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A World Of Issues Await New President

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The New York Times

Published: January 4, 2009

CHICAGO - He has read "Ghost Wars," the history of the long adventure by the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan and its fruitless effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

He has sought the counsel of an old Republican realist - Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser - who has long argued against an ideologically driven foreign policy.

And he has one-upped President George W. Bush's six intelligence briefings a week by demanding seven, prompting Mike McConnell, who handles presidential briefings as the director of national intelligence, to joke, "I don't know if there's some kind of competition going."

As Barack Obama gets ready to assume the presidency Jan. 20, he has been boning up on the many national security issues that await his first day in the Oval Office. The list spans the globe, from the obscure - whether he should break with the Bush administration's pro-Morocco policy in its dispute over independence for the region known as Western Sahara - to the familiar, as in whether his planned increase of troops to Afghanistan is feasible.

Obama has had several long sessions, on the telephone and in person, with Gen. James Jones, whom he has named as national security adviser, in what the general has described as a "walk around the world."

But even as Obama moves to the center, some classic liberalism has become a part of his study program. Obama is reading "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" by the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. Sachs argues that big governments like the United States could successfully tackle global warming, environmental destruction and extreme poverty by refocusing a fraction of global income toward those issues.

Consulting With Military

Obama has also been making use of a military that he is soon to inherit as commander in chief. Three weeks ago, he called Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Chicago for a 45-minute private session.

"It struck the chairman very much that the president-elect is working very hard to bring himself up to speed, that he's willing to listen and to learn as he moves his way through the education process," said a senior military official familiar with the meeting.

Like many presidents before him, Obama expects the early months of his term to be dominated by the economy, Democratic advisers said, and the proposed auto industry bailout and the recession have controlled how he has spent much of his time. But he has also quickly learned - as his predecessors did - that issues of national security do not sit back and wait for the president to finish dealing with domestic policy.

In the presidential campaign, Obama spent far more time talking about Pakistan's relationship with Afghanistan, particularly along the lawless border regions of the two countries, than Pakistan's long-running dispute with India over Kashmir. The Mumbai attacks, which officials have attributed to the guerrilla group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group focused on the sovereignty of Kashmir, moved South Asia's other simmering security crisis-in-waiting to the front burner.

Briefings On Mumbai

On the day of the Mumbai attacks, Obama was in Chicago, getting ready to host 60 guests at his Hyde Park home for Thanksgiving. He did not cancel his Thanksgiving plans, but ended up spending part of the day in briefings with two Central Intelligence Agency officials on the response to Mumbai. He called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice several times to get updates about the crisis and the American response.

That Friday, Obama placed a 10:30 p.m. phone call to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, ostensibly to offer condolences about the loss of life in Mumbai, but also, foreign aides said, to add his voice to those of Bush administration officials trying to avoid war between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.

Obama began getting daily intelligence briefings two days after his election victory and quickly demanded that he receive seven intelligence briefings a week.

"We go through a great deal of substance, on any topic you can imagine in the context of national security and potential threats to the United States," McConnell told an audience at Harvard.

But Obama already may have discovered that the daily briefing is not enough, said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian.

"During the crisis in India, would the daily briefing suffice to tell Obama what was happening?" Dallek asked. "I don't think so."

Dallek said that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger once scoffed to him about the daily briefings.

"He said, 'If there was something vital or crucial or a crisis developing, these daily briefs end up being just pro forma business that didn't bring you up to speed.'"

Kissinger, Dallek said, "didn't think they always gave you an up-to-the-minute picture of what's going on."

GETTING OBAMA WORLD-READY

Obama's Inner Circle

•Gen James Jones, named as national security adviser

•Mike McConnell, who handles presidential briefings as the director of national intelligence

•Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden

• Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates

•Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state

•Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

•Eric Holder, attorney general-designate

•Susan Rice, Obama's pick for ambassador to the United Nations

Republican and Conservative Voices

•Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser

•George P. Shultz, a former Secretary of State and a Reagan administration official who is known in some foreign policy circles as the father of the Bush doctrine because of his advocacy of preventive w

•Richard L. Armitage, Colin L. Powell's deputy at the State Department, who advised Sen. John McCain in the presidential campaign

•Gen. Tommy Franks (commander of the Iraq invasion),

•Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the one-time Democrat and now independent who supported McCain in the election and is known for breaking with Democratic criticism of the Iraq war.

Source: The New York Times

GETTING OBAMA WORLD-READY

President-elect Barack Obama is looking to his inner-circle of advisers, as well as a variety of Republican and conservative voices as he delves into foreign policy matters ahead of his inauguration. Among those who counsel he sought are:

Inner Circle

Mike McConnell, who handles presidential briefings as the director of national intelligence

Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Eric Holder, attorney general-designate•Susan Rice, Obama's pick for ambassador to the United Nations

Republicans and Conservatives

Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser

George P. Shultz, a former Secretary of State and a Reagan administration official who is known in some foreign policy circles as the father of the Bush doctrine because of his advocacy of preventive w•Richard L. Armitage, Colin L. Powell's deputy at the State Department, who advised Sen. John McCain in the presidential campaign

Gen. Tommy Franks (commander of the Iraq invasion),

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the one-time Democrat and now independent who supported McCain in the election and is known for breaking with Democratic criticism of the Iraq war.

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