Remembering Prof. Barry Rubin: Scholar, Lion, Mensch

No one wrote better faster and no one wrote faster better.

That would be a fitting, but insufficient epitaph for the renown scholar Barry Rubin, who died earlier this week after a long struggle with cancer.

The stories of Prof. Rubin's facility as a writer a legendary.  A mutual friend recalled a chat with Barry, in the midst of which Rubin declared, "Done."

During the conversation, Rubin had dashed off a publication quality op-ed, while still holding up his end of the conversation.

I remember after drinks and hours of talk at a three-day conference, when I was ready for bed Rubin heading to his room to dash off a few pages for his upcoming book about Syria - he'd learned something new and it couldn't wait.

Rubin was a leading scholar of Middle Eastern politics and history, but even that vast topic couldn't contain his energies.  He wrote about U.S foreign policy, democratization, and model trains (and probably a bunch of other things that I haven't heard about - but this post about an adventure as a civil war re-enactor is simply too wonderful not to share.)

This is a photo of my, all too modest, library of Barry Rubin books (he wrote over three dozen - plus innumerable academic and popular articles).  But - and this just exemplifies his approach to scholarship and sharing - he had made over a dozen of his books are available for free online.

But Barry was more than writer/scholar - although dayeinu it would have been enough.

He also built institutions, founded journals, and was a pioneer in using the Internet to promulgate quality scholarship. He had regular access to established media, but embraced new media whole-heartedly.

He had a tremendous talent for explaining the vast complexities of Middle East affairs and in illuminating them he could explain and defend Israel and its actions.  In this he was indefatigable.  I remember him speaking at my synagogue, happily taking questions for over an hour.  This wasn't a tough crowd but it re-energized him to face the hostile audiences that a defender of Israel encounters and that he took on willingly and eloquently.

Every once in a while, it was a great pleasure when, in conversation, he told me, "I didn't know that" or "You've persuaded me."

That it didn't happen often reflects my comparatively paltry knowledge and reasoning skills - not any stubbornness or inflexibility on his part.

But here's the punchline, I didn't know him that well.  He took an interest in me and was generous with his time (and with my modest capabilities I did any favor for him that I could.)  But I wouldn't claim that we were that close, I was one of dozens (hundreds!) of aspiring scholars and activists he helped.

Barry Rubin was a first-rate scholar, a lion in defending Israel, and a real mensch.  He was only 64 when he died and undoubtedly had at least another dozen good books left in him (at least one book will be published posthumously).  But we must be grateful we had him with us as long as he did.

Philadelphia: The Dowager Metropolis

The recent birthday of polymath Benjamin Franklin made me think about the history of his beloved city.  In the colonial period, Philadelphia was the great city of British America - a center of commerce, learning, and - as capital of Pennsylvania - politics.  For a time it was even the second largest English speaking city in the world (after London of course.)

Blocked in by the Appalachians, colonial America's primary lines of communications were north-south and between coastal cities.  Philadelphia, roughly in the center of the colonies was well-positioned to be the hub.  When Franklin arrived, he was the perfect type of genius to take advantage of his city's prime location.  First and foremost a newspaperman, Franklin trained printers who worked up and down the colonies and into the Caribbean.  They sent him copies of their periodicals, allowing him to monitor events and trends throughout the colonies.  From Philadelphia he could also disseminate his work throughout the colonies.

Franklin regularly cited the aphorism, "The Almighty helps he who helps himself."  So there was no small amount of self-interest in Franklin's work as Postmaster, where he improved colonial communications substantially.

Philadelphia could, perhaps, have become an American Paris or London - dominating the rest of the country as the pre-eminent center of politics, business, and learning.

But, when the United States was founded, Philadelphia lost its position as the great American city.  Washington was established as the political capital, Boston emerged as the cultural center, and New York emerged as the commercial capitol.  The decision to establish a new capital city made sense as a compromise between the northern and southern states.  Locating the capital in the major city of one of the largest states might have given Pennsylvania far too much sway over national affairs.  A prudent decision.  Boston's emergence as the intellectual center was primarily due to the presence of the country's oldest University (Harvard of course) and the related emergence of the transcendentalists - perhaps the first truly American intellectual movement.

The New York-Philadelphia rivalry was settled on geography.  Before trucks and trains, waterways were critical conduits for goods and people.  New York was built where the Hudson River meets the ocean.  The river is a critical North-South waterway that nearly links to the St. Lawrence in Canada.  The St. Lawrence reaches the Great Lakes, allowing New York trade to reach north-south but also east-west.  As the Appalachians were conquered the United States spread west.  In the early 1800s there were innumerable plans for canals the facilitate east-west trade.  The building of the Erie Canal, which linked New York to the Great Lakes effectively placed New York at the hub of American commerce.  (The Great Lakes reached throughout much of the then West.  Further, from the Great Lakes it is just a jump to the Mississippi River system.  Chicago was built at a crucial point where the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River are close.)  There were plans to build canals to link Philadelphia to the West, but they were too little too late.  New York City and State boomed in the early 1800s.  For a period in the first half of the 19th century they represented a greater proportion of U.S. population than any other state since.

Philadelphia had a last gasp at being America's financial center.   The Bank of the United States was based in Philadelphia and if Andrew Jackson had not broken it, Philadelphia would have emerged as the financial capital of the country.  Chestnut St. not Wall St. would have become synonymous with international finance.  Considering the way in which NYC became the dominant city in international finance and commerce, this dissolution of power might not have been a bad thing.  But it was not to be.

Philadelphia did not disappear, of course, it has remained a vibrant important city.  Until the emergence of Chicago it was the country's second metropolis.  But its moment of greatness has passed and somehow the past weighs heavily on the City of Brotherly Love.  Perhaps it is akin to Athens - still a major city, home to millions of individual stories - but no longer where the action is. 

(Aaron, interesting article, but, um, aren't you in India?  Why are your writing about Philadelphia?)

Deep Thought 42: Life, the Universe and Everything

Last year around this time, I wrote about how computers are getting smarter and how that would lead to enormous prosperity, but it would also reduce the need for people.  If computers can drive and perform a huge number of tasks usually done by people,what would be left for people to do?  Compared to scrabbling around for bare necessities – which was the lot of nearly all of mankind for most of human history – this doesn’t seem like a problem.  But without a purpose, people would lead idle lives.  I envisioned a dystopia much like a huge welfare colony, where everyone has just enough to getby but no one has much to do so they pursue hobbies like hooliganism.  (Alternately, we’d all become professional hobbyists, working at what we loved.)

I expect the conclusion is somewhere in the middle, life will on the whole get more comfortable.  Perhaps something will be lost as life becomes softer and smoother.  Too quote Woody Allen, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”  The stakes may become lower, but people will still be caught in difficult, painful situations and have to muddle through.  Passions will trump reason at awkward times and tussle, as they have since humanity arose.

The scale of changes being made in the human condition is awesome and unparalleled in our history.  Something huge is afoot.

A few years ago (while going through some pretty serious personal stuff – a subject for another time), I read Martin Amis’ NightTrain.  I like British novelists, with their crisp use of the language and social backdrop that is intelligible – but just alien enough to give me pause.  Night Train turned out to be a police procedural set in the United States – not what I wanted.  But it grabbed me.  Jennifer Rockwell, a beautiful and brilliant young astronomer had committed suicide.  Her police brass father could not accept this and had one of his best detectives look into it.  She interviewed the dead woman’s boss, a world renown astronomer who describing their work trying understand the scale and nature of the universe admitted:

The truth is, Detective, the truth is that human beings are not sufficiently evolved to understand the place they’re living in. We’re all retards.  Einstein’s a retard.  I’m a retard.  We live on a planet of retards.

Amis' book was written in 1998.  In the relatively modest span of time since then, we have seen astounding leaps in computational capabilities – capabilities that are only increasing.  Predictions are that relatively soon all the computational power in the world will match that of a single human brain, but it is not so far in the future after this that computing power will exceed the computing power of all the human brains in existence.

I don’t want to argue that we are close to all the answers.  But we are building powerful tools to ask and at least attempt to answer these questions.  But will we understand the answers?  What will be our place in this vast computing architecture?

Amis' astronomer says:

And do you know what a black hole is Detective? Yeah, I think we all have some idea.  Jennifer asked me: Why was it Hawking who cracked black holes?  I mean, in the Sixties everybody was going at black holes hammer and tongs.  But it was Stephen who have us some answers.  She said” Why him?  And I gave the physicist’s answer: Because he’s the smartest guy around.  But Jennifer wanted me to consider an explanation that was more-romantic. She said: Hawking understood black holes because he could stare at them.  Black holes mean oblivion. Mean death. And Hawking has been staring at death all his adult life.  Hawking could see.

Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul is often referred to by its Latin title, De Anima, meaning that which animates.  If we are building some sort of massive hive mind that can contemplate to the edges of the universe, we are what moves it.  The same wonder and awe that led us to build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, has led us to this as well.  If we are building this massive hive mind, we may not understand it (does a cell in our body understand the enormous, marvelous thing of which it is part?)  But we will remain essential, we are what sets it into motion – we will be the soul.

Iran: Smeagol or Sauron

A few months ago The Washington Post ran an article about Iran's efforts to recruit Latin Americans. The article focused on a young Mexican who met Iran's ambassador at a reception and after limited interactions found himself a guest of the Iranian government.  He didn't care that much for it, got out and made his way home where he said Iranians at the Embassy were continuing to tail him.

The obvious interpretation here is that Iran is rather aggressively attempting to recruit Latin Americans. There have been many reports regarding Iran's efforts to obtain influence in that part of the world and there is a definite concern that Iran and its terrorist allies would like to launch terror attacks against the U.S. via Mexico.  Hezbollah, working hand in glove with its Iranian sponsors, launched terrible attacks in Argentina in the early 1990s.  More recently Iranians attempts to attack the Saudi Ambassador in Washington working with Mexican drug cartels.  (However, the contact with the cartel turned out to be a DEA informant.)

All of this is true. But...

Recently I've had a penchant for looking at things and turning them upside down and seeing how things look.

The young man at the center of the story approached the Iran's Ambassador at a public forum.  The Ambassador continued the contact, followed-up and pressed the young man to participate in a program that took him to Iran.  The Ambassador was personally recruiting people to train in Iran.  Now on the one hand it could be interpreted that this shows how Iran's Foreign Ministry is one with the IRGC and MOIS.  Maybe.

Another way to see it is that the Embassy in Mexico was ordered to recruit X people.  The recruitment didn't go so well, so the Ambassador personally had to get involved.  Does Iran's Ambassador to Mexico have so little to do that he can spend his time recruiting possible agents from universities?  I believe in most countries that job goes to a 2nd or 3rd Secretary at the Embassy.

In most of the world, the US Embassy or Consulate could - relatively easily - spark a riot just by floating rumors that additional visas to work in the U.S. were available.  Iran has to send its Ambassador out, personally, to try to get people to come to Iran.

None of this is to say that there aren't some extremely bad people in the Iranian leadership or that this somehow ameliorates Iran's bad behavior on the world stage.  If I've written on this once, I've written on it a hundred times.  But this story reveals some profound weaknesses and power imbalances between the U.S. and Iran.

Too often we see our enemies as Sauron, with vast legions an all seeing Eye, and clear intention to dominate the world.  But maybe Iran is Smeagol, a weak and tormented.  This doesn't mean that they aren't dangerous (Smeagol was dangerous and devious), but they were not all-powerful.

Negotiating with Smeagol
Since I'm writing about Iran and an interim deal was just signed, I should give my thoughts on this, incorporating my Smeagol/Sauron metaphor.

In a nutshell, when faced with war one must really, really try for peace.  There are several reasons for this, not the least of which are that you might actually get peace.

If Iran, as I say, is more like weak conflicted Smeagol negotiations have a chance for success.  I am not qualified to get into all of the technical details, but it appears that there are constituencies that would very much like better relations with the West.  To bring along enough other players in the Iranian system, they need to show that Iranian concessions will be reciprocated by Western concessions.  This will be a long drawn-out process.  The end result will not be ideal or pretty.  Ultimately we'll have to recognize a loathesome regime that will remain a challenge to other US interests in the region.  But, if this prevents an Iranian nuke and does not result in war, that is an acceptable outcome.  We can manage an unpleasant Iran in a difficult region - a nuclear armed Iran is many orders of magnitude more problematic (as though Smeagol got the ring.)

Won't Iran cheat and just keep going on the nukes anyway?
Maybe, but we are far more likely to catch them cheating with tons of IAEA inspectors on the ground.

And that brings up the second point, what if Iran is Sauron, inexorably seeking nukes and building its power until it can challenge Israel and the United States and boot them out of the Middle East?

Then we especially need to try to make a deal.  Not because it will work, but because if Iran is Sauron, there WILL BE WAR.  If we are going to war with Iran (hot - bombing/cold - renewed sanctions) we will need to show the world, the American people, and the Iranian people that we really, really tried to avoid the war.

Sanctions can be hard to maintain and require international support.  Many of the participants get tired and frustrated enforcing them.  If we do not make a serious good faith effort to come to an agreement and show an eventual end path to the sanctions the regime will eventually fall apart.  If, even more seriously, we need to engage in military action against Iran we will need to tell the international community that this was not a war we wanted.  War with Iran will not be pretty - it is not a matter of a few quick bomb strikes.  There will be an endless bombing campaign, revenge attacks on Americans around the world, and probably proxy fights throughout the Middle East.  Americans have gotten a good look at how war in the Middle East tends to go.  They will not rush into it again, they will need to be persuaded that their government did not seek this conflict.

This is a bit of an inversion of the Latin admonition, si vis pacem, para bellum.  But if war is neccessary (and it very well may be), we must show that we tried for peace.  And maybe, just maybe, we will get lucky and we will get peace.

Droning About Drones: What Else is in the Toolkit

Drones are back in the news, as Pakistan’s Prime Minister tours Washington and protests U.S. drone strikes in his country. These protests are a bit pro forma, as it is pretty clear that the U.S. is carrying out these strikes with cooperation from Pakistan.  Sharif is caught between U.S. security priorities and his own population’s preferences. He silently cooperates and publicly complains. Angela Merkel of Germany is basically finding herself in the same spot with NSA wiretapping. But without Snowden, the wiretapping may have continued below the radar, drone strikes are much harder to hide.

This raises a perennial hobbyhorse of mine, that U.S. counter-terror policy is becoming toodependent on drones. Not that I’m opposed to drones, they are obviously an invaluable tool, but right now it appears to be the only thing in our toolkit and, as they say, when you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

Right now, the U.S. seems free to hammer away, but if there is one lesson in life, everything has a cost or, as a better writer than me once wrote:

for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap

Former SecDefRobert Gates was also warning about drone warfare, observing that:

Remarkable advances in precision munitions, sensors, information and satellite technology and more can make us overly enamored with the ability of technology to transform the traditional laws and limits of war…. In reality, war is inevitably tragic, inefficient and uncertain.

Let’s talk about Pakistan, another obsession of mine. The people of Pakistan assume that their government is corrupt and manipulated by foreigners to grind the Pakistani people into poverty. While this is not the case, one can certainly understand how Pakistanis might come to believe this – particularly with drones operating from and within their territory.

There are good reasons for the U.S. to be using drones against the Pakistani terrorists, but drone activity is simultaneously undermining the Pakistani government. Long-term, fostering a stable not too awful Pakistani government ought to be a U.S. priority - because the whole country is just a few steps from being a giant basket-case, which brings much bigger problems than terrorism.

Alternatives

I recently saw Jacob Shapiro discuss his new book TheTerrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Operations. I was familiar with his work and had cited it in my own work on Lashkar-e-Taiba (which found that traditional counter-terror strategies had limited efficacy). In a nutshell, Shapiro states that terrorist groups – because they have to operate covertly – face a lot of organizational challenges to maintaining command and control. For an organization to carry out complex operations requires a lot of organization which forces the leadership to effectively exercise control through paperwork. But these mechanisms of control are a treasure trove for intelligence agencies. Further, the great fear of terrorist leaderships is losing control over their units. Al-Qaeda documents have endless disputes about money – operatives spending too much and leaders not providing enough – as well as tactics.

Sowing dissension within a group might be a useful alternative to simply killing group members. Spreading stories about corruption and other forms of impropriety could do more to reduce operational efficiency. It wouldn’t necessarily be easy.  But leaking information about a group, or spoofing their internal electronic communications should be well within the capabilities of Western intelligence agencies.  And it is probably a lot cheaper than drones.

The essence of terrorism (from a national security decision-making standpoint) is how it gets inside the decision-making cycles and makes the political leadership seem flat-footed, inept and prone to over-reaction. This approach is an opportunity to turn the tables and get inside the terrorists’ decision-making and organization and twist them up.

Caveat

This strategy – to a limited extent has been used againstFARC in Colombia and others.  But it may not be appropriate in the Pakistani hinterland. Literacy is low, and running a public diplomacy campaign would be by word or mouth, which requires extensive on the ground knowledge. But that doesn’t make it impossible and it is at least worth trying.

Drones are a great tool, but let’s use some other ones as well.

Navy Yard vs. Westgate: A Silver Lining for the US

Despite the title, this is not a cheerful post.  The incidents at the Navy Yard in Washington DC and at Westgate Mall in Nairobi are tragedies.  But comparing the highlights a modest silver lining for American counter-terror efforts.

First, about the Navy Yard the obvious tragic aspects must be reiterated:

1. A dozen people, pointlessly, lost their lives
2. A mentally ill person easily acquired a firearm
3. A mentally ill person did not receive the help they needed (despite actively seeking it)

It would be easy to also rail against a failed clearance process that allowed Aaron Alexis access to a secure facility (the same process that brought us Edward Snowden) but I'm not sure that is fair.  We now have about five million cleared individuals, even a process that was 99.99% effective would fail 500 failures.  The question on that front is not how these people got through, but rather why there haven't been a great deal more such failures.

In that spirit, of asking why not, I want to look at the question of why Westgate Mall style terror attacks have not happened in the United States.  The lion's share of mass shootings appear to have been conducted by people who were mentally ill.  This emphasizes that, at least on one level, such attacks are extremely easy to carry out in the United States.  More than a few terrorist experts have noted this vulnerability.  So why have terrorists not done this, is it simply that the US has been lucky?

This is an important question to ask because, as the eminent Daveed Gartenstein-Ross observed:

it is well worth considering how we might respond were a shopping mall attacked in this manner. Would we create checkpoints at mall entrances to prevent people from entering with weapons? Would we increase the presence of security forces, perhaps providing them with instructions about how to identify possible perpetrators of an attack? Or would we encourage citizens to come to the mall armed, so that they could defend themselves in case terrorists strike? Perhaps we would decide that defensive measures were not worth the cost—especially since our ability to break up plots before they become operational remains strong—and find that a successful mall attack every 12 years or so is an acceptable cost for maintaining our current levels of convenience.

Often we seem blindsided by terrorist events. After failing to anticipate a particular attack, we struggle to respond, and our response might not address the underlying risk or may even be counterproductive. Considering possibilities is not the same as paranoia or fear, and the implications of a mall attack in the West are worth thinking through before it happens.

Since the costs of securing potential targets is extraordinarily high (a wealthy, open society of 300 million offers a plethora of soft targets) we need to press our analysis farther into the operation.  After the Mumbai attacks I observed:

To carry out a similar attack in the U.S. would require either training the attackers here, or inserting them from elsewhere. Both are possible, but neither is easy. 

In Kashmir there is a network of training camps, a pre-set structure. Here, a group of radicals would have to self-train. Possible: of course, but not easy. Without a formal structure, could a dozen Americans (many with jobs and families) put themselves through this rigorous program and stick to it over months - without anyone noticing? 

In fact there have been several self-starting cells, and they seem to get rounded up fairly early.
The other option is to smuggle the operatives in. But this is also difficult. While America’s borders and coastlines are poorly protected (and penetrated by smugglers almost constantly) this doesn’t mean that terrorists will necessarily have an easy time of it. Sailing direct from Karachi to a U.S. coast in a vessel small enough not to be noticed would be an impressive act of seamanship. More likely the terrorists would move more closely to the United States (for example to Latin America) and then infiltrate. But would they have the local contacts to acquire guns and transport without being noticed?

Most Latin American intelligence agencies are extremely concerned about being the base for an attack on the United States and would be on the lookout for such an infiltration. And the more operatives that are involved in the attack, the greater likelihood one will be detected.

An important addition to this point is on the importance of training - not only because of its tactical relevance - but because without extensive indoctrination, sane people are not inclined to take the lives of others.  Without placing a person in this environment for a lengthy period of time they will not commit to being a terrorist.  The places to get this kind of indoctrination are far away, increasing the chances that individuals who have had this kind of training will be detected before the enter the United States.

The US, unlike Kenya or India, is a long way from its enemies. This has been a blessing.  But we would be foolish to take it for granted.  The 9/11 Commission wrote an in-depth monograph on travel intelligence because of its importance for terror operations.  These capabilities need to continue to adapt, to continue to avoid a mass terror in the United States we need to make our own luck.

9/11 is not a day for wonkery

Your TerrorWonk has been moribund lately. I'm not bereft of ideas or things to say, but rather of time to say them. If you follow me on Twitter you'll see I'm pretty busy.

But I'm the TerrorWonk, if I can't say something on 9/11 maybe I'm in the wrong business.

Wonkery is about analysis and the go-to tool in our time is cost-benefit analysis (CBA - which if done right is also CYA.)  Is this thing we are going to do or have done a good idea - is it working, do we like what we are getting out of it?  It isn't always just about numbers.  Moral considerations are also costs, heavy reliance on drones may have a non-tangible cost to America's reputation. Disguising special forces as a NGO workers for a rescue operation may have a cost in endangering the NGO workers in the future.

I've done these analyses on 9/11s past. But not today.

As a nation we've done some smart things and some stupid things since 9/11.  But ON 9/11 nearly three thousand people died for no good reason.  Their deaths were due to eschatological fantasies of a band of fanatics.  We saw some stunning examples of heroism that day twelve years ago and in that our souls can find some comfort.