Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, by James Risen
Got a 4.09 out of 5 rating on Goodreads.
This was an interesting one in that I spent a good deal of the time I was reading checking in with myself. There was a bit of a "conspiracy" tone at times, and so I was asking how much of it I should take at face value, how it fit with my experiences in the military.
Part of the internal dialogue was thinking about "war" and how declaring a fairly abstract war on terror has impacted the use of the military and other instruments of national security. For example, with all of the current controversy about removing a relatively small number of troops from northern Syria (which I personally think is a mistake), were they participating in a "war", or when you have special operators doing very targeted work against a non-state actor, can you call that war? What are the implications for legal and financial pieces? Congress has right to declare war, but hasn't exercised that Constitutionally-designated power since 1942, and it is argued
by some that declaring war is no longer a useful convention. As part of a set of thoughts about Congress over time yielding more and more power to the chief executive, it could be argued that the use of military force in modern settings doesn't necessarily conform to what the founding fathers intended, and updates are needed.
Another internal dialogue was the whistleblower components of the text. I mentioned the conspiracy focus of the book, and Risen covers whistleblowers that tried to make noise and effect change both within government entities and those that broke the rules and went outside the system. As a journalist, he sees himself as a whistleblower, rather than a person reporting on the whistleblowers, and articulates how the government has targeted him. With the current news cycle about a whistleblower reporting a national security issue with using the government's money and power to push Ukraine to provide negative information about a political rival, this book from 2014 remains timely. In today's case, I find it shameful that government officials are going after the whistleblower, as it appears the whistleblower followed all the rules. The primary arguments within the complaint have in many cases been supported and the only disproven pieces are minor details. Seeking to reveal the whistleblower's identity is problematic to me in two ways:
1. the rhetoric and political environment are so heated that he or she is at real risk of physical harm, doxxing, and other acts by those opposed to the findings
2. the focus on the whistleblower is in many ways a distraction from the problems laid out in the complaint- some argue that the complaint isn't valid if it comes from a partisan. Well, that is what investigation of a complaint is for- to validate the complaint or to dismiss it. If a crime is committed, the crime is the issue, even if the key witness has a shady background (not saying that is the case here).
But how should I feel about whistleblowers that clearly break the rules and take classified information and release it publicly? On first blush, easily it is wrong. On second thought, I have often been frustrated by the overclassification of material that simply doesn't need to be classified, which is part of the complaint for the Ukraine whistleblower. Bad behavior, that is not classified for national security reasons, should not be classified simply to hide inconvenient, inappropriate or even illegal behavior. I have never had to deal with this issue personally, thankfully. I have had to deal with folks working from desktops where they simply didn't want to switch from classified to unclassified in their communications, and I was in a situation and location where I had more limited or challenging access to the required resources/facilities. This has been more of a higher headquarters / lower headquarters (or even field) problem than anything else, however.
What Risen tackles is more fraught with peril- values of the U.S. about individual privacy versus national security, conflicts of interest within and across government agencies and private entities with financial stakes, and similar problems.
I don't think there are any easy answers on this. I don't think any one individual can play "savior" and fix these sticky problems for us, contrary to some proclamations by senior leaders with delusions of grandeur (beware anyone who bellows "I alone can fix it"). Nor do I think the problems will ever be completely solved. But I do believe we can do better, and that it must be done by well-meaning leaders across government, industry (defense, technology, etc) and other domains such as education, getting past our frustrating political divides.
My year of learning at the Army War College brought clearly to my understanding how fragile and yet robust our experiment in democracy has been. There was really nothing like it before when one factors in the environment and historical context, and there's no guarantee it endures. It is up to us to take action to preserve the essence of it while making necessary updates, such as Lincoln's decision to resolve the slavery question left unanswered originally, and other civil rights progress made since then.
Rule of law, individual freedoms, property rights, balance of power across legislative, executive and judicial branches with competing interests and checks. A fascinating and glorious experiment. I fear we are tossing the whole thing into the bunsen burner.
