by MELVIN GOODMAN FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Photo by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff |

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has a well deserved reputation for conspiracy thinking. Presumably he will assume that the U.S. intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the former director of National Intelligence, conducted a campaign to force his removal from the Trump administration.  Ironically, the Kremlin, which has lived historically in a world of conspiracy thinking, will view the ouster of Flynn as part of a campaign by the U.S. establishment to prevent any improvement in Russian-American relations.

In this conspiratorial realm, it’s important to acknowledge at the outset that Flynn was probably the least qualified and the most questionable individual in the 70-year history of the National Security Council to be selected as the president’s sherpa for national security policy.  His behavior during the presidential campaign was thoroughly unprofessional and a source of embarrassment to the military establishment and the Republican Party.  His retirement from the military several years ago was engineered by the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of his failed stewardship at the Defense Intelligence Agency.  He had a reputation at DIA as a polemicist, and many of his pronouncements there were derided as “Flynn facts” because they had no basis in actual fact.

Flynn’s lies to Vice President Pence made it inevitable that he would be forced to resign. Donald Trump was already impatient with Flynn because the general, who was poorly grounded in geopolitical and geoeconomic affairs, couldn’t tell the president the international implications of a strong vs. a weak dollar on the global economy.   The fact that Flynn was unaware or unconcerned that his conversations with the Russian ambassador in Washington would be recorded by the FBI and the National Security Agency was not exactly a feather in his cap as a long-term intelligence professional.  And the fact that he claimed not to remember his discussions with the Russian ambassador is not a recommendation for any high-level position in the decision making community, let alone the advisor closest to the president on foreign policy.  The unusual elevation of Steve Bannon to the NSC two weeks ago suggested that the president wanted his own source for Flynn’s maneuvers and machinations within the key decision making body for national security policy.

The Kremlin will have its own way to decipher these bizarre and chaotic developments within a new administration that appears clueless in conceptualizing and conducting foreign policy.  In the past, Soviet leaders have interpreted major events in U.S. history from the standpoint of implications for Moscow’s relations with the United States.  The assassination of John F. Kennedy was interpreted as an effort to silence a president who had spoken in favor of detente with the Soviet Union and had just concluded the Partial Test Ban Treaty.  The impeachment of Richard Nixon was seen as an effort to stop the progress in arms control and disarmament.  The initial tough-mindedness of the George H.W. Bush administration was viewed as an attempt to reverse the gains between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s.

Ironically, Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had their own problems with the Soviet establishment in the 1980s when they worked assiduously to improve relations with the United States, including the acceptance of various arms control measures on Washington’s terms and the unilateral withdrawal of Soviet forces from Central Europe and various areas in the Third World.  The “new thinking” of Gorbachev and Shevardnadze was a challenge to old thinking within the Politburo, and Russian leaders will conclude that the U.S. establishment has challenged Donald Trump and Michael Flynn for their interest in reversing the decline in Russian-American relations.  Flynn deceived the Vice President and the mainstream media, but it is unlikely that his talks with the Russian ambassador had not been discussed with president-elect Trump.

We may never know if Trump and Flynn were actually seeking a grand bargain with Russia and Vladimir Putin, but it certainly appears that the Russian leader wants to reverse the deterioration in bilateral relations. Putin presumably is not willing to go as far as Gorbachev and Shevardnadze regarding mutually beneficial agreements, but he certainly wants to reverse the downward spiral. Irony will reign again if it develops that the removal of Flynn leads to a further decline in Russian-American relations.

BY JONATHAN EASLEY – 02/15/17 

By George Friedman Feb. 15, 2017

I spent last weekend in the United Arab Emirates at a conference on the future of governance. While there, I was struck by the two principles that underlay this conference and its ilk. The participants’ core belief was that human government can be improved, and the means for improving it is social engineering. If we all turn our minds to governance, we can find solutions to the problems. The idea that human government is a permanent thing that reached its perfection in Athens and Jerusalem was not part of the participants’ ideology. What was most striking is that sitting within sight of the Gulf – Arab or Persian depending on the viewpoint – in a place of ancient civilizations, the theme was how to engineer the political future.

Less alien, but not less striking, is the manner in which this concept has taken hold in Euro-American civilization. That civilization grew out of the Enlightenment, and its political foundation was the idea of republicanism, an idea that rests on the right of national self-determination. The idea that the nation is the foundation of a moral political life was self-evident to the American and French revolutions and their heirs. The individual and his nation were intimately bound. And the right of a nation’s people to govern themselves was central to the nation.

There was, of course, another part of the Enlightenment, the idea that reason ought to be used to improve all things, including government, and the idea that those who had mastered the subject at hand were to be respected and listened to. So an aeronautical engineer (always on my mind when I am at 36,000 feet) should design planes. Experts in governance should design governments.

A man carries a European Union flag outside the Supreme Court in Parliament Square, on Jan. 24, 2017 in London, England. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The idea that expertise ought to guide our political life is at odds with the principle of national self-determination. Expertise means experts, and experts are defined as knowing more than the rest of us. If government ought to rest on expertise, then experts should govern. If government should rest on the consent of the governed, then the premise is that all of us, by virtue of being citizens of a nation, are qualified to determine how the nation ought to be governed.

There is a blended version of this. The people should govern by selecting representatives, then those representatives ought to select experts to work on the details. It seems to me that this is one of those solutions that appears readily soluble but isn’t. In selecting a president or prime minister, the people are both imbuing him with power and holding him accountable. The idea of expertise is that governance is so complicated it requires experts to manage it. Very quickly the ability of the elected representative to determine the direction of the nation, or of the possibility of national self-determination, dissolves.

This is not the result of a conspiracy of the experts. The people’s expectation of what the state can do for them has surged, and with it the complexity of the process. Citizens cannot manage the complexity, and elected officials cannot oversee the complexity. By default, the republican system has moved from a relationship between the people and their representatives to one between the people, their representatives and the managers. This process has been underway for a long time, since European states created a permanent civil service to do the bidding of their political masters. And since that time, the civil servants have increasingly managed the system – and managed their political masters.

Over time, the technocrats, who are the experts, developed ambitions and ideology. The ambition was to be free of the meddling hand of politicians and the ignorant whims of the people, and to be free, in the words of the United States Constitution, to build “a more perfect union” without being constrained by the inexpert help of the citizens or government. There was political ambition in this of course, but there was also logic. If history is the unfolding of reason, then those most trained in the application of reason must be allowed to rule. But the truth also was that the creation of a defense plan or a health care system requires expertise that citizens and representatives lack.

At the same time, there was an ideology at work as well, and it was most visible in the European Union. If the goal is to constantly improve governance, then a broader vision than the nation-state is needed. The problems that have to be solved can’t be solved within the narrow confines of a single nation-state. The nation stands in the way of improvement. Just as the people are incapable of understanding the technical complexity of the matter at hand, national boundaries are unable to contain the solution.

In going to meetings – and these happen continually and globally – attendees are experts in all areas. They genuinely know many vital things. But in thinking of global problems, they tend to think of national boundaries as impediments to solutions and national self-determination as being of value, as long as nations understand that there is a problem, that they are unlikely to solve it or even understand it, and they are prepared to cede authority to the experts, the technocrats.

In Europe, which was the laboratory for this, there was an attempt to solve the problem. National self-determination was guaranteed, but a complex political process with uncertain authority and little deference to the people governed. Behind it a relatively small but powerful group of technocrats designed and redesigned the details of European life.

It was a reasonable arrangement as long as it worked. The problem with technocracy is that its claim to authority is expertise, and the proof of expertise is success. If the technocracy is seen as a failure, then the technocrats’ right to manage the systems is destroyed. But the problem then is that given the complexity of what has been created, even a failed technocracy can argue that it may not have done well, but it can understand the failure better than anyone else. And more likely, the claim will be made that it did not fail, but the remnants of nations, governments and uneducated people selecting these governments caused it to fail.

There are two questions facing us. First, does the nation still constitute the framework of human life, and is representative democracy competent in managing the state? Second, is the theory of social and political expertise a myth? Are the technocrats competent to manage the complexity that the state has become?

This has become the fundamental issue of our time. From the technocrats’ point of view, the idea that the nation should be the primary interest of the state is anachronistic and dangerous. Nationalist movements threaten the ability of experts to govern. From the standpoint of increasing numbers of voters, technocracy usurps the power vested in the people without being able to manage the system successfully.

This has also created a social divide. The Euro-American educational system is constructed on the idea that management is at the center of success. The management of a government, a business, a hospital or a charity depends on expertise. For their social position, members of the managerial class of Euro-American society depend on the idea that they are indispensable to society. They have an obligation to manage well, and they have a right to rewards for good management. As such, this class manages everything from hedge funds to schools and shares in common this sense of social obligation and rights.

That class excluded from the managerial class is increasingly unprepared to concede that the technocrats of the managerial class have earned their benefits. 2008 was important for many reasons, but chief among them, it raised the question of whether the claims of expertise and beneficial social consequences was simply a cover for avarice. Indeed, the argument against technocrats everywhere is that they lack the expertise they claim to have, and their real end is to skew wealth in their favor.

This argument goes along with the argument that the technocrats, rather than increasing their modesty, are increasing their claim to authority and working to eliminate the right to national self-determination. That right derives from the moral equality of all people, and claims that the right to control government derives from a citizen’s human rights and interests. It does not rest on an expertise that technocracy claims but doesn’t clearly have or use for the common good.

One class is appalled by the rise of nationalism. The other is terrified that in stripping away the nation-state, they will be left helpless. This is not a frivolous argument. It rests directly at the heart of the Enlightenment and of the Euro-American search for representative democracy and expertise. On one side, the complexity of governance is beyond all our ability to grasp. It must have technocrats. On the other, that complexity may be a threat to liberal democracy as first conceived.

This question is at the heart of many of our divisions, and is being discussed daily even when people don’t realize they are discussing it. Technocrats are struggling with how to perfect the world. Citizens are struggling with how not to lose control over their lives. It is not just that they live different lives. It is that they live in different moral universes.

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By Cheyenne Ligon  Feb. 15, 2017

On Feb. 13, Islamic State militants recaptured five villages approximately 20 miles west of Raqqa near the Tabqa Dam. The villages were held by the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Islamic State is currently facing simultaneous attacks on multiple fronts across Syria, but the battle for this territory is the most significant for the security of IS-held territory. Losing control of the Tabqa Dam and the nearby highway, which links Raqqa and IS forces to the west in the Aleppo theater, would constitute a direct threat to Raqqa and other core IS holdings. In many recent engagements, IS has either dug in for a siege or retreated and regrouped. The territory being fought over in this area, however, is more strategically important to IS. If our model is correct, we should see a military response from the Islamic State aimed at driving the SDF back from the Tabqa Dam and its surrounding areas. The result of the battle for this territory will be an important indicator of IS’ conventional strength and has a significant impact on our forecast.

Opposition fighters backing Turkish troops drive past stones blocking a road in the village of Hazwan on the outskirts of the Syrian town of al-Bab as they advance towards the town, which is the last stronghold of the Islamic State group in Syria’s Aleppo’s province on February 12, 2017. RAFAT AHMAD/AFP/Getty Images

The five villages retaken by the Islamic State – Bayoud, al-Kabirah, al-Widyan, Turkiyah and al-Suwaidiya – were originally taken by the SDF in early January as part of the second phase of Operation Wrath of the Euphrates. The second phase was aimed at retaking the countryside in western Raqqa, and lasted from Dec. 10 to Feb. 4. Approximately 180 villages were retaken by the SDF during this period, amounting to over 270 square miles of territory. For the SDF, taking the Tabqa Dam was the primary objective of the offensive. After reaching the villages surrounding the dam on Jan. 7, the SDF and IS clashed for over two weeks. IS used heavy machine guns and mortars against SDF fighters and the villages changed hands multiple times. When the SDF reached the dam on Jan. 23, the Islamic State responded by opening the dam’s turbines to raise the Euphrates River’s water level, forcing the SDF to retreat from surrounding villages. By Jan. 26, however, the SDF had fully retaken the dam and surrounding areas from Islamic State militants stationed there. When the SDF rerouted their fighters and resources to the city’s eastern countryside, they left the areas SDF had just taken from IS as targets for an opportunistic IS counterattack.

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In December 2015, Geopolitical Futures published an in-depth study of IS’ strategic position in Syria. That study identified four distinct vulnerabilities that could be used to attack the Islamic State’s heartland. One of the attack vectors the report identified was an assault on Raqqa directly from the north, which is the current approach the SDF are taking. The SDF are trying to accomplish two things. By taking the area around the Tabqa Dam, the SDF aim to cut off IS’ supply lines for fighters and weapons to the west. The SDF could also use the dam to flood Raqqa or interfere with the water supply that allows the caliphate to survive in the middle of an otherwise inhospitable desert. By crossing over the river by the dam and taking control of al-Thawra, which can be used to cut the main highway, the SDF would be in a strong position to either start a siege or begin preparations for a direct assault on Raqqa. The SDF are also sending forces to eastern Raqqa. The goal of this force will be to cut the main roads linking Raqqa to Deir al-Zour and to surround Raqqa in preparation for an assault on the city. One of IS’ key strengths has been its ability to move fighters, weapons and supplies at will across its holdings and the desert. If this strength is negated or significantly curtailed, it would cut IS holdings off from each other. In the past, the territory IS has retreated from or lost has not threatened its core territory. The SDF, however, are now starting to approach ground that poses an existential threat to IS territorial holdings in Syria, and if IS has significant fighting strength left, it will resist these encroachments.

This raises the question of both sides’ current fighting capabilities. According to estimates from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the SDF number somewhere around 40,000 to 50,000 in Syria, which accounts for losses in battles and new recruits gleaned from liberating IS-controlled territory. However, it is unclear how many of these fighters are taking part in Operation Wrath of the Euphrates and defending the newly retaken territory and the Tabqa Dam in western Raqqa. The number of IS fighters remains difficult to ascertain. If the various daily reports of IS casualties are true, it would indicate IS is a far larger force than anyone predicted. IS’ numbers immediately after its emergence were underestimated. Now, the figures are likely inflated. Based on analysis of multiple sources, we estimated at the end of 2015 that IS had roughly 50,000 fighters in Syria, though the accuracy of that figure was uncertain. Taking into account attrition and the other theaters in which IS fighters are active, estimates for the number of fighters in Raqqa might range from 10,000 to 25,000. Raqqa is only about a fifth the size of Mosul, but it is still a city of about 200,000 people. IS has had sufficient time to prepare defenses in Raqqa’s urban environment – even if the SDF concentrated all their forces on Raqqa, which would mean risking counterattack in other key areas, they would not be able to take Raqqa in a direct assault.

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It has always been difficult to figure out the number of fighters IS can field; inference has had to be relied on more often than concrete evidence. The fact that IS remains active in al-Bab, west of Raqqa, and in Palmyra, east of Homs, suggests IS remains strong enough to fight on multiple fronts. Consider the fact that al-Bab is not of critical importance to IS core territories and that IS has been facing Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, as well as Russian and U.S. airstrikes on its positions. Despite months of fighting, IS has held onto much of the city and its surroundings. IS may think of its fighters in al-Bab as necessary to keep its enemies distracted, or IS may simply judge that it has enough fighters to continue the fight for the region. The situation in Palmyra is similar. It is relatively far away from Raqqa and offers a difficult attack approach on IS’ capital. But the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Palmyra to oust the rebels from Aleppo presented IS with a target of opportunity, which it seized. If Raqqa and the strategic areas around it were in danger of imminent loss, it is unlikely IS would be maintaining the level of forces it would need in these two other theaters to defend its position or to carry out attacks.

The current battle unfolding between the SDF and IS in western Raqqa is significant. It represents an instance in which IS’ core territory is being threatened by an enemy force. GPF’s model sees IS as remaining a capable fighting force. If this is the case, and if IS wants to maintain control over territory, the IS counterattack and seizure of the five villages near the Tabqa Dam should be the opening salvo of a larger defensive operation. The size of this operation and its success or failure will be an important indicator of IS strength and will serve as an important test of GPF’s model. If IS is unable to defend this territory, GPF will need to conduct an internal reassessment of IS’ military strength.

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