Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Call to Return to Failed U.S. China Strategies

Tags

alliances, allies, Barack Obama, Biden, China, Donald Trump, engagement, FOREIGNPOLICY.com, George W. Bush, Indo-Pacific, intellectual property theft, Michael J. Green, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paul Haenle, tech transfer, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, World Trade Organization, WTO

When it comes to China-related issues in particular, supposed American experts who have long completely missed the mark have developed a head-exploding habit of assuming that they have anything useful to say on the matter going forward. Here’s a recent example.

Now these failed economic and foreign policy establishmentarians have hit new heights (or is is “depths”?) of chutzpah. As laid out in this article last week on FOREIGN POLICY magazine’s website, two typical figures are now attacking President Biden’s approach to the People’s Republic for taking too Trump-ian a turn, and blaming his alleged mistakes on learning the wrong lessons from the records of pre-Trump Presidents.

Whereas both the Biden and Trump teams, they write, have accused their predecessors of naively assuming that “engagement would lead to a democratic and cooperative China,” in fact, since the initial Nixon Era opening to Beijing, American leaders have fully understood that China’s democratization could never be a foregone conclusion, and have always “combined engagement with strategies to counterbalance China through alliances, trade agreements, and military power.” In other words, far from being disastrously pathetic failures, America’s pre-Trump China policies were actually as successful as was humanly possible,  And current leaders should emulate some of their principal choices. 

Even the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, they continue, which faced a China whose wealth and power had begun growing stunningly, had foreseen the possibility of Beijing turning more aggressive, and responded to warning signs exactly as events prescribed. Further, their decisions to stay on an engagement track as well were entirely shrewd and responsible. After all, major potential benefits could still plausibly be expected – because during those years, “the question of how China would use its growing power was open to shaping.”

Indeed, say authors Michael Green (a former Bush-ie) and Paul Haenle (previously both a Bush-ie and Obama-naut), a harder line at that time would have amounted to a policy of “strangling China” that also would have been opposed by major allies and the American people, “both of whom mainly saw China as a partner [and] would not have supported containment and decoupling.“

All that went wrong was that that darned current Chinese dictator Xi Jinping assumed power and, well, just ruined everything with his belligerently expansionist aims and actions, and his reversal of much Chinese economic liberalization. The 2008-09 financial crisis didn’t help, either, according to Geen and Haenle, because it convinced Beijing that “the West was declining and the East is rising.”

All the same, say Green and Haenle, the Biden administration should

>recognize that the two immediate pre-Trump presidents had the security side of China policy fundamentally right with their strategy of maintaining and strengthening U.S. alliances with major Asian countries (an odd recommendation since that’s what Mr. Biden is already trying to do); and

>on the economic side, “reconstruct some of the economic statecraft that underpinned U.S. strategies toward China in the past” – principally reviving the World Trade Organization (WTO) as “an important tool to hold China to account” for its predatory practices and joining the current version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which can “bring the weight of almost two-thirds of the world economy to the table in demanding reciprocal agreements from China” and “force Beijing to play by the rules or lose hundreds of billions of dollars in trade as tariffs and market barriers among the rule-abiding economies went down.”

But these arguments only strengthen the case that Green, Haenle and their ilk should be kept as far away as possible from U.S. policymaking toward China.

Regarding security issues, their contention that Bush-Obama hedging was responsible and understandable ignores all the ways in which China had been undercutting U.S. national security interests long before the Age of Xi began in 2012. For example, it played a key role in creating Iran’s nuclear weapons program starting in the mid-1980s. It’s been a major supporter of North Korea’s economy – and therefore an enabler of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons development for decades. And it’s beefed up its military presence in the South China Sea – including island grabs that violate international law – for nearly as long.

And Green and Haenle seem to need some improved calendar-reading skills, as financial crisis-borne hubris to which they attribute much of Beijing’s recent bellicosity dates from 2008-09 – three to four years before Xi became China’s top leader. Against this backdrop, it’s glaringly obvious that, judged by actual results, the various hedging statements and even counter-measures mentioned by Green and Haenle counted for exactly squadoosh.

In addition, there’s compelling evidence that the Chinese thought so, too. As I reported in 2018, a former U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (the Navy’s senior-most officer) has stated that his Chinese counterpart told him that “he thought the United States would have a more forceful reaction when China began” one of its key island-building phases during the former’s tenure – during the Obama years.

P.S. – this behavior doesn’t exactly jibe with the notion that Beijing was blown away by Bush-Obama alliance-rallying, either.    

If anything, the Bush and Obama China economic policies were worse, at least in terms of long-run security impact. Both presided virtually passively as

>China’s economic predation helped produce trade surpluses that put literally trillions of dollars at Beijing’s disposal to devote to its military buildup and prevent any guns versus butter tensions from emerging;

>China stole intellectual property seemingly at will, which supercharged weapons development, too; and

>U.S. multinational companies felt perfectly free to transfer cutting-edge defense-relevant technology to Chinese partners that were first and foremost agents of the Chinese state, and to teach perhaps hundreds of thousands of Chinese employees and students how to use this knowhow – and ultimately how to develop more on their own.

As for the authors’ economic recommendations, they’re simply laughable. The TPP, after all, contained a wide-open back door through which goods with lots of Chinese content could enter the proposed free trade – largely because none of the other TPP signatories wanted to disrupt production chains in which China plays a key role.

Meanwhile, that robust China-Asia/Pacific trade and investment, plus the difficulty that Mr. Biden has run into in mobilizing support outside Europe against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is telling all but the willfully deaf that the United States will suddenly become able to increase the WTO’s effectiveness against China’s mercantilism. 

As Green and Haenle suggest, being able to learn from both mistakes and successes is one of life’s most valuable skills.  Sadly, all that their article demontrates is either that they can’t tell the difference, or that they stubbornly refuse to.

Advertisement

Following Up: Why the U.S.-South Korea Summit Was Incredibly Weird I

Tags

Alan Beattie, alliances, allies, Biden, China, deterrence, extended deterrence, Financial Times, Following Up, Indo-Pacific, North Korea, nuclear weapons, realism, reciprocity, sanctions, semiconductors, South Korea, technology, Yoon Suk Yeol

Consistent with cutting-edge astro-physicis – and the last few decades of Marvel comics story-telling – I’m sure that among all the infinite number of universes in a “multi-verse” comprising creation, there’s one in which South Korea somehow genuinely has no reason to believe it has any obligation to comply with U.S. wishes in exchange for protection against complete destruction or enslavement by fanatically totalitarian North Korea.

I’m also sure that that universe isn’t the one we inhabit. Which is why it’s so whacko that Financial Times columnist Alan Beattie begs to differ, and that his editors evidently had absolutely no problem with this argument. And that’s only the lesser of two jaw-dropping new developments related to last week’s summit between President Biden and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol, which I analyzed in this post. Nonetheless, that’s the focus of today’s post. Tomorrow’s will deal with the second.

To be clear, I’m not contending that the South Koreans should be grateful to Washington for anything.

As a self-styled foreign policy realist, I’ve long held that countries can be counted on to act first and foremost in their own self-interest, and indeed should – in fact, unapologetically. I’ve taken many of my cues here from the Founding Fathers, who also considered the world to be far too dangerous to ground strategy in considerations of sentiment. So that puts me in pretty good company IMO. 

Moreover, South Korea is emphatically no exception, first because it lives in an exceptionally dangerous neighborhood; and second, because as I explained last week, its semiconductor manufacturing prowess gives it some clout vis-a-vis the United States.

Nor am I arguing that the U.S. commitment to defend the South has ever stemmed from anything other than a regard for its own security or independence or prosperity – even though I’ve disagreed until very recently (because of semiconductor manufacturing-related national security issues) with this characteristically globalist definition of national interest.

Instead, I’m arguing that, given the decision by Washington to protect the South even though its strategy of extended deterrence has recently exposed the United States to the risk of nuclear attack on the American homeland, it’s entirely reasonable for America to seek some South Korean help in meeting a different challenge. In this case, it’s helping Washington limit the technological progress that could enable China to attain military parity – and at some point even superiority – over the United States, and thereby undercut declared vital U.S. national interests throughout the Indo-Pacific region and even beyond.

But Alan Beattie? He writes that it’s “galling when Washington expects you to take economic hits for geopolitical gains when it’s not always willing to do the same itself.”

One fatal flaw in Beattie’s argument is the claim that the United States is asking South Korea to sacrifice some earnings (resulting from the major revenues it earns by supplying semiconductors and other high-value inputs to China’s huge electronics industry) without offering to pay any price for containing China itself.

What he ignores is how the Biden administration tough’s curbs on the investment and operations of America’s own semiconductor and chip-making equipment companies are costing them economically, too. Instead, he focuses on the electric vehicle manufacturing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which require South Korean auto companies to produce key components in the United States in order to qualify for subsidies.

Yet these provisions apply not only to all foreign auto-makers, but to America’s as well.  And even if they were being applied in a blatantly discriminatory manner, however, it’s not as if South Korea wouldn’t still be getting a heckuva deal from its alliance with the United States. Beattie blandly describes the benefits to the South as “maintaining relations with the US….” Of course, as I stated above, it’s really about its national freedom and very survival.

Again, as a realist, I respect South Korea’s right to define its own interests however it wishes, and to act accordingly. But should I – or anyone – agree with Beattie that Washington’s desire for some South Korean reciprocity is “galling,” or excessively steep? It sounds like Beattie’s actual position is that any U.S. effort to leverage its commitment to defend South Korea is unreasonable – especially if it might interfere with the decades of hyper-globalization that the author tends to lionize uncritically, even though they’ve unmistakably fueled the dangerous rise of Chinese power. Can that be a serious basis for conducting diplomacy?

But from Beattie’s scathing tone, it’s also apparent that he’s condemning this kind of transactional approach to foreign policy for deeply personal reasons as well – likely the transparently childish view that the United States, or maybe just the Anglo-phone countries, should be above this sort of crassness, and that even if international relations aren’t comparable to a sporting event, where the real world stakes are modest, they should act as if they are – whatever the risks.

Thankfully, the Biden administration is steadily (though not fast enough for my tastes) thinking in more adult terms and recognizing – like the Trump administration before it – that one-way-street alliances no longer make sense from America’s standpoint (if they ever did). In this instance, moreover, South Korea could easily conclude that containing the tech prowess of a gigantic totalitarian and increasingly aggressive neighbor serves its own interests quite handily, too.

Tomorrow’s post will describe that aforementioned even more befuddling – and possibly more worrisome – consequence of the Biden-Yoon summit.

P.S. Full disclosure:  Beattie has blocked me on Twitter because he believed that my stances on immigration policy partly reflected anti-Muslim prejudices. So clearly he’s not my favorite journalist.  

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Microchip Failures Have Now Worsened its Korea Nuclear Dilemmas

Tags

allies, Biden, China, deterrence, extended deterrence, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, tripwire

As needs to become clear to U.S. leaders as South Korea’s president visits the United States, America’s loss of global leadership in the knowhow needed to make the world’s most advanced semiconductors now could expose the United States to nuclear attack from not one but two adversaries in East Asia.

The first threat of course comes from China, and stems from the possibility that it invades Taiwan. Because the island is the undisputed champ in manufacturing the most powerful chips, a Beijing victory could give it access to technology that’s crucial for making state-of-the-art weapons today, and for generations to come. And because that prospect, rightly in my view, is seen in Washington as an unacceptable threat to U.S. security, independence, and prosperity, the Biden administration has apparently decided to defend the island if the Chinese military moves.

The huge problem with this policy – which hasn’t been announced formally but has been mentioned in various seemingly off-the-cuff statements by Mr. Biden – is that success may require U.S. nuclear weapons use, and the Chinese have the forces to retaliate by attacking the American homeland with their own nukes. Maybe the possibility of a U.S. counter-strike on China would deter Beijing from pressing its nuclear buttons. But maybe it wouldn’t.

The threat that’s come into focus in recent days comes from North Korea and the target is South Korea – which unlike Taiwan is a full-fledged U.S. treaty ally that enjoys a longstanding and clearly stated American nuclear guarantee. Moreover, as is also not the case with Taiwan, the United States will find it exceedingly difficult to avoid nuclear weapons use if the North invaded the South. Worse, that’s so even if America ultimately concludes that South Korea’s security isn’t worth risking nuclear attack from a Pyongyang arsenal that’s smallish but could be able right now to reach American soil.

That’s because, as I’ve described repeatedly, American leaders have decided to bolster the credibility of the U.S. deterrent by stationing tens of thousands of American ground troops right in the way of any North Korean attack. The idea is to convince the North that to prevent its superior conventional forces from overwhelming the Americans, a U.S. President would launch his own nukes to destroy the invaders and likely the whole of North Korea.

This aim of intimidating the North with nuclear threats made sense when the United States had an enormous nuclear arsenal and Pyongyang was nuke-less. It even made sense when North Korea’s stockpile was even smaller than at present, and much less impressive. But due to the North’s recent progress and consequent current or imminent ability to vaporize an American city – or two or three – the U.S. nuclear guarantee, and the continuing presence of U.S. forces in the South whose vulnerability could force Washington into a damaging nuclear exchange, looks positively masochistic.

As a result, I’d argued for many years at least for withdrawing the tripwire and thereby increasing the odds that an American President would initiate a nuclear conflict with the North. Yes, South Korea could well be lost. But the United States itself would be saved from catastrophe. And of course South Korea could eventually respond by building up its own conventional military and going nuclear itself. Am I eager to see the roster of foreign nuclear weapons states expand? Of course not. But would this be better than the annihilation of Los Angeles or San Francisco or Seattle? That’s even a question?

It’s possible, however, that semiconductor-wise, South Korea might be as valuable as Taiwan. And if it’s still behind, it’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities certainly aren’t far behind. (See this post for a sense of how complicated it is to determine who’s ahead.) Much more certain – the South is considerably ahead of American industry.

I’m not so much concerned that if the South felt abandoned, its microchip prowess would fall into the hands of the North Koreans. I’m much more concerned that a South Korea that’s decoupled from the United States security-wise would keep helping China develop its own semiconductor industry by building more and more advanced chip factories in the People’s Republic. It’s not just a distinct possibility, it’s a virtual certainty because China’s immense electronics industry is an immensely important customer for these South Korean chip manufacturers – just as it is for the U.S. semiconductor companies and chip equipment manufacturers that are equally guilty of strengthening China.

But the U.S. firms’ China operations and plans are now significantly restricted by the Biden administration’s tough sanctions. Even though it’s a U.S. treaty ally, South Korea has enacted no such curbs, and is still resisting American pressure to join Washington’s containment campaign. If the South feels cut loose by America, it’s not likely to sell China its crown jewel microchip tech. But as noted above, keeping on its current course could be damaging to major U.S. interests, too.

And that’s not even the end of the Biden administration’s current dilemmas. For there’s plenty of evidence that, despite the tripwire U.S. forces on their soil, South Korea’s leaders and its people no longer believe the Americans will ride to their rescue, or ride hard enough to risk nuclear war. So in principle, the United States could be stuck with the worst of all possible worlds – forced to maintain its current, nuclear war-risking approach to defending South Korea in hopes of preserving some semiconductor leverage with the South, but lacking the clout to gain meaningful South Korean support for limiting China’s tech progress. Reportedly, President Biden has decided to handle the situation with more energetic efforts to reassure the South.

Alternatively, South Korea could decide that it still doesn’t trust Washington, build its own nuclear weapons anyway, and feel even freer to go its way on China.

I can envision various scenarios in which all these needles are threaded to America’s advantage for the time being – and perhaps longer. But there are no guarantees. Meaning that the big takeaway is that when it comes to critical technologies, there’s no substitute for a Do It Yourself determination to maintain American leadership to avoid needing to rely on the kindness of strangers (and even allies) – or as is the case now, to restore it.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Yes, America’s Europe Allies Really are Lagging in Decoupling from China

Tags

allies, Biden administration, China, decoupling, Emanuel Macron, European Union, foreign direct investment FDI, France, investment, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Trade

Since French President Emanuel Macron’s boot-licking recent trip to China, something of a debate has broken out this past week over whether America’s European allies are moving fast enough to reduce their dependence on commerce with the People’s Republic – or as fast as the United States is. Here’s a claim that they are. And here’s one that they aren’t.

How to know for sure – or with some confidence? Maybe by looking at some numbers? So I did. And the two most important 30,000-foot measures of trade and investment show that the Europeans are lagging significantly – in absolute term and relative to the United States. In fact, both measures indicate that investment in and especially trade with China recently has become more important to the European Union (EU), not less.

The gauges I use are two-way trade as a share of the total U.S. and European Union economies, and direct investment in China as a share of their respective goss domestic products (GDP – the standard measure of an economy’s size). As is often the case, I use the numbers as percentages of their economies because they provide the context that the numbers themselves lack. And this practice is all the more important when trying to figure out matters like dependence or vulnerability.

Let’s start with the European Union’s two-way trade with China and use 2019 as the first year – since that’s the last full year before the arrival of the CCP Virus pandemic, which focused so much attention on over-reliance on China (or any single supplier) for products deemed unusually important. As can be seen, combined exports to and imports from the People’s Republic has grown much faster since 2019 than has the EU economy:

2019: 4.01

2020: 4.39

2021: 4.83

2022: 5.75

In fact, during this period, this trade relative to the EU economy expanded much faster than in the years before 2019. For example, in 2012, two-way Sino-EU goods trade already stood at 3.36 percent of the Union’s output.

(Both sets of figures are in euros before factoring in inflation. The 2012 and 2019-21 figures come from the reliable Statistia.com website here and here. The 2022 trade data come from Statistia. The 2022 GDP figure comes from taking the 2021 Statistia number and adding the 3.6 percent pre-inflation EU growth estimate provided by the Union’s statistical service Eurostat.)

Here’s how America’s annual bilateral goods trade with China as a share of the U.S. economy has changed from 2019 to 2022:

2019: 2.60

2020: 2.65

2021: 2.81

2022: 2.71

These percentages are up some during this period, but by much less than those for the EU. And in 2022, the share went down. Also of note: These numbers are lower in absolute terms than the EU’s. For comparison’s sake, the U.S. figure for 2012 was 3.30 percent. So the importance of China trade to the U.S. economy had been fading steadily before 2019, and has stabilized since. But may be declining once again. So the EU certainly looks like a laggard here.

(These U.S. pre-inflation trade and GDP data come from the standard Commerce Department sources.)

Turning to direct investment flows to China, here are the annual EU results as a percent of economic output:

2019: 0.05

2020: 0.04

2021: 0.03

2022: unavailable

Here, EU relations with China look to be decreasing. But one source pegs the 2021-22 increase at 92.5 percent – a near doubling! Since EU economic growth last year wasn’t remotely that strong, it’s possible that the Union’s businesses have just executed a major turnabout.

(The EU GDP data for 2019-21- this time in pre-inflation U.S. dollars – come from the World Bank. The 2022 figure comes from the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve.  The investment figures, also in in pre-inflation U.S. dollars  – including the claim of the big 2022 jump – come from the China-Briefing.com website.)

Their U.S. counterparts?

2019: 0.03

2020: 0.04

2021: 0.01

2022: 0.04

No clear trend here – but no evidence of a big recent pop. So let’s call this a draw at best. And overall edge to the United States.

(The 2019-21 investment and all the GDP data come from the Commerce Department.  The 2022 investment figure can be found in this New York Times piece.

Not that I’m completely thrilled with the U.S. performance. Except for the curbs on exports of goods and investments related to advanced semiconductors, the Biden administration seems wed to the notion that the United States can trim its China economic sails in a piecemeal fashion. But this approach suffers at least two major flaws.

First, as I’ve repeatedly argued, the threat from China is systemic. Therefore addressing product by product or industry by industry is likely to keep Washington straining to keep up with China’s progress.

Second, the piecemeal approach seems to assume that “strategic goods” exist in isolation, even though nearly all manufactured products are only the tip of a (yes, iceberg-like) supply chain.

In other words, if you want to boost America’s health security, you need to make sure that the domestic economy can not only turn out facemasks, but the materials from which they’re made, the machinery needed to manufacture them, and the parts and components of this equipment.

Does this mean that there’s no substitute for aiming to shut down economic relations completely, however gradual this effort may be to proceed? Doubtful, because so many of the goods supplied by China, like apparel and toys, are harmless (although their purchase does increase resources ultimately available to the Chinese regime).

But does it mean that much more energy and thought need to be applied to so-called “decoupling” by both the European Union and the United States? Undoubtedly.

Following Up: National Radio Podcast of China Decoupling Interview Now On-Line

Tags

allies, CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, China, decoupling, Following Up, Gordon G. Chang, investment, national security, resilience, supply chain, Trade

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show is now on-line.

Click here for a timely discussion – with co-host Gordon G. Chang – on how quickly (or not) the United States and its major allies are moving toward their stated goal of reducing their economic dependency on China.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight on Decoupling from China…& an Award!

Tags

allies, CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, China, decoupling, Feedspot.com, Gordon G. Chang, investment, Making News, resilience, supply chain, Trade

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to be back tonight on the nationally syndicated “CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor.” Our subject – just where matters stand with efforts by the United States and other major industrialized countries to reduce their economic relations with China.

The segment will be aired at 11 PM EST and also features co-host Gordon G. Chang. But the entire program, which begins at 10 PM EST, is always compelling, and you can listen live at links like this. As always, moreover, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

In addition, it was great to see that RealityChek made the Top 100 on Feedspot.com‘s list of “best political blogs.” At number 66, it was ranked ahead of The Guardian, Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, The Cook Political Report, and The Wall Street Journal Washington Wire, among other well known sites.

All the more reason to keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments!

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on U.S. China Strategy

Tags

allies, Asia, Buy American, CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, Central America, China, decoupling, Following Up, friend-shoring, Gordon G. Chang, Immigration, Mexico, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, tariffs, Trade, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, USMCA

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show is now on-line.

Click here for a timely discussion – with co-host Gordon G. Chang – on whether President Biden’s Trump-y Buy American-focused trade policies are undermining his efforts to build effective global alliances to contain China.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The U.S. Keeps Enabling European Free-Riding on Ukraine & Defense Generally

Tags

allies, Biden, burden sharing, defense spending, EU, Europe, European Union, free-riding, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Ukraine, Ukraine War

Twenty-three years ago, I published an article (which you can download here) on defense burden-sharing in the America’s premier national security alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), titled “Promises, Promises.” I borrowed the title from a 1968 Broadway musical that was ultimately about cynically made pledges because I thought it was perfect for a study that documented how NATO’s European members kept welshing on their vows to raise their defense spending to serious levels – and how the real blame ultimately rested with an overly indulgent United States.

Twenty-three years later, the first major war in Europe since 1945 keeps dragging on, and fresh evidence makes clear (a) that the Europeans (both inside and outside NATO) remain defense deadbeats; and (b) that a prime reason remains their so-far-well-founded confidence that they can rely on the United States to pick up any slack.

Not that no burden-sharing progress has been made at all. As NATO itself just reported, seven members (including the United States) have now met the guideline of spending at least two percent of their national economic output on the military. That’s up from three in 2014.

Just three problems here. First, NATO has thirty members, meaning that the vast majority are still skimping on defense. Second, the two percent guideline was agreed to in 2014. Even had no Ukraine War broken out, that would be a pretty modest move in nine years. With a conflict raging in Europe itself, it’s minimal at best. And in fact, only one NATO country crossed that two percent threshhold since the Russian invasion – Lithuania, which is located awfully close to the war zone.

Third, the NATO guideline is just that – an aspiration, not a hard-and-fast promise, let alone something contained in a legally binding treaty. And reportedly, there’s scant enthusiasm among alliance members for raising it.

Of course, in this Ukraine War era, defense spending isn’t the only contribution that can be made to Europe’s security, and NATO isn’t the only grouping capable of helping out. But the widely followed “Ukraine Support Tracker” compiled by Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows that after some brief, belated signs that countries in the European Union (EU – whose members contain both most NATO countries and others on the continent) were collectively stepping up with both military and mainly economic aid for Ukraine, these countries have begun slacking off again in relative terms.

As the Kiel analysts put in their February 21 update:

“Over 2022, the US led the way with major support decisions for Ukraine, with EU countries following with some delay and overtaking the US in the meantime with their total commitments. With additional data now collected (November 21 to January 15), the US again takes the lead.”

The specific numbers? “With additional pledges of nearly 37 billion euros in December, the Americans have earmarked a total of just over 73.1 billion euros for Ukraine support. For the EU, the comparable figure is 54.9 billion euros.”

My “Promises, Promises” article documented in detail that the European NATO members kept free-riding on the United States because Washington repeatedly all but told them that America’s commitment to Europe’s defense would remain unchanged whatever the allies did spending-wise.   

These days, President Biden has also essentially invited the Europeans to free ride by repeatedly declaring that the United States would stand with Ukraine against Russia’s aggression – as he expressed it most recently last month in Poland – “no matter what.”  

Foreign policy realists (a group that should include you as well as me) aren’t mainly bothered by the flagrant unfairness of this situation. As long as it’s tolerated by the United States, free-riding is arguably in the interests of the NATO allies – and ultimately that’s what realists believe foreign policymaking should be all about (though allied leaders might usefully ponder the possible limits of even American patience).     

Instead, the main concern is pragmatic. In the end, allies are worth having only if they can be counted on to join a fight if one breaks out. At the very least, how can any military engage in any useful planning without knowing what forces will be available? Allies like the NATO free-riders, which plainly aren’t ready to make significant sacrifices on behalf of common security during peacetime, seem anything but dependable in the event of hostilities. That’s something Mr. Biden urgently needs to think through before his Ukraine policy creates the acid test.        

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Is America Really Back with Anyone?

Tags

allies, America First, Biden, Biden administration, developing countries, Donald Trump, Gallup, globalism, liberal global order, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, polls, public opinion, Ukraine, Ukraine War

As RealityChek regulars might have noticed, I haven’t been writing about too many polls lately. The reason? As I explained at the end of last year (here and here) , most were badly off-base on crucial issues that shaped the results of the U.S. midterm elections – especially abortion.

But some new Gallup findings (on a non-political issue) merit an exception. Not that this survey, like way too much polling on foreign policy, hasn’t suffered major problems of its own. All the same, since the claim that “America is back” has been foundational to President Biden’s approach to world affairs, it’s striking that Gallup on Friday reported results suggesting that fewer Americans believe this than they did during the Trump administration.

I write “suggest” because the wording of the relevant question is pretty vague. “In general,” respondents were asked, “how do you think the United States rates in the eyes of the world — very favorably, somewhat favorably, somewhat unfavorably or very unfavorably?”

Of course, this could mean anything from “as a reliable ally” to “as a great place to live,” to “the world’s strongest (or wealthiest) country.” If true, though, whatever the criteria, these Gallup data indicate deep public’s skepticism that Mr. Biden has achieved one of his central foreign policy goals: reversing a dangerous erosion of America’s international popularity stemming from the “America First-style policies pursued by his predecessor.

As the President sees it, this boneheadedly selfish posture threatened to destroy the network of international institutions and above alliances that – consistent with the globalist approach to world affairs he has always supported – considers crucial ingredients for foreign policy success.

But Mr. Biden hasn’t convinced many Americans of these related propositions, reports Gallup. During time in the White House so far, between 48 and 49 percent of American adults said that their country is viewed either “very favorably” or “somewhat favorably” “in the eyes of the world,” with the “verys” coming in at just seven percent in early 2021, 2022, and 2023 alike.

The total unfavorablys ranged from 50 to 51 percent in these years, with the “very unfavorablys” standing at 14 percent, 16 percent, and 17 percent in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively.

Although not terrific, these numbers are hardly a disaster, either. But the funny thing is that they’re a good deal worse than the results recorded during the presidency of America First-y, selfish, xenophobic etc Trump.

In Trump’s first year as President (2017), the share of respondents stating that the United States was viewed either “very” or “somewhat favorably” by the rest of the world totaled only 42 percent – a big drop from the 54 percent reported in the final year of Barack Obama’s administration (2016). But in the next three Trump years, the overall favorably percentages rose to 55, 58, and 60 percent.

Moreover, the “very favorably” responses in 2018, 2019, and 2020 stood at seven, 12 and 13 percent, respectively. – also higher than those of the Biden years.

Also awfully interesting: During Trump’s four years in office, the share of American respondents telling Gallup that they believed foreign leaders “had respect” for him increased from 29 percent to 37 percent. The third reading for Biden’s administration showed that 37 percent of respondents also believed that foreign leaders respected him. But that 2023 result is down from 58 percent in early 2021, at the outset of his presidency.

In addition, these Gallup statistics need to be seen in some noteworthy context. For on top of that evidence that Americans aren’t impressed with the payoff of Mr. Biden’s globalist campaign to repair a national reputation supposedly shredded by Trump, there’s considerable evidence that the rest of the world isn’t, either.

The most revealing sign is the international reaction to the President’s efforts to rally global support against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Long-time security allies, even in neighboring Europe, continue free-riding, with this widely followed scorecard revealing that overall U.S. aid to Ukraine still exceeds that provided by all European Union countries combined. Developing countries, meanwhile, keep displaying indifference – at best – despite Mr. Biden’s repeated insistence that global security, prosperity, democracy, and the liberal global order are all stake.

In other words, as opposed to taking seriously the evident Biden assumption that popularity matters decisively in international affairs, practically every other country is acting as if its own particular national interests are paramount. That can only reasonably be read as a major hint that this administration should stop harping so much on America being back (especially for others’ benefit) and revive more of an America First mindset.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Germany Dodges Biden Bullet (Or Did It?)

Tags

allies, Biden, economic aid, geopolitics, Germany, Glad I Didn't Say That!, miitary aid, Olaf Scholz, Ukraine, Ukraine War

“German Chancellor Set for Heat From Biden Over Ukraine Ammunition Supplies: What to Watch”

—Bloomberg.com, March 3, 2023, 12:01 AM EST

 

“Biden Lauds Germany’s Military Aid to Ukraine in Scholz Meeting”

– Bloomberg.com, March 3, 2023, 3:17 PM EST

 

(Sources: “German Chancellor Set for Heat From Biden Over Ukraine Ammunition Supplies: What to Watch,” by Arne Delfs and Michael Niemaber, Bloomberg.com, March 3, 2023, Biden Ukraine Talks With Scholz on Ammunition, China: What to Watch – Bloomberg and “Biden Lauds Germany’s Military Aid to Ukraine in Scholz Meeting,”by Justin Sink and Akayla Gardner, Bloomberg.com, March 2, 2023, Biden Lauds Germany’s Military Aid to Ukraine in Scholz Meeting – Bloomberg)