Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine Mess that Really Counts

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Adam B. Schiff, America First, Barack Obama, Blob, George W. Bush, globalism, impeachment, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Senate impeachment trial, Trump, Ukraine

Ever since U.S.-Ukraine relations became front-page news as Russia began its military and paramilitary campaign against the former Soviet “republic” (and cradle of Russian civilization), and especially ever since American Presidents and lawmakers have sought to help Kyiv resist, I’ve been writing that whatever emotions this struggle stirs, U.S. leaders have never viewed Ukraine’s security as a remotely vital interest of the United States – and with good reason.

Located right on Russia’s doorstep, the country is impossible to defend without using nuclear weapons (and thus running the risk of nuclear war), and its multi-decade span under the Soviet thumb never had the slightest impact on America’s safety, independence, or well-being. Indeed, even a card-carrying globalist like former President Barack Obama has stated that precisely because Ukraine is a core interest of Russia’s but not of the United States, it’s “going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”

These observations have seemed especially important in recent months, as backers of impeaching President Trump have strenuously argued to the contrary. Indeed yesterday, in his formal presentation at Mr. Trump’s Senate trial, House Intelligence Committee and lead House Impeachment Manager Adam B. Schiff once more joined the chorus that has raised the stakes of protecting Ukraine considerably higher. The California Democrat endorsed a claim that Ukraine’s takeover by Russia would directly threaten America’s allies in the rest of Europe, and indeed, the U.S. homeland itself.

Quoting a previous impeachment witness (and eerily echoing a major argument for continuing to fight endless wars in the Middle East), Schiff declared, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

Not that Schiff nor any impeachment supporters my research has come across has ever called for the logical – indeed, the essential – follow-on to their Ukraine analyses (urging the permanent stationing of major American military units on Ukraine soil to deter the Russians.  And not that they’ve supported the Pentagon budget increases needed to deploy these forces without cannibalizing other missions). So it’s reasonable to conclude that their words amount to just so much bluster (and possibly Trump Derangement Syndrome).

At the same time, it’s important to note that there’s been no shortage of statements by Mr. Trump’s predecessors (including Obama) that draw connections between Ukraine’s fate and America’s.

For example, George W. Bush was a strong supporter of bringing Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This step would legally commit Washington to come to Ukraine’s defense against outside aggression just as strongly as the United States is committed to come to the defense of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European allies whose security has long been deemed vital. And in 2008, the alliance officially endorsed this goal – though without any timetable or specific plan for achieving it.

In the context of endorsing greater efforts to help Ukraine strengthen its defenses, Obama himself in 2014 emphasized the importance of keeping NATO “open” to “countries that meet our standards and that can make meaningful contributions to allied security.” And in the same speech, he vowed, “we will not accept Russia’s occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea or any part of Ukraine.”

Further, although President Trump hasn’t been the biggest fan of Ukraine or NATO, his administration officially has kept the membership door open to Kyiv. Just as officially, and more diisturbingly, the United States still considers Ukraine a “strategic partner” and indeed actually calls “a strong, independent, and democratic Ukraine” a “vital interest.”

The big takeaway isn’t that my prior descriptions of U.S. policy toward Ukraine were flawed. (Although they were.) Instead, it’s that support for bringing Ukraine into NATO and saddling the United States with yet another security commitment it can’t meet without incurring the risk of nuclear attack is strong in both the Democratic and Republican wings of the intervention-happy, globalist foreign policy establishment. And unless the presidency continues to be held by leaders with powerful America First-type instincts, this Blob’s dangerous ambitions could well become reality.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ultimate Iraq Policy Absurdity

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forever wars, Iraq, Iraq war, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, Trump

If you still have any doubts that American policy in the Middle East has become completely bonkers, just think about recent threats made by the United States to punish Iraq economically if it kicks U.S. troops out of the country – a decision its parliament has approved in a nonbinding resolution.

Iraq, you might recall, is a country that the United States has invaded no less than twice in the last three decades, and where it’s lost the lives of thousands of servicemen (let’s not forget the maimed, either) and spent more than a trillion dollars – first reversing the late Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of neighboring Kuwait, then overthrowing Saddam himself, then occupying the country and trying to stamp out various insurgencies, then fighting the jihadist group ISIS.

America still keeps thousands of troops in Iraq and keeps spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually trying to secure the country militarily and rebuild it economically. And these policies have continued under President Trump, even though he has stated repeatedly that he’d like nothing better than to end such “forever wars” – at some point.

So it’s fair to say that Mr. Trump considers Iraq’s security and prosperity to be awfully important American interests.

And if so, why has the President warned Iraq that it would face “very big sanctions” and “sanctions like they’ve never seen before” if the Americans are forced to leave? And how on earth could reports be true that his administration has told Iraq that it would lose access to billions of dollars of vitally important oil earnings it has no choice but to keep in an account at the Federal Reserve system’s New York branch?

Sure, making good on these threats would produce disaster for Iraq. And Mr. Trump has backed his words with deeds several times during his presidency – on tariffs on metals and on China, on tariffs on Mexico to achieve more immigration enforcement cooperation, and of course on Iran’s attacks on American assets.

But these Trump actions weren’t taken against countries the President wants to help, including for self-interest-based reasons. By contrast, his Iraq policies demonstrate that self-interest is exactly why he wants to stay in that country militarily – despite continued cost and risk. Why, therefore, would any Iraqi with a working brain believe the President? Unless Mr. Trump has been converted that perverse Vietnam-era logic that he has to “destroy the town to save it”? Or unless (at least many) Iraqis and their politicians really doubt Trump-ian suggestions that he would indeed be comfortable withdrawing soon, or fervently hope they’re not true, and are simply playing to their more skeptical countrymen?

Yet even the possibility (and indeed the likelihood) that Iraqis are playing political games with their – again, nonbinding – resolutions presents a problem for the United States. For how smart is it to stay dangerously and expensively mired in a country whose leaders believe such shams are needed simply to stay in power?

Finally, if Mr. Trump really could take Iraq or leave it, then why not leave now? If it’s ultimately so expendable, then why expose a single further American soldier to danger, or spend a single additional taxpayer dollar, there?

If the United States was at the beginning of a deep involvement in Iraq, a respectable argument could be made for these latest Trump-ian threats and other statements. Sometimes such good cop/bad cop tactics can help governments walk tricky tightropes that are worth walking. But even those who tend to see value in such acrobatics have to concede that, after nearly two decades, precious little progress has been made toward creating an Iraq that can handlie its major challenges (which clearly are internal) by itself, and therefore supporters of the status quo need at least to consider the possibility that the policy’s a fool’s quest.

As for those of us who have long argued that current Iraq policies have been doomed and that the United States should wash its hands of the country, and indeed the entire hopelessly dysfunctional Middle East – the latest jumble of Trump words and deeds can only leave us more convinced than ever.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Post-Soleimani, Trump Schooled the Globalists Again

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America First, Bill Clinton, Bosnia, Colin L. Powell, Democrats, deterrence, globalism, Iran, Madeleine Albright, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Soleimani, Trump

I’d hardly call President Trump a foreign policy mastermind. But since his 2016 presidential campaign started gaining strength, it’s been clear to me that his instincts in the field are exactly what a country like the United States needs, and this conviction has been strengthened considerably by a little remarked-on point he made in his announcement last week of the killing of Iranian military and terrorist commander Qassem Soleimani.

Here’s the remark:

“The fact that we have this great military and equipment…does not mean we have to use it.  We do not want to use it.  American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent.”

Sounds pretty obvious, right? But it’s been anything but obvious to America’s globalist foreign policy establishment, and especially to many in its liberal wing – which could very well regain the White House if a Democratic candidate like former Vice President Joe Biden or Indianapolis Mayor Pete Buttigieg wins November’s election. And that would be terrible news, as these establishment globalist liberals’ failure to agree indicates that they might return the nation to the days when it plunged into all sorts of foreign crises that had no potential to bolster American security, and much potential to become costly, bloody quagmires.

My evidence? An absolutely seminal exchange from the early 1990s between then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright (who went on to become Secretary of State) and Colin L. Powell – then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who would also go on to run Foggy Bottom.

During former President Bill Clinton’s first terms, Albright and Powell disagreed sharply on the merits of the United States intervening militarily in the Bosnia war – one of many civil conflicts in the Balkans triggered by the post-Cold War breakup of Yugoslavia. Albright was a leader of the hawks and Powell had long championed a view that the United States should use its armed forces only when genuinely vital national interests were at stake.

During one of their debates, Albright asked Powell a question that was shockingly moronic even by the dismal standards of globalists generally: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

In his memoirs, Powell wrote that Albright’s question almost gave him “an aneurysm.” And it should be screamingly obvious why. Albright, who has studied international affairs her entire adult life, had apparently never heard of, or forgot, the concept of “deterrence.”

Thank goodness she wasn’t in power during one of the Cold War nuclear crises, like that over Cuba in 1962. Can you imagine any of former President John F. Kennedy’s advisers asking “What’s the point of having these superb nuclear weapons if we can’t use them?” And most worrisomely Albright – who remains influential in top Democratic political circles – has been proudly unrepentant.

Even more important, Albright’s position shows that she’s clueless about a fundamental intellectual key to U.S. foreign policy success – understanding that a superpower is defined first and foremost by what it is (i.e, by the assets it can bring to bear regarding overseas challenges and opportunities) not by what it does (how and how energetically it uses those assets). 

That is, for a country as geopolitically secure and economically self-sufficient as the United States, what matters most is focusing on building the strength (in all dimensions, including the power to deter any aggressors) needed to enable it to survive and prosper in a world certain to remain dangerous, rather than working overtime figuring out ways to keep using that strength – especially when there’s no obvious need.   

Now Powell’s a globalist, too – but he clearly comes from the wing that’s at least recognized that national interests (though he and his ilk invariably define them way too broadly) should be driving the use of foreign policy tools, not the availability of those tools (let alone list of uses of American arms and resources that may be desirable to some extent, to some Americans, but are hardly essential – like the Bosnia mess and other humanitarian tragedies in which the Clinton-ites initially engaged the nation).

Trump’s Iran remarks unmistakably associate him with that far wiser Powell approach – including in situations unlikely to go nuclear. They also signal that he gets it on the real nature of a superpower.

So don’t doubt for a minute that the President’s quasi-America First-type foreign policies will continue to be much less coherent and efficiently implemented than is desirable. But don’t doubt for a minute that his (sort of) Powell-like instincts boost the odds that the United States won’t get bogged down in debilitating and unnecessary quagmires.

In other words, everyone hoping for an American foreign policy displaying some kind of post-Iraq War learning curve should remember that, for all Mr. Trump’s faults, the United States can always do much worse in its presidential choices, in fact has done much worse – and could well again.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: (Unintentional) Gifts from the Globalists

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America First, globalism, international institutions, internationalism, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Joseph S. Nye, multilaterism, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Project-Syndicate.org, sovereignty, Trump

One of life’s great pleasures is seeing views you’ve held for decades validated by your intellectual or ideological or political opponents. And there’s a special gratification in seeing them validated unwittingly (though nothing beats outright admissions of error).

So imagine how I’m feeling today having just learned that two of America’s leading globalists have just made clear (except to themselves) that the foreign policy approaches they’ve championed for decades are, in one case, only loosely at best related to the nation’s security and prosperity and, in the other, almost suicidally moronic.

The globalist who now apparently believes that globalism is unnecessary – along with, by implication, all the costs and risks it imposes on the United States – is Harvard University political scientist and former top U.S. national security official (under Democratic presidents) Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

In an essay published yesterday on the Project Syndicate website, Nye focused on explaining why American foreign policy can never escape and should never seek to avoid efforts to advance moral objectives. I disagree – but that’s another debate. What was most intriguing to me was a central argument used to advance his case: “Some foreign policy issues relate to a nation-state’s survival, but most do not. Since World War II, the United States, for example, has been involved in several wars, but none were necessary for its survival.”

This claim may seem to be nothing more than the essence of common sense (it is). But it also happens to clash violently with the core assumption of globalism (which in the pre-Trump years was called “internationalism”). As I originally wrote here, this assumption holds that America’s security, independence, and prosperity are so completely inseparable from the security, independence, and prosperity of literally every corner of the globe that the country literally has no choice but to anchor its foreign policy to the goal of creating a world so free of security, economic, and social challenges that threats to the United States will never arise in the first place.

Subsequently, I’ve contended that, however true this argument may or may not be for other countries, it is uniquely inapplicable to the United States, due to its towering degree of geopolitical security and its equally formidable potential for economic self-sufficiency.

Leave aside for the moment the issue of whether I’m right or wrong. Nye’s acknowledgment that none – i.e., not a single one – of the (often frightfully costly) wars fought by the United States in the last seven decades was a war of necessity signals loudly and clearly that Nye (at least now) agrees with me. And if these conflicts were in fact wars of choice, then logically the various globalist policies they were intended to advance or reinforce in the name of creating that threat-free world need to be seen as optional as well – ranging from prioritizing the maintenance of international alliances and institutions to the extension of foreign aid and involvement in nation-building.

Not that their optionality means that they should always or even often be opposed. But it does mean that Americans – and especially the globalist elites that have controlled and dominated the way Americans discuss foreign policy (at least in systematic ways) – need to pay more attention to alternative approaches for achieving and maintaining adequate levels of security, independence, and prosperity. As a result, the types of America First impulses displayed by President Trump and articulated more completely by some of his like-minded compatriots (including yours truly) need to be examined carefully, not ruled out of hand with pejoratives like “isolationism” or “bullying.”

The second globalist to have made my day today is former U.S. Senator John Kerry, who of course also won the Democratic nomination for President in 2004 and then went on to serve as Secretary of State in Barack Obama’s administration.

Kerry has been campaigning for his Obama era colleague Joe Biden’s bid to win the White House this year, and this morning was shown on CNBC making the following statement while touting the former Vice President’s qualifications for the Oval Office: “He [Biden] is completely committed to the notion that before you send American troops into harm’s way, before you ask families to risk the lives of their loved ones, you owe it to everybody in the world to exhaust the capacity for diplomacy. This President has not done that.”

It’s one thing of course to support caution in using America’s military overseas. No sensible person of good will could object. But such decisions should be made with “everybody in the world” in mind? Seriously? Even national populations with absolutely no stake in the outcome? Even the population of the country being targeted? Even its leaders? Even the allies of those leaders, like Vladimir Putin? Come to think of it, what did Franklin Roosevelt owe Adolf Hitler before he declared war on Germany in 1941, beating the Nazis to that punch. Talk about a formula for endless inaction and outright paralysis – however urgent the circumstances or imminent the threat. I really try avoiding use of the word “stupid,” but if the shoe fits….

Moreover, Kerry wasn’t simply having a bad day here. He expressed almost identical views during his 2004 presidential run when he insisted that American decisions to go to war must be submitted to a “global test” of legitimacy. It’s like he either doesn’t know that the United States is a fully sovereign country, which means that according to any framework you care to use (utilitarian, legal, ethical) it is completely and unreservedly entitled to decide for itself whether its own actual or even perceived interests justify this step – or he doesn’t believe it.

I’m going with the latter answer, especially given globalism’s bottom line about the supremacy of multilateralism, – i.e., about creating, reserving, and continually strengthening international institutions as the only conceivable way to achieve that benign global environment they seek.

But my swelling head aside, let’s not forget the most important silver lining to this post. For decades, Nye and Kerry have done more than their share to push the United States into endless globalist wars, to assume needless nuclear attack risk (through the tripwire forces deployed to defend wealthy, free-riding U.S. allies), to waste massive resources on nation-building fool’s quests, and to undercut its precious sovereignty for the sake of utopian global governance dreams.

In the last 24 hours, though, they’ve strengthened the case – however unintentionally – for avoiding these blunders going forward. And I’m certainly more than happy to say “Thanks!” instead of “I told you so.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: So Far, So Good for Trump on Iran

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America First, globalism, Iran, Middle East, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Soleimani, terrorism, Trump

On the one hand, anyone hoping for the success of President Trump’s America First foreign policies (which, as I’ve written, could be a lot more America First-y), would be dumb as a post to jog a victory lap following Mr. Trump’s remarks this morning about the situation in Iran and the Middle East.

On the other hand, any American genuinely hoping for the security of his country and not blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome can’t help but be impressed by how encouragingly events in the Middle East have unfolded since the killing of Qassem Soleimani, who had commanded Iran’s military efforts to expand its influence throughout the region.

First, all signs indicate that the Soleimani killing has delivered to Iran (and probably its proxies) two messages as vital as they’ve been convincing: If you kill Americans, or attack American embassies and other regional and other foreign assets, the leaders who planned these actions will get the axe. If this interpretation is wrong, then the Trump critics will need to explain why Iran retaliated by “targeting” Iraqi bases with accurate ballistic missiles but then missing the mark – conveniently avoiding striking the U.S. forces housed there.

The Never Trump-ers will also need to explain a stunning statement from an Iranian government that has never displayed any hesitancy about personalizing its conflict with the United States: Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s claim that the President has been fed misinformation about Soleimani and his country’s foreign policy. If that wasn’t a peace, or de-escalation feeler, I don’t know what could be.

Therefore, the immediate bottom line seems awfully favorable to the United States: Iran lost a leader described as the country’s second most important political figure, and an American ally (for lack of a better term for Iraq) lost some structures.

Moreover, Iran hasn’t even entirely gotten away scot free with last night’s actions. Mr. Trump announced tighter sanctions against an economy that’s already being decimated by U.S.-spearheaded curbs on trade and investment. He announced a pressure campaign to secure more involvement in the Middle East by America’s NATO allies – who defied many Never Trumper predictions and generally lined up with the United States both on the Soleimani killing (over which they shed no tears) and on Iran’s retaliation, and who have a much greater stake in Middle East stability. And the President declared that further U.S. responses haven’t been ruled out (although if they take the form of cyber assaults, we may never hear about them, at least for many years).

Meanwhile, let’s review – for now, anyway – how many Never Trumper talking points stand as truly loony and indeed downright disgraceful:

>that the President is too psychologically unstable and specifically insecure to avoid plunging the United States into an endless cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation;

>that the Soleimani killing was a “wag the dog” effort to distract the nation’s attention from impeachment and even to spark a rally-round-the-flag popular reaction that would aid his reelection campaign; and

>that because of the President’s incompetence, the Trump administration’s foreign policy decision-making apparatus is dangerously chaotic.

This Trump success doesn’t validate the President’s entire Middle East policy by any means. First and foremost, the region remains too dysfunctional and explosive to justify confidence in any optimistic predictions.

More specifically, however, as I’ve complained elsewhere, Mr. Trump still seems wed to the globalist goals of both protecting the Middle East against Iranian aggression, and fostering the region’s “peace and stability” – through a combination of more U.S. forces for the near-term future, anyway; more effective cooperation with regional allies; more of that aforementioned involvement by America’s fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In a phrase, “Not gonna happen.”

Additionally, this conviction is all the more puzzling given the President’s statement today that

“Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence.  These historic accomplishments changed our strategic priorities.  These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible.  And options in the Middle East became available.  We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.  We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.”

Even better, the observation was made in the context of seeking a greater regional role for countries remaining highly dependent on these energy supplies.

Yes, a terrorism threat remains. But as I’ve also written, it’s ultimately (meaning ASAP) much better handled by further securing America’s own borders rather than by chasing endlessly mushrooming Jihadist groups around a completely failed region. And if you’re worried about Israel, there can be no legitimate doubt that the Israelis can handle themselves with continued American military aid – especially since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just again made clear (if accidentally) that the country has a nuclear arsenal.

In other words, Mr. Trump’s latest Iran-related gambit combined some elements of operational America First-ism (a focus on actions that affected American lives) and of rhetorical globalism. The more closely he hews to the former, and relegates the latter to political cover for an eventual wind-down of decades of often disastrously counterproductive U.S. intervention, the more grateful his countrymen will have cause to be.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A China Fork-in-the-Road Coming for America First-ers?

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allies, America First, Barack Obama, China, deterrence, East Asia, globalism, industrial policy, Marco Rubio, national security, North Korea, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trade, tripwire, Trump

Something’s been bothering me for some time about the way that the national debate over dealing with China has been evolving.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s been great to see the major shift in the conventional wisdom since President Trump took office toward genuine recognition that the People’s Republic poses major economic and national security threats to the United States, that many of these threats are closely related, and that they have to be dealt with both on the economic and national security policy fronts.

That’s tremendous progress from the pre-Trump – and globalist – consensus that greater U.S. economic engagement with China was promoting more economic and political freedom in China, and more peaceful international behavior (or definitely would in some indefinite future), and that any dangers emanating from Beijing in the national security sphere are best coped with by increasing America’s military presence in East Asia (e.g., former President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” largely rhetorical though it was), cooperating more closely with the country’s allies in the region, or some combination of the two.

You don’t have to be an avid follower of world affairs to realize that the sharp distinction drawn by this globalist consensus between China economic and China national security policy was already producing a mind blowingly idiotic result: Washington was still resolving to resist any expansionist ambitions of Beijing’s in East Asia while continuing to help send China’s way floods of money and defense-relevant technology bound to turn into formidable military equipment that U.S. and other allied forces would face if conflict broke out.

Further, as I began pointing out years ago, because of the impressive progress made by both China and North Korea in developing intercontinental-range nuclear weapons, the globalist approach was exposing the American homeland to an ever increasing threat of nuclear attack – and mainly because even the U.S.’s wealthiest regional allies refused to field the (admittedly) expensive conventional military forces that could repel aggression from Beijing or Pyongyang without American help.

So everyone should be encouraged by the growing, bipartisan support for limiting the flow of U.S. resources and technology to China – even though many allegedly converted globalists continue hoping in vain that this goal can be achieved without setting limits (like tariffs) on trade and investment between the two economies.

My problem? Many of the new China hawks (and the leading example here is Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who deserves considerable credit for his out-front role waking up other conservatives to the need for changing course on China) apparently believe that new U.S. trade, investment, and technology transfer curbs are mainly needed to shore up America’s decades-long position as the national security kingpin of East Asia. In other words, they’re hoping that America First-type China economic and technology policies can buttress globalist East Asia policies.

Maybe they’re right.  And if they succeed, it will at least become less likely that American troops will be killed in battle by Chinese weapons developed with dollars and knowhow from the United States.

Unfortunately, too much of the nuclear danger to the United States will remain in place – because the free-riding instincts of America’s East Asian allies inevitably will be reinforced. That is, the more confident they stay in America’s determination to protect them, the less military effort they’ll feel the need to make, and the longer U.S. military forces in places like South Korea will be needed to play tripwire roles – deterring aggression due to their vulnerability to attack and the chances that their imminent destruction will pressure a U.S. President to save them with nuclear weapons use that could trigger a similar retaliatory strike on the United States.

As I’ve written repeatedly, because taking every step possible to prevent a nuclear weapon from landing on American soil should be a much higher priority for Washington than protecting free-riding allies, it’s best for the United States to pull its troops back from the front-lines in East Asia and force its allies to defend themselves. And if this means okaying their own decisions to build nuclear forces, fine with me. I’d also sell them any conventional weapons they’re seeking – which would achieve the added benefit of improving American economic growth and employment.

Does this mean that an America First China policy would or should lack any national security dimension? Not at all. For as I first explained in this recent interview, staying ahead of China technologically will stay imperative for the United States to protect itself from the kinds of cyber-attacks Beijing is already capable of waging and has probably been sponsoring. And the threat is hardly limited to the hacking of U.S. government agencies or private businesses that originates from China. The more Americans (including individual Americans possessing valuable knowledge) use Chinese technology products because these goods have become the world’s best or cheapest, the more their privacy will be vulnerable to Chinese surveillance and ultimately blackmail. The advanced telecommunications equipment produced by Huawei is of course the most important example so far.

There’s another technology-based national security issue that purist America First-ers of my ilk need to deal with as well, and one that I haven’t sufficiently thought through. Nothing’s changed my mind about the United States being a big net loser from trade with East Asia, or about how it can retain the clout if needs in the solely from its role as a final consumption market these export-dependent economies will desperately need.

But thanks largely to failed globalist trade policies, most of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity and capability is now located in East Asia – particularly in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. It may be tempting to believe that these countries will become more resistant to China’s power if the United States withdraws militarily from the region. But prudence counsels against simply assuming the best.

So as America First leaders start and keep offering these countries all the military hardware they need to rebuff Chinese advances, they will also need greatly to step up efforts to restore U.S. self-sufficiency in these key building blocks not only of high tech industry, but increasingly of all high value manufacturing and services. (To their credit, Rubio and some other new China realists also understand the need for redoubled American industrial policy efforts to achieve these goals.)

Attempts to reorient U.S. foreign and trade policies in America First directions are still at such an early stage that concern about these differing emphases might look premature. But events have a way of forcing major decisions much earlier than expected – either because crises erupt sooner, or because lead-times to implement new strategies can be longer, than is convenient. So all America First-ers should agree at least agree that the earlier this potential division in America First ranks is addressed, the better.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Globalists Keep Abusing the Lessons of History

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America First, globalism, John Maynard Keynes, Jonathan Kirshner, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Trump, Versailles treaty, Wall Street, Woodrow Wilson, World War I

Although I’m a long ways past high school, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that students are still being taught that the main lesson Americans should draw from their country’s foreign policy during the early decades of the twentieth century is that standing aloof from world affairs is a catastrophic mistake.

The most familiar feature of this claim holds that by preventing the United States from joining the League of Nations after World War I, America’s so-called isolationists guaranteed that no effective counter to fascist aggression could be mounted, and thereby guaranteed the outbreak of a far more destructive global conflict. But an economic indictment has been leveled against U.S. policy during those years as well.

As made clear between the lines of a December 7 New York Times op-ed piece, supporters of the foreign policy globalism opposed by President Trump and most of his backers have long ardently believed that international financial policies after the First World War also took a disastrous, “America First”-type turn. One big problem, though – history actually shows that the fundamental mistake Washington made was not too little international economic engagement after the war, but too much during it.

In the article – which usefully commemorates the hundredth anniversary of a seminal book by iconic twentieth century British economist John Maynard Keynes – Boston University political scientist Jonathan Kirshner rightly lauds Keynes’ eloquent case against the economic punishments levied against Germany by the 1919 Versailles peace treaty. He’s also right in criticizing the United States’ “stubborn” and “shortsighted” insistence that its allies fully repay the enormous war debts they’d racked up to America.

As Keynes himself insisted, those obligations were “a menace to financial stability everywhere,” imposing a “crushing burden,” that would be “a constant source of international friction.” An international financial order that was little more than a tangle of debts and reparations, he warned, could hardly “last a day.”

Kirshner, though, looks like he has a hidden – globalist – agenda. Echoing today’s criticisms of Mr. Trump’s trade and foreign policies (which, I need to note, have been far from models of consistent America First-ism), he condemned American leaders of the 1920s for ending a “brief flirtation” with internationalism (a pre-Trump term for globalism) under President Woodrow Wilson and returning to “nationalism and nativism.” “Domestic demands,” he continued, were placed above “global concerns.”

Even more pointedly, he repeated Keynes’ contention that it “will be a disaster for the world if America isolates herself.”

Nonetheless, you don’t need to buy into America First-ism or even simply criticize globalism to recognize that Kirshner (and Keynes himself, for that matter), have completely ignored the financial run-up to Versailles. During these years, private American banks lent massively to the belligerents before the U.S. entry into the war in April, 1917 (overwhelmingly to the allies, but including minor credits extended to Germany), and after America joined the conflict, Washington took over.  (Here’s a handy brief history.)

In other words, the eventually ruinous war debts amassed by the European victors were possible largely because Wall Street massively intervened in the conflict financially in its early years, and because the U.S. government continued underwriting the fighting in its latter stages.

Also – and comparably – crucial: Just as America’s very entry into the war both guaranteed its prolongation and ensured that its ending would become a exercise in self-righteous, destabilizing, and ultimately disastrous vengeance rather than the kind of cold-blooded but hard-headed diplomacy that had contained the damage from previous conflicts, its loans to the belligerents worsened the destructiveness of the fighting and the consequent challenges of reconstruction. Indeed, Wilson himself was worried that Wall Street’s largesse was helping the allies in particular to wage war far longer than they otherwise could have afforded, and helped ward off the sheer exhaustion that would force a negotiated peace.

Thus the real lesson of America’s early 20th century financial diplomacy isn’t that international engagement is always bad, or that international non-involvement is always good.  It isn’t even that the United States should never seek to have its cake and eat it, too – which was clearly the expectation of Wilson’s successors.  It’s that in this particular instance, America’s combination of actions backfired. 

And let’s not forget a broader lesson for students of foreign policy and its record that’s reinforced by Kirshner’s article:  Beware of scholars cherry-picking history.   

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Signing the Hong Kong Democracy Bill Should be a No-Brainer for Trump

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China, Congress, democracy, Hong Kong, Hong Kong protests, human rights, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, trade deal, trade talks, Xi JInPing

Full disclosure: I don’t believe that promoting human rights and democracy abroad should be a high priority for U.S. foreign policymakers. (My most detailed explanation comes in this late-1994 article in FOREIGN POLICY magazine, which is available on-line here and here.) All the same, there’s no doubt in my mind that President Trump would be making a big political and substantive mistake if he, as he’s (very obliquely, to be sure) hinted that he might veto the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 just passed overwhelmingly by both the House and Senate.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m under no illusion that the legislation will do anything in the foreseeable future to promote human rights and democracy in Hong Kong – and you shouldn’t be, either. In fact, there’s every reason to believe that it’s a classic example of political virtue-signaling. For example, even the sponsors of the bill don’t seem to believe that any plausible official American words or deeds can affect the fate either of Hong Kong generally or of the huge numbers of protesters who have been challenging China’s determination to keep eating away at the special freedoms enjoyed by its residents since its hand over by the United Kingdom to Beijing in 1997.

If they did, you’d think that they’d have included in the bill some economic sanctions against the Chinese economy. But not only are such provisions entirely missing. The only measures resembling economic sanctions or potential sanctions are directed against the economy of Hong Kong – in the form of requirements that the various ways in which U.S. policies and other laws that treat Hong Kong differently from China (based on the assumption that this “Special Autonomous Region,” as Beijing calls it) really still is autonomous – remain justified by the facts on the ground in Hong Kong.

The bill does contain some sanctions instructions directed at China – but not at any sectors of its economy. Instead, they’re to be applied against “foreign persons” determined to be “knowingly responsible” for any “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights in Hong Kong.”

To which the only serious response is “So what?” The Hong Kong officials who give the specific orders to the police to fire tear gas or crack some heads or shoot rubber bullets into crowds are nothing more than tools of the dictators in Beijing. Concentrating punishment on them amounts – knowingly – to punishing the little fish and letting the prize catches get away. And P.S. – they’re as easily replaceable and interchangeable as any ordinary functionary.

Unless you can think of many U.S. politicians in either party who would back imposing sanctions on Chinese kingpin Xi Jinping or any of his senior cronies? Fat chance – assuming you could even locate any of their assets vulnerable to America’s reach. After all, how many American elected officials genuinely doubt that China’s top leaders are ultimately responsible for the harsh repression of the Hong Kong protests – or for the extradition law that triggered this uprising?

Nonetheless, the politics alone argue compellingly for presidential signing of the Hong Kong measure. It attracted nearly unanimous support on Capitol Hill, so a veto override is likely. And although the President won’t win much praise for enacting the bill into law, he’ll generate a hail of brickbats for any opposition.

And for what? As I argued in the article cited at the beginning, human rights interests generally should take a back seat in U.S. foreign policy for any number of reasons, but chiefly because other interests are usually more important for America’s security or prosperity (since foreign governments’ human rights practices as are almost completely incapable of undermining these objectives). Moreover, American actions can sometimes backfire, and it’s far from far-fetched to worry that a Trump approval of the Hong Kong bill and more frequent and stronger expressions of official outrage will only further convince China’s dictators (and much of the nationalistic Chinese public) that the unrest in Hong Kong stems from foreign meddling, not legitimate concerns.

Yet U.S.-China relations these days are so bad that it’s difficult to imagine a Trump signature on the Hong Kong legislation significantly worsening them. It’s possible that Beijing could retaliate with still higher tariffs or other curbs on American exports, especially farm products, but China remains much more vulnerable to U.S. economic pressure than vice versa. Nor is the President likely to suffer much politically from such measures during the upcoming election year, since nearly all of his political opponents have spoken out much more emphatically against China’s record in Hong Kong than he has. As for “outside agitator” claims – the Chinese are already making them, including against the United States.

Which leaves us with the one stated presidential reason for considering a veto of the Hong Kong bill – that an obstacle could be created to reaching a trade deal. The problem here is that a trade deal that serves U.S. interests (as opposed to a cosmetic deal that, e.g., results in increased American exports to China in exchange for American tariff reductions with no commitments from Beijing to end its most important predatory trade practices) simply isn’t possible. As I’ve written repeatedly, even a complete Chinese cave-in on paper to every demand the administration has ever made can’t possibly be verified adequately – because the Chinese government is so big and so secretive.

In fact, if there’s any relationship between trade policy and Hong Kong policy, it surely works the other way: More human rights pressure from Mr. Trump would be added to the economic pressure that’s already making Xi’s life hard enough. And whatever throws the Chinese off balance by definition helps the United States. For it would force Beijing to spend more time putting out fires and playing defense generally across the board, and leaves less time for pursuing offensive economic and geopolitical goals that undermine American interests.

As I’ve always seen it, claims that these interests (properly defined, of course) and ideals are always ultimately compatible are among the most fatuous made by practitioners, scholars, and historians of American foreign policy. But especially for a country with America’s range of geopolitical and economic choice (by dint of its high degree of built-in security and economic self-sufficiency, and potential for even more), there’s also no question that the United States can afford to promote its admirable values on a regular basis.

Hong Kongers’ struggle for more freedom and democracy represents one such case, meaning that a Trump-ian failure to sign the Hong Kong bill would call into question not only his support for these ideals, but his pragmatic instincts as well.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time to Test U.S. “Allies” on China

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allies, America First, Asia-Pacific, Barack Obama, China, Emmanuel Macron, EU, European Union, France, globalism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, RCEP, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Parternship, Trump

President Trump’s globalist critics in the foreign policy Blob (the Washington, D.C.-centered complex of former diplomats and military officers, genuine academics, think tank hacks, and their Mainstream Media mouthpieces) think they’ve uncovered major new proof that the administration’s America First-type foreign policies and trade policies are failing catastrophically. Actually, the developments they’ve seized upon make clearer than ever the dangerous folly of their own outdated strategies, and the urgent need for a Trump-ian course change.

What’s gotten the globalists excited: Reports that America’s allies the world over are turning their backs on Washington and either moving into China’s orbit or cultivating better relations with the People’s Republic.

In the Asia-Pacific region, fifteen countries, including American treaty allies Australia, Japan, and South Korea, have decided to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a Chinese spearheaded trade agreement that doesn’t include the United States. Although Washington is apparently free to join, RCEP’s progress is seen as a big defeat for the United States, and for Mr. Trump in particular, because for years Beijing has been pushing it as an alternative to the Asia-Pacific-focused Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal signed by former President Barack Obama but nixed by President Trump on his first full weekday in office.

TPP was touted as a counter to RCEP that was vastly preferable for the United States because its protections of the environment and labor rights, and its curbs on state-owned enterprises, created standards that China could not hope to meet any time soon. Therefore, the agreement allegedly represented both a means of containing Chinese power and a powerful inducement to the kinds of Chinese reform long sought by Washington (and at least nominally sought by the President).

In other words, it supposedly was a globalist masterstroke that was foolishly trashed by Mr. Trump. And he’s now getting his richly deserve comeuppance via the Chinese-developed RCEP, which, it’s said, doesn’t address the above issues nearly as effectively as TPP, but which has nonetheless attracted many other signatories also spurned by the Trump rejection.

As known by RealityChek regulars, the anti-China case for TPP was bogus from the start, along with its claims to promoting the kinds of reforms throughout the Asia-Pacific region that would benefits American exporters. For the agreement contained a wide open backdoor for numerous products with high levels of Chinese content, which would have enabled Beijing to realize many of TPP’s benefits without incurring any of its obligations. Nearly as bad, for all their lofty ambitions, those obligations would have been impossible for Washington to monitor and enforce adequately, as most signatory governments’ bureaucracies, along with their national industrial bases, were too large (and in the case of the governments, secretive) to track.

Moreover, these glaring TPP weaknesses raise questions that hardly strengthen confidence in globalist views both of the agreement and, just as important of U.S. Allies. Specifically, TPP’s China back door and verification shortcomings weren’t exactly secrets. And they surely reveal that the Australias, Japans, and South Koreas of the world were never very interested in containing China or pressuring it to reform in the first place. The decision of these countries to go along with an RCEP that doesn’t even try seriously to achieve these goals casts even deeper doubt on their reliability for any future American efforts to work multilaterally to cope with China.

And as for the inevitable counter-argument that the Trump TPP pullout gave these Asia-Pacific countries little choice but to accept a second-best deal more advantageous to Beijing, it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. After all, all these countries had years to work with the George W. Bush and Obama administrations to develop regional trade arrangements that could realistically hope to achieve their intertwined China and reform objectives. They all (along with those globalist Presidents) completely blew the opportunity.

On the other side of the world, the Associated Press has just reported on a similar shift by the European Union, that huge economic bloc that also contains many countries allied with the United States through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In an article titled “Europeans look to China as global partner, shun Trump’s US,” correspondent Sylvie Corbet wrote that “When France’s president wants to carry European concerns to the world stage to find solutions for climate change, trade tensions or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he no longer calls Washington. He flies to Beijing.”

She added that on his recent visit to Beijing, Emmanuel Macron “portrayed himself as an envoy for the whole European Union, conveying the message that the bloc has largely given up on Trump, who doesn’t hide his disdain for multilateralism.”

In the process, though, the author made a powerful, if completely unwitting, case for American unilateralism. For according to Corbet, Macron and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping “issued a ‘Beijing call’…for increased global cooperation in fighting climate change and better protecting biodiversity. Both countries have deplored the U.S. withdrawal” from the Paris climate change accord.

Macron apparently stood by as Xi “said the two leaders were sending ‘a strong signal to the world about steadfastly upholding multilateralism and free trade, as well as working together to build open economies.’”

And for good measure, the French president touted China’s record of helping to reduce tensions in the Persian Gulf, and potential contributions to using diplomacy to persuade Iran to return to full compliance with the nuclear proliferation deal rejected by Mr. Trump. In addition, he touted China’s ability to help “develop stable and cooperative trade rules at the international level.”

To which the only serious reply from the American standpoint is, “If Macron and anyone else in Europe really believe this nonsense, and assume that they’re better off aligning with China than with the United States, then America is better off without them.” And this holds not only for trade but for security issues like Iran.

It’s been unconvincing enough for globalists to insist that the United States has no choice but to maintain alliances with countries famous for being defense deadbeats and free-riders, and fence-sitters in the campaign to create a truly open world economy (as opposed to one that winks at all instances of protectionism except America’s). But it’s positively goofy for globalists to claim that these countries would be strong and active supporters of security or economic goals compatible with U.S. and traditional free world interests if only President Trump showed more patience with them.

Of course, it’s possible – and perhaps likely – that these Asian and European moves are ultimately bluffs aimed at curbing Mr. Trump’s perceived worst excesses. But it’s at least as possible that these countries hope to create pressure on the President to accept their longstanding, “Heads we win, tail you lose,” strategy vis-a-vis the United States.

All of which reminds me of episodes when I was little, and blurted out remarks like, “I’m going to run away.” My parents often replied, “Is that a promise or a threat?” That sounds to me like a necessary and indeed long overdue U.S. response to its worrisomely feckless allies.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Globalists’ Dangerous Tantrums over Syria and Ukraine

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America First, Cold War, Eastern Europe, FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, globalism, globalists, Harry S Truman, ISIS, jihadis, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Soviet Union, spheres of influence, Syria, terrorism, Trump, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, World War II, Yalta

If you know more than a little something about contemporary American history, you’ve no doubt been struck (or you should be struck if you haven’t been already) by the close resemblance in one key respect between the firestorms around the two big foreign policy-related uproars of the day these days, and the big foreign policy uproar of the late 1940s and early 1950s: The cries of “Betrayal” and “Backstabbing!” generated by President Trump’s withdrawal of the small American troop deployment in Syria, and his lack of interest in keeping Ukraine fully independent of Russian designs, fully recall similar charges that followed Washington’s early Cold War acquiescence in the Soviet Union’s establishment of control over Eastern Europe.

And there’s a very good reason for the similarities among these over-the-top reactions in all three cases – today’s version of which is all too capable of pushing the nation into repeating catastrophic foreign policy mistakes. In all of them, a combination of immutable geography and irrefutable common sense has established ironclad limits on American power. In all of them, America’s existential security and prosperity rendered these limits entirely acceptable. And in all, crusading globalists have reacted not with gratitude for the nation’s favored circumstances, but with tantrums that have slandered any support for the prudence logically suggested by these circumstances as evidence of treason and/or degeneracy. It’s the policy equivalent of refusing to take “Yes” for an answer.  (See this 2018 article of mine for the fullest statement of these views.) 

The Cold War event mainly responsible for the McCarthyite claims of spies and traitors shot through the U.S. government was Yalta conference of 1945 held by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his British and Soviet counterparts Winston S. Churchill and Josef V. Stalin,  At that late-World War II meeting in Crimea, FDR agreed to accept Moscow’s clam to the countries located between German and Soviet territory as a sphere of influence.

Roosevelt’s decision reflected his awareness that the enormous Red Army had planted stakes in Eastern Europe after having fought it way through the region on its way to Berlin, that it had no intention of leaving, and that dislodging these forces militarily at remotely acceptable cost was impossible. Interestingly, his successor Harry S Truman fully agreed, even though by the time he became President, the United States enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear weapons.

“Yalta,” however, became a synonym for treason for many Americans, and the next few years (including under the Democrats) became an time of loyalty oaths, persecution, and show trials, Although many of the charges that the U.S. government had become a nest of spies turned out to be true, “McCarthyism” nonetheless ruined numerous innocent lives as well, and for more than a decade stifled badly needed dissent within the national security bureaucracy.

But guess what? Despite Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and the mass, multi-generation human tragedy that unfolded behind the Iron Curtain, the United States not only survived but generally prospered. Further, the serious problems it did experience had absolutely nothing to do with the fates of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or even the former East Germany etc.

Self-interest and restraint in foreign policy go hand-in-hand just as neatly these days when it comes to Ukraine and Syria. As I’ve written, even more than Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s independence has never been considered a vital American interest because it’s never been a significant determinant of the nation’s safety or well-being; because it’s located even closer to the center of Russian military might than Eastern Europe; because as a result the United States is militarily incapable of mounting a sane challenge with conventional forces; and because on top of these assets, Moscow has long possessed nuclear forces that can obliterate the United States many times over.

As for Syria, Mr. Trump’s critics are caught in one or both intellectual time warps. The first has hurled them back to the era when the United States was thoroughly addicted to Middle East oil. However long it lasted, though, it’s now unmistakably over, thanks to the fossil fuels production revolution of the last decade or so.

It’s true that this oil still matters a great deal to Europe and East Asia, huge chunks of a global economy whose health still matters in turn to the United States (though less lately, since both regions seem chronically incapable of or unwilling to generate acceptable growth other than by amassing enormous – and unsustainable trade surpluses with America). But both regions are eminently capable of fielding the military forces needed to preserve the oil flow. P.S. So do the Middle East’s two biggest powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Their deadly struggle for geopolitical supremacy notwithstanding, both would collapse economically without the revenue brought in by their oil exports. Just ask Iran, which is being bankrupted by President Trump’s – unilateral – sanctions.

The second time warp has the foreign policy Never Trump-ers trapped in the early post-September 11 period, when the nation discovered its shocking vulnerability to Middle East-borne terrorism. Yet as I’ve repeatedly written, and experience can not have made clearer, the best way by far to protect the American homeland from this deadly threat is not continuing to chase jihadist groups around an uncontrollable region whose terminal dysfunction will keep them appearing and reconstituting, but securing America’s far more controllable borders.

Additionally, though less important, terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda have been blessed with the unique gift of antagonizing every other significant actor in the Middle East, for either ethnic (Arab versus Persian versus Turk) or religious (Sunni versus Shia Muslims) reasons. And the Russians, who are now supposedly the new kingpins in the Middle East, have no interest in seeing a serious jihadist revival on their borders. So an American exit from the region will leave it full of countries with every reason to sit on Islamic lunatics, not to mention rife with their own mutual antagonisms and historic rivalries. A chaotic balance of power to be sure, but an entirely durable one. (These arguments have just been made powerfully here.)

During the Cold War, it took debacle in Vietnam, with all the devastation it brought to America’s economy, society, and domestic and national security institutions (some of which still haven’t fully recovered), to teach globalists and the public they led, that geography and common sense mustn’t be completely ignored. Let’s all hope that their America First-oriented opponents, including a critical mass of the body politic, can keep them away from the levers of power before they produce a similar disaster.