Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Trump’s Record and the Bolton Effect

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Afghanistan, alliances, America First, Asia-Pacific, Barack Obama, China, Europe, extended deterrence, globalism, Iran, Iran deal, Iraq, Israel, Japan, John Bolton, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Kim Jong Un, Middle East, neoconservatives, North Korea, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, Republicans, South Korea, Syria, Trump

With John Bolton now out as President Trump’s national security adviser, it’s a great time to review the Trump foreign policy record so far. My grade? Though disappointing in some important respects, it’s been pretty good. Moreover, Bolton’s departure signals that performance could improve significantly, at least from the kind of America First perspective on which Mr. Trump ran during his 2016 campaign. That’s less because of Bolton’s individual influence than because what his (clearly forced) exist tells us about the President’s relationship with the Republican Party and conservative establishment.

There’s no doubt that the Trump foreign policy record is seriously lacking in major, game-changing accomplishments. But that’s a globalist, and in my view, wholly misleading standard for judging foreign policy effectiveness. As I’ve written previously, the idea that U.S. foreign policy is most effective when it’s winning wars and creating alliances and ending crises and creating new international regimes and the like makes sense only for those completely unaware – or refusing to recognize – that its high degrees of geopolitical security and economic self-reliance greatly undercut the need for most American international activism. Much more appropriate measures of success include more passive goals like avoiding blunders, building further strength and wealth (mainly through domestic measures), and reducing vulnerabilities. (Interestingly, former President Obama, a left-of-center globalist, saltily endorsed the first objective by emphasizing – privately, to be sure – how his top foreign policy priority was “Don’t do stupid s–t.”)     

And on this score, the President can take credit for keeping campaign promises and enhancing national security. He’s resisted pressure from Bolton and other right-of-center globalists to plunge the country much more deeply militarily into the wars that have long convulsed Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, and seems determined to slash the scale of U.S. involvement in the former – after nineteen years.

He’s exposed the folly of Obama’s approach to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Although Tehran has threatening to resume several operations needed to create nuclear explosives material since Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the previous administration’s multilateral Iran deal, it’s entirely possible that the agreement contained enough loopholes to permit such progress anyway. Moreover, the President’s new sanctions, their devastating impact on Iran’s economy, and the inability of the other signatories of Obama’s multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to circumvent them have both debunked the former President’s assumption that the United States lacked the unilateral power to punish Iran severely for its nuclear program and ambitions, and deprived Tehran of valuable resources for causing other forms of trouble throughout the Middle East.

Mr. Trump taught most of the rest of the world another valuable lesson about the Middle East when he not only recognized the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but actually moved the U.S. Embassy there. For decades, American presidential contenders from both parties had promised to endorse what many of Israel’s supporters called its sovereign right to choose its own capital, but ultimately backed down in the face of warnings that opinion throughout the Arab world would be explosively inflamed, that American influence in the Middle East would be destroyed, and U.S. allies in the region and around the world antagonized and even fatally alienated.

But because the President recognized how sadly outdated this conventional wisdom had become (for reasons I first explained here), he defied the Cassandras, and valuably spotlighted how utterly powerless and friendless that Palestinians had become. That they’re no closer to signing a peace agreement with Israel hardly reflects an American diplomatic failure. It simply reveals how delusional they and especially their leaders remain.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s Middle East strategy does deserve criticism on one critical ground: missing an opportunity. That is, even though he’s overcome much Congressional and even judicial opposition and made some progress on strengthening American border security, he’s shown no sign of recognizing the vital America First-type insight holding that the nation’s best hope for preventing terrorist attacks emanating from the Middle East is not “fighting them over there” – that is, ever more engagement with a terminally dysfunctional region bound to spawn new violent extremist groups as fast as they can be crushed militarily. Instead, the best hope continues to be preventing the terrorists from coming “over here” – by redoubling border security.

The Trump record on North Korea is less impressive – but not solely or even partly because even after two summits with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, no progress has been made toward eliminating the North’s nuclear weapons or even dismantling the research program that’s created them, or toward objectives such as signing a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War formally that allegedly would pave the way for a nuclear deal. (Incidentally, I’m willing to grant that the peninsula is quieter today in terms of major – meaning long-range – North Korean weapons tests than when the President took office – and that ain’t beanbag.)

Still, the main – and decisive – Trump failure entails refusing to act on his declared instincts (during his presidential campaign) and bolstering American security against nuclear attack from North Korea by withdrawing from the peninsula the tens of thousands of U.S. troops who served as a “tripwire” force. As I’ve explained previously, this globalist strategy aimed at deterring North Korean aggression in the first place by leaving an American president no choice except nuclear weapons use to save American servicemen and women from annihilation by superior North Korean forces.

But although this approach could confidently be counted on to cow the North before Pyongyang developed nuclear weapons of its own capable of striking the United States, and therefore arguably made strategic sense, now that the North has such capabilities or is frighteningly close, such “extended deterrence” is a recipe for exposing major American cities to nuclear devastation. And if that situation isn’t inexcusable enough, the United States is playing such a dominant role in South Korea’s defense largely because the South has failed to field sufficient forces of its own, even though its wealthier and more technologically advanced than the North by orders of magnitude. (Seoul’s military spending is finally rising rapidly, though – surely due at least in part to Trump pressure.) 

Nonetheless, far from taking an America First approach and letting its entirely capable Asian allies defend themselves and incentivizing them plus the Chinese and Russians to deal as they see fit with North Korean nuclear ambitions that are most threatening to these locals, the President seems to be happy to continue allowing the United States to take the diplomatic lead, bear much heavier defense spending burdens than necessary, and incurring wholly needless nuclear risk. Even worse, his strategy toward Russia and America’s European allies suffers the exact same weakness – at best.

Finally (for now), the President has bolstered national security by taken urgently needed steps to fight the Chinese trade and tech predation that has gutted so much of the American economy’s productive sectors that undergird its military power, and that his predecessors either actively encouraged, coddled, or ignored – thereby helping China greatly increase its own strength.

In this vein, it’s important to underscore that these national security concerns of mine don’t stem from a belief that China must be contained militarily in the Asia-Pacific region, or globally, as many globalists-turned-China economic hawks are maintaining. Of course, as long as the United States remains committed to at least counterbalancing China in this part of the world, it’s nothing less than insane to persist in policies that help Beijing keep building the capabilities that American soldiers, sailors, and airmen may one day need to fight.

I’ll be writing more about this shortly, but my main national security concerns reflect my belief that a world in which China has taken the military and especially technological need may not directly threaten U.S. security. But it will surely be a world in which America will become far less able to defend its interest in keeping the Western Hemisphere free of excessive foreign influence, a la the Monroe Doctrine, and in which American national finances and living standards will erode alarmingly.

The question remains, however, of whether a Bolton-less administration’s foreign policy will tilt significantly further toward America First-ism. President Trump remains mercurial enough to make any such forecasting hazardous. And even if he wasn’t, strategic transitions can be so disruptive, and create such short-term costs and even risks, that they’re bound to take place more unevenly than bloggers and think tankers and other scribblers would like to see.

But I see a case for modest optimism: Just as the end of Trump-Russia scandal-mongering and consequent impeachment threat has greatly reduced the President’s need to court the orthodox Republicans and overall conservative community that remain so influential in and with Congress in particular, and throw them some big bones on domestic policy (e.g., prioritizing cutting taxes and ending Obamacare), it’s greatly reduced his need to cater to the legacy Republicans and conservatives on foreign policy.

Not that Mr. Trump has shown many signs of shifting his domestic priorities yet. But I’m still hoping that he learns the (screamingly obvious) lessons of the Republicans’ 2018 midterms losses (e.g., don’t try to take an entitlement like Obamacare away from Americans until you’re sure you can replace it with something better; don’t endorse racist sexual predators like Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore simply for partisan reasons). It’s still entirely possible that the growing dangers of his remaining globalist policies will start teaching the President similar lessons on the foreign policy front.

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Mattis Isn’t the Last Word on “America First”

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alliances, allies, America First, China, Defense Department, globalism, Japan, Jim Mattis, Marines, Mattis, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, North Korean, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, The National Interest, Trump

By all accounts, General George S. Patton was one of America’s greatest battlefield leaders during World War II. And by nearly all of those same accounts, he had no qualifications to advise Presidents on the grand strategies that would serve the country best in world affairs.

I couldn’t help but think of Patton while reading about the contents of former Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ upcoming book about leadership lessons he’s learned during his own career in a Marine Corps uniform. For one of the main points made in Call Sign Chaos – that President Trump’s foreign policies are dangerously ignoring the vital importance of allies to U.S. security and prosperity – is not only far from obvious. This critique of America First-ism could itself be dangerously wrong.

Here’s the gist of Mattis’ case:

“Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy.

“At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader. A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed.”

“…An oft-spoken admonition in the Marines is this: When you’re going to a gunfight, bring all your friends with guns,” he wrote. “Having fought many times in coalitions, I believe that we need every ally we can bring to the fight.”

And there can be no question that these beliefs form the core of Mattis’ policy worldview. His letter to Mr. Trump declaring his resignation as Pentagon chief shows that this decision was driven largely by his prioritizing of alliances. His stated position is worth quoting at length:

“One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.

“Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. NATO’s 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.

“Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.”

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.

“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”

In fact, the letter’s reference to advancing an international order most conducive to U.S. interests also makes clear that Mattis is a card-carrying globalist. For the defining feature of this school of thought is that because the United States lacks the ability to defend and promote its essential goals on its own, it has no choice but to nurture and support global systems that will do these jobs for it – even if such policies degrade some of its own power and wealth.

I’m not saying that because he’s a globalist, Mattis is wrong and good riddance to him from a policy-making position. Instead, I’m saying that, typically for adherents to this school of thought, Mattis evidently doesn’t know, or refuses to acknowledge, the possibility of an alternative approach, one that relies above all on America’s own considerable strengths and advantages, to security, prosperity, and freedom. I made the case for such an approach last year in this article for The National Interest (which also pointed out that the President’s actions – lamentably – haven’t been nearly as America First-y as his rhetoric).

Equally disturbing, the months since his resignation last December, Mattis seems to have overlooked the continuing emergence of evidence undermining continuing faith in globalism. Just three of the most obvious:

(a) the determination of the major allied economies of Europe and Asia to keep fence-sitting in America’s economic and strategic conflict with China – in large part because so many of them make so much money supplying the PRC’s export-focused factories;

(b) the ongoing failure of most of these allies to pay any reasonable share of the common defense;

(c) the bitter economic conflict that’s broken out between Japan and South Korea, which mocks the idea that the American military can rely on any effective help from them against aggression from North Korea or China; and

(d) the major progress made by North Korea and China in developing the kinds of nuclear forces that have created an unprecedented and needless risk of nuclear attack on the American homeland – needless because the wealthy countries anchoring the U.S. alliance system in East Asia refuse to build adequate defenses for themselves. In other words, tightly linking America’s fate to such deadbeats could wind up incinerating a major American city…or two…or three. 

So welcome to the foreign policy/grand strategy debate, General Mattis. Now how about addressing its most difficult questions seriously rather than simply repeating decades-old globalist mantras?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Asian Alliances Have Become More Dangerous Than Ever

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alliances, allies, Asia, China, deterrence, Japan, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, tripwire

With all the uproar generated, at least among globalist foreign policy professionals, by President Trump’s various verbal attacks on America’s alliance arrangements, it’s easy to forget their most important purpose. It’s not to protect allies for their own sakes, much less to “uphold the liberal global order” or to “promote American values”  or to “preserve international stability.” 

Their most important purpose is to increase via the use of the allies’ military forces the odds that if a conflict breaks out in a particular neighborhood deemed crucial to America’s own interests, that the United States will prevail. The other aforementioned objectives can of course line up with this overriding military objective, and they can of course result from its attainment. But the alliances’ fundamental raison d’etre is to help the United States on the battlefield in a region whose freedom from foreign domination is considered crucial to America’s own security and/or prosperity.

Further, this military assistance once the shooting starts matters a lot because such support can go far toward preventing these regional conflicts from triggering the use of nuclear weapons, and thereby preventing possible nuclear attacks on American territory.

All of which is why recent trade tensions between Japan and South Korea – America’s two leading allies in East Asia – should be of such urgent concern. For the feud, which has just prompted South Korea to pull out of a military intelligence sharing agreement it had recently reached with Japan, could not be a clearer sign that none of Washington’s longstanding assumptions about such crucial military support from these two countries remains valid – if they ever were – and that these arrangements are now not only outdated, but dangerously outdated.

For the quarrel’s outbreak and intensification represent the most important evidence to date that both Japan and South Korea care little about providing such support in an effective way – which unavoidably requires them to work together. How can they cooperate, and thereby effectively reinforce U.S. military operations, if they literally won’t even talk to each other about current or emerging battlefield conditions and threats?

And if Japanese and South Korean assistance will remain marginal at best (a conclusion supported by the relatively modest size and capabilities of their own forces, which have long been unable to repulse regional aggression without American assistance, despite the huge size of their economies) then the odds of keeping any regional conflict non-nuclear – and keeping the U.S. homeland safe from North Korean or Chinese nuclear attack – become unacceptably low for the United States.

At one time, the United States could have eased this dilemma satisfactorily by spending still more money on conventional forces for the defense of countries that are alarmingly blasé about defending themselves – however dubious this option is on military grounds alone. (For how promising are efforts to protect countries that are so determined to avoid risks and costs?)

But because of the emergence and improvement of the nuclear forces of North Korea and China, respectively, even that option will no longer squares the circle adequately.  Which means that the alliances (including in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO – on the other side of the world) have reached the point of becoming net threats to U.S. national security, not net boosters.

Worst of all is American policy on the Korean peninsula.  It remains unchanged  from the days when North Korea arguably could be deterred by threatened U.S. nuclear weapons use from attacking with its own superior conventional forces because it lacked nuclear retaliatory capability.  As a result, it continues to station nearly 30,000 American troops right near the border of the aggressive and volatile North for the express purpose of creating a “trip wire.”  In other words, North Korea might now be able to destroy U.S. cities with its own nuclear bombs, or soon might be able to in response to American nuclear use. But Washington still recklessly seeks to prevent any such attack by the North in the first place by placing these troops in imminent danger and leaving nuclear use the only realistic option of saving them if hostilities ever did break out.  

If a standard globalist President was occupying the Oval Office, it would be understandable that he or she would be responding to the Japan-South Korea feud and its alliance implications by wishing it away. But Donald Trump is an avowed America First President – and has demonstrated many instincts along these lines. Why is he waiting to long to take this latest, massive hint, and leave these increasingly unreliable countries to their own (considerable) devices?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Trump Can Pass His Afghanistan Test

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, border security, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, ISIS, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, Trump, Tucker Carlson

So it seems we’re soon going to see another major test of how much of an America First-er on foreign policy President Trump really is: Will he or won’t he withdraw the U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan if he can strike an acceptable deal with that country’s Taliban insurgents?

Globalists across the political spectrum – that is, supporters of America’s pre-Trump decades of seeking to address foreign policy challenges through various forms of active engagement in foreign affairs around the world – and especially conservative globalists, are awfully skeptical, to say the least, and they have numerous understandable and specific reasons. One that stands out: Why should anyone trust the Taliban to keep the promise that the President is seeking – a pledge to ensure that no part of Afghanistan left under its effective control by any agreement to end or even suspend the conflict between it and the Afghan government becomes a terrorist base once again.

After all, the Taliban was the group that permitted Al Qaeda to use such territories as safe havens from which to plan and train for the September 11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. invasion and nearly twenty years of ongoing military operations have clearly played a major role in ensuring that no September 11 repeats have taken place, or at least strikes emanating from Afghanistan. And there’s no sign of any ebbing in the Taliban’s violent, anti-American nature. In addition, similar American-led and assisted operations against ISIS have prevented that group from creating safe havens in Iraq and Syria large enough to possess September 11-like potential.

All in all, therefore, such interventions look like a resounding success for the idea that defeating terrorists “over there” is the best guarantee that they won’t do any harm “over here.” And there’s compelling evidence that the President has bought into this argument.

As he told Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson in an early July interview:

“…I would like to just get out [of Afghanistan].  The problem is, it just seems to be a lab for terrorists.  It seems — I call it the Harvard of terrorists. 

“When you look at the World Trade Center, they were trained.  They didn’t — by the way, they attacked the wrong country.  They didn’t come from Iraq, all right.  They came from various other countries.

“But they all formed in Afghanistan, and it’s probably because it’s at the base of so many countries, but they all formed and it’s rough mountains and you get a lot of — you know, you get a lot of good hiding places.

“But I would leave very strong intelligence there.  You have to watch because they do — you know, okay, I’ll give you a tough one.  If you were in my position and a great looking central casting and we have great generals, a great central casting general walks up to your office, I say, ‘We’re getting out.’  ‘Yes, sir.  We’ll get out.  Yes, sir.’

“I’ll say, ‘What do you think of that?’  ‘Sir, I’d rather attack them over there, then attack them in our land.’  In other words, them coming here.  That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened with the World Trade Center, et cetera et cetera.

“When they say that, you know, no matter how you feel, and you and I feel pretty much very similar.  But when you’re standing there, and you have some really talented military people saying, ‘I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land.’  It’s something you always have to think about.”

But what the President surprisingly seems to forget is that the September 11 terrorists were able to come “over here” not only because they were able to organize in Afghanistan, but because American border security was so unforgivably lax. This description of that situation comes from a group strongly on the restrictionist side of the immigration debate (as am I). But the evidence presented of visa overstays and examples of other hijackers being in the country illegally when they launched the attacks is highly specific and comparably convincing.

Further, then-U.S. Representative Candice S. Miller, a Republican from Michigan and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, stated at hearings in 2012 that “more than 36 visa overstayers have been convicted of terrorism- related charges since 2001.”

As I’ve written previously, tightening border security enough to quell the terrorist threat completely is no small task. At the same time, it should also be clear that stepped up border security measures, along with intensified domestic counter-terrorism activities, have played some role in not only preventing more September 11 attacks but in greatly reducing the number of attacks from jihadist-inspired homegrown lone wolves.

Just as important, whenever making policy seriously, and therefore determining priorities and thus allocation of resources, the question always needs to be asked which of any competing approaches is more promising. In the case of anti-terrorism approaches, this challenge boils down to whether the nation is best advised to focus on further improving border security (a situation over which it has relatively great control) or on continuing to police the terminally dysfunctional Middle East (a situation over which is has relatively little control).

Given that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan after eighteen years of fighting the U.S. military and forces from allied countries plus those of Afghan governments in Kabul; and given new Pentagon claims that ISIS is already “solidifying” its “insurgent capabilities in Iraq” and “resurging in Syria,” the case for a domestic, i.e., America First-type focus instead of continuing to play whackamole in the Middle East looks stronger than ever. And that’s the case whether America’s generals look like they come from central casting or not.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Globalist Blob Wants the U.S. to Keep Looking for Trouble

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alliances, Blob, China, Council on Foreign Relations, East Asia-Pacific, extended deterrence, globalism, Japan, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Project-Syndicate.org, Richard N. Haass, South Korea, Taiwan, Trump

I’d like to offer a deal to anyone in America’s bipartisan globalist foreign policy establishment: You come up with defenses of the pre-Trump strategies and approaches you support that aren’t transparently ridiculous, and I’ll start portraying them as something other than sick jokes.

Judging by Richard N. Haass’ latest column for the Project Syndicate website, it’s clear that even if these members of the Blob (a wonderful nickname for this crew of former officials, genuine scholars, think tank creatures, Mainstream Media journalists, and business and finance leaders) cared about what I think, they’d flunk this test.

Haass is an especially important Blob-er because he not only served as a top policymaker under three Republican presidents (and in a more junior position during Jimmy Carter’s administration). He’s the President of the Council on Foreign Relations – the Blob’s oldest and most prominent think tank. (Truth in advertising: He also preceded me by two years at our Long Island, N.Y high school, but we had no personal dealings.)

But we should all hope that the advice he dispensed in government was much better than that he seems to have offered in “Asia’s Scary Movie.” Because his arguably underlying message – that the United States should reinforce its commitment to militarily defending the East Asia-Pacific region even though the region shows signs of fracturing on the economic and security fronts – is nothing less than a recipe for increasing America’s exposures to perils it can’t possibly control.

Especially and dangerously nutty is Haass’ clear belief that the United States should maintain its security relationships with Japan and South Korea even though the two countries are engaged in a literal trade war that’s disrupting interactions between their two gigantic clusters of information technology hardware manufacturing – which are so big that global trade and production in these critical sectors could take a major hit if the feud escalates further.

After all, as noted in that post linked just above, American ties with these two countries are “vital to its aims of balancing China and addressing the threat from North Korea” – both of which threats Haass correctly describes as growing and as worrisome as ever, respectively. In other words, in the event of trouble that may require a military response, the United States is relying on help from Tokyo and Seoul – which, in turn, are going to need to be working together.

But military relations between these two Asian countries have long been threadbare at best. Worse, their latest dispute – amid the backdrop of the rising China challenge and the ongoing peril from North Korea, which endanger both – has broken out because of grievances and grudges dating from Japan’s long and brutal occupation of the entire Korean peninsula in the decades preceding the end of World War II.

Given the history, it’s easy to understand why there’s no love lost between these two peoples. But alliances make sense only when the participants can count on each other for effective assistance if and when the shooting starts. Can anyone seriously believe that Japan and South Korea are going to get their act together suddenly if North Korean forces barrel across the Demilitarized Zone, or if Beijing moves against Taiwan? Or that responsible American defense planning should assume this rosy scenario?

Even worse, if trouble does break out on the Korean peninsula, nearly 30,000 American troops will be right in the middle. As I’ve written repeatedly, their vulnerability to superior North Korean conventional forces means that a U.S. President might need to use nuclear weapons to save them. For many years, North Korea’s inability to hit the American homeland with its own nukes made this threat (known as “extended deterrence”) credible and helped keep the peace. Given the North’s major progress toward precisely this capability, the current U.S. strategy could soon amount to risking the complete destruction of a big American city – or two. That may even be the case now.

In other words, given all these major, worsening Asia problems, the logical U.S. response is not stubbornly staying seated atop a powder keg. It’s to disengage ASAP. But any disengagement is such anathema to Haass and the rest of the Blob that he’s actually portrayed President Trump’s various statements criticizing the wisdom of America’s alliances as major contributors to East Asia’s stability.

Ironically, though, despite the Blob’s complaints, Mr. Trump’s biggest mistake along these lines clearly has been to continue his predecessors’ alliance policies, and even to double down in Eastern Europe – a region that could be as dangerous as East Asia.

That is, Haass and the rest of the Blob should be resting a lot easier. What a tragedy that there’s no reason to say that for the rest of us.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Iran Crisis’ Real Lessons on Multilateralism

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allies, America First, Barack Obama, foreign policy, globalism, Iran, Iran deal, Iran nuclear deal, Iran sanctions, JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, multilateralism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, Trump, unilateralism

If you think about it seriously, the main sequence of events that’s led up to the latest surge in U.S.-Iran tensions has dealt a hammer blow to the mainstream U.S. foreign policy idea that going it more or less alone is a formula for failure in world affairs, and that closely cooperating with allies is one of the biggest keys to success.

To remind: The mainstream (in the case of Iran, overwhelmingly its left-of-center wing) has been charging that the two countries have moved close to major conflict because, over allies’ objections, an America First-oriented President Trump pulled out of the deal negotiated during President Barack Obama’s administration with the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom, Russia, and China and Iran to restrain Tehran’s nuclear weapons development. And Washington then proceeded to antagonize Iran gratuitously by ramping up its own economic sanctions. As a result, Iranian leaders have threatened to start violating some of its nuclear agreement commitments, and has further protested these actions by lashing out regionally – including (as seems to be the case) attacking tankers transporting vital oil supplies through the Persian Gulf and its narrow Straits of Hormuz.

So if only Mr. Trump had listened to the allies and stayed in the agreement – i.e., if he followed an approach called multilateralism – all would be (reasonably) well in the volatile and oil-rich Gulf region. And to be fair, I myself initially bought the multilateralist reasoning when the nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) was finally reached, agreeing that without allied buy-in, the United States could never create enough pressure on Iran on its own (i.e., “unilaterally”) to prevent Tehran from going nuclear for any length of time.

And yet, as I eventually realized, this narrative held no water whatever. For the United States has proved eminently capable of inflicting major pain on Iran’s economy all by itself – by dint of its ability to deny companies that do business with Iran (including companies from allied and other foreign countries) access to the U.S. dollar-dominated global banking and payments system. America’s unilateral power, in turn, strongly reinforces the argument that the Obama administration (and the allies) could have secured much better terms from Iran than the deal currently contains.

It’s true that weakening Iran economically is no guarantee that it will turn from the nuclear weapons path. But neither is the agreement. The strongest argument made on its behalf is that it pushes back any possible nuclear-ization by roughly fifteen years. Even strong supporters, though, acknowledge it contains important verification loopholes. And had the United States remained in the JCPOA, and imposed none or few of its own sanctions, when Iran did “break out,” it would have surely been much stronger economically than otherwise – which couldn’t serve the interests of anyone worried about the Islamic Republic.       

Even more important than my own evolving views: Iran itself clearly understands the United States’ matchless leverage, too. That’s why it’s been so enraged by the American withdrawal from the nuclear agreement – even though all the other signatories remain part of the pact. Its leaders apparently understand that, in this instance, U.S. allies’ words and even deeds don’t matter much.

And as for the allies augmenting American power and influence in this episode – because their top priority (rightly or wrongly) is preserving the nuclear deal, they’re trying to frustrate American aims nowadays, not support them.

Multilateralism certainly can be a useful, effective U.S. approach to various international challenges. But contrary to the impression created by its staunchest champions, allies need to do their part, too. If consensus among all parties is lacking, multilateralism can too easily become a recipe for paralysis and inaction. In other words, like all other tools or tactics, it’s simply a tool or tactic. It mustn’t be treated as an end in and of itself.

And this caveat, of course, goes double for the United States. For as the Iran situation shows, it’s unique among the world’s major powers in having many, and robust, unilateral options.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time to “Lead from Behind” on the Gulf?

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allies, America First, Barack Obama, Iran, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Straits of Hormuz

It sounds like a global nightmare scenario like those described in Cold War thrillers like “Fail Safe” – Middle East militants from someplace start attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world’s oil supplies flow, and the international economy teeters on the brink of total collapse. Except such attacks are happening right now.

So the Trump administration’s counter-moves – sounding alarms, blaming Iran, and seeking to rally global support for some kind of forceful response – seem to make perfect sense.

Actually, however, there’s every reason to think that the global economy can ride out this apparent crisis just fine, and that as a result, the President is missing an opportunity to display the virtues of a genuine America First foreign policy.

Not that the Gulf doesn’t matter for global oil trade. An estimated 30 percent of the globe’s oil exports travel through it, and out to markets the world over through its narrow Straits of Hormuz. Moreover, many of the world’s leading economies depend on such oil for big (though significantly varying) shares of their total energy use.

But these countries so far have displayed no interest in taking military steps to protect the oil flow. Indeed, many have focused their efforts instead on questioning the U.S. claims about Iran’s responsibility.

It’s tempting to view these actions as simply the latest example of such American allies counting on the United States to pull their fat from the fire – and/or a worrisome sign that the Trump administration’s alleged “bullying” on issues ranging from China trade to sharing the burden for the supposedly common defense to dealing with Iran and its nuclear weapons ambitions and other aggressive policies has cost it precious credibility with America’s best foreign friends.

Yet there’s also a strong case to be made that in this case, the allies’ apparent dithering (a charge that would be justified by either of the above narratives) makes perfect sense. The reason? The world literally has been here before – in spades. That is, in recent memory, the Gulf has been a much more violent place, and a much more threatening environment for oil tankers specifically. And as described in this useful Washington Post review, most of the global economic consequences were pretty minor. Those that weren’t – mainly entailing oil price hikes – didn’t last especially long in part because, quite naturally, the higher prices generated more supply, which brought the prices back down after a few years.   

Moreover, even if “this time it’s different” in the Gulf, there’s an equally strong case that the United States should be following the allies’ lead. After all, they’re potentially the countries that are most seriously affected. Therefore, at least theoretically speaking, they have the greatest incentives to behave responsibly. If their economies do run into trouble, the U.S. economy certainly wouldn’t escape unscathed, given its extensive trade and investment with Europe and Asia.

But because thanks to its fracking-led energy production revolution, the United States no longer imports much oil from anywhere any more, the impact would be much less important. Chances are, moreover, that this impact would be far below a level that would warrant military action, much less taking charge of such operations.  And since the allies’ ambivalence indicates that their aid couldn’t be counted on, a major American-dominated military initiative seems even more foolhardy.  

Several years ago, an anonymous Obama administration official created a stir when he described the President’s approach for intervening in the Libya civil war as “leading from behind.” Critics definitely had a point when they charged that such strategies were difficult at best to reconcile with the then prevailing globalist foreign policy strategy that defined vital U.S. interests in sweeping, near-universal terms and emphasized the need for active, practically ceaseless American global engagement. But following the allies’ lead in the current Persian Gulf crisis seems like just the ticket.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Venezuela Crisis is Getting Really Scary

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Austria, Baltics, Cuban Missile Crisis, Monroe Doctrine, NATO, NATO expansion, neutralization, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, South America, Soviet Union, spheres of influence, Trump, Venezuela, Vladimir Putin, Western Hemisphere

No one who lived through it or knows about it (me in both cases) would ever say lightly, “The X situation reminds me of the Cuban Missile Crisis.” So that’s at least one reason to be very worried about the largely under-the-radar situation that’s been unfolding in Venezuela lately. It shows signs of turning into the kind of Western Hemisphere incursion by Moscow that put the world on the brink of superpower nuclear war in October, 1962. What’s worse – there are major reasons for assigning (pre-Trump) U.S. globalist leaders much and even most of the blame.

Normally, I wouldn’t be too concerned about what happens inside any South American country, at least from the standpoint of U.S. national interests. And you shouldn’t be, either. None of the continent’s countries is strong or rich enough to endanger the United States militarily or economically. Further, although chronic misrule is always a threat to generate refugee crises, even the South American countries closest to the United States are too far away to send many to these shores.

The last few weeks in Venezuela, however, have been anything but normal. It’s not just that the country is descending into the kind of economic and political chaos that makes President Trump’s term “a big fat mess” look like happy talk. It’s that Russia – a long time ally of the leftist dictators whose corruption and incompetence have turned this oil-rich country into a bona fide failed state – looks to be establishing a military presence inside Venezuela’s borders.

Moscow’s forces so far are tiny. But there’s no guarantee that they’ll stay small – at least as long as the current Venezuelan regime remains in power. And P.S.: They include specialists assisting with the operation of a battery of anti-aircraft missiles – although in fairness, the Venezuelans bought the system back in 2009. That’s why President Trump has stated that “Russia has to get out.” At the same time, that’s going to be easier said than done without the United States using armed force. Which is scary because Russia is a full-fledged nuclear power. As a result, the President could well be faced with a genuinely agonizing dilemma: Either back down, and open the doors to a big, conspicuous, dangerous violation of one of longest-standing and most crucial pillars of U.S. national security doctrine; or challenge Russian leader Vladimir Putin militarily, and risk a conflict that could quickly escalate to the nuclear level.

I use the word “dangerous” because that national security doctrine, the 1823 “Monroe Doctrine,” correctly assumes that the stationing of foreign military forces in the Western Hemisphere would pose an intolerable threat to America. The missiles the Soviet Union planned to place in Cuba in 1962 raised the prospect of a devastating attack on the U.S. homeland delivered with almost no warning – and thus no way to stop them. Even a Russian deployment in Venezuela falling well short of this scale could bring alarmingly close to U.S. borders significant Russian intelligence capabilities along with military units. The latter could carry out missions ranging from interfering with shipping in the Caribbean and all along America’s Atlantic coast to protecting other anti-U.S. strongmen and interfering in civil conflicts throughout Central and South America whose consequences could well spill across U.S. borders.

Moreover, if the Russians succeeded in creating these kinds of footprints, what would stop the Chinese – who also boast an impressive nuclear arsenal? Even strong opponents of America’s numerous foreign military ventures should worry about these developments.

It’s tempting to look at the Cuban Missile Crisis and conclude that America’s major nuclear edge over the Soviet Union enabled the naval blockade of Cuba to succeed and ultimately force Moscow to back down – and that similar measures could kick Russia out of Venezuela today and keep it out of the hemisphere.

But this temptation needs to be resisted. Declassified documents have thoroughly debunked the reassuring accounts and interpretations that followed the Missile Crisis’ resolution – colorfully summarized by then Secretary of Dean Rusk’s claim that “We’re eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked.” In fact, the crisis ended because President John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to dismantle American missile deployments in Soviet neighbor Turkey, and to pledge to stop seeking to overthrow Cuba’s Communist dictator Fidel Castro. And since the United States has long since lost any nuclear superiority over forces controlled by Moscow, Washington would have even less leverage today to achieve an acceptable compromise.

Fortunately, the basis of such a deal exists – and ironically, because of a reckless American policy that surely prompted Russian leader Vladimir Putin to show his flag in Venezuela (and elsewhere, as in Crimea and Ukraine). That policy entailed the decision following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) right up to Russia’s borders.

As I’ve argued previously, the United States should publicly offer to declare NATO expansion a mistake and to promise not to add further members in return for Russia’s agreement not to threaten the security of new members already admitted. In addition, Moscow would keep military forces out of the Western Hemisphere.

Washington could sweeten the offer by proposing to neutralize the new NATO countries whose membership has most rankled the Russians – the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which had been forcibly annexed into the old Soviet Union in 1940. If Austria could be successfully neutralized during the height of the Cold War (1955), a Baltic deal should be eminently achievable today.

Many if not most American globalists would condemn this arrangement as a modern version of spheres of influence diplomacy that they contend have long carved up regions for the benefit of large powers and needlessly ran roughshod over the interests of smaller countries that were denied the fully internationally recognized right to determine their own destinies – including their own security arrangements. What the globalists consistently ignore is that such hard-hearted realism can be an effective way to prevent great power conflicts – many of whose worst victims tend to be those same smaller countries.

Ultimately, however, the strongest argument for offering this deal to Putin is that it creates the optimal realistic net benefits for the United States. As a result, it’s an opportunity that a President elected in large part on an “America First” platform should eagerly seize.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Foreign Policy Blob Challenged from Within

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alliances, allies, America First, Asia, Blob, burden sharing, Chas W. Freeman, East Asia, East Asia-Pacific, establishment, globalism, Japan, North Korea, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trade, Trump

Chas [that’s not a typo] W. Freeman isn’t exactly a household name. He’s even far from the most prominent member of the U.S. foreign policy “Blob” – the bipartisan establishment of current government bureaucrats, former officials, think tank-ers, academics, and journalists whose members for decades have both constantly changed exchanged jobs as their particular political patrons have rotated in and out of elected office, and helped keep the nation’s approach to international affairs on a strongly activist, interventionist (i.e., globalist) course for decades.

That is, they’ve succeeded in this mission until Donald Trump’s election as president, and even he hasn’t managed to throw off their grip completely. (See this 2018 article of mine for an explanation of how globalism and the “America First” approach touted by Mr. Trump differ, and examples of how his foreign policy decisions have reflected both strategies so far.)

But Freeman is a card-carrying member of the Blob – as one look at his bio should make clear. And that’s what makes this recent speech of his so interesting and important.

The address, delivered to a world affairs conference in Florida, has attracted the most attention (especially on Twitter) for its critique of President Trump’s China policy. And that makes perfect sense given the Freeman literally was present at the creation of the Nixon-era outreach to the People’s Republic that ended decades of Cold War hostility and set the framework for bilateral relations from the early 1970s until the Trump Era began.

But in my view, the China portions are eminently forgettable – amounting to a standard (but less oft-stated these days) Blob-y claim that the PRC is being scapegoated for chronic failures of U.S. domestic economic and social policy.

What really stands out is this passage – which clashes violently with the Blob’s defining worship of America’s security alliances and dovetails intriguingly, albeit only partially, with my own views of how America’s economic and security strategy toward China and the rest of East Asia should evolve.

According to Freeman (and he’s worth quoting in full):

“President Trump has raised the very pertinent question: Should states with the formidable capabilities longstanding American “allies” now have still be partial wards of the U.S. taxpayer? In terms of our own security, are they assets or liabilities? Another way of putting this is to ask: Do our Cold War allies and their neighbors now face credible threats that they cannot handle by themselves? Do these threats also menace vital U.S. interests? And do they therefore justify U.S. military presences and security guarantees that put American lives at risk? These are questions that discomfit our military-industrial complex and invite severe ankle-biting by what some have called ‘the Blob’ – the partisans of the warfare state now entrenched in Washington. They are serious questions that deserve serious debate. We Americans are not considering them.

“Instead, we have finessed debate by designating both Russia and China as adversaries that must be countered at every turn. This has many political and economic advantages. It is a cure for enemy deprivation syndrome – that queasy feeling our military-industrial complex gets when our enemies disorient us by irresponsibly defaulting on their contest with us and disappearing, as the Soviet Union did three decades ago. China and Russia are also technologically formidable foes that can justify American R&D and procurement of the expensive, high-tech weapons systems. Sadly, low intensity conflict with scruffy ‘terrorist’ guerrillas can’t quite do this.”

If you ignore what I view as the not-very-informative shots against the “warfare state,” you can see that Freeman comes close to exposing some of the main weaknesses and even internal contradictions of both main factions in the national China policy debate, and (unintentionally, but unmistakably) provides some support for the America First set of priorities I’ve proposed.

Specifically, supporters of pre-Trump China trade policies generally have insisted that China and the rest of East Asia are crucial to America’s economic future because of their huge and fast-growing markets and overall dynamism. But although they staunchly back maintaining the U.S. alliances in the East Asia-Pacific region that has long aimed to secure the political independence of its non-communist countries and thereby keep their economies open to American exports and investment, they keep ignoring three major problems created by this approach.

>First, the trade and broader China economic policies they’ve stood for have greatly enriched and strengthened the country posing the greatest threat to East Asian security. (See, e.g., this column.) 

>Second, because of the growth and increasing sophistication of Chinese and North Korean nuclear forces, America’s alliances in the region have brought the U.S. homeland under unprecedented threat of nuclear attack from both of these rivals.

>Third, despite the alliances, countries like Japan and South Korea have remained highly protectionist economies whose trade predation has damaged America’s overall economy and particularly its manufacturing base. In fact, there’s every reason to believe that U.S. security objectives have enabled this allied trade predation, by preventing Washington from retaliating effectively for fear of antagonizing Tokyo and Seoul.

The Trump policy mix strikes me as being much more internally consistent. In large measure because of fears of growing Chinese military might, it’s trying to use both trade and investment policy to curb Beijing’s use of intellectual property theft and technology extortion in particular to gain regional parity with U.S. forces and thus make America’s alliance commitments much more dangerous and costly to fulfill. The administration also deserves credit for recognizing the purely economic damage Asian trade predation has caused America.

But for all the president’s complaints about defense burden-sharing, he, too, appears determined to keep the alliances intact. Hence his recent insistence that South Korea pay more of the costs of the U.S. troop deployments on its soil despite his repeated claims about the alliance’s necessity. Just as important, although the Trump Asia policies have sought more balanced trade flows with regional allies, these very efforts make clear how unsatisfactory these economic relationships have been. As a result, they sandbag the case that the United States must run major military risks to preserve them.

Freeman’s speech suggests support for a different set of priorities. In one sense, they’re logical: If, as he suggests, its security alliances in East Asia are no longer good deals for the United States, then it’s indeed not such a big deal from a security perspective if America’s economic policies toward China are helping Beijing increase its military power – and boost the odds that it will someday control the region to America’s economic detriment.

Yet Freeman’s apparent priorities fail on the purely economic front, as they seem to propose doing nothing whatever to combat the Chinese policies that have harmed America’s economy.

And that’s why the America First recipe I’ve proposed makes the most sense:

>First, disengaging from an increasingly hostile and economically dangerous China (largely because no trade deal can be adequately verified).

>Second, recognizing that trade with the entire East Asian region has been a loser for the United States and certainly not worth the growing military risks to the American homeland – and thereby concluding that the U.S.’ still-overwhelming economic leverage is likeliest to secure whatever improvements in trade and commercial relations are needed.

>Third, wherever possible, using this economic leverage to shift jobs offshored to Asia but not likely to return to the United States (because they’re too labor-intensive and therefore “low tech”) to Mexico and Central America. The resulting new economic opportunities could go far toward solving the Western Hemisphere’s immigration problems.

Unfortunately, because the Trump administration has its Asia priorities so confused, optimism regarding major changes is tough to justify. But Freeman’s willingness to challenge from within the Blob’s fetishization of U.S. alliances, however flawed, is a ray of hope. And who was it who said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Companies Keep Feeding the China Tech Beast

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AI, artificial intelligence, Bloomberg.com, China, hacking, Karen Weise, Microsoft, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paul Mozur, technology, technology transfer, The New York Times, Trump

Wow! This was quite the revealing – and disturbing – nugget buried in a recent New York Times article about American tech companies’ trials and tribulations in China! According to reporters Paul Mozur and Karen Weise, Microsoft’s “long-established research and development center has turned out valuable products and launched the careers of a generation of artificial-intelligence experts who have started important new companies in China.”

Mozur and Weise mentioned this Microsoft activity in order to make the important point that even companies, like the Seattle software giant, that have bent over backwards to remain viable in China by keeping Beijing happy in various ways seem to be fighting a losing battle. For even these firms are falling victim to China’s persistent desire to replace them in the country’s huge market with Chinese rivals.

But the reference to Microsoft’s artificial intelligence operations could well matter more to the United States because it underscores a point I made several years ago in a Bloomberg.com op-ed that bears on American national security: For decades, U.S. tech companies have been transferring to Chinese entities cutting edge knowhow that has greatly strengthened Beijing’s ability to endanger key American interests. It’s the price they need to pay to keep playing in the Chinese market. But whatever the commercial justification, and whether these transfers are voluntary, coerced, or somewhere in between (including the training of China’s tech workforce), they’ve too long been neglected by American policymakers.

My Bloomberg piece focused on technologies related to cyberhacking – where transfers ironically were coming back to bite the U.S. tech firms themselves. Since then, in several posts for RealityChek, I’ve covered tech transfer that’s handing China more conventional advanced defense-related knowhow. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But artificial intelligence-related operations push the threat to an entirely new level. For these capabilities will likely be the biggest game-changers in national security for decades, and Washington is already so alarmed by the progress China has made that many specialists worry that Beijing could soon forge ahead. Nearly as troubling: The more such tech American companies keep handing over to the Chinese, the closer China gets to self-sufficiency – the point at which it won’t need American assistance anymore.

The Trump administration rightly keeps calling attention to China’s growing technological prowess and the resulting dangers to the United States, and even many long-time supporters of the reckless pre-Trump China engagement policies are starting to agree.

But tariffs to punish predatory Chinese policies aimed at building tech dominance, and curbs on Chinese tech investments in the U.S. economy are necessary, not sufficient responses. The above linked Financial Times article indicates the administration now recognizes need to staunch the flow of advanced knowhow to China by American companies. But every minute new curbs are delayed, the United States will keep feeding the beast.