AUSPC2011: Dynamics of Defense Cooperation
Arab-US Policymakers Conference 2011
October 27-28, 2011 – Ronald Reagan International Trade Center, Washington, DC
This year marks the 20th Arab-US Policymakers Conference, or AUSPC, organized by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, under the direction of Dr. John Duke Anthony. The Policymakers Conference series has endured by filling a void on the Washington calendar for a regular, well organized symposium where leaders in diplomacy, business, academia, the military and elsewhere can assemble to network and discuss the challenges and issues affecting the Arab world and the United States’ policy and position in it. SUSRIS has had the privilege of attending all of the AUSPC conferences since it was launched nine years ago and has admired the hard work and dedication that has produced a very professional, highly regarded event. We applaud the National Council on US-Arab Relations for advancing its mission through the conference and look forward to many more years of Policymakers Conferences.
***
Arab-US Policymakers Conference
Washington, DC
October 27, 2011
Dynamics of Defense Cooperation
Chair:
Ambassador James Larocco – Director Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, former U.S. Ambassador to the State of Kuwait
Speakers:
Dr. Joseph Moynihan – Chairman, Board of Directors, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Vice President, Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems
General Joseph Hoar, USMC, Ret. – Former Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command; Chairman, J.P. Hoar & Associates
Commentators:
Col. David Des Roches (USA) – Professor, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Mr. Bob Sharp – Assistant Professor, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Remarks as delivered
***
[Dr. John Duke Anthony] Ladies and gentlemen, Ambassador Freeman’s remarks touched on a number of issues geographically, territorially, institutionally, ideologically, and strategically. Many have a defense dynamic or component to them, in terms of protecting the assets that exist that have been hard fought for and won and protecting the interests not only of the American people and the United States but those of its friends, its partners, its strategic allies. So the defense component of all of this is of extraordinary importance and the more so with each day, certainly with the past decade, since we have deepened our involvement in this part of the world. The chair of this session is Ambassador James Larocco, who is the Director of the Center for Near East and South Asia Strategic Studies. He is a career diplomat with 35 years of service, former Ambassador to Kuwait, but thoroughly familiar as well with Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the dynamics of foreign policy making here in the nations capital. Ambassador Larocco.
[Ambassador James Larocco] Thank you very much, John. And thank you for inviting me to be here today. It is a real privilege to be with truly one of the greatest figures of our time over the last, I won’t mention how many years, but it has been a long time, John.
Our topic is the future of defense cooperation and I’m delighted to have as panelists here today, two very distinguished speakers. You have their bios available in the book so I won’t get into that. The first speaker will be Dr. Moynihan who will talk about defense cooperation implications following the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki . General Hoar will speak about defense cooperation implications following what some refer to as the “Arab Spring,” what I like to call the Middle East in transition. But at a recent seminar I was conducting in one of the Gulf countries when I said that one of the people in the audience stood up and said we here like the term “Arab Spring” because in the Gulf the “Arab Spring” is followed by a very long, hot, miserable summer, so to us its quite apt, maybe not to you. He’ll be focusing particularly on Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
After that we will have some comments by Colonel Dave Des Roches, who is currently in the position as director for OSD policy for the Arabian Peninsula, and is coming on board at NESA, which we are very proud of that. Then Professor Bob Sharp who has been a professor at NESA for over a year now, before that NDU. Dave will comment particularly on the U.S. Government approach and Professor Sharp will talk about leader centric approaches.
I would like to kick off this discussion with some comments based on my travels this year. As someone who has been involved in the region for almost 40 years now I did not want to miss anything this year. Fortunately my wife and I bought a new house in Old Town so she was happy to have me away while she was redecorating unilaterally which is the best way to keep a 33-year marriage going.
I have traveled over 150,000 miles this year in the region, and another 50,000 before the end of this year. I truly wanted to get a feel for what’s happening. So I would like to make a few general comments that do not really tie in with what the other speakers will be saying but I think they are important.
First is the role of the United States. If anything, what I hear over and over again, either with a finger shaking at my face, or a plea, is that the United States not self impose isolation on its own in the region, that the United States not withdraw. There is a deep, deep concern that we are doing so, and that we believe, that our American people and the government believe, this is the right approach, that we should save money and address our deficit by withdrawing from the region. Continually what I hear is that we are the indispensible power in the region. Whether it is the release of a hostage, the overthrow of a dictator or the launching of new economic program our role is considered essential even if, I hate this term, we lead from behind. This is the fear in countries as they see a changing dynamic. I would like to focus on a couple that were touched on, as well by Ambassador Freeman. One is Iran.
Iran is more active now in the view of the people of the region as they tell me, and before I go any further I must tell you I am liberated. I am a full time member of the Senior Executive Service of the Department of Defense. Even so I am allowed to speak freely. So I do not, when I speak, represent the views of the Department of Defense or the US Government, which allows me to, in fact, have a very serious frank discussions, influence free throughout the region. Iran is deep, deep concern. It is considered that their actions, not just their words, are truly threatening in a way that they have not threatened since the Iranian Revolution.
If you take a look, again I want to relate this directly to the topic, at US defense sales, particularly official US official defense sales. Up until a few years ago they continued to be dominated by sales to our NATO allies, and some to countries in East Asia. Not any more. In recent years the overwhelming preponderance of our official sales are to the Middle East, to the Gulf States and elsewhere in the region. This is a fact. And if you look at the charts the divergence is growing even more. I would like to think that is because we are great friends, but it is not. It’s because of this primarily fear of states in the region looking to their east. Whether it is the fear of Iran, a fear of China, a fear of India – let’s not fool ourselves, people in the region are looking much more to the East these days than they are to the West. But they also look at the United States as still being the only country in the world that can project hard power anywhere, anyplace, anytime. And they do believe that having a strong defense cooperation relationship with this is their best safeguard for their future.
That is reflected in arms sales, defense cooperation and in cooperation in counter terrorism. So I wanted to throw that out and a lot of this is, again, fear of Iran to a great extent, and the inability, as they see, of the United States to address that. So ironically, this growth of Iranian influence and the inability of the U.S. to deal with it, is fostering greater arms sales. I’ll leave it at that. It is something that I see, an increasing role for the United States in terms of defense cooperation, perhaps only because of our blunders. Well, whatever it is, I see that increasing.
I also believe that this American drawdown, especially in Iraq, is changing everything rather dramatically. There is this deep concern about our withdrawal and replacement of that with a surrogate relationship through defense cooperation. If we’re not going to do it for them, they’re going to do it themselves. This is part, I believe, of countries stepping up. What I see now are four pillars in the region and I’m trying to avoid looking too far East but I can tell you that I myself am spending a lot of time traveling back and forth to Pakistan which I consider to be the biggest single threat [unintelligible] to the United States in the future. It is truly a very alarming situation there and one we need to deal with, and we’re trying.
I see four pillars. They are Turkey, Israel – whether they like it or not, they are. People judge their actions on the basis of what Israel does, or doesn’t do. Saudi Arabia, which I believe could have played a role over the years but it’s also wrapped in its own, in many respects, isolation no longer. Saudi Arabia is a very key, active, strategic pillar in the region. And Iran.
If you take those four I think you have a good understanding of the [unintelligible]. I shared in the concern that Ambassador Freeman mentioned about Israel and its isolation. I don’t think that’s good for them or it’s good for us, or it’s good for anyone. If you take a look at the last 40 or 50 years of Israel’s history, they did engage very actively in soft power. And for those of us who have been around a long time remember Israel’s strategic periphery approach in looking to try to get countries on the edges of the Arab world to work very closely with them, including Turkey, including Iran, including Morocco, including India, including a number of countries. And then their approach in terms of soft power with their neighbors was peace and they were able to achieve that.
The old saying that I learned when I was a young Foreign Service Officer headed to Saudi Arabia in 1975 is there is no war without Egypt and no peace without Syria. They got Egypt out of the equation. From the soft and hard power point of view that was a brilliant achievement even if we needed Jimmy Carter to shove this down their throats. I don’t think so. I think his role was indispensible but they knew this [unintelligible]. No peace without Syria, that’s where we’ve been all these years. But peace with Jordan has helped on the periphery as well. And I do believe that as we look at the region I see dangerous threats. Because I do believe that there is a confluence of interests between Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, particularly facing the threats to the East. But this will never come about without resolution of wider issues, including the Arab-Israeli issues.
All of this, though, whether we’re talking about Israel or Saudi Arabia or Turkey I think we are going to see greater defense cooperation with those three pillars. Iran? I wish I had a solution to that. I don’t. But I just want to make one final point. When our leaders, American leaders, say that our policy is that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon, I take that seriously. Many people don’t. I think people who do so, particularly our foreign friends, do so at their own peril in judging our policies.
So let me just throw that out there. I think I’ve been provocative in my own way. That’s what we do at NESA. I will turn first to Dr. Moynihan for his presentation. Thank you very much.
[Dr. Joseph Moynihan] Well thank you Ambassador Larocco. Goodness. Greetings again, from the Board of Directors. We are delighted today on this panel to be sharing close cooperation with the NESA Center for Strategic Studies. The National Council engages in outreach programs in a number of directions. This alliance and this partnership on issues of defense cooperation and others can only be a good thing for both organizations, and we are pleased to see it.
Next a disclaimer. My comments are my own. I am an employee of Northup Grumman and these comments have not been cleared with the company, so they are my own and shouldn’t be attributed to the Corporation. That said they are informed. I’ve been engaged in defense cooperation activities in the region for over thirty years and I think my experiences and my efforts can inform my offering today.
I’m certainly delighted to be on a panel with my colleague of many years, General Hoar. Some many years ago we would often meet in the gymnasium at MacDill Air Force Base early in the mornings and we have met in several parts of the world since then. Sir, it is an honor to be with you.
If I can get to the five points I would like to discuss with you. The first is a bit definitional. My topic was defense cooperation. I would like to more broadly address security cooperation, including certainly military but also including paramilitary, constabulary and intelligence cooperation because the efforts in the region of the United States and for that matter the residents of the region and the others who choose to join the United States or others to engage in hostilities in the region are not traditional military maneuvers. They certainly don’t qualify as the offensive or defensive or something that is easily explained by principals of war. It is far more complex and even terms like irregular warfare and terrorism really don’t do it justice. So we will talk about security cooperation in a more general sense. We will certainly include joint training exercises, access in basing, which was addressed briefly by Ambassador Freeman, operational coordination. For those of you that have ever been to MacDill Air Force Base, if you haven’t you should see the trailer park there. The trailer park which surrounds the headquarters displaying the flag of virtually every nation in the CENTCOM AOR where operational coordination occurs on a daily basis there, and to my knowledge is unmatched at any other regional combatant command.
Intelligence cooperation. Intelligence cooperation is ongoing, extensive, helpful to all concerned and even occurs between countries that are not necessarily allied, or friendly or coalition partners in other senses. Shall I suggest that it even occurs between the United States and countries that our diplomats sometimes label state sponsors of terror? These are valuable connections for all concerned and it helps us in ways that probably can’t be discussed in depth today.
Technology transfer in terms of foreign military sales and other efforts that as an industrial member I have been involved in many years are also important parts of security cooperation. And indeed the work of our friends at the NESA center is probably more important than the soft power notion of defense and security cooperation and many other things that could be mentioned.
And now we even find some constabulary cooperation. A recently announced center in Abu Dhabi to address certain, lets call them criminal justice aspects of counter terrorism, which will be jointly chaired by the Emiratis, the United States and the Turks. So if its been your thought as it was mine that Turkish interests in the region was limited to the Levant, and limited in areas not in the Gulf we can not longer be quite so certain of that since their presence in Abu Dhabi is announced and presumably will be prominent in the counter terror role.
I would say that threw is nothing specifically contained within an Arab revolution, Arab awakening, Arab spring, summer, autumn, the renewed sense of, perhaps in may cases, the new sense of individuality, of citizenry, of government participation on the part of the Arab people that should in fact diminish defense and security cooperation. Defense and security estates will certainly respond in ways they have not before to the attitudes, the opinions, the preferences of their citizens, but we should be honest that that will probably take a while. We noticed that in the case of Egypt and the military members of the TNC, the prominent military members have sort of announced that they plan to really stay in power for the next 12-18 months whether or not elections produce a civilian government during that time. And we also note that the Egyptian military is now toying with the notion of a role of guardians of the state, guardians of the people in the ways that the Turks have embraced since the days of Ataturk. We now find the Egyptian military seeking and perhaps asserting that same role.
Let me turn to my second definitional point. The United States has chosen to pursue certain individuals by military, extra-military, paramilitary, constabulary military means for a long time. They would include Geronimo, Pancho Villa, Manual Noriega, Saddam Hussein. Many, many others. In fact, it is fair to say “Dead or Alive ROE” is not so much a new notion, as it is a new notion to overtly proclaim it, which is a very questionable practice frankly.
My last assignment as a military officer was as a staff principle in the United States Special Operations Command, and I can assure you that there have been many other covert and clandestine activities which essentially pursued for good reasons “Dead or Alive ROE” that are not discussed anywhere, that have not been discussed anywhere and will not be discussed anywhere. I’ll return to that point in my closing comment, other than to mention at this time for you to think about, its probably good policy, and during the time of enormous public discourse about the loss through death of Osama bin Laden, the Iman Osama, Admiral Mullins’ comments at the time was, “Lets stop talking about this.” Anybody remember that, yet no one would.
Now lets leave that for a moment and I’ll move on to my second point, The use of lethal force by United States in combination with friends or unilaterally with or without host nation coordination, with or without declaration of war, in the vicinity has been controversial in the United States and the world. Mass murder however, is certainly a criminal activity, yet it is not only criminal, jurisdiction, size and scope are very definitely issues. I am persuaded that constabulary action, offensive constabulary action to deal with such threats and such practices, to bring justice to such individuals is both necessary and appropriate. Criminal justice solutions are not available or are inadequate beyond our shores. In that sense we should think of some of the assets whether they are at Dam Neck, Virginia or Fort Bragg or others, are truly just the largest, the most well funded and most technically proficient SWAT team in the world. Because their actions are not in a sense the military offensive, they are in fact extra judicial offensive constabulary actions as may be taken by a SWAT team in certain situations.
I’m not sure the JSOC would be flattered to hear someone refer to them as a SWAT team but that is in effect the nature of many of their actions, and that was he nature of their actions in Pakistan when Sheik Osama lost his life.
And we should know that the lawyers are involved. Now I would not be happy to try to explain to an exclusive Arab audience why there was a less demanding standard for the use of lethal force, extraterritorially than there is within the United States, that somehow citizenship is important to the lawyers. It doesn’t strike me as intuitive that it would be, but it is. So yes there is a less demanding standard but the lawyers are involved. Each target is individually approved by name through a process, that were you familiar with it you would find it to be painstaking. There is indeed Congressional coordination that occurs, admittedly not with all members of both houses but nonetheless the United States does act as a government and it does act with friends in this sense. And so I would argue with you that as targets of constabulary lethal action, Sheik Osama and Sheik Anwar were worthy targets and there are no indications to my viewing that targeting of these individuals would, should or could automatically diminish security cooperation.
In fact, in the case of the attack — by the way very different methodologies were involved in the two terminations, and in the case of the Pakistani attack against Sheik Osama, Imam Osama those tactics, techniques and procedures are shared by the United States with many Arab governments. Many times the work through JSETs and other training exercises the United States actively participates with Arab friends and the training of such techniques, the execution of techniques as a team, and capabilities exist within many Arab countries to do precisely the same sorts of actions.
That’s not the case with drones. So as we turn to my next point we have to talk a little bit about what the military, at least what the Air Force hates to hear, people refer to as drones. The Air Force calls them RPVs, remotely piloted vehicles, or sometimes other terms. As a matter of fact they will tell you their biggest limit in operational utility is the lack of sufficient number of pilots for remotely piloted vehicles. Those pilots may be in Nevada or some other location but to suggest that these are simply autonomous actions is not true.
Nonetheless we should acknowledge, as was acknowledged already today a couple of times, that RPV attacks are particularly shall we say offensive to certain audiences. There is a sense that they are ultimately indiscriminate in nature. I should mention that one of the individuals who held that view was General Stanley McChrystal who at the time of his command in Afghanistan restricted significantly and in fact eliminated for a time any attacks from manned or unmanned air vehicles, anything that the Air Force sometimes labels death from above, because General McChrystal was of the view that the collateral damage issues associated with it were simply impossible to accept in combination with a counterinsurgency strategy. I checked with him recently, by the way his successor there General Petraeus reversed much of that. I talked with General McChrystal recently and he acknowledged, one, that RPV attacks are relatively new technology, that the area was unmanned in terms of pilot, or not well manned in terms of pilots and sensor operators, that training has been a challenge for those engaged in this, and that things have improved.
As a matter of fact to suggest that RPV attacks automatically involve unacceptable collateral damage may all be 2008 or 2009 news, not 2011 news. Indeed in the more recent attacks in Yemen we find that they were highly accurate. They were highly well placed and the intelligence system that supports them works well. That said only the foolish still talk about surgical air strikes or what was the other term that we sometimes used — precision targeting. I’m a career aviator and I try not to use such terms because they don’t exist. Collateral damage will never be zero, but it may have well moved in the case of RPV attacks into the acceptable realm.
That said, you know in the technology community in which I spend much of my time there is now some discussion about lethal autonomy, simply RPV attacks without those operators in Nevada, without that confirming process, suggesting that technology itself can provide such legitimate target identification that further controls are unnecessary. That brings me to what I refer to as the mantra of Dubai, “anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” I don’t think we will ever be there and I think the safeguards that are in place will not be abandoned soon, in favor of technology, yet I also know that the burden of target identification is crucial and in my role in the defense industries I can assure you there is no higher priority in the defense industries, of my company and many others that improving target ID technology.
It is helped by the way that assets have moved from Iraq to other AORs as the numbers in Iraq have diminished, cross cueing is increasingly available, host nation human resources are also more available, technology has improved, training has improved. It is a better system now than it was even six months ago, and certainly several years ago, but it can never be perfect.
We should note that even as we talk about not doing well in Iraq and Afghanistan, not meeting our goals, we should note that the efforts including those that I’ve discussed today has reduced the age of our enemies by a decade. In Al Qaeda and in other places our opponent leadership that used to be in the mid thirties is now in the mid twenties, that’s maybe not an answer, but it is not a bad beginning either and its not trivial that our forces have managed to bring that about.
Let me finish by mentioning that the controversy associated with lethal actions, even if justified by me is just offensive constabulary actions by a super SWAT team will remain controversial, will remain critical, and those who find the efforts of the United States and her friends objectionable will always suggest that those are indiscriminate. Our opponents will hide in the middle of cities. They will suggest that even in the event of any non-combatant loss of life that this was somehow due to callousness or a lack of concern by the process associated with the release of weapons. And we seem to be playing into their hands by our incredibly ineffective strategic communications plan.
This will be my last point. I mentioned early on that we have a domestic imperative to somehow crow about these actions when they are taken, to somehow give press conferences, to somehow give video, to even engage in a discussion of giving still photographs, which fortunately we chose not to do. For myself with the death of Sheik Osama, if I had been in the decision tree, I would have suggested a simple announcement congratulating the Government of Pakistan on a job well done, leaving any participation by the United States completely unacknowledged, completely undisclosed. I don’t know why domestic political impulse requires us to engage in this but we should note as has been noted already today, that following the Arab awakening, that foreign leaders, foreign militaries will also be responding to domestic audiences. And why would you think that their imperatives or defense and security cooperation would not be adversely affected by our domestic political imperatives.
The last point I will leave with is strategic communications in the real term. You know we used to, at meetings like this, suggest that it was the demise of USIA that caused all of our problems. Well I’m certain it didn’t help. Nonetheless the strategic communications efforts of the past ten years to persuade the Arab public that we indeed are a loyal friend, that we know what we are about, that our interests are perhaps more closely aligned with their interests than they realize have been stunningly ineffective. And we have spent a lot of money. We have created TV stations, we have created radio stations, we have created newspapers, we have given interviews. We at one point were including single channel radios and leaflets and something like 60% of the munitions we dropped from our conventional forces. And yet we seem to be tone deaf.
What is it about the United States, the center of entertainment in the world, the center of communications technology in the world, that we are so completely inept in spreading our message in a way that is acceptable to Arab public audiences? Because it would be foolish on our part, it is foolish on our part, to think that, I guess our approval rating among Arab audiences increased from single digits to almost 30 percent at the time of the Presidents Cairo speech, but as measured by Telhami and Zogby, and indeed as has already been mentioned as measured by Abu Dhabi Gallup we are back now in the teens heading again to single digits in terms of Arab approval ratings of our actions, of our motives, of our interests.
How can we think that a more democratic Arab world, one in which the views of citizens will more accurately reflect Arab policies in the future, that our relationships in defense and security will survive such a poor rating. I don’t know. I don’t believe it is the priority that it needs to be. I think this aspect of soft power has been characterized by a display of incompetence on the part of our government that we should find frightening. We certainly should find an effective…, and I realize I am not answering the “how” question when I make such an assertion.
Thank you for putting up with me, I hope it was not viewed as either a whine or a rant, but maybe just somewhere in the middle. Thank you very much.
[Gen. Joseph Hoar, USMC, Ret.] My subject this morning is the implication for defense cooperation in view of the “Arab Spring.” Bearing in mind what my friend Chas Freeman had to say earlier as a background you can see that there are a lot of challenges out there. Day to day I think the American people have been very positive about the potential for change, and change for the better within the Arab world. The truth of the matter is we don’t know where this is going. I’m not sure that it is quite as serious as Chas suggested earlier today, but there are a great many uncertainties. I think what we should think about is, be careful what you wish for, because democracy in this context may not be exactly what we want.
Part of the difficulty that we have of course is we’re talking about very diverse countries within the Arab community. Tunisia, which has just had an election, which we believe thus far at least has been successful, is a very different country from Saudi Arabia where elections as we know them are still something that we hope will take place in the future. So this disparity makes it hard to generalize about what we can expect to see in the future.
What kind of democracy will we see as these elections go forward? And what will be the influence of Islam and most especially the influence of Islam as it relates to the bilateral relationship with the United States? And because these relationships are in fact what allow us to have defense cooperation, that issue will be at stake I think as we go forward and we look at these things. I think that the possibility of changes for foreign policy in many ways presaged by the relationship of the Arab countries with Israel and the difficulties that we have seen are part of all of this.
To try to show the sum difference I have chosen to speak about Egypt and Saudi Arabia. First of all they are the two most influential countries in the Arab community. And secondly their backgrounds are quite diverse. Virtually everybody in the Middle East and South Asia has had a crack at running Egypt, starting with the Greeks and then the Romans, and the Ottomans, French and the Brits and so forth.
And so their experience, which is one of great pride in 7000 years of civilization, a civilization that existed and prospered when our ancestors were actually living in caves in Northern Europe. And they are very proud of their country and justifiably so. And yet because of this colonial experience they had very difficult times in my judgment, but since the Camp David Accords they have been moving forward as a close ally with the United States. Part of that deal was to provide 1.3 billion dollars a year in foreign military funding, a very generous program for education for military officers, joint exercises, and of course other things like economic help. Of those points while the foreign military funding has provided for aircraft and tanks and material of that nature and with good results, I think the army and the air force are both very capable, very large, well equipped and despite the efforts of Israel to make sure that the qualitative advantage militarily for Israel continues, is not diminished. They do have a lot of capability.
I think beyond that we could say that foreign military education for officers has been terribly important. I think it is one of the most cost effective programs that we have within the military, because it moves middle grade and senior officers back here to the United States frequently with their families where they live in American communities, and go to places like the National War College or Command and Staff colleges around the country. In my own experience in the Middle East I find that these are very fond memories for these people, and their introduction to this brand of democracy, here in the United States frequently stems from that program.
Joint exercises have become terribly important in particular to Egypt. The Bright Star exercise that is run every two years in Egypt began as simple US-Egyptian exercise and has grown a to very complex arrangement now in which Egypt has taken a lead and invited other countries in the region to participate. And it is one that they look forward to with great enthusiasm from year to year. So those exercises are again important, but I want to point out that all of this is possible because of the good political relationship that existed between the two countries up until now. Where the elections go we don’t know, but before the Arab spring last January you will recall that Egypt politically was very solidly in the US camp. Mr. Mubarak was very supportive of our issues whether it be with Egypt or with Israel or others. Now the general’s council is preparing for an election that will take place next month. A comment about the inhabitants of this General Council some of which I have known over twenty years. These are soldiers first and not politicians or diplomats. Many of them have had longevity in their positions because they keep their head down and do the job well. They are not politically astute, have not sought publicity. I think speculation on my part but nonetheless, I think as the Egyptian government evolves you will see an increasing interest on the pat of the military of having a greater say as they did in the former regime. That may be somewhat at odds with our hopes for a truly democratic society, but we need to recall that our limitations on our own military were informed by British imperialism and the fact that you needed to have a military that was responsible to political civilian leadership for which there is very little experience in Egypt. You’ll recall that every leader since the monarchy was overthrown has been a military man, and so we can see some problems in that regard, but it is this military council that is working very closely with the Muslim Brotherhood to plan for these election. While some of us believe that they are not moving fast enough I think that may be inappropriate at this point.
But as we look at who is going to be elected, I think it is good to be remembered that the Muslim brotherhood during its terrorist period was not persecuted but certainly prosecuted by the government. But in their efforts to do this often times innocent young men that grew beards and looked at though they might be Islamists were picked up and interrogated brutally and there may still be some scores to settle between the government and the Brotherhood.
It’s important to notice with respect to Israel that 53 percent of Egyptians believe that the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt be abrogated. If elections were to take place this past month one-third of the members of parliament would be liberal, one third would be from the Muslim brotherhood, and one third would be from the Salafist group. So that is a lineup that would not necessarily be very open to US policies in the region. We don’t know that, but its one of those things we need to take into consideration.
I think the final thought about Egypt is that there is no other entity in Egypt that has been solidly and consistently more American supporters than the Egyptian military. These are people that know us, know our country, that have traveled here and are indeed good friends of the United States. And it has been common in the past that when a country which receives foreign military funding and it does something that we don’t like here in the US that we punish them by reducing or taking away their foreign military funding. In fact Senator Kerry just recently said that if Egypt didn’t shape up they might have to lose some of their foreign military funding. I would refer you to the case study of what we did to Pakistan after Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and our government assisted the Afghans in driving the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the late eighties. That long war had placed tremendous hardships on the Pakistani government, including 5 million Afghan refugees in the Northwest Frontier Province. We shortly after that period invoked the Pressler Amendment which had to do with Pakistan’s nuclear program, took away foreign military funding, took away the schooling, took away training opportunities. Pakistan rightly felt that after their participation in driving the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, we in the United States abandoned them. The result was a very difficult time, which included the introduction of drugs, destruction of infrastructure in addition to the refugees. This is in part the reason why we have such a difficult time with Pakistan right now. They don’t trust us, they believe probably correct, that after what happens in Afghanistan we’ll abandon them one more time in favor of India. And some of the discussions that have come up about South Asia of course bear that out.
Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia for a minute. While they other countries in the Arab world have experienced colonialism, Saudi Arabia has managed to be among the handful of countries that has never been owned by a foreign power. So our friend Chas Freeman frequently talks about the uniqueness of Saudi Arabia, and points out that when the Saudi Arabians first turned to the west they didn’t as supplicants but rather as people looking to hire people from the west to help them with technology. So it has been for me and continues to be an enormously interesting country, and yet it is of course quite influential in the region. Their support for the United States despite the fact that they disagree with our policies often times, has been a great help to achieving our goals in the region. King Abdullah himself was opposed to the invasion of Iraq. His reason? Because if we took down Iraq, we were going to make Iran a regional power. Guess what happened?
With respect to Israel. King Abdullah has twice sponsored a motion in the Arab League which has been passed unanimously, in both cases, to foster a permanent peace with Israel based on ‘67 borders, right of return and I’ve lost the third item, you’ll recall what it is. I’ll get to it. Forgive me. Those efforts by king Abdullah have largely been ignored by the West and the United States. And so now we have the issue before Saudi Arabia and indeed before the world about membership of Palestine in the UN.
I am particularly sorry that Prince Turki won’t be here with us today, because he has written an op-ed piece in the Washington Post a couple of months ago, about this very issue and the fact that should the United States veto membership of Palestine in the United Nations it would, to use his words, “irreparably damage the bilateral relationship between the two countries.”
So we have a lot going on between Saudi Arabia and us. We have a lot dependent on our ability to work together, and this relationship has been steadfast in many ways but we have consistently disappointed Saudi Arabia and their views on how things ought to be run in the Middle East.
Notwithstanding that, at least in part due to the potential threat of Iran in the region, we continue to have very close cooperation. Central Command and Saudi Arabia work hand in glove on projects all the time. We see Saudi Arabia buying more defense equipment, particularly things that would assist them in defending their own country. Things like fighter aircraft, command and control aircraft, armed helicopters and things of this nature. And so, all of this defense cooperation depends really on the political environment. I hope that Chas Freeman, who is often the person who tells us what’s going to happen next in this part of the world, is not as correct as he offered us this morning. But the point is that both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are attempting in their own way to work with us. It will take patience on our part, it will take the ability to look through the prism of another country at how they deal with their own internal issues but in the long run both of those countries are very, very important to achieving our political goals in the region. Thank you.
[Mr. Bob Sharp] Greater investment is needed through defense cooperation in leader centric approaches. In Iraq and Afghanistan we have shifted our approach from enemy centric, focused on killing or capturing the bad guys, to population centric approaches, focused on hearts and minds of the people through development. From now on in all engagements our defense cooperation needs to include greater emphasis on leader centric approaches. Now these approaches achieve outcomes whereby how things are done are changed for the better through leadership, to how things should be done.
Let me give an example, NESA’s work with the Lebanese armed forces, a leader centric approach. We have developed Lebanese armed forces curriculum and their faculty at their staff and college to try and generate better critical thinking. We do this in the region at their command and staff college. There has been so much improvement in those students and the faculty that the first time ever this year when they visited Washington DC their students were panelists at a seminar and their faculty co-facilitated discussion groups. IMET is another example of leader centric approach. NESA has strong relationships across our region to over 3000 alumni who we maintain close contact with, but to support these sorts of leader centric approaches we need to transition more funds from kinetic to non kinetic outputs.
Second example. Case study for Yemen. How to help Yemen utilizing a balanced enemy population and leader centric approach. First the enemy centric approach targets the bad guys — kill, capture them, even though they may be succeeded by others. Keep them off balance. The death of bin Laden and others demonstrates the need for an enemy centric approach to kill or capture those who are irreconcilable, but it must be clinical.
Second, we’re dealing with ordinary Yemeni people, the great mass of which just want normal peaceful lives. This group needs our help through various forms of material and moral assistance under a population centric approach. However, they are vulnerable to the bad guys who need only to kill a few of them to paralyze them. Therefore, working to retain the hearts and minds of the ordinary Yemeni people by a population centric approach needs in parallel an enemy centric approach to kill and capture the bad guys.
Thirdly, the Yemeni are vulnerable to their own leaders, those chosen and those imposed upon them. And then the leaders therefore are the third group to be supported and we must adopt a leader centric approach to develop relationships with the leaders, with the future leaders, to develop their capacity to critical thinking and reduce corruption. And also similar programs as I mentioned we do with Lebanon. Enemy population and leader centric approaches are all needed but the situation will dictate the balance between them.
Now in conclusion, at this time of great change and shifting priorities for defense cooperation, greater investment is needed in leader centric approaches and if necessary at the expense of enemy and population centric approaches.
Thank you.
[Col. David Des Roches (USA)] Thank you. I should point out that that was Bob Sharp and I am Colonel Dave Des Roches. We switched order for those of you who thought that accent was coming from a Colonel in the U.S. Army, it wasn’t. Which leads be into a disclaimer. When I agreed to accept here I was the Director for the Arabian Peninsula in the office of the Secretary of Defense and I was going to describe Ambassador Larocco as we knew him, which was as a man of strategic vision, incredible energy and a not inconsiderable amount of low cunning. In our office one of my coworkers described him as a fox who drank three cups of coffee and decided to take up bank robbery. Since that time I shifted to the Near East and South Asia center so I am now an employee of Ambassador Larocco, so I just want the room to acknowledge how handsome he is.
My remarks are my own, and do not reflect the United States government or the Department of Defense or the United States Army. I am going to speak about the challenges of implementing security assistance particularly foreign military sales, and I am going to do it in three parts: a philosophical argument, a legislative argument and a bureaucratic argument.
The bottom line is it is a mistake to assume that policy results coming from the US government reflect US government aims, desires or even interests. Ambassador Freeman noted that earlier on. In no area however is this more true as in security assistance, particularly in foreign sales of weaponry. Our system is challenged to ramp up and accelerate programs, in particular when there is a change in regime as we have seen in the “Arab Spring. “
Let me give you first the philosophical argument for that. The bottom line here is that the United States government is not designed for efficiency. Rather it is designed to insure that injustices and tyranny do not ensue. The separation of powers between the branches of government, here between the legislature, the congress and the executive are preserved even if our policy goals suffer. Efficiency and efficacy are secondary considerations, they are secondary considerations. The balance of power is preserved. As James Madison noted in Federalist 48 it will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and it ought to be effectively restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. The problem is the different branches of the government differ as to what that limit is. This is accelerated by an innate American distaste to foreign involvement as typified by President Washington’s Farewell Address and to military large scale military involvement overseas as typified by General Eisenhower’s Farewell Address.
Now on to the legislative argument. The governing legislation for the United States government to conduct security cooperation overseas is the Arms Exporting Control Act. It is not an arms export promotion act. The entire governing body of the law is proscriptive, not enabling. That is our laws tell the executive what he may not do, they don’t tell him what he can do. So the entire legislative history that governs us is aimed at restricting arms sales, rather than promoting it. That’s in contrast to a number of our competitors and allies.
It’s a Cold War system designed to develop influence, i.e. to curry favor over a sustained period of years, not to build a tactical or operational capacity, which is what our allies want, say if you are a Gulf country facing a resurgent Iran. There have been no legislative changes to the Arms S4 process, post 9-11. The world has changed our laws remain old. All sales must go through informal consultations then a formal notification to congress. This was actually started when Hubert Humphrey was the Senate Majority Leader. Unfortunately what informal consultations means in practice is the possibility of endless pigeon-holing. A Member of Congress or more likely an influential staffer of a Member of Congress decides that he has a problem with the proposed sale and he says we need more consultation, and the result is all action is stopped for an indeterminate period of time.
Finally, the Foreign Military Sales system must be self-funded. That is, the US government infrastructure that administers Foreign Military Sales does not receive taxpayer dollars, so the United States government is placed at a competitive disadvantage, particularly compared to some other countries where the role of government is seen as promoting even funding promotion activities for weapons sales.
Let me move on to my third point, which is the bureaucratic one. Bureaucratically the way the United States government is set up is that organizations which regulate weapons transfers are separate from organizations which oversee security assistance. You have regulators and you have implementers. They are separate organizations and they are set up in tension. This natural tension and the requirement for review of considerations such as technology transfer requirements, and human rights vetting for training invariably delays US government efforts to provide security assistance.
I should also note here, that in all my time of conducting, implementing or describing security assistance I have never seen a discussion yet where the people responsible for a weapons sale have spoken to the importance of saying, “We’ve got to do this sale because it employs 14,000 people in the greater St. Louis area.” I have never seen that in the US government and I have been doing this for close to 11 years. Contrast that with when I was in graduate school in the United Kingdom whenever a weapons sale was announced if you were listening to it on the radio the second line was always this sale will generate or sustain 6000 jobs in Glamorgan or the Welsh countryside. In the United States Government there is no bureaucratic linkage between those organizations so it just doesn’t matter.
In conclusion, the big question is why does anybody buy US weaponry? And the answer is our expertise and our hard work is the best in the world. Indeed it would have to be for people to go through the process. Our system to provide it our partners on the other hand is based upon a legislative framework designed to slow down weapons transfers enhanced by a long-standing American philosophical objection to such activities. Advancing U.S. partner and security interest thus requires an extremely high degree of patience cooperation and planning. Those are all three commodities, which are almost always in short supply but particularly in this day and age. And so the ongoing process of reform and innovation is going to be one that past experience shows the United States government will lag behind events on the ground.
Thank you for your attention.
[Larocco] Thank you very much. Show you how much I travel I didn’t even realize he was working for me now. I want to point something out to you. I must confess I like to hear Dave Des Roaches talk about James Madison and American history. As good as you are as active listeners I notice he never once used the word “about” which he pronounces as “aboot.” Because he’s Canadian, originally. So I like it when Canadians talk about American founding fathers.
I must confess the way we do things at NESA, I’ve now been there for a few years, is that we don’t have lecturers and we don’t have students, we have presenters and participants. So I feel a little constrained here because I’ve been told that we have written questions and not something from you, because I would like to think of you as participants and not just great active listeners, which I know that you are. But if we have time hopefully we can move into that.
I would like to present a few questions to our colleagues here that were given to me and I’ll start with Dr. Moynihan. I’ll give you two questions and you can take them however you wish. The first has to do with your presentation on targeting particularly the use of what I would call UAVs but I guess they’re now called RPG’s but is this the wave of the future, and is this likely to be something that is increasingly competitive in terms of sales to this region and elsewhere. And what’s it going to be used for. Is it going to be used the way we increasingly use it as an active weapon as opposed to strictly surveillance? The second question is how do you see the collective defense organizations of the region, at least like the GCC, the Arab League, neither of which until recently were particularly active other than as bodies of talk, but now we’ve seen with the Arab League response with Libya and the GCC response with Bahrain and elsewhere, in Yemen.
Do you see these collective defense organizations becoming more important and ones that we need to deal with more?
[Moynihan] Thank you, sir. The issue of RPVs, or UAVs, or the dreaded drones continues. There are some who believe there is really little philosophical difference or technological difference between weapons fired from an RPV than there are cruise missiles from a submarine. Both are guided through launch and through surveillance systems after that to the target. In any case whether or not, whichever side of that argument that you would find persuasive there is no question that the RPV business is strong. The most recent weapons firings that have occurred in Afghanistan and Yemen and, for other reasons have not occurred in Somalia, although some would have liked them to have occurred in Somalia, are the Predator-Reaper series, and based upon Defense guidance from some years ago, and don’t consider this insider stock advice for General Atomics Corporation of San Diego. But the business looks robust for the foreseeable future. They are exported. Indeed they are exported to the region. Some countries in the region are, and I’m looking at some in front of me. There are contracts for both Predators and Reapers although the Export Control Act, which has been mentioned by colleagues so far, has restricted that to surveillance models, than those that are capable of firing the so-called “Hellfire” missile. That will also change. There is no doubt that for sure the United States and its friends are reluctant to again engage in irregular warfare on the ground. We’ve sustained enormous numbers of casualties through low-tech weapons, such as IEDs, that occurs in such environments. So the idea of raising the battle level to an RPV platform – becoming more airpower centered – for our force abroad is definitely there. Boots on the ground is the term of previous years. I don’t think we’re going to see such an inclination for that in the future. I do believe the Predator-Reaper buys will continue. It certainly is a robust business within the United States military.
Turning to the defense cooperation within groupings such as the GCC and the Arab League. We should note that the GCC has engaged in something referred to as Peninsula Shield in a long time. Many of us have been to Hafr al Batin and others. I’m sure General Hoar has and is aware of that. The ground component of Peninsula Shield is essentially defunct.. ..those have returned to their home countries. That may not be current information. I really haven’t discussed it with my colleagues over there. But the other aspects of Peninsula Shield such as an integrated air defense, after two decades is now a reality. And there is certain naval cooperation led by the Fifth Fleet, and led technologically by the networking of the Fifth Fleet is very much in evidence in the region. It is probably the best example of the GCC countries operating together, at least until Bahrain. At least until the combined forces on behalf of the traditional government of Bahrain most recently.
With respect to the Arab League pronouncement on Libya, I was actually talking with Dr. John Duke and others about that even last evening. It is not the first decision on the part of the Arab League to authorize or enable coalition participation in Arab defense, that occurred with the [Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.] Indeed the proclamation from the Arab League encouraging numerous Arab governments, almost every Arab government to come to Saudi Arabia for the, to participate in the Desert Shield/Desert Storm coalition was also enabled by the Arab League. Can we expect more of that? Certainly. Can we expect Turkey’s role to increase as others commented? Absolutely. Now that Iraq is truly defanged by years of conflict it is still caught in civil strife. Turkey is rapidly becoming the alternative to Persian domination.
[Larocco] Thank you. The next cluster of questions is for General Hoar. I think they follow very well from the previous ones. As you look at the region and in view of the impending withdrawal from Iraq and in fact from Afghanistan, the drawdown in Afghanistan, do you believe that U.S. assets as we move forward in the region are adequate to deal with the strategic threats that we and our allies face? Second question here, how can the United States continue to maintain large enough forces to deter an Iran attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is a waterway for 85 percent of the world’s energy, given – this is a long question, I forgot what was at the beginning – given the domestic pressure at home to cut spending. It’s the whole question of isolation of defense spending cuts. How do we maintain our interests and able to deal with those including strategic threats?
[Hoar] Yes, I think, first of all with respect to Iraq, I think that the difficulty now is that the force that was proposed to remain in Iraq has not been able to receive the kind of diplomatic cover that they need so that they would not be subjected to Iraqi courts. This is the way we have done business everywhere. We don’t put military guys on the ground if there is not some provision to make sure that they can not be tried in that country. But I think the larger issue is what happens at some given point in the future if all US forces are gone and we see some sort of internal insurrection. I think that the chances that US forces would be reintroduced to quell this kind of behavior are slim and none. I think the mistake of going to Iraq is so well realized now, although infrequently spoken about in this town, and that putting troops back in there again, I think, would be unlikely in my judgment.
Afghanistan provides a far more complex issue. My judgment has always been that the center of gravity, the area in which we must concentrate, if we are going to be successful in Afghanistan is Pakistan. That’s not a popular view around this town. When last November the President publicly said that he was going to foster a permanent seat in the UN Security Council for India I think that probably closed the door for the last time.
First of all, everybody knows that Germany and Japan are in line ahead of India, but more importantly it showed the willingness of the United States to stand with India when Pakistan views India as the existential threat. All things for Pakistan emanate from that relationship. So Pakistan, understandably, is not putting all its cards on the table and we’re seeing this today right now in the discussion of these forces that we believe are tied in to the Intelligence Service. Until we either, “A”, broaden the discussion about the solution in Afghanistan, which would of necessity include India and probably Russia and Iran, or we make some concessions I don’t think we’re going to have an acceptable outcome to us. But the idea of putting in more forces there as they come out, seems to me to be politically unlikely.
With respect to the second question, as to the Strait of Hormuz. The current presence of U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf, or the Arabian Gulf, if you will, is quite substantial. And I’m not sure it is appropriate for me to say how much, because when I heard the numbers it was in a discussion that was classified, but the point is, there is enough naval presence today in the Gulf to forestall that possibility. The forcing of the Strait of Hormuz has been a subject at Central Command for over 20 years. We understand the dangers. We understand the nature of a campaign to open it back up again. The Saudis understand this problem. They have made provisions where something in the order of 60-70 percent of their oil exports could be sent across to Yanbu on the Red Sea and pumped out of there. So it’s not quite as grim as it might appear. For the other countries that face onto the Arabian Gulf the problem would be more difficult. It would certainly disrupt international oil prices without question. But it is an issue that has not gone unnoticed and the forces that would be necessary to prevent that from happening are very capable, that are in the region, and certainly there would be the possibility of a rapid reinforcement if it were necessary.
[Larocco] I have a question for my newest loyal employee, Colonel De Roches. How can the U.S. improve the Foreign Military Sales process for our friends and allies in the region who are increasingly frustrated with our policymaking and our procedures?
[Des Roches] Thank you, Ambassador. This is a long-standing problem and I suppose there is, I have an observation and then I have an answer. The observation is that, there actually has been in the Executive Branch a longstanding effort to reform, improve, streamline FMS cases. It predates 9-11. It predates, actually, the Bush Administration, it was in the Clinton Administration, doing things like trying to reconcile incompatible databases. The Army used to have a different database from the Air Force, from the Navy, that would all run cases and the cases all had to be reconciled. These were legacy databases from the 1960s, things of that nature. Both the State Bureau of Political Military Affairs, which has responsibility for the program and the Department of Defense, which implement them, have a number of people who spend a lot of time on this, and there have been improvements. For example, we’ve seen a reduction in surcharges over the years. Admiral Landay, the current director of DSCA recently announced that there would be a reduction in surcharge rates, particularly big ticket spending items. I think the threshold would be nine billion dollars which makes if a lot more customer friendly. But at the end of the day the fundamental problem is the United States is a country of laws, that is run according to laws and the laws that govern this – and when it’s not run according to laws people feel bad about it and there’s a reaction to it – the legislative framework was written during the Cold War for a different challenge. So there will be improvements as we see increased harnessing of automation and reform measures and honestly as we see more educated customers who realize that things like, say, complex avionics systems like Link 16, that you can’t just buy Link 16 and plug it into a Mirage plane and instantly be compatible with the entire United States Air Force. So when we see those three things happen we’ll see greater – but ultimately it’s going to have to be a legislative solution.
[Larocco] Thank you. I have another question for you and our panelists. I’ll try to capture it the best I can with my poor reading. I really encourage people not to write in cursive. I could never write it myself. I can’t even read my own writing. Do you consider it counterintuitive, I would say do you think it wise, I think, to sell our weapons and share our intelligence to possibly future enemies? Do arms sales further U.S. decline giving other countries the same equipment that we have? If do, what is the future of the U.S. military as a deterrent force? That is pretty heady stuff. Who would like to take that first? Dave?
[Des Roches] Sure. Well, the tension that I spoke of was instituted precisely to ensure that questions such as that are examined. So there have been a number of – going back to the AWACS sale in the Reagan Administration – where the concern was that, are we selling things to a stable regime? Can these be used against us? Can it be reverse engineered? I guess the case in point is the sale of the F-14 Tomcats to Iran, to the Shah’s Iran. Then of course those planes were later used by the revolutionary regime. So that is one of the reasons for this tension and we’re the most forward looking country in terms of doing that. I’m thinking here of the French sale of the Mistral ship to the Russians. There was a Freudian slip there. But for a NATO partner to see the latest generation naval technology to Russia strikes me as very odd, to say the least. Does this work against the United States Government? It can, conceivably, but the whole purpose of this extended review, which puts United States at a significant commercial disadvantage, is to ensure that such a thing won’t happen. So the discussion is, is this a stable regime? Will this technology ever be used against us? Now how do we keep that from being used against us in the longer term? And how do we prevent the United States from going into decline from losing our military capabilities? Well, the short answer is, that modern military weaponry is something that you buy one of it and it goes forever. It requires maintenance. It requires spares. It requires systems. So absent a continual engagement with the United States the weaponry is going to be suboptimal or ineffective. And really what we’re selling, and here’s our strong point; I’ve been kind of gloom and doom. We’re not really selling weapons. What we’re selling is a relationship. The weapons are secondary. The partnership with the United States, with United States defense producers, the United States Government and the United States military services. That’s where the real value is. And that is what ultimately guarantees a partner states’ security. And so that partnership is really where it comes from. If that partnership declines there will still be pieces of it, but it will really be no more effective than an F-14 with an aftermarket gasket on its engine.
[Larocco] I really want to thank all the panelists here for their presentations and we really do not have time for more questions.
I would like to close with something that Dr. Moynihan said. I think we all recognize what U.S. hard power is all about. I do believe though that as we are looking to draw that down we must come to grips with our failure in the area of soft power, particularly in strategic communications. Our enemies have a very powerful narrative and it is very attractive to young people. I think our narrative is equally strong but I think it has been lost in the last ten years. It has gone very far astray and I think we need to get back to some of those fundamental core values that are very appealing to people around the world. But then we have to come to grips with an even more difficult [unintelligible] that I face every day when I speak with people in the region. That is, how do we get around squaring our values to our interests? It is a very, very difficult and profound question and one our leaders have to face every day. And I always tell audiences, we have 45 from the region who are here, actually today at this moment they are up in New York touring Ground Zero which I am sure will be a very compelling experience for them. They ask me this question all the time. How can you preach these values when you often choose interests over them? It’s tough. And I often tell them the value of conferences and get-togethers like this is that our leaders don’t have time to think. They really don’t. When I go over to State or the White House or DoD, these guys have burning in boxes, that are just, which is why I’m glad I’m not there anymore. But we need people to talk at events like that today and we need more ideas. And they need our help. It’s very difficult for them to go through a 24-hour day when the news cycle is now a nanosecond. That’s all it takes. We don’t have a daily news cycle anymore or a monthly. It is literally a second. Again, I do think they need our help. In that respect, more ideas on strategic communications and soft power. I think they would be very valuable to my country but also serve the interests of all the country in the region as well.
So again I would like to thank John Duke Anthony who has made this possible and for this wonderful organization and everything they do to try to increase understanding even if we can’t get agreement on all the issues. But understanding is a very important first step.
***
Ambassador James Larocco
Amb. Larocco is Director of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA Center), U.S. Department of Defense/National Defense University. He joined the NESA Center in August 2009 after serving more than 35 years as a diplomat.
During the past 15 years, Amb. Larocco held key leadership assignments related to the Near East region, including Director General of the Multinational Force and Observers, 2004-2009; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, 2001-2004; U.S. Ambassador to the State of Kuwait, 1997-2001, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge D’Affaires in Tel Aviv, 1993-1996. His earlier postings included assignments as Minister-Counselor for Economic Affairs in Beijing, China; Director of the American Institute in Taipei, Taiwan; Deputy Director of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh Affairs at the State Department in Washington, D.C.; and key positions in American embassies in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Amb. Larocco retired from the Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister, which equates in U.S. military terms to the rank of lieutenant general. During his career, he received numerous awards including the Distinguished Service Award, personally presented to him by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
For more information: www.nesa-center.org
***
Dr. Joseph Moynihan
Dr. Moynihan is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Council on US-Arab Relations and a Vice President of Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems with specific responsibility for leading the Electronic Systems Sector’s business development efforts in the Northeast Region of the United States. Prior to accepting these responsibilities, Dr. Moynihan served as the Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Chief Executive for the Arab World and Africa from regional offices located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this role he, and the regional offices in Algiers and Cairo which reported to him, represented NGES executive leadership to senior officials within the government and military services of Arab and African states. Dr. Moynihan also served as the Deputy Director for Research at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, also located in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Moynihan completed service in the U.S. Air Force at the rank of Colonel and held a variety of command, staff and academic posts, including senior command in the AWACS weapon system, senior staff responsibilities within both the Office Secretary of Defense and the United States Special Operations command, and a research residency with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Dr. Moynihan earned his Ph.D. in International Studies from Saint Louis University and is a member of the Executive Seminar for Senior Officials in National Security sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
For more information: www.esnorthrupgrumman.com; www.ncusar.org
***
General Joseph Hoar, USMC, Ret.
Gen. Hoar retired from the United States Marine Corps in 1994 after a long and distinguished career. During the last three years of his active service, he was the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), then the unified command with planning and operational responsibilities for 19 Middle Eastern, South Asian and Horn of Africa countries.
Operational highlights of General Hoar’s tenure as CENTCOM Commander include: enforcing the naval embargo in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf; enforcing the No-Fly Zone in southern Iraq; administering the humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Kenya and Somalia; providing support for operations in Rwanda; and evacuating United States civilians from Yemen during the 1994 civil war.
Gen. Hoar was Deputy for Operations for the Marine Corps during the 1990-91 liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Prior to that, he was U.S. Central Command Commanding General Normal Schwarzkopf’s Chief of Staff. As an infantry officer, Hoar commanded levels from platoon to regiment. He also commanded three Marine Corps Air Ground Task Forces. He holds numerous military decorations from the United States and nine other countries.
Following his retirement from the military, Gen. Hoar formed the consulting firm of J.P. Hoar and Associates, which is engaged in business development in the Middle East and Africa. He is a director of Quantum Group, Inc. in San Diego, Calif., and a trustee of Suffolk University in Boston and the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington, D.C. he is also Chairman of the Board of the National Security Studies program at the Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University.
Gen. Hoar, a graduate of Tufts University, received his Master’s Degree from George Washington University, and is a graduate of the National War College and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College.
For more information: www.cna.org; www.Armscontrolcenter.org
***
Col. David Des Roches (USA)
Col. Des Roches is a professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, U.S. Department of Defense/National Defense University. He was formerly the Director of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense, with responsibility for defense policy concerning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Prior to that assignment, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Department of Defense Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, as the Senior Country Director for Pakistan, as the NATO Operations Director, and as the Deputy Director for Peacekeeping. Prior to coming to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was the command speechwriter and spokesman for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. His first position in government was as a special assistant for strategy and later as the international law enforcement analyst in the White House Office of National Drug Policy.
Col. Des Roches graduated from the United States Military Academy and obtained advanced degrees in Arab Politics from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, in War Studies from Kings College London, and in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. He also attended the Federal Executive Institute, the German Staff College’s Higher Officer Seminar, the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
An Airborne Ranger in the Army Reserve, Col Des Roches was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan. He has commanded conventional and special operations parachute units and served on the U.S. Special Operations Command staff as well as on the Joint Staff. He has served in Morocco, Italy, Germany, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. Col. Des Roches’ awards and decorations include the Master Parachutists Badge, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Expert Infantryman’s Badge, and the parachutist badges of Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. His academic awards include Phi Kappa Phi, the British Marshall Scholarship, designation as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, a Joseph J. Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies in the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and Fellow of the British Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
Col. Des Roches is an adjunct faculty member of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School. He is married to Dr. Robyn Asleson, a noted historian of British art, with whom he resides with their son in Bethesda, Maryland.
For more information: www.nesa-center.org.
***
Mr. Bob Sharp
Prof. Sharp is Associate Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA Center), U.S. Department of Defense/National Defense University, focusing on Yemen and Lebanon. Prior to joining the NESA Center, he served for nearly four years as an Assistant Professor at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University, where he wrote the Master’s Degree syllabus for a program concentration in Conflict Management and Stability Operations and also taught Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency and Homeland Defense.
Prof. Sharp served 25 years in the British Army retiring with the rank of Colonel. After graduating from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1981, he served in command and staff roles in operations in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, the second Gulf War (1990-1991), Afghanistan, and Cyprus. He has worked in policy and technical staff appointments in United Kingdom Defence Intelligence and several multi-national organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In his later career, Prof. Sharp specialized in intelligence.
Prof. Sharp holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the UK Open University. He is a 2004 Distinguished Graduate of the National War College and holds a Master’s Degree in National Security Strategy from National Defense University, Washington, D.C. He resides in northern Virginia with his wife, Erin. They have two boys.
For more information: www.nesa-center.org
***
{ 1 trackback }