Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Who Really Lost Ukraine

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Austria, Baltic states, Barack Obama, Biden, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Eastern Europe, Finland, Finlandization, foreign policy establishment, geography, George Kennan, George W. Bush, NATO, neutralization, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Thomas Friedman, Ukraine

When it comes to explaining a big and possibly the biggest reason that Ukraine is under apparently full-scale attack by Russia, why it faces a foreseeable future of major casualties and widespread destruction (especially if it mounts a full-scale resistance), and why a longer-term future of heavy-handed dominance by Russia is surely in store, the late George Kennan put it best.

That’s no surprise, since Kennan was one of the most learned, most rigorous, and most practical minds ever to analyze the foreign policies not only of the United States but of Russia and the old Soviet Union. And as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reminded his readers Monday, Kennan was one of the few voices warning why the 1990s U.S. decisions to push the bounds of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) right up to the Russian border were practically bound to bring tragic consequences. The full Kennan remarks (given in a telephone interview) are well worth reading, but to me, by far the most crucial point was this:

“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was.”

He’s entirely correct about the cavalier nature of the Capitol Hill decision-making needed to formalize this treaty modification – the bloviating and posturing and sloganeering about defending freedom and deterring aggression and new world orders that were completely disconnected from the iron realities of brute power and immutable geography.

But this particular list of culprits was far too short, because it should have included the entirely of the Clinton administration (and the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, which successfully pushed for new rounds of NATO expansion), along with virtually all of the academics, think tankers, pundit, and mainstream media foreign policy and national security reporters making up the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Moreover, at least as important today, the quality of decision-making and analysis inside or outside the federal government remains just as unhinged from both the facts on the ground in Europe – not to mention the skepticism about the establishment’s judgement and competence that’s clearly shaping public opinion at home. 

As a result, Ukraine is now paying the price of their pig-headed refusal (which President Biden has so far continued) to help devise security arrangements in Eastern Europe that actually reflected the national interests (or lack thereof) of the major parties, and the real current and likely future power balances in the region.

It’s entirely possible that neutralizing or Finlandizing the former Soviet bloc countries and regions that used to be part of the Soviet Union itself (in particular Ukraine and the Baltic states) would have only fed Moscow’s appetite for further gains, and/or returned those lands to their former state of dictatorial rule and economic stagnation.

But it’s also entirely possible that their experiences could have mirrored those of Austria (neutralized in 1955, during the height of the Cold War) and, yes, famously Finlandized Finland. Both are prosperous democracies whose well-being seems not to have been affected in the slightest by their lack of total freedom of manuever in foreign policy.

What’s most important to recall is that this option was never even seriously entertained by American leaders or their official and unofficial advisers. For they’ve been living in a fantasy world dominated by international law, unfettered national self-determination, global public opinion, “soft power,” and the like. These myths conveniently relieved them of the need to set priorities, call for spending anything close to the major costs required of their ambitions, or preparing for of the sobering risks.

Meanwhile, America’s high degree of intrinsic security (thanks to geography) and prosperity (thanks to a combination of abundant resources and a dynamic economic system) just as conveniently goes far toward relieving both the establishment and country at large of experiencing the full consequences of commitments glibly and (using Kennan’s language) lightheartedly made. 

Except that American leaders haven’t left the nation entirely off the hook. That’s because although the Biden administration in recent weeks hasn’t deployed remotely the kinds of forces able to defend possible future Russian targets like the Baltics etc. from Russian attack, it has deployed more than enough to boost the risk of direct encounters with Russian forces by accident. (The Trump administation took some similar steps, too.) Given the size of both countries’ nuclear arsenals, and the clearcut treaty commitments Washington has made to new NATO members like the Baltics, the results could be nothing less than the stuff of armageddon novels – or a backdown for the West that could truly reverberate globally and kneecap its credibility.

Although Ukraine seems destined to become a Russian satellite, saving the Baltics and other now independent former Soviet republics from such a fate may still be possible. Before this Russian invasion, because many are now NATO members, it seemed like a bridge too far for American politics for Washington to offer to neutralize or Finlandize them.

In the wake of a completed Russian victory in Ukraine (and yes, the occupation may prove Afghanistan-like for Moscow, but that’s far from a certainty), this idea may move up to the status of the best of several lousy options. Certainly it’s the one that better aligns American goals with American capabilities than what Kennan aptly described as Washington’s now increasingly hollow-looking support for their full sovereignty – not to mention an approach less likely to trigger an even wider, far more dangerous war, either by design or accident.

Im-Politic: Fake News About a Fake Wall Street China Hawk

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2022 election, Bloomberg.com, Bridgewater Associates, China, David McCormick, finance, George W. Bush, human rights, Im-Politic, investment, Katherine Burton, Pennsylvania, Ray Dalio, Republicans, Sridhar Natarajan, U.S. Senate, Wall Street

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an article contain more sheer garbage per word than today’s Bloomberg.com account of a supposed dispute on dealing with China between two kingpins at the same big American hedge fund.

As the article explains, this ostensible disagreement began this past Tuesday when Ray Dalio, founder and Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates told a CNBC interviewer that China’s longtime practice of “disappearing” critics of its thug regime amounted to behaving “like a strict parent….That’s their approach.”

Dalio’s comments unleashed a torrent of outrage that was often as cynical as it’s become predictable these days. For with the exception of making isolated protests about especially egregious Chinese human rights violations (e.g., against the Muslim Uyghur minority), or backing piecemeal controls over cooperation with entities directly tied to the Chinese military, many of those who claim to be appalled by Dalio’s excuse-making for Beijing’s brutality wouldn’t dream of urging Bridgewater – or any American finance firm or other kind of business – to even slow its plans to expand its operations in China. 

In other words, they wouldn’t dream of systematically clamping down on practices that for decades have inevitably helped channel massive amounts of resources and knowhow from around the world into the People’s Republic to use as Beijing’s dictators see fit. And in the case of U.S. investment companies, which look to be just getting started in luring capital to China, these operations will just as inevitably improve the efficiency of China’s own financial system, which will just as surely help enrich it economically and strengthen it militarily.

The Dalio rebuke reported by Bloomberg was genuinely unpredictable, but no doubt even more cynical – for it came from Bridgewater’s own CEO, David McCormick. According to reporters Sridhar Natarajan and Katherine Burton, “on a company call,” McCormick “told staff he’s had lots of arguments about China over the years with Dalio and that he disagrees with the billionaire’s views….”

But of course, the “people with knowledge of the matter” who made certain that this alleged dissent would be made public passed along nothing about what McCormick’s problems with his colleagues’ views entailed. And apparently neither Natarajan nor Burton pressed for elaboration.

The authors did make clear that there was no indication that McCormick favored putting the kibosh on Bridgewater’s recent decision to launch a $1.3 billion investment fund in the People’s Republic, which they wrote would bring the Chinese assets under its management to more than $1.6 billion.

But there was no excuse for Natarajan, Burton, or their editors simply to parrot claims from McCormick’s friends and associates that the Bridgewater CEO is a China “hawk” who views the People’s Republic as “an existential threat to our country” – especially since these same persons are encouraging McCormick’s interest in running in Pennsylvania’s upcoming race to replace retiring Republic U.S. Senator Pat Toomey.

And how on earth could the Bloomberg team allow McCormick buddy Jim Schultz (bizarrely, “a former lawyer in the Trump administration”), to get away with pointing to McCormick’s service in former President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department as evidence that the Bridgewater CEO “has dealt with China in the past…knows how to talk to them, and…will be tough on China as a U.S. senator.”

Even loonier: “’The president of China complained about the decisions he was making about technology at the time,’ Schultz said.”

For anyone who knows anything about U.S.-China relations in the last few decades knows that no administration enabled China’s dangerous rise to dangerous superpower status with lenient trade and technology transfer policies more enthusiatically than W’s.

Natarajan and Burton correctly note that “A hawkish stance on China is all but essential in GOP politics if McCormick makes a run” and that since “Bridgewater has been expanding in China…McCormick would undoubtedly have to navigate China-bashing in the Rust Belt state….”

What they left out is that if the press coverage of this possible campaign is as brain-dead as theirs, McCormick’s challenge won’t be terribly difficult.

Im-Politic: Can Biden Really Solve the “Root Causes” Behind His Border Crisis?

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Biden, Border Crisis, border security, CAFTA, Central America, Central America Free Trade Agreement, Colbert I. King, Cold War, Donald Trump, El Salvador, foreign aid, George W. Bush, globalism, Guatemala, Honduras, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Jorge Castaneda, Kamala Harris, Lawence E. Harrison, migrants, Northern Triangle, race to the bottom, Trade, Washington Post

One of the time-honored practices – and myths – behind globalist U.S. foreign policies has been its faith that turmoil in various parts of the world that allegedly threatens American interests can be either eliminated or reduced to manageable levels with enough foreign aid. The idea is that such assistance will address the social and economic problems thought to be mainly to blame for the instability. So it’s no surprise that the globalist Biden administration has decided that aid programs are the keys to bringing immigration from Central America under control – though not of course right away.

As stated by Vice President Kamala Harris upon being tasked by President Biden to oversee U.S. effort to turn the counties of the region’s “Northern Triangle” into places whose populations won’t be determined to leave, the United States “must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek” northward.

That’s why I sure hope she reads Colbert I. King’s column in Tuesday’s Washington Post before she rolls up her sleeves too far. For as the author notes, the Biden administration plan to turn the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) from clearly failed states into (reasonable) success stories isn’t exactly new in its essentials.

And especially in recent years, when conditions in the region ostensibly worsened dramatically, and therefore fueled especially big migrants flows, there’s been no shortage of U.S. aid, especially considering the tiny size of the three economies.

As King details,

“Congress appropriated more than $3.6 billion to fund a Strategy for Engagement in Central America program between 2016 and 2021. The money was supposed to strengthen rule of law, improve the administration of justice, promote economic prosperity, prevent violence and combat gangs, and empower youth and women.

“>In fiscal 2021 alone, U.S. funding amounted to $505.9 million.

“>Between 2013 and 2018, The U.S. Agriculture Department allocated $407 million to Central America to provide school meals, nutritional programs for women, infants and children, and to train and provide technical assistance to improve agricultural productivity.

“>The Obama administration asked for money to help the region in fiscal 2016, and Congress appropriated $750 million, requiring the countries to improve border security, combat corruption and address human rights concerns.”

Then the author – properly – proceeds to ask “What happened to it all?” And what can the Biden administration do to make sure that the $4 billion it plans to spend in the region will work any better if Congress approves this sum?

Moreover, the case against more Central America aid as a Border Crisis game changer is actually stronger than King describes. Because Washington has not only been pouring money into the region for decades. It’s also granted these three Central American countries (and their regional neighbors) tariff cuts and other trade-related assistance aimed at enabling them to export their way to prosperity.

Indeed, as then President George W. Bush declared while lobbying for passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) – which was eventually expanded to include the Dominican Republic,

“People have got to understand that by promoting policy that will help generate wealth in Central America, we’re promoting policy that will mean someone is less–more likely to stay at home to find a job. If you’re concerned about immigration to this country, then you must understand that CAFTA and the benefits of CAFTA will help create new opportunity in Central American countries, which will mean someone will be able to find good work at home, somebody will be able to provide for their family at home, as opposed to having to make the long trip to the United States. CAFTA is good immigration policy as well as good trade policy.”

Critics can reasonably argue that these U.S. programs failed to achieve their immigration aims because they were poorly designed. On the aid front, it’s true that too much of the assistance provided by the United States during the Cold War was military or other security assistance that largely helped corrupt governments repress their own people – and fight rebels labeled as tools of the Soviet Union and Cuba.

When it comes to trade, globalist U.S. Presidents did Central America no favors, either. For CAFTA simply plunged the region into a frantic race to the bottom in wages and worker safety that had been sparked by the decision to free up trade indiscriminately with all the very low-income countries (including China, India, and Bangladesh) that also produced the apparel products that have represented Central America’s best hope for prospering via globalization.

At the same time, significant U.S. assistance for Central America continued after the Cold War’s end, and more was targeted at economic development. And the Biden administration has said nothing about U.S. trade policy reforms that actually would give the Northern Triangle – or the rest of Central America for that matter, or Mexico – major legs up on non-Western Hemisphere competitors.

All of which could support the conclusion that no amount of aid or trade breaks can make Central America successful. A globalist administration will be particularly loathe to accept this admittedly depressing proposition, but there’s abundant evidence in its favor. The work of development economist Lawrence E. Harrison, to cite one leading example, has compellingly argued that some counties – and entire regions – simply don’t have what it takes to achieve economic success because of the cultures they’ve evolved.

At the same time, as my friend – and noted political scientist and former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda – has argued, the Central American economies are so small that enough smartly spent U.S. money might be able to overcome even these deep-rooted obstacles.

I can’t say that I know the answer. But the analyses of King, Harrison, and Castaneda all point to the overarching conclusion that the kind of business-as-usual version of the address-the-root-causes of Central America’s failings being contemplated by the Biden administration can’t possibly stem the migrant flow. Moreover, until genuinely promising plans are developed, there will be no substitute for re-securing the border by reinstating the type of Trump-ian controls that minimize the strength of the U.S. magnets that influence migrant flows as surely as the problems of sending countries.

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: “Joe Science” – Finally?

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Barack Obama, Biden, Bill Clinton, Congressional Research Service, defense, dual-use technologies, George W. Bush, infrastructure, National Science Foundation, research and development, science, scientists, technology, {What's Left of) Our Economy

President Biden is a champion of science – everyone knows this, right? He promises to follow it on major issues like the CCP Virus. He’s pledged to boost Washington’s funding of research and development. He’s blasted his predecessor for neglecting this responsibility. (See here for examples of the last two statements.)  And the scientific community the world over is brimming with confidence that greater respect from the White Houe and more resources are on the way.  (See, e.g., here and here.)

Judging from his remarks unveiling his big new infrastructure plans, it looks like Mr. Biden will indeed bolster the federal government’s support for science and technology. And that’s great news, because such efforts will be crucial to meeting any number of big public policy challenges and seizing equally important opportunities. Dealing with enviromental threats, beating back the China challenge, and boosting the nation’s productivity – its best hope for raising living standards on a sustainable basis – are just a few that come to mind.

And if you’re one of those who believe the Feds can’t do anything right, you need to learn some history. Washington has a formidable record both on the basic research and applied research sides. (Here’s an impressive list from America’s National Laboratories system, and it doesn’t even include major advances fostered by other agencies in medicine, agriculture, aerospace, and information technology – some of which are summarized here.)

Mr. Biden also is unmistakably right about America having fallen behind on these fronts. But what he hasn’t told you, and what his scientific backers seem to have forgotten, is that in the last roughly quarter century, federal science and technology spending in toto never stagnated as much as during the administration he served as Vice President.

The data below are calculated from the annual research and development budget requests made by U.S. Presidents going back to the Clinton years. (For the data from 1998 through 2015, see the National Science Foundation reports archived here.  For the later data years, see the annual Congressional Research Service reports here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Since Congress has the authority to raise or lower these requests, these figures don’t measure actual federal research and development spending by year. But they do shed light on how much various Presidents sought to spend, and by extension how greatly they valued nurturing such activity, how much they believed they could convince Congress actually to appropriate – and, by implication, how hard they were willing to push to achieve these goals.

In this vein, during his second term, Bill Clinton’s overall annual federal research and development budget requests rose by a total of 15.54 percent.

During the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, such Executive Branch requests increased by 43.91 percent.

For the eight years of Barack Obama’s administration? These requests climbed by 6.56 percent.

And under supposed science denier Donald Trump? They were up 20.82 percent.

Some important qualifications need to be made here. The big Bush increases were driven by major new asks for defense-related R&D (think “September 11,” “Global War on Terror,” and “Iraq”). Indeed, during his administration, such spending grew from 52.47 percent of total federal research and development spending to 58.97 percent. And when you draw this distinction, the Obama (-Biden) record looks better if you value civilian research over military. Here’s how recent Presidential requests compare on that score.

Clinton civilian requests: +25.67 percent

Bush civilian requests: +24.24 percent

Obama civilian requests: +34.26 percent

Trump civilian requests: +19.07 percent

But the Obama-(Biden) record doesn’t look that much better, especially than the Trump record. After all, that 34.26 percent increase took place over eight years, not four. And the Obama-Bush comparison, and other Obama comparisons, need to take into account the ever-blurring line between defense and non-defense-related research and development, because so many new technologies can be used in both fields and spur progress in both. That is, advances in defense knowhow can and do produce spin-off effects in the civilian world, and vice versa.

It still remains to be seen how the Biden infrastructure plan translates into specific research and development budget requests. But for now at least, Americans can be grateful that the Joe Biden of 2021 seems to be much more of a science and tech enthusiast than the administration he worked for a decade ago. 

By the way, special thanks to Rafal Konapka, who first brought the recent federal research and development trends to my attention.

 

Following Up: Another Confederate Statue Mess

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Albert Pike, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clarence Williams, Confederacy, Confederate monuments, D.C., D.C. Police, District of Columbia, Following Up, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, history wars, National Park Service, peaceful protests, Perry Stein, Peter Hermann, protests, Trump, U.S. Park Police, vandalism, Washington Post

There is so much shameful behavior by various government and law enforcement authorities reported in this morning’s Washington Post account of the illegal takedown of a statue of a Confederate general (Albert Pike) in the District of Columbia (D.C.) that it’s hard to know where to begin.

But let’s begin on a positive note: There was nothing shameful in the Post‘s own account. Quite the contrary:  reporters Perry Stein, Clarence Williams, and Peter Hermann – and their editors – provided an unusual amount of useful information. Hopefully we’ll see much more journalism like that going forward.

In fact, the Post article taught me something that shows I made a significant mistake in a tweet yesterday. When I learned of the statue’s removal by a mob, I tweeted, “Let me get this straight: The #DC government is so #racist that #peacefulprotest-ers had no choice but to take the law into their own hands & tear down the #AlbertPike statue. Plus, DC cops stand by and watch. Totally disgraceful #vandalism & vandalism coddling. #murielbowser.” (Bowser is D.C.’s Mayor.)

The mistake has to do with jurisdiction. As the Post reported, the D.C. police noted that “The statue in question sits in a federal park and therefore is within the jurisdiction of National Park Service and the United States Park Police.” So the District’s government didn’t, as I implied, have the authority to remove the statue.

Yet although I apologize for the D.C. government reference, I still stand behind mob point (about the need always to follow lawful procedures for removing such monuments) and the D.C. police point. Unless everyone should applaud officers who stand by and do absolutely nothing when flagrant lawbreaking is not only within plain sight, but scarcely a block away? What if the D.C. police saw a murder being threatened in a federal park? (By the way, as a longtime District resident, I can tell you that the parks in which these monuments stand are mostly vestpocket-size parks, and aren’t watched or patrolled regularly by anyone at any time of day.)

Moreover, there’s evidence that the D.C. police were aware that something was wrong – and weren’t even positive that they lacked the authority to act. The Post  quoted a National Park Service spokesman as claiming that “D.C. police had called U.S. Park Police dispatch to ask about jurisdiction. He said in an email that when Park Police officers arrived, ‘the statue was already down and on fire.’ The toppling of the statue is under investigation, he said. Litterst [the spokesman] did not address whether the Park Service thinks D.C. police should have intervened.”

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that monuments to traitors like Confederate generals have no place on public grounds, it’s clear that the federal government has been brain-dead on this issue (to put it kindly). But the Post account also reveals that this disgraceful neglect long predates the presidency of Donald Trump (who continues to oppose any changes in these statues’ placement or even renaming U.S. military bases named after such treasonous figures).

Specifically, “District officials have been trying to get the statue removed for several years. The D.C. Council petitioned the federal government to remove the statue in 1992.”

From then until Mr. Trump’s inauguration, four Presidents have served – including recent liberal and Mainstream Media darlings George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Why didn’t they remove the statue? Why haven’t they even commented on the matter? And why haven’t they been called on the carpet for their records on this matter, and for their silence?

But let’s close on a positive note, too. One question raised by this statue controversy – what to do with it – is pretty easily answered. Either stick it in a museum (with a full description provided of this minor Confederate figure) or throw it in the city or some federal dump.

Im-Politic: A Must-See CCP Virus-Election 2020 Poll

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2020 election, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Fox News, George W. Bush, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, polls, September 11, Trump, Wuhan virus

If you automatically dismiss anything put out by Fox News as right-wing, pro-Trump propaganda, you can stop reading right here.

If you’re an adult, however, you’ll keep reading, because a new Fox poll offers an unusually detailed, and therefore unusually instructive, early idea about how the difficulties of predicting how the CCP Virus pandemic will impact the upcoming presidential election.

The results, released April 9, drew the most attention for two findings. The first was that President Trump’s overall approval ratings had hit an all-time high of 49 percent. Just FYI, Fox polls’ previous such readings have been pretty much in line with other soundings – finding a range of 38 percent to 49 percent since 2017.

The second was that Mr. Trump and now-presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, were tied in the presidential race. Also FYI – Fox has consistently reported that Biden had been significantly leading the President since it’s been tracking this formerly hypothetical contest since March, 2019. (Biden’s formal entry came in late April, but was widely expected beforehand.)

As always, however, those overlooking the internals will be missing major takeaways, and in this case, they entail how the public judges Mr. Trump’s handling of the crisis. In a nutshell, feelings seem to be pretty mixed.

For example, 51 percent of respondents approved of the President’s CCP Virus record. That was the lowest favorable rating of the choices offered. (Public health official Anthony Fauci’s 80 percent led the way with 80 percent, and “your state government came in second at 77 percent.) But it was still net positive.

Somewhat more Americans than approved of the Trump response (57 percent) agreed that the nation is “moving in the right direction” against the pandemic. The President’s marks for “caring about what people are going through” (51 percent agreeing versus 45 percent disagreeing), “providing strong leadership” (opinion split at 48 percent), “making good policy decisions” (47 percent agreeing, 45 percent disagreeing), and having “an understanding of the facts” (an underwater for Mr. Trump 45 percent-47 percent reading) look pretty good. And the same goes for whether the President is “reacting appropriately” to the pandemic or not taking it “seriously enough.” Here, Trump is down 46 percent to 47 percent – just about where he was when Fox first asked the question between March 21 and March 24.

Yes, there’s less of a rally-round-flag effect visible here than, say, former President George W. Bush enjoyed after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. At the same time, Bush had the advantage of fighting a foreign enemy easily portrayed as contemptible. Mr. Trump is fighting a micro-organism. It’s tempting also to argue that partisan feelings today are much higher than two decades ago, but national feelings were pretty raw after the hotly disputed, incredibly narrow presidential election of 2000.

More concerning for the White House and Trumpers generally, though: Fifty-five percent of respondents endorsed the view that the federal government “could have slowed the spread of the virus.” Only 31 percent believed “Nothing could have prevented it from spreading the way it has.” Moreover, these results were little changed from Fox’ March 21-24 finding.

Which brings us back to the Trump-Biden results. Although, as indicated just above, the public seems pretty strongly inclined to blame the President for a lagging CCP Virus response, and although these views are essentially unchanged since late March, that’s the period during which the share of respondents supporting Trump’s reelection edged up from 40 percent to 42 percent, and the pro-Biden vote shrank from 49 percent to that 42 percent.

Could these shifts be due to Biden’s inability to attract much national attention during this period of pandemics and social distancing? My sense is, “To some extent.” But that still doesn’t necessarily explain the continuing gradual increase in Trump support.

Two big cautionary notes. First, when it comes to presidential election polling, because of America’s Electoral College system, what counts most are state-by-state results, not national results. Second, it’s not only still very early in the presidential cycle, but the potential for big surprises down the road seems especially great given the virus, its disastrous effects on the economy, and the wide open question of how the CCP Virus will influence voting procedures.

What does seem reasonably clear is that when it comes to the race for the CCP Virus’ effect on the White House race, the verdict might depend on whether Americans in November are more focused on the President’s initial responses, or on his performance since (assuming of course no big blunders). Much less clear is which emphasis will prevail.

Following Up: More Data on America’s Dependence on Foreign Healthcare Goods

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Barack Obama, Department of Health and Human Services, facemasks, Following Up, George W. Bush, health security, healthcare goods, imports, Lena H. Sun, manufacturing, masks, Mike Bowen, Prestige Ameritech, Rachel Siegel, supply chain, The American Conservative, Trump, Washington Post

Since news organizations can be so unreliable, I always do whatever I can to use information from primary sources instead of items in the media. I’m making an exception this morning, however, because I’ve failed to find a government document mentioned in several news articles, and reportedly it contains such important data that it deserves mention. Specifically, this document seems to add vital detail to my recent description in The American Conservative of how extensively the United States relies on foreign sources for crucial health care goods, and how long this gaping hole in the nation’s healthcare security has existed.

The document I can’t find has been described in this Washington Post piece as “a 2014 briefing released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Among its findings, according to Post correspondents Lena J. Sun and Rachel Siegel:

“Up to 95 percent of surgical masks are made outside the continental United States, in places like China and Mexico….”

The 2014 date, of course, is revealing in that it was two years before Donald Trump was elected President. Also revealing: The authors interviewed a domestic mask manufacturer who showed them letters he’s written to American Presidents warning that mask availability could be disrupted during a pandemic outbreak.

The first was written to Barack Obama in 2010. And apparently little or nothing was done. But the manufacturer, Mike Bowen of Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, says he reached out to George W. Bush’s administration as well – with the same results.

But just in case you think this is an establishment-bashing exercise, it’s important to note also that Bowen says he sent the same warning in 2017 – when Mr. Trump did occupy the Oval Office.

Contrary to much (self-serving) conventional wisdom, I’m not at all opposed to finger-pointing and blame-casting, even during a crisis. In fact, I view it as critical to ensuring that mistakes aren’t repeated. But I am opposed to cherry-picking finger-pointing. Because by now it should be abundantly clear that when it comes to U.S. national leaders and American health security, both Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives and even populists have let the country down.

And the faster all partisans get off their high horses and focus on identifying lessons that need to be learned regardless of political effect, the faster Americans will overcome this crisis and the lower the chances of a rerun.

Im-Politic: Selective CCP Virus Finger-Pointing

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Barack Obama, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Dan Diamond, Daniel Lippman, Defense Production Act, DPA, George W. Bush, health security, healthcare goods, Im-Politic, Jessica Silverman-Greenberg, Mainstream Media, MSM, Nahal Toosi, National Security Council, Nicholas Kulish, pandemic, regulations, Sarah Kliff, The New York Times, Trump, ventilators, Wuhan virus

Mainstream Media accounts of the Trump administration’s CCP Virus response keep appearing emphasizing how lousy and lackadaisical it’s been compared with the federal response to potentially dangerous disease outbreaks during the Obama years – and especially given supposedly prescient pandemic warnings that the Obama-nauts sounded to their successors that allegedly were ignored.

So RealityChek is going to have to keep pointing out major flaws in these accounts that both reporters and their editors should have noted, and questions they should have asked.

Keep in mind, moreover, that today’s pushback comes on top of (1) this blog’s description of a 2011 Commerce Department report on America’s increasingly dangerous vulnerability to foreign cutoffs of vital healthcare goods that was completely ignored; and (2) a similar presentation of federal economic data making clear the nation’s healthcare security – another way to think of this vulnerability – has been weakening for at least two decades.

Let’s start with the article in today’s New York Times detailing how a George W. Bush administration plan continued under Barack Obama failed to plug what its public health officials viewed as “one of the medical system’s crucial vulnerabilities: a shortage of ventilators.” The effort entailed finding businesses willing to try to build ventilators that were cheaper, more portable, and easier to use than were then available, and then awarding the contract to the best proposal.

According to Times reporters Nicholas Kulish, Sarah Kliff, and Jessica Silver-Greenberg (and presumably their editors), the eventual failure mainly highlighted “the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government’s goal of preparing for a future crisis.”

And although this point wasn’t made, the obvious message that the piece meant to send readers is that the President continues making a big mistake by not unleashing the full power of the Defense Production Act (DPA)– which creates vast government power to order whatever companies it wishes to make whatever products it considers necessary as quickly as possible, and to prioritize sales to Washington, not other customers. Underlying this position, of course, is the (completely ignorant) belief that this 1950 law (amended several times since) enables a Chief Executive to snap his fingers and instantly start assembly lines churning out ventilators and face masks and pharmaceuticals, etc.

But let’s leave aside this DPA fetishism. As I tweeted, the following sentence in the piece isn’t completely uninteresting given the unmistakable importance of quick results: After an initial failure (that shouldn’t be pinned on either of those two administrations), “The federal government started over with another company in 2014, whose ventilator was approved only last year and whose products have not yet been delivered.”

That doesn’t sound like the regulatory process reflected particular urgency – and clearly the problem extended into the Trump administration. But this business-as-usual attitude reigned even though, as the article noted, the ventilator project “came in the wake of a parade of near-miss pandemics: SARS, MERS, bird flu and swine flu.” In other words, evidence abounded that pandemics weren’t a rarity. Recently, they were becoming frequent. And still apparently no thought was given to any regulatory fast-tracking.

Finally in connection with this episode. It’s commendable that these pre-Trump public health officials tried to do something new. Less commendable, and less understandable, is why none of them recognized the foreign vulnerability problem and the offshoring-happy trade policies that fostered them.

Two other recent articles seeking to pin the blame for U.S. CCP Virus unpreparedness on Mr. Trump came out March 16 and March 25 in Politico. The first documented that on January 13, 2017 – seven days before the Trump inauguration – a team of outgoing Obama administration officials held a briefing for a team of incoming Trump-ers “intended to hammer home a new, terrifying reality facing the Trump administration, and the incoming president’s responsibility to protect Americans amid a crisis” – the distinct possibility that a major, deadly pandemic would sweep over the United States from abroad.

Further, the briefers specified that the new administration “could face specific challenges, such as shortages of ventilators, anti-viral drugs and other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national response was ‘paramount’….” Unfortunately, continued the article by Nahal Toosi, Daniel Lippman, and Dan Diamond, the Trumpers seemed pretty apathetic. And that’s pretty damning, right?

In principle, yes. But why did the Politico staff bury this observation: “None of the sources argued that one meeting three years ago could have dramatically altered events today”? Because it would take much of the punch out of this supposed bombshell?

Also buried: An observation in the apparently actual briefing document that, when in terms of “U.S. hospital preparedness and response,” “State and local governments lead public health response.” That’s an important piece of the current American response – even though it’s been relentlessly portrayed in the press another example of the administration’s failure. And P.S. – this document said nothing about ensuring adequate national screening capability.

Politico wasn’t finished, however. Nine days later, it ran another piece – by two of the same reporters – charging that the Trump administration’s CCP Virus policies have “failed to follow” a detailed pandemic playbook prepared by the Obama National Security Council that, it seems, would have prevented much of the virus damage inflicted on the nation.

Again, it’s a plausible claim – although, like the first Politico piece, this article left out the development of the Trump administration’s own pandemic strategy by the fall of 2018 (which means that work on it throughout the federal government began months before).

Also, like the first article, it failed to pose these crucial questions: If the Obama pandemic specialists were so utterly convinced that a pandemic would strike sooner rather than later, and that Team Trump was falling down on the preparation job, why didn’t they alert Democrats in Congress, or Never Trumper Republicans? Certainly there’s been no shortage of lawmakers (especially Democrats) looking for any opportunity to slam the administration (especially if this activity could do some good).

Additionally, if these pandemic warriors did send their message to these lawmakers, why did the public hear so little about it?

My hunch: For three years, the Never Trumpers of both parties had much higher priorities. Think “Russia” and “impeachment.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine Mess that Really Counts

Tags

Adam B. Schiff, America First, Barack Obama, Blob, George W. Bush, globalism, impeachment, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Senate impeachment trial, Trump, Ukraine

Ever since U.S.-Ukraine relations became front-page news as Russia began its military and paramilitary campaign against the former Soviet “republic” (and cradle of Russian civilization), and especially ever since American Presidents and lawmakers have sought to help Kyiv resist, I’ve been writing that whatever emotions this struggle stirs, U.S. leaders have never viewed Ukraine’s security as a remotely vital interest of the United States – and with good reason.

Located right on Russia’s doorstep, the country is impossible to defend without using nuclear weapons (and thus running the risk of nuclear war), and its multi-decade span under the Soviet thumb never had the slightest impact on America’s safety, independence, or well-being. Indeed, even a card-carrying globalist like former President Barack Obama has stated that precisely because Ukraine is a core interest of Russia’s but not of the United States, it’s “going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”

These observations have seemed especially important in recent months, as backers of impeaching President Trump have strenuously argued to the contrary. Indeed yesterday, in his formal presentation at Mr. Trump’s Senate trial, House Intelligence Committee and lead House Impeachment Manager Adam B. Schiff once more joined the chorus that has raised the stakes of protecting Ukraine considerably higher. The California Democrat endorsed a claim that Ukraine’s takeover by Russia would directly threaten America’s allies in the rest of Europe, and indeed, the U.S. homeland itself.

Quoting a previous impeachment witness (and eerily echoing a major argument for continuing to fight endless wars in the Middle East), Schiff declared, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

Not that Schiff nor any impeachment supporters my research has come across has ever called for the logical – indeed, the essential – follow-on to their Ukraine analyses (urging the permanent stationing of major American military units on Ukraine soil to deter the Russians.  And not that they’ve supported the Pentagon budget increases needed to deploy these forces without cannibalizing other missions). So it’s reasonable to conclude that their words amount to just so much bluster (and possibly Trump Derangement Syndrome).

At the same time, it’s important to note that there’s been no shortage of statements by Mr. Trump’s predecessors (including Obama) that draw connections between Ukraine’s fate and America’s.

For example, George W. Bush was a strong supporter of bringing Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This step would legally commit Washington to come to Ukraine’s defense against outside aggression just as strongly as the United States is committed to come to the defense of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European allies whose security has long been deemed vital. And in 2008, the alliance officially endorsed this goal – though without any timetable or specific plan for achieving it.

In the context of endorsing greater efforts to help Ukraine strengthen its defenses, Obama himself in 2014 emphasized the importance of keeping NATO “open” to “countries that meet our standards and that can make meaningful contributions to allied security.” And in the same speech, he vowed, “we will not accept Russia’s occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea or any part of Ukraine.”

Further, although President Trump hasn’t been the biggest fan of Ukraine or NATO, his administration officially has kept the membership door open to Kyiv. Just as officially, and more diisturbingly, the United States still considers Ukraine a “strategic partner” and indeed actually calls “a strong, independent, and democratic Ukraine” a “vital interest.”

The big takeaway isn’t that my prior descriptions of U.S. policy toward Ukraine were flawed. (Although they were.) Instead, it’s that support for bringing Ukraine into NATO and saddling the United States with yet another security commitment it can’t meet without incurring the risk of nuclear attack is strong in both the Democratic and Republican wings of the intervention-happy, globalist foreign policy establishment. And unless the presidency continues to be held by leaders with powerful America First-type instincts, this Blob’s dangerous ambitions could well become reality.

Im-Politic: Another Possible Impeachable Offense: The Globalists’ Afghanistan War

Tags

Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Craig Whitlock, George W. Bush, globalism, House Judiciary Committee, Im-Politic, impeachment, jihadism, Matt Gaetz, nation-building, Presidents, terrorism, Washington Post

It almost looks providential that within 48 hours, all these events transpired:

>The House Judiciary Committee continued its hearing on impeaching President Trump;

>Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican Judiciary Committee member suggested that former Presidents can be impeached; and

>The Washington Post began publishing a lengthy series documenting literally decades of official U.S. government deceit – including by former Presidents – surrounding the 18-year long war in Afghanistan.

It looks providential because if Gaetz is right (and, at least according to this analysis, there’s no legal consensus yet on the matter), it’s tough to think of more important abuses of power than the flood of dishonestly upbeat statements issuing from the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama about encouraging progress on the military and nation-building fronts in that protracted and ongoing conflict.

After all, the consequences of such abuses weren’t simply a short delay in providing military aid to a country (Ukraine) whose security and independence weren’t seen as remotely vital U.S. concerns even during the Cold War. Instead, according to Pentagon and other figures the Post cites, the war’s toll so far has included:

>2,300 dead American servicemen

>20,589 wounded in action

>Nearly one trillion taxpayer dollars – an inflation-adjusted figure that doesn’t include expenditures by the intelligence community and the costs of caring for wounded veterans.

It’s true that some of these casualties and spending date from the early years of the war – when no serious person can doubt the need to intervene militarily in Afghanistan to destroy its potential to serve as a terrorist base for planning and launching September 11-style terrorist attacks. But the vast majority date from the long years after the ouster from power of the Taliban and the destruction of Al Qaeda.

At that point, it should have been clear that the best American strategy for preventing the reemergence of jihadist organizations with global reach was maintaining small-scale special forces operations in the country that would focus on harassing extremists effectively enough to keep them off balance and incapable of organizing large-scale inter-continental violence. Stronger border security measures could also help keep them away from the U.S. homeland.  Instead, U.S. leaders embarked on campaign to nation-build in a region that historically has been so divided that no true nation had ever existed. 

(Actually, I first publicly critiqued the focus on nation-building in Afghanistan and touted the need for better border controls at a 2002 Washington, D.C. policy conference summarized here.  It wasn’t till 2014, however, when ISIS had replaced Al Qaeda as the main Middle East terrorist threat to the United States, that I first wrote about the need for harassment forces.)   

But the Bush and Obama administrations ignored this advice because they had drunk the globalist Kool-aid insisting that overseas threats can be dealt with adequately only by literally turning troubled parts of the world into the political, economic, and social successes that they have never been. These Afghanistan policies per se weren’t high crimes or misdemeanors – unless you favor criminalizing stubbornness persistent and extreme enough to qualify as stupidity.

What was arguably criminal? As documented by Post reporter Craig Whitlock, even though the documents (which exist because of a federal research project undertaken to analyze failure in Afghanistan) make clear widespread official recognition of the debacle on the ground, they “contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.”

And more to the point: “Several of those interviewed [by the project’s researchers] described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.”

I’ve only read Whitlock’s summary articles about the documents, not the documents themselves, but undoubtedly if he’d found evidence that Bush and Obama personally knew about the distortion efforts or, worse, ordered them, he’d have reported it. At the same time, determining Presidential guilt wasn’t the government research project’s mission. In fact, although the Post is still suing the government for release of the names of the more than 400 “insider” interview subjects whose statements represent most of the raw material gathered by the researchers, it’s not clear whether the two former Presidents were among them. Moreover, it appears that not all the documentary evidence produced by the project has been released, either with names attached or not.

So the question made famous by the late Tennessee Senator Howard Baker during 1973 Watergate hearings – “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” – can legitimately be asked about Bush and Obama. Any answers eventually shaken loose in impeachment or similar investigations will be too late to undo the enormous damage of the Afghanistan war to date. But they might hasten a decision by Mr. Trump finally to act on his instincts and cut the nation’s losses. More important, the prospect of sitting at a witness table might persuade future Presidents to be far less reckless when they spend America’s blood and treasure.