General flynn: hardliner against islamists and iran

general flynn: hardliner against islamists and iran

Screenshot from flynn’s infamous lock-clinton-one speech at the republican party convention in cleveland

The intelligence general who made black ops his trademark will become the trump administration’s national security adviser

With the election of gen. Michael T. The appointment of general flynn as national security adviser illustrates a basic political orientation of the new U.S. Administration that trump was already keen to recognize during the election campaign.

It amounts to an accentuated front against radical islam – and iran. It will be interesting to see what trump’s administration thinks of turkey. In addition, there are the political operation in washington irritating auberungen flynn on the matter gulen and accusations of lobbying.

There is a whole series of crashing revisions by flynn, a tendency he shares with his future boss. The post of national security adviser is considered influential, to be seen in the processors such as henry kissinger (under nixon and ford), brent scowcroft (under ford, later under george bush), zbigniew brzezinksi (under carter), colin powell or condoleezza rice (both under george W. Bush). They made their name through the post. Flynn, a three-star general, is headstrong and ambitious.

Champion of a grand strategy

That has potential for conflict, as indicated by obama’s april 2014 removal of flynn from his post as defense intelligence agency (DIA) chief. Flynn had his own take on the work of the intelligence agencies, at the time he was. He did not want to print from this.

Flynn is a proponent of a grand strategy, he shares this with the neocons, it is not the only common ground. Like the latter, he has a mission or. Vision that goes toward nation-building. It will be interesting to see how this will interact with trump’s announced restraint in "aubenpolitical adventures" trusted. His basic criticism of obama’s is that he has been "to tactical", has not been strategic enough in his middle east policy.

The first big splash that brought intelligence specialist flynn to public attention beyond the military circles was a paper on intelligence work in afghanistan circulated through the think tank tellingly named the center for a new american security. In it, he calls for an expansion of intelligence gathering.

Expansion of intelligence work

Briefly stated: focusing on intelligence about insurgent groups, first and foremost the taliban, is not enough; the armed forces and organizations involved in moving the country toward greater stability also needed to know about the social and economic environment, as well as local pragmatism and problems.

It is important not only to know about explosives being planted or the next offensive, but also why this road should be upgraded, why that road doesn’t need to be upgraded, why this field management should be demanded, what is going on in local assemblies, what is going on with women’s representatives, etc.. In short, it is a rough approach to intelligence work – you want to know as much as possible. Flynn had general mcchrystal as a backstop to that. No surprise that the criticism was well received:

I don’t want to say that (in afghanistan, erg. D.V.) are clueless, but we are. We are not deeper in our knowledge of the environment than to the fingernail.

Michael T. Flynn

The paper reveals two core elements of flynn’s catch-all on U.S. Aub policy in the middle east region: focusing on the adversary, meaning insurgents, enemy militias, commanders, and so on, is too narrowly. This narrowing in on this leads one to "invested in confrontation, not in solutions". The solution requires a broad strategy that involves the entire environment and ultimately seeks to reshape it according to U.S. Interests.

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