The State Department is involved in a massive project - the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review - that is designed to address a serious “funding imbalance” between the civilian and military institutions involved in American national security.

Says Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy and Planning at the State Department and in charge of the review,

This is not an abstract planning exercise that goes into a report and sits on a shelf,” she said. “It’s a planning exercise that does connect to the budget, that’s very important, but the implications go far beyond the budget. The budget is the tool to implement what we’re going to come up with. This is really what I think secretaries of state should be doing, which is a kind of farsighted look into how the United States is going to implement its foreign policy agenda in the 21st century.”

It is designed to roughly model the Pentagon’s Quadrenial Defense Review, which similarly connects threats to strategies to resources to budgets.

What’s more, it’s exactly what the State Department needs - with a budget hovering around $40billion, or well less than 10 percent of the Pentagon’s, it’s quite fair to say that in 2009, Foggy Bottom is responsible for well more than 10 percent of the national security of the United States.  Now it just needs the bureaucratic proof to justify that need to Congress.  Et voila - the QDDR!

It hasn’t been easy going of late for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s illegitimate president.

First came the summer repression - in the wake of a fraudulent election, Ahmadinejad spent most of his time repressing an internal revolution as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in mass protest.

Up next was this week’s speech to the general assembly of the United Nations, where Ahmadinejad carried on about alleged Jewish desires to start a new form of slavery, charges that prompted a mass walk-out by many of the world’s major powers.

It’s tough to mix such bombast with dented credibility under normal circumstances.  But the hits keep on coming for the regime in Tehran:  The U.S., Britain, and France have just revealed  knowledge of a secret Iranian underground nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom.

We call this getting caught with your pants down.

Iran tried to limit the damage by preemptively notifying the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in advance of the tri-lateral announcement in Pittsburgh, but to no avail.  Iran was hiding a facility, and even if it proved to be of the benign civilian power variety, the burden of proof now falls squarely on the mullahs’ shoulders.  Perhaps this is why Ahmadinejad left the door cracked open at the end of his unsettling UN address with a pledge “to shake all those hands which are honestly extended to us.”

The Obama administration should be salivating:  Iran’s damaged legitimacy at home and abroad likely make it more willing to engage in meaningful dialogue about its nuclear program.  And with Russia recent indication of support for sanctions - a bonus, repeat bonus, outcome from chosing to strengthen American security by abandoning missile defense in Eastern Europe in favor of a sea-based system - there is a real chance of leveraging broad international pressure to move Iran.  (And indeed, Russia’s main task may be pressuring China to support sanctions.)

The trick is to ensure that the Iranians don’t get away with “window dressing” diplomacy - that is, giving the appearance that they’re meeting internationaldemands, while actuality not giving away much at all.

The first such test will come soon - Iran has promised to give the IAEA access to interview Iran’s nuclear scientists.  The international coalition must insist that the interviews take place on the IAEA’s terms:  likely outside of Iran, for as long as the IAEA requests, and covering whatever topics are deemed necessary.

Next, the international coalition should push for IAEA access to all Iranian nuclear sites, and couple refused access with broad sanctions on imports of refined gas.

These will be the first important steps to learning if even a fault-ridden Iranian regime can be an honest partner.

My erstwhile co-author Josh Tucker penned a cogent piece for RealClearWorld today on the Russian missile shield.  Here’s his point:

So the bottom line is as follows: (1) it is unclear how these interceptors would have improved U.S. national security; (2) it is unclear how the interceptors would have improved the security of American allies in Eastern Europe; (3) they would have been expensive (note Obama’s mention of “cost-effectiveness” in his statement on the matter); (4) we don’t know if they would have worked (note Obama’s emphasis on the effectiveness of his proposed alternative); and (5) they would have continued to provide a serious impediment to improving U.S.-Russian relations. …

But let’s be clear: this is not a costless decision. Anytime we change our minds on military commitments to allies, there are costs down the road for doing so. Both Poland and the Czech Republic have born serious costs in order to move this plan along with their own populations — neither of which were uniformly enthusiastic about these proposals, especially in the Czech Republic. I would hope the administration would take damage control in this regard very seriously….

Finally, it is important not to overestimate the effect of this decision on U.S.-Russian relations. Yes, this will remove a thorn from that relationship, and an important thorn at that. And it is possible that we may even see some reciprocal move on Russia’s part in terms of ratcheting up pressure on Iran in the coming days; there have long been indications that such a deal might be possible.

… The Russians should take comfort in the fact that the current administration is willing to listen to arguments about the value of particular policy decisions, but they should in no way take away from this an overinflated sense of Russian influence over Washington’s foreign policy.

That’s about right by me.  I like his point of emphasis on damage control - we’ve made a decision whose effects within the Polish and Czech military establishments is potentially wide-ranging.  We should expend a decent amount of energy managing that relationship, trying to assuage those countries’ governments’ level of uncomfortableness.

For example, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said he made two concrete proposals to U.S. officials on Thursday in hopes of keeping the U.S.-Czech alliance strong: for the U.S. to establish a branch of West Point for NATO members in Central Europe and to “send a Czech scientist on the U.S. space shuttle to the international space station.” Those requests should be taken seriously.

While we’re talking about me in the meeeedja (as a certain rappa from Staines would say), I went on FoxNews last week and absolutely tore up this poor girl from the Heritage Foundation.  She was obviously ill-equipped to deal with my superior intellect.

Conservatives absolutely love European missile defense.  Why?  My theory is that it brings them to a happy place, one full of stuffed dolls of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and plastic Millenium Falcons.  Yup, the European missile defense program was a vestige of the Cold War, when conservatives’ gripon national security strategy was tightest.  Why else would the Bush administration have worked so hard to ensure that we had invested so much in the system that it’d be dang near impossible to back away?

So you’ll forgive them if they’re not exactly ready to give it up.  Take House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), for example:

The Administration’s misguided action will cause our eastern European allies to question our commitment to their people and security, while heightening concerns in Israel. The European deployment is the only system that can protect both the U.S. and Europe against the common threat of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.

Yet Cantor’s statement is just the latest example of how out-of-touch Republicans are with America’s national security needs in the 21st century.

I know it can be counter-intuitive to claim that we’re making America stronger by removing a missile shield.  At first glance, it doesn’t make obvious sense.

The most important thing to remember is that we’re actually improving our missile defense capabilities.  Instead of the land-based, costly, behind-schedule, outmoded system in Europe, the Obama administration is set to emphasize a more accurate, cheaper, near-term, next wave sea-based system.  When comparing the two, think of the choice this way:

If you were going to buy a security system for your house, would you rather spend $1000 on a system that catches 50 percent of the criminals and doesn’t start working until next year, or one that costs $800, catches 80 percent, and starts working next week?

The choice seems easy, right?  Though greatly simplyfied, it isn’t terribly different from the obvious choice the White House just made on the unanimous recommendation from the Defense establishment.

Diplomatically, the choice is also a win-win for a stronger American security.  While the conservative cabal excessively worry about upsetting our Eastern European allies while groveling to Russia.  Take House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH):

“Scrapping the US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,”

Or does it?  While it’s true that there may be some bruised egos in Warsaw and Prague, our relationships with our Eastern European allies is steadfast.  How can I be so confident?  Look no further that the NATO Treaty’s article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.  That’s the very same article that NATO invoked in the wake of 9/11.

Even better, guess who’s a member of NATO?  If you said Poland and the Czech Repbulic, DING DING, Vanna has some lovely gifts for you.

Furthermore, moving missile defense to a sea-based element removes an unnecessary thorn in the side of US-Russia relations, and helps put Russia in our corner when negotiating with Iran.  Russia’s help isn’t guaranteed, but if it’s possible to have Russia pressure Iran with no adverse effects on our national security, then it’s a no-brainer.

Just like this entire situation:  Conservatives need to wake up to the fact that the Cold War is over and America’s national security needs in 2009 are very different from just twenty years ago.

The Presidential election in Afghanistan is but one week away. Failing a last minute surge by ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, Hamid Karzai should secure another term, and quite possibly avoid a second round run-off.

No matter who emerges as Afghanistan’s next president, his writ upon inauguration will not extend much farther than the outskirts of the capital city, Kabul.  It’s clear that despite a new commanding officer (General Stanley McChrystal), two strategy reviews (one mandated from the White House, another by McChrystal), a plus-up of troops, a recalibrated poppy policy, and a “civilian surge” of US government workers, questions abound from both foreign policy elites and Main Street about whether Afghanistan is worth it. Simply put, both the public and policy wonks alike are weary of eight years of war and are questioning the Obama administration’s massive new investment.

Are we throwing good money after bad?  What do we hope to accomplish, and when can we hope to accomplish it by?

Eight years on, the mission in Afghanistan is wearing thin with the public.  To state the obvious, here’s where it gets dicey.

The administration’s efforts are vastly hampered by the differing perceptions of “success”.  The American public perceives success - like in Iraq - as a decrease in violence.  Check out the graph below (prepared by the PPI’s stalwart Communications Assistant Steven Chlapecka) that compares increasing public approval of the Iraq war to the lowered body count.  Pretty dramatic, huh?

Bear in mind that this was the trend even though “the surge” - as detailed in Tom Ricks’ The Gamble - was actually a failure, in that it didn’t facilitate political breathing space necessary for Shiite/Sunni “reconciliation”.  But the public saw less death, and that was good enough.

The White House defines any semblance of success in Afghanistan in a vastly more complex manner, centered around a goal of a “secure America”, not “decreased violence”.  Word came last week about a series of “nine objectives” that the Nation Security Council is establishing, which are focused on denying al Qaeda a safe-haven.  Implicitly, they demand a much greater American commitment (read: nation building) than just temporary peace.

Therefore, the administration’s challenge is more than simply rolling out (and then achieving) new metrics  for success.  Numbers can be fudged, and there’s a good chance the public won’t care about anything beyond casualty rates anyway.

The clock is ticking.  Gen. McChrystal and SecDef Bob Gates have played for one year to prove their strategy is working, under the assumption that progress by this point next year will buy more time with the public.  But even that’s a tough sell - one year from now will be in the middle of mid-term elections, and calling for an Afghan wrap up is likely to be a crowd-pleaser.

That’s why this year - and a dedicated, competent Afghan president - is so critical.  The pressure to leave may be too great in twelve months to accomplish much more.

Check out this smart article in Foreign Policy on the current state of play in Afghanistan by Kimberly Kagan.  A few quick outtakes of what’s wrong:

1. Fighting in the wrong places

NATO forces are widely dispersed throughout Afghanistan, even in the Pashtun areas in the south and east, rather than concentrated on one or two priorities…. A good evaluation of our priorities in Afghanistan would yield a significantly different, and more effective, distribution of coalition forces. This is undoubtedly why McChrystal recently told reporters that he will be concentrating forces around Kandahar city.

2. Fighting in the wrong ways

Another problem is that NATO forces have briefed counterinsurgency doctrine better than they have practiced it. Almost all NATO units in Pashtun areas claim that they are protecting the population by engaging in a sequence of military operations known as “shape-clear-hold-build.” But these forces move through the sequence too rapidly. Based on recent experiences in Iraq, shaping an area requires 30 to 45 days, clearing it requires three to six months, and holding it takes longer than that. With very few exceptions, NATO forces in Afghanistan have never operated on such timelines. …

[M]any forces — especially Afghan forces — are distributed along the ring road, the main corridor that circles the country. Static positions such as these waste troops. Of course, our forces must be able to maneuver along strategic corridors, but the best way to do that is by securing populated areas and maneuvering off the ring road to defeat the enemy in its sanctuaries and support zones.

3. Fighting with the wrong assumptions

What too often determines where coalition forces conduct their shape-clear-hold-build operations is the prospect for conducting development projects — not population security. This tends to favor the important over the urgent, the possible over the necessary….

Moreover, military and civilian efforts in Afghanistan make the wrong assumptions about development. Too often they emphasize the value of a development project as a model — as a demonstration of Afghan government competence and Western goodwill. Completing a specific dam, for example, shows the population that the Afghan government can provide services in general; clearing a specific village shows that the Afghan national security forces can secure the population in principle. But if the model is not replicated widely and rapidly, it’s simply a demonstration of what might be accomplished.