Making News: A Special Edition

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Making News, economy, foreign policy, Walter Lippmann, The New York Times, globalism, Plastics News, Frank Esposito, Ronald Steel

I’m pleased to announce one item of special interest that appeared last week: The New York Times obituary for Ronald Steel – which contains a quote from a book of his I reviewed for The Times.

But I feel the need to provide some background here. Ron is probably best known for his literally magisterial 1980 biography of the influential twentieth century American philosopher and journalist Walter Lippmann.

As noted in the review, however, for decades he was also a leading and indeed pioneering analyst of American foreign policy. More specifically, he was one of a handful of critics who departed from the globalist national leadership consensus that developed on Pearl Harbor Day, and that hardened into a rigid dogma soon afterwards. As such, he was a major influence on my own thinking and writing.

In that vein, I feel privileged that he also became a very supportive friend and mentor. So at least much as the nation will miss his insights (especially these days!), I will miss his never-ending kindness, generosity, and encouragement. And I know that anyone reading this post would profit from delving into his writings.

One correction: The Times obit said that when I wrote the review (the whole of which is linked,and that I sure enjoyed reading after many years), I worked with the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute. Well, that’s close. I’ve long respected that organization’s work, but I was then on the staff of the (also D.C.-based) Economic Strategy Institute.

In addition, it was great to be quoted on the confusing state of the American economy in Frank Esposito’s May 5 post here in the respected industry publication Plastics News.

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

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Advice From a Genuine China Expert That’s Genuinely Useless

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China, espionage, fentanyl, globalism, Mel Books, national interests, Nicholas Kristof, opioids, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, privacy, spying, Thomas Hobbes, TikTok

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s column on how the United States can avoid war with China generated two big takeaways that jumped out at me right away:

First, although his knowledge of the People’s Republic is impressive (he and his wife deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on China’s democracy movement and its brutal suppression in Tiananmen Square), his foreign policy thinking can be dangerously childish for anyone primarily concerned with defending and promoting critical U.S. interests..

Second, this column is worth focusing on because such childishness has been all too typical of the globalist strategy that dominated U.S. foreign policymaking and thinking in the decades between the end of World War II and the advent of the Trump presidency.

The problems with Kristof’s column begin with the headline “How to Avoid a War with China” – which unlike many headlines, accurately reflects the main theme. This objective is troublesome because except for pacifists or those unconcerned about preserving acceptable levels of American political independence and prosperity, it can’t be the top priority for U.S. China policy or for any other dimension of U.S. foreign policy.

And in fact, it hasn’t been the nation’s top international priority for decades. That’s why Washington has long pledged to defend numerous treaty allies by threatening adversaries with nuclear attack in response to aggression. The domination of these allies by the Soviet Union and/or North Korea and/or China has been deemed an outcome worth endangering America’s physical survival.

It’s perfectly legitimate for Kristof or anyone else to question these priorities. I myself have opposed incurring nuclear war risk in any number of circumstances (most recently, on behalf of Ukraine, which in my view is of no intrinsic importance to U.S. safety, sovereignty, or prosperity).

But if Kristof or anyone else seeks to fold back some or all such American nuclear umbrellas based on cost-risk calculations demonstrating why various national security objectives (including, for example, America’s own independence) aren’t vital after all, or unless these critics are simply doctrinaire pacifists, they need to take one of two steps for the sake of full disclosure to their audiences and intellectual honesty.

They can either explain how the United States can achieve vital objectives without the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons. Or they can acknowledge that achieving such U.S. objectives regardless of risk isn’t their concern. Since Kristof hasn’t argued for any of these points, from this standpoint, it’s difficult to view his column as anything else but a simple expression of fear.

Except two points that Kristof has made exemplify one example of what I’ve long called a deepseated American failure – especially by generations of globalists in and out of government – to think of U.S. foreign policy as an exercise in promoting or defending specific interests at all. My first comprehensive stab at this argument came here.

And further research revealed to additional ways in which “interest-based” thinking was avoided, including that which Kristof demonstrates – which I called (not too catchily) a search for abstract standards for judging U.S. foreign policy decisions that are incapable in and of themselves of helping America cope with important challenges or capitalize on important opportunities

These standards can take many forms – i.e., advancing human rights or strengthening international institutions or promoting the economic development of low-income countries. The one that Kristof is pushing in his column seems to reflect the idea that it’s not legitimate (or doesn’t pass some more elemental smell test) for the United States to defend itself against or even object to any Chinese threats in spheres in which America’s record isn’t simon pure or outstandingly effective itself.

Yes, this sounds positively ditzy. But what other interpretation can be put on the following two passages?

>“I’m among those wary of TikTok because of the risk that it might be used for spying. But I also know that the United States has similarly used private businesses to spy on China. When China purchased a new Boeing 767 in 2000 to be the Chinese equivalent of Air Force One, American officials planted at least 27 bugs in it” and

>”I think the United States should press China harder on some issues, such as the reckless way Chinese companies export chemicals to Mexico that are turned into fentanyl. That Chinese-origin fentanyl kills many thousands of Americans each year, and it’s hard to see why the deaths of so many aren’t higher on the bilateral agenda.

“But we also need humility. America’s politicians, pharma companies and regulators themselves catastrophically bungled the opioid crisis. Why should we expect Chinese leaders to care more about young American lives than our own leaders do?”

Regarding the TikTok and spying point, sure Kristof professes concern about the Chinese app. But if his paramount aim is helping to prevent Beijing from jeopardizing the privacy of individual Americans, why mention America’s own espionage operations other than to foster the impression that they somehow excuse China’s? What else can this suggestion of moral equivalence accomplish?

I suppose that, in principle, Kristof (or someone else) could think that abstaining from some (or all?) U.S. spying on China might help the United States. Maybe by encouraging Beijing to reciprocate? But again, he never mentions how or why.

Someone prioritizing U.S. interests would recognize that the fact that Washington is “guilty” of the taking same kinds of actions that China carries out (along with every other country with such capabilities) is completely irrelevant to the imperative of defending Americans from its probes. That’s the only objective – or even subject of interest – that should matter to anyone concerned with this nation’s well-being.

Kristof makes a similar disclaimer about understanding the need to respond to the Chinese fentanyl ingredients threat. But then he introduces more distractions – namely (a) a call for humility because Washington has performed so miserably in dealing with opioid use; and (b) the suggestion that if U.S. leaders had cared more about their own people, China’s leaders would care about Americans more as well.

Let’s say, however, that President Biden publicly criticizes America’s opioid record. I’m a fan of humility. But exactly what purpose would such a statement serve? Awakening Americans to the dangers of opioids and/or to their own leaders’ incompetence and/or indifference? Spurring them to demand more effective domestic countermeasures? As if many Americans aren’t already angry about the crisis’ domestic roots and haven’t clamored for action?

Or perhaps Kristof believes that Beijing would be satisfied enough with the resultant propaganda victory to conclude that actively helping to kill so many Americans was no longer necessary? I can’t think of any other value that would be added to a public U.S. eating of humble pie. But again, he leaves this discussion hanging, too.

Or maybe Kristof is worried that if the Chinese sign some agreement, then U.S. leaders will believe that the fentanyl pressure is off them? He sort of indicates this at the end, with his contention that the United States can best fend off various Chinese threats by strengthening its own society and economy. And he’s certainly right about the need for better U.S. domestic policies. But would Washington really be let off the fentanyl hook until deaths fall dramatically? That’s doubtful, and in any event, the author’s analysis here is awfully skimpy.

But it’s distraction Number Two that’s more revealing, because, as with Kristof’s seeming views on spying, it raises the possibility that as long as Washington’s own anti-fentanyl measures haven’t reached some level of acceptability (in whose eyes? China’s?), it can’t reasonably expect Beijing to lend a helping hand…and perhaps shouldn’t even try changing Chinese policies?

I can’t say for sure that’s Kristof’s view. But even if current Chinese leaders ever would consider such a beneficial course of action under any foreseeable circumstance, it’s anything but clear here, either, why in Kristof’s view even mentioning the American fentanyl record matters. However lousy it’s been, shutting off the flow of precursors from China would indisputably help save American lives So this outcome should be pursued vigorously, period. Why muck up the issue with any other considerations?

It may seem that I’m calling emphatically for a foreign policy of double standards and of hypocrisy. But that would be missing the point. I’m arguing instead for anchoring America’s approach to the world first and foremost to the defense and advancement of specific, concrete national interests – that is, to no standards whatever except for whatever contributes to those goals.

As for the hypocrisy charge, I plead (as a Mel Brooks movie once memorably put it) “Incredibly guilty. Because in the kind of fundamentally Hobbesian world that I’m of course assuming, I’m perfectly fine with the United States resorting to methods whose use by others it opposes because I’m completely uninterested in creating or upholding norms to which all should adhere. I’m simply interesting in doing whatever’s necessary, whenever it’s necessary, for the United States to create advantage – of course subject to the approval at some point of the American people – and to ensuring that the nation retains the power to enable this approach to succeed.

This doesn’t rule out cooperation with other countries at various times on various subjects. And if the American people endorse such a course, it doesn’t even rule out U.S. efforts to conform with those non-interest-based, abstract standards of behavior. What it does rule out is making any of the above the alpha and omega of foreign policy. And if you believe that any other test should rule instead, let me know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Wall Street Kingpin Lays a Grand Strategy Egg

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America First, China, climate change, ESG, fossil fuels, globalism, globalization, Immigration, industrial policy, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, productivity, supply chains, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine War, Wall Street, woke capitalism

In several senses, it’s not entirely surprising that The Wall Street Journal recently allowed Jamie Dimon to share his thoughts on the domestic and especially global grand strategies the United States should pursue in the post-Ukraine War world.

After all, Dimon heads JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest and most important bank. As a result, he clearly needs to know a lot about the U.S. economy. And as Wall Street’s biggest poohbah, he surely must know a lot about the state of the world overall – in particular since he’s had extensive contacts with the heads of state, senior officials, and business leaders of many countries.

What is somewhat surprising, then, is how little of Dimon’s analysis and advice is new or even interesting, and how much of it could well put America ever further behind the eight-ball.

Dimon’s article wasn’t completely devoid of merit. Since he’s dabbled in some (symbolic) woke-ism himself, it was good to see him seemingly take a shot at what’s become mainstream liberal as well as radical lefty dogma by urging the education of “all Americans about the sacrifice of those who came before us for democracy at home and abroad.”

Given the strong support by the Biden administration and by some finance bigwigs for influential for encouraging and even requiring lenders to take climate change risks into account when extending credit, it was encouraging to read his pragmatic position that “Secure and reliable oil and gas production is compatible with reducing CO2 over the long run, and is far better than burning more coal.”

Dimon showed that, unlike many on Wall Street, he supports some forms of industrial policy to make sure that “we don’t rely on potential adversaries for critical goods and services.”

And he endorsed the larger point that the neoliberal globalization-based triumphalism that undergirded the policies of globalist pre-Trump Presidents needs to be buried for good:

“America and the West can no longer maintain a false sense of security based on the illusion that dictatorships and oppressive nations won’t use their economic and military powers to advance their aims—particularly against what they perceive as weak, incompetent and disorganized Western democracies. In a troubled world, we are reminded that national security is and always will be paramount, even if it seems to recede in tranquil times.”

But on most of the biggest issues and just about all specifics, Dimon either punted or retreated into the same globalist territory that proved as profitable for Big Finance as it was too often dangerously naive for the nation as a whole.

For example, he wants Washington to “fix the immigration policies that are tearing us apart, dramatically reducing illegal immigration and dramatically increasing legal immigration.” Completely ignored is the depressing impact the latter would have on wages that have already been falling recently in inflation-adjusted terms, and on desperately needed productivity growth – as a bigger supply of cheap labor is bound to kill many incentives for businesses to improve their efficiency by innovating technology-wise or devising better management approaches.

And on China, Dimon’s clearly determined to talk his company’s book, insisting that “We should acknowledge that we have common interests in combating nuclear proliferation, climate change and terrorism.” and blithely predicting that “Tough but thoughtful negotiations over strategic, military and economic concerns—including unfair competition—should yield a better situation for all.”

But most important, Dimon fully endorses the foundations of the very globalist strategy that for decades perversely ignored the distinctive and paramount advantages the United States brings to world affairs and has thereby created many of the dangers and vulnerabilities with which the nation has been struggling.

The way Dimon seems to see it, there’s no reason to pay any attention to the extraordinary degree of security the America enjoys merely by virtue of its geographic isolation and powerful military; or to its extraordinary degree of economic self-sufficiency thanks to its immense and diverse natural resource base, its technological prowess, and its dynamic free market-dominated economic system. And evidently, it’s just as pointless to concentrate foreign and economic policy on the nation’s equally formidable potential to build on these advantages.

Instead, like other globalists, Dimon flatly rejects the idea that “America can stand alone,” or should seek to maximize its ability to do so. Instead, it should keep defining nothing less than “global peace and order” as “a vital American interest” – the standard globalist recipe for yoking the country’s fate to an agenda of more open-ended military interventions, more hastily approved and usually wasteful foreign aid, and more nation-building in areas lacking any ingredients of nation-hood.

Asa result, it would anchor America’s safety and prosperity on efforts to shape foreign conditions (over which is has relatively little control), rather than on efforts to shape domestic conditions (over which is has much more control). (For a much fuller description of this America First strategy and its differences with globalism, see this 2018 article.) 

In fact, and revealingly, Dimon’s piece was titled “The West Needs America’s Leadership.” If only he and other globalists would start thinking seriously about what America really needs. 

(Full disclosure:  I own several JPMorgan bond and preferred stock issues.)    

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Now Biden’s Gone America First on the World Trade Organization

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America First, Biden administration, GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, globalism, international law, national security, sovereignty, Trade, Trump administration, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

If someone told you that the U.S. government has outsourced to an international organization the legal authority to decide when American national security is endangered – and inevitably how it can respond – you’d probably think they were pretty out there, or shamelessly lying.

Except that’s exactly what happened in 1947, when globalist U.S. leaders agreed to the body of rules aimed at governing international trade in the post-World War II world, and what remained the case for decades afterward. And although last week, the Biden administration moved decisively to restore sanity to U.S. trade policy in this respect, it didn’t make the complete policy about face that’s still needed.

Since protecting a country’s security is by far the Number One responsibility of any national government, such governments need to be the supreme deciders of how to carry out this mission on an ongoing basis. Further, the legitimacy of this authority logically goes double when democratic national governments like the United States’ are concerned. Why should any other power or organization hold any ability to veto or even influence choices made by the American people’s duly elected representatives to ensure their system’s safety, much less survival? Indeed, on what valid basis could such an ability actually exist? The kindness of strangers? Their superior wisdom?

These maxims are so self-evident (as America’s Declaration of Independence might put it), that even the main body of international law (a system not known for its pragmatism) recognizes them as fundamental attributes of a country’s sovereignty – its bedrock right to take whatever steps it considers needed to keep itself in existence. And how can this security be maintained if its leaders lack the unfettered ability to figure out when threats are present and what they consist of, and if they constantly need to be worrying about is whether the policies they choose pass international muster or not?

But the crucial importance of national sovereignty wasn’t so self-evident to American leaders in World War II’s aftermath. For in the bylaws of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – the global trade regime that was turned into the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the beginning of 1995 – they agreed to an article that safeguarded a member state’s right to take “any action [to restrict trade] which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests.” Crucially, however, this same Article XXI then proceeded to set out three criteria that such actions needed to meet in order to pass the legality test – including the specification that trade restrictions take place “in time of war or other emergency in international relations.”

These U.S. leaders might have had some decent excuses. First, this was an age when the United States bestrode the world like a titan. How could it be plausibly threatened by mere words on paper? Further, countries outside the Communist camp (none inside signed onto the new trade pact until the mid-1960s) were hardly likely to want to tie America’s military hands since most relied so heavily on U.S. protection.

Second, the GATT lacked effective procedures for enforcing its rules. And third, Washington has always assumed that the Article XXI’s reference to actions that members “consider necessary” means that the entire measure (including the insistence that trade restrictions are legal only in certain types of international conditions) is “self-judging” – i.e., that members’ have the final say over whether it can both define its security interests and the situations in which they can be invoked to override the GATT/WTO’s ban on trade curbs.

But however understandable the U.S. position might have been in 1947, dramatic changes in national and global circumstances over decades should have alerted Washington long ago that Article XXI was bound to cause trouble. Chiefly, America’s predominant global military and economic role inevitably eroded. Many of its allies became formidable economic competitors. The line between military goods and civilian goods – never completely clear – became thoroughly blurred as products incorporating “dual use” technologies proliferated. And the birth of the WTO gave the world trade system a much more effective enforcement system.

Here it’s important to be really specific. It’s not that the WTO can muster a police force, march into the District of Columbia, and compel U.S. officials to follow its dictates. The effectiveness of this dispute resolution system is based on its authority to permit countries claiming to be harmed by U.S. (or any members’) trade practices to respond with retaliatory tariffs – which can be strategically targeted on the kinds of domestic industries powerful enough to launch lobbying campaigns able to force their governments into compliance.

So it’s easy to see why many WTO members – most of which rely heavily on net exporting to the U.S. market to achieve satisfactory levels of growth and employment) would want to use Article XXI to undercut American sovereignty in order to gain advantages for their own industries – including allies who had learned that the United States would continue protecting them and tolerating their defense free-riding even after serious provocations.

Earlier this month, this gambit paid off in spades, as the WTO declared illegal the U.S. tariffs avowedly imposed on steel and aluminum imports for national security reasons by former President Trump in spring, 2018.

Fortunately, in reality, none of the plaintiff countries can legally counter-tariff these U.S. curbs – because that same former President Trump effectively neutered the WTO dispute-resolution system by leaving seats on its appeals panels empty and preventing that body from convening to handle any next legal steps. And to his credit, President Biden has declined to appoint replacements as well.

Also to its credit, though, his administration “strongly rejected” these WTO rulings, and declared that “The United States has held the clear and unequivocal position, for over 70 years, that issues of national security cannot be reviewed in WTO dispute settlement and the WTO has no authority to second-guess the ability of a WTO Member to respond to a wide-range of threats to its security….The United States will not cede decision-making over its essential security to WTO panels.”

Unfortunately, the Biden administration didn’t take this position when it should have – once these foreign suits were filed to begin with. In fact, the administration not only (weirdly) agreed that the WTO does have jurisdiction when national security concerns come into play, but only in the sense that it was required to approve of members’ freedom to invoke these considerations to justify trade barriers. It also went to ridiculous lengths to defend the U.S. position as if WTO members were not able to self-judge their national security claims – to the point of trying to show grammatically that the plaintiffs were misreading Article XXI grammatically.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s how the one of the WTO reports presenting the anti-U.S. ruling described the U.S. effort, including direct quotes from the American brief:

“A premise of the United States’ characterization of Article XXI (b) as ‘self-judging’ is that, based on ‘the text and grammatical structure’ of the provision, ‘the phrase ‘which it considers’ qualifies all of the terms in the single relative clause that follows the word ‘action’. According to the United States, this ‘single relative clause’ in Article XXI(b) ‘begins with ‘which it considers necessary’ and ends at the end of each subparagraph’ and ‘describes the situation which the Member ‘considers’ to be present when it takes such ‘action’. The United States argues from this premise that, ‘[b]ecause the relative clause describing the action begins with ‘which it considers’, the other elements of this clause are committed to the judgment of the Member taking the action.’ The United States thus posits an ‘overall grammatical structure’ of Article XXI(b) according to which a panel may not ‘determine, for itself, whether a security interest is ‘essential’ to the Member in question, or whether the circumstances described in one of the subparagraphs exists'”.

For their part, the plaintiff countries, along with the WTO tribunals, dredged up copies of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, and Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style, among other such sources, to undercut such claims.

But even though the plaintiffs’ complaints are stuck in international legal limbo, the U.S. decision to legitimize and play this game has resulted in an international organization still proclaiming, without challenge, its absolute right to tell American leaders when they are or are not in a war (dictionary definitions are used as the ultimate standard), and even when they or any part of their national economy do and do not face an “international emergency” (a decision the panel specifically arrogates to WTO judges).

Dispositive substantive arguments can be raised against all the WTO tribunals’ conclusions. For example, as stated above, ensuring a nation’s security adequately is a challenge that doesn’t only arise during especially fraught times in international politics. It typically requires steps taken during more tranquil periods to ensure that military capabilities are adequate the moment trouble starts. WTO rules that prevent these measures from being taken until crises break out could simply ensure that they’re not in effect in time for the United States to prevail.

Yet making these points amounts to falling into the same trap into which the Biden administration’s trade litigators ensnared themselves and the country. Instead, Washington should both make emphatically clear that once U.S. authorities justify a trade-restricting measure, the WTO is irrelevant (as the Biden administration eventually declared) and then boycott whatever proceedings are convened.

Plaintiff countries would still be free to try to address these problems either through standard bilateral diplomacy, or counter-measures of their own, or some combination of the two, and let the party with the most leverage come out on top. Trade purists dismiss these practices as descending into a dangerous economic “law of the jungle,” but the United States and the European Union resorted to just this approach to resolve a long dispute about aircraft production subsidies outside WTO auspices. And freed of the cumbersome and inflexible adversarial framework imposed by the trade body’s legalistic procedures, they reached an agreement that satisfied all major stakeholders – including U.S. unions.

Handling these disputes bilaterally will strongly tend to produce lasting results and work in the U.S.’ favor because (a) agreements will reflect real world power balances – not the rulings of a system whose only raison d’etre is to define power out of existence in favor of an abstract equitism that’s completely divorced from global circumstances on the ground – and (b) because the United States enjoys an abundance of such power.

That the globalist Biden administration is acting as willing as the America First-y Trump administration to recognize that, at least when it comes to national security, tinternational trade law is “an idiot” (to quote Dickens) signals an encouragingly fundamental turn in America’s approach to the global economy. Even better would be for the President to make the break as clean and unmistakable as possible.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Other Scary Ukraine War Threat

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energy, energy prices, global financial crisis, globalism, hunger, Lehman Brothers, Lehman moment, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Ukraine War, Vietnam War, vital interests, Western Europe

Take it from me – the words “Lehman” and “moment” are words that no one should ever want to see in the same sentence ever again. Yet they’ve been making a collective comeback lately (see, e.g., here, here, and here), signaling in the process that the determination of the United States and other countries to help Ukraine achieve its goal of expelling Russia from the territory it’s lost could backfire disastrously.

This specific risk has emerged not because the conflict could spread beyond Ukraine’s borders and embroil the big new concentrations of U.S. and other NATO military forces right next door – and therefore all too easily escalate to the nuclear level. It’s also emerged because of the growing economic hardship and potential political instability in major world regions created by the disruption of global energy and food trade triggered by Russia’s invasion and the sanctions it’s triggered.  

The phrase “Lehman moment” refers to the time when the national and global financial systems and economies nearly collapsed because so many of the world’s major banks and other lenders had engaged in such reckless practices, and because they were so interconnected that the failure of one – America’s Lehman Brothers – threatened to topple the whole house of cards that had been created.

Today’s Lehman moment is feared to be coming in Europe’s energy sector – also dominated by huge, closely connected institutions and also endangered by contagion. But this time the culprit hasn’t been greedy executives or asleep-at-the-switch regulators. It’s been the price of natural gas. The Russian invasion of Ukraine itself, the duration of the fighting, Russian supply curbs and threats of cut-offs have pushed it so high that many European utilities have been forced to buy the increasingly scarce fuel on the very expensive spot market and sell it to customers at the much lower prices stipulated by the contracts they’ve signed. (See here for a useful explanation of all of the above.)

As with the original Lehman moment, government bailouts are likely to save the day – at least for the foreseeable future. But the costs are shaping up to be astronomical, and even if they’re paid by all of the continent’s well- and less well-off countries alike, enormous national debts are sure to grow. Moreover, Europe’s near-term energy, and overall economic, future looks so grim because major shortages and towering prices this winter seem both inevitable and bound to bring on a serious recession and all the suffering and anxiety that accompany such downturns.

That sure sounds like a formula for even more political instability than Europe has already seen lately, including a loss of public faith in national and regional establishments and institutions of all kinds, and a further strengthening of the sort of political movements – on the right end of the political spectrum in particular – that globalists keep warning are grave dangers to the democracy and even the peace the continent has enjoyed until Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Nor is Ukraine War-rooted turmoil confined to Europe. As the Biden administration has just warned, “protracted conflicts – including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” have been developments that have “disrupted global supply chains and dramatically increased global food prices.” As a result, “world leaders [need] to act with urgency and at scale to respond…and avert extreme hunger for hundreds of millions of people around the world.”

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the areas of greatest risk, has (rightly) never been seen as a high U.S. foreign policy priority. The other area, though, is the Middle East, which has become much less important even to America’s economic well-being because of the energy production revolution at home, but which continues to attract considerable attention from globalist U.S. leaders.

Hence the backfire risk – and a gigantic irony. Globalist backers of the current Ukraine strategy justify it as necessary to protect what they call a “rules-based international order” they believe has been essential for preventing great power conflict, as well as for promoting impressive degrees of prosperity and democracy around the globe. I’d give far more credit to the balance of nuclear terror that’s prevailed for nearly all of that period, but that’s not the main point.  The main point is that, along with great power conflict, the widespread international turbulence being fueled by the duration of the Ukraine War per se is another major geopolitical nightmare that globalism has striven to avert.  

It’s true that incurring great risks to protect specific, concrete interests the U.S. considers vital – like the security of Western Europe and, more recently, Taiwan (because of its leadership in manufacturing the world’s most advanced semiconductors) – by definition are worth running. This logic also holds for objectives like fostering and maximizing stability the world over, even though they’ve always been more dubious because they’re so much gauzier and less realistic. For whatever the damage possible from attempting to safeguard any of these interests, the term “vital” means that failure can generate even greater dangers – particularly national survival and independence.

But running such risks on behalf of Ukraine’s independence – which was never seen as remotely vital U.S. interest even at the height of the Cold War, which was habitually described as a Manichean struggle for the entire world’s future – is a different matter altogether, and indeed makes no sense at all.

During the Vietnam War, a U.S. Army officer is supposed to have told a reporter after one battle that “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” The Lehman moment references and mounting signs of tumult in several major regions long seen by Washington as bearing at least significantly and even vitally on America’s safety and well-being indicates how close U.S. Ukraine policy – even if it simply prolongs heavy but geographically contained fighting – is moving toward achieving that absurdly self-destructive goal.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Deaf Leading the Blind on U.S. China Policy

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Barack Obama, Biden, Blob, China, Donald Trump, Fareed Zakaria, George W. Bush, globalism, Mainstream Media, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, privacy, South China Sea, Taiwan, technology, Washington Post

Is “beyond clueless” or “beyond intellectually dishonest” the best way to describe Fareed Zakaria’s latest column for the Washington Post? It’s tough to tell. And you could ask the same of the editors at the Post‘s opinion pages, who clearly saw nothing wrong with letting this apologia for the United States’ thoroughly discredited (at least for those blessed with working and/or uncorrupted brains) pre-Trump China policies see the light of day.

Zakaria’s missive, from this past Thursday, suffers two glaringly obvious flaws. First, like America’s most influential leaders from both parties for decades before 2017 the author insists on the importance of Washington building and maintaining “a serious working relationship” with a regime that has developed (with oceans of reckless American assistance) into one of the world’s “two most powerful actors.”

And former President Donald Trump’s greatest sin (which Zakaria accuses President Biden of following)? Adopting a policy toward Beijing of “open hostility and criticism” that has caused the “collapse” of “communications channels for managing tensions,” and especially during crises or near crises such as that which appears to be developing over Taiwan.

But nothing could be clearer by now than the delusional nature of these procedure-obsessed and substance-free views (which of course despite Zakaria’s claim have continually been parroted by the Biden administration.) For by now it should go without saying that China’s top priority isn’t avoiding conflict with the United States. In particular, it lacks any interest in the President’s oft-stated  objective of creating clear “guard rails” and other rules of the road that result in a safe and orderly “competition” for goals like “winning the twenty-first century” whose definition seems just as vapid, utopian – and distracting – as his administration’s “liberal global order” references.

Instead, China’s top priority is specific and concrete: increasing its power (in all dimensions) and reducing America’s in every way possible. The reason? Eliminate the greatest obstacle to its plans to ensure its decisive control over every major trend shaping the globe’s future – whether the field is military prowess or technological advance or wealth creation or the evolution of society and culture (especially through privacy-threatening progress in cyber-hacking and facial recognition technology).

Not that the Chinese are eager for conflict or even any kind of frontal challenge or showdown – especially when prevailing is still anything but guaranteed. But the ultimate objective is prevailing, and the means entail building the domestic, regional, and global conditions needed to prevail, either without firing a shot or when clashes do break out.

And not that American leaders shouldn’t make sure to maintain those communication lines with Beijing. With both countries possessing vast nuclear arsenals, lowering the odds of accidental conflict is clearly imperative.

But communication, much less broader engagement, mustn’t become an end in and of itself. History too often has shown that they encourage the (1) U.S. acceptance of empty promises; (2) rationalization of failure to achieve or preserve particular valued objectives in the here and now for the sake of payoffs stemming from a sense of mutual obligation that could be entirely unilateral and imaginary, over a time frame that tends to keep lengthening; and (3) the substitution of wishful thinking about attainable goals for gaining and maintaining the ability to deter or successfully counter specific, dangerous Chinese initiatives.

The second glaringly obvious flaw in Zakaria’s column is its exclusive reliance on former Obama administration officials to support his analysis – which makes as much as sense as citing former Carter administration officials as inflation-fighting experts.

After all, it was under Trump’s immediate predecessor that the Chinese began running wild throughout the South China Sea, pushing aggressive territorial claims and literally building islands with military facilities capable of controlling those commercially vital waters – and according to one senior U.S. admiral at the time, precisely because Beijing concluded that Obama would keep sitting on his hands.

It was also Obama who continued enabling China to pursue the predatory economic policies that badly damaged numerous manufacturing industries vital to American national security, and who turned a blind eye to the massive transfer by U.S. and foreign companies of advanced, defense-related techology to the People’s Republic.

But at least Obama “upgraded” the George W. Bush-era “Senior Dialogue” and “Strategic Economic Dialogue” in order to merge “the economic and security tracks” to “break down the barriers inside both the U.S. and Chinese governments to more effectively tackle cross-cutting issues such as climate change, development, and energy security.” Which accomplished exactly what to advance and defend American interests?

And this is where Zakaria’s editors at the Post come in. Evidently none of them thought to say something like, “Hey, Fareed. Maybe quote someone on China policy whose advice isn’t widely seen as a proven failure?”

Maybe they’re just supposed to look for stray commas and dangling participles?  I suspect that the real reason is that they’re part of the same group-thinking, self-perpetuating globalist Blob that keeps working overtime to ensure that the American public is never exposed to any genuinely fresh ideas about promoting the United States’ security, prosperity, and optimal place in the world – and whose  decades-long record of squandering the nation’s blood and treasure on behalf of one grandiose goal after another is its only claim to success.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Nothing to See About This Biden-Wall Street-China Connection?

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Biden, Biden administration, BlackRock, China, Donald Trump, globalism, inflation, Obama administration, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, solar panels, State Department, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, tariffs, Thomas E. Donilon, Trade, Wall Street

It’s a good thing that conspiracy theories are never, ever true. Otherwise, several recent developments in U.S.-China relations would rightly alarm anyone hoping that U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic would reflect efforts to further American national interests rather than selfish special interests.

Those dangerously loony conspiracy theorists would probably begin by noting that last month, the State Department announced Secretary Antony J. Blinken’s appointments to a Foreign Affairs Policy Board that since 2011 has “provided independent advice on the conduct of U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy” on issues that today include “strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China.”

The new Board is chaired (as originally reported by The Washington Free Beacon) by Thomas E. Donilon, who the wingnuts would no doubt immediately observe was the White House National Security Advisor during the Obama administration, which compiled a consistent record of coddling China on both the national security and the economic fronts. And as the Free Beacon post makes clear, out office, Donilon had been a leading voice for continuing to coddle China, too. 

They’d surely further point out that he’s sure found lucrative employment in the right place. For Donilon is now Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, an arm of the finance company of the same name that happens to be the world’s largest asset manager. These conspiracy-mongers would likely explain that BlackRock has been one of Wall Street’s most enthusiastic boosters of sending huge amounts of capital from the United States and around the world into China. Indeed, it’s just become “the first foreign-owned company to operate a wholly owned business in China’s mutual fund industry,” in CNBC.com‘s words.

The strategy will of course net immense fees for BlackRock and the other finance giants pursuing it. And we’d probably hear from the loons that BlackRock has touted major benefits for the People’s Republlc other than making available to its dangerous totalitarian government oceans of new resources – specifically by helping China “to address its growing retirement crisis by providing retirement system expertise, products and services.”

Then these paranoiacs would presumably try to bolster their credibility by arguing that even lefty zillionaire George Soros has warned that BlackRock-like operations in China will “damage the national security interests of the U.S. and other democracies.”

More grist for the conspiracy industry’s mills: Yesterday’s report in The Wall Street Journal that the Chinese government “is implementing changes to its rules governing publicly offered securities investment funds” that would “include requiring foreign-owned fund managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity to create Communist Party cells when operating in China.” Along with the failure of Donilon or BlackRock (or Fidelity, where I park most of my family’s financial accounts) to utter a peep of protest. Not to mention the silence of the Biden administration.

And the icing on this cake of delusion? Recent signs of a China policy shift by a Biden administration that had been surprisingly Trump-y on the subject given the President’s long history of supporting pre-Trump globalist policies of indiscriminately expanding trade and investment with China. Like the persistent talk of cutting tariffs on Chinese imports to help fight inflation. Like the suspension of new levies on Chinese solar panel imports that were transshipped through Southeast Asian countries to evade U.S. trade curbs. Like the sale of oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese entity (Unipec).

But obviously there’s nothing to see here. Because as I said, conspiracy theories are never, ever true.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Biden’s Somalia Decision Looks Literally Insane

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Biden administration, Biden border crisis, border security, Donald Trump, globalism, Immigration, jihadists, migrants, Open Borders, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Somalia, terrorism, terrorists

With all the headline news about major crises ranging from the Ukraine War to inflation to the infant formula shortage to the likelihood that abortion rights will be rescinded, RealityChek readers and others can be forgiven for overlooking the Biden administration’s recent decision to send a small contingent of U.S. forces back to Somalia. In fact, everyone can be forgiven if you can’t find Somalia on a map.

But the redeployent is eminently worth discussing because it’s the latest example of how foreign policy globalists (like President Biden) have their priorities completely ass-backward when it comes to dealing with global terrorism.

These units are back in this failed state on the Horn of Africa – after being withdrawn by former President Donald Trump in late 2020 – not because Somalia is located strategically or boasts any resources or export markets that matter to the U.S. economy. They’re back because the country has long been a headquarters for the jihadist group and major Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabab, and this organization “has increased in strength and poses a heightened threat” recently, according to the White House. Additionally, as observed by new Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Somalia’s dismal excuse for a government is failing to prevent Al-Shabab from gaining the ability to launch terrorist attacks on the United States.

No one can dispute the need to protect the American homeland from foreign terrorist threats. But what’s so perverse about this Biden administration move is that it’s taking place after the President has taken numerous steps since his January, 2020 inauguration – many very early in this term – to weaken the security of America’s own border and thereby faciliate the entry of those terrorists.

Even worse, this Open Borders-friendly position has coincided with (a) growing numbers of apprehensions at U.S. borders of migrants from Turkey and other non-Western Hemisphere countries (including in Africa) and (b) growing numbers of such apprehensions of individuals on the federal government’s terrorist watch list. (See the official U.S. interactive feature here and the equally official dropdown menus here, respectively.)  The absolute numbers of the latter are small, but how many jihadists did it take to knock down the Twin Towers?

And speaking of Afghanistan, Biden’s sensible but operationally botched withdrawal was never accompanied by stronger border security measures, either.  Quite the opposite.  

In other words, unlike the Trump administration, the Biden administration is refusing to focus its anti-terrorism strategy on what the U.S. government can reasonably hope to control (securing its own borders). Instead, in the case of Somalia, it’s not only returning to, but doubling down on, an approach I’ve criticized before that focuses on what Washington can’t possibly hope to control – using the U.S. military to keep chasing down jihadists in failed regions like the Middle East and countries like Somalia, whose deep-seated dysfunction is bound to keep generating them. Is the President seriously expecting different results from doing this same thing over and over again? That’s of course a definition of something no one should want any U.S. leader to display.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Will a Russian Victory Really Bring On a World at War?

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Antony J. Blinken, Biden, China, Council on Foreign Relations, East China Sea, globalism, Japan, Kim Jong Un, national interests, North Korea, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, South China Sea, South Korea, Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine, Ukraine-Russia war, Vladimir Putin, war, Xi JInPing

Not only do American leaders seem pretty united on the need for the nation to do much more to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian invaders. They and the (overwhelmingly globalist) American political and chattering classes seem largely in agreement on one of the main consequences either of permitting Russia to win, or permitting him to win without inflicting major, lasting damage on Russia’s economy – a return to a world in which aggressive dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin will feel much freer than they have for decades to attack their neighbors.

That fear definitely has a troubling ring of reasonableness – and all the more so since, unlike previous historical eras in which such attacks and invasions were much more common, some of the actors possess nuclear weapons.

But there’s something these warnings are overlooking. However vivid such dangers are in principle, it’s hard to identify actual places around the world where potential conquerors have been bidng their time until receiving just the kind of signal that a Russian success in Ukraine allegedly would send.

If you doubt the prominence of this argument for greater U.S. involvement in the conflict, you haven’t been paying attention. For example, in his first public remarks after the invasion, President Biden claimed that “Putin’s actions betray his sinister vision for the future of our world — one where nations take what they want by force.”

In a speech a month earlier, his Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, asserted that one of the post-World War II global order’s guiding principles was a rejection of

“the right of one country to change the borders of another by force; to dictate to another the policies it pursues or the choices it makes, including with whom to associate; or to exert a sphere of influence that would subjugate sovereign neighbors to its will.

“To allow Russia to violate those principles with impunity would…send a message to others around the world that these principles are expendable, and that, too, would have catastrophic results.”

The conservatives on the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who don’t agree with the Biden administration on much of anything, similarly contended that “Whether the West admits it or not, the invasion is setting a precedent for what the world will tolerate in the 21st century.”

But check out this assessment of worldwide hot spots from the Council on Foreign Relations, often called the seat of America’s globalist foreign policy establishment. Where exactly are the Putins of tomorrow whose will to international power would be even be sharpened by a Russian victory in Ukraine?

Certainly not on the Korean peninsula or in the East China Sea. North Korea no doubt has designs on neighboring South Korea, but they’ve existed for decades. Ditto for China and Taiwan. It’s true that Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping might be emboldened by an inadequate U.S. and international response to Putin’s war. But not from any relief that global norms of behavior that had been holding them back had weakened, or that a Russian victory had set some a kind of precedent – with binding power? Because they take the idea of rule of law more seriously in their treatment of foreigners than they do in their treatment of their own people? Please.

Other than these Asian conflicts – which also include China’s expansionism in the South China Sea, but which also long predate the Ukraine war – where are the aggressors-in-waiting who may feel freer to attack their neighbors? Should we include the other East China Sea dispute, where China is involved, too – even though U.S. allies Japan and South Korea are also contesting each other’s claims to some miniscule islands?

More important, where are the global hot spots where current or potential territorial rivalries could explode into conflict that would imperil global peace and security – including America’s? Nagorno-Karabakh (on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, unless you’ve been following this tiff closely)? As Mr. Biden would say, “Come on, man.”

I’m sure that there are flashpoints in sub-Saharan Africa that could eventually embroil entire regions in warfare. But it’s as cold-blooded as it is true that these are regions so chronically dysfunctional (and therefore largely disconnected from the wider world) that even complete chaos has no potential to spread much further – or inspire conqueror wannabees in regions of greater concern.

Closer to home for the United States, according to the Congressionally founded U.S. Institute of Peace, some small countries in Latin America have been quarreling with neighbors over territory since 1990, and if they did ignite conflict, refugees would of course come streaming to U.S. borders. But only once – in 1995 – did one of these feuds result in war (between Ecuador and Peru). And I’m glad I don’t have to make the argument that revanchists in either country are chomping at the bit to get a symbolic green light from a Russian victory in Ukraine.

The big takeaways here clearly are (1) that the world isn’t a tinderbox likely to burst into a series of truly dangerous international conflicts depending on the outcome of Russia’s war on Ukraine; and (2) that the potential conflicts that can affect the United States consequentially are and have long been driven by their own dynamics (including current and longstanding American approaches to these situations).

So as has been the case since Russian policy toward its neighbors became more belligerent, what should be driving the U.S. response should be examinations concerning the nature of concrete, specific U.S. interests that are or are not at stake. Claims that Ukraine’s continued independence and full sovereignty are all that stand between today’s relative calm among countries (if not in terms of civil conflicts) and an entire globe engulfed in war deserve the same fate as previous alarmist concotions like the domino theory – getting tossed onto what former President Reagan memorably called the “ash heap of history.”