Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Running Around in Circles on Spheres of Influence

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Antony Blinken, Biden, Biden adminisration, Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro, Jake Sullivan, James Monroe, Monroe Doctrine, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Sergei Ryabkov, sphere of influence, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Western Hemisphere

Now here’s an utterly whacko turn taken by U.S. policy toward the Ukraine crisis that pretty astonishingly has gone unnoticed: The Biden administration keeps insisting (e.g., in the words of Secretary of State Antony Blinken), that “One country does not have the right to dictate the policies of another or to tell that country with whom it may associate; one country does not have the right to exert a sphere of influence. That notion should be relegated to the dustbin of history.”

At the same time, this same administration has recently reemphasized that the United States will keep exerting a sphere of inflence in the Western Hemisphere – the same sphere of influence that was first declared when President James Monroe laid out his famous doctrine in 1823,and that has been rigorously enforced repeatedly. (Google, e.g., “Cuban Missile Crisis.”)

As Monroe stated:

“[W]e should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere, but with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”

President Biden’s White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan wasn’t quite so wordy answering a reporter’s question on January 13, but here’s his response when asked to

“address the [Russian] Deputy Foreign Minister’s comments suggesting that the — that Russia could deploy forces — or wouldn’t rule out deploying forces in Latin America?  Is that something that the U.S. is concerned about?  Is that something that came up in those discussions?”

Said Sullivan: “I’m not going to respond to bluster in the public commentary.  That wasn’t raised in the discussions at the Strategic Stability Dialogue.  If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”

Do you see any significant difference with Monroe’s remarks? Of course not. But they could not be more different than Blinken’s declaration, especially when you consider that the Russian official in question, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, never suggested that Moscow would send forces to Latin America against a prospective host country’s will.

This last observation matters a lot because during the most important invokation of the Monroe Doctrine – that aforementioned 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the run up to it – it was Cuban dictator Fidel Castro who asked the Soviet Union to provide him with weapons and even troops to defend his regime (following the failed U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles), not the other way around. And Castro had no problem with the alternative proposed by Moscow – those missiles.

At this point, it’s absolutely vital to point out that I’m not contending here that since the United States has declared – and still declares – a sphere of influence in its neighborhood that Russia or any other country has some kind of innate right to declare one in their neighborhood. I’m not even arguing that the United States is being hypocritical in claiming a sphere of its own while decrying similar claims by others.

That’s because it’s nothing less than inane, and in fact downright childish and often dangerous, to view these matters in terms or rights or even simple consistency. Because in the international sphere — which lacks any commonly accepted, much less enforceable, definitions of acceptable behavior – questions of principle and the like have absolutely nothing to do with a country’s ability to protect or advance interests it considers important, right up to survival. A country either has the power (in any of its dimensions, either alone or in combination with others) or some other capacity (shrewdness?) to achieve these goals or it doesn’t. And relying on these kinds of abstractions (including the illusion, in the security field, of effective international law), as opposed to power considerations, is a surefire formula for failure, defeat, or even worse.

As a result, it is supremely unimportant whether the United States or Russia or any other country or group of countries views anything like another’s sphere of influence as legitimate or hypocritical or downright despicable or possessing any other moral or ethical characteristic. What is supremely important is whether or not the United States or Russia, or any other actors, has the capacity, or determination to create the capacity, to defend its own sphere or any other claim, or to challenge successfully anyone else’s claim.

When it comes to Ukraine, nothing could be clearer than Russia’s ability to defend a sphere and the United States’ inability to bring it to an end it and unwillingness to build the ability to do so. When it comes to the Western Hemisphere, the reverse holds.

Just as important: The consolidation of a Russian sphere in Ukraine or other neighbors not already U.S. treaty allies shouldn’t significantly trouble Americans in the slightest. They literally have no dog in that fight. That’s because, as I’ve written repeatedly, the United States has no vital or even significant stake in Ukraine’s status, and because, as a result, any effort to change this status with the only instrument capable of succeeding (the military), could all too easily amount to suicidal folly given Russia’s conventional military superiority in its own backyard and its vast nuclear arsenal,

By a comparable token, the United States shouldn’t be troubled in the slightest by any arguments by neighbors or others that policies like the Monroe Doctrine undermine their sovereignty or any other rights they think they possess. That’s because the United States does have vital stakes in keeping foreign military forces out of the Western Hemisphere. In other words, those claims by other countries can never be remotely as important to Americans as whatever requirements for their national security or well-being their own political system determines – that is, unless they don’t attach much value to self-preservation and similar goals.

There’s no telling how the Ukraine crisis will turn out, and how Washington will ultimately respond. But it does seem clear that an administration that issues such totally conflicting statements on spheres of influence as those by Sullivan and Blinken isn’t increasing the odds of anything that any Americans could justifiably applaud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Obama Cuba Announcement is a Nothing-Burger

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Castro, Central America, Cold War, Cuba, Cuban Missile Crisis, diplomatic relations, Monroe Doctrine, nuclear buildup, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Reagan administration, Soviet Union, Western Hemisphere

President Obama spent 12 minutes today announcing his decision to establish full U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time since 1961. My main reaction? That was about 12 minutes longer than justified by the decision’s importance. And you can imagine what I think about all of the government time, energy, and resources expended in preparation of this move.

Yet a scientific poll of the reactions they’ve generated indicates that my tweets this morning about this move’s monumental insignificance have caused widespread confusion, and even consternation. Specifically, my indifference to the Cuba news is seen as completely incomprehensible. So let me explain – in the hope that such apathy will spread!

Not that I don’t understand the symbolic milestone represented by the Obama decision. As a card-carrying baby boomer, I have vivid memories of air-raid drills as a second-grader at P.S. 20 in Queens, New York during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we’d be told to duck under our little wooden desks and warned, “No talking!” And of course, Cuba remained a Cold War bugaboo long after – especially from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, when much of the American political class was frantic over the possibility that Cuban-advised forces would take over countries like Angola and El Salvador. (I kid you not.)

But that last sentence should start clearing up part of the mystery of my aloofness. For by that time, nothing should have been more obvious than that the East-West struggle had been reduced to little but a contest over countries lacking any intrinsic strategic or economic significance. Cuba – a charter member of their ranks – was stirring pots of no consequence.

Castro and Cuba did potentially (and for a short time actually) pose a serious threat to American national security. The island and any states brought into its orbit were always capable of hosting Soviet military forces and espionage facilities that could greatly complicate U.S. defense planning. The October, 1962 crisis itself was sparked by Moscow’s plans to base in Cuba nuclear missiles that could have struck the U.S. homeland in very short order.

But the best American response to these kinds of threats was never fighting proxy wars against communist or other radical foes in the Western Hemisphere, much less using foreign aid to innoculate its low-income countries against the ideological appeal of Moscow or Havana. It was using overwhelming U.S. strategic superiority in the hemisphere to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.

Indeed, I made this very proposal as the Reagan administration was embroiling the nation ever more deeply into Central America’s conflicts: Washington should inform those countries that their forms of government were of no intrinsic concern to the United States, but that America reserved the right to attack and destroy any concentrations of foreign forces on their territories it deemed worrisome.  (I can’t find the article on line, but it was in the October 5, 1987 issue of The New Republic.)

(It’s now highly controversial how great a role this strategic superiority played in the resolution of the missile crisis itself, since we now know that a secret agreement by President John F. Kennedy to withdraw American missiles from bases in the Soviet Union’s neighbor, Turkey, also played a major role in preventing war. At the same time, it’s been long believed that Moscow’s decision soon after the crisis to launch a huge strategic nuclear buildup reflected a determination never again to run the local or global risks of nuclear inferiority.)

Cuba – and the prospect of leftist revolutions in Central and South America – became even less important once the Soviet Union fell and Havana lost its major sponsor. So it makes perfect sense to ignore whatever policies American presidents decide to pursue with this small, weak, dirt-poor country.

So if you’re of Cuban descent, or have family and friends who are, or if you live in Florida, or if you just find Cuba interesting for whatever reason, by all means follow this story closely. Otherwise, if you’re concerned about the well-being of the United States or the world in general, stick with or shift over to higher priorities.  And for President Obama and other American leaders on both the Left and the Right, that goes double.