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- [00:00]
A
It's just remarkable how badly this administration has handled all of the diplomacy of this war. Welcome to Shield of the Republic, a podcast sponsored by the Bulwark and the Miller center of Public affairs at the University of Virginia. I'm Eric Edelman, counselor at the center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, nonresident fellow at the Miller center, and a Bulwark contributor. And I'm joined by my partner in all things strategery, Elliot Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Strategy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as well as a contributing writer to the Atlantic. Elliot, how are you? It's cooled off again. I thought we had wisps of spring coming, but it's now cooled off again.
- [00:48]
B
It is actually a lovely day. Being a New Englander, I really enjoy this. Before I ask you to start off with Jack Ashris, I thought I might pull aside their curtain a little bit. You know, a lot of our listeners want to know what is it? What is life really like under the facade of the the happy family of Shield of the Republic? And I just want you all to know that, you know, sometimes we have our spats. You know, I, I say, eric, you are succumbing to Trump derangement syndrome. And, and Eric, you know, unaccountably and insultingly replies, no, I am not. And I reply wittily, yes, you are. And he says, no, I am not. I say, yes, you are. And then we after a while this somebody finally says 23 skidoo your father's mustache, which 65 years ago was the real put down and that would usually terminate things. So there the differences of opinion may may surface during this one, although we're pretty much aligned on on everything. But it is a beautiful day and I'm seeing stuff even beginning to come up in our garden. So the milk of human kindness is flowing again, but not for long. So why don't you start with the jackasseries of the week?
- [02:02]
A
You know, it just seems impossible to have this segment of our show without having to refer to the Secretary of all Defense. The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, released a video this week in which he tries to persuade the American public which is being asked to, you know, pay taxes to support a $1.5 trillion defense budget. I mean, I support higher defense spending. I have a little bit of concern about exactly how this budget is being put together. But that's a subject for another day. But this video is the most absurd, ridiculous, jejune thing. I mean, he is seems hyper caffeinated in the video as he frequently does. You know, it. It's just the idea that this man is responsible for the largest bureaucracy in the federal government and a trillion dollar budget is just hard to believe. On a more serious note, I have to say the Department of State let go about 230 or so employees, 200 foreign service officers, and think civil servants or so had been riffed about a year ago during the heyday of Doge. And those riffs now finally came, you know, to, to the fore, and those people were all shown the door. This coincides with some NPR reporting about mass exodus of senior officers in the Foreign Service. Foreign Service, like the military, is a competitive up and out system. And the Trump administration, when it bothers to fill ambassadorial positions at all, which it has not done across the board, there's still a lot of vacancies, including in some pretty important places. But when it's deigned to put an ambassador in place, they've almost all been political appointees, typically in the past. I once did a study of this for George Shultz. Typically in the past, about a third of the appointees in the first year of a new presidential administration would be political appointees. They would go to Paris and London and Rome, places where Foreign Service officers living on a government salary were unlikely to be able to even, you know, handle the representational expenses and burdens. And then over the course of the four or eight year administration, the numbers would go back up to something like 80% career and 20% political. But what's happened is there's no ability to advance, to progress, and senior officers are leaving this hollowing out of our diplomatic services. You know, just struck me this week of all weeks, to have this happen at the same time that the president, after 24 hours, was forced to call off Operation Freedom because our Saudi and Qatari and other allies had denied us the use of airspace that was creating the so called red, white and blue dome that the Secretary of Defense announced when the administration was still maintaining that Operation Freedom was ongoing. We'd failed to adequately communicate what we were doing. And also they were expressing their distress with what they understood to be the administration's willingness to concede certain things to the Iranians as part of this negotiation to get an MOU that will create a more permanent ceasefire than the one we have now. It's just remarkable how badly this administration has handled all of the diplomacy of this war.
- [05:56]
B
Yeah. So just a couple of comments, but also a question on the Hexath video. You really have to see it. I mean, we'll we'll put a link in the, in the show notes. It's the kind of thing a 14 year old might have put together on, you know, using GROK or one of those things. And it's, we just forget how, because these people keep on busting the norms so much. You used to have dignified people as secretaries of Defense and this is just, you know, a sort of a mean spirited buffoon. So there's, there's that one parenthetical comment about the point about FSOs which, you know, I take very seriously and particularly career ambassadors. I think you and I would agree that there actually is a place for some political ambassadors for a couple of reasons. One, as you say, I mean, in France, in Paris or London or places like that, you do want somebody who can entertain lavishly and the government just doesn't pay for that and you need it. I mean, it's part of the job. The second thing is there's some, there have been political ambassadors in the past who've actually been very, very good. And that can be either because they know the country very well, they may have studied there and done business there or something like that, but also because a President, an ambassador is the personal representative, as you know, having been a ambassador twice of the representative is a personal representative of the President. And as a result, I think can carry, frequently carries more weight, I think that other ambassadors do because people feel they have a, a direct line to the President. No, I, I would not accuse this administration of appointing those kinds of people. There probably are some of them out there who are okay, but I, I don't think many. And in any case, the larger point I think is, is right. The question that I have for you though is assuming that something like this sort of continues for some time. Although as you point out, this is sort of a delayed, is the delayed consequence of the Doge rifts. What, what will it take several years from now when you have a different president in who may want to rebuild the Foreign Service? What would it take to rebuild it? I mean, what would you recommend? I mean, you know, who knows, Maybe at the time you'll be tasked with leading a committee or a commission or something to on rebuilding the Foreign Service. How hard do you think that will be? Because it's absolutely true. I mean, you lose an enormous amount of expertise and experience precisely doing the kinds of things that you need during a war, which, you know, we certainly don't have.
- [08:55]
A
Yeah, it's a great question. Let me start first by seconding your absolutely correct observation that you know, There have been some extremely good political appointees. You know, I think I can think of a couple right off the top of my head. I mean, one. One was Senator Mike Mansfield, who was appointed to be ambassador to Japan, I think, by President Carter, if I recall correctly, who was there for 10 years. Continued on. I remember visiting Japan with George Shultz when he was Secretary of State. Ambassador Mansfield was still there as ambassador. Now, it needs to be pointed out that not only was he Senate Majority leader, very distinguished political leader, he also, in his earlier Life, had a PhD in Asian history and had been a professor of Asian history before he entered politics. One thinks of Arthur Burns, who was ambassador to the FRG under. I think it was President Reagan, who did, you know, quite a. Quite a good job. You know, I think Rahm Emanuel. Everything I hear suggests that, you know, Senator, that Rahm Emanuel did a very good job as ambassador in Japan. And I'm told that Senator Bill Haggerty, who's now a member of the United States Senate, but in the first Trump term, was ambassador to Japan, did a very credible job, you know, as well. So there's certainly a place, you know, for these people. By the way, it doesn't have to be the case that the cost of entertainment, you know, precludes Foreign Service officers from being ambassadors in some of these other places. The truth is, you know, we've had career ambassadors at the Court of St. James. One of my former bosses, Raymond Seitz, was ambassador to the Court of St. James at one point. We tried to get Frank Wisner in the Clinton administration to succeed Pamela Harriman as ambassador in Paris. There is a mechanism for the State Department to provide additional representational funding for people who lack the means to do it. It's still not easy for them because the costs in those places are really quite high. I believe the late Reg Bartholomew was also a case in Italy, where I believe he was ambassador in Italy and managed to handle those responsibilities. But there needs to be a proper balance. You can't have. You shouldn't have entirely Foreign Service ambassadors. I think there is a place, and there are certain places where in particular, the ability to actually pick up the phone and call the president actually makes a difference or is perceived to make a difference. But we need, as I said, a balance. The restoration of these capabilities is, I believe, gonna be a generation's worth of work. The problem is you can't just bring in a bunch of young people and say, oh, we're gonna rapidly advance you. Because part of what makes the Foreign Service what It is, is. And I learned that very quickly. I joined the Foreign Service in January of 1980 during the Carter administration, and I was finishing up my PhD in history, and I was absolutely persuaded. I was ready to be an Assistant secretary. And it didn't take long to disabuse me of that notion and to understand that there was a craft here that needed to be learned, that there was kind of apprenticeship system that needed to be honored because there were certain kinds of experiences that one had to have that having bright ideas about policy were great. But understanding how to actually turn bright ideas into actual policies that then actually get executed is a whole different kettle of fish and involves a lot of skills that I certainly didn't have in January of 1980, took a while to actually develop. So you can't kind of just replace these people because what we've lost are essentially people, people that you and I as a taxpayer have paid for 20 years for them to develop language and regional expertise and management skills that have now put them in a position where we as taxpayers are going to get the payoff, which is their skills harnessed to the interests of the nation. And we've lost that opportunity. It's going to take a long time. I mean, I think there's some things that can be done along the way that might actually improve the training and education of diplomats. I mean, we totally lack in the Foreign Service the kind of professional military education that, that the military has. So, you know, that, you know, that's all things that can be done to improve it. But it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of work.
- [14:45]
B
Yeah, well, I think they're, they're probably going to have to recall some of the old war horses back into public service. So, you know, prepare for your third, third tour as an ambassador somewhere. So let me give, let me give you my jack. Let me give you my jackassries of the, of the week. The first. And I, I admit I have an interest here because of my association with, with the Atlantic. Cash Patel, I believe, is personally suing the author of an article which we've discussed. And I believe the DOJ is about to, is going to try to do some investigations. So this was an article by, I think, Sarah Fitzpatrick about Cash Patel, the director of the FBI, his drinking habits, his absenteeism from the office. So it's very well sourced and it's jackassery because, I mean, in one way it's sinister, but another way it's just jackassery because they're going to lose The Atlantic has very deep pockets, they have very good lawyers. My personal belief is all these things are completely true. The, the story is, I believe, deeply, you know, has been deeply reported and they're going to look like even bigger idiots. And it's, it's an example of some of the self defeating behavior that, that one has seen in this administration. And then when, you know, I, I've been reading a, a book called Blood in Winter, which is about the first year of the English Civil War. And King Charles the first was a much more refined man than Donald Trump, but, but it was the same kind of authoritarian instincts coupled with irascibility and extraordinarily poor judgment in doing things like trying to arrest the people like John Pym, the, you know, some of the leading figures in the House of Commons, and then losing your nerve and, and making everything much worse. So that's one piece of jackassery. The second one, which maybe will be a little bit more controversial, there's an article by Scott Anderson, who's a writer for the New York Times Magazine, in the, in the New York Times about the Iran war. Anderson was, I think, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize this year with a, a book about the Iranian revolution that has, however, no sources in Farsi, which he does not speak or read. And there were two things that really struck me about it, and this is not particularly to go after him, but I think is unfortunately characteristic of a lot of the commentary on the Iran war. The first thing is there were a lot of, there were a number of comments about the nature of war which made me realize, okay, this is not somebody who's thought or read deeply about some of these matters. So he says, well, look, there are only two ways this can end. You know, I don't know of any war of which you could say that there are many ways in which any war can end. I mean, I think he outlined two of them, both very bad. But you know, to, to say that certainly with confidence means, you know, you haven't really studied what, how wars actually unfold. Then there were, there were a lot of sort of flip military comments along the lines of, well, okay, drones have rendered tanks obsolete. Drones are like machine guns in World War I. They've completely transformed warfare, which is partly true, and there's no defense against them. So once again, you know, if you know anything about the history of World War I, you know that actually the machine gun is not the most important thing. It's the invention of smokeless powder, rapid fire rifles, but above all artillery. It's Artillery that kills and wounds most people In World War I, I think the usual figure is well over 70%, not to mention poison gas, barbed wire, and so on and so on and so forth. And, and the, the reason why I'm making a point of this, again, it's not particularly to go after him, but it is to just suggest we all need to be really careful of some of the shallow implicit generalizations about war that people make in connection with this conflict. And that includes using words like quagmire, say, okay, this is just like Vietnam. No, it's not like Vietnam. Or this is the most unpopular war ever. No, I mean if you remember the Vietnam War, that was unpopular in a very different way as it has to be when you're drafting hundreds of thousands of young men to go against their wills to fight in a place like Vietnam. The second thing though is that the article, like the book, and again like a lot of the commentary, which is why I'm, I'm raising it, is it's, it's solipsistic. It's all about us. You know, there are no, nobody else really has agency. This is not about decisions that the Iranians are making. It's all about decisions, bad decisions in his view that we are making. And again, I just think that's a very, very big mistake. And, and I think articles about articles and reporting and commentary on this war which simply focus on us are really doing a disservice because it's at least a two sided endeavor. And in many ways it's. Actually, there are many more players than that. I may just be a grumpy pedantic professor, but that's my second piece of jackassery.
- [20:38]
A
Well, it's all about us. Problem is rampant, I think in not just commentary in this war, certainly commentary on the history of U. S Iranian relations. A number of years back we had Ray Takei on the show when he published his book on the last Shah on Reza Pahlavi and his fall. He's now working on a much more detailed account of the Carter administration's policies towards Iran that led, led up to the revolution. A point Ray always makes is that we act as if the US was the only actor. And there is this myth that the United States somehow single handedly put Reza Pahlavi back on the throne, overthrew Moussa, violated the will of the Iranian people, et cetera, without understanding any of the context, which is that Mossadegh had made himself extremely unpopular across the country. He, it's true, he won an election but he then squandered public opinion pretty quickly. That happens, by the way, we'll get a chance to talk a little bit more about how politicians can squander big electoral victories when we talk about the British local elections later in the show. But not only had he squandered the popularity, but he had created a lot of enemies, including in the military, including in the clergy, which now rule the country, or at least it's ruled in their name now. It's really the IRGC that's running the country now, but. And has been for a while, but. And it was the bazaaris who were distraught with, you know, with Mossadegh's rule. So you can, you know, combine the forces of the bizarre, the clergy and the military. That's a big chunk of Iranian society. And the notion that we somehow, magically. Because we did have a covert effort to help the Shah. There's no question about that. I'm not gainsaying that. But the idea that whatever role we played was the predominant one, as opposed to a supporting role that may have, on the margins, affected the outcome, it really is the worst kind of hubris, honestly.
- [23:06]
B
It's. Yeah. And the thing that's interesting is it's an implicit hubris, I think, based on the assumption that the United States is all powerful. Whether you're being deeply critical of the United States or are completely over on the other side. The assumption that it's only what we do that matters reflects hubris, and it's simply not an accurate portrayal of the world. So since I think we've already begun talking about the Iran war, why don't we plunge more deeply into it? I think one of our. One of our particularly bitter disagreements is you believe in taco, and I believe in tacos. Taco for Trump always chickens out. My view is Trump always chickens out sometimes. Hence. Hence, tacos. And I. I mean, I. I will say this, by the way. I think it's entirely conceivable that he's gonna, you know, toss his hands up in the air and try to walk away from this. But. But let me give you my. My kind of quick take on why I think this is. Actually, this dance that we're in is going to go on for a long time. I. As I believe I said last time, I don't. I don't think Trump understands the Iranian leadership. I don't think the Iranian leadership understands him. And I don't think either side knows how to be a clever and gracious winner, let alone a clever and gracious loser. Both of them are, both sides are awful that way. So the chances that even if Trump wants to walk away from this, which he very well might, that the Iranians will do stuff which will cause him to say, oh, screw it, and order the equivalent of the Hanoi and Haiphong Christmas bombing, which, you know, you, you mentioned last week, I, I think is actually pretty high. I'll say one more thing and then you'll tell me. I know why I'm wrong. The, you know, the Operation Freedom thing, again, a debacle, you know, they, they launch it, they actually send several people, including Rubio, out to defend it. And he gives a very articulate thing. This is why this is great and successful, and immediately cancels it, in part because the Saudis have been so infuriated by how, how we have treated them all. True. I thought it was interesting and more significant than, again, I think a lot of the reporting is led on that the United States was able to clear a lane of mines. Now, this is despite the fact, as you and I have discussed, that the US Navy has let its mine clearing capabilities atrophy. There was clearly a, I think we'd, you know, a secret classified, you know, underwater drone kind of technology that was, that was probably used. That's a, that's a. But that's a pretty significant thing. Secondly, second thing that strikes me about is we slipped a couple of, not just commercial ships out, but a couple of destroyers in, a couple of destroyers back out. The United States Navy, I guarantee you, would not risk a Arleigh Burke class destroyer in an area which they thought was mine. So in other words, they must have been very, very confident that there were, there were no mines. That's actually, you know, again, that tells you that they've, that they've achieved something. Third thing, the Iranians decided to take pot shots at us. And with speedboats and missiles all shot down, that's actually moderately impressive. But it's fourthly and finally it's striking that they're doing those things. And of course, we're now striking back. I think just before we tape this, I saw that we lit up a, an Iranian tanker that was trying to break through the blockade line. And that it just reinforces my sense that, you know, this could blow up in any of a number of ways. One of the reasons why I'm not willing to predict anything about it. So have at me.
- [27:28]
A
Okay, so here's my repast, for what it's worth. You know, I'll, I'll see your taco and tacos and raise you one nacho, which is. Which is what one wit on the Internet said was his acronym for Operation Freedom with Not a chance Hormuz Gets Open. So, Look, I. As often as the case, I agree with a lot of what you say, Elliot. So every once in a while, the President surprises me because he accidentally says something that's true. And part of the difficulty of parsing all this as he lies so much and makes so much shit up, that when he says, you know. So a couple. You know, a couple of weeks ago, he was saying, we're minesweeping even as we speak. And I'm going, well, that's bullshit, because I know the minesweepers aren't even in the theater, so how could they be doing minesweeping? What he obviously was referring to was what you, you know, just discussed, which was the. The fact that we used, as I understand it, a classified, low observable, probably unmanned capability to clear out a passage of mines. I kind of read the Navy's attitude here maybe a little differently than you do, which is I do think they tried to do this as a kind of proof of concept to get other ships to come out of the Gulf, which is why the sent the destroyers through the strait out of the Gu. The Gulf of Oman, actually across into the Persian or Arabian Gulf, whichever you prefer. And two ships came out, but I would note they didn't go deep into the Gulf. They went in kind of, and then came out.