The can-do kids: a Pentagon counterfactual

I want you to take a little trip with me, all the way back to 2004. The United States is at war, and nearly 70,000 American troops are on the ground in Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld has some "issues w/various countries," so he fires off a memo to the Under Secretary of Defense to try to get some answers... only this time it's not know-it-all undersecretary for fiascos Doug Feith. No, we need a guy in the hot seat who understands The Coming Anarchy. Forget about idealistic neoconservatives; we need a guy who recognizes "humankind's tendency toward a kind of slipshod, gooey, utopian, and ultimately dangerous optimism." We need Bob Kaplan.

Just imagine...

RUMSFELD: We need to solve the Pakistan problem. Are you coming up with some proposals for me to send around?

KAPLAN: With more pressure [we] might increase Islamabad's cooperation in relatively short order.

RUMSFELD: I do think this memo on Pakistan is correct. I think we have to force the issue of Pakistan up to the Deputies and get a policy. If Pakistan goes under, we have serious problems (pdf). So, uh, thanks.

KAPLAN: America has strategic advantages and can enhance its power while extricating itself from war. But this requires leadership—not great and inspiring leadership which comes along rarely even in the healthiest of societies—but plodding competence, occasionally steely nerved and always free of illusion. So yeah, no problem, chief.

RUMSFELD: Yeah, ok, I get the point. No more emails like this. (Next time I'll ask Wolfowitz (pdf).)

fin

Are you coming up with some proposals for me to send around?

Yesterday afternoon, Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic unearthed what is almost certainly the most awesome Rumsfeld "snowflake" of all time. (This got some play in Politico's "Morning Defense" today -- though in true traditional media fashion, it was unsourced; I guess it's possible Phil Ewing just stumbled over it on the same day -- so I assume a lot of people are picking up on it. To those of you who have seen this already: sorry. But not that sorry. This will never get old.) Here it is, reproduced in full:

If for some reason you can't read/see this, here's the text:

April 7, 2003 11:46 AM 

TO: Doug Feith 

FROM: Donald Rumsfeld 

SUBJECT: Issues w/Various Countries 

We need more coercive diplomacy with respect to Syria and Libya, and we need it fast. If they mess up Iraq, it will delay bringing our troops home. [Ed.: LULZ!] 

We also need to solve the Pakistan problem. 

And Korea doesn't seem to be going well. 

Are you coming up with proposals for me to send around? 

Thanks.

I wish I could say I'd never gotten similarly vague email "direction" at work, but I'd be lying. But come on now: I'm not the story here.

Mr. Secretary -- Really excellent work here. You pretty much nailed down all the important security issues of the day -- really prescient stuff. I like how you didn't just stick to the fundamental roles and missions of the Defense Department, but really conceptualized your mission in an aggressive, proactive way. Drop some coercive diplomacy on that ass! Solve the Pakistan problem! And shit, come up with a Korea policy while you're at it! You know what, though? You're probably not best qualified to do that, and you've got a lot of demands on your time. Just drop all that stuff off in Dougie's inbox. Hell, what are Number Twos for?

Seriously, what kind of balls does it take to release something like this on your own promotional website? Probably about the same enormous balls it takes to imagine that the Secretary of Defense (or the Under Secretary, really) should be the lead on solving foreign policy problems, I guess. It's no wonder Rumsfeld wasn't interested in spending a whole lot of time fiddling with stability operations in Iraq -- he had foreign policy to conduct!