Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Washington’s Americans Last Korea Strategy

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Asia, extended deterrence, foreign policy establishment, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile defense, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trump

This post is just a quickie, since I just got back from a morning medical procedure. But it really adds some desperately needed context to all those claims that have been filling the Mainstream Media for so long characterizing President Trump as a dangerous nut when it comes to foreign policy (among other subjects), and the establishmentarians who have been conducting this foreign policy under Democratic and Republican presidents for decades as unappreciated strategic masterminds.

I guess I’d find the latter portrayal the slightest bit convincing if I hadn’t just heard the news that the United States today successfully conducted its first test launch ever of a system designed to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) before they strike their targets.

Although this development sounds good, the news should scare the bejeebers out of Americans. The reason has nothing to do with major adversaries like the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and China, which have had such missiles – capable of reaching the United States from their home countries – for decades. It’s always been deemed virtually impossible that any American defenses could keep U.S. territory adequately safe from those forces, which number in the thousands of warheads. Moreover, the political leaderships of these countries have generally been judged to be sane enough to use their nukes cautiously. As a result, protecting the nation from the proverbial mass bolt from the blue has never been seriously expected of these capabilities.

Instead, the reason for alarm has everything to do with North Korea, which has clearly been working to develop ICBM capabilities for decades, has been making impressive progress lately, and has been led by individuals who seem a lot less predictable, to put it kindly. In fact, according to this Bloomberg post, the North’s missile program dates from the mid-1970s. It tested its first with intercontinental, U.S.-striking range in 2006. And Washington has just gotten around even to testing something designed to knock one down only eleven years later?

In fact, it gets better: The interceptor that succeeded today has been used many times before to test American capabilities against shorter-range missiles. But do you know what its batting average has been since these operations began in 1999? Counting today’s success, it’s 10 for 18. That’s a performance that’s bound to get you into Cooperstown. But if the United States were attacked with 18 North Korean missiles today, it means that ten U.S. cities could become history.

By the end of this year, when the Pentagon plans to have increased the number of these systems from 36 to 44. So presumably, the odds for Americans will get better. But is there any reason to think that they’ll hit zero any time soon? That’s an especially important question to ask upon realizing that, as hostile as it is, North Korea has no intrinsic reason to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Indeed, it has every reason to refrain from one – because it would face annihilation from vastly superior American forces. Instead, the North Korean threat stems solely from the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea from vastly superior North Korean conventional forces that the South chooses not to match. And why not? Because hiding behind American skirts is cheaper.

In other words, the U.S. government has evidently decided that it’s worth risking New York to save Seoul, even though this policy has never been openly declared to the American people. And even worse, today’s missile launch reveals that Washington has been taking its sweet time trying to make sure that millions of Americans don’t get incinerated if this policy – blandly named “extended deterrence” – fails.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: An Asia Grand Strategy that Still Looks Like America Last

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Asia, Barack Obama, China, Defense Department, export controls, John McCain, military spending, neoconservatives, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, pivot, technology transfer, The Wall Street Journal, Trump

It looks like the Trump administration is going All Neocon on its Asia grand strategy. Or is it All Obama? Interestingly, both approaches have shared the same main features, and depressingly, both are dangerously incoherent and disturbingly resemble the course that Mr. Trump apparently has chosen to follow. .

The essence of neoconservative strategy in Asia consists of bloviating about the risks to America’s national security from China in particular, pushing for a stronger American military response, and with equal vigor backing economic policies that inevitably boost China’s military strength. And the quintessential example is Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.

McCain has voted for his entire career in favor of the U.S. trade policy decisions that have enabled China to amass literally trillions of dollars worth of trade surpluses with the United States, and therefore finance an enormous military buildup that he himself has warned directly threatens American interests in Asia. He’s periodically voiced concerns about the lax U.S. export controls that have enabled China to secure some of America’s best defense-related technology. But he’s never sponsored any steps capable of solving this problem.

What McCain has focused on has been boosting military spending and stationing more of these forces, in large part to counter burgeoning Chinese ambitions. And recent Trump administration moves make clear that the president and his top advisers have been listening. As The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month:

“The Pentagon has endorsed a plan to invest nearly $8 billion to bulk up the U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region over the next five years by upgrading military infrastructure, conducting additional exercises and deploying more forces and ships….The proposal, dubbed the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative, was first floated by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and has been embraced by other lawmakers and, in principle, by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the head of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris. Proponents haven’t developed details of the $7.5 billion plan.”

The Journal account goes on to remind readers that the Obama administration had pursued its own military “pivot” to Asia, but that it was “disparaged by critics as thin on resources and military muscle.” And of course, the former president refused to respond effectively to China’s predatory trade practices, and only very late in his second term began rethinking flood of advanced defense-related knowhow to the PRC.

President Trump has of course spoken repeatedly of acting forcefully to overhaul America’s China trade policies. But his administration’s actions so far have fallen far short of this mark.

The mind-blowing upshot: In a military conflict with China, the United States forces could find themselves fighting against, and taking casualties from, Chinese units and weapons that have been paid for and researched by their enemy. Is that the kind of first so many Americans voted for?

Following Up: Why the U.S. Still Faces a (South) Korea Problem

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Asia, China, comfort women, Following Up, free-riding, Japan, Kim Jong Un, missile defense, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, nuclear weapons, South Korea, THAAD, Trump

Three days into his presidency, new South Korean leader Moon Jae-In seems determined to prove me wrong in warning that his election could further undermine an American grand strategy toward Asia, and North Korea in particular, that’s already in big trouble.

As I’ve written repeatedly on RealityChek, well before South Korea’s snap presidential election this past Tuesday, the nuclear umbrella extended by Washington for decades over the South and Japan had started creating an unacceptable risk of nuclear attack on the American homeland. The reason: Chinese and North Korean nuclear forces were rapidly becoming able to survive even an attack by America’s own strategic warheads and retaliate by striking the United States.

Moon’s victory seemed bound to make the American position in the region even less tenable by placing in power in Seoul an opponent of the U.S. decision to de-nuclearize the North through a combination of military threats and economic pressure.

So even recognizing that politicians don’t always govern like they campaign, I’ve been surprised to read about several instances in recent days of Moon staying on the reservation. To be sure, President Trump lent a helping hand, making the first call by a foreign head of state to congratulate Moon on his win and inviting him to the United States for an official visit. For his part, Moon declared that “The U.S.-South Korea alliance is the foundation of our foreign policy, and will continue to be so.”

But independent of this conversation came some Moon moves apparently aimed at calming fears of a major rift with the United States. Even before speaking with Mr. Trump, Moon declined explicitly to blame him for the recent escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula, preferring to describe his predecessor in Seoul’s Blue House as the main culprit. The new president also passed up a chance to demand an apology from the United States for supporting a bloody South Korean crackdown on dissidents in the city of Gwangju in 1980 – a distinct sore point with many Koreans today.

Perhaps most strikingly, right after North Korea unleashed a strident criticism of a new U.S.-supplied missile defense system in the South that’s viewed by Moon and many of his compatriots with major reservations, a Moon spokesperson stated that the new president had told China that resolving this controversy depended on the North refraining from further “provocation.”

All the same, Washington should still remain worried about Moon and South Korea going rogue. According to Stanford University Korea specialist Daniel Sneider, Moon hasn’t closed the door completely on reopening the issue of the missile system (known as THAAD) – which is partly aimed at protecting American military forces helping to defend South Korea from North Korean attack. More seriously, Sneider writes, Moon is contemplating building alongside THAAD “an indigenous Korean Air and Missile Defense system, which would not be linked to the U.S. and Japanese missile defense architecture….”

That possibility surely would be unacceptable to the United States, as it would at the least complicate the cooperation between the U.S. and South Korean militaries that would be vital in order to defeat the North in a conflict. Even more stunning, says Sneider, Moon favors creating “a preemptive-strike system armed with South Korean ballistic missiles” – a total nonstarter with Americans, as it would make the security of U.S. forces, and by extension that of the American homeland, dangerously dependent on the decisions of a foreign government.

Nevertheless, a greater role for South Korea in dealings with the volatile and unpredictable North is a centerpiece of Moon’s platform. His objective of enabling his country to “take the initiative” on this front is entirely understandable, given its location right next door to the dictator Kim Jong Un’s fearsome arsenal of nuclear and conventional arms. Moon has also tried to reassure Washington that he would never “approach or unilaterally open talks with North Korea without fully consulting the U.S. beforehand.” Yet it’s all too easy to foresee serious disputes opening up between the two governments over when diplomacy has or hasn’t reached an impasse.

Moon’s aim of raising South Korea’s diplomatic profile also could clash with the Trump administration’s plan to rely heavily on economic muscle flexing by China, by far the North’s leading trade partner, to weaken Pyongyang’s capacity to defy its neighbors demands. On the one hand, he fears that this approach could produce an outcome to the nuclear crisis that neglects South Korean interests. On the other, however, it’s inconsistent with his more fundamental views on the economic dimensions of North Korea diplomacy.

For the United States has long hoped that potent enough sanctions would help force Pyongyang into negotiating an end to its nuclear program, and the Trump administration has ratcheted up military threats as well. In fact, sanctions on North Korea have repeatedly been approved by the entire international community. Moon has said he recognizes the need for continued sanctions of some kind, but was a top aide to one of the South Korean presidents of the 1990s who pursued a so-called “Sunshine Policy” of economic engagement with the North. Not surprisingly, he’s spoken much more often about promoting North Korean reform by expanding his country’s trade with and investment in his Stalinist neighbor than about the role of economic clamps.

Finally, the United States has struggled to shore up the anti-North Korea front by persuading South Korea and Japan to overcome deep and historic animosities and cooperate more extensively in security affairs. But in this respect, Moon has been quite the hard-liner. Specifically, he has opposed even the limited intelligence sharing with Tokyo begun by his predecessor out of unhappiness with the 2015 bilateral agreement to resolve a dispute triggered by Japan’s colonial and wartime practices of forcing Korean women to serve Japanese soldiers and officials as prostitutes (who were euphemistically called “comfort women).

The point here is not to criticize (or praise) Moon’s positions or priorities. As I emphasized in this post’s forerunner, there are any number of reasons for taking South Koreans’ views in general on North Korea with the utmost seriousness. After all, they live right next door. If mistakes are made in handling the North, they’ll suffer the worst consequences by far.

But if Moon, their new leader, is wrong, Americans would suffer fearsome consequences, too – including a retaliatory nuclear strike that could destroy one or more American cities. Even worse, this catastrophe could well stem from South Korea’s failure to spend adequately on its own defense, and consequent heavy reliance on the U.S. commitment – even though it lives in one of the most dangerous regions on earth, and even though it’s exponentially wealthier than the North. And of course, because the United State doesn’t live right next door, or even close, the upside to its own security of its current Korea and broader Asia strategy pales by comparison.

Which is why even had South Koreans chosen a more traditional leader, I would still so strongly favor letting them – and leaders and citizens of even wealthier Japan and other nearby countries – realize Moon-like ambitions, take control of their own destinies, and handle North Korea and other possible threats however they see fit.

But since it’s completely unreasonable – at best – to expect Americans to pay for the Asians’ mistakes if they’re wrong, and war breaks out anyway, Washington should withdraw these forces well before the locals take charge. The end of American military involvement would bring the added and immense benefit of removing the threat of a North Korean nuclear strike – because the United States wouldn’t be taking any actions that would fuel North Korean ire and trigger retaliation.

It’s a clear case of power creating responsibility. Especially if Moon wants more of the former for South Korea, he’ll have to accept more of the latter – for its own security. And if he’s not willing to step up, Washington should make the decision for him. 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: South Korea’s Elections are Likely to Make America’s Asia Strategy Even Loonier

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allies, Asia, deterrence, East Asia-Pacific, free-riding, Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, Northeast Asia, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Tim Shorrock

This coming Tuesday will not only see a new presidential election in South Korea. It may also mark the day when a second big wheel flies off of America’s grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, and in particular off its approach to addressing the North Korea nuclear weapons threat.

For now on top of the United States’ loss of escalation dominance on the Korean peninsula – which I’ve written about for more than two years and which has needlessly exposed the American homeland to the risk of nuclear attack – the U.S. ally supposedly facing the greatest threat from Kim Jong Un’s heavily armed dictatorship could wind up defecting from the anti-Pyongyang coalition. It would be hard to concoct a scenario that would be less defensible strategically and politically, and more utterly absurd.

Of course, the results of the South Korea election haven’t yet come in. The front-runner, veteran left-of-center politician Moon Jae-in, is by no means anti-American. And as with so many politicians, he may govern very differently from how he’s campaigned. But as made clear by coverage of South Korean politics by my good friend Tim Shorrock – who has written on the country for decades – Moon believes that the United States and North Korea’s neighbors need to start putting much more emphasis on reopening negotiations with the North and much less on threats of military action or more effective economic sanctions. At least as important, many of his compatriots clearly agree.

Moon and his supporters could well be right – if only because they’ve been so close to the situation on the peninsula for so long. (Tim strongly believes this to be the case.) Nevertheless, they could be wrong as well. After all, their very proximity to the North might be denying them valuable perspective. Their views may be influenced too strongly by shared ethnicity. And they may, like classic free-riders, be assuming that the American nuclear umbrella will ultimately bail out the South if they’re wrong.

But although the merits of the Moon case are uncertain, the implications for the United States are anything but. If South Korea’s “doves” are right, a more durable peace could indeed be created in Korea (meaning, specifically, that the Korean War would finally come to an official end more than 60 years after an armistice halted the fighting in 1953). As a result, Northeast Asia, one of the world’s major economic dynamos, would be stabilized. And the prospect of the United States being drawn into a nuclear war with North Korea would be greatly diminished.

But it can’t be forgotten that the (mounting) nuclear risks posed by North Korea to the United States stem entirely from the American commitment to defend South Korea – and more specifically, it stems from the longstanding U.S. decision to try to deter a North Korean invasion of the South by stationing nearly 30,000 troops right at the Demilitarized Zone. They couldn’t possibly halt the North’s conventional forces, but their deaths would almost surely provoke an American nuclear strike on the North. This prospect that has certainly helped keep Pyongyang at bay – which was arguably an acceptable risk to run when Pyongyang lacked any means to hit back at American territory. But soon, pursuing this strategy could result in the North successfully launching a nuclear missile at an American city – or two or three.

Even worse from an American standpoint, a prime reason that the South relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for its defense is its failure to field adequate conventional forces itself. Despite living right next door to one of the world’s most heavily armed and unpredictable countries, South Korea only spends 2.7 percent of its entire economy on its armed forces. By comparison, the United States – which has no neighbors that are either powerful or hostile, let alone both – spends 4.3 percent.

All of which means that if the South Korea doves are wrong, the American people could pay a fearful price largely because one of the world’s leading economic powers has chosen to skimp on its military, and because its (new) leaders insisted on a diplomacy-first policy that gave Pyongyang yet more time to strengthen its nuclear forces. That’s a heckuva downside. And let’s not forget the chaos that would result from the United States and South Korea splitting in public and pursuing two dramatically different policies toward the North.

Supporters of the strategic status quo in East Asia are right – America’s longstanding policies have brought impressive benefits. But they’re wrong in insisting that the benefits for the United States have even remotely approached those for the East Asians themselves, including South Korea. And the emergence of a credible North Korean nuclear threat to the American homeland has skewed the relationship of costs and benefits much further against the United States.

I can’t think of a more unacceptable situation from America’s vantage point. Even before these South Korean political trends had become so prominent, it was clear to me that the best strategy for the American people was to recognize the North Korean challenge as the responsibility of North Korea’s (very wealthy and powerful) neighbors, and to withdraw the U.S. forces whose presence is bound increasingly to endanger the security of the United States itself.

The election of a South Korean dove would turn current U.S. strategy positively looney and even more dangerous to Americans – clashing strongly with the stated views of the presumed chief beneficiary’s new leader, and less able than ever to turn up the screws on the North.

I hope instead it causes America’s ossified bipartisan foreign policy establishment to realize finally that Washington can’t be placed in a position ostensibly of caring about South Korea’s security more than the South Koreans, and that if their new leaders disagree with U.S. priorities, that’s their sovereign right. By the same token, this ally can’t expect to have its cake and eat it, too. Bottom line? President Trump should let President-to-be Moon and his backers know that if they want to engage with North Korea, they feel free to give it a whirl – and that in the true spirit of an America First diplomacy, the United States will be wishing them the very best from safely on the sidelines.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Slight March Trade Deficit Dip Conceals Numerous Milestones, Major Asia Deterioration

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Asia, Canada, Census Bureau, China, European Union, exports, free trade agreements, high tech goods, imports, Japan, KORUS, manufacturing, Mexico, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, Pacific Rim, recovery, services, South Korea, Trade, trade deficit, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Note:  So many new records and multi-year highs were revealed by the March trade figures released this morning by the Census Bureau that I’m posting this abbreviated, just calculated, write-up — containing all the main highlights — rather than the usual lengthier, more comprehensive version.

America’s goods and services trade deficit slipped by 0.12 percent on month in March, to $43.71 billion, but the decline was more than offset by a noteworthy 0.47 percent upward revision to the originally reported February figure – to $43.76 billion. This modest movement, moreover, masked major deterioration in America’s trade balances with Pacific Rim countries, many of whose surpluses with the United States had been depressed by winter or spring holidays. 

Whereas in February, the American goods deficit with that region plunged sequentially by 30.76 percent, it rebounded in March by 25.39 percent, to $33.55 billion – the biggest such jump since last March 2015’s 52.63 percent. The greatest (15.53 percent) monthly merchandise import increase since then was largely responsible. Although the China goods deficit remained high – mainly because U.S. merchandise exports in March fell for the fifth straight month – the biggest trade swings were recorded with Japan and South Korea. Significantly, March marked the fifth anniversary of the implementation of the bilateral U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (KORUS) 

The March merchandise deficit with Japan soared by nearly 55 percent, to its highest level ($7.42 billion) since April, 2008 ($7.61 billion). And American goods imports from Japan rose by 32.12 percent to $13.04 billion – their highest total since March, 2007 ($13.47 billion). 

U.S. merchandise exports to South Korea hit a new monthly all-time high in March ($4.36 billion), imports rose to their second highest level ever ($6.61 billion), and the large sequential gains left the goods deficit at $2.25 billion. That was 73.50 percent higher than a February figure that itself had fallen by nearly 50 percent.  

Since KORUS’ implementation, in March, 2012, the U.S. merchandise deficit with South Korea has more than quadrupled (from $561.4 million) on a monthly basis.  By that same measure, U.S. goods exports to South Korea are up by 3.99 percent, and goods imports are 38.08 percent higher. 

The huge and chronic U.S. goods deficit with China rose by 7.03 percent sequentially in March, to $24.58 billion, but remained well below record levels. Nonetheless, American merchandise exports to China’s still strongly growing economy fell for the fifth straight month, to $9.63 billion. That was their lowest level since last September ($9.56 billion). 

Asia events also clearly influenced the big on month rebounds in the March trade deficits for manufacturing (up 15.23 percent, to $69.76 billion, after dropping by 19.88 percent) and high tech goods (up 33.87 percent, to $6.07 billion, after plummeting by 46.39 percent).

New records and multi-year highs were set in U.S. trade on other fronts, too. American goods exports to the European Union hit $25.69 billion – a new all-time best. Goods imports from NAFTA partner, Mexico, however, hit a new record as well ($21.02 billion), and helped boost the bilateral merchandise to its highest level ($7.03 billion) since November, 2007 ($7.23 billion) – just before the Great Recession officially began. The United States fared better with its other NAFTA partner, Canada. Its merchandise deficit sank by 35.49 percent, to $1.37 billion, as exports of $24.92 billion represented the best such total since March, 2015 ($25.50 billion), and imports of $26.29 billion represented their highest level since June, 2015 ($27.34 billion).

U.S. global services exports rose in March to a new record high as well ($64.70 billion), and helped push the surplus to its best level ($21.80 billion) since June, 2015 ($22.41 billion). As for overall goods and services exports and imports, they both fell sequentially in March (by 1.02 percent and 0.73 percent, respectively). 

The trade drag on the historically feeble American economic recovery declined as well, from 17.55 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to 17.44 percent of during the first quarter of this year, but still slowed the economy’s cumulative expansion by a staggering $433.76 billion after inflation.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Establishment Thinking About Containing China Remains Far from Serious

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allies, American Enterprise Institute, Asia, burden sharing, China, Daniel Blumenthal, defense budget, East Asia, entitlements, foreign policy establishment, free-riding, Japan, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, RealClearPolitics.com, South Korea, taxes, tech transfer, Trade

Congratulations to the American Enterprise Institute’s Daniel Blumenthal for coming up with some genuinely new insights into the U.S.-China balance of power and especially its relationship with the evolving economies of the two countries. Unfortunately, Blumenthal’s new essay for RealClearPolitics.com also shows that gaping blind spots remain in establishment thinking about the China challenge its members claim to be analyzing seriously.

For the purposes of this post, let’s grant Blumenthal’s mainstream assumption that it matters greatly to the United States which great power dominates East Asia politically. I disagree, but the point here is that if America does want to fend off a China challenge, greater policy changes will be needed than Blumenthal and other conventional wisdom-mongers seem ready to contemplate.

The author’s main theme is that the United States has no legitimate reason to doubt its economic capacity to prevent China from becoming Asia’s kingpin, and his new wrinkle involves measuring economic power by looking more at national wealth, and less at national economic growth. Since the U.S. wealth levels are both much greater than China’s, and since the gap has just resumed growing according to statistics he cites, America can easily afford the military forces needed to put China back in its place. And he blames China’s recent and impressive catch-up on this score on Americans’ recent (Blumenthal doesn’t specify the time frame) political decision to skimp on military spending while continue to devote exorbitant sums to entitlement spending – which has indeed long dominated the budget outlays (along with, as he’s noted, interest payments on the resulting ballooning national debt).

According to Blumenthal, Americans and their leaders as a result have chosen to elevate “the intergenerational transfer of wealth” over national security. Strictly speaking, he’s right. But other interpretations of national priorities seem just as legitimate.

For example, as the author briefly notes, the U.S. population is aging. So a major national retirement funding challenge will face even the most defense-minded politicians. That doesn’t let American leaders or the recipients of these entitlements off the hook in terms of making sacrifices needed to safeguard national security. But it’s bound to raise the question of whether the burden of sacrifice should be limited to middle class Americans. The great increase in national wealth mentioned by Blumenthal makes clear that the nation has many other resources on which it can draw to fund a bigger military – especially since the private economy’s wealth has led the surge. In other words, why not tax the rich or corporations more heavily to pay for new personnel and weapons?

One obvious rejoinder is that modest levels of taxes on wealthy Americans and on American companies are needed to ensure the economic growth needed to keep national wealth levels robust. But even accepting the doctrinaire trickle-down economics underlying this assumption, should upper-level individual incomes and business profits be completely exempted from any responsibility to pay for the military? If so, why? And wouldn’t that policy greatly loosen the relationship between national wealth and military capability emphasized by Blumenthal?

The author also neglects another big pool of resources that can be brought to bear on countering China: the wealth of America’s regional allies. Stunningly, after decades of American pleading for greater burden-sharing, countries with a far greater stake than the United States in resisting Chinese regional domination continue free-riding on U.S. defense guarantees. Why should American entitlements recipients see any reduction in benefits before Japanese and South Koreans pay at least as much for their own security (relatively speaking) as the much more geographically distant United States does? And their contributions could be immense. Japan alone, for example, is the world’s third largest national economy (behind the United States and China, respectively). 

Finally, as with nearly all the rest of the establishment, Blumenthal completely neglects the opposite side of the U.S.-China defense resources equation: The decisive extent to which American economic policy continues enriching China, and therefore continuing to enable it to afford lots of both “guns and butter” (as economists and political scientists have dubbed military and social spending). Thanks in part to literally trillions of dollars of earnings from the trade surpluses it’s long run with the United States, the Chinese pie keeps expanding strongly (that’s the economic growth whose importance Blumenthal softpedals). As a result, more new resources are generated for whatever priorities or combination of priorities the Chinese government chooses.

Even worse, as I’ve long noted, recklessly lax tech transfer policies on America’s part have for decades given the Chinese much of the knowhow needed to turn out increasingly advanced weapons and other military systems. Some signs of official concerns about this outflow have appeared in Washington lately, but U.S. leaders (and the rest of the establishment) remain woefully behind the curve.

When America’s East Asia security strategy stops bolstering the Chinese threat it depicts as such a huge concern, when it insists that local countries act like they have at least as great a stake in remaining independent of China as does the United States, when the wealthiest Americans are required to devote more of their recent immense windfalls to the common defense, and if all of those changes still leave China closing fast on the combined forces of the United States and its neighbors, it would become legitimate to ask Main Street Americans to start shouldering greater burdens. Until then, the U.S. working and middle classes will be entirely justified in demanding that the nation’s Asia strategy pass a minimal seriousness test first.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Genuinely 21st Century Approach to Asia

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alliances, allies, Asia, China, Cold War, coupling, defense spending, East Asia-Pacific, extended deterrence, free-riding, Japan, Lifezette.com, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trade, trade surpluses, Trump, Xi JInPing

Yesterday in a piece for Lifezette.com, I argued that President Trump should ignore the advice he seems to be getting from his more establishmentarian advisers, and from conventional thinkers outside his administration, and focus on economics and not security when he meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping starting tomorrow.

Today, I’d like to spell out some of the assumptions about America’s priorities in the East Asia-Pacific (EAP) region that lead to these conclusions – and why genuinely bringing America’s grand strategy in the region into the twenty-first century is essential to reduce the nation’s vulnerability to nuclear attack and to strengthening its economy.

First, as I’ve long maintained, since the Cold War has been over for nearly three decades, the geopolitical basis for the current American approach to the EAP has simply disappeared. Until 1990, Washington provided a nuclear umbrella for the region and set up alliances for two main reasons. First, the United States was determined to keep Asia’s vast economic power and potential out of communist hands. Second, America resolved to prevent Japan from needing to conduct an independent foreign policy – which U.S. leaders believed would lead to its rearmament and likely reversion to 1930s- and ’40s-style militarism.

Since 1990, America’s goals have remained essentially the same, but one of the rationales shifted. Preventing Japanese rearmament was still (secretly) treated as an imperative. But with the Soviet threat gone and China increasingly integrated into the world economy, the United States began justifying its continued military presence as essential for buttressing the stability needed to keep the region’s economically dynamic countries functioning as major cogs of an increasingly close-knit global trade and investment system. Also reinforcing regional stability would be the continuing protection of South Korea from its bellicose northern neighbor.

The most dangerous problem with this approach is that, although it arguably made sense from the U.S. standpoint when America’s main actual and potential rivals in the region either had no nuclear weapons (North Korea), or vastly inferior and relatively primitive nuclear forces (China), it has become ever more suicidal more recently. For whereas once Washington could credibly brandish a nuclear threat to keep powerful enemy conventional forces at bay while incurring almost no risk of nuclear retaliation against the American homeland, the Chinese and even North Korean have now made major progress towards fielding nuclear weapons both capable of reaching American shores and of surviving U.S. nuclear attacks. As a result, they can now place American cities in mortal danger.

To modify a common Cold War-era saying, Washington has promised to sacrifice Los Angeles in order to save Seoul and/or Tokyo. Has anyone explained to the American people why this potential tradeoff is remotely acceptable – or even sane? Quite the contrary. A literally suicidal strategy keeps getting dressed up in terms that sound either comfortingly technical and abstract (like “extended deterrence”) or even warm and fuzzy (like “coupling”).

Indeed, the latter phrase, upon examination, reveals what has now become by far the least forgivable aspect of American strategy given current nuclear circumstances: The “coupling” of America’s security to its allies’ security was designed to force the United States to risk nuclear attack to protect Japan and South Korea. This aim was accomplished mainly by stationing major American forces right along the North-South Korea border – the Demilitarized Zone – to ensure that they would die during a North Korean invasion and thereby give an American president no real choice but to respond with nukes. The presence of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in Japanese bases and on patrol through regional waters serves the same purpose. That is, the United States surrendered one of the paramount goals of genuine national security since the Atomic Age began – the power to choose whether to involve itself in a nuclear war, or to avoid one. And Washington stubbornly clings to this strategy even though the nuclear landscape has been decisively transformed.

Two related developments make Washington’s acceptance of this risk even less acceptable. First, America’s Asian allies have become more than capable of defending themselves from their enemies. Yet even South Korea, with a possibly deranged dictatorship for a neighbor, has understandably decided to rely on American blood and treasure for its security, and skimped on its military spending. And although Japan has increased its own defense budget and capabilities significantly in recent years, its far greater economic power still justifies the label “free rider.”

Second, precisely because current nuclear circumstances make the American defense guarantee so literally non-credible despite the coupling strategy, the likelihood of Japan and South Korea acquiring nuclear weapons for their own defense rises with each new North Korean missile test and each new Chinese thrust into the South or East China Seas. In other words, if that train hasn’t already left the station, its engines are firing up.

There is, however, an immense silver lining that the supremely unconventional President Trump – unlike many of his advisers – should be quick to recognize: Because the Cold War threats are gone, and because the whole of the EAP relies so heavily on net exports – especially to the United States – for its growth, America no longer needs to worry about a foreign power controlling the region politically.

This development is of course most relevant to America’s China strategy. It means that even if Beijing established unquestioned hegemony in its backyard, China and all of its supposed new vassals would still desperately need to access the U.S. market. The flip side of this proposition is just as crucial: America’s paramount interests in the EAP are economic – ensuring adequate access to Asian markets, and safeguarding American domestic businesses and their employees from predatory Asian trade practices. Further, the best way to achieve these goals is by wielding economic, not military, power.

A U.S. China and Asia policy reflecting these trends – and other generally ignored regional realities that increasingly have been staring obtuse establishment analysts in the face – would make for a dramatically different agenda for this week’s China summit than has apparently been laid out. For example, President Trump has indicated that he will press China’s Xi harder to use his leverage on North Korea to curb or even end the latter’s nuclear weapons program, threaten to attack the North militarily if China doesn’t step up, but ease up on trade pressure if Beijing goes with the American Korea program.

Far better would be for Mr. Trump to recognize that this position raises the prospect of accepting continued Chinese trade predation as long as China even holds out the prospect of providing a North Korea assist; that even if North Korea’s nuclear weapons can’t hit American territory yet, a war with its regime could terribly bloody America’s conventional forces in the Pacific along with allied civilian populations; and that whatever nuclear threat to the United States faces from the North stems not from any intrinsic desire to attack America, but from continued U.S. military involvement in a decades-long Korean civil war that has only been suspended since 1953.

Modernized American priorities would enable the president eventually to tell his Chinese counterpart that the United States is greatly lowering its military profile in Korea, and that however China decides to deal with its dangerously predictable neighbor will be fine with Washington. But since both the Chinese and especially American allies would need time to prepare for this transition, and since a premature announcement would only embolden North Korea, Mr. Trump should simply downplay the subject at the summit, convey these messages privately as soon as Xi leaves, and let the transition begin before going public. A similar approach should be taken toward territorial disputes in the East and South China seas.

Having freed himself to focus on trade and other economic issues, the President should tack away from the conventional wisdom in this sphere, too. Specifically, he should acknowledge that the main lesson of long years of U.S. China trade diplomacy is that there’s no longer any point in negotiating trade agreement with Beijing. The Chinese record of breaking their promises is too long, and even an administration determined to monitor and enforce trade deals would face a formidable challenge in keeping track of conditions in China’s gargantuan industrial complex.

Instead, Mr. Trump should keep the discussion general and thank Mr. Xi for coming such a long way. Then once all the photo-op moments are finished, and he’s departed, the administration should develop a list of Chinese goods that represent especially egregious examples of trade predation (either in the Chinese market or the U.S. market, and impose unilateral tariffs on them. The president should specify that the list will keep growing until he receives reliable information that the Chinese have not only dropped trade barriers, but have compiled a serious track record of keeping them low – which will of course take several years to demonstrate. He should make clear that his own administration will be judge, jury, and court of appeals for any Chinese claims of compliance. And he should then let Mr. Xi know that he’s looking forward to their next meeting – and would of course be happy to come to Beijing.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Trade Deficit Took a (Largely Asian) Holiday in February

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Asia, Census Bureau, China, exports, Germany, high tech goods, imports, Japan, Made in Washington trade deficit, manufacturing, New Year, non-oil goods trade deficit, recovery, South Korea, Trade, trade deficit, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

America’s goods and services trade deficit dropped by a marked 9.58 percent on-month in February from the near-five-year high it reached in January. Largely responsible were narrower trade gaps with China (down 26.64 percent) and other Asian countries celebrating their new year. In turn, these results contributed to smaller shortfalls in the manufacturing (down 19.88 percent) and high tech goods (down 46.39 percent) so prominent in their commerce with the United States. Combined goods and services exports in February inched up sequentially to reach their highest level ($192.87 billion) since December, 2014 ($197.46 billion).

Goods exports rose slightly (to $128.46 billion) – their best total since April, 2015 ($128.97 billion). High tech goods imports, meanwhile dropped to their lowest level ($25.39 billion) since February, 2015 ($28.80 billion). In addition, the total trade deficit, the goods deficit, total imports, and goods imports declined by their biggest sequential amounts since last March. Although Germany’s trade and currency practices have been targeted by the Trump administration, February’s goods trade shortfall with Germany ($4.44 billion) was the smallest since January, 2013 ($3.93 billion).

The real non-oil goods deficit – which is heavily influenced by policy and thus should be considered Made in Washington – decreased by 7.30 percent, which suggests that trade’s recovery era drag on U.S. growth will diminish.

Here are selected highlights of the latest monthly (February) trade balance figures released this morning by the Census Bureau:

>The February U.S. trade deficit seemed to take (an Asian) holiday. Its 9.58 percent drop from January’s (downwardly adjusted) near-five-year high of $48.17 billion to $43.56 billion largely reflected subdued business in Asian export-heavy economies that celebrated their new year.

>The longstanding and enormous U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China, for example, plunged by 26.64 percent sequentially in February – from $31.30 billion to $22.97 billion. U.S. goods exports to the still strongly growing Chinese economy decreased by 2.72 percent, but American goods imports were down by 20.82 percent.

>Similarly, the merchandise shortfall with Japan fell by 14.64 percent on month in February, from $5.47 billion to $4.67 billion. U.S. goods exports actually grew (by 3.38 percent) but merchandise imports shrank by a great 6.02 percent.

>In addition, in February the goods trade gap with free trade agreement partner Korea nosedived by almost half – from $2.59 billion to $1.30 billion. U.S. merchandise exports to Korea climbed by 6.06 percent, but the much greater amount of imports was off by 18.21 percent.

>The smaller Asia deficits also showed up in February’s manufacturing and high tech goods trade flows.

>America’s chronic and huge manufacturing trade deficit slid by 19.88 percent, from $75.54 billion to $60.52 billion. Manufactures exports inched up by 0.87 percent, but imports were down 9.07 percent.

>In high tech goods, the U.S. shortfall cratered by 46.39 percent, from $8.46 billion to $4.54 billion. Exports of these products decreased by 2.57 percent, to reach their lowest level since last February ($25.57 billion), but imports dropped by 13.31 percent, to $29.93 billion – their lowest level since February, 2015 ($28.80 billion).

>February saw America’s total exports grow by only 0.19 percent, but that was enough to achieve their highest total ($192.87 billion) since February, 2014 ($197.46 billion).

>Goods exports in February advanced modestly, too (by 0.27 percent on month), but that gain resulted in their best monthly performance since April, 2015 ($128.97 billion).

>Meanwhile, in February the total trade deficit, the goods deficit, total imports, and goods imports fell by their biggest monthly drops since last March – though the latest declines themselves were considerably smaller.

>The 9.58 percent February decrease in the combined goods and services shortfall compares with last March’s 18.27 percent.

>The 6.56 percent February shrinkage of the goods deficit compares with last March’s 12.14 percent decline.

>The 1.77 percent February decline in total imports compares with last March’s 4.65 percent.

>And the 2.13 February percent fall-off in goods imports compares with last March’s 5.59 percent.

>President Trump’s administration has charged Germany with racking up excessive trade surpluses due to currency manipulation and other protectionist practices, but in February, Germany’s merchandise trade surplus with the United States dropped for the fourth straight month. In fact, the $4.44 billion total was the lowest since January, 2013’s $3.93 billion.

>Also down in February was the inflation-adjusted U.S. non-oil goods deficit. These trade flows – which are heavily influenced by American trade agreements and similar policies – are decidedly Made in Washington, and throughout the current economic recovery, they have dragged on feeble U.S. growth. As of year-end, 2016, their increase had slowed cumulative recovery growth by 17.64 percent, or $433.43 billion.

>Calculating the growth drag for the first quarter of 2017 will require a release of first quarter GDP figures – which are scheduled for later this month. But if the Made in Washington deficit continues to shrink, trade could well wind up making a rare net contribution to the expansion.

Making News: New Lifezette Column Calls America-First Approach Key to Trump China Summit Success

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Asia, China, foreign policy establishment, Lifezette.com, Making New, national security, North Korea, Trump, Xi JInPing

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my latest op-ed article:  a column on Lifezette.com that previews this week’s summit between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.  The piece, which you can read at this link, argues that Mr. Trump and the United States will achieve the best results if the president rejects promptings from the foreign policy establishment (including some of his own top aides!) to stay the course on America’s security-focused Asia strategy. Instead, it urges the president to return to the America-First economics and trade emphasis that marked his campaign.

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

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America Still Playing Uncle Sucker on Asian Security

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alliances, allies, Asia, China, deterrence, Japan, Kim Jong Un, national security, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, South Korea, Trump

If you want the clearest possible explanation of why America’s longstanding national security strategy in Asia is increasingly, jaw-droppingly, and – worst of all – needlessly dangerous, check out what China’s foreign minister just said about the growing North Korea nuclear missile threat Washington has been coping with, and then look at a map.

According to top China diplomat (at least by title) Wang Yi, the United States and North Korea “are like two accelerating trains” speeding toward “a head-on collision.” Pyongyang is developing ever more potent nuclear weapons that are ever more capable of hitting American territory. So that – along with the scarily erratic nature of the North Korean regime – explains the “dangerous” part. The map explains the “needless” part.

So take out (or look up) your atlases. You’ll see that the United States and North Korea – the countries on that collision course – are slightly less than 6,900 miles apart. Now look at some of the countries that Wang evidently believes aren’t on a collision course with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un. China itself is right next door. So is South Korea. And Russia. Japan is less than 800 miles away. Why are they, unlike geographically remote America, seemingly lumped into the bystander category?

The (intimately related) reasons: First, the United States has significant military forces stationed nearly along the Demilitarized Zone dividing North from South Korea, along with other major deployments in Japan. And don’t forget their family members! In other words, the Americans in Korea will be sitting right in the way if much stronger North Korean forces invade the south. And the Americans in Japan are exposed to Pyongyang’s missiles, as North Korea’s latest test launches have again made all too clear.

Shocked? You shouldn’t be. That’s the idea. If North Korean aggression kills large numbers of Americans, and showing signs of succeeding, a U.S. president will face strong pressure to respond by using nuclear weapons against Kim’s military and country.

As I’ve written repeatedly, until the last few years, this strategy was defensible. Not only were North Korea’s nuclear forces greatly inferior to America’s, but they lacked the means to hit the United States. So the threat of U.S. nuclear weapons use was, reasonably, judged to be a prudent policy that would deter any North Korean aggression in the first place, and thereby ensure the security of both South Korea and Japan without risk to the American homeland.

But as I’ve also written repeatedly, North Korea’s nuclear program is steadily moving toward being able to strike the United States. So the risks to Americans posed by this strategy are way up – and sure to rise even higher. Worse, the North Korean forces are thought to be increasingly survivable. That is, they’re either mobile and/or well hidden enough to prevent Washington from having much confidence of destroying them all either in a preemptive first strike, or an attack on North Korea launched in response to any invasion. As a result, even if America’s own nukes destroyed North Korea, whichever of the latter’s leaders escaped this fate could order a revenge attack.

And the second reason why the United States alone is (rightly) described as one of the two oncoming trains is that for decades, Washington has actively discouraged Japan and even South Korea from fielding the forces needed to deal with North Korea on their own for fear that one or both countries would build their own nuclear forces in response, and thereby “destabilize” the supposedly crucial East Asia-Pacific region still further. The United States also remains determined to prevent Japan from becoming a serious and independent conventional military power, too, which allegedly would increase the odds of it returning to its aggressive, militaristic past. So U.S. leaders have decided to bear the lion’s share of the burden and danger of keeping North Korea (and China) at bay.

Since this policy now means that protecting Asian allies could mean the annihilation of American cities, it’s clearly time for Washington to admit the danger, get out of the way, and let the region’s countries handle the North Korea problem. This goes double since Japan, South Korea, China, and Russia are amply capable economically and technologically of building the militaries that can get the job done.

Two closely linked objections that have been raised since this American strategy was born in the aftermath of World War II will surely be raised again. The first is that such a U.S. withdrawal could produce not only reasonable defense buildups by Asian powers, but – because so many have historically fought and mistrusted one another – heated conventional and nuclear arms races. The second is that such competitions would backfire big-time on the United States, largely because Asia is so economically critical to America.

What the stand-patters don’t seem to get, however, is that precisely because American policy looks so positively suicidal – and non-credible – to the allies in particular, a growing chorus in Japan and South Korea is urging nuclear-ization anyway. I’ve reported previously on such developments, and just yesterday came new calls for such capabilities. As the North Korea nuclear forces get better and better, expect further widening of this divide between America’s policy rationale on the one hand, and entirely understandable Asian mistrust on the other.

As for the economics, even if trade and investment with highly protectionist Asia were a winning proposition for the United States (and it’s not by a long shot), it’s going to get increasingly dicey for American leaders to keep insisting that it’s important to risk nuclear attack on the homeland to make sure that U.S. businesses can make some more money in the region.

In that vein, however, it remains troubling that even the most detailed reporting lately on the mounting North Korean threat keeps omitting the fact that the United States faces greater and greater dangers from Pyongyang not because it’s protecting itself. After all, existing U.S. policy of responding with nuclear arms to a direct nuclear attack from North Korea (or any country) on its own territory is as credible a deterrent as is possible (even against arguably lunatic enemies). Instead, the United States faces this nuclear dangers because it’s protecting allies that it’s been encouraging to free-ride on its defense guarantees.

Equally troubling – even though Donald Trump pointed out most of these Asia alliance-related problems during the campaign, he now seems determined to preserve the policy status quo. If I didn’t know better, I’d conclude there’s a conspiracy of silence.