Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Globalists are Pushing for Anti-Jihadist Endless Wars in Africa

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Africa, America First, Blob, border security, globalism, Immigration, ISIS, jihadism, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Serenity Prayer, The Washington Post, travel ban

I started off my new article for The National Interest on America’s lost global lead in semiconductor manufacturing with the observation that “One of the leading features, and weakness[es], of globalist U.S. foreign policy has been the tendency to look mainly to foreign policy to solve problems that domestic policy could likely handle better. That’s because all else equal, conditions at home are much easier to change and control than conditions overseas.”

And one of my examples was “To eradicate, or at least reduce, jihadist terrorism, administrations from both parties mired the nation in costly and protracted foreign wars rather than secure the homeland.”

Little did I expect that the very same day this piece appeared, a front page article in the Washington Post would make clear that although the America First-oriented Trump administration has at least partly learned this lesson, the bipartisan, globalist U.S. foreign policy Blob, (which will return to power if Democratic candidate Joe Biden becomes President, and which contains many Mainstream Media journalists who faithfully serve as its mouthpieces) remains clueless.

The headline alone clinches both these cases: “ISIS attacks surge in Africa even as Trump boasts of a ‘100-percent’ defeated caliphate.”

It’s clear purposes – to spotlight a major broken Trump promise, and to whip up fears that the same kinds of jihadists who have attacked the United States are alive and kicking despite the President’s boasts, and that his ego and blockheaded isolationist foreign policy impulses will only ensure that this threat will keep metastasizing if he remains in office.

After all, “The rise in violence comes as the Trump administration moves to slash U.S. troop deployments and threatens to curtail support for local governments on the front lines of the battle against Islamist militants. The White House is considering steeper cutbacks in U.S. military forces in Africa, despite warnings from some analysts that the reductions could further hamper efforts to check the extremists’ advance.”

Worse, readers are told, the President has been repeating this mistake elsewhere: Despite performing well in killing jihadist leaders, and tightening “the noose on [ISIS] followers in Iraq and Syria, other White House policies undermined the effort to defeat violent Islamist militant ideology globally, according to …counterterrorism experts.”

Specifically, “Trump surprised his own security advisers by twice announcing — and then reversing — a decision to unilaterally withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, signaling an abandonment of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters who were still battling thousands of Islamic State militants who fled as the caliphate was crumbling.”

And the icing on this cake of failures: Mr. Trump’s “anti-Islam rhetoric and ban on Muslim immigrants handed the militants a propaganda win, reinforcing a ‘fundamental al-Qaeda message, which is that America is against Islam’” as one of these experts contended.

Leaving aside the fact that the immigrants ban wasn’t on Muslims, but on individuals from terror-prone countries, these establishment authorities have it completely backward and the President’s generally America First-y approach is the commonsensical and strategically sound route to follow.

Unless you, like they, think that U.S. advisers or forces or whatever should spend the indefinite future running around failed regions of the world trying to stamp out the extremist factions that keep popping up precisely because of their homelands’ chronically dysfunctional conditions? And that since this strategy has worked so well in the Middle East, it’s now time to reenact it in Africa, where circumstances may be even worse? Because the continent is “already beset by poverty, corruption and the novel coronavirus”?

In fact, as America First-ers recognize, it’s precisely because Africa’s countries are (to quote the Post article) “ill-equipped to fight insurgencies that are well-armed and geographically dispersed” – or to perform as effective governments in just about any way – that Trump travel ban-like and other border security measures represent America’s best hopes by far for ensuring that Africa’s jihadist problems don’t become U.S. jihadist problems. This America First approach, by contrast, can only mire the nation in a new series of futile Endless Wars in one of the world’s least promising theaters.

And to complete this portrait of foreign policy Upside Down World, the biggest mistake in this regard that Mr. Trump has made has been his eager adoption of the globalist goal of defeating ISIS “100 percent” – and presumably eliminating jihadist threats for good with military shock and awe.

Instead, as I’ve written, he should have focused on U.S. borders all along – or at least portrayed continuing anti-terrorist military involvement in the Middle East and elsewhere as a bridge to the time when they become secur enough to keep out jihadists et al however active they are abroad.

The oft-quoted Serenity Prayer begins this way:

“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference.”

That’s logic that’s hard to argue with – and evidence that whoever wrote it would have been an America First-er today.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America First by Any Other Name?

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America First, Council on Foreign Relations, establishment, Foreign Affairs, globalism, internationalism, Michael Beckley, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Trump

Here’s a blog post lede I never thought I’d write. And if you’re familiar with the ongoing but almost always blinkered way the establishment debates U.S. foreign policy, you’ll find it pretty starting, too:

An intellectually interesting article appeared in Foreign Affairs. Or maybe more accurately, an article that’s far more intellectually interesting than either its author or the magazine’s powers-that-be realized.

First, here’s why this matters. Foreign Affairs is the journal of the New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations – an organization that literally was created in the shadow of World War I by America’s then-Northeast-centric ruling classes to push the nation to abandon its domestically focused collective impulses and priorities and remain comprehensively involved in world affairs following the conflict.

The organization became so influential that in 1962, the journalist Richard Rovere published an article (which appeared in various forms, notably Esquire) arguing (in my opinion, with tongue not so firmly in cheek) that the Council and its members were pillars of a broader national establishment that not shaped decisively not only American public policy, but the definition of which viewpoints were and weren’t legitimate to air in nationally influential media. (Full disclosure: From the mid-1980s or so through the mid-1990s or so, I was a member until I decided that the dues were no longer worth the candle.)

It’s not that Foreign Affairs never runs material that challenges the orthodoxy in the field of foreign policy – which historically has been called “internationalism” and which President Trump has re-labeled “globalism.” But such articles are published so rarely that their very infrequency clearly telegraphs even to minimally perceptive readers that they’re exercises in tokenism. Another big clue along these lines – they’re given the magazine’s blessing usually only after internationalist policies lead to outright national disasters.

One leading example is this piece, which came out at the height of the Vietnam War. Much less important examples include two pieces of my own, which indicated the Council’s willingness to consider that, with the Cold War ended, America’s military reach was needlessly and dangerously exceeding its grasp; and that the standard economic theories sanctifying free trade policies weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

Yet Michael Beckley’s essay in Foreign Affairs‘ November/December issue falls into a different category altogether. It not only decimates globalism’s core tenets. It does so unwittingly. And there’s no reason to suspect that the magazine’s editors or their superiors understand its profoundly subversive implications, either.

Even more startling: the author’s main arguments closely mirror those made in this 2018 article of mine (and foreshadowed in this Atlantic Monthly piece from…wait for it…nearly 30 years ago).

My own case against globalism first and foremost challenges its assumption that the United States has become exquisitely sensitive, and indeed downright vulnerable, to virtually every disturbance of a set of global circumstances whose default position is called “order” – even though the stability of the entirety of this so-called system itself in turn is considered as fragile as a pyramid of champagne glasses.

In fact, I’ve contended, because of America’s unique combination of geographic isolation, technological prowess and therefore military power, and natural wealth, it’s substantially unaffected by most outbreaks of instability overseas.

And where globalism claims that because of this vulnerability, U.S. foreign policy must engage in a ceaseless effort to create, maintain, or restore order and stability abroad, I’ve argued that because developments within the United States (including its actual or potential foreign vulnerabilities) are far easier for Americans to control than developments without, even when foreign developments threaten to impinge on its security and prosperity, the U.S. government is best advised to respond by addressing its own weaknesses and shoring up its own defenses rather than trying to fix what’s broken overseas.

There’s definitely a paradox at work here, but a paradox that makes perfect sense to the open-minded: The United States is anything but capable through its own devices of ensuring its security and prosperity by making or keeping the world safe and stable. But it’s entirely capable of ensuring through its own devices its own security and prosperity in a world that remains unsafe and unstable.

So imagine my surprise upon reading Beckley statements like:

>”By 2040, the United States will be the only country with a large, growing market and the fiscal capacity to sustain a global military presence. Meanwhile, new technologies will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign labor and resources….”

>”Remaining the most powerful country, however, is not the same thing as remaining the guarantor of a liberal international order. Somewhat paradoxically, the same trends that will reinforce U.S. economic and military might will also make it harder to play that role—and make Trump’s approach more attractive.”

>For much of its history, “The United States could afford to pursue its goals alone because it, unlike other powerful countries, was self-sufficient. By the 1880s, the United States was the world’s richest country, largest consumer market, and leading manufacturer and energy producer, with vast natural resources and no major threats. With so much going for it at home, the United States had little interest in forging alliances abroad.”

>With the passing of the Cold War-era Soviet threat that could only be adequately contained with alliances (I disagree, but that’s a separate issue) “Americans will feel less dependent on foreign partners than they have in generations.”

>”As other major economies shrivel, the United States will become even more central to global growth and even less reliant on international commerce.”

>”The United States will also have less need for staunch allies, because rapid aging will hobble the military expansion of its great-power adversaries.”

>”The United States’ task of leading the liberal world order will grow harder as nationalists gain power and raise tariffs, close borders, and abandon international institutions.” 

One likely reason that neither Beckley nor the folks at Foreign Affairs or the Council understood the real importance of his article is that the author works so hard to paint such unattractive – and even ominous – picture of the rest of the world if the United States does pursue a go-it-alone strategy. Indeed, his portrayal of this kind of America (“rogue” and “illiberal”) isn’t exactly flattering, either.

Another likely reason for this obliviousness is that the second-best version of globalism that Beckley proposes as an alternative to the pre-Trump iteration isn’t so terribly different from traditional globalism.

It essentially entails a more explicit use of U.S. power and wealth to pressure current allies and neutrals into following U.S. leads in exchange for using its still (and increasingly formidable) military edge to protect them against China and Russia and other predators. But although, in Beckley’s words, this foreign policy approach would be “more stingy and uninspiring” than today’s globalism, to my eyes, it also looks comparably (and needlessly) ambitious, interventionist, and risky – especially if America’s relative military prowess doesn’t prove to be nearly as intimidating as the author expects, and the U.S. homeland remains exposed to the risk of nuclear attack from foreign aggressors.

Also crucial to remember – at this stage, even though Beckley’s views have been given something of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval by the Council, his voice remains an awfully lonely one. In particlar, there is absolutely no indication yet that anyone associated with the Biden presidential campaign remotely agrees.

At the same time, changes in national strategy rarely develop through knowing adoption of the master plans laid out by policy writers like him (or me). In fact, one of my favorite lines in non-fiction has been been the Victorian era British historian J.R. Seeleye’s contention that his countrymen “seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.”

I’m not saying I believe Seeleye entirely. But he usefully spotlights the crucial role played by the force of circumstance in producing national course changes. And that’s mainly why Beckley’s article genuinely deserves the descriptor “subversive.” It’s ably identified the many of the developments (including some I haven’t considered) that demonstrate the attractiveness of a genuinely America First-type foreign policy, and could well push the United States to adopt one whether he – or the still powerful globalist U.S. national establishment – likes it or not.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Big Decisions Coming on Asia

Tags

Asia, Asia-Pacific, Central America, China, containment, currency manipulation, deterrence, East Asia-Pacific, Japan, Mexico, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, tripwire, U.S. Army, Vietnam, Walker D. Mills, Western Europe

Whenever I think about what to blog about, I ask myself a question that I first heard one of my all-time writing idols raise many years ago when he faced similar decisions. The occasion came during a college writing seminar where the guest lecturer was none other than Norman Mailer.

The seminar probably took place sometime in 1974, and one of my fellow students asked Mailer why he hadn’t turned out anything about the Watergate scandal. I had been wondering this myself, since Mailer’s world renown by then stemmed both from his novels and from his forays into the “new journalism” that was emerging in that era, in which gifted writers tried to employ some key techniques from fiction (especially their keen insights into human nature and their considerable descriptive and narrative skills) ito shed light on the events of the day. On top of turning out numerous important non-fiction works, Mailer had also run (unsuccessfully) for Mayor of New York City in 1969. So he was by no means shy about sounding off on headline subjects, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one of his fans anxious to hear about the Nixon-centric drama.

But his answer was disarmingly simple. He decided to give Watergate a pass because he couldn’t think of anything distinctive and important to say.

And that’s an (admittedly roundabout) way of explaining why today’s post won’t be about any aspect of President Trump’s contraction of the CCP Virus. At the very least, events are moving so quickly that it’s hard to know the score. Instead, I’m focusing on foreign policy, and in particular two major, under-reported developments in U.S.-Asia relations that are underscoring the return of Cold War-like challenges across the Pacific, but that should be teaching American policymakers very different lessons.

I’ve already dealt to some extent with the first here on RealityChek: The U.S.’ loss of global leadership in the manufacture of cutting-edge semiconductors to companies in South Korea and especially Taiwan. In a journal article scheduled for publication this week, I’ll be laying out the key the technical details and some of the main policy implications. But in brief it amplifies my argument that the location of the world’s most advanced producers of the vital building blocks of modern economies and militaries right at China’s doorstep means that the defense of Taiwan in particular has now become a vital U.S. national security interest that requires the kinds of military forces and strategies (including a threat to use nuclear weapons) employed to protect major treaty allies like Japan and Western Europe both during the Cold War decades and since.

After all, those Cold War commitments – which exposed the United States to the risk of Soviet and to a lesser extent Chinese nuclear attack – were reasonably justified by the belief that Japan and Western Europe were centers of industrial and technogical power and potential that could create decisive advantages for the communist powers if they gained control or access to their assets. The importance of advanced semiconductors today means that Taiwan now belongs in the same category.

As I detail in the upcoming article, Washington has rightly been building closer diplomatic and military ties to Taiwan in response (though I also argue that it’s ultimately far more important for the United States to restore its semiconductor leadership ASAP). But this fall, an article in an official journal of the U.S. Army argued for taking a net step that, however logical, would be nothing less than momentous – and comparably sobering. In the words of Marine Corps Captain Walker D. Mills,

“The United States needs to recognize that its conventional deterrence against [Chinese military] action to reunify Taiwan may not continue to hold without a change in force posture. Deterrence should always be prioritized over open conflict between peer or near-peer states because of the exorbitant cost of a war between them. If the United States wants to maintain credible conventional deterrence against a [Chinese military] attack on Taiwan, it needs to consider basing troops in Taiwan.”

To his credit, Mills goes on to make explicit that such troops would in part be performing the kind of “tripwire” function that similar units in South Korea serve – ensuring that aggression against an ally ensures the start of a wider war involving all of America’s formidable military capabilities. The benefit, as always, would be to prevent such aggression in the first place by threatening consequences the attacker would (presumably) find prohibitive.

Where Mills (like U.S. strategists for decades) should have been much more explicit was in explaining that because the threatened major conflict could easily entail nuclear weapons use, and since China now in particular, has ample capability to strike the U.S. homeland, the deployment of tripwire forces can result in the nuclear destruction of any number of American cities.

So this course of action would greatly increase at least theoretical dangers to all Americans. But what’s the alternative? Letting Beijing acquire knowhow that could eventually prove just as dangerous? As my upcoming article demonstrates, the blame for this agonizing dilemma belongs squarely on generations of U.S. policymakers, who watched blithely as this dimension of the nation’s technological predominance slipped away. And hopefully, as I just stated, this predominance can be recreated – and dangerous new U.S. commitments to Taiwan’s security won’t become permanent.

But that superiority won’t come back for years. Therefore, it seems to me that, as nuclear deterrence provided for Western Europe and Japan succeeded in creating the best of both possible worlds for the United States, this strategy could well work for protecting Taiwan for essentially the same reasons.

I’ll just insist on one proviso: At some point before it becomes a fait accompli, this decision should be run by the American people – as has never been the case.

Unfortunately, as I’ve also pointed out, Taiwan has become so important to the United States that even an America First-inclined U.S. President will have to look the other way at its longstanding trade protectionism and predation in order to maintain close ties – just as it winked at German, Japanese mercantilism in particular during the Cold War. But that kind of linkage needn’t apply to other countries in East Asia (and elsewhere in the world), who lack the kinds of assets Taiwan possesses, and in that vein, I hope the Trump administration (and a Biden presidency, if the former Vice President wins in November) won’t let strategic considerations prevent a thoroughgoing probe of Vietnam’s possible exchange rate manipulation and one other trade offense.

The former concern, of course, stems from the effects of countries’ sometime practice of keeping the value of their currencies artificially low. An under-valued currency just as artificially lowers the prices of a manipulator’s goods and services in markets all over the world vis-a-vis their U.S.-origin counterparts, and therefore makes the latter less competitive for reasons having nothing do with free markets.

The argument against the investigation (which I’ve so far seen only on Twitter, but by folks who are thoughtful and well-informed) is that in an economic conflict with China, the United States needs all the friends it can get. In addition, these critics point out, if tariffs are placed on Vietnamese goods, then companies thinking of leaving China because of the Trump levies on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Beijing’s exports will face greater difficulties exiting, since Vietnam is such a promising alternative for so many products.

What these arguments overlook, however, is that, as a neighbor of increasingly aggressive China, and a country that’s struggled for centuries to prevent Chinese domination, Vietnam has plenty of powerful reasons of its own to help with any anti-China efforts initiated by the United States So it’s highly likely that Vietnam will keep cooperating with American diplomacy and other policies regardless of what the United States does on the trade front.

Moreover, Vietnam lacks Taiwan-style leverage over and value to the United States because it’s not a world-class producer of anything. So there’s no need for Washington to grin and bear Vietnamese trade abuses that may be harming the U.S. domestic economy.

And finally, although it’s great that Vietnam has been a prime option for companies thinking of moving factories and jobs out of China, it would be even better for Americans if those companies seeking low-cost production sites moved to Mexico or Central America, since greater economic opportunity for those Western Hemisphere countries will be so helpful to the United States on the immigration and drugs fronts.

Mark Twain is reputed (possibly incorrectly) to have said that “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” That is, it holds important lessons, but discovering them can be challenging, and both American security and prosperity are about to depend heavily on U.S. leaders getting them right.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why America’s Stakes in East Asia’s Security are Looking Vital Again

Tags

allies, America First, China, East Asia, East Asia-Pacific, extended deterrence, free-riding, globalism, Intel, Japan, Joe Biden, manufacturing, Michele Flournoy, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, protectionism, Samsung, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, Trump, TSMC

News flash! This past week I read a newspaper column by George F. Will that didn’t prompt me to say “What an ignoramus!’ In fact, not only did I learn something. I learned something so important that, in conjunction with some other recent developments, is causing me to rethink some long and deeply held ideas I’ve had about America’s grand security strategy in the East Asia-Pacific region.

Specifically, although Will’s own focus in the September 8 piece was who Joe Biden would pick as Secretary of Defense, the piece itself described some ominous changes in the U.S.-China military balance in Asia that call into question my main concerns about America’s approach to region, and especially what I’ve depicted as an increasingly dangerous reliance on nuclear weapons to deter Chinese aggression. Meanwhile, as I’ll detail in a forthcoming freelance article, two U.S. Asian allies – Taiwan and South Korea – whose value to the United States I’ve long insisted doesn’t remotely justify running such risks, are looking for now like critical assets.

To review, since the Cold War began, the United States has resolved to defend its East Asian allies in large part by using the threat of nuclear weapons use to persuade potential attackers to lay off. Presidents from both parties agreed that the conventional military forces needed to fight off China and North Korea (and early on, the Soviet Union) were far too expensive for America to field. Moreover, the Korean War convinced the nation that fighting land wars in Asia was folly.

Before China and North Korea developed nuclear weapons able to reach the U.S. homeland, or approached the verge (the case, it seems, with the latter), this globalist policy of extended deterrence made sense whatever the importance to America of Asian allies. For the United States could threaten to respond to any aggression by literally destroying the aggressors, and they couldn’t respond in kind.

As I noted, however, once China and North Korea became capable of striking the continental United States with nuclear warheads, or seemed close to that capability, this U.S. policy not only made no sense. It was utterly perverse. For nothing about the independence of South Korea and Taiwan, in particular, made them worth the incineration of a major American city – or two, or three. The security of much larger and wealthier Japan didn’t seem to warrant paying this fearsome price, either.

Greatly fueling my opposition to U.S. policy and my support for a switch to an America First-type policy of military disengagement from the region was the refusal of any of these countries to spend adequately on their own defense (which, in combination with U.S. conventional forces, could deter and indeed defeat adversaries without forcing Washington to invoke the nuclear threat), and their long records of carrying out protectionist trade policies that harmed the American economy.

As Will’s column indicated, though, the threat, much less the use, of nuclear weapons is becoming less central to American strategy. Excerpts he quotes from recent (separate) writings by a leading Republican and a leading Democratic defense authority both emphasize dealing with the Chinese threat to Taiwan in particular with conventional weapons. The nukes aren’t even mentioned. Especially interesting: The Democrat (Michele Flournoy) is his recommended choice to head a Biden Pentagon – and she’s amassed enough experience and is well regarded enough among military and national security types to be a front-runner. I also checked out the journal article of hers referenced by Will, and nuclear weapons don’t come up there, either.

Moreover, neither Flournoy nor her Republican counterpart (a former aide the late Senator John McCain) shies away from the obvious implication – accomplishing their aim will require a major U.S. buildup of conventional forces in East Asia (including the development of higher tech weapons). In fact, they enthusiastically support it.

Any direct conflict involving two major powers has the potential to escalate beyond the expectations of the belligerents. But certainly bigger and more capable American forces in East Asia would reduce the chances that war with China will go nuclear. So in theory, anyway, the nuclear dimensions of my concerns could be reduced.

Moreover, my willingness to run greater risks to safeguard Taiwan and South Korea in particular, and pay the needed economic price – even if they keep free-riding on defense spending – is growing, too. That’s because of the theme of that forthcoming article I mentioned: Intel, the only major U.S.-owned company left that both designs and manufactures the most advanced kinds of semiconductors, has run into major problems producing the last two generations of microchips. In fact, the problems have been so great that the company has lost the technological lead to South Korea’s Samsung and in particular to Taiwan’s TSMC, and their most advanced facilities are in South Korea and Taiwan, right on China’s rim.

Given the importance of cutting edge semiconductors to developing cutting edge tech products in general, and ultimately cutting-edge weapons (including advanced non-weapons electronic gear and cyber warfare capabilities), acquiring the knowhow to produce these microchips by whatever means – outright conquest, or various forms of pressure – would make China an even more formidable, and even unbeatable challenge for the U.S. military, at least over time.

So until Intel, whose most advanced factories remain in the United States, figures out how to regain its manufacturing chops, or some other U.S.-owned entrant rides to the rescue, there will be a strong argument on behalf of protecting South Korea and Taiwan against Chinese designs at very high risk and cost. And as noted above, Americans may even have to tolerate some more military free-riding along with, in the case of South Korea, fence-sitting in the overall U.S.-China competition for influence in East Asia.

At the same time, because of the military (including nuclear) risks still involved, seizing back control of the semiconductor manufacturing heights ultimately is the best way out of this bind for Americans. So shame on generations of U.S. leaders for helping this vulnerability develop by swallowing the kool-aid about even advanced manufacturing’s obsolescence and replacement by services. But this grave mistake can’t be wished away, or overcome instantly, either – though efforts to regain this lost tech superiority need to be stepped up dramatically. So shame on current leaders, their advisers, and wannabe advisers – whatever their favored foreign policy strategy – if they fail to acknowledge that dangerous new circumstances may be upon the nation, and the sharp imperatives they logically create. And that includes yours truly.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Main Threat to U.S. Alliances Sure isn’t Trump

Tags

alliances, allies, America First, Angela Merkel, Belarus, Blob, China, David Brin, free-riding, Germany, globalism, natural gas, Nord Stream 2, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Philippines, Russia, science fiction, South China Sea, Trump, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

Here’s how widespread the charge is that President Trump has been destroying America’s longstanding foreign policy alliances – and for no good reason: I just saw it made on Facebook by David Brin. (I hope this link works.)

In case you’re not a science fiction fan like me, Brin is one of the truly great modern masters of this genre. A few years ago, I read his novel of the near future Kiln People, and was just blown away. And his achievements are hardly limited to literature, as this bio makes clear. In other words, he can’t be written off as some hysterically virtue-signaling, Never Trumper know-nothing celebrity. And even if he was, he has every right to express these or any other views. But clearly foreign policy isn’t his wheelhouse.

But here’s how deeply ignorant this comment is: It, and others like it from sources with more than a passing familiarity with U.S. foreign policy and world affairs, keep ignoring just how feckless the countries America’s allied with – and to whose defense the United States is pledged – have long been, and remain. For anyone who cares about The Facts, two major examples of their cynicism and unreliability have appeared in the last month alone.

The first came from the Philippines, whose president, Rodrigo Duterte, is no decent person’s ideal of a national leader. But his island archipelago country is located on the eastern edge of the South China Sea, which has turned into a major regional hotspot and theater of U.S.-China rivalry due to Beijing’s efforts over the last decade or so to assert more and more control over its economically and strategically important sea lanes. So as with decades of pre-Trump presidents and their relations with authoritarian allies, the current administration has overlooked Duterte’s domestic record for the sake of national security.

Duterte, however, hasn’t exactly reciprocated. As a foreign policy realist, I can’t blame him for trying to placate China (which is right in his neighborhood) while continuing to enjoy the protection of the United States (which is far away). But as an America Firster, my main concern is whether the United States has any reason to feel confident about counting on Duterte when the chips are down and shooting starts, and the Filipino leader’s fence-sitting clearly shows that the answer is “No.”

In fact, in February, Duterte went so far as to announce the ending of one of the deals in the web of official U.S.-Philippine defense ties that regulates exactly what American forces can and can’t do on Filipino territory. Because of the Philippines’ location, this so-called Visiting Forces Agreement inevitably impacts how effectively the U.S. military can operate to counter China – and defend the Philippines itself. But Duterte’s spokesman boasted that it was time that Filipino’s “rely on ourselves” and “strengthen our own defenses and not rely on any other country.”

Funny thing, though. In the six-and-a-half months since, Duterte’s confidence seems to have evaporated. Because late last week, his foreign secretary announced that if China attacks, “say a Filipino naval vessel … [that] means then I call up Washington DC.” So maybe there’s some merit to Trump’s insistence that these relationships be reexamined from head to toe?

But in case you think that double-dealing and hypocrisy is limited to “our bastard” types like Duterte…stop. For the second such instance comes courtesy of no less than Germany’s Angela Merkel, who has been anointed as the current champion of the global liberal order by much of the globalist U.S. foreign policy Blob and the Mainstream Media journalists who drink its Kool-Aid.

This lionizing of Merkel, however, is mocked mercilessly by Germany’s continued refusal to make serious military contributions to the defense of Europe, by its huge, global growth-killing trade surpluses, and by its rush to ban exports of crucial medical equipment as soon as the CCP Virus hit the continent.

But Merkel-worship seems to be just as devoted – and unjustified – as ever judging from this report in yesterday’s Financial Times. “Angela Merkel warns Vladimir Putin against intervention in Belarus,” the headline declared.

The article itself, however, made clear that nothing of the kind happened. The German Chancellor simply expressed the “hope” that the Russian leader wouldn’t send troops to quell pro-democracy protests that threaten to topple the longtime leader of this compliant Russian neighbor.

Just as worrisome, earlier this month, Germany reacted with indignation to U.S. attempts to punish and therefore give pause to an increasingly aggressive Russia by ending a pipeline deal that would bring natural gas directly from Russia to Germany.

This Nord Stream 2 project would greatly enrich Putin’s regime (and make more resources available to his military) – and at the expense of alternative gas supplier Ukraine, another Putin target. German companies, however, are heavily invested in the project. So Merkel has responded to suggestions that the country pull out of the deal to protest what looks like Putin’s latest attempt to assassinate a political rival by arguing that the two matters should be “decoupled” because linking an “economically driven project” to the alleged assassination wouldn’t be “appropriate.”

Again, I’m a realist, and won’t criticize these allied leaders for wanting their cake and eat it, too. Their job is to protect and advance their countries’ interests. So if they judge that accomplishing this mission requires fence-sitting and free-riding – and thereby increasing risks to the United States – (especially the risks of rushing to their defense and even of nuclear attack on the U.S.homeland) – they should go ahead,

But by the same token, an American chief executive’s job is protecting advancing and protecting U.S. interests. And the charge – whether by the Brins or the Blobbers of the world – that Mr. Trump is gratuitously endangering venerable relationships that unquestionably make America safer and stronger – belongs in the realms of science fiction and fantasy, not fact..

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Democrats Embrace (Disastrously Failed) Nation-Building

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Afghanistan, America First, Democratic Party, Democratic platform, Democrats, forever wars, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, Middle East, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, p, terrorism, Vietnam War

Longstanding conventional wisdom holds that political party platforms are usually either meaningless, just for show, or exercises in pandering various constituencies. And when I finished reading the Democrats’ latest version, I thought to myself, “Let’s hope so!”

My main concerns don’t revolve around those planks that have received the most attention – notably surrounding the treatment of Medicare for All and healthcare for illegal aliens and violent crime/police defunding) and climate change and the Green New Deal. (Actually, as I read it, the document generally was less far Left on these issues than presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, were during the primary campaign.) To be sure, they’re still concerns. My main concern, though, has to do with a lower profile, but still crucial issue, and one that was widely ignored both during the primaries and at last week’s convention: foreign policy.

Specifically, in contrast to the tightrope walking evident when it came to the hot button topics, the platform went all-in on nation-building.

To some extent, this was no surprise. For whether they belong to the party’s center or its progressive wing, nearly all Democrats are globalists. They have, and will continue, to disagree strongly about specific ways to conduct globalist foreign policies – e.g., whether to intervene militarily or not in certain foreign conflicts or crises, or the related issue of whether generally to rely more on the military or on diplomacy or on foreign aid as the tool of first resort. But nearly all accept the central tenet of globalism, which is the belief that the United States can never be acceptably free, secure and prosperous unless the rest of the world is acceptably free, secure, and prosperous. And this approach inevitably involves nation-building – trying to turn unsuccessful countries and even entire regions into something they have never been, or have not been for centuries: successful countries and regions..

So what, you might ask? Here’s what. As logical as nation-building sounds, it’s been responsible for three of the most damaging foreign policy disasters in recent American history – the Vietnam War, the second Iraq War, and an Afghanistan operation that began as a needed anti-terrorism campaign and steadily expanded into a sweeping effort not only to build a nation but to create one where none had ever existed. And let’s not forget minor blunders like ill-starred peace-keeping efforts in Haiti and Somalia.

In fact, nation-building has been so discredited that even many globalists have been pouring cold water on it lately. (See, e.g., here and here.) 

But not the Democrats this year – at least judging from their platform. The phrase isn’t used – a sign that the term has become toxic. But it’s there, all the same – and in spades. For example:

p. 64: “Democrats will address the root causes of [international] migration—violence and insecurity, poverty, pervasive corruption, lack of educational and economic opportunity, and the impacts of climate change. Disciplined American leadership and well-designed assistance programs can help prevent and mitigate the effects of migration crises around the world, from Southeast Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa to Central America.”

p. 76: “Rather than occupy countries and overthrow regimes to prevent terrorist attacks, Democrats will prioritize more effective and less costly diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement tools….And we will mobilize our partners to make sustained investments that can prevent conflict and help extinguish the flames on which extremists feed.”

p. 82: “Democrats will sustain the global effort to defeat ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates. We will ensure that the world is equally committed to the difficult task that follows military success: dealing with the underlying conditions that allowed violent extremism to flourish in the first place.”

p. 87: “Rather than coerce our neighbors into supporting cruel migration policies, we will work with our regional and international partners to address the root causes of migration—violence and insecurity, weak rule of law, lack of educational and economic opportunity, pervasive corruption, and environmental degradation.”

p. 90: “Turning the page on two decades of large-scale military deployments and open-ended wars in the Middle East does not mean the United States will abandon a region where we and our partners still have enduring interests. Democrats believe it’s past time, however, to rebalance our tools, engagement, and relationships in the Middle East away from military intervention—leading with pragmatic diplomacy to lay the groundwork for a more peaceful, stable, and free region.”

p. 90: “Democrats…believe we need to reset our relations with our Gulf partners to better advance our interests and values. The United States has an interest in helping our partners contend with legitimate security threats; we will support their political and economic modernization and encourage efforts to reduce regional tensions.”

Especially striking about this Democratic faith in nation-building is its strength as a viable strategy for the Middle East, and the confidence that it can substitute effectively for the “forever wars” they have pledged to end (p. 72).  As has usually been the case with believers that ploughshares always work better than swords in protecting national security, they have focused on means rather than the overarching matter of ends, and defined out of existence the challenge of promoting or defending interests that they, too, view as vital when their preferred tactics prove inadequate.   

There’s really only one way out of this dilemma – adopting the kind of priority-setting America First foreign policies that not even President Trump has fully embraced (as I described at length in the National Interest piece linked above).  What a tragedy that the Democrats’ party-wide case of Trump Derangement Syndrome will surely prevent them from even considering this recipe for pragmatism, either.         

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Microsoft Can’t Be Trusted to Run TikTok

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censorship, China, Microsoft, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, privacy, social media, tech, TikTok

When I read that President Trump’s recent decision to ban TikTok from the U.S. market gave the popular Chinese social media app’s services one chance to survive intact – a purchase of its U.S. business by an American-owned company (most likely, it seems, Microsoft) – my “Uh oh” antennae started buzzing. I knew that there’s no reason for confidence that a U.S.-owned tech multinational would adequately safeguard American national security and individual privacy interests versus the kinds of threats that have already been posed by TikTok’s obligations to an increasingly hostile Chinese government, much less uphold values in the freedom of expression family.

I knew this because research for a 2013 article I published on Bloomberg.com revealed that Microsoft was one of the many big U.S. tech companies whose drive for access to China’s potentially huge customer base involved extensive activities aimed at strengthening the technological prowess that has helped make the People’s Republic such a danger to America as well as the world at large.

As I wrote – based on the companies’ own financial reports – these efforts have included the establishment of state-of-the-art factories and laboratories, along with training programs that have taught literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese students state-of-the-art tech skills not only at facilities run by these businesses, but through partnerships with Chinese universities.

Worse, as made clear by a Financial Times report last week Microsoft, whose operations in China “have included collaborations with researchers at China’s military-controlled National University of Defense Technology,” has done nothing important since this piece came out to scale back such cooperation with China’s dictatorial regime.

For example, in 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping “visited Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where he praised the company for “driving forward the development of China’s ICT [information and communications technology] industry”. Moreover, last month, “Microsoft was the sole US company invited to a televised entrepreneurs’ summit with Mr Xi.”

Perhaps most troubling, the Financial Times reported that “The company’s management of its research staff is very light.” According to a former executive at Microsoft China, limiting research collaborations is “a really tough question — research is a very liberal environment in itself. People might question [research collaborations] but from the point of view of our researchers, they want to work with the best partners they can find in their field.”

And what did Microsoft get for itself and its shareholders for all this assistance? Almost nothing. Even though its Windows operating system enjoys an estimated 90 percent market share, piracy of its products is so widespread that China accounts for less than two percent of its global revenues, according to its president. So I’m glad I don’t have to make the case that Microsoft can be relied on vigilantly to resist Beijing’s pressures to remain privy to important U.S. data – by hook or by crook.

Indeed, another recent Financial Times article claimed that Microsoft is mulling a takeover agreement that would give it “one year to separate TikTok from its Chinese parent and address US government concerns over the security of the data generated by the app.” Yet even if Microsoft’s U.S.-based executives do their darnest to shut the Chinese government out, that could leave plenty of time for TikTok’s Chinese employees to work with the regime to create new or keep open existing backdoors to Beijing.  Alternatively, once the deal is done, Microsoft might simply manage ongoing cybersecurity issues as “lightly” as the U.S. parent has managed its research team-ups with China’s regime.

Moreover, requiring Microsoft to conclude the separation much sooner would still leave the company – which would still be anxious for more China business – free to  wind up emulating TikTok’s practice of taking down content deemed offensive by China. Such subjects include praise for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1990, or the Tibetan independence movement. And Microsoft certainly wouldn’t be the first U.S. tech company to regulate speech with political aims in mind.

For all I know, effective safeguards against all these contingencies might be developed. But at very best, preventing China from continuing to exploit TikTok – and other tech products and services it’s currently offering to U.S. customers or could offer – will be a never-ending struggle. Best to remove as many uncertainties as possible, and make defense as easy as possible, by simply kicking TikTok and other Chinese products like it out, and keeping them out.   

Following Up: It’s Fish-or-Cut-Bait Time for the U.S. Alliance with South Korea

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alliances, allies, America First, burden sharing, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, deterrence, globalism, North Korea, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, The National Interest, tripwire, Trump, Wuhan virus

Just last week, I posted about how U.S. grand strategy in East Asia is heavily reliant on dangerously unreliable allies. So what a pleasant surprise to yours truly that the very day afterwards, polling data was published making clear just how fitting my description is of South Korea – a longtime bulwark of the American military position in the region. Just as important, the findings also confirm both (1) that the longtime strategy – which has largely continued during the Trump years – could result in American troops finding out during combat that forces and facilities they were relying on for support aren’t available after all; and (2) that coddling this fecklessness risks needlessly entrapping the United States into a nuclear war.

Although almost completely uncovered in the American media, the U.S.-South Korea alliance has been nearing a crossroads for months, as President Trump has insisted that the Seoul government pay more of the costs of stationing American forces on South Korean soil, and the South Koreans have responding with a mixture of grudging concessions at negotiations over the subject, and outright indignation. And in a July 23 National Interest post, a team of scholars from Western Kentucky University showed that a majority of the South Korean public feels exactly the same way.

There’s no question that, as a fully sovereign, independent country, South Koreans and their government have every right to hold whatever opinion they wishes about its security relations with the United States. But of course, Americans and their government are entitled to the same views, and it would be entirely reasonable to regard South Korea’s opinions and policies as complete – and dangerous – outrages.

As the Western Kentucky researchers show compellingly, numerous polls, as well as a recent survey of their own, show that strong majorities of South Koreans want the U.S. military to remain in their country because they believe that these forces are crucial to their own country’s security. But they’re also decidedly reluctant to accommodate the U.S. requests to shoulder more of the defense burden.

From an American standpoint, these attitudes would be understandable if any combination of the following conditions still described South Korea – it’s a poor country that can’t afford to defend itself adequately, or it’s already spending on its down defense to the max, or it doesn’t face very serious security threats to begin with. These conditions might also warrant cutting the South Koreans some slack when it comes to their resentment of President Trump’s allegedly heavy-handed approach to the issue – which the polls show tend to increase their unwillingness to pay more of the costs of hosting U.S. forces. After all, no one likes being bullied.

Here’s the problem, though, from an American standpoint: None of these conditions hold. And none are close to holding. For as of last year, South Korea was the world’s twelfth biggest economy, with total output of about $1.63 trillion. The gross domestic product of highly secretive North Korea’s is estimated at about $20 billion. That’s 0.01 percent of the South’s total. (Here‘s a handy source for the data.)

South Korea’s military spending isn’t real impressive, either. Both in absolute terms and as a share of its economy, it’s gone up. But as of last year, it was still only 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product. By comparison, the United States spends 3.4 percent of its economy on the military. (For both figures, click on this link.)

It can still be argued –as the Western Kentucky researchers maintain – that the South Koreans are already being more than generous in funding the U.S. military presence, and that a change in Trump attitude would likely induce more cooperation. But their defense burden-sharing views – as has been the case with so many others – weirdly ignore how the most valid standard by far is not whether the South Koreans (or any other U.S. ally) are paying as much as the United States for their defense or slightly more or slightly less or whatever. The most valid standard is whether they’re paying as much as is needed (adjusted for their capabilities of course) to defend themselves on their own. And the reason could not be more obvious: For all the talk of “common defense,” it’s their security that’s most at risk, not the United States’. (See my contribution to this anthology – from 1990 – analyzing this largely off-base burden-sharing debate.) 

And nowhere is this difference starker than on the Korean peninsula – on which South Korea is right next door to a North Korean regime that is widely described as dangerously aggressive or utterly deranged. Yet whatever you think of North Korea, nothing could be clearer than that it poses a much greater danger to South Korea than to the United States.

This observation, of course, brings us to the most completely unacceptable feature of this situation for Americans: It’s precisely because South Korea is flagrantly free-riding in defense matters that tens of thousands of U.S. troops need to be stationed right at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula, and why nowadays (as opposed to the period during which North Korea had no nuclear capabilities) their presence could well result in the U.S. homeland being hit by a North Korean nuclear warhead.

That’s because, as I’ve repeatedly explained, the mission of these U.S. forces isn’t to contribute a successful conventional military defense of South Korea.  They’re too weak – even with the help of the South Koreans.  Instead, their mission is to serve as a nuclear war tripwire – to prevent (or in the parlance of strategists “deter”) a North Korean attack in the first place by creating the danger that a U.S. President will respond to their imminent destruction by turning the conflict nuclear.  But however important South Korea is, is it really worth the complete destruction of a major American city, or two, that would result from a successful North Korean retaliation?

That this question has been evaded continuously by the U.S. government ever since North Korea’s nuclear forces began nearing intercontinental capabilities is appalling enough. That it’s still being evaded by a President supposedly devoted to America First principles – and now that Americans have had months of experience with the upheaval caused by a virus that for all its dangers can’t directly destroy any of the country’s infrastructure and the rest of its physical plant – is nothing less than masochistic. Indeed, compared with these nuclear issues, America’s legitimate gripes about finances are wildly misplaced, unless they’re seeking to pressure Seoul to become militarily self-sufficient – which they aren’t.

There’s one consideration that could overrule all these objections: If President Trump concluded that South Korea’s security was a vital American interest, and therefore by definition worth putting America’s very survival on the line for. But revealingly, no such utterances of the kind have issued from the administration. And if they had, of course, then the United States would automatically lose all its leverage in the defense costs talks with South Korea, as Seoul could be confident that America would (as so memorably pledged in former President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address) “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship” to keep it free – and, incidentally, prosperous.

And here’s the icing on this cake: The public opinion findings presented by the Western Kentucky authors suggest that South Koreans on the whole aren’t so completely terrified by the threat from the North as Americans suppose them to be. For example, the authors’ own survey found that only 70 percent agreed that they were “concerned about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.” And the authors report that “South Koreans were only mildly concerned about North Korea using military force against them ….”

Does this sound like an ally that’s certain to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Americans if military tensions in its own neighborhood approached the boiling point? That would promptly increase the preparations needed for imminent conflict? Or one that would keep hemming and hawing until the shooting actually started – and even afterwards attaching more importance to showing good faith to the North in hopes of halting the conflict than in mounting the most effective defense possible, much less helping the United State seize the initiative when the opportunity came? Anyone who believes that staunch South Korean backing can simply be assumed in any of these circumstances simply hasn’t been paying attention, and would be backing a policy sure either to produce calamitous defeat, or to push Washington to use nuclear weapons as a Hail Mary – and risk North Korean retaliation in kind.  

Finally, to return to a point made earlier: South Korea is a sovereign, fully independent country that’s completely entitled to pursue its own policy course. And if it’s not worked up about a North Korea threat to respond enough to give a joint defense of its territory a reasonable chance of success, it’s not for Americans to complain. Instead, it’s for them to either put their collective shoulder to the wheel and commit fully to defend the South come what may – or take the hint, get out of Dodge ASAP, and make sure they don’t have to pay the consequences if South Korea is wrong.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Trusting Asian Allies to Help Contain China is Risky Business

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alliances, allies, Asia-Pacific, Aspen Institute, Cato Institute, China, East Asia-Pacific, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Jim Risch, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Republicans, South Korea, Taiwan, Ted Galen Carpenter, Trade, Trump

Some leading Republican Senators are slated to introduce legislation today intending to fill what they see as a big and dangerous gap in U.S. globalization and national security policy: the alleged lack of a comprehensive strategy to push China to conform with international norms on trade and related business policies and practices, and to make sure that the People’s Republic doesn’t replace the United States as the kingpin of the East Asia-Pacific region.

I haven’t seen the bill yet, but this Financial Times report gives what looks like a pretty complete summary – which comes from the horse’s mouth (Idaho Republican Senator Jim Risch, the lead sponsor and the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee). Some of the economic proposals seem promising – although their focus seems to be China’s appalling human rights violations (about which the United States sadly can do little) as opposed to China’s economic predation (which Washington has considerable power to fight effectively).

As for the national security stuff – I really wish that Risch and his colleagues had consulted with Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute, one of America’s most trenchant foreign policy critics (and, full disclosure, a valued friend).

For in a new survey just posted by the Aspen Institute, Carpenter has made depressingly clear that one of the conditions most vitally needed nowadays for containing China’s growing military power and political influence in its back yard – reliable allies – simply doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to anytime soon.

Risch and Carpenter certainly agree on the importance of reliable allies, and apparently on their absence – although the former evidently and bizarrely believes that President Trump deserves at least part of the blame for the current unsatisfactory state of America’s regional security relationships. That take on the U.S. approach is bizarre because America (a) keeps running a growing risk of nuclear attack on the American homeland by stationing “tripwire” forces in South Korea largely because that wealthy country continues to skimp on its own defense; and (b) last I checked, America’s immense (and expensive) naval, air, and land deployments in the region were still fully intact.

And don’t just take my word for it: Carpenter lays out in painstaking detail how under President Trump the United States has actually clarified its rhetorical opposition to China’s territorial ambitions, stepped up its military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, and boosted military aid to Taiwan – which of course China views as nothing but a renegade province that it has every right to take back by force.

Regardless of what the United States is or isn’t doing, though, if U.S. alliances are going to be strengthened and oriented more explicitly against China, the allies themselves need to be at least as concerned about Beijing’s aims as Americans. That’s mainly, as Risch and his Senate colleagues note (along with yours truly over the years, as in the above linked 2014 RealityChek post), because China’s military buildup and modernization drive have eroded U.S. military superiority, and because if there’s anything worse than going to war without needed allies, it’s going to war with allies unlikely to help out once the shooting starts. And Carpenter revealed exactly how real that latter danger is by detailing just the latest instance of allied timidity:

“Washington is seeking backing from both its European and East Asian allies for a more hardline policy regarding China. The Trump administration exerted pressure for a strong, united response to Beijing’s imposition of a new national security law on Hong Kong. US officials wanted a joint statement condemning that measure and an agreement from the allies to impose some economic sanctions. However, the European Union collectively, and its leading members individually, flatly refused Washington’s request. With the exception of Australia, the reaction of the East Asian allies was no better. Japan declined to join the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada in issuing a statement condemning the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] actions in Hong Kong. South Korea seemed even more determined than Japan to avoid taking sides on the Hong Kong issue.”

And as the author rightly emphasizes, “Given the dearth of even diplomatic support from the allies for Washington’s Hong Kong proposal, there is even less chance that those countries will back a military containment policy against the PRC.”

A principal reason is money. Since the 1990s, America’s Asian allies (in particular, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) have profited hugely from setting up electronics assembly operations in China and selling the final products (made largely of their own parts, components, and materials, and put together with their production equipment) to the United States. Why on earth would they want to break up this highly lucrative marriage of their technology on the one hand, and China’s low labor costs and lavish subsidies on the other?

To be sure, as noted repeatedly on RealityChek, China has been moving up the technology ladder, and replacing Made-Elsewhere-in-Asia inputs with its own manufactures. But it’s a long way from totally supplanting its neighbors’ products.

It’s true that American multinational companies also are guilty of feeding and profiting handsomely from the Chinese beast. And it’s equally true that pre-Trump U.S. Presidents have helped create the problem by coddling allied fence-sitting. But at least the Trump administration’s trade policies are striving to disrupt these U.S. corporate supply chains, and its tariffs are threatening the profitability of foreign-owned multinationals’ export-focused China operations.  Japan has followed suit on decoupling to a limited extent, and India – which has moved closer to the United States lately for fear of China – is increasingly wary of its own, much less profitable, entanglement with the People’s Republic. But even Taiwan keeps eagerly investing in China and thereby increasing both its wealth and its military power.

Neither Carpenter nor I support the goal of beefing up U.S. military China containment efforts in the Asia-Pacific region (though not for the exactly the same reasons). In fact, we both favor major pullbacks. But we both agree that if containment is to be pursued, Washington needs to do a much better job of lining up its local ducks. Otherwise, it could find itself either losing another war in Asia, or winning a victory that’s pyrrhic at best.

P.S. One of Risch’s co-sponsors, Utah Republican Mitt Romney, has just revealed that he’s especially clueless on the potential of rallying the allies. 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Evidence that the Multinationals Really Did Sell the U.S. Out to China

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capital spending, chemicals, China, computers, electronics, health security, healthcare goods, information technology, investment, Lenin, manufacturing, multinational companies, national security, offshoring, offshoring lobby, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, pharmaceuticals, research and development, supply chains, tech, tech transfer, U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission, USCC, World Trade Organization, WTO

RealityChek readers and anyone who’s familiar with my work over many years know that I’ve often lambasted U.S. multinational companies for powerfully aiding and abetting China’s rise to the status of economic great power status – and of surging threat to U.S. national security and prosperity. In fact, the dangers posed by China’s activities and goals have become so obvious that even the American political and policy establishments that on the whole actively supported the policies – and that permitted money from this corporate Offshoring Lobby to drive their decisions – are paying attention.

If you still doubt how these big U.S. corporations have sold China much of the rope with which it’s determined to hang their own companies and all of America (paraphrasing Lenin’s vivid supposed description of and prediction about the perilously shortsighted greed of capitalists), you should check out the latest report of the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). As made clear by this study from an organization set up by Congress to monitor the China threat, not only have the multinationals’ investments in China figured “prominently in China’s national development ambitions.” They also “may indirectly erode the United States’ domestic industrial competitiveness and technological leadership relative to China.”

Worst of all, “as U.S. MNE (“multinational enterprise) activity in China increasingly focuses on the production of high-end technologies, the risk that U.S. firms are unwittingly enabling China to achieve its industrial policy and military development objectives rises.”

And a special bonus – these companies’ offshoring has greatly increased America’s dependence on China for supplies of crucial healthcare goods.

Here’s just a sampling of the evidence presented (and taken directly by the Commission from U.S. government reports):

> U.S. multinationals “employ more people in China than in any other country outside of the United States, primarily in the assembly of computers and electronic products.” Moreover, this employment skyrocketed by 574.6 percent from 2000 to 2017.

> “China is the fourth-largest destination for U.S. MNE research and development (R&D) expenditure and increasingly competes with advanced economies in serving as a key research hub for U.S. MNEs. The growth of U.S. MNE R&D expenditure in China is also comparatively accelerated, averaging 13.6 percent yearon-year since 2003 compared with 7.1 percent for all U.S. MNE foreign affiliates in the same period. This expenditure is highest in manufacturing, particularly in the production of computers and electronic products.”

> “U.S. MNE capital expenditure in China has focused on the creation of production sites for technology products. This development is aided by the Chinese government’s extensive policy support to develop China.”

> The multinationals’ capital spending on semiconductor manufacturing assets “has jumped 166.7 percent from $1.2 billion in 2010 (the earliest year for which complete [U.S government] data is available) to $3.2 billion in 2017, accounting for 90 percent of all U.S. MNE expenditure on computers and electronic products manufacturing assets in China.”

> “China has grown from the 20th-highest source of U.S. MNE affiliate value added in 2000 ($5.5 billion) to the fifth highest in 2017 ($71.5 billion), driven primarily by the manufacture of computers and electronic products as well as chemicals. The surge is especially notable in semiconductors and other electronic components.”

> “[P]harmaceutical manufacturing serves as the largest chemical sector in terms of value-added [a measure of manufacturing output that seeks to eliminate double-counting of output by stripping out the contribution of intermediate goods used in final products]…” And chemicals – the manufacturing category that include pharmaceuticals – has become the second largest U.S-owned industry in China measured by the value of its assets (after computers and electronic products).

Incidentally, the report’s tendency to use 2000 as a baseline year for examining trends is no accident. That’s the year before China was admitted into the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and the numbers strongly reenforce the argument that the multinationals so avidly sought this objective in order to make sure that the value of their huge planned investments in China wouldn’t be kneecapped by any unilateral U.S. tariffs on imports from China (including those from their factories). For the WTO’s combination of consensus decision-making plus the protectionist natures of most of its members’ economies created a towering obstacle to Washington acting on its own to safeguard legitimate American domestic economic interests from Chinese and other foreign predatory trade and broader economic activity.

At the same time, despite the WTO’s key role in preserving the value of the multinationals’ export-focused China investments, the USCC study underestimates how notably such investment remains geared toward exporting, including to the United States. This issue matters greatly because chances are high that this kind of investment (in China or anywhere else abroad) has replaced the multinationals’ factories and workers in the United States. By contrast, multinational investment in China (or anywhere else abroad) that’s supplying the China market almost never harms the U.S. domestic economy and in fact can help it, certainly in early stages, by providing foreign customers that add to the domestic customers of U.S.-based manufacturers.

There’s no doubt that the phenomenal growth of China’s own consumer class in recent decades has, as the China Commission report observes, generated more and more American business decisions to supply those customers from China. In other words, the days when critical masses of Chinese couldn’t possibly afford to buy the goods they made in U.S.- and other foreign-owned factories are long gone.

But the data presented by the USCC does nothing to support this claim, and the key to understanding why is the central role played by computer, electronics, and other information technology-related manufacturing in the U.S. corporate presence in China. For when the Commission (and others) report that large shares of the output of these factories are now sold to Chinese customers, they overlook the fact that many of these other customers are their fellow entities comprising links of China-centric corporate supply chains. These sales, however, don’t mean that the final customers for these products are located in China.

In other words, when a facility in China that, for example, performs final assembly activities on semiconductors sells those chips to another factory in China that sticks them into computers or cell phones or HDTV sets, the sale is regarded as one made to a Chinese customer. But that customer in turn surely sells much of its own production overseas. As the USCC documents, China’s consumer market for these goods has grown tremendously, too. But China’s continually surging share of total global production of these electronics products (also documented in the Commission report) indicates that lots of this output continues to be sold overseas.

Also overlooked by the USCC – two other disturbing apects of the multinationals’ activities in China.

First, it fails to mention that all the computer and electronics-related investment in China – which presumably includes a great deal of software-related investment – has contributed to China’s economic and military ambitions not only by transferring knowhow to Chinese partners, but by teaching huge numbers of Chinese science and technology workers how to generate their technology advances. The companies’ own (often glowing) descriptions of these training activities – which have often taken the form of dedicated training programs and academies – were revealed in this 2013 article of mine.

Second, the Commission’s report doesn’t seem to include U.S. multinationals’ growing investments not simply in high tech facilities in China that they partly or wholly own, but in Chinese-owned entities. As I’ve reported here on RealityChek, these capital flows are helping China develop and produce high tech goods with numerous critical defense-related applications, and the scale has grown so large that some elements of the U.S. national security community had been taking notice as early as 2015. And President Trump seems to be just as oblivious to these investments as globalist former President Barack Obama was.

These criticisms aside, though, the USCC has performed a major public service with this survey of the multinationals’ China activities. It should be must reading in particular for anyone who still believes that these companies – whose China operations have so greatly enriched and therefore strengthened the People’s Republic at America’s expense – deserve much influence over the U.S. China policy debate going forward.