Former Chief-of-Staff to Colin Powell compares Leadership Styles of Presidents Bush and Obama

Smullen

Bill Smullen

Bill Smullen, Colonel U.S. Army (Ret.), was the Chief-of-Staff to General Colin Powell when he was Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State. Smullen is the Director of National Security Studies at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is also Maxwell’s Senior Fellow in National Security and a member of the faculty of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications as a Professor of Public Relations. Smullen is the author of Ways and Means for Managing Up: 50 Strategies for Helping You and Your Boss Succeed.

Colonel Smullen spoke to a group of Foreign Service Retirees and others on February 26th at the Sarasota Selby Library.

Smullen outlined his concern that the world is a dangerous place, more than he has ever experienced in his lifetime. Smullen spoke about the existential threats from North Korea, China, Russia and the Islamic State.

Because of his close working relationship with General Colin Powell and having served under both President George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush Smullen provided his personal insights into their leadership styles and the leadership style of President Obama.

Smullen characterized the leadership style of President George H.W. Bush as have a meeting with his cabinet, outlining a policy initiative he was thinking about and asking the cabinet to debate it. Once the debate was over Bush 41 would then make a presidential decision. President George W. Bush would, on the other hand, call his cabinet together, tell them what policy he wanted implemented and task them to find the ways and means to implement it.

Smullen described the leadership of President Obama as having a very small and close circle of advisers that he listens to, with his cabinet kept out of this inner circle altogether. Smullen used the example of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel as being outside the inner circle and not able to get one-on-one time with President Obama on matters of national security.

Smullen was very concerned about how sequestration has harmed the ability of the United States to project power, be it hard power, soft power or smart power. He said that our forces are over stressed, with approximately 140,000 U.S. military deployed in 140 nations across the globe. The stress of multiple deployments overseas has caused a social crisis within the military and extremely high rates of divorce, cases of PTSD and suicide (22 a day). When asked if a return to the draft was appropriate, as the U.S. military has been deployed 6.5 times more in the 40 years after the draft ended than the 40 years before, he stated no. When asked if the United States should have a mercenary military he said no. Some in the audience see the all volunteer force as a de facto mercenary military.

Smullen defended then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation before the United Nations in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Smullen said several times that Powell was against going to war with Iraq in 2003 but that he went along with the wishes of President Bush, who had announced that the axis of evil were Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Powell ignored the advise of his own State Departments intelligence agency and instead used the CIA’s analysis as the basis of his UN presentation. Smullen did not say why, if Powell was so against the war in 2003, he did not make his position public or resign his position. Smullen attributed Powell’s acquiescence to his military background of subordinating his beliefs to his civilian bosses.

Smullen tasked those in attendance to become engaged in dialogue with their Congressional representatives and U.S. Senators. Smullen stressed the need for more conversation and dialogue about important matters, like President Obama’s request to deploy more troops to Iraq to fight a war against the Islamic State. That dialogue was missing in the run up to the 2003 Gulf War and is happening again today.

Smullen believes that deploying 5,000 soldiers to Iraq to train 25,000 Iraqis to fight the Islamic State is not enough. That deployment is not a “decisive force” large enough to do the job of defeating the Islamic State.

When asked if Iran should be allowed to build a nuclear weapon he said no. When asked about the current negotiations he said that Iran has a “red line” and that the talks will move that red line ten years down the road. Some have written that if approved, Iran would deploy a nuclear weapon in ten years. Charles Krauthammer writes in a column titled “The Fatal Flaw in the Iran Deal” in today’s Washington Post:

The news from the nuclear talks with Iran was already troubling. Iran was being granted the “right to enrich.” It would be allowed to retain and spin thousands of centrifuges. It could continue construction of the Arak plutonium reactor. Yet so thoroughly was Iran stonewalling International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors that just last Thursday the IAEA reported its concern “about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed . . . development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Bad enough. Then it got worse: News leaked Monday of the elements of a “sunset clause.” President Obama had accepted the Iranian demand that any restrictions on its program be time-limited. After which, the mullahs can crank up their nuclear program at will and produce as much enriched uranium as they want.

Sanctions lifted. Restrictions gone. Nuclear development legitimized. Iran would reenter the international community, as Obama suggested in an interview in December, as “a very successful regional power.” A few years — probably around 10 — of good behavior and Iran would be home free.

The agreement thus would provide a predictable path to an Iranian bomb. Indeed, a flourishing path, with trade resumed, oil pumping and foreign investment pouring into a restored economy.

While I agree with Colonel Smullen’s assessment of the inextricable harm of sequestration, I disagree with him on the need to reinstate the draft and the currently in vogue idea of smart power coming out of Foggy Bottom (U.S. State Department). I also agree with Smullen on a nuclear Iran. Open source information tells us that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make at least eight nuclear war heads, can do so in less than a month’s time and  it has the capability to deliver a war nuclear head as far West as the the Eastern seaboard of the United States. To many, no deal is better than a bad deal when it come to Iran’s militarized nuclear weapons program.

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