Barack Obama’s foreign and military policy viewed from the inside

A review of Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, by David E. Sanger

@@@@@ (5 out of 5)

When I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, I expected a great deal from his Presidency — much too much, it’s clear in hindsight. What I didn’t expect was that as President he would exercise U.S. military power almost as aggressively as George W. Bush. As the subtitle of this excellent book hints so broadly, the apparently anti-war candidate Obama quickly morphed in office into a resolute, hands-on Commander in Chief.

In his campaign, Obama had “promised to restore traditional American ‘engagement’ by talking and listening to America’s most troubling adversaries and reluctant partners. His supporters saw a welcome turn away from the ‘with us or against us’ black-and-whites of the Bush years. His critics saw naivete and softness. Both have been surprised. This is a book about those surprises.”

In practice, Obama learned that his brand of engagement yielded little more than vitriolic rhetoric from Iranian mullahs, North Korean generals, and the Pakistani military. What has proved far more effective are the actions he could take consistent with his more sophisticated view of American power: a massive increase in drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia; the country’s first-ever (known) use of cyberwarfare in a targeted attack on Iran’s nuclear program, along with increasingly brutal sanctions on the country and its government; the ever-growing use of Special Forces in operations such as the murder of Osama bin Laden; and a pronounced “pivot” from Europe to Asia in combating the rise of China, as exemplified by the opening of a new military base in Australia. While ending U.S. participation in our “war of choice” in Iraq and beginning the pullout from Afghanistan, President Obama has sharply stepped up our use of the weapons of war in a growing number of undeclared and sometimes undercover hostilities.

Make no mistake about it: Barack Obama has made an idelible mark on the U.S. military and intelligence services, sharpening their missions and reshaping their priorities, and all while forcing them to live within more limited means. And anyone who might be tempted to think that Obama acted this way out of weakness needs to understand that great extent to which he made decisions at crucial times in the face of opposition from nearly all those around him — in giving the green light to the Navy SEAL mission to kill bin Laden, and in deciding to ask Hosni Mubarak to resign. As Sanger writes, “‘He personally basically overrode just about his entire government,’ said one official in the room, noting that Gates and Clinton were still actively opposed, ‘Look, this is what I’m going to do,’ Obama said, according to notes of the meeting. ‘I’m going to call [Mubarak] now.'”

All this, and more, comes to light in the five sections that form the backbone of this book. Sanger writes about each of the leading hotspots in turn: Afghanistan and Pakistan; Iran; Egypt; China and North Korea. This is truly world-class reporting, informed by sources at the very highest levels of the U.S. government.

Sanger concludes, “It is too early to know if the emerging Obama Doctrine — a lighter footprint around the world, and a reliance on coalitions to deal with global problems that do not directly threaten American security — will prove a lasting formula. His effort at ‘rebalancing’ away from the quagmires in the Middle East toward the continent of greatest promise in the future — Asia — was long overdue. But it is a change of emphasis more than a change of direction. Obama proved her was adaptable to new realities, what James Fallows rightly called ‘the main trait we can hope for in a president.'”

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to be a 30-year veteran of The New York Times and serve as its Chief Washington Correspondent, read this extraordinary book with an eye on those sources, both named and anonymous, and their revelations, which pop up seemingly on every page. You’ll see, then, how very deeply embedded in the fabric of official Washington is this one newspaper — a newspaper that serves as the source of an extraordinary proportion of the stories that make their way onto evening news broadcasts and the front pages of other papers around the world. In laying bare the pattern of Barack Obama’s surprisingly aggressive use of military power, Confront and Conceal is just as effective in revealing David Sanger’s unusually high-level access at the White House, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

North Korea, Afghanistan, China, Iran: they all come together in a superb spy novel

A review of The Ghost War, by Alex Berenson

@@@@ (4 out of 5)

Contemporary novels about espionage tend to focus on the rise of China, North Korea, Iran, or Middle Eastern terrorism. The Ghost War, the second of Alex Berenson’s six spy thrillers, brings all four of those themes to the fore in a heart-pounding story that thrusts the CIA ‘s preeminent soldier-spy, John Wells, into circumstances that threaten not just his life but also the beginning of war between China and the U.S.

The Ghost War opens on the coast of North Korea, where the CIA fumbles the extraction of their most valuable informer within the country. Soon afterwards, Wells is dispatched on a seemingly unrelated mission to Afghanistan, while his lover, Jennifer Exley, pursues the search for a mole within the CIA. As the story unfolds, these three threads — and more — become intricately intertwined, and the suspense builds toward a powerful climax in the vicinity of where the novel opened.

The Ghost War can be read alone but is likely to be more enjoyable if taken up after reading The Faithful Spy, the first of his novels about John Wells. The Ghost War picks up Wells’ career after the heroic role he played in the earlier novel, for which he has gained considerable fame.

With The Faithful Spy, published in 2006, Alex Berenson won the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list as well as an Edgar Award for best first novel. However, he left his job as an investigative reporter for the Times only in 2010, after more than a decade there. Berenson’s reporting skills, honed in reporting from Baghdad and probing the Bernie Madoff scandal, serve him well in his new profession. They’re reflected in the depth and technical detail of the story and the realistic scenarios he paints. He also writes well, and he has mastered the twin skills of plotting and characterization. The Ghost War is, simply, outstanding,