by Leon Panetta
Watching it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. The people of this country elect representatives to help them make life better, to ease the burdens of a tough economy, to provide them with safety and security, to create opportunity and encourage prosperity. Instead, these members confronted a problem that was admittedly complex and in need of compromise, but rather than work hard and cut a deal, they gave up and deliberately made life worse for their constituents. That shameful inaction undermined the most basic rationale of representative government. Elected to help their country, they willfully and deliberately hurt it.
President Obama bore some responsibility as well, not for concocting the sequester but rather for failing to lead Congress out of it. Indeed, that episode highlighted what I regard as his most conspicuous weakness, a frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause. That is not a failing of ideas or of intellect—he is, as anyone who knows him can attest, supremely intelligent, capable of absorbing and synthesizing complex information, and committed to a well-reasoned vision for the country. He does, however, sometimes lack fire. Too often, in my view, the president relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader.
That has given his opponents room to shape the contours of his presidency, and they have used it to the detriment of the country, sometimes in ways that seem more like parody than real life. One need only recall the dozens of theatrical votes by House Republicans to overturn the Affordable Care Act, or the countless committee hearings on Benghazi, or, even more telling, the long and shrill campaign to question Obama’s birthplace. That last issue underscores a unique aspect of the attack on this president: He is the first black president of the United States. No other president’s legitimacy as a person and officeholder has been challenged in the way President Obama’s most extreme critics have questioned his. Those challenges have encouraged the president’s caution and defensiveness, which in turn has emboldened further challenges.
It’s amusing that some of President Obama’s critics think he is an ideologue. I see him as a realist and a pragmatist. That’s an instinct we need more of in Washington. But “playing it cool” tends to take the edge off the rhetoric needed to stir people to action. And where I’ve seen presidents succeed most dramatically is when they’ve passionately convinced people—whether the public or members of Congress or foreign leaders—that a course of action is in their best interest. I saw President Obama do that, but on occasion he avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.
It’s important to add, however, that those are small blots on a larger picture. President Obama overcame bitter opposition to make important progress in many areas, from fighting terrorism to righting the economy. I did not always agree with every detail of his actions, but I appreciated that they were unfailingly guided by his intelligence, his convictions, and his determination to do what was best for the country. I was proud to serve him.
• • •
I made two trips to China as a representative of the Obama administration, one as director of the CIA and the second near the end of my tenure as secretary of defense. Both were bewildering amalgams of pomp and straight talk, wariness and warmth. And both were reminders that the U.S.-China relationship will do much to shape the future of the Pacific and the world.
In the fall of 2012, on a mission that also took me to Japan and New Zealand, I spent three days in and around Beijing and Qingdao, a port city that was home to the Chinese North Sea Fleet. The arrangements took shape slowly at first—I’d only planned to spend two days in the country, but we added a third as our increasingly excited hosts piled on more stops, clearing me to meet with Chinese cadets and to tour a submarine and a frigate as well as to meet with Vice President Xi Jinping and their nation’s military leadership.
Meetings between top American and Chinese officials often play out according to a well-understood script. They chide us for our support of Taiwan, we gently inject the topic of human rights, they demand access to markets for their growing economy, we complain about violations of intellectual property and mysterious cyber activity that emanates from within China. There is a surface veneer of goodwill, and a mutual, unstated agreement not to push each other too hard.
That’s pretty much what I expected as I headed for China in 2012. In fact, my visit surprised me at almost every turn. I arrived at a moment of high tension between that country and Japan, which I had just visited. The two nations have an ancient rivalry, with ample room for resentment on both sides. China still seethes over the brutal Japanese invasion and occupation beginning in 1931, and I happened to be visiting on the anniversary of that invasion. More to the point, in 2012 the two countries were battling over a pair of islands that both claimed as their own. Just before my visit, Japan angered China by purchasing the islands from their private owner as a way of strengthening its claim to them, and riots erupted in many Chinese cities, with protesters targeting Japanese businesses.
Making matters worse, as I prepared for my meeting with China’s defense minister, General Liang Guanglie, I was told our intelligence had picked up reports that China was about to send a thousand fishing boats to confront Japanese vessels in the area around the islands. That was almost sure to provoke more violence, and on unpredictable seas, and it threatened to draw the United States into the conflict, since we have a defense pact with Japan pledging to provide military assistance in the event it is attacked.
I publicly urged both sides to back up and talk rather than escalating the matter, but at first it seemed they actually were eager for a confrontation—and that they’d get it. As one report concluded, “In this heady atmosphere, U.S. calls for calm are falling on deaf ears, for now.”1
When Liang and I met privately, I tried to make use of both carrot and stick. I invited China to participate for the first time in RIMPAC, a biennial maritime exercise hosted by the United States in the Pacific (RIMPAC stands for “Rim of the Pacific”), an invitation that Liang seemed to appreciate. At the same time, referring to the reports of the boats headed for the disputed area, I was as direct as I could be. “It would be very important for you to stop this,” I insisted. Liang is a stern character. His mouth is perennially stuck in a frown, and it’s hard to imagine him not in a uniform. He didn’t give me much in our meeting, and afterward he told reporters, standing next to me, that if there was trouble over the islands, it would be Japan’s fault.2
And yet, curiously, the thousand fishing boats that departed for the disputed area never arrived. After our meeting, they quietly peeled off and scattered. Liang never acknowledged, at least to me, any role in dispatching the boats or calling them off. But they were gone, and the prospect of a major conflagration subsided.
The day after my conversation with Liang, I met with Vice President Xi, the charismatic, personable presumptive next-in-line for the Chinese presidency. He had been in seclusion for several weeks prior to our meeting, and much of the coverage speculated that he might be suffering from illness. Some wondered whether he would cancel our get-together, but he surprised many observers by greeting me buoyantly in the Great Hall of the People. He dispensed with any talking points, instead jumping straight to what was at the top of his mind. He wanted my explanation for what our defense “rebalance” to Asia meant for China. Was it, he asked, intended to counter China?
My answer was that it did not need to be, that America and China could coexist in the Pacific and that we could together help ensure stability in that region. We had some common challenges. We were both searching for ways to combat terrorism and piracy, and we were both called upon to provide disaster relief. Increased American presence in the Pacific could advance our mutual interests, I argued.
That said, we were rivals too, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Rather than hammer him with accusations about cyber crime or territorial disputes with neighbors, however, I suggested that development of international
forums to resolve differences in those areas might benefit both of our countries. Xi cheerfully agreed, though whether out of politeness or genuine concurrence, I couldn’t tell. Finally, we briefly discussed North Korea, and I pointed out to him that its nuclear and missile programs were alarmingly destabilizing to our friends in the region and even to the United States itself. Xi almost seemed to sigh and roll his eyes. North Korea, he conceded, was an aggravation for him too. Scheduled for forty-five minutes, our meeting stretched past ninety. We parted on good terms.
High-level meetings with Chinese officials almost always conclude with a banquet, and this was no exception. After I returned from an afternoon talk at a Chinese military academy, we took our places at a gigantic table and began a long evening of toasts and expressions of mutual admiration. I’d done this before and knew that the chief enemy here was the drink—the Chinese typically serve a clear liquor known as Maotai at important functions, and it’s a killer. One toast leads to another, and before you know it the room starts to wobble. I figured it was probably best not to have the American secretary of defense get sloshed in front of the leadership of the world’s largest country, so I pulled John Kelly aside as we were sitting down and asked him if he could find a way for me to escape the ritual. He conferred with a waiter, who secretly substituted water for my Maotai each time my glass was filled.
Managing the U.S.-China relationship in the future will be difficult for both nations, each of which has legitimate interests in the region and the world. We come from vastly different political and cultural traditions, and we will compete for influence and some of the same markets. But we also have much in common—we both seek stability, open markets, and growth; we both need to advance environmental protection; and we both appreciate a good drink. That’s something to build on.*
• • •
I have talked at length in these pages about wars—fighting them, ending them, avoiding them. Before I leave that topic, it’s worth noting that there was one other deteriorating situation in 2012 that repeatedly challenged our military and national security leadership, often dividing us: Syria.
The momentum of the Arab Spring caught up with Syria in March 2011, when the first major demonstrations called for the release of political prisoners. Behind that demand was a glimpse of deeper discontent, as the protests also produced graffiti demanding that President Bashar al-Assad step down. After hesitating a bit, Assad unleashed his formidable military on the next wave of demonstrations, in April, when snipers picked off protesters and tanks rolled out to intimidate them.
With that, Assad committed himself to responding with oppression, and his use of force steadily ratcheted up through the remainder of 2011. Most of the international community was aghast, but struggled to find some way to exert leverage. The United States imposed sanctions in May, President Obama and our European allies called for Assad to step down in August, and the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November. None of which deterred Assad. The United Nations, meanwhile, was frozen by Russia’s use of its veto power in the Security Council to block any sanctions against Assad or his regime. By the end of the year, more than five thousand Syrians were dead, and the conflict showed no sign of abating.
All of that seemed to create a strong case for intervention, and some members of Congress urged just that. Judicious use of American air power and a united NATO coalition had toppled Qaddafi in Libya, so why not Assad in Syria? At least that seemed the basic argument.
The problem with it was that Syria was not Libya. Assad was much more heavily armed, the country was far less accessible, and among the military’s munitions were large storehouses of chemical weapons and modern air defense systems, the latter supplied by the Soviet Union and later Russia. Recognizing those factors, we convened a series of meetings at the Pentagon to develop options for confronting and containing Assad and for doing what we could to protect his people from their leader.
The primary concern was locating Assad’s chemical weapons and preparing to seize and secure them if the situation required it. Our planners studied the matter at length and returned with an estimate of the number of troops required to enter the country and commandeer each of the known weapons repositories. Their conclusion was that it would require more than seventy-five thousand soldiers, perhaps as many as ninety thousand, roughly what we had in all of Afghanistan. I considered that impossible, and my colleagues agreed.
We presented a set of options to the National Security Council—ranging from more aggressive possibilities such as the use of limited air attacks on military targets to more modest engagement including protecting refugee camps and supporting regional allies. It was clear from those discussions that there was no strong support among the president’s top advisers for direct military action.
That left us with the less aggressive measures: working with Jordan and Israel to coordinate a regional response; reaching out to the Syrian rebels to lend support and guidance; surveying Assad’s air defense systems so that if a military option was called for, we could control the skies.
The Syrian rebels also posed a more difficult problem than had the forces that rose up against Qaddafi. In Syria, there was little coordination between the opposition groups, and some had unsavory ties to terrorist groups. That made us wary of overcommitting to their cause, so our initial support was nonlethal—training, for the most part, as well as supplies, but not weapons.
That did not do much to strengthen their hand against Assad, however, and the casualties inflicted by the Syrian army continued to mount. Speaking at a news conference in August, President Obama tried to warn Assad not to escalate the fighting with the weapons we knew he possessed: “We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” Should Assad begin to employ those weapons, the president added, “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
That language was subsequently much criticized. Although the president did not promise military action in response to any use of chemical weapons, merely that such use would “change my calculus,” his insistence that the use of such weapons would cross a “red line” clearly implied that it would justify the use of force in response. That reflected our growing frustration with Assad’s actions and our limited ability to influence events. It also hinted at the internal divisions within the national security team. The National Security Council considered a plan to step up aid to the rebels and begin sending them weapons; I supported the idea, as did David Petraeus and Hillary Clinton. All of us believed that withholding weapons was impeding our ability to develop sway with those groups and subjecting them to withering fire from the regime.
President Obama was initially hesitant, and with some justification, as the stakes were high and the situation complex. Only after Assad used chemical weapons in mid-2013 did Obama reconsider supplying those arms, a step he approved in June of that year. Assad was not deterred. On August 21, his forces unleashed a devastating attack with rockets carrying the chemical sarin; 1,429 people, including at least 426 children, were killed.3 At that point, both the president and John Kerry, who had taken over as secretary of state on January 1, made it clear that they were leaning toward limited military action, but then President Obama vacillated, first indicating that he was prepared to order some strikes, then retreating and agreeing to submit the matter to Congress. The latter was, as he well knew, an almost certain way to scotch any action. By mid-2013, a majority of Congress could not agree on what day of the week it was, much less a resolution authorizing the use of American force in the Middle East.
The result, I felt, was a blow to American credibility. When the president as commander in chief draws a red line, it is critical that he act if the line is crossed. The power of the United S
tates rests on its word, and clear signals are important both to deter adventurism and to reassure allies that we can be counted on. Assad’s action clearly defied President Obama’s warning; by failing to respond, it sent the wrong message to the world.
Perhaps still thinking it was possible we would use force, Russia pushed the Assad regime to negotiate the surrender of its chemical weapons, offering hope that a diplomatic alternative might still produce the right outcome. The removal of Syria’s declared chemical weapons was finally completed in June 2014, an important accomplishment. But as of this writing, there are credible reports that the Assad regime used chlorine gas against its people in 2014, and Assad remains in power. The threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other terrorist groups is growing. The contested city of Homs has been decimated by Assad’s bombardment and now resembles Dresden or Grozny in the aftermath of their devastations. Syria is a dangerous place, and invading it would have reaped great suffering and the loss of many American lives. It was not another Libya. Still, hesitation and half-steps have consequences as well—and those remain to be determined.
• • •
The United States military is first and foremost a fighting force. But it is also America’s largest employer and an institution where cultural values are learned and transmitted. Serving as its chief sometimes requires the skills of a battlefield commander, sometimes those of a bureaucratic infighter, and sometimes those of a high school principal.
Historically, some of the military’s most esteemed leaders have been reluctant to thrust the institution into the middle of the nation’s social debates. As I noted earlier, a leader no less revered than George Marshall resisted calls to racially integrate the armed forces even as he led those forces into war against fascist enemies whose racism helped define their ideologies. I certainly accept that the military should not risk its capacity to fight in order to become an instrument of social progress, but I also believe it has a responsibility not only to defend American values but also to uphold them.
