force that he said might have averted a second attack on a nearby CIA complex.

Hours later, according to excerpts of the account by the U.S. diplomat, Gregory Hicks, American officials in the Libyan capital sought permission to deploy four U.S. Special Operations troops to Benghazi aboard a Libyan military aircraft early the next morning. The troops were told to stand down.

Robert Burns, “AP Exclusive: Air Force Sidelines 17 ICBM Officers,” Associated Press, May 8, 2013.

The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering “rot” within its ranks.

“We are, in fact, in a crisis right now,” the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force.

Craig Whitlock, “Lawmaker Wants Military to Promptly Alert Congress About Drone Strikes,” Washington Post, May 8, 2013.

A leading House Republican said Wednesday that he wants to require the U.S. military to “promptly” inform Congress about every drone strike it conducts outside Afghanistan as well as other military operations to kill or capture suspected terrorists outside declared war zones.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (Tex.), the chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee, said his panel already receives regular reports on counterterrorism operations from the Defense Department. But he said he will introduce a bill Thursday that would codify the practice into law to reassure the public that Congress is providing adequate oversight of drone strikes and other sensitive military operations…

Thornberry’s bill would require the administration to produce a report describing its legal justification and decision-making processes for military drone strikes and other capture-or-kill operations outside Afghanistan. Although the administration has recently shared some of its legal rationale with lawmakers, it has done so reluctantly and behind closed doors.

(3PA: Much of what Thornberry proposes is already being done with joint special operations command reporting to the armed services committees. However, this was the first time an armed services committee chair acknowledged its oversight role in targeted killings, unlike Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) chairs of the intelligence committees who routinely tout their oversight of CIA operations. The text of Thornberry’s bill is not yet available on thomas.gov)

Nussaibah Younis, “Why Maliki Must Go,” New York Times, May 2, 2013.

Given the two-year-old Syrian civil war escalating next door, a sectarian crisis and political collapse in Iraq would be a disaster at the worst possible time. It would blur the boundaries between the two conflicts, bring additional misery to Iraq and pose enormous challenges for Iraq’s neighbors and the United States.

(3PA: An Iraqi exile asking the United States to help force out an Iraqi strongman.  A bad idea ten years ago, and an even worse idea now; attempting to choreograph and broker political reconciliation from Washington.)

Julian E. Barnes, “Hagel Outlines Syria Aid Options,” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2013.

The U.S. has found evidence that sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent, was used at least in small quantities in Syria. Still, doubts remain about how soil samples and other evidence were obtained.

Some U.S. military officials believe extremist rebel groups in Syria, possibly including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, may have used the chemical weapons in a bid to prod more direct action by the West against the Syrian government.

(3PA: See Alan J. Kuperman, The Moral Hazard of Human Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans)

Ahmed Al-Haf and Aya Batrawy, “U.S. Drone Strikes In Yemen Spur Growing Anti-American Sentiment,” The Huffington Post, May 2, 2013.

The cleric preached in his tiny Yemeni village about the evils of al-Qaida, warning residents to stay away from the group’s fighters and their hard-line ideology. The talk worried residents, who feared it would bring retaliation from the militants, and even the cleric’s father wanted him to stop.

But in the end it wasn’t al-Qaida that killed Sheik Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber.

Al-Qaida fighters, who hide in mountain strongholds near the remote eastern village of Khashamir, did call him out, demanding he meet them one night – apparently to intimidate him into stopping his sermons against them….

“Once they arrived to the car where al-Qaida was, four missiles hit,” Faysal said. At home in the village, he heard the blasts – and heard the U.S. drone that struck the cars. “We know the buzzing sound of the drones overhead,” he said.

Yemeni security officials confirmed three militants, along with Sheik Salem and his cousin were killed in the strike last August and that it was carried out by an American drone.

“Widespread Middle East Fears that Syrian Violence Will Spread,” PewResearch Global Attitudes Project, May 1, 2013.

At the same time, there is no public support in the United States, Western Europe or in Turkey for sending arms and military supplies to the anti-government groups in Syria. Eight-in-ten (82%) Germans oppose such assistance, as do more than two-thirds of the French (69%) and the Turks (65%) and a majority of the British (57%). Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans were also against arming the rebels when the survey was taken in the first two weeks of March. Since then evidence has emerged that the Assad government may have used chemical weapons in its fight against opposition forces. In a subsequent Pew Research Center poll taken April 25-28, Americans, by a 45% to 31% margin, favor rather than oppose the U.S. and its allies taking military action against Syria, if it is confirmed that Syria used chemical weapons against anti-government groups.

Kevin Baron, “How the U.S. Army’s Top Corps Commander in Asia Sees Things,” Foreign Policy, May 1, 2013.

At the same time, Army planners are discussing which threats the service should be best prepared to face. In North Korea, [Lt. Gen Robert] Brown said, the Army’s “most likely traditional threat, if you will, is humanitarian assistance and disaster response.  That’s the most likely thing we will respond to.” But his list also includes air and missile defense, civilian evacuations, cyberattacks, IEDs, and terrorism.

Megan Thee-Brenan, “Poll Shows Isolationist Streak in Americans,” New York Times, May 1, 2013.

Americans are exhibiting an isolationist streak, with majorities across party lines decidedly opposed to American intervention in North Korea or Syria, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

While the public does not support direct military action in those two countries right now, a broad 70 percent majority favors the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to carry out bombing attacks against terrorism suspects in foreign countries.

Sixty-two percent of the public say the United States has no responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria between government forces and antigovernment groups, while just one-quarter disagree. Likewise, 56 percent say North Korea is a threat that can be contained for now without military action, just 15 percent say the situation requires immediate American action and 21 percent say the North is not a threat at all.

Louis Brown, 50, a poll respondent from Springfield Township, Ohio, said, “We don’t need additional loss of American lives right now.” In the poll, 4 in 10 Americans cited the economy and jobs as the country’s most important problems, while only 1 percent named foreign policy.  The nationwide telephone survey was conducted on both land lines and cellphones with 965 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Brian A. Jackson, Tora K. Bilson, and Patrick P. Gunn, “Human Subjects Protection and Research on Terrorism and Conflict,” Science,  April 2013.

The last decade has seen considerable expansion in research on terrorism and conflict. People have studied root causes, group behavior, and different approaches to counter such acts (1). Some of the best cases involved direct interaction with current or former terrorists, producing important results that, for example, replaced caricatures of terrorists as pathological killers with nuanced models of what drives individuals to join such groups and even sacrifice themselves intentionally for a cause.

Although not always the case, research funded by a government (or other entity) on a terrorist opponent is often counter to the group or itsmembers’ interest. This differs from most research considered by IRBs that lacks this adversarial character.  Although research can benefit participants, studies on terrorism can do so in distinctive ways, including disseminating groups’ messages or otherwise advancing their agendas. That potential for benefit has led some academics to question whether such research conflicts with laws forbidding material support to terrorist groups ( 5), which further complicates research management and review.

Phillip Mudd, Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, p 23-24.

Later in the counterterrorist campaign, the focus was not just on the two at the top, or even primarily directed against them, but also on those who posed the most significant tactical threat to the United States, the series of operational commanders and their subordinates and facilitators who were trying to piece together the next major plot: Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, Hamza Rabia, Abu Yahya al-Lidi, Abu Faraj al-Libi, and the rest of them.  The list goes on, mostly Al Qaeda leaders whose names are unrecognizable to most Americans. But they were once all key players, all critical to plotting against the US homeland, and now, all dead or captured.  The measure of success was into just who was captured or killed, or whether bin Laden and Zawahiri were gone, but whether operations broke plots and destroyed networks that could sustain long-term training and planning resulting in another strategic strike.  In that sense, looking forward from the 9/11 attacks, I think the focus on these operational figures were well-founded: virtually no one, in 2001, would have bet that the Untied States would not have witnessed another 9/11-style event by now.  In the most critical sense, the operational focus was successful. Bin Laden took nine-plus years to take down, and Zawahiri is still out there, but their organization poses nowhere near the strategic threat it did a decade ago, and its leadership is decimated beyond recognition.

(3PA: Mudd perpetuates the Obama administration myth that “mostly Al Qaeda leaders” are killed by drones.  As we now known, even the CIA doesn’t believe that.)

To learn more about what U.S. servicemembers are doing, what alleged security benefits accrue from this, what impact this has on allies and adversaries, and what it costs taxpayers, I highly recommend this important Rand study. In particular, see chapter one for the location and size of military bases in the major theaters. A few other highlights that stood out:

While the U.S. overseas posture does contribute to deterring potential adversaries and assuring friends and allies, it does not mean that all overseas facilities and forward capabilities can be justified on this basis; they are not all equally important in this regard. (xxi)

Political access cannot be guaranteed in advance, even when formal agreements exist, but there are factors that are likely to influence access decisions, such as the level of overlapping threat perception and interest, host-nation domestic public opinion about the conflict and the U.S. role in the conflict, and the perceived likelihood of reprisals. Moreover, some of these negative factors are more likely to influence the decisionmaking of unstable host nations. For example, if a host government faces significant internal instability, this could lead to a politically constrained view of acceptable U.S. access. (xxiii)

We found that there are annual recurring fixed costs to having a base open, ranging from an estimated $50 million to about $200 million per year, depending on service and region, with additional variable recurring costs depending on base size. (xxv)

In Europe and the Asia-Pacific region due to higher allowances related to the cost of living, higher permanent-change-of-station move costs, and the need to provide schools more comprehensively, with the incremental overseas cost per person varying widely from about $10,000 to close to $40,000 per year. (xxv)

The United States first established permanent overseas bases after its victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898. As a result of this conflict, the United States acquired a number of territories in the Far East and the Caribbean, and it constructed military bases for the defense of some of these possessions and to enable U.S. forces to project power into these regions. Yet until World War II, domestic public opinion, interservice disagreements, and the restrictions that the United States agreed to in the Washington Naval Conference’s Five Power Treaty constrained the size of the peacetime U.S. military presence overseas. (6)

Figure 2.16 illustrates the application of this method. It provides an examination of the number of MQ-9s [drones] required to maintain a single 24/7 orbit as the distance from the originating base increases. In doing so, it shows that beyond 1,000 nm, the number of MQ-9s needed increases rapidly and ultimately becomes impractical or prohibitive. The most efficient range, requiring a system of four MQ-9s, is shown in the green region; the yellow region shows the range in which two systems are required; and the red shows where more than two systems are required. The line becomes vertical where it is no longer practical to fly a mission from a base. These thresholds are first-order approximations, meant to be representative of what a military planner might desire in terms of distance from a support base to an operation to avoid putting an undue strain on the force. (67)

As depicted in Figure 2.17, the current U.S. posture provides locations for efficient MQ-9 operations covering Europe, the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia. The circles show the coverage zone from available bases, including access-only bases, with the darkness of the circle reflecting the number of overlapping zones in an area (see legend). (67)

In general, a nation’s decision to grant the United States contingency access will be context-dependent. In part, this calculus will rest on the type of operation the United States wants to conduct and against whom, in addition to the expected duration of the mission. Contingency access, therefore, is not a simple yes or no question. Host nations may authorize the United States to use bases on their territory for certain types of operations but prohibit others. For instance, host nations may be more likely to permit non-lethal operations to be conducted from their territory compared with combat operations. Some nations may balk at allowing the United States to use certain types of platforms or weapons from their territory. Traditionally, bombers and nuclear weapons have been particularly sensitive issues. (109)

In this regard, an assessment of previous attack methods can be instructive. An unpublished RAND report assessed violent extremist attacks on military targets between 2000 and early 2009. Of those 1,800 incidents, only about 20 percent were against military facilities (see Figure 5.4). The rest were against military personnel outside of those facilities. As these data included incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were numerous attacks on personnel in vehicles through IEDs (33 percent), as well as in exposed locations (43 percent), and only a small fraction occurred in nonmilitary structures (5 percent) (116)

Drawing on those sources, we find that the United States makes payments of about $30 million annually to Djibouti.  The $30 million payment to Djibouti is made in consideration for the access to and use of the areas and facilities described in the Arrangement in Implementation of the ‘Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Djibouti on Access to and Use of Facilities in the Republic of Djibouti’ of February 19, 2003, Concerning the Use of Camp Lemonier and Other Facilities and Areas in the Republic of Djibouti and its annexes. Under the terms of that implementing arrangement, any payments made by the United States to Djibouti, consistent with the land lease of 2003, would be credited against the $30 million. By comparison, a recent press report notes that Djibouti, which hosts France’s largest military base in Africa, receives another $36.75 million per year in rent payments from that country. (156)

David C. Gompert, “Sea Power and American Interests in the Western Pacific,” Rand Corportation, to be published June 3, 2013,  pp. 160-162.

If we are indeed in for a change in the basic premise of sea power, the main reason would be that globalization is making cooperative maritime security more attractive and even compelling. But why would globalization favor cooperation over confrontation at sea? This is a legitimate question: After all, economic interdependence did not prevent naval rivalry or, for that matter, world war a century ago. More to the point at hand, why would the common economic interests of China and the United States, including secure trade, foster maritime cooperation when such an approach was not pursued by Great Britain and Germany, also major trading partners when they became rival sea powers? The answer is complex but worth examining.

First, it can be argued that although economic interdependence did not prevent the great-power politics and antagonism that led to World War I, it should have. World War I was a tragic triumph of jealousy, hubris, and maneuvering over the modernizing and presumed moderating effects of increasingly interconnected economies. Sovereigns made win-or-lose calculations that had lose-lose consequences for their societies. While some powers paid a higher price than others for World War I, losses suffered by “winners” were also staggering (enough to nurture British and French appeasement of Hitler). Moreover, the automaticity built into pre-war alliances and interlocking pledges of support in the event of war—later seen as regrettable—left decisionmakers with little space or time to manage a cascade of crises that led to war despite their inhibitions. Had European statesmen understood how long and devastating the War would be, even for winners, they just might have exercised better control over their mechanistic alignments, military planning triggers, and optimistic generals. That German leaders, for example, did not foresee how war would turn beneficial economic cooperation into ruinous economic punishment is not a reason to expect leaders today to be as myopic. Likewise, that British leaders saw no alternative but to deny Germany’s maritime-security interests does not mean that no alternative to sea-power rivalry exists today—or, for that matter, existed then.

In this regard, and second, it is evident that today’s Chinese and American leaders do appreciate that conflict could inflict great economic harm, all the more so because of Sino-U.S. interdependence. When crises have occurred (e.g., over Taiwan or U.S. surveillance patrols near China), one or both capitals have acted judiciously. Such care by each power toward the other, despite divergent interests in the region, is not only because of doubts about the course and outcome of military conflict but also because both economies could suffer tremendously regardless. Thus, the fact that the Chinese and American economies are coupled and largely share the same fate, in war as in peace, is a major inhibition on great-power behavior.7 Conversely, if Sino-U.S. war were to occur, it could be because of the same sort of miscalculation or conceit that befell European leaders a century ago.

Third, the nature and workings of economic integration under conditions of Europe prior to World War I are different in kind than those of globalization.8 The former involved choices at the margin to acquire raw materials and goods from nations where a comparative advantage in producing them existed. Although there was significant international investment, trade was largely replaceable and reversible, albeit at considerable cost. Under today’s conditions of an integrated world economy, interdependence is becoming organic: Markets for goods, services, capital, finance, technology, management, distribution, production operations, infrastructure, and equity are increasingly global and unified. Movements through these markets are continuous, swift, and resistant to national control. Market-driven value chains— research, development, componentry, sub-systems, systems, services—do not respect sovereign jurisdictions or preferences. This is structurally different than interacting national economies. If the breakdown of international trade and investment due to war and protectionism harmed all national economies during World War I and the Depression, the damage from the collapse of today’s global economy would be incalculable.

Globalization does not merely connect such economies as thoseof the United States and China, it mixes and melds them. It not only leaves sovereigns with diminished control but also vests in them a shared vital interest in sustaining and protecting their common economy. One aspect of this interest is the security of the seas on which the bulk of the commerce of the increasingly common world economy takes place. This does not guarantee that powers will not compete at sea. Indeed, growing maritime rivalry and tension in East Asia is proof that they will. Although certain aspects of Mahan’s teachings now seem quaint, his premise that relative sea power matters still stands. Yet, globalization means that cooperative maritime security stands a better chance of overcoming rivalry today than it did, say, in the Anglo-German case of 1890–1914.

Gili Cohen, Barak Ravid, and Jack Khoury, “IDF Shoots Down Drone from Lebanon Opposite Haifa Coast,” Haaretz, April 25, 2013.

The IDF estimate that Hezbollah has more than ten drones in its possession. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said last month at the Herzliya Conference that Hezbollah has “a significant number of unmanned aerial vehicles, one of which has entered Israeli territory, a scenario we may encounter in the future.”

Jeremy Scahill, “Inside America’s Dirty Wars,” The Nation, April 24, 2013.

The Obama administration would fight passionately to keep those answers secret, invoking the “state secrets” privilege repeatedly—just as George W. Bush had done throughout his eight years in office.

A former senior official in the Obama administration told me that after Abdulrahman’s killing, the president was “surprised and upset and wanted an explanation.” The former official, who worked on the targeted killing program, said that according to intelligence and Special Operations officials, the target of the strike was al-Banna, the AQAP propagandist. “We had no idea the kid was there. We were told al-Banna was alone,” the former official told me. Once it became clear that the teenager had been killed, he added, military and intelligence officials asserted, “It was a mistake, a bad mistake.” However, John Brennan, at the time President Obama’s senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, “suspected that the kid had been killed intentionally and ordered a review. I don’t know what happened with the review.”

Jason Koebler, “Air Force General: Autonomous Killing Drones ‘Years and Years’ Away,” U.S. News, April 24, 2013.

“If the focus is on [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance], it’s not that hard to automate a mission … frankly it’s not that hard to do,” Lieutenant General Larry James said Wednesday at an event in Washington, D.C. discussing the Air Force’s drone program. “The strike question, where people say you have an automated drone that can go off and shoot something, that’s a different question. I think we’re years and years away, maybe decades away, from having confidence in an automated system that can make those types of decisions.”

Adam Entous and Joshua Mitnick, “U.S. Allies Won’t Steer Its Syria Policy,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2013.

“Suspicions are one thing. Evidence is another,” Mr. Hagel said Wednesday, one day after Israel’s top military intelligence analyst caught U.S. officials off guard by publicly disclosing his agency’s determination that Syria’s army has repeatedly used lethal chemical weapons during the country’s civil war…

The U.S. is reviewing those assessments. Voicing caution over the outcome of those reviews, Mr. Hagel said there is no timeline for U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether chemical weapons were used. “This is serious business and you want to be as sure as you can be,” he said.

Sheera Frankel and Nick Blanford, “Jordan Opens Air Space for Israeli Drones Over Syria,” The London Times, April 23, 2013.

King Abdullah of Jordan has agreed to allow Israeli drones spying on Syria to enter Jordanian airspace, US officials said. The move, apparently brokered by President Obama during his Middle East trip last month, could significantly change the balance of power in the two-year-old Syrian insurgency against the Assad regime.

Although the drones are intended to collect information about the movements of conventional and chemical weapons, they are capable of bearing missiles. And, say US officials, the same corridors through Jordanian air space could be used by fighter aircraft.

President Obama conveyed Israeli security concerns about Syria when he saw the King on March 22. In particular he raised fears about the prospect that chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants. Two months ago Israel attacked a weapons convoy inside Syria.

Western officials in the region said it was Israel that made the formal request to enter Jordanian airspace en route to Syria. The officials added that the move was part of a “closely co-ordinated plan” being devised between the United States, Israel, Jordan and Turkey to contain the dangers from Syria’s civil war.

“The level of co-ordination is unusually high and what we would call ‘open’ as compared with the past,” an American government official based in Jordan said. “The fallout from Syria is really a regional threat, so we needed a regional alliance to confront it.”….

Israeli aircraft, including drones, fly several routes into Syrian airspace, including over the Mediterranean via its western coast and over Lebanon from the south. Israeli officials, however, said the preferred route was via Jordan, as it carried the lowest risk of detection. In addition to gathering intelligence, Israeli drones are equipped with missiles and can launch attacks.

Hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: “Drone Wars: The Constitutional and Counterterrorism Implications of Targeted Killing,” April 23, 2013.

FAREA AL-MUSLIMI: Thank you, Chairman Durban and Ranking Member Cruz, for inviting me here today. My name, as you mentioned is Farea Al-Muslimi and I am from Wessab, a remote village mountain in Yemen.

Just six days ago, my village was struck by an American drone in an attack that terrified the region’s goat farmers. Wessab is my village, but America has helped me grow up and become what I am today. I come from a family that lives off the fruit, vegetables and livestock we raise on our farms. My father’s income rarely exceeded $200. He learned to read late in his life and my mother never did.

My life, however, has been different. I am who I am today because the U.S. State Department supported my education. I spent a year living with an American family and attended an American high school. That was one of the best years of my life. I learned about American culture, managed the school basketball team and participated in trick-or-treat and Halloween.

But the most exceptional is an experience with — the most exceptional experience was coming to know someone who ended up being like a father to me. He was a member of the U.S. Air Force. Most of my year was spent with him and his family. He came to the mosque with me and I went to church with him and he became my best friend in America. I went to the U.S. as an ambassador for Yemen and I came back to Yemen as an ambassador of the U.S.

I could never have imagined that the same hand that changed my life and took it from miserable to promising one would also drone my village. My understanding is that a man named Hameed Al-Radmi was the target of the drone strike. Many people in Wessab know Al-Radmi and the Yemeni government could easily have found and arrested him. Al- Radmi was well known to government officials and even to local government — and even local government could have captured him if the U.S. had told them to do so.

In the past, what Wessab’s villagers knew of the U.S. was based on my stories about my wonderful experiences here. The friendships and values I experienced and described to the villagers helped them understand the America that I know and that I love.

Now, however, when they think of America, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads, ready to fire missiles at any time. What the violent militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. There is now an intense anger against America in Wessab.

This is not an isolated instance. The drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis. I have spoken to many victims of U.S. drone strikes, like a mother in Ja’ar, who had to identify her innocent 18-year-old son’s body through a video on a stranger’s cell phone, or the father in Shaqra who held his 4- and 6-year-old children as they died in his arms.

Recently in Aden, I spoke with one of the tribal leaders present in 2009 at the place where the U.S. cruise missiles targeted the villages Al-Majalah in Lawdar, Abyan. More than 40 civilians were killed, including four pregnant women. The tribal leader and others tried to rescue the victims, but the bodies were so decimated that it was impossible to differentiate between those of children, women and their animals. Some of these innocent people were buried in the same grave as their animals.

In my written testimony, I provided detail about the human cost of this and other drone strikes, based on interviews I have conducted or have been part of. I have a personal experience of the fear they cause. Late last year, I was in Abyan with an American journalist colleague. Suddenly, I heard the buzz. The local people we were interviewing told us that based on their past experiences, the thing hovering above us was an American drone.

My heart sank. I felt helpless. It was the first time that I had truly feared for my life or for an American friend’s life in Yemen. I couldn’t help but think that the drone operator just might be my American friend, with whom I had the warmest and deepest relationship. I was torn between this great country that I love and the drone above my head that could not differentiate between me and some AQAP militants. It was one of the most divisive and difficult feelings I have ever encountered. I felt that way when my village was also droned.

Thank you for having this hearing. I believe in America and I deeply believe that when Americans truly know about how much pain and suffering the U.S. air strikes have caused and how much they are harming efforts to win hearts, minds and ground in Yemen and hearts and minds of the Yemeni people, they will reject this devastating targeted killing program. Thank you.

CFR’s Senior Fellow for Japan studies, Sheila A. Smith, published a new CFR Contingency Planning Memo (CPM), “A Sino-Japanese Clash in the East China Sea.”  In it, she argues that the United States should encourage peaceful dispute resolution to the avoid further escalation in tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.  Below, CPA staff write a guest post about this aspect of the CPM.

Since the Obama administration pivoted towards Asia, U.S.-China relations have been complicated by territorial disputes in the seas of the Asia-Pacific. China’s assertiveness in the region is posing new challenges for U.S. foreign policy over the last years – first in the South China Sea and more recently in the East China Sea where Japan and China have a long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. These historical disagreements escalated in September 2012 when Japan purchased three of the islands from its private owner to prevent their use for provocations by nationalistic actors. Yet, China perceived the purchase as a threat to its own maritime interests and proceeded to assert its control over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. In a new CPA Contingency Planning Memo, CFR senior fellow Sheila Smith lays out how an unintended military incident or a political miscalculation in a show of sovereignty in the East China Sea could lead to the escalation of the conflict, despite neither side being keen on using force.

A potential armed clash of the two largest powers in Asia does not only threaten Washington’s economic, political, and strategic interests in the region but also carries a lot of symbolic weight. U.S. treaty obligations and its longstanding alliance with Japan raise the expectations for U.S. involvement in case of a military escalation: “Japan’s postwar policy of military self-restraint and reliance on the United States for strategic protection, including its continued abnegation of nuclear weapons, would likely come to an end if the United States chose not to defend Japan against Chinese aggression.” Beyond the significance for the future of U.S.-Japan relations, this case could signal to other allies what to expect from the U.S. in the face of a rising China.

To prevent the escalation into an armed conflict, Smith recommends the United States encourage peaceful dispute resolution, urge Japan and China to avoid any steps that might escalate tensions, and remind Beijing that unilateral actions will not change U.S. recognition of Japan’s administrative control over the islands. The United States should also intensify efforts to create multilateral maritime risk reduction measures in the Asia-Pacific region, including the promotion of Chinese participation in regular Rim of the Pacific, regional fisheries and coast guard exercises. Finally, crisis management and defense consultations with Japan are necessary to develop clear alliance crisis procedures and to demonstrate U.S. preparedness for military assistance in case of an armed clash in and around the disputed islands.

“A Sino-Japanese Clash in the East China Sea” provides practical recommendations for U.S. policymakers to de-escalate tensions and avert a clash that could not only harm U.S. interests in the region but subvert the strategic goals of a rebalance towards Asia.

Access Sheila A. Smith’s new CPM, “A Sino-Japanese Clash in the East China Sea,” here.