Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Case that Trump is…and is not…a NATO Disrupter

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energy, Europe, George H.W. Bush, Germany, Mainstream Media, Marc Fischer, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Soviet Union, Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Washington Post

Marc Fisher’s column in today’s Washington Post on the approach taken to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by President Trump and his successors is one of the more schizoid articles on American foreign policy that I’ve ever seen.

On the one hand, Fisher makes the absolutely crucial – and typically overlooked – point that since its founding (back in 1949), the United States has seen the alliance as a means not simply to contain the old Soviet Union (and now the Russian follow-on state). It’s also been seen as a means to contain Germany – specifically, (in Fischer’s words) to “enmesh Germany so thoroughly in Western alliances that it never again became a dominant, destabilizing force.” And P.S. – that’s also why Washington was so enthusiastic about Germany joining the European Union (originally through various predecessor organizations).

Even better, the author discusses how this strategy has had historic benefits (helping build a Western Europe that was free and peaceful for decades) and costs (discouraging Germans, especially after unification, from grappling seriously with the challenge of becoming a “normal” country, complete with robust defense capabilities, without reverting back to dangerous militarism).

But despite the valuable history lesson, Fisher’s article at least flirts with Trump Derangement Syndrome in two important ways. First, he fails to distinguish between German ambivalence about more assertive foreign and defense policies, and current German policies like signing energy supply contracts bound to send billions worth of euros in revenue to a Russian government that Berlin professes to view as a threat to European security and the broader “global liberal order.”

Even seven decades after the end of World War II, the former remains understandable, at least to some extent. There can be no excuse for the latter, and President Trump has been absolutely right to call Germany on the carpet in this respect.

Second, Fisher calls the Trump-ian approach to NATO, and to defense burden-sharing issues a major and troubling departure from longstanding U.S. policy because it’s been (or seemed to be) uniquely ignorant of the Germany issue. Yet he belittles Mr. Trump’s claim to be a long overdue disrupter of hidebound American NATO strategies by noting that, in 1992, former President George H.W. Bush’s administration “bluntly warned” Germany that “the United States would pull its troops out of Europe if the Germans and other Europeans didn’t cough up the money and manpower to take more responsibility for their own defense.”

Unless Bush 41 was simply blowing smoke, I’m hard pressed to see the difference between this position and President Trump’s hard (and harsh) line. Fischer could have made this case – which is entirely conceivable given the long history of similar, indeed transparently hollow, threats from Mr. Trump’s globalist predecessors. But he didn’t. Moreover, the President’s rhetoric hasn’t (yet) gone as far as Bush 41.

The way I see it, major changes in America’s approach to NATO (and to its alliances in East Asia) are urgently needed, and Mr. Trump hasn’t gone nearly far enough down this road. It’s also clear that, in some important respects, the Trump-ian approach of loud bark and modest bite has given his administration the worst of all possible worlds – widely accused by the U.S. and many foreign chattering classes of ostrich-like isolationism, yet failing (to date) to secure for the United States any of the benefits of a genuine America First global strategy. Worse, as I’ve just argued, Mr. Trump actually seems determined to increase some of the threats the United States faces from continuing the alliance status quo.

So I’m not knocking Fisher for criticizing the President’s NATO policy. What a shame, though, that he didn’t limit himself to spotlighting the Germany issue, and proceeded to fall into the kind of Trump-induced incoherence that has rightly cost the mainstream media so much credibility.

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: What’s Really Wrong with Trump’s NATO Policies

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alliances, allies, America First, Crimea, Eastern Europe, Korea, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Soviet Union, The National Interest, tripwires, Trump, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

As this year’s summit of the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) begins, it’s nothing less than vital for Americans to understand two points about President Trump’s approach to the Atlantic alliance:

First, the President’s globalist critics are right in pointing out that Mr. Trump is thoroughly, and even dangerously, mishandling U.S. relations with NATO.

Second, these critics completely misunderstand why the President is off-base.

The heart of the globalist case against Trump-ian NATO policies goes generally like this: Mr. Trump drastically underestimates the contribution made by the alliance to U.S. national security interests not only in Europe but around the world. Especially worrisome are his threats to reduce America’s military presence in Europe if other NATO members don’t boost their defense budgets to agreed on levels, and the chance that he could strike some kind of a deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at their upcoming meeting that would in some way accept Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and designs on Ukraine. The result would be the kind of appeasement that could encourage more Russian aggression against former satellites of the old Soviet Union that are NATO members today, and against the Baltic states, other new NATO members that were part of the Soviet Union proper after being taken over in 1940.  

Yet this critique fundamentally misreads the Trump NATO strategy – at least as it stands this week. Many of the latest alarm bells were set off by a Washington Post report describing a Pentagon investigation of “the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany” – where most U.S. forces in Europe are deployed.

Although semi-denied by the Defense Department, the alleged finding seemed consistent with Mr. Trump’s suggestions that if the NATO allies don’t pick up more of the alliance’s military spending burden, America’s commitment to their defense might weaken. (Interestingly, a similar statement was made earlier this year by Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is generally considered a national security traditionalist who values America’s alliances much more than the President).

But widely overlooked in the latest trans-Atlantic tumult are Mr. Trump’s actions – which should speak louder than words. And many of them were nicely summed up in this Associated Press article:

“Notwithstanding Trump’s grumbles about America shouldering the defense burden of Europe, his administration plans to boost spending to support it.

“In the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014 and its subsequent military incursion into eastern Ukraine, the Pentagon ramped up joint exercises in eastern and central Europe and spent billions on what it calls the European Deterrence Initiative aimed at Russia. After spending $3.4 billion on that initiative last year, the Trump administration has proposed boosting it to $6.5 billion in the 2019 budget year.”

It’s bad enough that a U.S. decision to increase the American military footprint in Europe will completely kneecap the Trump administration’s efforts to push more allied military spending by convincing the allies that continued free-riding and foot-dragging will carry no cost. Far worse is the focus of this new U.S. spending on beefing up the American/NATO presence in Poland and the other new alliance members in Eastern Europe. Indeed, that article about studying cutting American forces in Germany reported that one option being considered was moving some – presumably permanently – to Poland, which borders Russia.

The Poles and the other countries once under the Soviet thumb are understandably heartened by these possible moves. Troublingly, however, this apparent Trump gambit indicates that he’s just as ignorant about the paramount reason for overhauling U.S. NATO strategy as his globalist critics: Because of the alliance’s expansion to cover so many countries so close to Russia, because Moscow has recently been responding so sharply, and because NATO legally requires the United States and all other allies to rally to the defense of any NATO member under attack, the chances have risen that America could become embroiled in a war with a nuclear-armed Russia.

And worse still, the more American units are stationed in Europe, and the more permanent these deployments (so far, they’re periodically rotated in and out), the greater the odds that such a conflict will go nuclear – because defending Russia’s neighbors with conventional forces alone will prove impossible, and because the American forces will become a tripwire whose defeat or impending defeat would generate heavy pressure on any U.S. President to respond with a nuclear strike that would risk Russian retaliation.

A resulting, and tragic, irony: The security of Germany and the countries of Western Europe have for decades been considered vital American interests, primarily because their industrial and technological strength and potential could dramatically affect the balance of global power. The security of the countries to the East have never been considered vital American interests, partly because they have never remotely possessed these capabilities or potential, and partly because geography will always make them fatally vulnerable to Soviet or Russian ambitions.

So the possibly emerging Trump position amounts to assuming greater risks (including of nuclear attack on the American homeland) for assets of much less value.

As I’ve written, the continuation of status quo American policies on the Korean Peninsula poses similar nuclear risks to protect an ally – South Korea – that’s certainly impressive economically but hardly decisive to U.S. safety or prosperity.

I’m still firmly on board with President Trump’s declared intention of replacing longtime globalist foreign policies with an America First approach. But like everything else in life, this transformation can be carried out badly and well. Without a major course change, Mr. Trump’s policies could easily wind up leaving the nation with the worst of both international strategies.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing how I would deal with the above dilemmas, check out my new article in The National Interest – on what a genuine America First foreign policy would look like, and why it would be far better than its predecessor, or the strange hybrid the Trump administration has created to date.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Real Trump-Kim Summit Danger

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alliances, de-nuclearization, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, Trump, Trump Kim summit

I’m still skeptical about the prospects for the upcoming summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – but not mainly for the slew of reasons trotted out by the Never Trump chattering class since this historic meeting began taking shape.

For example, it’s true that the President has little international negotiating experience. But which of the so-called experts expounding endlessly on the summit in recent weeks – especially those who worked in previous U.S. Administrations – has any record of dealing with the North Koreans that can be accurately described as anything else but abject failure? In fact, if Kim is as unconventional (to put it diplomatically) a leader as he’s commonly described, maybe Mr. Trump’s decades of dealing in the dog-eat-dog New York City real estate world will be much more useful background than anything that can be provided by CIA briefing books.

Has the President already handed North Korea an unearned, unreciprocated victory by agreeing to meet with Kim in the first place? This charge assumes that face-to-face talks with an American leader greatly adds to his North Korean counterpart’s legitimacy. But it’s hard to see how. Kim’s rule in North Korea isn’t based on any form of popular consent. Like his father and grandfather, his hold on power owes exclusively on repression. And in terms of global opinion, this indictment leaves two crucial questions unanswered. First, why on earth is Kim’s global image the slightest bit relevant to U.S.-North Korea diplomacy? And second, what thinking person would fundamentally change his or her views on Kim’s stature or record, or whatever criteria is chosen, solely, or to any extent, because he’s photographed side-by-side with a U.S. President?

Will Mr. Trump turn out to be over-anxious for success and agree to a cosmetic or outright bad deal just to boost his ego, or his domestic poll numbers – and Republicans’ chances in this fall’s midterm elections? This concern actually resembles my own principal fear, but my underlying reasons are fundamentally different (and much more coherent) than those of run-of-the-mill Trump critics. And more important, the policy conclusions I draw remain fundamentally different.

The Trump critics seem to define a bad deal as one in which the President makes concrete concessions to North Korea (say, some relaxation of economic sanctions, or the withdrawal of some U.S. military forces) in return for vague or misleading or unenforceable promises by Kim to take some steps to start dismantling his nuclear arsenal. In addition, it’s argued that if this pattern drags on, North Korea could pocket valuable gains (a stronger economy, an improved military position on the Korean peninsula, more time to make more covert progress on its nuclear program) at the expense of the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies. And don’t forget the alarms expressed at the prospect that, if Mr. Trump concludes he’s been snookered, he’ll angrily cut off the negotiations and – much worse – his administration could resume military threats that eventually, whether intentionally or not, trigger real conflict.

The main problem with the critics’ warnings isn’t that they’re far-fetched. Indeed, they’re all too plausible. Instead, the main problem is that the bulk of the critics have urged North Korea policies that would create many of the same dangers – principally, American agreement to relax the sanctions, and/or to military steps like halting certain exercises condemned as needlessly provocative by the North but essential for maintaining readiness, in exchange for moves by Kim that would fall way short of complete, verifiable de-nuclearization.

In other words, the critics, like the over-anxious Trump of their purported nightmares, seem to be willing to live for quite some time with a North Korea that remains a formidable nuclear power, and with one that might keep on perfecting a weapon that could destroy one or more American cities in the event of a peninsular war. As I’ve explained, this arsenal, along with the ongoing presence of a U.S. tripwire military force, could easily produce a White House decision to enter a war that might result in almost unimaginable damage to the American homeland.

I’m not saying that this terrifying scenario will unfold inevitably. Nor am I completely pessimistic about the stars aligning for success over time – such as Kim’s reported determination to develop North Korea’s primitive economy (for reasons that include a self-interested calculation that more domestic prosperity is his best bet for regime survival), the Trump administration’s promise to maintain its intensified sanctions in the absence of major de-nuclearization progress, and Kim’s possible fear that the administration’s talk about preemptive or preventive war isn’t just bluster.

What I am saying is that the uncertainties are still so great, and the stakes (a nuclear attack on American soil) are so high, that it remains reckless to assume any needless risk to the nation at all. And the best way by far to eliminate needless risk from the Korea nuclear crisis, as I’ve written repeatedly, is to remove American troops from the peninsula and to allow North Korea’s neighbors to deal with its nuclear arsenal however they wish.

Such a withdrawal would remove any rational reason for Kim to attack the United States with his nuclear weapons in the event of a peninsular war. And an American threat to retaliate massively for an attack on its own territory would be almost infinitely more credible than a threat to retaliate for an attack on another country – especially if and when North Korea develops intercontinental nuclear strike capabilities.

The drawbacks of withdrawal should by now be familiar – destabilization and possibly war in East Asia, and a missed opportunity to end finally a frightening, decades-long threat to this region of big populations and economies. But the advantages – which are not nearly familiar enough because the nuclear risks of America’s alliances policies have been obscured from the public for so long – entail minimizing the chances of what would be by orders of magnitude the worst catastrophe in the country’s history. What a tragedy – and indeed scandal – that this question is still open.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: North Korea, China, & the (Inevitable) Limits of Diplomacy

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agriculture, China, commodities, diplomacy, energy, Iran, Kim Jong Un, LIbya, Made in China 2025, manufacturing, Muammar el-Qaddafi, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, tariffs, technology, Trade, trade deficit, tripwire, Trump, Ukraine

Diplomacy has sure taken a beating these last few days. And revealingly, that looks like a good thing.

Let me explain: I have no problem whatever with countries trying to resolve their differences peacefully, through dialogue and compromise. But in the nuclear age, and especially after America’s Vietnam debacle, this age-old concept has turned into a foreign policy magic bullet in the United States – including among the nation’s bipartisan globalist establishment. So the collapse (for now) of plans for a summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and the failure so far of the President to make any headway in curbing China’s predatory trade practices, could be welcome developments. For these developments could remind Americans of diplomacy’s limits in promoting U.S. national interests (the overriding priority of the nation’s foreign policy), and how even on crucial issues of war and peace, it can be completely pointless and even dangerously distracting.

On North Korea, there have always been strong grounds for skepticism that negotiations could achieve America’s main objective – the complete elimination of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons. It’s true that Kim has appeared more interested in economic reform than his father or grandfather – who preceded him in power. Therefore, in principle, he would be more responsive to economic carrots and sticks. On the one hand, he might be amenable to surrendering his arsenal in exchange for foreign investment and aid (along with security-related concessions from the United States like formal recognition of his regime, a peace treaty ending the decades-long state of war between Pyongyang and its enemies). On the other hand, he might be more concerned about the impact of the sanctions that President Trump has both broadened and intensified.

Yet it was always difficult to believe that Kim would prize any of these considerations above his regime’s defense against overseas threats, and for these purposes, nuclear weapons are hard to beat. As widely noted, he’s surely been impressed by the gruesome fates of fellow autocrats who gave up their nuclear hopes (Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi) or who hadn’t the chance to develop these weapons (Iran’s Saddam Hussein).

Further, Kim also is no doubt aware of a third recent example of a country paying heavily for signing away its nuclear weapon status: Ukraine. In 1994, that nation agreed to dismantle the large nuclear force stationed on its soil when it was part of the Soviet Union, and left there after the USSR’s demise. In return, it received security promises from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia that its territorial integrity would be respected. A quarter century later, Moscow has seized effective control over much of the country’s eastern half.

Moreover, if a Trump-Kim summit and follow-on negotiations resulted in a compromise that left the North with some kind of nuclear arsenal, this “victory” could eventually become disastrous for America and its homeland. For there would be no guarantee that Kim would have truly abandoned his family’s goal of dominating the Korean peninsula through nuclear-aided conquest or intimidation of the South. And as long as large U.S. ground forces remained in South Korea, the outbreak of war would still threaten to draw Washington into a conflict with a foe capable of hitting its territory with nuclear warheads.

That still-live prospect should be an awfully powerful reason for switching to a strategy I’ve long advocated – ditching diplomacy, withdrawing the U.S. troops in South Korea that expose the United States to nuclear danger, and permitting North Korea’s neighbors to handle Kim and his nuclear ambitions any way they wish.

Trade diplomacy with China doesn’t threaten to turn an American city into a glowing ruin. But it’s all too likely to result in open-ended talks that do as little to combat the economic and security threats created by Beijing’s trade predation as previous negotiations involving President Trump’s predecessors. As I’ve recently written, even if his administration could come up with a coherent set of priorities, adequately verifying any Chinese compliance with U.S. positions is a pipe dream.

But this latest American attempt at trade diplomacy faces two other seemingly insuperable obstacles. First, the President’s objective of reducing the U.S.’ massive bilateral trade deficit with China appears to neglect the makeup of this deficit – which matters more than its size. Specifically, his proposals to date envision narrowing the trade gap mainly by boosting American exports of farm products and energy to China.

Both sectors of the U.S. economy are obviously important. But neither can become a major driver of sustainable American prosperity, because they’re essentially involved in producing commodities – which have never added nearly as much value to national economy as manufactures. That’s why developing countries invariably view a transition from agriculture to industry as the key to their hopes for rising living standards, and why even wealthy energy producers like Saudi Arabia have resolved to focus more on manufacturing and other higher value activities.

And P.S. – that’s no doubt why the Chinese clearly consider this American demand the most appealing on the Trump agenda.

As for the intertwined threats of continued and rampant Chinese intellectual property theft, and of China’s master plan to lead the world in a wide array of “industries of the future” (the Made in China 2025 program), U.S. tariffs on the goods and services these policies already enable Beijing to produce and export could well deal its ambitions a major blow. And clearly, that’s the Trump administration’s aim.

But if so, why negotiate over these matters? The United States has made reasonably clear what it wants China to do. And it’s declared its intent to retaliate with trade curbs if China balks. If the Trump administration is serious about this approach, and confident that it will succeed, what is there left to talk about? Either the Chinese accede (in which case, as I wrote this week, towering verification challenges would remain), or they dig in their heels and the tariffs follow.

Further talks, unless they’re simply aimed at clarifying American positions, can only muddy the waters and encourage endless Chinese foot-dragging – including regularly throwing Washington a few crumbs of market share – by telegraphing a Trump reluctance to pull the trigger. All the while, the Chinese tech prowess ostensibly alarming Americans across the political spectrum will keep growing.

And as with the case of the Korean crisis, a far better American approach would be disengagement – i.e., a series of measures aimed at reversing the disastrously wrongheaded twenty-year U.S. effort to more closely link the nation’s fate to a country with which mutually beneficial commerce was never possible. The Trump administration has already taken some important steps in this direction. Chiefly, it has greatly tightened restrictions on Chinese takeovers of economic assets in the United States. And the President’s threatened tariffs have induced some factories to move from China to the United States. But as previously indicated, the administration also seems bent on helping U.S. companies invest more in the Chinese economy, which can only further widen the trade deficit and hand China more cutting edge American technology. And it’s given no hint of a comprehensive strategy to bring manufacturing supply chains now concentrated in China back to the United States.

The latter task, in particular, will entail a long-term effort – not exactly the American governing system’s strong suit these days. And success will also depend on thoroughgoing domestic policy reform. (See this article for one sensible list.) But compared with the apparent belief that, over any policy-relevant time frame, China’s will become an economy compatible with America’s, it’s the height of realism.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Trump-Kim Summit is a Spectacular – but Dangerous – Distraction

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Barack Obama, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear buildup, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, preventive strike, South Korea, Trump

The more the circumstances surrounding the North Korea nuclear crisis change, the more they remain fundamentally the same – and that includes the dramatic recent news that President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have decided to hold the first ever meeting between the top leaders of the two countries presumably to energize efforts to reach some kind of negotiated solution. As a result, it’s still the case, as I’ve argued repeatedly, that America’s only sane course of action is not to plunge even more deeply into the potentially deadly affairs of this far-off peninsula. It’s to disengage, especially militarily, and let North Korea’s big, wealthy neighbors deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear forces any way they wish.

Before the historic announcement of the Trump-Kim summit – which is far from certain actually to be held – the case for U.S. disengagement was growing more compelling by the day. The North’s rapid progress toward building a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike targets in the continental United States meant that America’s decades-old strategy of deterring Northern aggression against the South had become dangerously obsolete. Before North Korea had reached this stage, this U.S. defense guarantee was risk-free for the American homeland. Because Pyongyang could pose no threat to the United States itself, Washington could even safely afford to station nearly 30,000 combat troops directly in harm’s way in South Korea literally to trap a President into using nuclear weapons to defend the South against attack from the North and its superior non-nuclear military. And precisely because of America’s nuclear weapons monopoly, the promise was supremely credible.

With that monopoly nearly gone, the tables are turning completely. Once the North gains reasonably reliable intercontinental nuclear attack capability, America’s policy will become one of risking the complete destruction of U.S. cities for the security of another country – and a relatively unimportant one at that. And since even the landing of a single warhead one such a target would create a catastrophe never even remotely approached in American history, the current U.S. strategy will become completely non-credible. Even worse, however: As long as such a large American military force remains in South Korea, a U.S. President still may have no real choice but to proceed down the nuclear road – or accept mass American military casualties inflicted by a North Korean invasion.

It’s entirely possible that the big new twist in this story could wind up bringing the United States (and South Korea and East Asia in general) the best of all possible worlds: a verifiably denuclearized North and the preservation of American security alliances that Washington has long prized (with little evidence to be sure) as guarantors of decisive American influence in this economically vibrant region. President Trump’s stance toward the North is indeed a striking contrast to the can-kicking Obama posture of “strategic patience,” and a case can be made that the new administration’s combination of stronger military threats and economic sanctions has convinced the North that its historic truculence and defiance has become too risky. In this vein, it’s also possible that, as erratically as he’s often acted, Kim is a North Korean leader with a difference – specifically, one who significantly values his country’s economic well-being and who might be willing to trade some regained access to the world economy for his nuclear arsenal.

Sadly, it’s at least as easy to make the case that Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons (because he views them as his best guarantor of survival given the United States’ recent record of miltarily deposing other despots like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi), and that a U.S. administration ardently desiring the semblance of diplomatic victory will accept a compromise that leaves at least much of Kim’s nuclear arsenal in place, that provides valuable economic support for his regime, and that leaves at least many of the American forces in harm’s way in Korea. But this outcome would simply leave the United States in the same position as today – hostage to events in a region retaining far too many powder keg characteristics, and vulnerable to entrapment in a nuclear war if its reading of Kim and his ultimate intentions isn’t largely accurate.

Alternatively, President Trump could well continue insisting on full, verifiable denuclearization by the North, end or suspend negotiations if he’s persuaded that he’s getting conned, tighten the sanctions further in the hope that they’ll ultimately push Kim to accept U.S. terms – and even resume talk of preventive attack to (try to) make sure that the North never finishes building nuclear weapons that can be used against the America’s homeland or any of its territories, or simply to coerce greater cooperation from the North. Of course, this outcome would also leave the United States in substantially the same perilous position as at present.

As a result, the only way to drive down the risk of nuclear attack from North Korea to an acceptable level – and to enable Washington to run this risk in the first place as a matter of choice and not necessity (in order to save the troops deployed in the South) – is to pull those troops out ASAP, or by some date certain.

As I’ve noted, continued nuclear progress could still bring North Korea the ability to attack the United States with these weapons. But with the United States playing no military role in his backyard, why would it do so? Moreover, although in these circumstances an American promise to defend the South with nuclear weapons lacks would lack needed credibility (because of America’s own vulnerability), an American promise to defend itself with these devices would be supremely credible.

U.S. disengagement would indeed leave North Korea’s neighbors with many of these dangerous dilemmas. But because they’re neighbors, they have far greater stakes in dealing with them successfully than the distant United States. And because they’re among the world’s leading powers (China, Japan, and Russia, as well as South Korea), they surely have ample capabilities, or at least potential, to meet the North Korea challenge.

Are they guaranteed to succeed? Absolutely not. In fact, as supporters of the U.S. policy status quo keep insisting, an American withdrawal could destabilize the region, and even trigger conflict. But the real choices facing the United States are not between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the worse. And when the worse carries any significant possibility of a nuclear attack on American soil, the call shouldn’t even be close.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Syria, Round II

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air strikes, America First, chemical weapons, globalism, jihadism, John R. Bolton, Middle East, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Syria, terrorism, Trump

About a year ago, when President Trump first ordered airstrikes to punish Syria for using chemical weapons in its civil war, I made the case for not jumping to the conclusion that the chief executive had betrayed his promises to carry out an America First-style foreign policy. This weekend of course came a second set of Syria strikes, with the same declared objective, and I still believe that they don’t herald a new burst of (futile, if not counterproductive) interventionism in the Middle East. My main reason: Mr. Trump’s own words in announcing the attacks.

At the same time, don’t think that I’m incredibly confident that I’m right.  

First, the reasons for some confidence about where Syria policy is headed. According to the President, he’s under no illusion that either limited American uses of military force or more comprehensive policies will cure what ails Syria or the completely dysfunctional and failed Middle Eastern neighborhood in which it lives. In his words, not only is he opposed to “an indefinite presence in Syria.” He declared more broadly:

“Looking around our very troubled world, Americans have no illusions. We cannot purge the world of evil or act everywhere there is tyranny.

“No amount of American blood or treasure can produce lasting peace and security in the Middle East. It’s a troubled place. We will try to make it better, but it is a troubled place.”

In other words, Mr Trump is rejecting the globalist premises of his post-World War II predecessors. Reflecting the ostensible (and, it seems, eternal) lessons of appeasing fascist dictators during the 1930s, they have held that aggression or turmoil or instability or (fill in the upsetting development of your choice) anywhere are all too likely to escalate into crises that will eventually threaten the United States.

As a result, American forces repeatedly have been ordered into backwater conflicts with no intrinsic potential to affect U.S. security, prosperity, or freedom in any tangible way. But given the consequent globalist resolve both to nip these problems in the bud, as well as to address their underlying causes, they have demonstrated plenty of potential to mire the country into a series of costly quagmires.

Therefore, even though Mr. Trump – like former President Barack Obama before him – has described the airstrikes as essential for upholding a global norm (decades-long international bans on the “ghastly,” “barbaric,” and “brutal” use of chemical weapons), he seems to believe that this military practice can be isolated not only from whatever deep-rooted economic, social, and cultural failures have produced the strife that has occasioned their use, but from that consequent conflict itself.

But I’m worried about three big caveats. First, as long as the Syria civil war lasts, the more apparent it will become that limited actions like airstrikes won’t prevent atrocities like chemical weapons use, and the greater the temptation for more ambitious measures judged likelier to achieve their aims – but also capable of triggering a conflict with Russia, which like the United States has officials and military personnel in Syria.

Second, although the President has portrayed Syria as a conflict from which the United States can soon walk away, this analysis depends on claims that deserve major skepticism, to say the least – like the final defeat of ISIS (and, by extension, all jihadist terrorism?), and the possible emergence of a regional coalition of Sunni Arab states that “can ensure that Iran does not profit from the eradication of ISIS” and spread its influence across the Middle East.

After decades in which the American people have been told (rightly) that the region can endanger their security (via that terrorism) and their prosperity (via its gargantuan oil supplies), these positions will invariably look like naive hopes if the President’s rosy scenario doesn’t pan out. In fact, they could well spur calls for deeper and more dangerous U.S. involvement – even from an understandably skeptical public.

What’s of course supremely ironic about that dilemma is that important elements of the Trump domestic programs look like much more promising ways to shield the nation from Middle East threats than the globalist strategy he’s partly embraced of “fighting ’em there so we don’t face ’em here,” and promoting prosperity by trying to control a dizzying array of events abroad.

As I’ve written repeatedly, it makes much more sense to deal with terrorism by “keeping them out of here” through the kinds of serious border security programs the President endorses, and to continue breaking the region’s strong choke hold on global energy supplies by supporting the production revolution that American energy companies have engineered at home.

The third reason for concerns about a more interventionist Trump foreign policy has to do with his appointment of John R. Bolton as his national security adviser. Bolton, a former (interim) U.S. UN ambassador during George W. Bush’s presidency, is a strong, lifelong supporter of using the American military to solve all manner of national security challenges abroad.

It’s true that, unlike most globalists, Bolton seems to believe that these challenges will stay solved without any kind of nation-building- or democracy promotion-type follow-on. Hence his unrepentant support for the Bush administration overthrow of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein  – without a serious plan for the war’s aftermath. In all, it’s worrisome for believers in an America First approach to foreign policy that Bolton’s often trigger-happy voice could often be the last one Mr. Trump hears before making a momentous strategic decision.

Bottom-line: The slope leading from America’s current approach to Syria and the Middle East’s turmoil in general to another major war isn’t completely slippery. But it’s hard to be confident that President Trump’s footing is completely secure, either.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Keeping an Eye on the North Korea Ball

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alliances, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trump

It’s all too understandable that the stunning announcement of a possible summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has triggered a torrent of comment and speculation about a series of critical details. And they’re all important, including:

>identifying the exact preconditions;

>figuring out how to verify that North Korea is abiding by them;

>determining whether more groundwork should have been laid at lower government levels by both sides before the leaders meet in person;

>evaluating whether Pyongyang’s interest in talks differs from previous such offers;

>more specifically, assessing whether Kim’s move stems from offensive considerations (like splitting the U.S.-South Korea alliance) or defensive (seeking relief from sanctions that may be starting to bite deeply);

>mapping out a strategy for talks assuming that the summit doesn’t produce a comprehensive agreement; and deciding how to foster genuine North Korean denuclearization.

Nonetheless, none of these issues should distract American leaders from what remains their overriding priority – realizing that the North’s major progress toward developing nuclear weapons that can strike the United States has fundamentally changed America’s paramount interest in the region.

As I’ve written in many previous posts, before Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program reached this stage, it was reasonable (though not without major dangers) for the United States to focus on deterring a North Korean conventional military attack on South Korea, and to stick tens of thousands of American troops in harm’s way on the peninsula to convince the North that any such move would trigger a devastating U.S. nuclear response. The simple reason: This strategy posed no risk to the American homeland.

Now that North Korea apparently is on the verge of being able credibly to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, America’s ongoing strategy is exposing the nation to one of the worst catastrophes imaginable, and for stakes that to me are impossible to justify – the security of a medium-sized country located halfway around the world. Unless you think Kim ultimately hopes to conquer all of East Asia, or bring it under his sway? Or even the Western Hemisphere?

That’s why I keep insisting that the only sensible move for the United States is to pull the troops out, let the wealthy, powerful countries of the region deal with North Korea however they wish, and thereby completely remove any plausible reason for Kim even to threaten nuclear weapons use against the United States, much less follow through if a conflict breaks out.

In fairness, the more serious threat evidently alarming supporters of the American policy status quo is that such a U.S. withdrawal from the scene is that Asia-Pacific countries lose faith in various U.S. defense guarantees it’s enjoyed for decades, look to China to rein in Kim and maintain peace and stability in the region, and let China write the rules for doing business in this economically dynamic area in ways that largely shut out America.

The obvious rejoinders are:

>It’s already excruciatingly difficult for many American companies and entire industries to compete satisfactorily in the region’s often highly protectionist economies – indeed, for decades, Washington has permitted these inequities to persist precisely out of the (bizarre) fear that pressing for genuinely free trade would antagonize these allies and protectorates; 

>whoever sets the framework for trade and other forms of commerce the region, most of its economies will need to access the U.S. market to sustain the exports that have fueled so much of their growth. So (as always) Washington will have all the leverage it needs in economic diplomacy, and will simply need to start using it; and

>however important economic interests are (and I’d be the last to belittle them), it’s unimaginable that, if the security of the entire nation is not at risk in a given situation (which it clearly need not be in the current Korean crisis), any American objectives even begin to compare with the imperative of preventing the nuclear destruction of any major U.S. cities. And if crucial American economic interests can only be protected satisfactorily by courting such nuclear risks, then the country urgently needs a new approach to economics and business.

Incidentally, the one aspect of the apparent (and we need to underscore the continuing uncertainties here) terms under which the summit will take place that deserves greater attention has to do with the seeming North Korean pledge to halt missile testing. I’ve worried that the summit and any subsequent talks could proceed while enabling the North to continue perfecting its nuclear capabilities. For example, despite North Korea’s apparent promise to halt all nuclear-related tests, it doesn’t seem possible to verify that Kim’s scientists have stopped trying to master challenges such as affixing a miniaturized nuclear warhead onto a missile (though reportedly, American intelligence officials believe they’re pretty darned close).

But a missile test freeze at this time does seem especially valuable, given how close Pyongyang appears to be to being able to deliver these weapons across oceans. More such testing is absolutely essential to creating a weapon that could accomplish this goal with high confidence, which presumably (though with North Korea, you never know) Kim would desperately want in a crisis. And verifying a test freeze is pretty easy. The missiles either come out of their silos or they don’t.

So since that’s the North Korea capability that the United States needs most to worry about by far, Pyongyang’s apparent commitment on this front could buy America valuable time. Nonetheless, nuclear risk would remain for the United States, and for reasons that no one taking seriously the principle of “America First” – or anyone other American with their head screwed on right – should tolerate. As a result, I’d still much rather wash America’s hands of this mess and let the locals deal with it.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why America’s Alliance Strategy Can’t Have it All

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alliances, allies, burden sharing, China, defense spending, Financial Times, Germany, James Mattis, Japan, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, North Korea, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, smothering, South Korea, Trump

Decades ago (literally!) I came up with an insight that’s stood the test of time pretty well. When my main professional focus was American foreign policy, I began realizing that the best way to describe the U.S. approach to its major security alliances with East Asian and European countries was to call it a “smothering strategy.” That is, American leaders were trying not only to protect Japan and Western Europe specifically from communist aggression. They were also trying to make sure that those critical regions never exploded into major war again – and principally, that Germany and Japan never resumed their roles as aggressors.

The characteristic U.S. solution? Washington would try to smother these German and Japanese impulses by removing their need to conduct any kind of independent foreign policies of their own in the first place. That’s why the United States pledged to take care of both their national security interests (with dangerous nuclear defense commitments) and their economic interests (by opening its economy much wider to their exports than vice versa). As a result, for decades, Germans (and other Europeans) and Japanese could avoid the expenses of maintaining big military establishments and concentrate tightly on the peacetime pursuits of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness – not to mention building great wealth.

How good was this insight? To me, the proof of the pudding was America’s determination to preserve these alliances almost unchanged even after the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union disappeared, and China had not yet launched a drive to boost its influence in East Asia. To put it bluntly, U.S. leaders were still terrified that, if they were forced to face the world on their own once more, the Germans and Japanese would go bonkers again.

But this past week came some evidence that the smothering strategy is still firmly in place – despite the election of an American President who has complained loudly as a candidate as well as in office about how these arrangements are inexcusable rip-offs of the American public and especially taxpayers. At a big national security conference held each year in Germany, Trump administration officials expressed alarm at the prospect that some European initiatives to boost military spending that have barely advanced past the talking stage could might result in European forces at least sometime operating independently of their alliance with the United States – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – and even excluding America.

According to a Financial Times account of the meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis reacted by insisting that these European Union “defence plans…enhance Nato’s common defence rather than detract from it. And he put down an important marker: there was, he said, a clear understanding that common defence is a Nato mission that belongs to Nato ‘alone’.”

In other words, the Trump administration has now fallen into both of the traps that ensnared U.S. alliance policy during the Cold War. It has assured the allies that its commitment to their defense is absolute – including the risk of fighting a nuclear war on their behalf – thereby gutting any incentives for them to stop “free riding” on the United States militarily and bearing a greater share of the defense burden. And it has made clear that, although it wants the allies to assume more responsibilities for their own defense, it opposes the allies gaining any more control over their own defense. Instead, the United States must remain firmly in charge.

As a foreign policy realist, who believes that national interests are much more important than particular alliances, and can clash with the preservation of these alliances, I don’t blame the Trump-ers for wanting to have their cake and eat it, too on this score – i.e., more allied resources to use as Washington wishes. Nor do I blame the Europeans for wanting as much defense assistance from Americans as they can get while continuing to skimp on their military budgets.

But as an American, I wish the administration would recognize two fatal flaws in this alliance strategy status quo. The first is the un-realism of straining to freeze alliance structures in place when the common enemy that represented their raison d’etre has been gone for nearly thirty years. The second entails the needless dangers created by continuing to provide nuclear guarantees – and the tripwire forces needed to draw it into Armageddon – for these allies when not even the partial revival of Russian and Chinese threats (along with North Korea’s development of ever more advanced nuclear weapons) has fostered consensus in how to handle them.

Of course, dissolving these alliances will entail risks. But the risks of trying to square these circles look far greater. And when considering the nuclear threats they now pose (from those North Korean as well as Chinese forces that are much more capable of credibly threatening the United States with nuclear attack, along with Russia’s Cold War holdover arsenal), they look harder to justify than ever.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: More Upside-Down U.S. Thinking on the Korea Crisis

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alliances, allies, globalism, North Korea, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, The Wall Street Journal, tripwire, Trump, Walter Russell Mead, Winter Olympics

It was great to see earlier this month that Walter Russell Mead was chosen by The Wall Street Journal to be its regular foreign affairs columnist. Mead has often (though not always) been an important voice for a broadly realist approach to American foreign policy (meaning one that understands the need to set at least some finite priorities because not all good things are possible simultaneously). He’s also been a serious and insightful student of U.S. diplomatic history. Therefore, his new position seemed to guarantee that some badly needed diversity would be added to a Mainstream Media pundits lineup that has long been completely dominated by globalists of the left and right. (The Journal has specialized in the latter.)

That’s why it was so disappointing to see that in his recent, second Journal offering, Mead has lapsed into the thoroughly bizarre (but characteristic) globalist habit of viewing America’s security alliances as mattering more to the United States than to the allies.

The passage in question comes about a third of the way in. According to Mead, the real diplomatic winner of the current Winter Olympics in South Korea is not, as widely reported, Kim Yo Jong, the visiting sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Instead, it was South Korean President Moon Jae In. That’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion. So was the first part of Mead’s explanation: “Mr. Moon got a political boost from Ms. Kim’s visit and the appearance of a thaw between the Koreas, but he avoided the backlash from appearing naive or overeager.”

It’s the second part of the author’s analysis that has gone off the deep end: Moon “also reminded the Americans that South Korea cannot be taken for granted; without Seoul’s support, the Trump administration’s North Korea policy is unsustainable.”

Actually, in a narrow sense, Mead makes a novel and (disturbingly) convincing case for this proposition: The campaign to force North Korea to the nuclear bargaining table

“has been Mr. Trump’s most effective diplomatic and political effort to date. The administration has moved B-1 bombers and F-35 fighters to the Korean Peninsula during annual military exercises. It has reached out diplomatically to countries ranging from China to Indonesia. It has coordinated speeches by officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House to keep the government on message.

“This is the sort of orchestration that the Trump administration, and the president in particular, is supposed to be too undisciplined to carry out. The relative success of the North Korea process suggests that Mr. Trump and his staff may be more capable than critics expected in operating the complex machinery of American power.”

It’s certainly possible that, at least in an unwitting way, the President and his aides place precisely this value on their North Korea strategy. But if so, the administration would be prizing image-making over elements of strategy that are not only fundamental, but existential – and needlessly exposing the United States to the risk of nuclear attack in the process.

For even if the Trump-ers are clinging to the appearance of success or competence in their North Korea policy, the overriding reality is that American power right now is the only obstacle currently blocking a North Korean military conquest of the South, or a South Korean future dominated by endless blackmail from the militarily superior North.

Consequently, although a successful American North Korea strategy could burnish the Trump administration’s resume, and possibly shore up its domestic political support, for South Korea, it’s literally a matter of national survival at worst and of genuine independence at best.

Unfortunately, moreover, Mead’s column also explicitly makes the broader and completely ludicrous globalist argument that allies like South Korea enjoy at least as much leverage in these relationships as the United States. And as a result, he too overlooks the yawning asymmetry in the respective sets of national interests involved.

Hence his contention that crucial to any diplomatic effort to denuclearize North Korea is “the need to keep America’s alliances united. The Winter Olympics kerfuffle should remind the White House that maintaining coordinated policies with Mr. Moon will be vital in the months and years to come.”

Far more important to recognize, however – and especially given the emergence of nuclear risk to the U.S. homeland – is that by virtue of geography and military power, the United States boasts inherent options in the Korean crisis that South Korea lacks. And the principal such option is washing the nation’s hands of this entire mess.

So if any party to this relationship needs to avoid taking the other for granted, it’s South Korea. All the more so because, as I’ve written, the “tripwire” mission of U.S. forces in South Korea aims to ensure that, in the event of war, Washington comes to the South’s rescue with nuclear weapons – and before too long could thereby trigger a successful North Korean nuclear strike on an American city.

That’s not to say that South Korea lacks the right to take the lead in Korean Peninsula diplomacy, or any legitimate interests in doing so. It merits exactly these rights and interests, precisely because no country outside the peninsula has remotely comparable stakes in a peaceful resolution.

But by the same token, the United States has the right to insist that any country expecting America to run catastrophic risk on its behalf pay a price in the form of deferring to its judgment. And for the sake of the American people’s security, their leaders have an overriding obligation to remind such allies that, if they’re unhappy with these terms, they will be more than welcome to handle whatever threats they face on their own.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Still Clueless on the Palestinians After All These Years

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Arabs, Gaza Strip, Israel, Jackson Diehl, Jerusalem, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, Trump, Washington Post, West Bank

I’m not focusing on Jackson Diehl’s column yesterday in the Washington Post because he’s such a terribly important foreign policy pundit. He’s not. Instead, I’m picking on him because he’s so utterly typical of chattering class conventional wisdom (which of course includes the academics and the think tanks) on U.S. Middle East policy, and specifically on relations between Israel and the Palestinians. In the face of overwhelming and ongoing floods of evidence, it continues to be not only spectacularly wrong, but almost proudly so.

Israeli-Palestinian relations weren’t Diehl’s only focus today, but they were prominent in his overall theme that President Trump is making dangerous mistakes by tossing out so many foreign policy ultimatums to friend and foe alike lately. Diehl could be right on that larger point (though I’m doubtful) but could not be more off-base when it comes to what is still amazingly called “the peace process.”

Diehl’s evidently worked up this week because Mr. Trump decided to punish the Palestinians for snubbing a White House peace plan in protest of his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In retaliation, he’s cut half of America’s annual $125 million contribution to the United Nations agency that helps provide economic aid and various types of social services, and has threatened to eliminate the rest “unless they sit down and negotiate peace.”

According to Diehl, such steps will backfire big-time because

“The withdrawal of U.S. aid is the last thing Israel wants — it would cause the collapse of the West Bank Palestinian security forces that in recent years have worked closely with Israel to prevent terrorist attacks. Israeli military forces might have to redeploy in Palestinian areas they now avoid. In short, if Trump follows through, he’ll do less damage to the Palestinians than to Israel, the ally he thinks he’s appeasing.”

As a result, Diehl claims, “To punish Trump for that ultimatum, the Palestinians need only sit tight.”

That last point alone leaves no doubt that Diehl thinks we’re living on a planet where water runs uphill. I mean, are the Palestinian people in any kind of a position where “sitting tight” is remotely appealing? Are they the side in this conflict that’s satisfied with the status quo?

Further, who historically has paid the highest price for a resumption of terror attacks on the West Bank and/or Gaza? Try “the people who live there” – i.e. the Palestinians.

And finally, if the Palestinians, or “outside agitators” (dating myself here!) ignite another round of violence great enough to strain Israeli resources seriously, nothing could be easier for the Trump administration to do than give the funds that were slated to the UN agency to the Israeli government – or more – to use as it pleases.

Diehl’s stated fear about Palestinian violence, however, underscores an even more important point about the standard lens through which the foreign policy establishment views this issue. These supposed experts have been raising this specter for years now, and seem to have forgotten that the last event that could legitimately be called a significant Palestinian uprising took place in 2000. In fact, Diehl seems to have forgotten that he himself semi-predicted new outbreaks because of the Trump Jerusalem decision – and like so many others, blew the call.

But don’t expect this Post pundit or any others to change their tune significantly. For doing so would amount to recognizing the fatal flaws that have marked their entire overarching analysis of Arab-Israeli relations for decades. As early as 2002, when I wrote this short article, it should have been screamingly obvious that the Palestinians had virtually no leverage with Israel, whether from using force themselves or relying on their fellow Arabs to help out.

And it should have been just as obvious that their delusional demands to negotiate with the Israelis as equals, or anything close, were being enabled only by the diplomatic support from outside powers. Whether mindlessly or cynically, the United States and the Europeans have acted as if peace could somehow be created by diplomacy that ignored power realities. That’s simply childish, and the prime victims have been the Palestinians.

That’s in fact why I found the Trump Jerusalem decision so refreshing and potentially productive.  It’s why I believe that an aggressive Israeli settlement program (if not every single settlement decision) can be similarly constructive. And it’s why the President’s announcement had made foreign policy sophisticates so livid: For the real message the United States is sending to the Palestinians now is the one that’s been as emphatically rejected in the past as it’s been urgently needed – and completely common-sensical: “Keep up the obstructionism, and you’ll lose even more land.” I only wish that Washington and Jerusalem were spelling this street smart content out more explicitly, or at all, and especially for the sake of the Palestinians themselves. Unless that common expression is true, and there really is no fixing stupid.