It was a U.S. presidential debate unlike we have ever experienced. Personal attacks and accusations expressed by Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton dominated over discussion of substantive issues. It seemed as though more time was spent in the gutter than the trenches.
The Cipher Brief went back to our five network experts—former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, former U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey, retired General Jack Keane, former CIA officer John Sipher, and retired Lieutenant General Guy Swan—to see if they thought either of the candidates shed any new light on their national security positions.
The Cipher Brief: Did either candidate clarify or further expand upon previous stated national security policies?
Mike Hayden: A lot of it of the debate was name-calling and attacking the opponents character. To be fair, there was more substance to Secretary Clinton’s answers, but as I have said before, she had to defend a previous record, a record about which I have criticisms too. In terms of foreign affairs, multiple times to the candidates’ answers, (moderator) Martha Raddatz would ask, “what would you do, but what would you do,” and there was no answer to that at all.
James Jeffrey: Absolutely. Most importantly, on Russia, Clinton took a very hard line. While noting that she would cooperate (and has) with Moscow when called for, she was extremely strong in condemning Russia, both for Syria and for trying to rig the U.S. election. She used this repeatedly against Trump. Trump on the other hand was solicitous of Russia, all but ignoring Russia's role in Syria apart from “fighting ISIS,” and questioning the U.S. Government assertion that Moscow was behind the hacking of the DNC. His renunciation of his Vice President's tough talk on Russia was particularly striking.
More generally, Trump basically took the position that the only foreign policy issue was fighting ISIS. Interestingly, he did attack Russian and Syrian ally Iran, but that was mainly in the context of how the Obama team had allowed Iran to get tremendously (sic) rich in a short time following the nuclear agreement. Clinton did not really get into Iran's very serious threat to regional security in the Middle East, or into its co-responsibility with Russia for the horrors of Syria.
On Syria, Trump indicated passing concern about the situation in Aleppo but was careful not to blame Russia for that. He talked vaguely about a “safe zone” and appears to be arguing that the Gulf States “who have nothing but money” would ante up to pay/support it. She was much more forthright on no fly or safe zones but did not get into specifics except reiterating no American ground combat troops beyond special forces should be committed to Syria.
There was nothing really about China, North Korea, or Europe, and only passing about Russia apart from Syria and hacking.
Jack Keane: I believe that Mr. Trump certainly was very adamant about not taking any action whatsoever against the Assad regime and that the only interest he has in Syria is with ISIS. I think the fact that he would do nothing against the Assad regime was revealing to me. Secretary Clinton, as it pertains to Assad, has always wanted to take some action against him, at least by trying to put in play no fly zones in an attempt to shift the momentum against the regime.
John Sipher: No, I don’t believe they did. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about their positions on foreign policy because they continue to say the same thing. They don’t go into any issues in depth that can help any practitioner make sense of where they might go.
With Trump, I almost feel as if I’ve heard everything he knows. He’s been provided numerous opportunities to talk about these issues, and he has never moved away from platitudes or even shown a glancing familiarity with the issues.
Over the entire campaign—and even before it—he has changed his position so many times and says so many different things, it becomes clear he either doesn’t understand the issues, or he doesn’t care much about core issues.
Guy Swan: I didn’t see much difference. In the discussion on Mosul and ISIS, it didn’t seem to change the strategic point of view that both candidates had in the previous debate. I think Secretary Clinton is intent on continuing the strategy that the Obama administration has pursued, which as I said previously has had some positive effect. Iraq primarily is where most of the success has been and to a certain extent in Syria. The strategy the Obama administration is pursuing has not kept ISIS from expanding into other places. And that’s been the weak point of that strategy – the proliferation of ISIS into other parts of the world, primarily elsewhere in the Middle East and northern Africa.
On the Trump side, again he is being very evasive, and he continues to say, “I don’t want to show my hand to the enemy.” We probably need more substance than that from a Presidential candidate. He seems to be taking a hard line, but it’s bit more mysterious.
TCB: The two candidates took very different positions on Russia. Did either of them get it right?
MH: I think Secretary Clinton over reached by saying the Russians were doing this (hacking) to get Donald Trump as President. But Trump simply denied things that were patently obvious. He said she didn’t know that the Russians did this. The American intelligence community on Friday said that the Russians did this. And then an obviously—I’ll be kind—an incorrect assertion (by Trump) that the Russians are in Syria to fight ISIS, which is just not true. They haven’t done that.
JJ: Clinton understands that Russia is an across the board geostrategic threat to the U.S. and the West. She dramatically emphasized that threat perhaps to underline the 'soft' position Trump takes on Russia, while linking his refusal to release tax returns to possible financial ties with Moscow. Given the level of rhetoric she used, she will be under pressure to be very hard on Russia early on if elected.
Trump, when pressed, at one point claimed he knew nothing about Russia, then, again, refused to condemn anything Russia was doing, and argued repeatedly that Russia was 'fighting ISIS' (along with the Syrian government). She correctly pointed out that in fact, Russia and Syria were doing almost nothing against ISIS beyond talk.
JK: No, they haven’t got it right. Mr. Trump is somewhat naïve in dealing with Russia in the sense that he believes that we can work together against ISIS when indeed, Russia has been involved with Assad in genocide and war crimes by conducting operations in Syria against population centers and underground hospitals as well as bombing food and water distribution centers. The fact that he’s willing to work with Assad despite that kind of activity – it’s either done out of naivety or he just doesn’t know the facts. I’m mystified by his willingness to work with Russia. Also, it’s clear that Russia, unprovoked, seized Crimea and seized major territory in eastern Ukraine – that’s in violation of international accords and something that the United States, from a policy perspective, must be opposed to.
Secretary Clinton when it comes to Russia – her eyes are more open to what has taken place with Russia. I don’t think her stance is strong enough because Russia, given its success in Ukraine and its obvious success in Syria by propping up the regime, and the fact that there is no international pushback of any consequence for their actions is encouraging Russia to pursue its true strategic objective. That objective is to establish the historical strategic buffer in eastern Europe by bringing the Baltics and other states in eastern Europe underneath their control. Their real intent is to force the collapse of NATO in the event it doesn’t respond to a military incursion by Russia into the Baltics, similar to what Russia did in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
JS: Trump’s continued defense of Russia is troubling, even to the point where he disagrees with his own running mate. He has had numerous chances to display nuance or a balanced view toward Russia, and he has yet to do so. I was surprised, coming from the intelligence community, it is rare when the Director of National Intelligence comes out with a public statement about something, and last week, when they came out with a statement on Russia cyber attacks, to have someone running for President dismiss it, and say it is probably not true to support the Russians, to me that’s crazy talk.
In some ways, it goes to one of my frustrations with both Clinton and Trump. Clinton can often be frustrating because she is so careful with her language, she wordsmiths what she says, and in many ways, is a traditional candidate in that way. That can be infuriating.
However, Trump’s language is often just so sloppy. When he talks about Syria, ISIS, Iran, the things he said, he’s not careful enough to be president. For example, what he said about Syria, suggesting that Aleppo has already fallen. To most people that may not sound like much, but a U.S. President can’t say things like that. He’s signaling to (Syrian President) Bashar Assad that the slaughter of 250-thousand people is not that important to us. Those people are still there. Aleppo hasn’t fallen, and when a U.S. President makes a strong signal like that, that it doesn’t matter, it really signals to Syria, Russia and Iran that we don’t mind if Aleppo falls. I just find that kind of talk dangerous and sloppy.
GS: It’s interesting. I thought both of them had some common ground last night as far as potential co-operation with Russia, especially in the counterterrorism realm. Clearly, they both still are suspicious of Russian intent. However, there was ironically some common ground. Secretary Clinton described some opportunities to collaborate with the Russians and so did Mr. Trump, especially in counterterrorism. They weren’t too far apart on that.
TCB: There was some discussion about the strategy for the Mosul campaign and against ISIS. Your thoughts?
MH: Trump simply defaulted to, you shouldn’t tip your hand to the enemy. Frankly, a multi-brigade ground attack on the second largest city in Iraq isn’t going to be anyone’s secret. So no one is tipping anything with regard to the effort to retake Mosul and what even the time table is. I thought that was a complete red herring.
Secretary Clinton didn’t really talk about Mosul a lot. She talked about going after ISIS and here, she wasn’t nearly as good as (Republican Vice President candidate) Mike Pence was. I find it remarkable that Mr. Trump disowned Mr. Pence when it came to fighting ISIS. I was incredibly off put by the cavalier manner in which he simply dismissed Aleppo and seemed indifferent to the fate of hundreds of thousands of people there.
JJ: Trump was all “fight ISIS 24/7” but had little detail beyond the slogan (in other fora, he has defended this lack of detail as tactically sound), and he criticized public talk of the impending Mosul offensive as 'warning ISIS leaders to leave.'
Clinton had more details about going into the fight for Mosul; the need to mobilize various factions—she listed them, and what forces and tactics she would use—special forces, airstrikes, raids to target ISIS leaders. She also explained with considerable detail and accuracy the political issues involved in mobilizing various Iraqi factions for the Mosul offensive, and correctly, why that required certain transparency and 'talk' about the fight to reassure and persuade.
On the offensive against ISIS in Syria, she advocated “arming the Kurds,” as the best fighters. While not specific from the context, it is clear she was talking about the PYD Kurds in Syria. Without mentioning Turkey, she indicated that she knew this would be sensitive (Turkey is opposed to arming what it sees as the Syrian Kurdish wing of the PKK Turkish Kurdish insurgency), and thus cited the “Arab” component to the largely PYD Free Syrian Army forces. All in all, she did a professional job describing a reasonable approach to finishing ISIS off.
Clinton was, as should be expected given her resume, on top of foreign policy issues; Trump clearly was out of his depth, as his seeming confusion and then confession about not knowing anything about Russia document.
But the underlying impression is that both were playing foreign policy primarily as 'electoral weapons.' Clinton repeatedly raised Russia in almost apocalyptical terms, apparently to establish the danger of voting for a candidate who seems favored by Moscow (a point she explicitly made) and oblivious to all Moscow's threats to the U.S. He on the other hand seems to have hyped ISIS, as not the most important but 'the only thing' in foreign policy, to play to his supporters' deep concern about terrorism and terrorist attacks in America, and probably latent anti-Muslim sentiment (thus the long discourse on the allegedly incredible danger of bringing Syrian refugees to the U.S.).
JK: I think they both understood that the Iraqi security forces are conducting a campaign against ISIS and that it’s imminent and likely to succeed. I didn’t detect anything that’s different from either candidate.
JS: The one that jumped out at me was this notion that Russia, Syria, and Iran are fighting ISIS and therefore we should be assisting them is just not true. I didn’t understand what he was trying to get at with Mosul. When he talks about Iraq, it often goes all over the place; we shouldn’t have gone in, we shouldn’t have got out, we should have taken the oil, we shouldn’t be there. It’s hard for me to say what he was thinking about during the Mosul discussion.
GS: What I heard Mr. Trump say was that we—the coalition, the United States, the administration—were telegraphing too much of the preparations for that campaign and allowing ISIS leaders to escape from the Mosul encirclement.
Mrs. Clinton’s point of view was that we have to marshal the forces, we have to work with the Iraqis, this is an Iraqi operation, and we need to empower them to do it. So they both had clearly different points of view on the strategy for going after Mosul.
TCB: Any other points you would like to make about the debate?
MH: I was absolutely stunned that Mr. Trump said, if elected President, he would jail his political opponent. That smacks at what happens in very, very immature, or faux democracies.
JK: I was surprised there weren’t more national security subjects covered: the strategy to defeat ISIS; specific strategic questions dealing with Russia’s global ambitions; how to deal with Iran’s regional ambitions for Middle East domination; the rise of China and its desire to dominate the Western Pacific and the South China Sea; and how we should cope with those realities. There was a dearth of substantive questions on national security.
JS: A couple of thoughts: One, it wasn’t foreign policy necessarily, but when he talked about if he was president, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. This stuff about jailing your opponent is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. If any foreign leader had said something like that, we and our state department would be out front denouncing it. For someone in the United States to be running for president to talk like that, that kind of cavalier language is dangerous.
The other one is that he continued to say how stupid our country is, and he said a number of times that everything is a disaster. As someone who spent his whole life working for the government, I resent the constant suggestion that government people are stupid. There are a lot of smart, hard working people who are facing really difficult and really complex issues. And these are not the kind of things that are solved over night. Foreign policy is a not something that is going to be solved tomorrow. When he talks that way and puts down the people who will be working for him, I think that’s a mistake. Again, it shows sloppy language.
The frustration with Clinton has to do with her long history of being so careful with her language. I find that less troubling, because that’s a standard political thing. The people who support Trump are the people who are frustrated with the establishment. When she talks, she does ooze establishment. Having been part of the establishment I don’t find that terrible and dangerous. But I can see how that would be frustrating to people, that you often don’t get a clear answer from her either. But at least I have a sense of her experience, and that she understands the issues. Where with Trump, I think his lack of understanding and cavalier use of language is more troubling.
GS: I didn’t hear much different from what we heard in the first debate, nor in what we’ve heard from both camps. There’s still a bit of mystery behind Mr. Trump’s strategy and foreign policy, and Mrs. Clinton appears to want to continue the (Obama) administration’s policy.
Pam Benson is managing editor at The Cipher Brief.
Fionnuala Sweeney is vice president and executive editor at The Cipher Brief.
