Back in the olden days of law enforcement, even before my time, the rules for the use of deadly force were captured in three words, “Intent, Opportunity, Capability.” By the time I was wearing a badge, this had been replaced by something called the escalation of force model, but all the old-timers (and by old-timers I mean people that were the age I am now) complained about how much simpler the Intent, Opportunity, Capability model was.

The short version is that in order to justifiably use deadly force (aka shoot someone) you had to be able to articulate how they were a threat of “serious bodily harm to yourself or others.” These concepts were built into every escalation of force exercise and shoot/don’t shoot drill that was conducted. These exercises normally consisted of one of the components being vague and the police officer (in my case, Air Force cops, but close enough) being drilled about why they took the action they did. Eg.’There is a suspect with a knife [capability] and he is threatening to kill you [intent]. He is currently 100 feet away [no opportunity]‘ These kinds of drills were sometimes academic, sometimes ridiculous and sometimes philosophical. For example, How do you deal with someone threatening suicide with a pistol? [PROTIP: Just like this]

The point of all this is to highlight that without all three of these components present there is no immediate threat. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the standards required to use deadly force against a subject are not the same standards that are applied to determining if someone is a terrorist threat, but I think this framework may help cut through some of the breathless reporting surrounding the “Plot to Destroy the Pentagon with UAVs”

[Yes, this is where I *finally* segue into the actual point of this post]

So, here is the abridged version of what happened with Rezwan Ferdaus,

Ferdaus is accused of planning to use three remote-controlled airplanes measuring from 60-80 inches in length, with explosives packed into each plane. The planes, guided by GPS and capable of speeds greater than 100 m.p.h., would hit the Pentagon and blow the Capitol dome to “smithereens,” according to Ferdaus’ plan, detailed in the affidavit. Ferdaus then planned a follow-up automatic weapons attack with six people, according to the affidavit.

Sounds pretty serious, huh? The impression you got from most of the reporting today was that the FBI swooped in a the last minute to disrupt this terrorist cell.

Jihadist plot foiled, G-Men save the day and America, F@%& Yeah-All rolled into one.

Only one problem. Ferdaus was an idiot and there is no way he could have executed any of this.

If you read the affidavit (credit to @IntelWire for link) you will see that Ferdaus, despite having a DEGREE IN PHYSICS, seems to think that an RC airplane loaded with 5 whole pounds of C4 would accomplish “blow[ing] the dome to Smithereens” However, since the Pentagon is slightly larger than the Capitol Dome, he calculated that it would take TWO of the RC planes (refers to them as F4 Phantoms below) loaded with 5 pounds of C4 to take that building down. Keep in mind he believed it was important to strike “opposite” sides of the Pentagon in order to take it down (to the FBI’s credit, they apparently got a laugh out of this, because they put it in quotes, too.)

Just for perspective, here is a photo of the one of the planes that Ferdaus planned to use. This one is an F-86 Sabre replica, but according to the affidavit it was the same scale as the F-4. Please note that it is perched very comfortably on some patio furniture.

I was going to create and insert a graphic showing the size comparison between this “aircraft” and the Pentagon, but I as soon as I started I realized how ridiculous it was. The Pentagon is massive: 3,705,793 square feet. Now, my physics degree is still in the mail, but I think that I’m safe saying that regardless of which floor you hit, the best you can hope for, even calculating for the 5lbs of C4 is a scorch mark on the outside of the Pentagon. Maybe, just maybe, this aircraft could have penetrated the dome of the Capitol, but in the post-event cleanup I’m pretty sure the description would not include the word “smithereens”

Here’s the thing, Ferdaus doesn’t just dream, he dreams big. Not normal human being big, but Jerry Bruckheimer-big. Not only was he going to take down the Capitol Dome *and* destroy the Pentagon, he was simultaneously going to use the remaining 9 pounds of C4 to blow up the bridges surrounding the Pentagon. Then he was going to use his crack team of six al-Qaeda Qaemmandos [If they don't spell it that way they should] to fire on civilians as they fled the facilities and chaos ensued.

Ferdaus had it all planned out. The affidavit even includes a map laying out the precise locations of his targets.

It also highlights Ferdaus’s extensive experience with small arms…

——-

Ferdaus even knew the perfect place to procure all the materials for his attack.

Ferdaus also utilized an alias for procuring all his materials; “Dave Winfield”. I can only assume that this was an homage to Dave Winfield’s epic jihad against Canadian seagulls circa 1983.

Oh yeah, that 6-man team that he was going to utilize to kill politicians as they fled the fiery wreckage of the Capitol? They didn’t actually exist. Apparently, Ferdaus was the only person involved. The Qaemmandos? They were all undercover FBI or FBI informants. All of the equipment, the aircraft, the AK-47s, the C4, the grenades, all of it was paid for and delivered under the watchful eye of the Federal agents. It was like a weird al-Qaeda version of ‘The Truman Show.’ Everyone knew Rezwan Ferdaus wasn’t a real competent jihadi except him.

My co-blogger Daveed probably captured it best here:

The impression that you are given from reading the affidavit, is that Rezwan Ferdaus was completely detached from reality and would have had a difficult time managing anything more complex than a paper route. However, while it is certainly fun to mock the delusional aspirations of this guy, the affidavit does have a darker side. In addition to his ridiculous plan to single handedly take down Washington DC, he was also modifying cell phones to be used as IED detonators in Iraq. While the affidavit does not indicate whether or not these would have actually worked, it does state that he demonstrated the devices lighting a small LED when dialed, signifying at least a basic amount of electronics competence. At a minimum, he believed that they would work and even moreso, he believed that they HAD worked.

Ferdaus also made chilling statements to the agents over the course of the investigation, such as the last line in this section.

So, what do we know? What do we take from this?

I’m going to continue to stretch, perhaps beyond breaking, the example I started with. What aspects did Ferdaus actually demonstrate?

Intent: Absolutely. Ferdaus clearly intended to cause serious harm and even beyond that when it was “confirmed” to him that his devices had killed soldiers in Iraq, he reveled in it. Despite his poor grasp on physics, geometry, chemistry and cartography it is clear that he intended to harm the US.

Opportunity: Yes. Part of living in a free society is that there are very few restrictions placed on individual movement. He was in no way restricted from executing his (completely ridiculous) plan.

Capability: Here is the hard one. As you are reading the affidavit, it is very difficult to imagine that Ferdaus would have had the capability to accomplish anything without the assistance of the FBI. Even if he had managed to collect all the components of his plan it seems highly doubtful any aspect of this had a prayer of being successful.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that Ferdaus wasn’t dangerous. If his desires to kill were so easily facilitated by law enforcement, than they could have also been enabled by an organization like al-Qaeda. I’m also, very explicitly, not saying this is a case of entrapment, which is an accusation that has been levied in the past. You have to sympathize with the FBI agents a little. As you read you can sense the places where agents seem to point to the ‘exits’ from the path that Rezwan Ferdas is on. He repeatedly rushes past them. However, even with all of those caveats in place, the fact remains Rezwan Ferdaus was not an imminent threat to the US.

This wasn’t a plot that was foiled, it was a delusion that was abruptly ended.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t how the story was portrayed throughout the media today. Almost universally, it was treated as a legitimate threat and Rezwan Ferdas as some kind of Jihadi Lex Luthor. Here is an example, in this Daily Beast story from Eli Lake,

With a couple of small variations, Eli Lake’s piece reads like the vast majority of other articles, but look at the oversized quote. This is my concern because this is what we boil the whole story down to. We are Americans, we are incapable of nuance. The entire focus here is on Ferdaus’s intent, because that is what he had in spades and we completely ignore the fact that he had no money, no contacts and no idea how to put his “plan” into action. If you read the affidavit, there is no way anyone could refer to Ferdaus as the “worst nightmare” for the US or draw the conclusion that he had any “highly specialized skills.” Ferdaus was more Four Lions than Four Horseman.

Why does it matter, whats a little sensationalism among friends? Its important because these things have a feedback loop and at some point, this “plot” is going to become a justification for an additional action that we need to take to combat “terrorism.” That means more resources go into preventing something that was never an actual threat. When we take idiots like Ferdaus, idiots with evil intentions but nothing else, and frame them as existential threats to our way of life than we set ourselves up for a vicious cycle of responding to continuously more ridiculous threats.

********************************UPDATE**************************************

I’m crossing my fingers that this follow-up story from Milton Valencia (@MiltonValencia) at the Boston Globe gets wider circulation next week. Its looking pretty clear likely that the tip that led to this guys arrest came from his old mosque.

You’re probably aware that Iran recently announced that it would be sending naval warships to patrol the Western Atlantic. As a fairly close observer of the Iranian navy, I initially followed this story with great amusement because, well, that’s a monumental undertaking for the Iranian navy to support. However, my amusement was quickly replaced by incredulity and anger as US news outlets picked up the story and inserted outrageous headlines on top of a story that was a non-story. Let me skip to the ending: Iran is not sending warships to the Florida coast.

The Century Foundation’s InsideIRAN project and I got in touch via Twitter over the story and I ended up doing an interview with them on their website. Let me add something though that I don’t think I expressed clearly enough in the interview. The likelihood that Iran sends a warship or two or three to the Western Atlantic to run continuous maritime patrols is almost zero. They simply can’t sustain that kind of operation. Instead, what they *might* do is make a port call to somewhere like Venezuela. Even this, as I note in the interview, would stretch the limits of their capabilities and I’m not sure they could pull it off. But, it is possible and certainly more likely than the first scenario.

Here’s an excerpt:

Q: Iranian military officials have declared their intention to send Iranian warships near United States territorial waters. What does the Iranian military hope to accomplish with this declaration?

A: Iran’s recent declarations of intent to send warships to U.S. coastal waters are a reflection of Iran’s unhappiness with the presence of the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf. Iran views the U.S. naval presence in its coastal waters as illegitimate and unnecessary. Moreover, Iran views U.S. presence with suspicion as these assets could be used to launch an attack on Iran in the event the nuclear issue reaches a point where the U.S. would strike Iran. Iran’s threats to reciprocate in kind—deploying warships close to U.S. territory—is a way for Iran to highlight the issue. Iran, perhaps more than any other country, is a master at exploiting tactical actions into strategic communications victories. Recent pronouncements are a perfect example of this skill. The more worrying possibility is that Iran simply makes the long voyage to a place like Venezuela, not to use as a base for maritime patrols near the U.S., but as a simple port call to deliver certain high-end military technology or components.

Q: What logistical challenges would an Iranian fleet have to overcome to reach the United States’ maritime border in the Atlantic?

A: First, it’s important to define what we mean by Iranian fleet. The most likely arrangement would be one (1) Iranian Alvand class light frigate (some sources classify it as a corvette); and one (1) Kharg class replenishment ship. Iran has sent similar fleets to Eritrea and Sudan over the last several years. The most notable recent example was Iran’s visit to Syria that transited the Suez Canal in February raising the ire of Israel.

The logistical impediments Iran would have to overcome in order to complete a deployment to the Western Atlantic are enormous, possibly insurmountable. Iran has no permanent or temporary bases in the Western Hemisphere at which it can make port in order to refuel and resupply. Thus, it would have to rely on friends and allies to receive its ships and resupply them with fuel and other supplies.

Q: How could an Iranian fleet resupply or refuel/ overcome these challenges? Where could this refueling be accomplished?

A: As I said above, given that Iran has no military bases in the Western Hemisphere, Iran would need a base in South or Central America from where it could send patrols to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic. The most likely candidate is Venezuela. The shortest route between Iran and Venezuela, via the Suez Canal, is roughly 8,700 nautical miles (nm). If Iran decided to make a port call in Syria, the trip could be reduced to roughly 6,000 nm. That distance would still stretch the limits of Iran’s capabilities. The Kharg class replenishment ship can make that journey alone, but carrying fuel for itself and the frigate could be a challenge. The Alvand class frigate only has a range of 3,650 nm. So, Iran would have to be able to execute what’s known as underway replenishment, a challenging and dangerous undertaking even for the U.S. Navy who performs it regularly. Iran is said to be developing this capability, but it’s still unknown.

You can read the rest here.

See, I can do other things besides strategery!

Last night a student journalist sent me an inquiry about Osama bin Laden’s death — inquiring whether I “really believe Osama Bin Laden is dead.” Blake Hounshell quipped, probably correctly, that I “should have just written, ‘Yes.’” But, being me, that isn’t what I did. Instead I spent what was quite likely far too much time going through the data points that caused him to question bin Laden’s death, and explaining why I thought he was misreading the relevant information. I am posting an only slightly cleaned-up version of my e-mail below (but keeping the journalist’s identity secret) because I think it illustrates a few relevant points concerning conspiracy theories within my field.

The first thing it illustrates is how much time it takes to debunk rather baseless conspiracy theories. The e-mail sent to me basically strung together a number of disparate data points that didn’t amount to much — but going through and actually explaining why I disagreed with his reading of each of these points was a rather time-consuming task.

The second relevant thing this exchange illustrates is one of the harms of baseless conspiracy theories: actually debunking them requires a great deal of time that could be better spent on more productive matters. And this is one reason that a lot of intelligent people tend not to spend their time refuting conspiracy theories: it requires time and mental energy that could be more productively used. Unfortunately, the fact that intelligent people don’t spend their time debunking these matters is one thing that helps them to fester. There is also another, more sinister, reason that intelligent people sometimes steer clear of debating conspiracy theories: the proponents of these theories can recklessly hurl accusations, potentially endangering your work, or your life. Read this entry concerning Andrew Exum’s experience with a German conspiracy theorist that illustrates the point.

And note that when one starts with the position that they want to believe in a grand conspiracy, decisively refuting it can be near impossible. The below e-mail demonstrates that my interlocutor misinterpreted or misunderstood every data point that caused him to question whether bin Laden is dead — but at the end of the day, what I have written doesn’t prove that bin Laden is in fact dead. Someone committed to believing in a conspiracy can easily, proceeding from a baseline of radical skepticism, simply shift the basis for his skepticism and impose new burdens of proof.

Both the left and the right have their own conspiracy theories. There are of course some actual conspiracies in this world, so I wouldn’t argue that they are never correct. Rather, I’d simply counsel that if you find yourself being persuaded by a conspiracy theory, do some serious due diligence at the front end to make sure that you won’t simply end up wasting various people’s time on it — including your own.

My third and final point concerns collegiality, a topic that garnered some attention when Andrew Exum and I discussed it in a Q&A I did for his Abu Muqawama blog. When Exum asked me about the collegiality I tend to display in my exchanges on Twitter and elsewhere, I explained that among other things there is a strategic reason for this. “I find that if I’m civil, I can actually (sometimes) persuade people I’m arguing against that they’re wrong about an issue. In contrast, if I begin a debate by insulting someone, it only further entrenches him in his initial position, thus making it more difficult to talk sense into him,” I noted. Now, I have no idea if I will persuade this journalist that this idea for a non-story isn’t worth writing about, or that his conspiratorial view of bin Laden’s death is wrong. But I do know that if I have any chance of persuading him on this point, it is by assuming his good faith when answering his questions, and addressing them directly, rather than belittling him. Moreover, I think this exchange underscores one other point I made in my discussion with Exum: being polite does not mean holding back in your arguments.

What follows is my e-mail to the journalist, slightly edited for publication.

Thank you for your e-mail. To answer your question: yes, Osama bin Laden is dead. The U.S. possessed his body, and thus had every opportunity to verify his death. Moreover, al Qaeda has conceded that bin Laden was killed, and has elected a new emir (Ayman al Zawahiri) to replace him. Let me answer the various threads of argument that you use to question whether he is in fact dead, and then conclude with my thoughts on your proposed story.

Saddam Hussein was in fact a Sunni Muslim, not a “sunny Muslim.” Saddam was executed by the Iraqis (not by the U.S.) following a trial. This is different from bin Laden’s death in several ways, the most important being that the U.S. and Iraq chose to handle these deaths in different ways. In contrast to Iraq, the U.S. government made the decision not to release pictures of a dead Osama bin Laden. As President Obama told CBS News, “It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool. That’s not who we are. We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.” So the decision not to release the photos was quite deliberate. While deciding not to release the photos inevitably gave rise to some conspiracy theories, graphic photos of a dead bin Laden being released really could have reflected poorly on the U.S. President Obama’s statement that this could be used “as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool” is eminently reasonable.

Second, the Secret Service did not make video of a dead bin Laden public. (When you consider what the Secret Service is charged with, there’s little reason to think the decision to release the photo would be theirs, nor that they would be the agency making it public.) I think you are referring not to a video but rather to an alleged photo of a dead bin Laden. But that photo was a fake that wasn’t released by the U.S. government. MSNBC traces the photo to the Middle East online newspaper themedialine.org, which published it on April 29, 2009, with the caveat that it was “unable to ascertain whether the photo is genuine or not.” Some people circulated that picture when bin Laden was killed and a few media outlets, hungry for any information, circulated the photo as genuine before they could really fact-check the matter. But this picture was not put forward by the U.S. government.

This situation is quite different from that involving estimates of Iraqi WMDs. Intelligence is more an art than a science, and the estimates concerning Iraqi WMDs were based on reading disparate data points to draw a conclusion about something that was half a world away and shrouded in secrecy. In such situations, the intelligence community sometimes gets its conclusions wrong. (This is not to excuse the intelligence failures that led us into Iraq, but rather to explain that intelligence is most uncertain when it deals with a distant object with a relatively limited amount of data available concerning it.) In contrast, bin Laden’s death is not based on an intelligence estimate of a distant land. The U.S. had the body in its possession, and the fact that bin Laden was in fact dead was confirmed through several methods, including DNA testing. When the U.S. has a body in hand, I am pretty confident in the government’s ability to confirm who was killed.

If you’re challenging conventional wisdom on something like bin Laden’s death, you need to make sure you have all your facts right. In this case, you don’t have Bhutto’s first name right (she was named Benazir, not Bengazi). Nor was she the prime minister of Pakistan in 2007, so her views did not represent those of Pakistan’s government; nor was she an intelligence analyst. Nor did Turkish intelligence “confirm” bin Laden’s death in 2007. Assuming that your information is correct that they thought he was dead in 2007, it can’t be a confirmation since they had no body, and thus no way to confirm. Rather, it is simply an estimate based on the data points they’re looking at — and that estimate could be completely wrong, just as the U.S.’s estimate about Iraqi WMDs was wrong.

When no bodies have been recovered from strikes against jihadi leaders, several governments have in the past wrongly concluded that major terror kingpins were killed when this wasn’t the case. These incorrect conclusions are attributable not to conspiracy, but to something that I pointed to before: the degree to which intelligence is uncertain when evaluating a distant object. Given the secrecy that surrounds bin Laden, and his international prominence, it’s not surprising that in the past analysts and others have believed some false things about him. (One example is the idea that bin Laden was on dialysis: he wasn’t.) Conspiracy is generally a poor explanation for conflicting information and conflicting conclusions: rather, this is what happens when people try to make sense of a confusing world. If conflicting conclusions were evidence of a conspiracy, then baseball analysts’ differing predictions about who will win the upcoming World Series surely demonstrates that something nefarious will be afoot in October.

Also, you imply that Bhutto may have been assassinated because she claimed that bin Laden was dead. There is literally not a shred of evidence suggesting that this was the force motivating her killers.

Finally, you write with respect to my response: “I would appreciate your response and time Mr Gartenstein, I am sure your a busy man. I just need to get a good story, and have a tight deadline.” I appreciate deadlines, and while I’m happy to help you, I strongly advise that you reconsider writing this piece. I would suggest that it won’t make a good story, for a couple of reasons. First, as I said, if you’re challenging the conventional wisdom on any point, you need to make sure that you have a mastery of your facts. It’s clear that you’re not at that point with respect to bin Laden’s death; and you will be doing your readers a disservice if you accuse the U.S. of a grand conspiracy without even knowing all the information that’s publicly available on the matter. And second, this isn’t really a “story.” There’s no news hook, nothing that has broken recently that might make us conclude that bin Laden is alive. Instead, the angle you seem to be embracing is poking holes in the story of bin Laden’s death — but many of those “holes” are caused by your own misinterpretation of facts (i.e. the belief that the Secret Service released a video of bin Laden’s death).

I do not mean to seem harsh in my verdict on the piece. Instead of being harsh, I am trying to be helpful by suggesting flaws in the proposed story, and suggesting other ways to think about these issues. While we’re blessed to live in a country where people can believe whatever they’d like about matters like this, from my perspective the vast majority of conspiracy theories waste people’s time. They make some people believe things that are false (and the idea that bin Laden wasn’t killed in Abbottabad is false), and make others waste their time debunking false information.

By now, everyone has read Whither the Commons? Choosing Security Over Control, right? If you didn’t, and relied solely on my summary and accompanying editorial, then caveat lector. No, in all seriousness I think I presented it well; it’s just worth reading in its entirety. I got a lot of positive feedback on yesterday’s post—and some new followers on twitter—but want to remind everyone that positive feedback should be reserved for the authors, not me. That plea stands in light of what you’re about to read—my criticisms of the paper.

I don’t want to leave everyone with the impression that I swallowed the paper like a glass of 18 yr old single malt—smooth and without question—because it’s not perfect (unlike scotch). The first problem is methodological. Lalwani and Shifrinson chose to restrict their analysis to the maritime commons and do not specify how a scaled back strategy for command of the commons works in the other commons—air, space, and cyber. The reader is left to assume alternative approaches to securing these other commons would closely resemble their control approach to the maritime commons. The second problem is epistemological.* The paper’s realist framework—in the sense that rational and interest maximizing states are the only actors that matter—neglects the social experience of state behavior and the diffusion of power among societies and non-state actors. The last problem is political. This criticism is not directed so much at the argument itself as it is at the political obstacles to implementing the paper’s recommendations. Such a shift in strategy will require a Herculean effort in order to overcome America’s own perceptions (and interests) of its role as the indispensable nation. We’ll call this the “We’re #1 and if we’re not, then we’re effed” mentality.

Methodology

The paper only examines the maritime commons; it does not evaluate air, space, or cyber domains. The authors’ argument for doing so, laid out in the beginning, is compelling and makes sense. In short, the authors limit their scope because of (1) the centrality of maritime commons to international trade; (2) U.S. dependence on maritime commons for economic security and power projection; and (3) the increasing contestation of the maritime commons by state and non-state actors. By the way, this critique isn’t really a critique, more like food for thought.

A security of the commons approach a does not easily translate into the other global commons, particularly cyber. How exactly does the U.S. rely on regional partners to maintain the freedom of the cyber commons? The very idea of the cyber domain broken down into regions does not seem to accord with reality. After all, cyber connects everyone, everywhere, all the time. And what about the space commons? How comfortable is the United States relying on China or Russia to maintain freedom of access to the space commons, particularly given U.S. reliance on satellites and the gravity of the threat posed by intercontinental ballistic missiles?

I do not believe that the U.S. is ready to cede control of the space and cyber commons. Moreover, I’m not even sure that we should. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the concept of securing the space and cyber commons; my thoughts are not fully formed and I’m open to being convinced one way or the other. Cyber, I do think, represents the toughest nut to crack though. Having engaged in multiple discussions on the subject with my friend Gulliver (@InkSptsGulliver), securitizing the cyber domain, given the extent and nature of the private sector’s involvement in it, can be seen as the beginning of a slippery slope that ends in the securitization of fat kids and pets.

If the United States is not prepared to cede control of the space and cyber commons, that’s okay, but then it should be prepared to cede control of the air and maritime commons, those areas where we can accept more risk. Thus, the United States will be able to reduce overall defense expenditures or at the very least keep them constant. Such an approach, choosing to reduce force posture in one area (maritime) in favor of another (space, cyber) is exactly how strategy is supposed to work. The strategic process is half the battle. Let’s see if the boys and girls in the White House, Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon can go do it. Holding my breath in 3…2…1.

Epistemology*

The security of the commons approach requires that regional partners and allies secure the commons in their immediate neighborhoods. The U.S. will necessarily cede some relative power to these states. Thus, the U.S. will want these partners to largely share our interests. In East Asia, for example, the U.S. would expect and prefer that Japan provide security for the commons, rather than China. This case exposes the limits of the security approach.

Can anyone imagine a world where China or South Korea willingly stands by and watches Japan rebuild its navy? Japan’s imperial treatment of both the Chinese and the Koreans during the 1930s and 40s certainly hasn’t been forgotten in Beijing or Seoul. The security of the commons approach neglects to account for the social experience and human perceptions that shape state behavior. As an aside, this is ultimately what prevents me from claiming full-fledged membership in the realist school—it does not allow for the social, human component that impacts international politics in unpredictable and, dare I say, irrational ways.

The other problem is that the paper neglects the power of societies and non-state actors. Lalwani and Shifrinson dismiss non-state actors as a non-factor. While I believe this dismissal is warranted from a military perspective, I’m not so quick to dismiss their power to shape international politics, particularly as it relates to narratives, ideas, and information. While I disagree vehemently with Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s (@SlaughterAM) notions of sovereignty, her piece in yesterday’s The Atlantic was excellent, particularly her discussion of complexity theory and the power of social forces. (For a solid rebuttal, see my man Dan Trombly @stcolumbia.) Lalwani and Shifrinson do not account for these things at all. Like any good realist, I bestow state actors the prominence they rightly deserve in international relations, but I also at least recognize the increasing power of social forces.

A few months ago, I rhetorically asked on Twitter why U.S. policymakers continue to view Russia or China as a threat. My mother’s response—yes, my mother is on Twitter (I can’t believe I’m doing this… @ruemom) and she responds to her eldest son’s liberalism with ice cold neoconservatism**—was perfect. Because they are. Now, my mom has an epic 31 year hitting streak of dropping knowledge on me, no surprises there. Little did I know—as my good friend Erin Simpson (@charlie_simpson) pointed out—that she was actually a constructivist.

Politics

The final problem—and this one concerns implementation and not the argument itself—is political. As one of the panelists during the paper’s presentation last week pointed out, the United States has spent the last twenty years convincing itself that the current strategy of U.S. primacy as the means to controlling the commons is the correct approach. This is the whole “We’re #1 and if we’re not, then we’re effed” problem. Americans have conditioned themselves to accept a world where the United States is the sole guarantor of world security. Can they live in one where it’s not? Can they accept a world where the United States is but one of several great powers (militarily)? Most importantly, can its political leaders accept this reduced role without conflating it with isolationism? (I’m looking at you Senators McCain, Graham, and Lieberman.) If so, is there enough political willpower to overcome the bureaucratic interests at stake in maintaining the status quo? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I suggest we start asking them of ourselves and our political class, uh, soon.

All in all, there’s a lot more to like in this paper than there is to dislike; the strengths of a security of the commons approach far outweigh the weaknesses, and I highly suggest everyone read the whole paper soon. Lalwani and Shifrinson have done something special. As for each and every member of the National Security Council, Senate and House Armed Services Committees, and OSD Policy… hopefully you’re too busy thinking about and writing your own vision for U.S. national security to read this one. Hopefully.

* I struggled throughout my master’s program LSE with the whole ontology / epistemology thing. Even my thesis advisor admitted to me once that even she got confused by the whole epistemology thing. Yeah. So, that gave me the confidence to throw around the word however I pleased. That said, I really do think this is the appropriate context and I’m not using it to sound smart. Correct me, politely, if I’m wrong.

** The women in my family, as noted here, are ice cold.