Philip Zelikow and his amazing imaginary axis
Why Phil wants us to remember history as long as we forget his own
Philip Zelikow, professor of history at the University of Virginia, is quite a guy—member of three Republican administrations, co-author of a book with Condoleezza Rice, and, perhaps most importantly, executive director of the “9/11 Commission”, which produced the famous study, The Final 9/11 Commission Report, which told fully half the truth about the Bush administration’s responsibility for failing to anticipate the deadly attacks. Now Phil’s getting a lot of play with his recent article, Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking, which appeared in the “Texas National Security Review” (seriously),1 in which, so he tells us, he unleashes his “historical microscope” to uncover lessons of the past applicable to the crises of the present. But it seems to me that the good professor forgot to bring his lens cleaner along—his forecasts strike me as both out of focus and more than a little foggy. Even more to the point, he fails to train his “historical microscope” on himself, when he actually “made” history, as the Bush administration’s “cleaner” following its disastrous performance immediately prior to 9/11, about which I’ll have a great deal to say later. But first things first.
What’s the deal with the “new Axis”?
Because we’ve heard about a “new axis” before, haven’t we? Remember the George Bush’s “Axis of Evil”, involving Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, three nations that had almost nothing to do with one another and who provided absolutely no threat to the U.S., regardless of what George and his pals told us? Well, the members of Phil’s new Axis—Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—have a membership that’s a lot more potent, but the “threats” they pose largely reflect their anger at the attempts of the U.S. to confine them within our own “rules based order”, the rules of which we feel free to alter at our convenience, and, conveniently enough, always to our own political and economic advantage—something that Phil, despite his amazing magic microscope, fails utterly to pick up on.
A bit surprisingly, Zelikow doesn’t want the giant military buildup that many of his admirers, like Noah Smith,2 are thumping for:
A frequent answer to such dilemmas [says Phil, of this “new axis”] is to engage in wishful thinking, usually a call for general American rearmament and reinvigorated power projection. But, absent another great shock, these plans are unlikely to be enacted soon enough and would take a number of years to bear fruit, even if they are well conceived. And, precisely because some allied movements to build up arsenals have gotten underway, the period of maximum danger may be in the short term — the coming one, two, or three years. U.S. and allied leaders should concentrate on how they will cope with forces more readily available. Since the worst case would be a traumatic defeat, U.S. leaders will need to develop more practical plans than seem evident now, with some potentially painful tradeoffs.
I call attention to the neglected significance of economic deterrent tools, amid so much attention to military instruments. Since use of the military instruments will cause economic calamity anyway, there is no good reason not to give much more attention to these economic tools.
It’s “funny” that Zelikow refers to the “neglected significance of economic deterrent tools”, when the U.S. has been using such tools—aka “sanctions”—endlessly ever since the end of the Cold War, while failing to achieve its goals every single time, as discussed by Tufts Professor (and frequent Alan Vanneman whipping boy) Daniel Drezner in his 2021 article for Foreign Affairs, The United States of Sanctions:
The truth is that Washington’s fixation with sanctions has little to do with their efficacy and everything to do with something else: American decline. No longer an unchallenged superpower, the United States can’t throw its weight around the way it used to. In relative terms, its military power and diplomatic influence have declined. Two decades of war, recession, polarization, and now a pandemic have dented American power. Frustrated U.S. presidents are left with fewer arrows in their quiver, and they are quick to reach for the easy, available tool of sanctions.
Of course, Dan doesn’t mention that when the U.S. was “an unchallenged superpower”—from 1989 to roughly 2008, I guess, we managed to make a complete hash of things anyway—almost as if the more power we had, the more we were corrupted by it. And, not so incidentally, the more people we killed and got killed.
Dr. Zelikow, naturally, doesn’t care for any “defeatist” (my word) kind of talk about the U.S being in decline. He wants Uncle Sam to act! Now! But when Phil tries to get down to specifics, well, the lens grows cloudy. In particular, he makes no recommendations at all regarding those “economic deterrents” that he seemed so fond of in his opening paragraphs.
It’s clear that we do face crises in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Asia—most dramatically, I guess, in China’s announced determination to repossess Taiwan, appropriated from China by the Japanese in 1895, and existing as an independent entity since the triumph of communism on the mainland in 1949. So what does the good doctor advocate for each?
First up is Europe:
The situation in Europe is still retrievable. My suggestions on this front are familiar. [Links to an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs]. It will be a close call to see if military aid can shore up Ukraine’s defenses. It may be an even closer call to see if the West can sustain the level of financial assistance vital to Ukraine, especially in 2025, as Europeans still wring their hands over whether and how to use the Russian financial assets frozen in their jurisdictions. The period of maximum danger may come if Ukraine’s supporters are successful and Ukraine’s position becomes sustainable and promising. Because then Russia will have to decide whether to escalate.
But to say that it will be “a close call to see if military aid can shore up Ukraine’s defenses” means that it is quite possible that the situation of Ukraine is not retrievable, and it also sidesteps the question of whether Ukraine is not running out of weapons, but rather running out of men. Skeptics like myself have been suggesting for years that an unattractive, compromise peace will ultimately be necessary. Dr. Zelikow, who is fond of denouncing others for wishful thinking, says nothing about this. Don’t we have to tell Ukraine that they won’t be getting the Crimea back? (Yes.) Don’t we have to tell them that they’ll have to concede some loss of eastern territories? (Yes.) But Dr. Zelikow won’t touch these issues, aka the “potentially painful tradeoffs” he mentioned earlier. Instead, we’re simply told that the situation is “retrievable” (to what?), though, on the other hand, it may not be, and (apparently) we’ll just have to accept a Russian triumph. Well, then what?
Regarding the Middle East, Dr. Zelikow is similarly portentous.
Greatly exacerbated by the Russo-Ukrainian war, Europe’s current dependence on Middle Eastern, North African, and east Mediterranean gas and oil has become profound. European states will feel great pressure to avoid doing anything that might endanger these supplies.
The United States therefore ought to deeply reexamine its strategy and strategic posture toward the whole Middle East region. A cornerstone principle for such a reexamination might be that the future viability of Israel itself is coming into play. Its current government is on a course that will isolate and weaken it, as its enemies gather. But any future Israeli government will face terrible choices, probably involving civil strife as in 1948, but much worse. The United States, like Israel, will need to focus more on the essential requirements of Israeli survival, at least as a free and promising society.
Again, what does this mean? After we “deeply reexamine” things, what conclusions should we come to? Should the U.S. stop sending military aid to Israel, which has embarked on a bloody, pointless war of revenge in Gaza, making it all but uninhabitable, a war that has not eliminated Hamas, and has on the contrary engendered an even stronger hatred towards Israel among Israel’s neighbors, endangering that country’s very existence? Yes, we should stop and we should join with other nations in pressuring Israel to end its massively counter-productive war. But Dr. Zelikow, of course, isn’t going to say such a thing. He gives us nothing more but a lot of “on the one hand, and, yet, on the other” chin-stroking, a “deep reexamination” that comes to no conclusion at all. After all, he’s the question man, not the answer man.
But it gets worse.
The United States should have plans for a possible war with Iran that do not assume or rely on initiation of a preventive war, either alone or in conjunction with Israel. Those plans may need to assume Iranian access to weapons of mass destruction. Those plans will also need to have a plausible concept for how such a war might end.
I’m sorry, but this is beyond laughable. A “possible” war with Iran, with or without Israel? How would that work out? And a “plausible concept for how such a war might end”. Yeah, that sounds “plausible”. Dr. Zelikow had more than a hand in our little Iraqi incursion, circa 2003, which had an initial force of some 160,000 troops, including 130,000 Americans. How did that go? What was our “plausible” end for that one? Iraq’s population is about 40 million, while Iran’s is about 86 million. Are we having fun yet? There is no way the U.S. could invade Iran with the military we currently have,3 but, on the other hand, Dr. Z doesn’t want to waste money on a huge military buildup—in large part because the period of “maximum danger” (he says) is only for the next two or three years (why?). So I guess we should have “plans” for a possible war with Iran even though we entirely lack the capability of waging such a war. You know, doc, I think that historical microscope of yours needs a little polishing.
The good doctor’s pedantic foot-shifting reaches its climax on hottest of current hot topics, Taiwan. Here Doc Z gives us “three possible scenarios”: 1. China invades Taiwan and attacks the U.S. 2. China invades Taiwan and hopes the U.S. will stay out. 3. “China implements air and sea border controls to make Taiwan a self-governing administrative region of China. There is no need for a direct attack on Taiwan or any blockade of usual commerce. Without initiating violent action, the Chinese can assert sovereign control over the air and sea borders to Taiwan, establishing customs and immigration controls.”
Giving himself a violent thump on the back, Doc Z “explains” “America’s military and 99 percent of the public commentary focus on the first two scenarios. The third one seems more likely to me.” Yeah, Doc, you’re a genius, and everyone else is stupid. Funny how that works out.
So, if China does choose the third scenario, “Yet, for good political as well as strategic reasons, the United States also can’t and won’t preemptively and visibly abandon Taiwan. As a practical matter, the dilemma is acute.” And? What should the U.S. do, if we’re not going to “preemptively and visibly abandon Taiwan”? Should we send in cargo ships, and, if the Chinese turn them away, send them back in accompanied by warships and see if the Chinese back down, and, if they don’t, start the non-nuclear conventional war with China of Noah Smith’s dreams?
Unfortunately, Phil says absolutely nothing at all regarding any possible response to this “acute” dilemma. Apparently, acute dilemma solving just ain’t his department. He’s a dilemma poser, not a dilemma resolver. Thanks, doc, thanks. Thanks for Iraq, and thanks for Afghanistan too.
The real killer (at least, I thought so) was doc’s concluding two paragraphs, which, after all his tough talk (tough, yet substance free), comes absolutely out of nowhere:
The worst case would be to sacrifice fundamentally strong future prospects because of short-term miscalculations. Having navigated successfully through years of intense crisis, the Kennedy and early Johnson administrations had turned the corner in the Cold War by 1963–64. The momentum of Soviet and Chinese advance was ebbing. The free world was on the verge of historic advances and achievements in society and science.
Then America’s leaders blew it. The great tragedy of Vietnam was that although the fears about North Vietnam turned out to have been well-judged, the efficacy of a commitment to defend South Vietnam was not. The American overcommitment in Vietnam, at that moment of promise in world history, instead became a dreadful self-inflicted wound.
Uh, speaking of self-inflicted wounds, doc, weren’t you, you know, present at the creation of two more of them, namely Iraq and Afghanistan? How can you say that the U.S. should prepare for a “possible war” with Iran and then say we can’t afford another Vietnam? There were good reasons, after all, for “supporting” the South Vietnamese government, in the hope that it could sustain itself against the Viet Cong. The mistake was deciding that maintaining South Vietnamese independence was “vital” to American security, when it wasn’t.
The invasion of Iraq, and the protracted occupation of Afghanistan—to not merely defeat but rather eradicate the Taliban—were far greater self-inflicted errors, errors in which you were deeply involved, Dr. Zelikow. In terms of negative impact on the health of American society, George W. Bush has to go down as the very worst president in American history, for these “errors” were not only self-inflicted, they were entirely unforced—indeed, were the product of deliberate guile, for the Bush administration was, from the very beginning, pursuing a hidden agenda, that agenda being to create a massive and permanent military presence in the Middle East, both to guarantee the security of Israel and ensure U.S. control over the world oil supply, and not to protect the U.S. from terrorist attack. It’s “impressive” that, in your last two paragraphs, you warn against the dangers of doing too much rather than too little, but it seems to me that that moral might have actually been the focal point of your argument, rather than a bizarre non sequitur that suddenly appears out of nowhere, tacked onto the body of your treatise without any rhyme or reason that I can see.
Afterwords
Zelikow’s involvement with the second Bush administration naturally proved “controversial” once the disaster that was Iraq had a chance to unfold. Among other things, even though he was not a member of the Bush administration when the 9/11 attack occurred, he wrote a draft of what ultimately became the notorious document known as NSS-2002, setting forth “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America”, that was ultimately used as the justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, although I believe Condoleezza Rice, deserves the “credit” for that one, and, in turn, Condi was simply telling her bosses, George and Dick and Donnie, what she knew they wanted to hear.
Zelikow was a poor choice for chair of the 9/11 commission, even though the two chairs, former New Jersey Republican governor Thomas Keane and former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton tell us in their book, Without Precedent, that “we seriously considered only one candidate”, though they certainly don’t explain why. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s 2008 book on the commission, The Commission The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, paints a persistently unflattering picture of Zelikow as a frequently disappointed place seeker who used his position at the commission to keep the White House informed on what was going on and run as much interference for the Bush people as he could, consulting with Rice and “even” Karl “Mayberry Machiavelli” Rove.4
Though Zelikow was certainly not the “father” of preemption, he arranged to have some of the fiercest advocates of the Iraqi invasion, like Laurie Mylroie and Abraham Sofaer, testify at commission hearings, though what they had to say—even when it was accurate, which was rare—was usually irrelevant to the committee’s purposes. Thanks in no small part to the efforts of the administration, and the desire for the 10 commissioners—five from each party—to have unanimous agreement, the commission’s final report was little more than a whitewash of the stunning incompetency—and equally stunning capacity for denial and deceit—on the part of the Bush administration, which had convinced itself that all talk of terrorist attacks within the U.S. was a pack of hippie nonsense and then, when 9/11 happened, “hijacked” the attacks to justify an entirely unwarranted and disastrous invasion of Iraq. See Shenon’s book and this post from Wikipedia for more on how the Bush administration managed to avoid culpability for its many crimes and blunders.
Zelikow took a job with the Bush administration in 2005 when Rice became secretary of state. By late 2006 an article in the New York Times by Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger portrayed him as writing “dovish” (my words) memos that no one listened to. He became sharply critical of the use of torture in questioning prisoners, saying it could constitute a war crime, but he made these arguments only after he got the job with the Bush administration, and only after support for the Bush administration began to fall apart—post Katrina, post Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and, of course, post collapse in Iraq.
Afterwords II—I disagree with Dr. Zelikow even when I like his writing!
It’s true! When I was putting the finishing touches on this piece, I discovered that, several years ago, I had read, and thoroughly enjoyed, a book he had written, to wit The Road Less Traveled The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917, which I read more or less in tandem with another excellent book on the same subject, by Daniel Larsen, Plotting for Peace American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain at War, 1914-1917, both books a “feast” for WWI buffs, though, I would say, no one else.
Yes, both were excellent, yet both, it seems to me, were “irrelevant”, thanks to a comment made by Larsen late in his book that the French were dead set against any discussion of “peace” prior to victory on the battlefield. Regarding a German offer made in December 1916, Larsen says “Those who have studied the French war effort tell us that the French government was united against the possibility,” and he cites an article by British historian David Stevenson, French War Aims and the American Challenge, 1914-1918, which Stevenson expanded into a book, French war aims against Germany, 1914-1919 (which I have not read), which was reviewed by Roy A. Prete in an article under the title French Military War Aims, 1914-1916. According to Prete’s review, France, as late as the spring of 1917, was still looking forward to a “complete” victory, with no interest whatsoever in a compromise peace of the sort endlessly discussed by both Zelikow and Larsen in their books as a possibility in 1916.
By 1916, “moderate” elements in both Britain and Germany saw the war as tending towards the destruction of all of Europe—death for all and victory for none—but the French did not. They were still optimistic for “victory”, and, in any event, saw no future for France as a great power without a massive reduction in the size and power of German state, which could never be accomplished except through a decisive German defeat, and all compromise peaces be damned. Both Zelikow and Larsen see the “door” to the possibility of a compromise peace closing with Wilson’s reelection in November 1916. Yet as late as the spring of 1917—prior to the utterly disastrous “Nivelle Offensive”, which would supposedly win the war5—France had not given up hope for an outright victory. They secretly entered into a discussion with Russia of terms for peace that, Prete says, called for the return of Alsace and Lorraine, the detachment and neutralization of the Rhineland, and the extension of the French frontier eastwards to the boundary that prevailed prior to the French Revolution in 1790, which would include the coal-rich Saar river valley—the farthest thing in the world from the sort of “compromises” endlessly and secretly discussed by President Wilson’s indefatigable European emissary Colonel Edward House with British and German leaders. French expectations were entirely unreasonable, and furthermore they did not trust America at all, and even feared the participation of American troops, which, they felt, could lead to the U.S. taking control of the war and settling it according to its own interests rather than that of France.
Larsen and Zelikow differ greatly in their assessment of the British and German leadership, and of Wilson most of all, Larsen praising him strongly while Zelikow saw him as Keynes saw him, little more than a small town hick, a moralizer unsuited to the world stage, destined, as Keynes condescendingly put it in his famous pamphlet, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, to be “bamboozled” at Versailles by a true homme de monde, Lloyd George.
Anyone who cares about “Western Civilization” will not forget the terrible prescience of Keynes’ conclusion—“Retribution will not limp,” and indeed it did not. Yet I think that it was, in effect, Keynes (and Zelikow) who were bamboozled, by Wilson,6 of all people, into thinking that a generous peace, Wilson’s famous “peace without victory”, would have prevented the terrible German war of revenge that followed. The French knew better. The notion that the Germans would meekly accept the staggering losses they had suffered and somehow forgive and forget when they had no need to was absurd. “Peace without victory” would simply allow Germany to recover its strength and then wreak its revenge. And why would it not, for there was nothing to restrain it. The strong do what they can; the weak must suffer what they must.
However much Keynes knew about economics, he paid little attention to geography. The complete withdrawal of the Soviet Union from European affairs meant that France was, essentially, naked. After 1870, it was only the Russian alliance that allowed France to even pretend that she was a great power. With that one great prop gone, there was no possibility that France could stand alone against Germany. In the body of the Economic Consequences, Keynes seems to acknowledge that Clemenceau sought “crippling” reparations against Germany with the expectation that Germany would never pay them off, that the French occupation would never end. If condemning Europe to eternal economic stagnation was the price that had to be paid to keep Germany subject to France, then Clemenceau would pay it—even though, of course, this “plan” was guaranteed to fail as well. Clemenceau simply could not think of anything better.7
Zelikow, to take one last crack at the poor fellow, also disappoints me by contrasting Wilson’s failure to end World War I with Teddy Roosevelt’s “success” at ending the Russo-Japanese War, which strikes me as absurd. There was no way for Japan to conquer Russia, and no way for Russia to conquer Japan. Moscow and Tokyo are 4,600 miles apart, and that’s by air. Russia had lost its entire fleet, the country was on the verge of revolution, while Japan was actively seeking peace before the Russian fleet was annihilated, at the Battle of Tsushima. In contrast, during World War II German troops spent four years within 50 miles of Paris. Poor Phil just never seems to be able to get that old historical microscope to focus.
Yeah, seriously! Do you want national security left in those damn sissies in Cambridge and Manhattan? Damn straight you don’t! You want it in the hands of men who wear Stetsons! (I doubt if Dr. Zelikow wears a Stetson.)
If Dr. Zelikow has plans for a war with Iran that wouldn’t involve a U.S. invasion, I’d love to hear them.
Would-be Bush insider John J. DiJulio, original head of the Bush administration’s “Faith Based Initiative”, when he found himself on the outside looking in, claimed he had been defenestrated by “Mayberry Machiavellis” within the administration. Rove didn’t appreciate the condescension from the supposedly street-smart DiJulio and ultimately extracted a pathetic walk back from Johnnie, who never really recovered from the trouncing he’d received from “Turd Blossom” (Bush’s nickname for Karl. Great kidder, that Georgie!)
The fact that the French could still believe, in 1917, that a single “big push” (for that was all the Neville Offensive was) could and would win the war shows how out of touch they were. The French troops were told the operation would win the war and when instead it proved to be yet another meaningless bloodbath, French morale snapped. If the Germans had known how demoralized French troops were after the offensive, Germany would have won the war.
I have never seen it mentioned in any of the dozens of books I have read about World War I, but Wilson had the unusual experience of growing up in an utterly defeated nation, the American south. He was born in 1855, grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and knew the sense of loss and humiliation, the resentment of the “Yankees” for not being “magnanimous”—for not honoring the south’s heroism and sacrifice by allowing them to continue their “way of life”—that is to say, slavery.
The “real” solution, as Keynes recognized, was for the U.S. (and Britain) to forgive all the loans they had made to the allies. Unfortunately, the best policies are often the least possible. Even this would not have solved the problem of reparations, but it would have improved economic matters dramatically. The American people, of course, wanted repayment of every penny, thinking that they were being “smart”.