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Obama starts naming Asia lineup

Asia news seems too small bore for Washington mainstream media these days, so here’s another detailed analysis by Chris Nelson of Samuels International.

Nelson confirms some of the appointments he speculated about in my posting of Monday:

President-elect Obama today announced the top assistants to Secretary of Defense Gates, confirming earlier reports that the Deputy Secretary will be Bill Lynn, and the Undersecretary for Policy will be Michele Flournoy. (As confirmed Monday (Jan. 5), Kurt Campbell will be the Assistant Secretary for East Asia & the Pacific, at State.)

See full text of announcement/bios for Flournoy and Lynn here at Obama’s Change.gov.

We can also confirm that the likely nominees for two Asst. Secretary postings of vital importance to Asia will be, as previously reported, retired Marine Gen. “Chip” Gregson for A/S Asia, and (this is new) former Ambassador to S. Korea, Russia and NATO Sandy Vershbow as A/S for DOD’s largest bureau, ISA.

See the text discussion, below, for what “ISA” actually means. How these DOD folks will interact with Hillary Clinton’s emerging empire of Special Envoys outside the direct organizational box?

Good question..perhaps for the NSC’s Gen. Jones to address.

On the Special Envoys, the job accepted by Dick Holbrooke has been clarified by informed sources to be ONLY responsible for Afghanistan/Pakistan, and NOT India.

How this works as a practical matter remains to be seen, but it may help assuage Indian officials who feel Holbrooke is too Kashmir focused.

Holbrooke has spent the past year on Afghanistan/Pakistan, and you can Google a speech he gave on it at CSIS last March.

Our brief Report line of Monday, “for Ambassador to Japan, think Joe Nye” set off a vigorous round of press speculation (and cheerfully conflicting reports as late as today) that Nye had already said “no, but thanks”, and then, later, that he hadn’t.

Said no, that is.

Final word for today, to paraphrase my late Dad when pushed my by late Ma on something he didn’t want to talk about: “yes…no…maybe”.

The point being that the notion of the co-author of the Nye-Armitage Report of 2000 being sent to Tokyo may yet play out…stay tuned…but a final offer and decision has not been completed.

More details after the fold…

-O-

DOD…Obama’s appointments today help fill the line-up headed by holdover Secretary Gates, with two top officials very familiar with N. Asia security issues, the Deputy-designate Bill Lynn, lately of Raytheon, and Undersecretary for Policy Michele Flournoy, co-founder with Kurt Campbell of the Center for National Security.

Campbell, as we confirmed Monday (Jan. 5), will be the Assistant Secretary for East Asia & the Pacific, at State.

The Lynn appointment is notable for two reasons…his personal expertise, including management skills, and the “mystery” of whatever happened to Obama fundraiser/advisor/confidant Richard Danzig, whom “everyone knew” would be the Deputy to Gates, and the secretary-in-waiting.

As was reported when Gates agreed to stay on under Obama, the “deal” was that Gates would only work for a year or two…whatever was required to manage the pivot from Iraq into Afghanistan.

The idea was that Danzig would sit at the right hand and learn the ropes. Obviously something happened in the interim, and so far, at least, Danzig, as with so many other Obama foreign policy supporters, appears to be getting nothing.

That’s a topic of increasingly pointed conversation in Washington, but best awaits a more final distribution of Assistant and Deputy Assistant Secretaries, NSC postings, et al, before rendering final judgment.

Parenthetically, but along the same lines, what ever happened to Sen. Chuck Hagel, “everybody’s” pick for a “bi-partisan” Cabinet selection, and an Obama supporter?

Maybe there’s still a chance for Hagel…pending a new name for Commerce…since he was an actual real live business person before entering politics.

But back to DOD: as indicated in the Summary, the shape of decision-makers below the Gates/Flournoy level is taking form, with word on the likely Assistant Secretaries for two key bureaus:

We already noted this week that the A/S for Asia, replacing the now-retired Jim Shinn, will be retired Marine General “Chip” Gregson, although we forgot to remind ourselves that he served as Kurt Campbell’s military aid, back when Kurt was a DOD DAS in the Clinton Administration.

Newly revealed to be in the mix is the expected nomination of former Ambassador to S. Korea (also Russia and NATO) Alexander “Sandy” Vershbow, to run DOD’s largest bureau, ISA.

ISA…International Security Affairs…reports to Ms. Flournoy as Undersecretary for Policy, and is responsible for strategy and policy in all regions of the world EXCEPT E. Asia, S. Asia, and Latin/South America.

(You may recall that two years ago, former DOD Asia DAS Richard Lawless helped persuade Congress and then-Secretary Rumsfeld that N. Asia security issues were so important and time-consuming that a separate A/S slot should be authorized.)

But with Vershbow as the assumed pick for ISA, the bureau will be run by someone with very recent, deep, hands-on experience with Korea/N. Korea, Korea-Japan, China et al.

Gregson, incidentally, we have been told has said he will also assume responsibility for overseeing Afghanistan, as part of the “Asia” portfolio.

In that, he will have to work closely with Vershbow, who’s responsibilities will include NATO involvement in Afghanistan.

Just for the record, we asked a friend how to understand the DOD regional bureau lineup, under five separate Assistant Secretaries:

ISA (Vershbow) is the biggest, as it includes all of Europe, Russia and Central Asia (the entire Former Soviet Union), the Middle East (including Iraq, Iran, Israel/Levant, the Gulf), NATO support for Afghanistan, and all of Africa.

Asia-Pacific affairs (Gregson) is all of East Asia (NE and SE), and South Asia (India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, minus the NATO/ISAF aspects).

Latin America is grouped with the A/S for Homeland Defense. The 4th and 5th A/S jobs cover Special Ops and Global affairs.

On NATO, our friend notes, the Alliance has tried to establish global partnerships, but so far the Australians and Japanese have been more interested than the Koreans.

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