About Blowing That Whistle

For the last four weeks, I have failed to find adequate time to write a respectable blog post. Events and past commitments have gotten the best of me. I spent four days in Iowa during the first week of this month, and two days in North Carolina the following week. In between, I was racing to stay ahead of the demands of my online teaching for the University of Iowa. One surprise request for consulting work intervened on a very short-term basis.

Why do I mention this?

Because, despite that drought of blog production, this blog has been gaining new subscribers by the hundreds weekly, a trend still underway. It seems logical to conclude, without any new posts, that the most recent article, “If You See Something, Say Something,” from September 22, remains the driving force. When I wrote it, however, I thought it an interesting turn of phrase but hardly the most interesting overall post I had ever written. I had modest expectations for the reaction it would get, and that seemed confirmed by an underwhelming reaction on Facebook.

I believe I underestimated the utterly accidental convergence of events. It was not long after that post that a whistleblower in the U.S. national security establishment complained formally about President Trump’s telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelenskiy, in which, the White House summary of the call later revealed, Trump pressed Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden in return for the sale of needed weapons for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and Russian-allied separatists. That set in motion an entire train of revelations including testimony by current and former diplomats and other officials. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry. The house of cards in the White House has been tumbling ever since.

I simply had the dumb luck of writing what I wrote and asking citizens to become whistleblowers to save American democracy right before one of the most consequential series of events in modern presidential history. I have no doubt that my increased readership is simply the product of people searching for content on whistleblowing and similar subjects and stumbling into my blog. I can say that I am glad so many of you liked what you saw and decided to stay. But be prepared for me to explore many other subjects in coming weeks and months.

Why?

More than six years ago, after I had initiated the blog, I wrestled with its focus. Experienced blog writers seemed to suggest one needed a “subject” for a blog. What was mine? I was not entirely sure. Every subject I considered seemed insufficient.

I was an urban planner. I was an author. I loved literature. I read a lot of books and did not mind reviewing some of them. I had religious and moral beliefs and perspectives that had evolved over decades. I graduated with a B.A. in political science but later earned degrees in journalism and urban and regional planning. I had become a disaster planning expert. I did not feel whole without embracing the full extent of my far-ranging curiosity.

One morning I awoke with a special insight. The blog, I decided, was about whatever I damn well chose to write about on that day. It would express everything I had to offer, everything I felt competent to discuss. That was in 2013. It was three years later before the turn in American politics concerned me to the point that I also felt strongly that expressing my opposition to some current developments was simply a response to my own moral and intellectual center, politics notwithstanding. I would say whatever I felt I needed to say. Every so often, the urge would emerge, and I would somehow find words to say something unique.

One never knows how what one must say feeds into the larger community or national narrative. It is the role of faith to help one make that leap and join the dialogue. And that’s all I did four weeks ago. But I am overjoyed to have so many of you join me. It makes me want to wake up in the morning and write something. Stay tuned. More is coming.

Jim Schwab

Standards of Public Behavior

Like John McCain’s assuredly final book, The Restless Wave, I read Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence, by James R. Clapper, in large part because my wife bought it for me. The usual pathway to my desk for books I discuss in this blog is that they get sent as review copies from a publisher.

Not so in this case. Jean follows much more news in her retirement, hears about books by current and former public officials, and occasionally chooses to bring one to my attention by buying it. She knows that I am likely to read it, though it may take a while if I get bogged down with other business. I am also unlikely to read the entire spate of such books in this age of Trump because I don’t have enough time. They seem to be multiplying like rabbits.

Clapper is quite clear that he never envisioned writing such a book until he retired, in large part because, as a largely nonpolitical intelligence officer, his accustomed role was to lie low and avoid publicity. At the peak of his career, as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under President Barack Obama, he says, he saw his mission as “speaking truth to power.” Like any other high-ranking administration official, Clapper had better and worse days, agreements and disagreements, with the President, but retained a deep respect for the occupant of the office both because of the importance of that office and the dignity of the individual performing the job. Any individual who has ever held a responsible position in business or in public life knows well the profound difference between disagreement and disrespect. In the end, the boss calls the shots. Moreover, Clapper makes clear that, as first a military officer, and then a civilian intelligence professional following his retirement from the Air Force, he served under successive administrations of both parties and retained the same respect for those above him.

He spends most of the book laying the groundwork for the final chapters about life at or near the top of the system. He details his childhood, in which he once managed inadvertently to hack through his family’s television into the communications system of the Philadelphia police, into college and the Air Force and training as a military intelligence officer. Like most public servants, he did not perform his job in his early years with any expectation of someday becoming the nation’s chief intelligence officer. He simply grew into a role that eventually put him repeatedly in front of congressional committees, testifying at hearings about everything from Benghazi to budgets to Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The time he invests in illuminating a background that has otherwise been largely out of the limelight helps us to understand the journey he has made from a lowly son of another itinerant military professional to someone with deep insights into where the nation has lately gone astray.

It is almost surely the unnerving experience of watching Donald Trump become president, even as the evidence of Russian meddling in the U.S. election system was mushrooming—much of which he was at times unable to discuss because the information was classified, or the investigation was underway and under the purview of the FBI, not the DNI—that seems to have dislodged any reservations he once had about sharing this story in a memoir. Like McCain, he uses the aid of a speechwriter, but neither man ever set out to be a professional writer. Still, it is perfectly clear that it is Clapper who assembled the facts for this intriguing book. The insights are clearly his own.

What troubles Clapper is hardly surprising, once one understands the philosophy that has guided his career, one commonly shared among lifelong public servants. There are certain expectations of loyalty to the nation, of the dignity of public service, and of public decency that seem to drive Clapper. No doubt, these motivations also affect many others on the growing list of critics whom President Donald Trump has recently targeted for loss of their security clearances. The sheer amateurishness of this dangerously autocratic move on Trump’s part, already applied to former CIA Director John Brennan, is apparent from the fact that several people on the announced list of those targeted for such scrutiny no longer have security clearances anyway. Would someone explain to Trump the Petulant that you can’t strip a security clearance that does not exist?

This appalling ignorance of history, law, and policy, and the consistent refusal to listen to advisers, certainly the refusal to accept the value of truth spoken to power, all appear to have played a role in driving Clapper, who is on Trump’s list, to construct his memoir and share his fears of the direction in which current events are leading the nation. There is a moment when respect for the office of the presidency is overshadowed by concerns about the abuse of power, as was the case under Richard Nixon. But this week’s events are beginning to suggest that even Watergate may not stand as the worst abuse of presidential power in American history. We cannot be afraid to say so. Clapper, who has made the round of news shows in recent months, states frankly near the end of his book:

I don’t believe our democracy can function for long on lies, particularly when inconvenient and difficult facts spoken by the practitioners of truth are dismissed as “fake news.” I know that the Intelligence Community cannot serve our nation if facts are negotiable. Just in the past few years, I’ve seen our country become polarized because people live in separate realities in which everyone has his or her own set of facts—some of which are lies knowingly distributed by a foreign adversary. This was not something I could idly stand by and watch happen to the country I love.

And so, he quotes General George Patton about how to move forward:

                “The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine. When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead.”

And hence the book’s title. It is an intelligent choice. Like Clapper with the presidents and superior officers he served in a five-decade career, I could probably question or object to some points he makes, but his larger points are impeccable. They are about honor and truth and service and honesty. Either you believe these ideals exist and matter, or you don’t. America must decide.

Jim Schwab

Climate Change as a Security Threat

It was the end of yet another trip to Washington, D.C. I generally find myself in the nation’s capital between three to five times per year, all depending on project needs, meeting invitations, and other factors mostly relevant to my work for the American Planning Association. I don’t even remember now which trip it was or what I was doing, just that when it was all over, I found my way as usual to Reagan National Airport to fly home. It was early evening, and I had left enough time for dinner at Legal Sea Foods, one of my favorite restaurants. They just happen to have an outlet in the main hall before you go through security into one of the concourses.

I was sitting at the bar, an easy place to have a good seafood dinner alone with a beer, but soon found myself next to another gentleman. Being a compulsive extrovert at heart, I introduced myself, and we were soon engaged in a conversation about what we both did. I explained my work on planning for natural hazards and learned that he was a career Navy officer. Relating to my obvious interest in coastal hazards, he informed me that he had worked on some Pacific island bases and had taken note over time of the rise in sea level that posed long-term problems for those naval facilities. I was already well aware the Department of Defense has been paying close attention to climate change as a possible source of concern for national security, in part but not solely because of its impact on military facilities and capabilities.

The conversation eventually drifted to the politics of climate change and the disconnect between many Republican conservatives’ skepticism about climate science and the more objective and cautious position of the Defense Department. He observed, as I recall, that he preferred science to ideology and then delivered his unintended punch line: “I used to be a Republican, but they’re making a Democrat out of me.” I chuckled with him, and the conversation continued.

As I thought about it later, however, I considered it sad if he felt forced to abandon his Republican roots. It may sound attractive to most Democrats to attract such a man to their ranks, but I also think it is important that some voice for climate sanity and allegiance to scientific evidence retain its voice in the Republican party. It will be a bad day for this nation when such people feel there is no room for their voice in Republican circles because it is already sad enough that climate change is viewed by many as a matter of ideology instead of scientific inquiry. There is also no question, skeptics aside, that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates human influences on a changing climate and a need to prepare for effective adaptation to changes already underway and largely inevitable.

I mention all this as a way of introducing readers to a briefing book for the change in administrations, prepared before it was clear who would become the next president. The Climate and Security Advisory Group (CSAG), chaired by the Center for Climate and Security in partnership with George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, produced the briefing book and released it in September. CSAG consists of a number of energy and climate experts in addition to numerous prominent retired military officers and officials.

Numerous such briefing books will find their way to the transition team for incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. Exactly which get read and when, and how many cabinet choices may be made before that happens, is anyone’s guess. A cynical or doubtful view can be had by considering both Trump’s past comments to the effect that climate change is a hoax and the views of some of the people surrounding him. A more positive view may be gleaned from the fact that his views on many such topics seem less than solid. It also remains to be seen how serious he may be about reading briefing books, given a reputed lack of interest in reading, but it is hard to imagine how long any president can avoid confronting the briefing materials that will come his way. The fact that the advice is coming from military experts may weigh more heavily than warnings from environmentalists or even scientists. Right now, it is just hard to know. Trump is almost surely one of the least predictable incoming presidents of modern times. But if he were ultimately to take climate science seriously—admittedly a big if—his administration could almost become transformative on the issue by bringing many of his supporters with him.

As for the briefing book, “Recommended Policies and Practices for Addressing the Security Risks of a Changing Climate,” it is worth understanding its purposes, and what it does and does not do. It is not itself a scientific document. Instead, it is a consensus-based set of recommendations from the many people listed as advisors. It details specific actions the incoming administration is advised to take in areas of defense, foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and energy, often urging that positions responsible for monitoring and counseling on actions to address climate change be elevated to a higher status in their respective agencies and in the White House.

For example, one area that receives repeated attention throughout the document is a melting Arctic Ocean, which introduces a number of national security questions ranging from the opening of a previously frozen seaway to oceangoing traffic to issues related to the extraction of natural resources from its fragile environment. These are no small issues and demand urgent attention. A sobering but fascinating view of those changes was offered five years ago by geographer Laurence C. Smith of the University of California-Los Angeles, in The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future.

The briefing book also takes the approach, already widely under consideration in the Pentagon, that climate change can potentially spawn serious international conflicts over scarce resources as a result of drought, extreme precipitation, and sea level rise, which are already inducing migration from affected areas. The ultimate question for the new Trump administration may be whether it is worth the price to the nation to ignore such potential sources of national and international instability. In the meantime, it is incumbent upon those with an intimate understanding of these issues to continue to advocate the truth as they know it—because climate change will not cease simply because some people refuse to believe in it. Climate change is not a matter of faith. It should be treated as a matter of scientific evidence and investigation.

Jim Schwab