We Are All Philip Bobbitts

The other big news of the day is the release of the Commission on the Prevention
of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism's report on the most pressing problem facing the next American president.  Clinton-era defense official Graham Allison was on the panel; Mr. Allison is famous in national security circles for putting the odds of a nuclear explosion in an American city at 50% over ten years. The panel concurs: "It is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. The Commission further believes that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon."

World at Risk WMD Report 12-03-08.pdf

The authors, in their preamble, state that "[t]he intent of this report is neither to frighten nor to reassure the American people about the current state of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." But of course that isn't exactly true. Indeed, if you grant that proliferation is the single greatest national security threat of our times, you'd be silly not to want to put the fear of the gods in the American people, who, owing to some sort of a mass reaction formation, would pressure Congress to get serious about American vulnerability. (That it took the government five years to figure out how to close the private plane loophole is an example where political pressure might have been brought to bear.)

On the other hand, the real quandary for President Obama is on the demand side of things, about which the new report has little to say aside from a few sentences defining "soft power." Philip Bobbitt, perhaps our most astute and provocative analyst of the nuclear question, has observed that terrorist groups tend to adapt their structure and operations to the economic and political conditions of their targets. With the concept of the nation-state in retreat or being blurred, with the historical obligations of the nation-state being transferred, diffused, and marketized, the goal of any first-world polity cannot be more ambitious than to make sure its citizens are safe. That means, firstly, a government that can respond to disasters of all kinds, but secondly, a government that does everything in its power to pre-empt -- Bobbitt uses the word "preclude" -- the greatest existential threats.  So -- if Iraq really had WMDs, and we really believed Iraq had WMDs, then everything -- everything -- that came after was justifiable as a legitimate exercise in self-defense, even if the execution was fatally flawed. But that also means: if suddenly, somewhere, a vulnerable population is being slaughtered, the United Nations, or the United States, or NATO, shouldn't dither; they should intervene to stop it.  The UN -- and the US -- have no moral authority to compete in this marketplace if they step away from these challenges and then demand that failing states acquiesce to various international regimes and protocols.
The WMD report says: " U.S. counterterrorism strategy must more effectively counter the ideology behind WMD terrorism." To which Bobbitt would say: that's virtually impossible to do, and our conventional understanding of terrorist ideology is inadequate to the task. On the other hand, it has been argued that the very aggression that a "preclusive" approach entails has been the catalyst for an arms race of sorts; terrorists of all ideologies find that American belligerence is the perfect recruiting tool.

The Obama national security cabinet includes nuclear alarmists, proponents of preclusion, opponents of preclusion, and those who've seen first hand how difficult it is to create policy on the basis of what we think we know and what we most fear.  Some are interventionist: the best way to prevent nations from decaying into breeding grounds for terrorists is to prevent them from decaying in the first place. Don't be surprised if Obama links these sorts of interventions to the WMD question, which is to say, don't be surprised if, to Obama, the threats of failed states and WMD profileration are indelibly linked.