thedrifter
12-02-08, 07:07 AM
Four-star general's diplomatic approach will win favour of White House
PAUL KORING
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
December 2, 2008 at 4:28 AM EST
WASHINGTON — Four decades ago this month, while seven-year-old Barry Soetoro was living with his American mother and Indonesian stepfather in Jakarta, a young U.S. Marine officer was packing up and heading home after 14 months of fighting in Vietnam, including leading his outnumbered and outgunned platoon into a bloody, uphill battle on now-forgotten Foxtrot Ridge near Khe Sanh.
Next month, America's first post-draft-age president, Barack Obama - who was enrolled in a Catholic school as Barry Soetoro as a child, using his stepfather's surname - will move into the White House while the marine, the now-retired four-star general James Jones, will become his national security adviser and the voice closest to the president's ear in times of crisis.
Decorated for valour in battle, a supreme allied commander in NATO, a special envoy to the Middle East for President George W. Bush, Mr. Jones, 64, is also an ardent champion of ending U.S. dependence on uncertain Middle East oil.
Mr. Jones "understands the connection between energy and national security, and has worked on the front lines of global instability from Kosovo to northern Iraq to Afghanistan," Mr. Obama said yesterday, adding that he wants his national security adviser to "integrate our efforts across the government so that we are effectively using all elements of American power to defeat unconventional threats and promote our values."
With political heavyweight and former rival Hillary Clinton heading the State Department and Robert Gates, the powerful Bush administration Defence Secretary staying on to run the Pentagon, it remains unclear whether Mr. Jones will emerge as the pivotal point person on national security.
Despite Ms. Clinton's infamous TV ad showing the red phone ringing in the White House, in which it was acidly suggested Mr. Obama was too inexperienced to cope with a crisis abroad, it will be neither the president nor his secretary of state but rather the national security adviser who takes those middle-of-the-night calls from the White House situation room.
Some national security advisers - Henry Kissinger above all - parlayed the White House position into the role of supreme foreign-policy czar, eclipsing cabinet members. Others, like the current holder, Stephen Hadley, toil quietly in the shadows, briefing the president and brokering among the heavyweights. By some measures, naming Mr. Jones, a lifelong career officer from a multigenerational military family, seems a risky move by a president-elect. The two had met only briefly before this fall and Mr. Jones wasn't among Mr. Obama's close circle of foreign-policy advisers. In fact, Mr. Jones appeared alongside Senator John McCain at a campaign event earlier this year.
But Mr. Jones will bring far more than a shared love of "hoops" to an Obama White House, even one about to get a basketball court. (The imposing, 6-foot-4-inch Mr. Jones played for the Hoyas at Georgetown University before volunteering for the U.S. Marines in 1967.)
Before his glittering 40-year military career ended, he reportedly declined to be interviewed for the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he didn't want to work for former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And despite their disparate backgrounds, Mr. Jones also shares with the next president a powerful impulse that U.S. power projection means far more than flexing American military might.
"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," was Mr. Jones's blunt conclusion in January when he led two independent study groups assessing the U.S.-led war to defeat the Taliban. "Afghanistan remains a failing state. It could become a failed state," he added, months before last summer's fighting season, when Canadian and other allied troops faced a resurgent Taliban all across southern and eastern Afghanistan.
With Afghanistan as Mr. Obama's top foreign-policy priority, the retired general's multidimensional approach will find favour in the White House. He has called for a massive increase in development aid as well as more troops and more effort from allies.
Mr. Jones also led U.S. relief operations in Bosnia and northern Iraq during the Kurdish exodus so he has a hands-on familiarity with the ability of the U.S. military to deliver in places where it is not at war. For an administration seeking solutions in Somalia and Darfur, that sort of experience may come in handy.
For a president with no military service and one without any track record on foreign policy or security issues, naming Mr. Jones will instantly add to Mr. Obama's credibility among the upper echelons of the U.S. officer corps, not least because the retired general took the job.
*****
The former marine
James Logan Jones
Age: 64
Birth date: Dec. 19, 1943
Location: Kansas City, Mo.
Family: Wife, Diane Johnson Jones; four children.
Experience
President and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, 2007 to the present; Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander, U.S. European Command, 2003-06; 32nd commandant, U.S. Marine Corps, 1999-2003; senior military assistant to the secretary of defence, 1997-99
Education
BS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1966; National War College, 1985
Associated Press
Ellie
PAUL KORING
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
December 2, 2008 at 4:28 AM EST
WASHINGTON — Four decades ago this month, while seven-year-old Barry Soetoro was living with his American mother and Indonesian stepfather in Jakarta, a young U.S. Marine officer was packing up and heading home after 14 months of fighting in Vietnam, including leading his outnumbered and outgunned platoon into a bloody, uphill battle on now-forgotten Foxtrot Ridge near Khe Sanh.
Next month, America's first post-draft-age president, Barack Obama - who was enrolled in a Catholic school as Barry Soetoro as a child, using his stepfather's surname - will move into the White House while the marine, the now-retired four-star general James Jones, will become his national security adviser and the voice closest to the president's ear in times of crisis.
Decorated for valour in battle, a supreme allied commander in NATO, a special envoy to the Middle East for President George W. Bush, Mr. Jones, 64, is also an ardent champion of ending U.S. dependence on uncertain Middle East oil.
Mr. Jones "understands the connection between energy and national security, and has worked on the front lines of global instability from Kosovo to northern Iraq to Afghanistan," Mr. Obama said yesterday, adding that he wants his national security adviser to "integrate our efforts across the government so that we are effectively using all elements of American power to defeat unconventional threats and promote our values."
With political heavyweight and former rival Hillary Clinton heading the State Department and Robert Gates, the powerful Bush administration Defence Secretary staying on to run the Pentagon, it remains unclear whether Mr. Jones will emerge as the pivotal point person on national security.
Despite Ms. Clinton's infamous TV ad showing the red phone ringing in the White House, in which it was acidly suggested Mr. Obama was too inexperienced to cope with a crisis abroad, it will be neither the president nor his secretary of state but rather the national security adviser who takes those middle-of-the-night calls from the White House situation room.
Some national security advisers - Henry Kissinger above all - parlayed the White House position into the role of supreme foreign-policy czar, eclipsing cabinet members. Others, like the current holder, Stephen Hadley, toil quietly in the shadows, briefing the president and brokering among the heavyweights. By some measures, naming Mr. Jones, a lifelong career officer from a multigenerational military family, seems a risky move by a president-elect. The two had met only briefly before this fall and Mr. Jones wasn't among Mr. Obama's close circle of foreign-policy advisers. In fact, Mr. Jones appeared alongside Senator John McCain at a campaign event earlier this year.
But Mr. Jones will bring far more than a shared love of "hoops" to an Obama White House, even one about to get a basketball court. (The imposing, 6-foot-4-inch Mr. Jones played for the Hoyas at Georgetown University before volunteering for the U.S. Marines in 1967.)
Before his glittering 40-year military career ended, he reportedly declined to be interviewed for the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he didn't want to work for former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And despite their disparate backgrounds, Mr. Jones also shares with the next president a powerful impulse that U.S. power projection means far more than flexing American military might.
"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," was Mr. Jones's blunt conclusion in January when he led two independent study groups assessing the U.S.-led war to defeat the Taliban. "Afghanistan remains a failing state. It could become a failed state," he added, months before last summer's fighting season, when Canadian and other allied troops faced a resurgent Taliban all across southern and eastern Afghanistan.
With Afghanistan as Mr. Obama's top foreign-policy priority, the retired general's multidimensional approach will find favour in the White House. He has called for a massive increase in development aid as well as more troops and more effort from allies.
Mr. Jones also led U.S. relief operations in Bosnia and northern Iraq during the Kurdish exodus so he has a hands-on familiarity with the ability of the U.S. military to deliver in places where it is not at war. For an administration seeking solutions in Somalia and Darfur, that sort of experience may come in handy.
For a president with no military service and one without any track record on foreign policy or security issues, naming Mr. Jones will instantly add to Mr. Obama's credibility among the upper echelons of the U.S. officer corps, not least because the retired general took the job.
*****
The former marine
James Logan Jones
Age: 64
Birth date: Dec. 19, 1943
Location: Kansas City, Mo.
Family: Wife, Diane Johnson Jones; four children.
Experience
President and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, 2007 to the present; Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander, U.S. European Command, 2003-06; 32nd commandant, U.S. Marine Corps, 1999-2003; senior military assistant to the secretary of defence, 1997-99
Education
BS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1966; National War College, 1985
Associated Press
Ellie