Im-Politic: On Biden’s New Plan for Medical & Other Supply Chain Security

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alliances, Biden, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Defense Department, Defense Production Act, DPA, election 2020, health security, healthcare goods, Im-Politic, manufacturing, offshoring, Pentagon, pharmaceuticals, PPE, supply chains, tariffs, taxes, Trade, Wuhan virus

Joe Biden’s plan for rebuilding U.S. supply chains to ensure American access to critical products like healthcare goods came out yesterday, and any fair reading would have to conclude that these proposals are about as serious as the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee’s proposals in related areas – like China policy. That is to say, they’re not terribly serious at present.

As with China policy, the first concern entails credibility. In 2011, when Biden was Barack Obama’s Vice President, the Commerce Department issued a report detailing all sorts of dangerous vulnerabilities in U.S. supplies of all manner of vital healthcare goods. The “Obama-Biden administration” did absolutely nothing in response – unless you count avidly pursuing offshoring-friendly trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that were bound to worsen these vulnerabilities. You could also throw in a record of continually coddling the trade and broader economic predation practiced by China, which surely fostered similar results.

As a result, it’s legit to ask whether any of these proposals will survive Day One of a Biden presidency.

In this vein, it’s more than a little disturbing that Biden proposes to use the Defense Department’s policies to minimize supply chain vulnerabilities as his model for addressing such problems for a wide variety of products –not just healthcare-related goods. These include “energy and grid resilience technologies, semiconductors, key electronics and related technologies, telecommunications infrastructure, and key raw materials.”

Unfortunately, the principal lessons taught by the Defense Department’s record on supply chains are how to duck the problem or define it out of existence, and the administration in which Biden served was no exception. Some of the biggest specific problems (as made clear in this Obama administration report):

>The Pentagon’s overall assessments prioritized financial metrics, not specific domestic production capabilities, as measures of the defense manufacturing base’s health.

>Its treatment of globalization’s challenges placed major emphasis on taking “advantage of emerging capabilities, regardless of where they originate,” not maximizing domestic production capabilities.

>Although specific vulnerabilities – and the related need to maintain or rebuild adequate domestic capabilities – were acknowledged, this vulnerabilities were consistently portrayed as isolated holes that could somehow be plugged without taking into account the dependence of these narrowly defined products on their own supply chains. Indeed, Biden’s new plan seems to reveal a similar flaw when it describes itself as “a set of targeted proposals to ensure the United States has the domestic manufacturing capacity necessary for critical supply chains.”

>Moreover, the Department has long supported objectives such as interoperability with allies’ armed forces and maintaining traditional – pre-Trump – global systems of what it defined as free trade, both of which often clashed with the goal of incentivizing domestic production. These goals were explicitly stated in this George W. Bush administration report, and here’s no evidence that the Obama-Biden Pentagon ever disagreed.

Indeed, the new Biden blueprint indicates that the former Vice President’s definition of supply chain security is pretty global, instead of national, as well:

“Instead of insulting our allies and undermining American global leadership, Biden will engage with our closest partners so that together we can build stronger, more resilient supply chains and economies in the face of 21st century risks. Just like the United States itself, no U.S. ally should be dependent on critical supplies from countries like China and Russia. That means developing new approaches on supply chain security — both individually and collectively — and updating trade rules to ensure we have strong understandings with our allies on how to best ensure supply chain security for all of us.”

If America’s allies were proven reliable suppliers of these products themselves, Biden’s perspective would make sense. But the list of countries that have recently hoarded medical goods for themselves as soon as the CCP Virus pandemic’s full dangers became apparent included most of these allies – meaning that the U.S. vulnerability problem far exceeds “China and Russia.”

Nor is it entirely evident how clearly Biden has thought though the tax policy provisions of his plan. Tax policy’s role is clearly viewed as crucial, as the plan emphasizes that

“Pharmaceutical offshoring has been heavily driven by tax code provisions that have encouraged companies to locate pharmaceutical production in low-tax countries even where those countries have labor and other costs comparable to the U.S.”

Consequently, Biden says he will “eliminate Trump Administration tax incentives for offshoring and pursue other tax code changes that will encourage pharmaceutical production in the U.S.”

At the same time, Biden favors raising the overall U.S. corporate tax rate from the 21 percent to which it has recently been lowered to 28 percent, along with a 15 percent “minimum tax” on large corporations. So good luck to drug companies – or any other companies making goods deemed critical by Biden – gleaning clear reshoring or domestic production ramping signals from this combination.

Perhaps any confusion will be cleared up by other alleged Biden measures to boost U.S.-based production – like “new targeted financial incentives, including tax credits, investments, matching funds for state and local incentives, R&D support, and other incentives to encourage the production of designated critical materials such as semiconductors in the United States”? At best, business will surely need to see many more details along these lines before committing the needed capital.

Unless maybe as President, Biden will simply mandate that the needed new facilities will be built when all else fails (as well as in tandem with those other policies)? That’s obviously the implication of his promise to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) “to its fullest extent to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity in critical supply chains, using the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to our national needs.”

Or does Biden actually view the DPA as his primary tool for “generating the domestic mobilization we need”? That seems like a reasonable conclusion, especially given that it’s the first specific measure he mentions. Maybe instead he’s really talking about using the Act simply “to direct U.S. companies to ramp up production of critical products that will be needed over the near-term.”

Regardless of Biden’s real intentions, though, it’s anything but clear how Biden believes the DPA can be used to increase U.S. production in many of the industries he mentions as vital where such output has largely migrated overseas That’s especially true for the “semiconductors, key electronics and related technologies, [and] telecommunications infrastructure” he specifies. It’s sure going to be far more difficult than, say, ordering auto companies, to make ventilators.

It’s just as unclear how these Biden’s ideas can succeed without a much stronger trade policy dimension – and specifically, continued and even expanded tariffs. And it shouldn’t be limited to straightening out the muddled views mentioned above. 

Specifically, maintaining levies on chronically subsidized and dumped products like metals, along with sweeping tariffs on systemically protectionist China (and on other similar countries) would send the all the companies and sectors concerned an invaluable message. Bipartisan endorsement of these protections would demonstrates that they really can have confidence that new investments won’t be decimated by trade and broader economic predation. Just as important, an enduring commitment to tariffs would help convince overseas competitors (domestic and foreign owned) that if they want to sell the products in which they have big edges to Americans, they’ll need to make these products in America.

The good news is that at least some of these mysteries may be cleared up “soon,” when this Biden plan promises the former Vice President will release his “comprehensive strategy to create American jobs through modern American manufacturing.” The bad news is that if he what he’s said and written so far is any indication, he’ll have a lot of rewriting to do.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Closer U.S. Taiwan Ties Must Become a Two-Way Street

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alliances, allies, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, decoupling, East Asia-Pacific, foreign investment, Hong Kong, Huawei, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Taiwan, tech, Trade, Trump, TSMC, Wuhan virus

As if its CCP Virus coverup and planned crackdown on what’s left of Hong Kong’s freedoms weren’t bad enough, China has been escalating its aggressive words and deeds throughout its East Asia/Pacific neighborhood, and one major sign has been new pressure exerted on Taiwan – which Beijing views as a breakaway province that needs to end its rebellion immediately and join the Communist People’s Republic.

This more worrisome Chinese posture understandably has sparked calls for the United States to retaliate by demonstrating stronger support for Taiwan in various ways. This impulse also seems reasonable to me. But if the Trump administration speeds up its march down this road, it handles a closer relationship with Taiwan a lot better than its predecessors for decades had handled security alliance relationships with Japan and South Korea. Specifically, it’s crucial that Taiwan share much more of the burden of resisting China’s ambitions than has long been the case.

The latest alarm bells about China’s Taiwan policies have been set off by China’s words – or, more accurately, a missing word. Although the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has never renounced using force to achieve its longstanding aim “reunifying” China (as it defines the issue), its rhetorical positions toward the island have long fluctuated between the conciliatory and the blustery. But for 40 years, when Beijing mentioned of reunification, the word “peaceful” has always preceded it.

Last Friday, though, China’s second most important leader dropped the “peaceful” – and did it at a major forum: the annual meeting of the country’s rubberstamp parliament.

So it seems clear that the China cloud over Taiwan has darkened. But U.S. steps to bolster Taiwan’s security will greatly underperform – and may actually increase the dangers posed to America by China itself – unless Washington starts demanding in return that Taiwan stop its longstanding practice of investing massively in manufacturing in China, including in high tech sectors.

Indeed, as of 2018, according to this report, the total value of Taiwanese investment in China hit $180 billion – ten times the value of Taiwan’s investment in the United States. The annual amounts have been going down, but mainly because of the Trump administration’s tariffs on China, which have made it much more difficult for any factories in China – Chinese or foreign-owned – to earn fat profits by exporting major shares of their output to the United States. Even so, such investment had reached massive proportions. Indeed, in 2017. China still attracted nearly 45 percent of all Taiwan’s outbound foreign direct investment. Moreover, so much of this investment has come in technology sectors that fears have emerged of the island hollowing out its own innovation sector – which has been so vital to Taiwan’s spectacular economic development. And of course, Taiwanese companies like contract semiconductor manufacturing giant TSMC have been major suppliers of microchips and other high tech products to Chinese tech companies like Huawei, the global leader in advanced telecommunications.

It’s important to recognize that Taiwan is hardly the only U.S. ally that’s promoted China’s economic – and therefore technological and military – development. It’s not even the biggest. (That dubious honor goes to Hong Kong, but most of this Chinese “Special Administrative Region’s” direct investment flows to China seem to be concentrated in lower-tech, labor-intensive sectors without significant national security implications.) Moreover, the United States remains complicit itself.

But even though his administration doesn’t use the word, decoupling from China does appear to be a major goal of President Trump’s. There’s certainly been a lot of it. I’m not big at all on the United States embarking on a full-fledged campaign to mobilize East Asia/Pacific countries to out-compete China for influence in the  region. Indeed, I’ve argued that disentangling the United States from China economically is vital to ensure American security and prosperity on its own merits. But if President Trump does want to go the full-court anti-China press route, what’s the point if supposed American allies aren’t all-in on decoupling asd  as well?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Cheer and a Half for Trump’s New China Strategy Document

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alliances, allies, America First, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, decoupling, globalism, Josh Rogin, liberal global order, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Phase One, stock markets, technology, The National Interest, Trade, transactionalism, Trump, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

When over breakfast this morning I read Josh Rogin’s Washington Post column on the Trump administration’s new China strategy statement, I was pretty pleased. It’s been a long time since I viewed the intra-administration disagreements on the subject that its release has supposedly resolved as major problems in the China strategy overhaul that President Trump has sought, The tough and, more important, smart Phase One trade deal signed in mid-January was a convincing sign that the “doves” had been marginalized, but only one sign. The new statement itself describes many others. At the same time, the more basic agreement within Mr. Trump’s team, the better.

When I finally read the actual statement a little later, I was less pleased. It’s true that the President is both fully woke to the China threat, and that he’s reversed or overturned many of the disastrous mistakes made by his predecessors on a variety of fronts – including not only trade but technology, foreign investment, and exchange programs in particular. Moreover, the evidence is multiplying that the disaster created by the CCP Virus will lead to still tougher and, more important, still smarter measures. (A further crackdown on U.S. stock exchanges listings of Chinese entities is just one example.)

But the statement also made clear that Mr. Trump hasn’t made the clean break with previous globalist approaches to China and related aspects of American foreign policy that I’ve been advocating and that, as I’ve written, could lead to serious and needless dangers down the road. And as with much of the rest of the Trump framework, the big problem has to do with the role assigned to U.S. allies and alliances. Specifically, it’s still way too big, and not different enough from the globalist approach he’s rightly slammed verbally.

Not that “United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China” was devoid of America First-y ideas. It was great, for example, to see the administration reaffirm “Our approach is not premised on determining a particular end state for China. Rather, our goal is to protect United States vital national interests” (even though the United States keeps demanding, at least rhetorically, major structural reforms in China’s trade, technology, and other economic policies – demands I’ve explained are fruitless because of impossible monitoring and enforcement challenges).

Similarly encouraging, the top two vital interests identified: “(1) protect the American people, homeland, and way of life; (2) promote American prosperity….”

I also really liked “[T]he United States responds to the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] actions rather than its stated commitments. Moreover, we do not cater to Beijing’s demands to create a proper ‘atmosphere’ or ‘conditions’ for dialogue. Likewise, the United States sees no value in engaging with Beijing for symbolism and pageantry; we instead demand tangible results and constructive outcomes.”

Indeed, the document adds, “We acknowledge and respond in kind to Beijing’s transactional approach with timely incentives and costs, or credible threats thereof.” This kind of transactionalism – expecting proposed foreign policy measures above all to create specific, measurable short-term benefits for the United States, rather than focusing on more ambitious steps that might turn out even better farther down the road, but whose success is far less certain – is a key tenet of America First foreign policies (as I’ve argued in the above linked National Interest article). Therefore, this explicit mention and endorsement of the term is most welcome (though it needs to be enshrined as a pillar of U.S. diplomacy elsewhere, too).

The statement’s treatment of transactionalism is closely related to its clear skepticism about another dubious globalist concept – though in this instance it’s more important for what it doesn’t say than for what it does: “[C]ompetition necessarily includes engagement with the PRC, but our engagements are selective and results-oriented, with each advancing our national interests….” I read this passage as an implicit announcement that the United States will no longer be seeking any particular kind of “relationship” with China, a gauzy goal that I’ve explained (on Twitter) creates powerful pressures to sacrifice concrete objectives in the here and now in the usually mistaken belief that the other party will feel obliged to make comparable sacrifices going forward – at some point.

And all this excellent material helps make clear why I’m so disappointed in the document’s numerous bow to globalism’s shibboleths. Two stand out in particular, and they’re so intimately intertwined as to be practically two sides of the same coin: the idea that it’s crucial for the United States to uphold something globalists (and the authors of this document) call a “rules-based international order,” and the maxim that critical building blocks of this order are America’s security alliances. The big problem from an America First standpoint with these notions? Once you buy into them, you’re back in Relationships-Uber-Alles-Land.

So I was distinctly unhappy to read passages like:

“[T]he United States does not and will not accommodate Beijing’s actions that weaken a free, open, and rules-based international order. We will continue to refute the CCP’s narrative that the United States is in strategic retreat or will shirk our international security commitments. The United States will work with our robust network of allies and likeminded partners to resist attacks on our shared norms and values, within our own governance institutions, around the world, and in international organizations.”

Indeed, the lionization of America’s international security commitments completely ignores problems that President Trump has rightly spotlighted – like flagrant defense free-riding, diplomatic fence-sitting, and trade policies that have ripped off America nearly as much as China’s. Just as thoroughly ignores problems that have largely escaped Mr. Trump’s notice – like the recent, rapidly growing nuclear war risks the United States has been running in places like the Korean peninsula and Eastern Europe precisely because its allies do so little to defend themselves. Does the Trump administration really believe it can count on these countries to help fight China if shooting starts?

Meanwhile, the similar shout-out to international organizations overlooks the administration’s warning in this very same document about the naivete of assuming that “engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners.”

Another way to put this critique: The document pays no attention to the fundamental problem with rules-based order worship. In the last analysis, it’s never been based on adherence to rules – i.e., a consensus on what is and is not acceptable international behavior. It’s been based on a willingness of the so-called free world to allow the United States to bear most of the costs and risks of providing them with security and prosperity. Those costs and risks, however, have become unaffordable and unacceptable for the United States, and its allies have displayed no serious signs of helping carry the load.

Let’s end on a happier note: The new China document promises that the United States will judge China by its deeds and not by its words. And since despite the references to alliances and international orders, these considerations so far haven’t much inhibited the administration from hitting China ever harder, especially on the trade and technology fronts, focusing on its deeds seems like the best way to evaluate its China policy, too. 

In fact, here’s possibly the strongest proof of that pudding.  The document doesn’t once mention the aim or even the concept of “decoupling” – the notion that the United States should disengage economically from China as fast and as thoroughly as practicable.  But decoupling – indeed, big time decoupling – is exactly what’s been taking place during the age of Trump.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Another Wuhan Virus Lesson Globalists Need to Learn

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alliances, allies, China, core deterrence, coronavirus, COVID 19, Eastern Europe, extended deterrence, globalism, Japan, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, North Korea, nuclear deterrence, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, South Korea, Soviet Union, tripwire, Western Europe, Wuhan virus

Here’s a seemingly off-the-wall question: What does the Wuhan Virus have to do with U.S. policy toward its global security alliances?

And here’s why it’s not only not a perfectly sensible and even vital question, but why the best answer is “Plenty”: Because these decades-old globalist arrangements now pose to America risks that look like the coronavirus-in-not-so-miniature. Even worse: The benefits to the United States these days are much more modest than  during the Cold War era when they were created.

The purely national security arguments should by now be familiar to RealityChek regulars. (See here and here for fuller descriptions of the points I’m about to summarize.) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO – which has linked the United States, Europe, and Canada), and the bilateral security relationships between the United States and Japan and South Korea, originally aimed to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating global centers of economic and technological strength and potential, and therefore of military strength and potential.

In fact, these countries and regions were considered so important that American policy made clear that Washington was ready to wage nuclear war – with all the dangers such conflicts would create for the U.S. homeland. Moreover, because the allies (or protectorates, as many call them) understandably doubted that American leaders really would, when the chips were down, “sacrifice New York to save London,” Washington felt compelled to station the U.S. military directly in harm’s way.

The idea was never to stop Soviet or North Korean or Chinese aggression with conventional forces alone. Quite the contrary. These units were intended as trip-wires. The very likelihood that they’d be annihilated was supposed to put irresistable pressure on a U.S. President to respond to attacks with nuclear weapons. In turn, this prospect was supposed to deter U.S. adversaries from attacking in the first place.

Such an approach (called “extended deterrence” by the cognoscenti – as opposed to “core deterrence,” which sought to protect the United States itself) made obvious sense when the United States enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear weapons. It even made arguable (though less obvious) sense when the Soviets reached nuclear parity, and the Chinese developed their own rudimentary nukes.

Since the end of the Cold War, however, it’s made much less sense, and more recent developments have turned this nuclear umbrella border-line – and crazily – suicidal. For the Soviet Union is gone. It’s been partly replaced with a newly aggressive Russia, but the countries most threatened by Moscow are not the economic and technological giants of Western Europe, but the newer NATO members of Eastern Europe – whose security was never remotely vital to the United States, as evinced by the long decades they spent as Soviet satellites or actual parts of the former USSR.

In East Asia, nuclear forces both in China and in North Korea can now not only hit the United States (or in the case of Pyongyang, are rapidly approaching that capability). When it comes to China, these weapons’ launch platforms have become much more difficult for the United States even to find, much less take out before they can be used. In other words, for all the continuing and even growing economic and technological importance of Japan and South Korea – which is considerable – the nuclear threats to America from their leading potential adversaries have grown faster both quantitatively and qualitatively.

And in all these alliance cases, despite President Trump’s clear interest in a fundamentally new America First-type foreign policy, and even though the allies are amply capable of fielding the forces needed to defend themselves, they choose not to. Therefore, U.S. forces still serve as tripwires in both Europe and Asia.

It’s likely that the economic damage done to the United States from a North Korean nuclear nuclear bomb landing in a big American city or two wouldn’t compare to the coronavirus economic damage we’re seeing now and are likely to see. But who can doubt that this damage will be substantial in economic terms, and catastrophic from a humanitarian standpoint? And in the areas hit, the harm to businesses and their workers could well last much longer. Further, the impacts of the kind of much larger retaliatory strikes that could come from China (if it invades Taiwan) or Russia, would be that much greater.

And these prices paid for maintaining current alliance policies would be all the more unacceptable because they are now completely unnecessary – because of the allies’ capabilities, and because so many of the European countries now under this U.S. “nuclear umbrella” are so thoroughly marginal to America’s safety and prosperity.

The globalist supporters of these alliances insist that these risks are indeed acceptable largely because deterrence has made them so remote. That sounds ominously like the optimism expressed by so many Americans (myself included) the day(s) before the Wuhan Virus threat’s scale became all too real. Now it’s increasingly clear that the globalists’ favored policies of indiscriminate free trade and offshoring-happy globalization policies have gravely endangered the nation’s health security as well as its prosperity, at least in the near-term. Let’s not be needlessly blindsided by a calamity triggered by the globalists’ hidebound alliance policies.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Big Hint that America Finally Needs to Leave NATO

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alliances, allies, Article V, Cato Institute, defense spending, Europe, free-riding, globalism, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, tripwire, Trump

Whenever I’ve written about America’s security alliances lately, I’ve emphasized the unacceptable dangers they pose to the nation’s safety because they commit the United States to risk nuclear attack to defend countries that clearly now don’t belong on the list of U.S. vital interests – that is, countries so important to America that their independence literally is worth the complete destruction of major individual cities and even genuine armageddon.

Earlier this week, however, a reminder has appeared about another crucial reason to ditch the granddaddy of these alliances – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Revealingly, it also strongly bears out President Trump’s charges that U.S. allies in the region where they’re concentrated (Europe) have been shamelessly free-riding on the United States. Indeed, the new information also underscores how the allied defense deadbeats are not only ripping America off economically (which seems to be Mr. Trump’s main concern), but how their cheapskate defense budgets are fueling the nuclear risk faced by the United States.

The evidence comes in the form of a new survey of the populations of NATO member countries (including the United States) released by the Pew Research Center, and if you stopped with the headline (“NATO Seen Favorably Across Member States”) you’d understandably think that everything is just dandy in alliance-land. But check out the chart below, which for some reason doesn’t appear until the middle of the Pew report. Its central message should outrage the entire nation.

 

For it shows that although NATO populations are confident that the United States “would defend them from Russian attack,” they’re decidedly unenthusiastic about their own countries participating in the defense of another NATO member. Specifically, a median of 60 percent of residents of NATO Europe (along with Canada) countries express such confidence in America’s military (including nuclear) guarantee (versus 29 percent who are not so convinced). But by a 50-38 percent margin, they oppose their own country joining in.

Of the fourteen NATO members surveyed, populations in only four (the United Kingdom, Canada, Lithuania, and the Netherlands) favored using military force to defend a fellow NATO ally. Yet in only four (Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic) did majorities not expect the United States would use force to defend them.

The gap was widest in Italy (where only 25 percent favored helping defend another ally versus 75 percent believing that the United States would ride to its own rescue) and narrowest in the Netherlands (where the numbers were 64 percent and 68 percent respectively). The Italians also were the most confident in the United States in absolute terms, and tied with the Greeks for the least willing to help out. The only NATO members in which majorities supported both propositions were the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Lithuania.

Americans should be infuriated by these results for several intertwined reasons. First, the obligation to come to the defense of a fellow NATO member is at the heart of the alliance (and indeed of any alliance) and is spelled out in Article V of the NATO treaty. Although it’s true that members can always ignore legal obligations when push comes to shove, that’s long been much more difficult for the United States – because of its policy of stationing its own forces in many NATO countries (as well as in South Korea) to serve as “tripwires.” The idea has been that once they’re bloodied by attackers, and indeed about to be overwhelmed (because of their relatively small size) American Presidents will have no real choice but to respond with the U.S.’ equalizer – nuclear weapons.

This prospect was supposed to deter attack in the first place, and the (very) good news is that this strategy worked to keep the peace in Europe throughout the Cold War, and is still working. The bad news is that during the Cold War, the main European beneficiaries were countries whose independence was arguably vital to America – like the United Kingdom, (West) Germany, and France. Nowadays, the main beneficiaries are countries whose independence was never even during the Cold War viewed as vital to the United States – principally, the former Soviet bloc countries.

Yet although the stakes have shrunken dramatically, Washington continues to brandish the nuclear sword. And this risky American strategy remains in place – as it always has – because the European allies’ military forces have remained far too small and weak to repel a Soviet/Russian attack on their own, or with the help of modest U.S. non-nuclear forces. Worse, the Pew results also strongly suggest that if war did break out, American leaders could not for long even count on the help of allied forces even if it was provided initially. That’s an unparalleled recipe for disaster on the actual battlefield.

The Pew findings make the reason for this alarming situation glaringly obvious – the allies have skimped on their military spending out of confidence that the Americans would always answer their call. So why shouldn’t they save the big bucks that would be needed for genuine self-defense and use them for other purposes – like generous welfare states? Even better, the Americans would be left holding the nuclear risk bag, since once any conflict on the conflict escalated to that level, the nuclear conflict would be fought over their heads.

In addition, the Pew survey reinforces the results of a poll released last fall and alertly reported by my good friend Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute (who’s also just come out with an important new book on the subject).

Let’s be totally clear: This European approach has always made perfect sense from a European standpoint. But it not only makes no sense for the United States – it’s a strategy that creates the danger of national suicide because of decisions that still yoke the country’s fate to manifestly unreliable foreign publics.

Weirder yet: Avowedly America First champion President Trump has been steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in NATO’s most vulnerable – eastern European – members without having secured military spending increases from the other NATO countries that are remotely game changing.

It’s tough, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that America’s NATO allies are now giving Washington the broadest possible hint that it’s time for the United States to leave – because they’ve become utterly unreliable on top of their defense free-riding.  Why is the President acting as reluctant as any globalist to take it?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why a Real America First European Security Policy is More Urgent than Ever

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alliances, America First, Article Five, Cato Institute, China, Cold War, coupling, EU, Europe, European Council on Foreign Relations, European Union, extended deterrence, globalism, NATO. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, Russia, Ted Galen Carpenter, tripwires, Trump

Even if the Cato Institute’s Ted Galen Carpenter wasn’t one of my closest friends, I’d still be writing this post highlighting his op-ed piece earlier this week for the Washington Post. Because it absolutely decimates the claim that all that ails the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), America’s oldest national security alliance, is recklessly mindless norms-buster Donald Trump.

Instead, Carpenter reports on overwhelming evidence that the arrangement, which since 1949 has committed the United States to the defense of first Western Europe and now most of Europe (and at considerable risk of nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland), is critically ill mainly because, in the decades since the end of the Cold War, U.S. and European interests have been steadily – and inevitably – diverging. And these findings add powerfully to the case that America’s globalist military commitment to Europe has become dangerously outdated.

The evidence consists of polling data showing unmistakably that European publics no longer believe that their governments should side with the United States in its disputes and conflicts with Russia (whose perceived threat Western Europe’s independence during its post-World War II decades as the Soviet Union sparked NATO’s creation in the first place), or that they should even rally to each other’s defense.

The Russia-focused results come from a September survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations, and are based on the views of no less than 60,000 individuals from fourteen countries belonging to the European Union (EU) – an economic organization not officially related to NATO but many of whose member countries are U.S. NATO allies as well.

The bottom line – which Carpenter rightly describes as “startling”? “When asked ‘Whose side should your country take in a conflict between the United States and Russia?’ the majority of respondents in all 14 E.U. countries said ‘neither’.”

Some of the country-specific results?

“In France, only 18 percent would back the United States, while 63 percent opt for neutrality; in Italy, it’s 17 percent vs. 65 percent, and in Germany, 12 percent to 70 percent.

“The results were similar even in NATO’s newer East European members, despite their greater exposure to Russian pressure and potential aggression. Hungarian respondents selected neutrality over supporting the United States 71 percent to 13 percent, while Romanians did so 65 percent to 17 percent. Even in Poland, a country whose history with Moscow during both the Czarist and Soviet periods was especially frosty, neutralist sentiment had the edge, 45 percent to 33 percent.”

What’s especially disturbing, and indeed outrageous, from an American standpoint is that since NATO’s founding, European governments have insisted that U.S. troops be stationed on the continent to serve (as in South Korea) in a trip-wire role – which RealityChek regulars knows means units deployed close enough to invasion routes and vulnerable enough to the superior conventional militaries of aggressors practically to force American Presidents to use nuclear weapons to save them if conflict breaks out.

This policy of “extended deterrence,” or “coupling,” has been intended to prevent such conflicts from breaking out in the first place. What’s dangerous for the United States of course – and needlessly so – is that if deterrence fails, nuclear weapons use could expose American territory to a retaliatory nuclear strike, even though the United States itself may not be at risk.

Even worse: Throughout the Cold War, NATO non-nuclear forces were inferior to their Soviet and Soviet satellite counterparts because the European allies preferred to free-ride on the U.S. military guarantee instead of spending funds they all could have afforded for armed forces capable of self-defense.

For good measure, moreover, this European Council on Foreign Relations poll showed that Europeans are just about as ambivalent in joining with the United States if a conflict with China broke out.

Of course, even though the lopsided nature of the results indicates that these European views have been long in the making, it’s not entirely crazy to believe that Mr. Trump’s election has been so alarming to these populations that the shift did actually begin with his 2016 victory. But as Carpenter points out, a survey from the Pew Research Center conducted in 2015 demonstrates that NATO’s core principles were in deep trouble in Europe well before the President even declared his candidacy for the Oval Office.

Pew sampled opinion in eight NATO members and found that 49 percent of respondents opposed their country coming to the defense of other allies. And majorities in key alliance members France, Italy, and Germany alike rejected “fulfilling their country’s obligation to fulfill the Article 5 treaty pledge to consider an attack on any NATO member as an attack on all.” Crucially, Article 5 of the NATO treaty embodies the notion of collective security. In other words, it literally makes NATO NATO.

Carpenter rightly concludes that “the concept of transatlantic solidarity, even on collective defense, is now largely confined to out-of-touch political elites on both sides of the Atlantic.” Just as important, he notes that “it will be hard to sustain policies that increasingly run counter to the wishes of popular majorities.”

Ironically, however, despite his harsh criticisms of NATO allies’ free-riding and periodic swipes at the alliance as possibly obsolete, President Trump is increasingly acting like one of those out-of-touch globalist mainstays who urgently needs to see these poll results. For despite the warnings sounded by these polls that the United States won’t be able to rely on the European governments and their militaries even if shooting breaks out in Europe, he’s actually strengthened American forces on the continent – including in Poland, right on the Russian border.

In other words, an avowedly America First President is binding his country’s fate to that of Europe at the very moment when disengagement is more important than ever.

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.

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: 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.