It's been noted that Richard Holbrooke's review of a new intellectual biography of McGeorge Bundy is excellent, and a liberal signal from the well-regarded diplomat who is now being spoken of as a possible special envoy to one of the world's trouble zones, perhaps Afghanistan-Pakistan-India. It's easy to see Holbrooke's smart recognition of past mistakes -- "Bundy never believed in negotiations with the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese. This, coupled with his enduring faith in the value of military force in almost any terrain or circumstance, were his greatest errors" -- as an attempt to cover his left flank during delicate maneuverings in search of higher office, just as Larry Summers and Robert Rubin have written high-profile arguments in favor of liberal positions they had opposed or ignored in the past.
But the piece also carries another caution for the new administration, where some people (like me) are seeing signs of a "Best and Brightest" approach. Jokes aside, we all know how that one turned out. Given the caliber of the people Obama has put in place thus far, arrogance is always a concern, despite the president-elect's rhetorical focus on transparency and avoiding the presidential bubble.
But there is also the concern of transition itself; Vietnam went from a bad decision to a disaster when Lyndon Johnson didn't bother to rethink strategy there after he inherited the war. Similarly, though Obama's Iraq strategy is clear, he is inheriting an even more challenging war in Afghanistan and coming into office committed to a troop escalation there. That may be the right policy, but given the challenges and ambiguities of that conflict, the new national security team (whether or not it includes Holbrooke) would be well served by a broad strategic review that figures out exactly what the U.S.'s strategic goals there are, and how exactly further military force furthers those goals. Take this lesson of Bundy's, highlighted in the review: “Never Deploy Military Means in Pursuit of Indeterminate Ends.”
--Tim Fernholz
