STRATFOR'S MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF

Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003


There has been uproar over a memo that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld wrote to four senior staff members in the Department of Defense.
The memo raises questions about how effectively the department has been
fighting the war on terrorism, stating, "DoD (Department of Defense) has
been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air
forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight
the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new
institution, either within DoD or elsewhere -- one that seamlessly focuses
the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem."
It continued, "With respect to global terrorism, the record since September
11th seems to be: We are having mixed results with al Qaeda, although we
have put considerable pressure on them -- nonetheless, a great many remain
at large. USG (U.S. government) has made reasonable progress in capturing or
killing the top 55 Iraqis. USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking
down the Taliban…"


The memo states the obvious. Here's what's interesting: Not only was it made
public, Rumsfeld affirmed it in an Oct. 22 press conference. Obviously, he
wanted it to be public. From our point of view, the reason is clear. A
central criticism about Rumsfeld -- one that we have made several times --
is that he appeared to be out of touch with reality. Or, as we put it once,
he's been fighting a different war than the rest of us were watching.


This memo confirms what we've always suspected -- Rumsfeld's public persona
and his own evaluation of reality are very different. Part of the pressure
to move Rumsfeld aside as the dominant personality in the war came from the
perception that he could not admit to the unanticipated problems in Iraq.
For us, at least, this posed a serious crisis of confidence in him. If the
man couldn't see the problems, he couldn't possibly fix them. In the end,
President George W. Bush kept him on board, but reshuffled the deck --
slipping in National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice over him on Iraq and
Afghanistan.


This memo is Rumsfeld's reply. In it, he states his awareness of the serious
problems and convenes his senior civilian and military staff to consider
methods of dealing with them. He also acknowledges that the problems are
deeply rooted and require fundamental rethinking of how the United States
will fight this war. There is an implicit political message here -- Rumsfeld
knew this all along, but maintained his cheerleader attitude to play the
role the administration assigned to him. Therefore, the memo implies, it is
unfair to blame him for the problems, since he had always known them.


On this score, Rumsfeld is undoubtedly telling the truth. He is an
extraordinarily capable man, and those of far less capacity -- like us --
knew there were serious problems. He knew it as well, and has now stated the
problem very clearly. After Pearl Harbor, a fundamental rethinking took
place on ways to fight that war. Commanders were retired and reassigned; the
services' institutional frameworks were redefined. After Sept. 11, there
were no fundamental changes -- not in people or institutions.


Worse yet, the peacetime process inside the Department of Defense continued
to manage procurement, personnel and most other issues. A global war was
being managed by a peacetime entity. This "business as usual" approach
resulted in a range of problems -- from intelligence failures to manpower
shortages to misallocation. Rumsfeld's most important point is whether the
Defense Department is capable of fighting a war like this, or whether an
entirely new entity must be created to do so.


This is a breath of fresh air. Rather than stale optimism, Rumsfeld is
grappling with the fundamental question. This war -- like every other war
ever fought -- is different from what went before. The Defense Department
was configured to fight the war that never happened, and it also fought --
though not particularly well -- a series of other wars that needed fighting,
such as Korea and Vietnam. The department's basic structure has not changed,
in spite of the fact that the Cold War is long over, and the U.S.-Islamist
war bears no resemblance to it. The same planning and administrative
mechanisms built to fight the Cold War are trying to fight this one. As a
result, the forces available for this war look remarkably like those
designed to defend the north German plain. This probably won't work.


Most likely, the memo will become a political football. But the fact is the
United States usually doesn't do particularly well in the early stages of
war. Failures are what compel military revolution and lead the United States
to victory. Vietnam was the one exception to this rule -- fundamental
rethinking of lessons learned did not happen until much too late. The
six-month delay between unexpected problems in Iraq and recognition of those
problems is not particularly unusual in U.S. defense thinking, nor is it
strategically significant -- unless Rumsfeld's memo is ignored.


The interesting thing now will be whether this memo sinks into the Potomac
like so many memos, or becomes the basis for radical rethinking of U.S.
operations at all levels and in all theaters. In six months, if the current
array of senior commanders is still in place, the current personnel policies
are still applied, the intelligence problems remain unfixed and the
strategic vision impaired, then the memo will be a footnote in history. If,
on the other hand, it triggers a wave of retirements, and new policies and
tempos geared to this war, then the memo will be historic.


We're probably in the minority on this, but our bet is that the United
States -- as in previous wars -- is on the threshold of an upheaval in the
Defense Department, the CIA and elsewhere. For better or worse, this is how
America fights its wars. The current situation cannot continue if the
president hopes to be re-elected. We do not underestimate Washington's
inertia, but neither should we underestimate the incredible pressure that is
building under the Bush administration.


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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation, an unimpeachable source said Monday.

"It will be vehemently denied by both countries," added this ranking Pakistani source known to this correspondent for more than a decade as a knowledgeable insider, "but future events will confirm that Pakistan has agreed to provide KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) with the wherewithal for a nuclear deterrent."

In a lightning, hastily arranged, 26-hour "state visit" in Islamabad, Crown Prince Abdullah Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, flew across the Arabian Sea with an entourage of 200, including Foreign Minister Prince Saud and several Cabinet ministers. The pro-American Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, who is next in line to succeed to the throne after Abdullah, was not part of the delegation.

To counter what Pakistani and Saudi leaders regard as a multiregional threats, they have decided quietly to move ahead with a two-way exchange -- free or cheap oil for nuclear know-how and expertise.

Pakistani pilots have been employed as contract pilots for the Royal Saudi Air Force for the past 30 years. Several hundred thousand Pakistani workers are employed by the Gulf states, both as skilled and unskilled workers, and their remittances are a hard currency boon for the Pakistani Treasury.

In their private talks, according to the United Press International source, Abdullah and Musharraf also discussed the possibility of Pakistan supplying troops, not to Iraq, but to the kingdom. Abdullah can see that the world's largest oil reserves look increasingly vulnerable over the next 10 years.