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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Countries / Iran / What Is This “Re-Establish Deterrence” They Keep Talking About?

What Is This “Re-Establish Deterrence” They Keep Talking About?

by Cheryl Rofer|  January 14, 202011:00 am| 50 Comments

This post is in: Iran, Rofer on International Relations

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I have a short piece up at Inkstick Media. It’s short enough that I won’t quote it here, except to say that I have found the claims that the Trump administration killed Qassem Soleimani to “re-establish deterrence” annoying in multiple dimensions.

Besides, Inkstick is a new enterprise, trying to make this stuff more understandable, and I support that goal. If you like what I write here, you’ll probably like Inkstick. Go ahead, give them some clicks!

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50Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 14, 2020 at 11:04 am

    A very succinct read with language even a Republican can understand. Too bad they won’t read it. ;-)

  2. 2.

    H.E.Wolf

    January 14, 2020 at 11:08 am

    Thanks for the link, and for writing the article. Much appreciated.

    With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day coming up next Monday, it’s timely to remember his opposition to violent conflict and to the warmongers of his day.

  3. 3.

    catclub

    January 14, 2020 at 11:16 am

    Killing the Generals of the opposing side is the recommended way to restart negotiations from a state of mutual trust.

     

    Unilaterally breaking the previous agreement is next on the list.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    January 14, 2020 at 11:17 am

    I guess ‘deterrence’ is code for ‘bring back 1954’. Otherwise it would just be the usual run of threats and bullying.

  5. 5.

    catclub

    January 14, 2020 at 11:24 am

    I read the article and some others at Inkstick. They are short, but I felt they were too

    much only introductory paragraphs for a longer article.

  6. 6.

    randy khan

    January 14, 2020 at 11:27 am

    The idea that “deterrence” sounds manly probably is the most obvious motivation for the current bunch, and particularly Trump, who obviously is very concerned about looking tough and strong.  People with confidence in their manliness (*cough* Obama *cough*) don’t need to engage in this kind of display.

  7. 7.

    Frank McCormick

    January 14, 2020 at 11:29 am

    Sounds like an old opinion piece on the invasion of Iraq where it was suggested that we “go over there, grab them by them by the neck, and shake them up” to keep the fear of the USA in them.

    [I forget which NYT writer said it (Friedman?) and a quick Google search turned up no relevant results.]

  8. 8.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 14, 2020 at 11:30 am

    Most Republicans view the world in terms of bullying:  Who is hitting who.  It’s barely even an ideology, because they don’t understand that the world could work any other way.  Intimidation and deterrence are synonyms to them.  Trump, as always, is the apotheosis of Republicanism.  He can’t even grasp the idea of a mutual win with friends

  9. 9.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 11:33 am

    @Frank McCormick: You may be thinking of Michael Ledeen’s

    Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen

  10. 10.

    JCJ

    January 14, 2020 at 11:33 am

    @Frank McCormick:

    I believe Friedman’s elegant terminology was “suck on this”

  11. 11.

    wvng

    January 14, 2020 at 11:53 am

    Well done, Cheryl.

  12. 12.

    Peale

    January 14, 2020 at 11:53 am

    @randy khan: Deterrence also makes us feel essential for the proper political ordering of the world. Like if we weren’t there and let events unfold on their own, all the bad things would happen. Only bad things would happen if we weren’t there doing something. Now, that the bad things have been properly deterred, we can go back to sitting on our benign throne and everyone can be thankful for us. Or we think they should be thankful, but really, gratitude isn’t all that necessary. We offer self-congratulatory messages that more than enough make up for our general lack of acclaim.

  13. 13.

    bemused

    January 14, 2020 at 12:04 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Exactly. They are the bullies in the sandbox kicking sand in the other kid’s faces.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    January 14, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    @Frank McCormick:

    Yes it was Friedman. This was the quote on the Charlie Rose show. Doesn’t age well does it?

    We needed to go over there, basically, and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.… What they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy, we’re just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!” That, Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia! It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.
    Tom Friedman on Charlie Rose (30 May 2003).

  15. 15.

    JPL

    January 14, 2020 at 12:21 pm

    Cheryl,  That was excellent and so true.   We’ve had sanctions in Iran for forty years and they haven’t acted like a deterrent either.

     

    BTW and OT Steyer hits trump where it hurts the most

    https://host2.advertisinganalyticsllc.com/admo/#/view/1746122

  16. 16.

    hitless

    January 14, 2020 at 12:29 pm

    @Kent:

    There’s a lot to criticize there, but ignoring all ethical and moral issues, just in terms of this guy being a paid analyst of the middle east this is atrocious. The simplism of implying those countries are monolithic and that “hitting” one will result in good things is staggering.

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    January 14, 2020 at 12:31 pm

    “re-establish deterrence”

    That ship done sailed.

    Wait until America figures out that, with one election, we’ve permanently blown our former international status as “world leaders” forever.

    Because we have, and that’s going to have a lot of blowback with our relations with other nations, and will cause much more domestically if the rubes ever figure it out.

    I’m sure someone with a little brains can figure out a way to pre-emptively blame Obama for it, and will.

  18. 18.

    catclub

    January 14, 2020 at 12:33 pm

    @JPL: Good ad.  Of course, any other Democrat should be saying the same things.   I would just add: “And I actually made my billions, I didn’t have Daddy give me my first $200M on the way to… maaaaaybe  $350 million”

  19. 19.

    Patricia Kayden

    January 14, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    Russians appear to be re-running their 2016 hacking playbook, once again to benefit Donald Trump. Will the media play along again? Will the GOP open the door again? Will the Russians help pick our POTUS again? https://t.co/cfVPcqbY5w— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 14, 2020

  20. 20.

    catclub

    January 14, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    @hitless: The simplism of implying those countries are monolithic and that “hitting” one will result in good things is staggering.

     

    And Friedman was probably far better informed (at some time), on the ground, about the Middle East than the average  Sunday gasbag opinionator. He was an actual reporter in the middle east.

  21. 21.

    Hoodie

    January 14, 2020 at 12:51 pm

    @JPL:  What do that think they are deterring?   Assassinating an Iranian general who happens to be openly visiting Iraq at most deters Iranian generals from openly traveling to Iraq.   No, this is just another installment of “if we kill enough of the bad guys, everything will be solved.”

  22. 22.

    JPL

    January 14, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    @Hoodie: We’ve interfered in Iran since the fifties and now it’s time to step back, cuz we aren’t helping.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 14, 2020 at 1:13 pm

    @Frank McCormick: Yep, Friedman.

  24. 24.

    Hortense

    January 14, 2020 at 1:21 pm

    I wish you or Adam Silverman would explain the whole “the President can de-classify whatever he wants, whenever he wants” thing. Does it then become public knowledge that anyone can use for any purpose?

     

    Say, for example, he’s briefed about a Special Forces plan to take out terrorists and then, because he’s a blabbermouth, he tells his golfing buddies and other people who don’t have security clearances. Javanka share it with their circle of sycophants,  telling them all the details as long as they promise not to say a WORD to ANYBODY about what’s about to go down. Their friends tell their friends in STRICTEST CONFIDENCE. Is it like public information at that point, shareable with anyone for any reason?

     

    Lots of people know all about it, and one of them who is not a foreign agent, but who maybe just needs money, sells that information to someone who doesn’t have our best interests at heart. They get six million rubles and the Special Forces walk into an ambush. 

     

    I think that’s what happened with the raid on Yakla. From Wikipedia:

     

    “The approval of the Yakla raid did not follow the rigorous procedure used during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which involved a Situation Room meeting that detailed the operational plan, operational goals, a risk assessment (to both U.S. personnel and civilians), and a legal assessment of the operation. Instead, the raid was approved over dinner conversations between Trump, his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, his special adviser Steve Bannon, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.”

     

    Is there any criminality anywhere along the line? I know classified information can’t be shared like that, and certainly can’t be sold, but this was declassified from the get-go by Trump. Yes, of course it’s wrong, and an 11-year old boy was murdered and Chief Petty Officer William Owens died, but Trump had his two scoops of ice cream on a great chocolate cake, so.

  25. 25.

    Jay

    January 14, 2020 at 1:22 pm

    On the bright side,

    Spanish journalist Antonio Manuel Sanchez who worked for Sputnik died after falling out a window in Moscow pic.twitter.com/DsmcpvwIGG— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 14, 2020

  26. 26.

    sdhays

    January 14, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    @Jay: Windows are very easy to fall out of in Russia…

  27. 27.

    JPL

    January 14, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    @Jay: Don’t lean against the windows if you are in windows.   Obviously the are faulty since that happens a lot.

  28. 28.

    Spanky

    January 14, 2020 at 1:33 pm

    @Jay: I guess he made the classic mistake of asking questions about the wrong sort of people. .

  29. 29.

    dnfree

    January 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    Excellent point on deterrence vs escalation.

  30. 30.

    Jay

    January 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    NEW: Warren calls for SEC probe into whether Trump tipped off his Mar-a-Lago pals to the Soleimani attack — and whether those pals traded on that information. https://t.co/iiFcy0aTYt— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) January 14, 2020

    It probably won’t go anywhere, but as Fuck LBJ said, “make them deny it”.

  31. 31.

    Spanky

    January 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    @Spanky: And pity he landed on the only recently shoveled section of pavement to be found in mid-winter Moscow.

  32. 32.

    Spanky

    January 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    @Jay: See new post up above.

  33. 33.

    Jay

    January 14, 2020 at 1:44 pm

    For at least a year before Soleimani was killed, the State Department was funding a social media propaganda campaign that targeted and maligned American citizens and others involved in the Iran debate.https://t.co/B8G5LQc7uN— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) January 14, 2020

  34. 34.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 1:49 pm

    @Hortense: The often-made statement that the President has the right to declassify anything he wants is incorrect in a number of ways.

    First, the President is the top classification authority. He has an authority by virtue of his office, but his rights are the same as any of ours.

    Next, if the President feels that some information should be declassified, there is a procedure for that. He could have the civil servants who deal with classification put the appropriate papers together and sign them with his Sharpie, but, as far as anyone can tell, he doesn’t do this.

    When he just blabs out classified information to Russians or talks about it in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, he’s probably not doing anything criminal, just ill-advised. That information, then, is not declassified, but it is available to the news media, us, and anyone else who doesn’t have a security clearance.

    People who have clearances but not a need to know this information are in a difficult spot. They have to keep it out of their work computers and can’t discuss it. I’ll bet that classification officers are letting a lot of this go by, because the Blabbermouth-in-Chief has spread so much of it around. But that degrades the system in general.

  35. 35.

    catclub

    January 14, 2020 at 1:55 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: People who have clearances but not a need to know this information are in a difficult spot. They have to keep it out of their work computers and can’t discuss it. I’ll bet that classification officers are letting a lot of this go by

     

    I believe that many of the Clinton emails that were criticized after the fact for containing classified information were just this type.  Discussing the newspaper report on something that had been classified.

  36. 36.

    MaryLou

    January 14, 2020 at 1:58 pm

    Cheryl, I enjoyed your article, but found the site overall almost unreadable. The blaring graphics and huge headlines are confusing, not enlightening. Tell the graphics designers that in online presentation, less is more.

  37. 37.

    Jay

    January 14, 2020 at 1:58 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer,

    People who have clearances but not a need to know this information are in a difficult spot. They have to keep it out of their work computers and can’t discuss it. I’ll bet that classification officers are letting a lot of this go by, because the Blabbermouth-in-Chief has spread so much of it around. But that degrades the system in general.

    I would not be the least bit surprised if the mess and the bureaucracy that is the US Classification System, is being “vindictivly used” by Trumpista’s and others, inside the IC.

  38. 38.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 2:00 pm

    @catclub: I think this was part of it, but also some of what was in the Clinton emails was unclassified when they were written, and classified later.

    The classification system is a mess, and I see no easy way to fix it.

  39. 39.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    @MaryLou: Noted.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    @Jay: It certainly could be.

  41. 41.

    Jay

    January 14, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    @catclub:

    a bunch were “retroactively” classified. Basically, after the information was “already out there” and in the public realm, the “source documents” and communications referencing them, were then “classified”.

    So as a result, archived documents and communications, not marked classified or handled as classified on the servers, were found because at the time they were received and archived, they were not classified.

    If memory serves me right, there were a half dozen or so, actual classified documents, that were classified at the time, that were mishandled, out of tens of thousands.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    January 14, 2020 at 2:08 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: FWIW, I like the site layout and graphics.

  43. 43.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 2:15 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Also noted!

  44. 44.

    randy khan

    January 14, 2020 at 2:53 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    To go back to the original example, and as I understand it, Trump talking to people who are cleared about something should give them permitted access even if they weren’t originally supposed to have it, but the information itself remains classified, so the people he told can’t tell people who aren’t cleared or who don’t have need to know.  (I’m sure that works *extremely well* with Kushner and Ivanka.)

    Is that a fair way to state it?

  45. 45.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 14, 2020 at 3:14 pm

    @randy khan: I think that’s how it’s been interpreted, and, never having dealt with the President’s authorities on classified material, I can’t say it’s wrong.

    My understandings of classified material say that

    1. There is a process that the President hasn’t followed.
    2. Uncleared people are under no obligation with respect to classified material, so they could share it, and it looks like they do.
    3. Uncleared people cannot be given access to classified material.

    Beyond the legalities, the point is that national security information is classified for a reason. Trump seems to be unaware of that and uses classified information in the same way he uses many other things: for his ego gratification or to gain favors. That’s the danger.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    January 14, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Beyond the legalities, the point is that national security information is classified for a reason. Trump seems to be unaware of that and uses classified information in the same way he uses many other things: for his ego gratification or to gain favors. That’s the danger.

    I enjoyed your commentary on deterrence.  Brief and to the point.

    I hear Trump defenders note that since he is president, he can declassify anything he wants.  They focus on his authority and ignore the question of whether his behavior might be reckless.

  47. 47.

    Mike in Pasadena

    January 14, 2020 at 5:47 pm

    @JPL: Thanks for the link. Excellent ad. That’s what this election has to be about – who can beat that con man and crook Trump. It is not about medicare for all, free college/student loans, or anybody’s big plans. It is about defeating the biggest fraud ever to sit in the oval office.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    January 14, 2020 at 6:37 pm

    Finally, something I can read and understand without furrowing my brow. Thanks, and site has been bookmarked!

    (I don’t find the design as troubling as the poster above, though I wish that flyout thing up top didn’t fly out so much and with so little provocation.)

  49. 49.

    lexilis

    January 14, 2020 at 8:59 pm

    The graphic design of that site is really, really terrible.  The front page is a visual assault. The titles are trivial click-bait and do not identify the author. No, not for me.

  50. 50.

    Hortense

    January 15, 2020 at 12:25 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: thanks so much for this information, it really helps. – I also like the site layout and graphics – everything’s so clearer than the old version

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