the effects of illogic

national security versus partisanship

Perhaps the most stunning part of the indictment unsealed yesterday was the utter disdain regarding protecting the country’s most sensitive security topics. I was never a decision-maker but have certainly heard individuals, from multiple administrations, talk about life and death issues with absolute solemnity in secure settings where any possible leak of details cannot occur. Rank and file people do lose clearances and go to jail. The questions relating to the use of nuclear weapons or waging war against another country, regardless of the cause, elicit a level of gravitas unparalleled in its seriousness; these are truly life and death choices for the enemy but also for our forces and citizens broadly.

It’s a measure of how remote some in the former president’s party apparently are from the seriousness of warfare and secrecy that they would choose both to offer a blanket exoneration of the former President without a trial and to vilify, even indirectly, those seeking to assure we are protecting national security secrets. I am completely confident that the charges arise primarily because improper handling of classified materials risks so much. It is fanciful that someone would fabricate charges of this particular nature simply to score points. The indictment includes counts so specific and basic to long-existent statutes well known by anyone who accepts a security clearance; perhaps non-traditional politicians do not understand but those working as aides definitely do.

I similarly find it incomprehensible that documents outlining any specifics on nuclear weapons were outside of a secure compartmentalised information facility (SCIF) for any purpose. This is foolhearty since all discussions relating to those documents need be in secure faciilities and the classified sections cannot be cited in someone’s memoirs or anywhere else so why were they circulating? One doesn’t take notes off classified documents, then leave the secure facility with those notes. It doesn’t work that way.

We often discuss how few in our nation served in the military following Vietnam. I am not positive about the numbers but my gut reaction is that we witnessed a slight increase in veteran representation on the Hill. The overall knowledge of national security issues, however, remains relatively low. The logic of how we treat information, however, is not the least bit controversial but it is spelled out clearly. Classified information is government propery available in specially designated locations unless carried in quite specific ways, under protocols long established, to another location before returning it to a compartmentalised facility. Ask any Senator or Representative where she looks at classified documents; I am confident it is not in a bathroom.

War plans and nuclear weapons, two topics alleged mishandled in materials inappropriately retained and stored according to the indictment, are remarkably sensitive because they go to the heart of possible wide-scale conflict. PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY, if the United States were to launch a pre-emptive move against a state thought to be developing nuclear or chemical or biological weaponry, there are a whole series of sequenced events necessary to meet our objectives. Wars don’t just happen as one fills a grocery cart at Kroger. Military actions in the modern world require not only coordination among and between the services but also with our allies and frequently with others who we hope will stay out of conflict should it arise between the United States and said country. Think back about how long it took—roughly 18 months—for the Bush 43 administration to go to war with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. War is a complicated business.

If said state worried, however, that we were going to attack, the leaders of that state might feel they must attack us before we could attack them. This escalatory process could well take on new meaning if even snippets of conversations or planning documents circulated, especially if they were cited in an out-of-date or incorrect manner, to frighten said state into acting quickly. That state could push its allies to move against us.

Our allies might well feel unprepared and ultimately distrustful of U.S. leadership. In an era when every U.S. president for twenty years cited the role of partners and allies for U.S. actions overseas, this escalatory ladder could destabilise not only the increasingly interrelated world because the United States is the only state with truly global interests and commitments. This spreading of even small amounts of information would be dangerous.

Documents even citing our assumptions about conflict, about our allies and partners, and a host of other topics about which the President and national security leaders need the most honest assessment would be compromised by our counterparts knowing our internal calculations. If our sources for gathering information on others became known, those people would likely stop helping us if they even survived. In some states, they would be incarcerated, if not put to death. The damage of recent spy scandals included compromising our standing with other leaders, some even close friends, and governments. Classified information gets that designation because is disclosure can damage the security of the United States, like it or not.

Further, nuclear weapons are so powerful that a single country ever detonated them against an adversary: the United States brought war to an end following detonations over Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). Together those two bombs killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, evidence of the potency of the relatively unsophisticated (compared with subsequent hydrogen weapons) atomic weapons. They remain a feared tool, hence we have all been deterred from using them again.

The details of these weapons remained classified for decades as did even the term ‘gadget’ by which the initial atomic device was known among the Manhattan Project scientists. The Project’s primary scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lost his security clearance after fears arose regarding his political reliability, illustrative of how seriously security community protected naitional secrets decades ago. Oppenheimer posthumously received his clearance again but the fears of damage he could have caused by sharing nuclear secrets was a major issue for the better part of the 1950s. We penalise people for sharing classified material because it threatens the security of the nation.

President Trump said during the 2016 campaign and in the early months of his term that he did not believe in discussing his negotiating style, preferring to keep his interlocutors guessing as to his anticipated positions. Allowing the possible compromise of documents discussing either war plans or nuclear arms is the antithesis of that behaviour. It is curious, at a minimum, he could have acted in such a risky manner.

Few, if any, people remain from the World War II and 1950s national security decision-makers. With poor historic knowledge, even in the halls of government, so many of those (primarily Republicans but theoretically others as well) decrying the indictment on partisan grounds are the same people savaging their political opposition for being weak on defense. I cannot help but wonder how this entire drama appears to our advesaries abroad since they see us spend nearly a trillion dollars annually on defense (undoubtedly we reach that magical number in the national security budget when we add in Veterans’ Affairs, intelligence, the States Department, and the pittance we spend on foreign aid) as Republicans often complain we are spending an inadequate amount on defense. Speaker McCarthy sent the House of Representatives home last week because the revolt by ‘Freedom Caucus’ against his leadership resulted in part to McCarthy negotiating a debt ceiling resolution which would not increase defense spending further. The Freedom Caucus fury was not simply about domestic cuts.

Yet these same individuals do not see a threat from completely inadequately storing classified documents at an hotel where we know several suspicious Chinese visitors came without explanation after Donald Trump became Commander-in-Chief. The logic does not flow for me.

The threats of this classified material falling into the hands of people excluded from the ‘need to know’ category appear high when one reads the incidents cited in the indictment. I hear no denials that these incidents occurred; rather I am told that the entire concern is that the charges are politically motivated which is a completely illogical jump.

The sensitivity of the material sitting in boxes in a ballroom or a bathroom rather than in a SCIF threatens not only our national interests but additionally the safety of those women and men serving in national security, whether civilian or military. The logical disconnects at work are further evidence that our nation is on the brink of incoherence as we allow partisanship to become the sole vehicle of thinking. That will not work and we are perilously close to the entire system collapsing. Providing any assistance, whether inadvertent or deliberate, to our adversaries only accelerates our demise regardless who is the president. But, can’t we at least use logic to argue among ourselves?FIN