Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How the Last Seven Days Could Really Shake the World

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alliances, Baltics, Crimea, deterrence, Donbass, energy, European Union, free-riding, Georgia, Germany, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear deterrence, Olaf Scholz, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Poland, Russia, spheres of influence, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, Vladimir Putin

The situation in Ukraine as of this morning remains as fluid and full of uncertainties as it was when yesterday when caution persuaded me to pause and turn my attention to a sobering CCP Virus milestone.

But one feature of the conflict is becoming clear, and if it holds much longer, opens up the distinct possibility that the major assumptions that have animated U.S. policy toward European security merit major rethinking.

That feature: Ukraine is proving to be a much tougher military challenge for Russia than anyone, including me, expected. It’s still not entirely certain why. But even the explanations most favorable to Moscow and Russian military prowess – that Vladimir Putin decided to go gradual for fear of destroying the infrastructure of a country his regime will eventually need to run, or of needlessly enflaming the occupied population to the point of triggering an insurgency with staying power, or some combination of the two – lead (logically, anyway) to these potentially game-changing conclusions: that Russia is too weak to bend countries of any decent size to its will, and that there’s no reason to believe it will acquire the necessary power in the policy relevant future.

In other words, it’s one thing to take control over two tiny enclaves of a very small neighbor like Georgia (2008), or to seize a part of Ukraine with a sizable ethnic Russian population (Crimea in 2014), or to use local proxies to challenge on the cheap Ukrainian sovereignty over an eastern region also full of Russian speakers, or even to march into and annex two provinces of this Donbass region.

But using force to turn the rest of Texas-sized Ukraine with its population of more than 40 million people into a Russian satellite? That’s obviously been a much taller order.

And even if superior Russian troop numbers and weaponry ultimately do achieve their apparent near-term goal of replacing Volodymyr Zelensky’s government with pro-Moscow puppets, and thereby the longer-term goal of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, these results will seriously challenge the views of folks like me (most recently, here), who had credited Russia with enough power to bring into a sphere of influence Ukraine – along with smaller neighbors, like the rest of Georgia plus Moldova (neither of which belongs to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO), and even the three Baltic states that are NATO members.

After all, as mentioned above, keeping control over Ukraine alone may well seriously drain lots of Russian military power, and further strain an economy that’s not exactly a powerhouse to begin with. And if even the old Soviet leaders eventually found keeping Afghanistan not worth the candle, in part because public anger over casualties kept mounting, will Putin really be able to demonstrate greater staying power in Ukraine? Much less simultaneously keep the clamps on other small neighbors? Much less achieve the same objectives vis-a-vis larger Eastern European countries like Poland? Much less even credibly threaten anyone in Western Europe?

But if the more optimistic Ukraine scenario plays out, that would mean that the mainstream, globalist foreign policy leaders and thinkers who view keeping that country free of Russian control, and even bringing it into NATO, as essential for America’s security have been wrong as well – precisely because severe limits on Russian power are becoming increasingly obvious. Unless a Russia that can’t pose a military threat to Western Europe can pose one to the United States?

Russian failure or overly costly success in Ukraine even undercuts arguments that the militarily dominant, or any major, American role in NATO remains crucial. On the one hand, it’s true that, Russia has attacked non-NATO member Ukraine but not NATO allies like Poland and the Baltics. So Putin surely sees a big difference between countries to whose defense the alliance is committed (including with recent deployments of U.S. and other members’ military forces), and those outside the NATO umbrella.

But does that mean that the United States must still remain the kingpin, and contribute an outsized (and very expensive) share of the alliance’s military might? And continue to extend a nuclear shield over Europe – which of course creates a risk of nuclear war with Russia? Maybe not, especially upon considering the West European NATO members’ response to the Ukraine invasion.

Specifically, it’s been much stronger than I and most others expected, too. And the German response has been most revealing of all. After decades of being the alliance’s worst military free-rider, and skimping on its defense budget to the point that a top general just called his forces “more or less bare,” new Chancellor Olaf Scholz has now vowed a big increase in military spending and promised not only that Germany will hit the goal of members’ defense budgets representing two percent of their economies, but exceed it. Moreover, the entire European Union (EU), whose membership overlaps considerably with NATO’s, is now finally recognizing how dangerously moronic they’ve been in boosting their dependence on Russian fossil fuel supplies.

What this seems to demonstrate is that once the Europeans (many of whom have free-ridden militarily themselves) perceive a sharp enough threat to their own safety and independence and well-being, they change profoundly. They begin to act less like cunning and not-so-reliable protectorates determined to gain any benefits they can from Russia in full confidence that America will shield them from any dangers, and more like countries that recognize that their best bets for security and prosperity are their own considerable resources.

By the way, these resources include not only the wealth to field much larger conventional militaries, but French and British nuclear forces. So NATO’s European members should be able not only to deter Russia conventionally, but at the strategic nuclear level as well. And if they deem those nuclear forces inadequate to the task, they can build more

Just as important, this European awakening seems at least partly due to a dawning recognition that for a wide variety of reasons (e.g., America’s preoccupation with its internal problems, its supposedly unreliable recent political leadership, its higher prioritization of Asia, its resentment at being played), historic U.S. enabling can no longer be taken for granted.

All of which means that the American response should be not devoting more of its military strength to deterring or countering Russia in Europe, moving still more conventional forces to Eastern Europe, or unleashing a new round of rhetoric declaring its own vital, ironclad, and undying stakes in the continent’s security, but encouraging these trends – and especially appreciating the opportunity to let itself off the nuclear hook.

This doesn’t mean that the United States should make no contributions to Europe’s defense. But whatever assistance is proposed to the American political system should be clearly described to the public (and to the Europeans) as a policy of choice, not of necessity, and should be flexible enough to enable the nation to opt out of a conflict on the continent if it so decides, not trapped into one, as is potentially the case now. Indeed, as I’ve written, that danger could all too easily still result from the Ukraine war, because non-negligible U.S. forces are now deployed close to the actual fighting.

In 1919, American journalist John Reed came out with a book describing first-hand the Bolshevik Revolution of two years before called Ten Days that Shook the World.  I’m sure not yet certain that this first week of the Ukraine war will turn into seven days that shook the strategic and geopolitical worlds.  (And I certainly hope that the above scenarios turn out to be more accurate than Reed’s sunny expectations of Soviet communism.)  But American leaders focused on their own country’s genuinely vital interests shouldn’t overlook the possibility.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Dangerously Loose Lips on Nuclear Weapons Policy

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alliances, allies, Baltics, Biden, Biden administration, China, deterrence, globalism, no first use, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, semiconductors, South Korea, Soviet Union, Taiwan, Trump, Ukraine

As usual, headline news is coming so fast and furiously from so many different direections that lots of major developments get neglected (including by me). One of the most important pretty stunningly shows once again that those American leaders who most loudly proclaim themselves to be champions of the globalist approach to foreign policy, and of the U.S. security alliances they view as one of its greatest achievements (both for the United States and the globe at large) have once more been flirting seriously with ideas certain to destroy those alliances.

Specifically, I’m referring to recent reports (e.g., here) that the President Biden is considering endorsing a “no first use” (NFU) policy for America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The shift hasn’t yet been approved. A rethink hasn’t even been officially announced. And some of the anonymous sources who leaked this news to reporters (no doubt from inside the Biden administration, and no doubt as a trial balloon) claim that what’s being contemplated is changing to something similar to NFU but not identical to it.

But of course, trial balloons are floated precisely to evoke reactions to something that someone awfully high up in government (or whatever organization is doing the floating) thinks is a swell idea, and who’s confident that his or her boss thinks or would think so, too. Moreover, the difference between NFU and the variant being considered seems pretty academic at best.

Most important about this possible new Biden approach to national security is that it reveals this administration to be every bit as cynical and therefore unserious about the globalism and alliances it pretends to prioritize – and about its indignant and sanctimonious portrayals of the more skeptical views of critics like former President Trump as proof of their dangerous ignorance – as the Obama administration.

For as I explained five years ago when Obama entertained NFU right after slamming Trump literally as a foreign policy and specifically nuclear weapons know-nothing, even mulling such a new nuclear doctrine could undermine the very alliances that globalists like him exalted.

And the reason is simple: First use of nuclear weapons is the policy that for decades has enabled the United States to deter attacks on the allies credibly in the first place – and that has held these arrangements together. For long ago, Washington dismissed as impractical trying to match adversaries like the old Soviet Union, China, and North Korea in conventional forces. The first two could draw on populations that would always exceed America’s, and even when it came to relatively small antagonists like the latter, fielding such forces was considered too expensive to be sustained financially and politically.

Nuclear weapons, however, were relatively cheap, and American leaders judged that declaring their intent to respond to purely conventional attacks on allies by these countries by launching the nukes if non-nuclear forces proved inadequate would put the fear of God even in a nuclear superpower like the Soviet Union. And first use would even more effectively deter countries with tiny or non-existen nuclear forces of their own, like China and North Korea for decades.

Even when Beijing and Pyongyang built nuclear forces big and capable enough to call this U.S. bluff successfully at least in theory (because they could now wreak impressive nuclear destruction on the American homeland, too), American leaders put their trust in NFU. And if indeed protecting allies was the overriding priority of U.S. foreign policy, this judgement was at least defensible.

A NFU policy, though, or even trial balloons, could bring disastrous consequences. Either would risk emboldening the enemies of the United States and its allies by signaling that Washington would at the least hesitate to play its most formidable military card. Just as important, it’s hard to imagine a worst recent time than the present for indulging in such speculation. After all, not only does the United States no longer enjoy overwhelming nuclear edges over China and North Korea. But China and Russia have displayed ever greater interest in establishing or reestablishing effective control over small neighbors like Ukraine and the Baltic states and of course Taiwan.

In addition, a NFU policy or talk thereof could frighten allies into bailing on the United States and cutting the best deals they could with Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing while they still had the chance. Alternatively, because sizable American forces remain right at or near the front lines at all three of these flashpoints, the absence of a first use policy could result in them getting caught up in unwinnable battles even if a U.S. President wanted to stay on the sidelines.

Finally, when we’re talking about Taiwan, of course, we’re talking about the place that now makes the world’s most advanced semiconductors – products that are central to both future American prosperity and national security. So as is not the case with Russia’s neighbors or even South Korea (an impressive semiconductor manufacturer in its own right), adopting NFU could result in the loss of a genuinely vital U.S. interest.

I’ve long favored fundamental changes in U.S. alliance and overall foreign policy and national security strategy. But that’s not the point here. If you like alliances, it’s really pretty simple: At a minimum, you either keep first use, or you greatly beef up U.S. conventional forces, or you convince the allies to fill whatever non-nuclear military force gaps you face, or you do all three or some combination of them. If you adopt NFU and fail to take offsetting steps on the conventional force front, be ready to kiss these arrangements goodbye.

From all accounts (see, e.g., here) the allies themselves recognize this. So does China. What’s scary is that even if the supposed adults-in-the-room and master strategists in the Biden administration eventually realize the stakes involved (as their Obama predecessors eventually did), they may have greatly undermined the nation’s safety – along with boosting the risks of conflict the world over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Trump’s Real NATO Mistake

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allies, Article Five, Baltics, Barack Obama, Charles de Gaulle, Cold War, Europe, France, Germany, NATO, NATO expansion, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear deterrence, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Poland, Russia, Soviet Union, tripwire, Trump, United Kingdom

President Trump’s tireless critics are at it again, accusing him of calling into question America’s “sacred” and allegedly legally binding obligation to come to the military defense of any of its European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if they come under armed attack.

As charged by the author linked above (from the reflexively establishmentarian Brookings Institution), the president’s refusal to endorse this obligation explicitly in his speech today at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, will “raise grave doubts about the credibility of the American security guarantee and provide Russia with an incentive to probe vulnerable Baltic states.” Sounds awful – and unprecedented – right? Actually, not even close.  But as you’ll see, Mr. Trump could be on his way to creating another big – and completely unnecessary – problem.

In the first place, in concrete terms, Article Five legally obligates the United States to do absolutely nothing specifically if one of its NATO allies comes under assault. The clause simply requires treaty signatories to “assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

And this flexibility-preserving wording is no accident, or product of jargon-addicted diplomats or international lawyers. It resulted from the U.S. Congress’ insistence that the American government and the people to which it owes its first loyalties to retain the legally recognized right to decide when to go to war. And keep in mind: Congress was determined to reserve the right to stay out of a conflict in Europe as the Cold War was reaching its height.

Just as important: The European allies recognized this right – and its implications – as well, especially after the Soviet Union’s development of major nuclear forces greatly increased the risk to the American homeland of nuclear attack if it plunged into war on the allies’ behalf. We know this for sure because the continuing ambiguity ultimately persuaded both the British and French to create their own nuclear forces. As former French President Charles de Gaulle warned, the United States could not reasonably be expected to endanger the existence of New York or Detroit to save Hamburg or Lyons.

Tragically, American leaders were so strongly opposed to its allies taking back control over their own fates that they strove almost fanatically to convince the Europeans that the United States could indeed be trusted. And Washington put its money where its mouth was, stationing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and air force personnel and their families on or around the European continent. The idea was to create a “trip wire” aimed at denying any U.S. President a real choice of rushing to Europe’s defense with whatever threats or means were necessary. For standing by in the face of aggression would mean a slaughter or American troops and possibly innocents by vastly superior Soviet military forces.

Even during this era of high East-West tensions, however, American leaders never completely lost sight of the desirability of shifting as much of the burden of nuclear risk as possible onto the Europeans – while maintaining as much control as possible over nuclear weapons use. The transatlantic feud over intermediate-range nuclear forces – which threatened to confine the nuclear damage of any East-West war to Europe, leaving the American and Soviet homelands unscathed – was only one prominent example. And even this U.S. aim was fatally muddied, or at best thoroughly confused, by the continuing enormous military presence in Germany, directly in the likeliest path of the Soviet conventional juggernaut.

After the Cold War ended, the tripwire was steadily dismantled, but American presidents continued to treat Article Five as an ironclad promise to defend NATO members militarily – as demonstrated by the 2013 Obama statement in the Atlantic article linked above. Moreover, once Russian military and paramilitary activity began to increase in Moscow’s “near abroad,” Washington began, hesitatingly, to be sure, to respond to the demands of the newest NATO members in Russia’s sights for U.S. tripwire forces of their own.

Hence the charges that President Trump’s latest statement could dangerously destabilize NATO’s eastern flank. But there’s far more to the situation. In the first place, there’s much evidence linking Russia’s new revanchism to NATO’s expansion eastward right up to Russia’s borders. Second, if Article Five were rigidly applied to new NATO members such as the Baltic states or former Soviet bloc countries like Poland, the United States would be running the risk of nuclear attack on behalf of countries that (a) are completely un-defendable with conventional military forces alone, because they’re right next door to Russia; and (b) consequently, have never been considered vital or even significant interests of the United States.

Troublingly, however, despite the latest Trump statement (or lack thereof), which arguably could inject the Eastern European countries with a needed dose of realism concerning their real options in dealing with Moscow, the president has so far continued the policy of incrementally responding to these countries’ requests for tripwires.

In other words, his big mistake isn’t casting doubt on America’s commitment to these and other European countries. For if the United States might have balked risking New York or Detroit for Hamburg or Lyons, it’s certainly not going to jeopardize an American city or two to save Warsaw or Vilnius. Instead, Mr. Trump apparently is trying to fence-straddle here, which could well create the worst of both worlds on both sides of the Atlantic.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Real Russia Policy Scandal

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allies, Baltics, corruption, Jeffrey Goldberg, Leon Hadar, Moldova, NATO, NATO expansion, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, The Atlantic, The National Interest, think tanks, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

Scandalous charges have abounded recently in connection with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s support for recasting U.S.-Russia relations into a more cooperative mold. Trump has been accused to seeking rapport with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in return for promoting his business interests in the former Soviet Union. Some of his top aides have been identified as lobbyists for Russian interests. (As with China, even those that are called “private” are subject to state control.) And suspected Russian cyber-hacks that have revealed politically damaging material about the Democratic Party have fueled speculation that Moscow is working actively to put him in the White House.

Plenty of evidence shows significant business ties between Trump and his aides, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. An especially thorough job of reporting on Trump himself can be found at this link. Of course, though it’s gone almost completely unreported, there are years’ worth of much more evidence of extensive relationships between the offshoring businesses that have lobbied very effectively for China in recent decades, and Trump’s rivals and critics. These include many of this year’s Republican presidential candidates, the so-called conservative intellectuals who work at think tanks funded heavily by these multinational companies, and Democratic Party leaders (chiefly from the Clinton wing) who have dependably backed Beijing-friendly policies. (See this Congressional testimony of mine on how the corporate funded think tanks have served as highly effective “idea launderers” for offshoring-happy business interests.)

In other words, there are few virgins in America’s political and policy establishment when it comes to serving unfriendly foreign interests, whether directly or indirectly.

All the while, however, an even more important scandal has been enveloping U.S.-Russia relations. It entails the way all these accusations are preventing an urgently needed national substantive debate – over whether the course of American policy has been boosting the odds of an East-West military clash that could be as completely unnecessary as it would be dangerous.

Specifically, the insinuation that only Putin toadies would oppose efforts to raise the military ante to prevent further Russia’s expansionism in European areas around its border has obscured a crucial reality: how Washington’s bipartisan decision to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance to Russia’s doorstep has created deadly risks to the U.S. homeland. Both Democratic and Republican presidents enthusiastically supported a policy that has saddled the nation with commitments to risk nuclear war over countries that (a) have never been considered important U.S. interests, largely because (b) they are located so close to Russia that they are completely indefensible with conventional forces.

Even worse, in recent years, the bipartisan Washington establishment has doubled down on this policy. In the face of Putin’s efforts to reestablish Russian hegemony in its so-called “near abroad,” American leaders have insisted not only that Washington reaffirm its intent to abide by its NATO commitment to view any attack on new members like the Baltic countries as a casus belli with Russia. Both Democratic and Republican establishmentarians have also called for admitting into NATO – and thereby extending American security guarantees over – countries like Ukraine and Moldova, which are even less defensible. (Indeed, during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Ukraine champions included major party nominees Barack Obama and John McCain.)

And because Western forces have no hope of defeating the Russian military in its own neighborhood, if Moscow did move in those circumstances, the United States and the rest of NATO would be placed in the position of threatening nuclear weapons use (and possibly following through, as per U.S. military doctrine) or suffering a humiliation that could dwarf that experienced in Vietnam (with all of its domestic and international repercussions).

To his credit, President Obama hasn’t accused Trump of pushing his Russia views for self-seeking reasons. But he’s played his own part in trying to ostracize Trump-like views by attributing them to the Republican nominee’s supposed ignorance about foreign policy matters generally, and about the ostensibly indisputable value of alliances like NATO.

Weirdly, however, although he has repeatedly endorsed the decades-long American commitment to risk nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland to protect any and all NATO members – however new and vulnerably located – as well as treaty allies in Asia, Mr. Obama also recently argued, in a lengthy interview with The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, that forcibly attempting to resist Russia’s moves around its littoral would be foolhardy at best:

“‘The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-nato country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do,’” he said.

“I asked Obama whether his position on Ukraine was realistic or fatalistic.

“‘It’s realistic,’ he said. ‘But this is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.’”

And the president stated even more emphatically:

“[I]f there is somebody in this town that would claim that we would consider going to war with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, they should speak up and be very clear about it. The idea that talking tough or engaging in some military action that is tangential to that particular area is somehow going to influence the decision making of Russia or China is contrary to all the evidence we have seen over the last 50 years.”

What the president doesn’t seem to understand, though, is that these sensible arguments and cautions also apply to the Baltics – which Putin has frequently targeted. Yes, they’ve been admitted into NATO. But they have never been viewed as “core interests” of the United States. And for good reason. In fact, they were actually occupied by Moscow in 1944, as the Soviet military was fighting its way to Berlin during World War II, and turned into Soviet “republics” until the USSR disintegrated. Do any Americans genuinely believe that the tragedy unmistakably suffered by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania ever affected America’s security or prosperity in the slightest?

My good friend, journalist and foreign policy analyst Leon Hadar, has just written compellingly in The National Interest that Trump’s Russia and overall foreign policy positions – however crudely and vaguely expressed – overlap with President Obama’s to a vastly underappreciated degree:

“[B]oth the liberal internationalist Obama and the conservative nationalist Trump are pragmatists and not ideologues by nature when it comes to foreign-policy issues. They both eventually gravitate towards choices based on cost-effectiveness calculations. The two have rejected the grand Wilsonian designs of promoting democracy and nation building pursued by George W. Bush under the influence of his neoconservative advisors, and believe that Washington needs to readjust its global strategy to the changing international balance of power and under the pressure of diminishing economic and military resources.”

The only problem with this theory is that precisely he is a liberal internationalist at heart, the president not only backs the basic structures of post-World War II U.S. foreign policy – the security alliances in Europe and Asia. He has both supported the aforementioned dangerous post-Cold War expansion of the former, and has ordered concrete measures to buttress them militarily.

But because, as Mr. Obama himself admits, America’s stake in the security of NATO’s newest members is anything but vital, it’s all too likely that the increased U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe could leave the nation in the worst of all possible circumstances – more deeply tied than ever to a military mission almost certain to fail,, and in all likelihood disastrously. (For somewhat different reasons, as I’ve contended most recently in this post, a similar argument can be made for America’s Asia policy under Mr. Obama.)

Trump, by contrast, is both spotlighting the risks created by U.S. alliances and similar policies and questioning the worth of these alliances and policies themselves. There’s a perfectly respectable argument to be made that Trump is wrong because the continuing nuclear commitments – and the U.S. forces deployed in harm’s way precisely in order to narrow America’s choices and ostensibly cow U.S. rivals – are protecting the allies at a risk to American territory that’s completely acceptable. But that’s not the argument being made by supporters of the foreign policy status quo – who also, perhaps not so coincidentally, never mention in public the nuclear dangers.

Instead, both the Democratic and Republican mainstays of the foreign policy establishment, and the Mainstream Media journalists who faithfully parrot their views, prefer to demonize Trump. And all of course in the name of “responsibility.”

Following Up: Inept Defenses of the NATO Defense Commitment

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2016 elections, Baltics, Cold War, Department of Defense, Donald Trump, Europe, NATO, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Peter Cook, Russia, Soviet Union, The New York Times, Ukraine

Thanks to Donald Trump, signs are appearing of a national debate breaking out over America’s membership in its major security alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Actually, it hasn’t been much a debate so far in the sense of a two-way exchange. The Republican front-runner has called the alliance “obsolete” and has accused its European members of free-riding while the United States foots most of the common defense bill. (He’s made similar points about similar defense arrangements with Japan and South Korea.) The nation’s policy, political, and media establishments – including most of Trump’s presidential rivals – have almost uniformly assailed these claims as ignorant, outrageous, and even dangerous.

Last week, I explained that the free-riding point is perfectly valid – and has been for decades. Trump is also, contrary to his critics, right to worry about the major expenses incurred by the United States to defend countries amply rich enough to defend themselves much more effectively. What’s notable this week about how the evolution of this all-too-one-sided debate is:

>the revealingly lukewarm endorsement given to NATO by the U.S. Defense Department; and

>the equally revealing, though completely incoherent, endorsement provided by the New York Times editorial board

The lukewarm endorsement came from chief Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook. Asked at his daily press briefing yesterday whether NATO had become “obsolete,” Cook responded that the alliance “is far from obsolete.” This is a rave review? To be sure, Cook added that “We think NATO is as relevant as ever right now in the current environment,” which could mean that it’s viewed being every bit as important to U.S. security as during the height of the Cold War. But he also used the formulation “NATO’s as relevant today as it’s been in sometime,” which clearly narrows the time-frame, possibly to include many years during which NATO and European security weren’t exactly keeping American leaders up night and day.

The incoherent endorsement came the day before, in a Times editorial condemning Trump’s “dangerous babble on foreign policy.” The indictment extended across-the-board but featured this passage:  

“Mr. Trump also challenged decades of American policy by calling NATO“obsolete. Since the Cold War, the alliance has undergone reforms and remains the primary organization that can deal with military threats. It is central to the stability of Europe, which is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, weak economies and the flood of refugees from the Syrian war. With Russia’s aggressive movements in Ukraine and threats to the Baltics, this is no time to suggest that Washington is rethinking its strongest commitments to its allies. Although Mr. Trump said he doesn’t want to pull America out of NATO, he said it has to be changed so the United States bears less of the cost.”

The closing thought is in many ways the most disingenuous. The Times acknowledged that Trump is calling for an end to U.S. Involvement in NATO, but wants the Europeans to spend more to defend themselves. Leave aside the question of whether this is a reasonable position as such or not. Times writers should have told their readers that this is basically current American policy – as Pentagon spokesman Cook made clear in his briefing. Why does Trump’s agreement represent a kiss of death?

But the substance of the Times argument is also difficult to follow – at best. On the one hand, “the alliance” is called “central to the stability of Europe. Although the Times didn’t make this claim, presumably it considers Europe’s stability central to the security of the United States. But the editorialists then go on to describe the Continent as economically weak, flooded with refugees, and vulnerable to terrorism. Why do they believe that NATO can help on those fronts? And if this is their view, why hasn’t it? Just as important, how does an American commitment to protect militarily a region floundering on so many non-military fronts contribute to U.S. security?

The paper is on stronger grounds when noting Russian threats to Baltic countries that are now members of NATO. Failure to defend treaty allies would surely undermine America’s global credibility, and surely damage its security to some extent. But why is Ukraine the slightest bit relevant to this discussion? It stands outside NATO. Its security has never been viewed as crucial to America’s by U.S. leaders – even during the Cold War. Has it suddenly become crucial now? If so, why?

Nor is the Baltics point beyond criticism. These countries were brought into NATO after the Cold War ended. Like Ukraine, they were actually part of the Soviet Union before it fell apart – with no apparent adverse impact on the United States. Yes, their official relationships with Washington have now changed. But did their admission to NATO reflect any significant change in their value to the United States? Or was it a completely unnecessary gesture that has now committed America to defend countries that remain as un-defendable (at least with non-nuclear forces), due to their location right on Russia’s borders, as they were when Stalin annexed them in the early years of World War II. I lean markedly toward the latter view – meaning that one of the Times’ main justifications nowadays is actually a problem of Washington’s own making.

Someone – I think it was the late novelist and essayist Norman Mailer – once wrote something to the effect that “There is nothing so dangerous as to introduce a new idea in America.” (Crowd sourcing hint!) Nowhere is that more true that in the world of American foreign policy, dominated as it’s been in recent decades by hide-bound careerists who are little more than lavishly credentialed yes men. Donald Trump and his supporters are learning that hard truth now. Here’s hoping they’ll batter the NATO and alliance relations conventional wisdom as powerfully as they have other establishment sacred cows.