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Putin y el ultimátum que amenaza con escalar la guerra en Ucrania
La guerra en Ucrania, que ya ha cobrado decenas de miles de vidas y ha transformado el equilibrio geopolítico europeo, entra en una nueva fase de tensión con el reciente ultimátum lanzado por el presidente ruso Vladímir Putin. Este gesto no solo reafirma su voluntad de mantener el control sobre los territorios ocupados, sino que también plantea una amenaza directa de escalada militar si sus condiciones no son aceptadas.
Putin ha dejado claro que estaría dispuesto a “congelar” el conflicto si la comunidad internacional reconoce los avances territoriales rusos en Ucrania. Esta exigencia, lejos de ser una propuesta de paz genuina, parece más bien una estrategia para consolidar una narrativa de victoria ante su pueblo y evitar el desgaste político interno. La guerra, que inicialmente se presentó como una “operación militar especial”, ha derivado en un conflicto prolongado que ha debilitado la imagen del Kremlin tanto dentro como fuera de Rusia.
El ultimátum también revela una frustración creciente en Moscú por lo que se percibe como un bloqueo diplomático por parte de Occidente y la negativa del presidente ucraniano Volodímir Zelenski a entablar negociaciones. En este contexto, el rechazo de Putin a propuestas como la “tregua olímpica” sugerida por Emmanuel Macron, refuerza la idea de que el Kremlin no busca una paz negociada, sino una ,rendición simbólica que legitime sus acciones.
Este nuevo capítulo en la guerra plantea interrogantes inquietantes: ¿Está Rusia dispuesta a extender su ofensiva más allá de Ucrania? ¿Qué países podrían estar en la mira de una estrategia expansionista? ¿Cómo responderá la comunidad internacional ante una amenaza que se disfraza de diplomacia?
El mundo observa con preocupación. La historia nos ha enseñado que los ultimátums, cuando provienen de líderes autoritarios, rara vez conducen a la paz. Más bien, suelen ser preludio de nuevas confrontaciones.
🇷🇺⚠️ Putin lanza ultimátum sobre Ucrania: exige reconocimiento de territorios ocupados o amenaza con escalar la guerra. ¿Diplomacia o presión militar? El mundo observa con preocupación. #Ucrania #Putin #Geopolítica #Opinión
¿Por qué hay buques de guerra de EE.UU. cerca de Irán?
Tres pequeños buques de guerra de Irán se acercaron incómodamente a un buque patrullero de la Marina estadounidense y a una lancha patrullera de la Guardia Costera de Estados Unidos en el Golfo Pérsico la semana pasada, informó la Marina. Los buques iraníes “no tuvieron la debida consideración por la seguridad de otros buques”, afirmaba el comunicado de la Marina, “como exige el derecho internacional… en aguas internacionales”.
Este es el segundo encuentro de este tipo entre fuerzas estadounidenses e iraníes recientemente. También se produce poco después de quese filtrara un audioen el que el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores iraní,Mohammad Javad Zarif, se quejaba de que el Cuerpo de Guardias Revolucionarios Islámicos, que operaba las embarcaciones iraníes de acoso, le ha obligado a “sacrificar la diplomacia por el campo de batalla.”
La pregunta que el contexto debería plantear en Washington es la siguiente: ¿Por qué arriesgarse a estos acercamientos?
¿Por qué poner a las tropas estadounidenses en peligro sin ningún beneficio claro? ¿Por qué arriesgarse a perturbar las conversaciones nucleares indirectas entre Estados Unidos e Irán que finalmente se están llevando a cabo en Europa? (¿Y por qué, por cierto, nuestros guardacostas están operando a medio camino de la costa estadounidense y a pocas millas de la costa de Irán?)
La suposición de que Estados Unidos debe tener una presencia militar permanente y significativa en el Golfo está bien establecida en Washington, y esa presencia se ha ampliado en los últimos meses en lo que se considera un mensaje a Irán. Como afirmó la Armada en diciembre sobre su decisión de sacar a la superficie el submarino de misiles guiados USS Georgia (aunque el canal es lo suficientemente profundo como para que pueda viajar sumergido), “la presencia de Georgia… demuestra la capacidad de la Armada de Estados Unidos de navegar y operar donde el derecho internacional lo permita”. El ejército estadounidense está en el Golfo Pérsico para demostrar a Irán que puede estar allí, para retarles a que descubran lo que pasa si dan más problemas que zumbar a los barcos estadounidenses.
Pero, ¿es esa una razón estratégica suficientemente buena para el riesgo que supone esta presencia militar perpetua? Es al menos discutible.
A pesar de su enorme presencia en el actual panteón de antagonistas de Estados Unidos, Irán es, como mucho, una potencia regional. Está acorralado por enemigos regionales, tanto estatales (principalmente Israel y Arabia Saudita) como no estatales (el Estado Islámico y otros grupos extremistas suníes). Su PIB total (unos 450.000 millones de dólares) es menor que el presupuesto anual del Pentágono (unos 700.000 millones de dólares). Ha pasado por una mala racha con la pandemia del COVID-19 y ha sufrido múltiples e importantes catástrofes naturales en los últimos años. La recuperación de todas estas crisis -así como la vida ordinaria de los civiles iraníes- se ha visto obstaculizada por las aplastantes sanciones impuestas por la administración Trump y mantenidas por el presidente Biden.
Todo esto es para afirmar que Irán no es un competidor de igual a igual, y no hay un escenario en el que pueda conquistar de alguna manera a los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, eso no significa que el conflicto militar hecho más probable por nuestra presencia naval en el Golfo deba tomarse a la ligera. Irán no puede conquistarnos si tropezamos con la guerra, pero puede absolutamente enredarnos en otra sangrienta y costosa desventura de varias décadas que consuma vidas y recursos estadounidenses frente a amenazas más acuciantes.
No perderemos una guerra con Irán en el sentido antiguo, en el que acabaríamos cediendo territorio y demandando una ayuda. Perderíamos en el sentido en que hemos perdido las guerras en Afganistán, Irak, Yemen, Libia, Siria y Somalia: infligiéndonos miseria a nosotros mismos y a la población civil local, acumulando nuestra deuda nacional, hundiendo a nuestros militares en proyectos corruptos e inútiles de construcción de naciones, y retrasando la retirada indefinidamente aunque no haya ningún camino realista hacia algo que pueda llamarse plausiblemente “victoria” o “paz”.
Ese sombrío panorama debería estar siempre en la mente de los responsables políticos de Washington cuando se plantean hacer sonar los sables en el Golfo Pérsico. Aguas internacionales o no, este es el vecindario de Irán, y todo el mundo entiende la declaración que hace una presencia agresiva de la Marina estadounidense. Es una provocación temeraria, especialmente teniendo en cuenta lo que sabemos sobre la debilidad comparativa de los líderes civiles de Irán. Poner nuestras fuerzas tan cerca de Irán empodera a las facciones militaristas de línea dura en Teherán y desempodera a los diplomáticos iraníes moderados que comparten nuestro interés vital en evitar la guerra.
La administración del presidente Biden prometió recientemente que no “utilizaría nuestras tropas como moneda de cambio” en Afganistán, rechazando la táctica de mantener las fuerzas estadounidenses en la línea de fuego con la esperanza quizás vana de mejorar la posición estadounidense en la mesa de negociaciones. Biden debería aplicar esa lógica también a la diplomacia con Irán. Debería alejar nuestras tropas de los despliegues iraníes en el Golfo Pérsico, reducir la posibilidad de una escalada no deseada y dar a las conversaciones nucleares una oportunidad de éxito.
Bonnie Kristian es colaboradora de Defense Priorities, editora de The Week y columnista de Christianity Today. Sus escritos han aparecido también en CNN, NBC, USA Today, Los Angeles Times y Defense One, entre otros medios.
Religiosa y discreta, Michelle Bolsonaro, que desde el 1 de enero fungirá como primera dama de Brasil, ha iniciado una etapa de mayor exposición tras mantenerse fuera de los reflectores.
Publicado el 27 dic. 2018 https://youtu.be/ZIp-0XaUef4
Jair Bolsonaro asumirá el 1º de enero la presidencia de Brasil con la promesa de dar un giro resuelto a la derecha en el mayor país de América Latina, gobernado en las últimas tres décadas por políticos de centroizquierda o centroderecha.
El capitán Bolsonaro tendrá bajo su mando a tres generales, un teniente coronel y un almirante, todos en la reserva. Un general será su vicepresidente. [rr]https://t.co/hPtrAiclzV
Bolsonaro designa último ministro y conforma inédito Gobierno cívico-militar
En contra del orden castrense, el capitán Bolsonaro tendrá bajo su mando a tres generales, un teniente coronel y un almirante, todos en la reserva, como él. Un general será su vicepresidente.
El presidente electo de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, anunció este domingo (09.12.2018) como futuro ministro de Medio Ambiente al abogado Ricardo Salles, con lo que completó su gabinete, que tendrá en total 22 miembros frente a los 29 del Gobierno de Michel Temer.
Bolsonaro, como es usual, informó de su decisión a través de las redes sociales, por las que se comunica a diario con sus seguidores.
Los militares
Entre sus 22 ministros, Bolsonaro tendrá a 5 miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y al general Hamilton Mourao en la vicepresidencia, lo que le dará al próximo Gobierno un carácter cívico-militar inédito en la democracia que Brasil recobró en 1985, tras 21 años de dictadura.
En contra del orden castrense, el capitán Bolsonaro tendrá bajo su mando a tres generales, un teniente coronel y un almirante, todos en la reserva, como él.
El general Fernando Azevedo e Silva será ministro de Defensa, el titular de Seguridad Institucional será el general Augusto Heleno Ribeiro y la Secretaría de Gobierno la ocupará el general Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz.
En el despacho de Ciencia y Tecnología estará el teniente coronel Marcos Pontes, astronauta y único brasileño que llegó al espacio, en una misión de la NASA, en tanto que el almirante Bento Costa Lima será ministro de Minas y Energía.
Los civiles
Entre los civiles, el ministro más destacado parece ser el juez Sergio Moro, un "paladín" de la lucha contra la corrupción, que se ganó esa imagen en el país como responsable en primera instancia de la operación Lava Jato, que destapó las corruptelas en Petrobras que llevaron a detectar una red de alcance internacional.
Moro también estuvo a cargo del juicio contra Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a quien halló culpable de corrupción y condenó en primera instancia a nueve años, aunque esa pena fue luego aumentada por un tribunal superior a doce años, que el expresidente cumple desde abril pasado.
El equipo económico tendrá como principal miembro, y con "carta blanca", según ha dicho el propio Bolsonaro, al economista Paulo Guedes, alineado al ideario neoliberal de Milton Friedman y formado en la Escuela de Chicago.
Al frente de la cartera de Relaciones Exteriores estará Ernesto Araújo, un diplomático de carrera que alcanzó el grado de embajador este año pero que aún no ha ocupado ese cargo en ningún país.
rrr (efe/ap/reuters)
Deutsche Welle es la emisora internacional de Alemania y produce periodismo independiente en 30 idiomas. Síganos enFacebook | Twitter | YouTube
El diputado Onyx Lorenzoni fue nombrado hoy ministro extraordinario del gobierno de transición del presidente electo de Brasil, el ultraderechista Jair Bolsonaro, informaron fuentes oficiales.
Counsel of warriorsDonald Trump’s generals cannot control him
America’s president loves men in uniform, and they often give him sound advice. But it is Mr Trump who calls the shots
Print edition | Briefing
| WASHINGTON, DC
WASHINGTON, DC, is a revealingly gossipy place. A favourite tale of the Donald Trump era involves a pact that the generals working for the president are supposed to have sworn. As described by ambassadors, senators and foreign-policy panjandrums, the generals have agreed that one of their number will remain in America at all times, to prevent a war being started by intemperate presidential tweets.
The details change. Sometimes, it is said, the pact involves James Mattis, the defence secretary, aligning travel with the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, a fellow retired four-star Marine general. Others say Mr Mattis is in cahoots with Joseph Dunford, a serving four-star Marine general and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, or with H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser (an army lieutenant-general still on active service but shouldering a mere three stars). Still others insist the pact includes the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, a former oil man and a rare civilian among the so-called “grown-ups” who run national-security policy for Mr Trump. Washington grandees and foreign governments have invested extraordinary hopes in the men that Mr Trump likes to call “my generals”. The near-consensus among foreign-policy types is that Mr Trump is a thin-skinned, unpredictable and alarmingly incurious neophyte. The generals are trusted to keep the ship of state on a safe course, until the Trump-tempest blows over. Reality is more nuanced.Mr Mattis has told aides that no such pact exists.The Economistrecently travelled to South Korea with the defence secretary on the same day that General Dunford was also in Seoul, and Mr Tillerson was in Geneva. The durability of this urban legend is telling, however.
In line for promotion
Sighing with relief over Mr Trump’s generals does not require Washington’s elite to credit him with good judgment. The general closest to Mr Trump during his presidential campaign, Mike Flynn, failed spectacularly as his first national security adviser. The angry, crudely anti-Muslim man who campaigned with Mr Trump left old comrades shaking their heads in disbelief. Mr Flynn crashed out of office in under four weeks, after being caught fibbing about his contacts with Russian officials.
Mr Trump is widely held to have picked his best advisers on gut instinct and probably with an eye to their image as warriors from “central casting”. The president first tried to recruit a shaven-headed former Navy SEAL and retired vice-admiral, Robert Harward, to replace Mr Flynn. When he declined the offer, Mr Trump took the advice of allies including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a hardliner on Iran and other foreign-policy questions, to hire Lieutenant-General McMaster, a tough-talking counter-insurgency expert.
The president’s first choice for defence secretary, General Jack Keane, a regular contributor on Fox News, his favourite television network, turned him down citing the recent death of his wife, but recommended two four-star warrior-intellectuals, Mr Mattis and General David Petraeus. Introducing Mr Mattis as his choice to supporters in December 2016, Mr Trump revelled in the nickname “Mad Dog”, hung around the general’s neck by journalists after service in the first Gulf war, Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr Mattis dislikes the sobriquet, and was better known among his men as a “warrior-monk” who combined ferocity in combat with a taste for reading Marcus Aurelius and other Roman thinkers in his tent.
A gleeful Mr Trump described Mr Mattis as “the closest thing to General George Patton that we have”, in homage to the swaggering, snarling second-world-war commander, and promised: “Mad Dog plays no games.” Conservative media outlets swooned over Mattis-epigrams that gained fame among troops in Iraq, such as his advice: “Be polite, be professional, but always have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” It only added to Mr Mattis’s appeal on the right that he was asked to retire as head of Central Command five months early by Team Obama, who worried that his calls for aggressive containment of Iran might up-end nuclear talks.
Accepting the nomination Mr Mattis talked of the importance of allies, and of defending the country and the constitution. Just three years after retiring from the Marines, he noted that he would need a waiver from Congress to the rule that defence secretaries must have been civilians for at least seven years before running the Pentagon (the last time such a waiver was needed was for George Marshall in 1950). “He’ll get that waiver, right?” beamed Mr Trump on stage next to him. “Such a popular choice.”
As a president who inspires much amateur psychoanalysis, Mr Trump’s general-worship is routinely linked to his adolescence at a private military academy, which he has said gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military” and to his avoiding service in Vietnam because of painful feet.
Fighting talk
Mr Trump gives his old warriors striking licence to disagree with him in public. After campaign-trail promises to bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse”, Mr Trump said he was “very impressed” to hear Mr Mattis explain why “a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers” were more effective. No rebuke came in June when Mr Mattis urged an audience in Singapore to “bear with us” when Americans became put out at the burden of upholding a rules-based world order. Mr Mattis told congressional hearings that it was in the national interest to stay in the deal to freeze Iran’s nuclear programme, which the president wanted to scrap.
Other high-stakes interventions have been more discreet. Sources close to Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr Trump, confirm that he was frustrated in June when the defence secretary watered down plans for the president to confront South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, over his country’s trade deficit with America. Economic nationalists in the White House urged Mr Trump to link the trade imbalance with the security offered by tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea. Mr Mattis persuaded Mr Trump to keep the two questions separate, calling this a terrible time to cast doubt on the alliance with South Korea.
Mr McMaster also clashed with Mr Bannon about troop levels in Afghanistan. The grizzled campaign strategist, who left the White House in August, challenged the general about his apparent “emotional connection” to Afghanistan, arguing that Trump voters were tired of spending blood and treasure on open-ended commitments to foreign wars. One meeting became so heated that Mr Mattis tapped Mr McMaster on the leg in an urgent warning that he should calm down, a witness says. For his part the defence secretary was left shaken by Trump aides questioning whether America has vital national-security interests in Afghanistan.
Such reports of heated debate, especially in the first months of the administration, led to breathless suggestions that the generals operate as something akin to a “deep state”, defending democratic rule from a strongman president—as if America is a richer version of the Philippines or Turkey.
When Mr Mattis talked about military power as a tool allowing diplomats to work from a position of strength, or declined to comment on breaking news until he knew more facts, pundits declared that he was obviously rebuking Mr Trump. A media cottage industry sprang up finding photographs of Mr Kelly seeming to stare at his shoes in misery, or hold his head while listening to the president, notably after becoming White House chief of staff in July following his six-month stint as secretary of homeland security.
Such reporting exasperates Mr Mattis, who sees himself as a loyal servant of the constitutional order and thus of a president who was freely elected by the American people. His duty, as described to colleagues, is to speak out when needed and to represent the views of the armed services to the commander-in-chief, but in private in order to maintain indispensable bonds of trust.
In recent weeks Mr Kelly has gone much further, deriding what he called “astounding” press reports that he sees his role as controlling the president. As chief of staff his job is to control only the flow of information to the president, he said in October. A sharper row followed after Mr Kelly defended Mr Trump against allegations of mishandling a telephone call to the widow of a soldier killed in action.
After poignantly describing how he learned of the death of his own son in combat, Mr Kelly then attacked a Democratic congresswoman critical of Mr Trump’s call to the bereaved woman, falsely accusing her of exploiting an earlier fatal tragedy for political gain. Mr Kelly then startled the White House briefing room by suggesting that many journalists do not even “know anyone who knows anyone” in the armed forces and offering to take questions from reporters with a connection to a bereavement in war.
Mr Kelly’s overtly partisan defence of his president surprised many civilians. But his voicing of conservative political views—followed up a few days later with an odd defence of a Confederate civil-war general, Robert E. Lee, as an “honourable man”—also dismayed his brothers in arms. A former colleague calls Mr Kelly’s press conference a “very sad moment” which showed the dangers of allowing war service to become politicised and “really broke my heart”.
Officer material
Attitudes to global openness increasingly divide Americans. They also divide Mr Trump, a man who does not understand why anyone would want to visit dangerous places, from his beloved generals, all of whom came of age in far-off theatres of war and survived by studying alien codes of behaviour. Yet there are differences between the generals, too. It is said that Mr Kelly’s years at Southern Command, overseeing crime-ridden Central America, left him readier to haul up drawbridges against a wicked world.
As for Mr Mattis, he let his views show briefly when talking to young troops on a parade ground in central Seoul on October 27th, after a helicopter flight from the (heavily fortified) demilitarised zone that cuts the Korean peninsula in two. Asked about American forces bringing families to live in South Korea, the defence secretary conceded that they live “within range” of North Korean artillery. But having Americans live alongside Koreans, who watched their democracy emerge from a bloody war, provides “an awful lot of our strength in the alliance,” Mr Mattis said.
Mr Trump takes a transactional view of alliances. Visiting Seoul on November 7th he thanked South Korea for buying American arms, saying: “We make the finest equipment in the world, and you’re buying a lot of it, and we appreciate that.”
Senior uniformed and civilian figures do see upsides to having generals serve in the Trump administration. In a polarised, short-termist political environment, modern commanders stand out for their impatience with ideology, for taking the long view and for their devotion to the free competition of ideas. That is no surprise, for it was ideological certainties that led to the botched occupation of Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
This generation of generals has seen a lot of combat. A long-time colleague notes that after retiring from the Marines, Mr Mattis spent months on a cross-country road trip, quietly visiting the families of troops killed on his watch. He is not anti-war, but is conscious of war’s limits. One of his favourite quotes, from Will Rogers, a newspaper columnist in the 1920s, notes that many foreigners are more comfortable with an imperfect government of their own choosing than with a perfect one imposed by American Marines. Mr Mattis has called his countrymen “an idealistic people bound by pragmatism”.
On the frontline
Many modern generals are impatient with partisans trying to start culture wars about such issues as transgender troops or sexual harassment in the ranks, asking instead what policies promote discipline and “lethality”. Those generals are as interested in the power of America to inspire as to intimidate, says Michèle Flournoy, a former under-secretary of defence who declined an offer to be Mr Mattis’s deputy, citing discomfort with the Trump agenda. “These are people who know the cost of war. They are the first to say, we can use coercive means but it is better to use them to back up diplomacy,” she says.
The military chain of command teaches officers devotion to institutions larger than any one individual’s whim, says Robert Tyrer, a former chief of staff to William Cohen, who as defence secretary worked closely with Mr Mattis in the 1990s. It teaches officers to think about “a broader sense of national purpose” dating back to the start of the American experiment 240 years ago, rather than one measured in four-year electoral cycles.
The commander-in-chief likes a man in a uniformThe armed forces teach high-flying officers Washington’s ways, notes Mr Tyrer, giving Mr Trump’s generals more experience of government than many in his team of outsiders. As a colonel, Mr Mattis served as executive secretary to two defence secretaries, a co-ordinating post “at the centre of the central nervous system of the department”, in Mr Tyrer’s words. The younger Mr Mattis stood out for being unusually reflective and for “reading Thucydides at the weekend”. Mr Kelly was a Marine Corps liaison to Congress and in 2011-12 the senior military assistant to the defence secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.
Partisan swings of the pendulum have also left some high-ranking commanders wary of siding with any one party or faction. Privately, many disliked micromanagement by Mr Obama and aides who seemed to think of American interventions as a destabilising menace. They see a potentially useful energy in Mr Trump’s impatience and willingness to press allies to do more. In their most optimistic moments, they can make this president sound like an accidental Ronald Reagan, ready to shake up stale assumptions and press allies to step up. At other times, senior defence folk chafe at Mr Trump’s distinctly un-Reaganish scorn for American exceptionalism and apparent belief that he has little or nothing to learn from predecessors.
Mr Panetta, a former CIA director as well as defence secretary, White House chief of staff and congressman, worries that generals lack much experience of the horse-trading side of politics. Watching his former aide, Mr Kelly, under fire after taking to the airwaves to defend Mr Trump, Mr Panetta offers the thought that: “If you’re a good chief of staff, one fundamental role is to tell the president ‘no’.”
For all the risks of a national-security team that is so heavily weighted towards military experience, Mr Panetta believes that Mr Trump’s generals are “the best hope we have to restrain this president and to keep him on a more traditional foreign-policy path”. Such talk alarms Mr Bannon, now back running Breitbart, his hard-right news operation. He remains a fan of Mr Kelly’s grasp of the national interest and the importance of strong borders, to the point of telling the president, with whom he speaks regularly, that the chief of staff would make a good secretary of state after Mr Tillerson.
He credits Mr Mattis with crafting a plan of “annihilation rather than attrition” against the extremists of Islamic State, but adds: “That being said, I’m not quite sure he has totally bought into the Trumpian worldview, that America is not going to underwrite the security of the whole post-war rules-based international order.”
Mr Bannon urges Mr Trump to seek generals who share his “America First” vision. He has urged Mr Trump to study the example of Abraham Lincoln and his generals. “Lincoln was sold on the fact that the generals were experts, and had all the plans for winning the civil war. But [to win] he had to find Grant and Sherman, who were prepared to execute his strategy, which was to burn the South down.”
Marching to a different tune
Such whiffs of raw politics are just what worries former commanders like Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 2007 to 2011. Generals have served in government before, including Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell at the National Security Council. Mr Powell and Alexander Haig both served as secretary of state, while Mr Haig was a White House chief of staff.
This time feels different, says Mr Mullen, both because there are so many generals in high office, and because “the country takes such comfort from them being there.” In his experience, military careers may prepare generals for the political world, with a small “p”—hearings on Capitol Hill or talks with foreign counterparts. But the world of Politics with a capital “P” is something more alien, and perilous. In a speech in October, Mr Mullen questioned whether it is right to depend “on retired generals for the stability of our citizenry”.
It is better to have good generals than bad men in powerful jobs. But no one cabinet secretary or aide can save the government from calamity. The American chain of command allows for much robust debate. But the toughest generals can argue only for so long, notes Mr Mullen. “Then the president makes a decision, and you march off and execute.”
