Thread by @Marianhouk

A broken national security system in the US...

https://twitter.com/LorenRaeDeJ/status/1215683285801689089

"...[T[here is overwhelming evidence in the past week that President Trump
instigated an escalation cycle with an American enemy without such consideration" [for American lives + interests]

"According to multiple news reports, policymakers gave Trump the option of killing Qasem Soleimani as one of several choices... [And] he went for it, reportedly with little forethought or preparation. Our national security system is not meant to function that way."

"Such decisive moments are usually preceded by hundreds of people spending countless hours in dingy government offices + conference rooms, building PowerPoint slides +questioning lawyers. These individuals create the parameters + permutations of what the decision-makers consider

".... They identify the possible options, vetting their likely operational, diplomatic, economic and other effects...
Bad options, considered with little serious deliberation on an unnecessarily rapid timeline, should never get to the president in the first place."

"Like the broader system of government, which is designed around cumbersome checks and balances to prevent impulsive action, the traditional decision-making process for employing military force is ponderous."

"These steps frustrate some who view military advice as best when it’s direct + unadulterated, but they are supposed to ensure that the president chooses only from options that have been examined thoughtfully by experts in a variety of relevant areas."

"In his first public address on the crisis Wednesday, Trump suggested that he will pause further military action, but the American position in the Middle East is almost certainly worse now, with little benefit to show for the strike."

"With Soleimani’s death, we don’t know whether civilians cut out military planners
or if military officials took shortcuts in the process. Regardless, whatever truncated steps led to the choice to kill him had alarming results."

"1st, the use of force must be consistent w/ int'l + domestic law.
Deliberately targeting civilians or cultural sites e.g. should be off the table —
and the Pentagon ruled those options out after Trump suggested them..
+ Operations must be proportional to the security context."

"Killing one of the most senior Iranian military leaders...was an extreme response to the staged protests against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the rocket attack on an Iraqi base that killed one American...[And it] skipped tens of rungs on the escalation ladder."

Military actions must also be operationally feasible. Political leaders may ask
for proposals that belie the laws of space + time because of..fundamental misunderstanding of military capability...

"The U.S. military cannot simply find + kill a target anywhere in the world at any time using drones, a demand sometimes made by policymakers. Research by one of us found that many senior officials involved in drone policy underestimate the cost + logistics and ...

"...overestimate drones’ availability, capabilities + range...
+ Options for strikes should be real options. Reportedly, whoever drafted the president’s briefing slides used the Goldilocks paradigm — presenting options
that were too mild, too extreme + one that was just right."

"In such frameworks, most of the options are meant to be throwaways; these typically receive much less attention + planning than the preferred option does.
Such frameworks are deceptive and dangerous: The Soleimani strike was never meant to seem best."
washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-di…

"During the George W. Bush admin, former senior Pentagon official Peter Rodman lamented how difficult it was to get the military to tee up meaningful + discrete options besides 'do nothing { thermonuclear war'. This kind of advice presumes
the decision-makers are in on the gag"..

...[But] "they aren’t always"...

[B]y statute, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is resp/ for the development of military analysis, options + plans to share w/ the defense secretary + the president...
[But] It seems the nat'l security apparatus skipped crucial steps while deferring to @SecPompeo advocacy

"Small-group decision-making limits the imagination and thwarts checks + balances — and it can be dominated by impassioned advocates. The resulting decisions tend to be more about the president’s preferences than about national security interests."

[[And this is the president who thinks that, just because he is president, he can do anything he wants...]]

"What, then, can responsible defense and military officials do when the president demands risky options, when the secretary of state inserts himself in the chain of command or the commander in chief publicly threatens war crimes?"

"The answer is not to make post-hoc justifications or to pray that our system survives. The muscles of deliberation have to be exercised."

"Engaging Congress, which established the authorities that create good military options; reiterating to the troops + the world that the US military follows the rule
of law; telling senior commanders they should not be tempted by those seeking private advice...

"...promoting the secretary of defense as the face of the defense apparatus — these are all useful near-term steps."

"No matter the president, bad military options should not land on his desk}": by @ahfdc + @LorenRaeDeJ = washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-di…