Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of TNT Radio Interview

Tags

abortion, border security, Capitol riot, China, Following Up, Hvorje Moric, Immigration, inflation, January 6 committee, jihadists, Middle East, national security, partisanship, politics, recession, semiconductors, stagflation, Taiwan, terrorism, TNT Radio, tribalism, `

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview last night on “The Hrjove Moric Show” on the internet radio network TNT Radio. Click here for a discussion on headline issues that ranged from the Ukraine war to the U.S. economy’s prospects to China’s future to U.S. immigation and anti-terrorism policies to the January 6^th Committee to growing tribalism in American politics.

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

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Still ISO a Coherent Biden China Strategy

Tags

Antony J. Blinken, Asia-Pacific, Biden, Biden administration, China, climate change, Cold War, decoupling, Indo-Pacific, Jimmy Carter, national interests, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, rules-based global order, Soviet Union, strategic ambiguity, Taiwan

In June, 1978, then President Jimmy Carter laid out in a speech the tenets that were going to guide his strategy toward the Soviet Union at a time when East-West tensions were mounting. His clear aim during this key juncture of the Cold War was telling Moscow what kinds of actions it could take to make sure that superpower rivalry was “stable” and even “constructive,” and what kinds would be sure to place it on a “dangerous and politically disastrous” path.

Unfortunately, the speech was widely considered to be such a confusing word salad that rumors quickly spread claiming that what Carter read were drafts from the hawkish and dovish groups of his advisors that he simply stapled together. This rumor turned out to be untrue (at least according to this study of Carter’s foreign policy), but the fuzziness of Carter’s bottom line surely helped ensure that U.S.-Soviet relations continued worsening for most of the remainder of his one-term presidency, largely because the Soviet Union became more aggressive – especially when it invaded Afghanistan.

I bring up this historical episode because Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken just gave a speech laying out the tenets of the Biden administration’s strategy toward China. It, too, seeks to ensure that today’s superpower relationship becomes more stable rather than move ever closer to conflict, but it looks just as incoherent as Carter’s address – and just as likely to produce the outcome it’s trying to prevent.

But I’ll start with a problem that was only barely detectable in Carter’s speech but that’s bound to undermine Mr. Biden’s efforts to deal with China successfully: a failure to identify American interests precisely and concretely. To be sure, the Carter speech wasted a great deal of verbiage on Soviet activity that never held any potential to endanger U.S. security or prosperity – especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Eventually, however, the President specified that “We and our allies must and will be able to meet any forseeable challenge to our security from either strategic nuclear forces or from conventional forces.”

These kinds of specific objectives were at best secondary themes of Blinken’s. Instead, his emphasis from the get-go was on defending and reforming “the rules-based international order – the system of laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that the world came together to build after two world wars to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people.”

Not only can this definition of U.S. interests way too easily turn into a formula for wasting America’s considerable but ultimately finite resources on an infinite number of international troubles having nothing to do with the nation’s safety or well-being. But good luck motivating the American population and its military to fight or even sacrifice for an objective this gauzy.

At the same time, the kind of ambivalence so broadly conveyed by Carter toward the Soviet Union permeates the picture drawn by Blinken of China. For example, the Secretary argued that China

>”is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.  Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years”:

>rather than using its power to reinforce and revitalize the laws, the agreements, the principles, the institutions that enabled its success so that other countries can benefit from them, too…is undermining them.  Under President Xi, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad”:

> “has announced its ambition to create a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power”;

> is “advancing unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea, undermining peace and security, freedom of navigation, and commerce….”

> “wants to put itself at the center of global innovation and manufacturing, increase other countries’ technological dependence, and then use that dependence to impose its foreign policy preferences.  And Beijing is going to great lengths to win this contest – for example, taking advantage of the openness of our economies to spy, to hack, to steal technology and know-how to advance its military innovation and entrench its surveillance state”;  and

> is “trying to cut off Taiwan’s relations with countries around the world and blocking it from participating in international organizations.  And Beijing has engaged in increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity, like flying PLA aircraft near Taiwan on an almost daily basis.”

In all, according to Blinken, “The scale and the scope of the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China will test American diplomacy like nothing we’ve seen before.”

So given these malign aims and actions, how could Blinken also insist that

> “We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power, nor to stop China…from growing their economy….”;

> “We know that many countries – including the United States – have vital economic or people-to-people ties with China that they want to preserve.  This is not about forcing countries to choose.  It’s about giving them a choice….”;

> ”The United States does not want to sever China’s economy from ours or from the global economy – though Beijing, despite its rhetoric, is pursuing asymmetric decoupling, seeking to make China less dependent on the world and the world more dependent on China.”; and that

> “as the world’s economy recovers from the devastation of the pandemic, global macroeconomic coordination between the United States and China is key – through the G20, the IMF, other venues, and of course, bilaterally.”

That last point, and a companion Biden administration argument about climate change, seem compelling – at least superficially. But think about it for a moment: Why would anyone holding the view of China’s hostile actions and intentions laid out by Blinken expect any meaningful cooperation from Beijing on anything?

Even on climate – that supposedly quintessential threat that respects no bordes – it logically follows that the kind of Chinese leadership depicted by Blinken will be working overtime to ensure that China minimizes any sacrifices it makes to prevent dangerous warming, and maximize those required of everyone else. Consequently, the most effective way to spur China to do its share and therefore boost the odds that the climate problem actually gets solved is to deny Beijing the economic power to stay off the hook.

There’s a big (and in my view, legitimate) debate currently underway over whether the United States should continue its longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding defending Taiwan from China, or explicitly pledge to do so, as President Biden may or may not have done a week ago (and not for the first time). But there shouldn’t be any debate over whether America’s underlying strategy toward the People’s Republic should be as completely ambiguous – not to mention as nebulous – as the approach just articulated by Blinken.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Louder Talk and Still Too Small a Stick

Tags

alliances, allies, Biden, China, Constitution, defense budget, Finland, Lippmann Gap, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear umbrella, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Sweden, Taiwan, Ted Galen Carpenter, treaties, Ukraine, Walter Lippmann

The foreign policy headlines have been coming so fast-and-furiously these days that they’re obscuring a dramatic worsening of a big, underlying danger: The dramatic expansion spearheaded lately by President Biden in America’s defense commitments that’s been unaccompanied so far by a comparable increase in the U.S. military budget. The result: A further widening of an already worrisome “Lippmann Gap” – a discrepancy between America’s foreign policy goals and the means available to achieve them that was prominently identified by the twentieth century journalist, philosopher, and frequent advisor to Presidents Walter Lippmann.

The existence of such a gap of any substantial size is troubling to begin with because it could wind up ensnaring the nation in conflicts that it’s not equipped to win – or even achieve stalemate. As I wrote as early as March, 2021, a Gap seemed built in to Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy from the beginning, since he made clear that America’s goals would be much more ambitious than under the avowedly America First-type presidency of Donald Trump, but also signaled that no big increase in America’s defense budget was in the offing.

Since then, Biden aides have expressed a willingness to boost defense budgets to ensure that they keep up with inflation – and therefore ensure that price increases don’t actually erode real capabilities. But no indications have emerged that funding levels will be sought that increase real capabilities much. Congressional Republicans say they support this kind of spending growth to handle new contingencies, but the numbers they’ve put forward so far seem significantly inadequate to the task.

That’s largely because most of them have strongly supported Biden decisions greatly to broaden U.S. the foreign military challenges that America has promised to meet. As for the President, he’s specifically:

>not only supported the bids of Finland and Sweden to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but stated that the United States would “deter and confront any aggression while Finland and Sweden are in this accession process.” In other words, Mr. Biden both wants to (a) increase the number of countries that the United States is treaty-bound to defend to the point of exposing its territory to nuclear attack, and (b) extend that nuclear umbrella even before the two countries become legally eligible for such protection via Congress’ approval. It’ll be fascinating to see whether any lawmakers other than staunch non-interventionists like Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul question the Constitutionality of this position; and

>just this morning declared that he would use U.S. military force to defend Taiwan if it’s attacked by China even no defense treaty exists to cover this contingency, either, and even though, again, there’s been no Congressional approval of (or even debate on) this decision.

This Biden statement, moreover, lends credence to an argument just advanced by my good friend Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute – that although Ukraine has not yet joined NATO officially, ad therefore like Taiwan lacks an official security guarantee by the United States, it may have acquired de facto membership, and an equally informal promise of alliance military assistance whenever its security is threatened going forward.

As a result, Ted contends, “the Biden administration has erased the previous distinction between Alliance members and nonmembers” – and set a precedent that could help interventionist presidents intervene much more easily in a much greater number of foreign conflicts without Congressional authorization, let alone public support, than is presently the case.

To be sure, lots of legal and procedural issues have long muddied these waters. For example, the existence of a legally binding treaty commitment doesn’t automatically mean that U.S. leaders will or even must act on it. Even America’s leading security agreements (with the NATO members, Japan, and South Korea) stipulate that the signatories are simply required to meet attacks on each other in accordance with their (domestic) constitutional provisions for using their military forces.  (At the same time, breaking treaties like these, all else equal, isn’t exactly a formula for winning friends, influencing people, and foreign policy success generally. As a result, they shouldn’t be entered into lightly.)

Further complicating matters: America’s constitutional processes for war and peace decisions have long been something of a mess. The Constitution, after all, reserves to Congress the power to “declare war: and authorizes the legislature to “provide for the common Defense” and to “raise and support Armies.” Yet it also designates the President as the “Commander in Chief” of the armed forces.

There’s been a strong consensus since Founding Father James Madison made the argument that limiting the authority to declare war to Congress couldn’t and didn’t mean that the President couldn’t act to repel sudden attacks on the United States – that interpretation could be disastrous in a fast-moving world. But other than that, like most questions stemming from the document’s “separation of powers” approach to governing, the Constitution’s treatment of “war powers” is best (and IMO diplomatically) described as what the scholar Edward S. Corwin called a continuing “invitation to struggle.”

Undoubtedly, this struggle has resulted over time in a tremendous net increase in the Executive Branch’s real-world war powers. But the legal issues still exist and tend to wax in importance when presidential assertiveness leads to conflicts that turn unpopular.

I should specify that personally, I’m far from opposed yet to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden. Indeed, their militaries are so strong that their membership seems likely to strengthen the alliance on net, which would be a welcome change from NATO’s (and Washington’s) habit of welcoming countries whose main qualification seems to be their military vulnerability (like the Baltic states) and tolerating long-time members that have been inexcusable deadbeats (like Germany).

Similarly, as I’ve written, because American policymakers recklessly allowed the country’s semiconductor manufacturers to fall behind a Taiwanese company technologically, I now believe that Taiwan needs to be seen as a vital U.S. national security interest and deserves a full U.S. defense guarantee.

Yet I remain worried that the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy risks plunging the United States into a conflict with Russia that could escalate to the nuclear level on behalf of a country that (rightly) was never seen as a vital U.S. interest during the Cold War.

So my main concern today doesn’t concern the specifics of these latest Biden security commitment decisions. Instead, it concerns the overall pattern that’s emerging of talking loudly and carrying too small a stick – and ignoring the resulting Lippmann Gap widening. However Americans and their leaders come out on handling these individual crises, they need to agree that the responses  urgently need to close the Gap overall. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine satisfactorily dealing with any of them on their own.

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

Tags

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.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Worrisome State of the Union Message to China

Tags

alliances, allies, Biden, China, energy, inflation, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, sanctions, State of the Union, Taiwan, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Vladimir Putin, Xi JInPing

Let’s start with a confession: I’m one of the numerous viewers and listeners who has no idea what President Biden meant when he ended his State of the Union address last night with an ad-libbed “Go get him!” right after his usual closing, “May God protect our troops.”

This seemingly provocative placement notwithstanding, it probably wasn’t a suggestion that the U.S. military would be roaring into action to help Ukraine win its war with Russia – which segues nicely into today’s theme of what message China probably gleaned from the speech.

The subject matters greatly because Chinese leaders have been eyeing a takeover of Taiwan and threatening the island’s independence even longer than Vladimir Putin has been eyeing a takeover of Ukaine, and for similar stated reasons. Just as Putin insists that Ukraine historically has been part of Russia, Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province of China. And although there’s no important connection I can see between Ukraine’s fate and America’s own security and prosperity, Taiwan is the world leader in semiconductor manufacturing technology – which is crucial to U.S. military power and economic well-being.

That’s why I’m concerned that too much of the Biden speech signaled to China that its increasingly aggressive moves against the island can continue and even intensify with impunity.

For not only did the President once again vow that “our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine.” He added that “I’m taking robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions  is targeted at Russia’s economy. And I will use every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers.”

In other words, although “we the United States of America stand with the Ukrainian people,” that’s only true as long as Americans themselves don’t run any significant risks or pay any significant price.

Nor is this Biden qualification limited to words. It’s precisely to avoid boosting already lofty U.S. inflation rates even higher than the President has excluded energy from his anti-Russia sanctions package so far – even though Putin’s massive earnings from oil and gas exports clearly help finance his Ukraine war. 

Mr. Biden did repeat his pledge that “the United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory of NATO countries with the full force of our collective power.” But like Ukraine, which is not a member of that North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Taiwan is not an official ally. Therefore, China could well conclude that the United States would stay out of a Taiwan conflict for similar reasons.

The State Department has warned that “We have an array of tools that we can deploy if we see foreign companies, including those in China, doing their best to backfill U.S. export control actions, to evade them, to get around them.”

But if the administration’s top Ukraine sanctions priority to date has been shielding the U.S. economy from their impact, you couldn’t blame Xi Jinping’s regime for not taking seriously the notion that Washington would punish China for propping up Putin.

After all, the United States (unforgivably) has become highly dependent on his economy for a wide range of products. China’s markets for U.S. goods and services simply dwarf Russia’s. And indeed, these links have become so broad and deep that nearly the entire American big business community has become an ardent and highly effective lobby for preventing any boat-rocking. .

None of the above is to say that U.S. rhetoric and moves on the Ukraine, or any other foreign policy fronts, will be the sole or even the main determinants of China’s Taiwan strategy. After all, Beijing has been ramping up pressure on the island long befor the conflict in Eastern Europe broke out – for reasons ranging from concerns about Taiwan declaring its formal independence and potentially exposing China as a paper tiger in the process to Xi’s decision to link “reunification” to his legacy.

But just as American leaders should never make threats they can’t or won’t back up (or make commitments that create many more dangers than they can prevent, which I believe to be the case with NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and years of talk about adding Ukraine and other Russian neighbors), they need to be careful about signaling weakness or timidity. And I fear that’s exactly what was conveyed to China by the sharp contrast between President Biden’s apocalyptic warnings about the need to resist Putin’s aggression and the tight limits he revealed to his willingness to do so.              

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine Crisis Grows Curiouser and Curiouser

Tags

Annaleena Baerbock, Biden adminisration, China, democracy, deterrence, Eastern Europe, energy, European Union, Germany, human rights, Italy, Mario Draghi, NATO, natural gas, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olaf Scholz, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Phase One, Poland, Russia, sanctions, sovereignty, Taiwan, tariffs, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, trade war, Ukraine

The longer the Ukraine crisis lasts, the weirder it gets. Here are just the latest examples, keeping in mind that new developments keep appearing so quickly that this post might be overtaken by events before I finish!

>What’s with the Chinese? Toward the end of last year, (see, e.g., here) I’ve been worried that President Biden’s Ukraine policy would push Russia and China to work more closely to undermine U.S. interests around the world – a possibility that’s both especially worrisome given evident limits on American power (Google, e.g., “Afghanistan”), and completely unnecessary, since no remotely vital U.S. interests are at stake in Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern Europe.

In the last week, moreover, numerous other analysts have voiced similar concerns, too. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But just yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published this piece reporting on Chinese words and deeds indicating that Beijing opposed any Russian invasion of Ukraine. You’d think that China would welcome the prospect of significant numbers of American military forces tied down trying to deter an attack by Moscow on Ukraine, or on nearby members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or getting caught up in any fighting that does break out. The result of any of these situations would be an America less able to resist Chinese designs on Taiwan forcibly.

It’s unimaginable that Chinese leaders have forgotten about these benefits of war or a continuing state of high tensions in Ukraine’s neighborhood. But according to the Journal, Beijing has decided for the time being that it’s more important to avoid further antagonizing the United States on the trade and broader economic fronts – specifically by helping Russia cushion the blows of any western sanctions. China is also supposedly uncomfortable with the idea of countries successfully intervening in the internal affairs of other countries – because of its own vulnerability on the human rights front, and because it regards foreign (including U.S.) support for Taiwan as unacceptable interference in its internal affairs, too (since it views Taiwan as a renegade province).

Not that China isn’t already acting to prop up Russia’s economy – specifically agreeing earlier this month to buy huge amounts of Russian oil and gas. But if Beijing has indeed decided to go no further, or not much further, the potential effectiveness of western sanctions on Moscow would be that much greater. It would also signal that the Biden adminisration has much greater leverage than it apparently realizes to use tariffs to punish China for various economic transgressions – e.g., failing to keep its promises under former President Trump’s Phase One trade deal to meet targets for ramping up its imports from the United States.

>Speaking of sanctions, the Biden administration view of these measures keeps getting stranger, too. The President and his aides have repeatedly insisted that the best time for imposing them is after a Russian invasion of Ukraine, because acting beforehand would “lose the deterrent effect.”

But this reasoning makes no sense because it – logically, anyway – assumes that the sanctions that would be slapped on would achieve little or nothing in the way of inflicting economic pain powerful enough either to induce a Russian pullback or convince the Kremlin that further aggression along these lines wouldn’t be worth the costs.

After all, pre-invasion sanctions would be taking their toll while the Russians were fighting in Ukraine, and until they pulled out or made some other meaningful concession. The Biden position, however, seems to be that in fact, during this post-invasion period, they’d be taking scarcely any toll at all – or at least not one significant enough to achieve any of their declared aims. If that’s the case, though, why place any stock in them at all at any time?

>One reason for these evidently low Biden sanctions expectations is surely that, at least for now, the administration isn’t willing to promise that the potentially most effective punishments will be used. Nor are key U.S. allies.

Principally, last Friday, Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh told reporters that banning Russia from the global banking system would “probably not” be part of an initial sanctions package. And Germany keeps hemming and hawing about ending the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline project even if Russia does invade.

The Germans – and the rest of Europe – are now acting like they’re taking seriously the need to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas (which currently supplies some forty percent of their supplies of this fossil fuel. But Berlin has still not committed to cancelling its plans to buy even more gas from Russia via the recently completed Nordstream channel. (The pipeline isn’t yet in use because the Germans are in fact dragging their feet on final regulatory approval.) Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has declared that Nordstream is “on the table” for her if the Russians move militarily. But nothing even like this non-promise has been made by Prime Minister Olaf Scholz. And last Friday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said he opposes including energy in anti-Russia sanctions.

>The final puzzle: Although Poland is a linchpin of NATO’s strategy for preventing any Putin aggression beyond Ukraine, the European Union has just moved a major step closer to cutting the country off from the massive economic aid it receives from the grouping, and indeed has already frozen $41 billion in CCP Virus recovery funds it had previously allotted to Warsaw.

The decisions stem from Poland’s alleged backsliding on commitments it made to protect human rights in order to join the EU, but blocking these resources isn’t exactly likely to strengthen Poland’s ability to aid in the effort to contain Russia, and Ukraine itself is hardly a model democracy (see, e.g., here and here) – all of which can’t help but scramble the politics of the crisis in Eastern Europe yet further. And all of which should be added to the already impressive list of paradoxes, ironies, mysteries, and curiosities that everyone should keep in mind whenever they hear about the future of Europe, the global liberal order, world peace, and human freedom itself being at stake in Ukraine.    

Im-Politic: The Best Way Forward in Ukraine

Tags

Afghanistan, Baltic states, Biden, China, Cold War, deterrence, Eastern Europe, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, tripwire, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

This is by no means what I want to happen – in fact, I find the prospect pretty troubling (as should you), But I can’t help but wonder if the current Ukraine crisis will end peacefully with the United States putting tripwire forces permanently in many of the relatively new Eastern European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in order to protect them against possible Russian designs, along with throwing Russian leader Vladimir Putin some kind of a rhetorical bone concerning his opposition to Ukraine joining NATO.

As known by RealityChek readers, tripwire forces are relatively small numbers of U.S. troops stationed on the soil of a vulnerable ally whose purpose is to deter attack by an aggressive, heavily armed neighbor. The idea isn’t that these U.S. forces will be enough to defeat the enemy – Washington has never been willing to pay for the manpower and weaponry to accomplish that goal. The idea is that the fear of killing American soldiers will greatly reduce the odds of an attack in the first place. That’s because it would greatly increase the pressure on a U.S. President to respond with the only measure that could prevent their imminent, total defeat (and possibly many more U.S. casualties) – using nuclear weapons.

I don’t like the idea because, especially today, it exposes the American homeland to the risk of nuclear attack (by far the worst national security disaster that could befall it, and likely the most destructive event in the nation’s history) in order to protect countries less than vital to the United States, and which could easily defend themselves if they weren’t such defense skinflints and free-riders. (South Korea has been a prime example, although, as I’ve written, its semiconductor manufacturing prowess has made it more important lately.)

At the same time, the tripwire strategy arguably played some role in keeping the Soviet military on its side of the Iron Curtain for decades during the Cold War, and it’s certainly conceivable that the kinds of deployments that President Biden seems to be thinking about could produce the same results in places like the Baltic states (which used to be Soviet republics) and Poland.

Not that this course of action would be risk-free. Sending lots of troops and heavy weapons like tanks would amount to stuffing lots more soldiers and lethal hardware into a relatively small area, and very close to major Russian military forces. As I’ve written, the odds of an accidental conflict would inevitably rise.

That’s why it would be much better for the United States to come to an agreement with Putin recognizing the need for limits on Western military deployments on Russia’s borders, and on future NATO expansion.

But Mr. Biden doesn’t seem interested in serious negotiations. Maybe that’s because he honestly believes that geography shouldn’t matter in world affairs and that countries should be free to make any security arrangements they like regardless of what powerful neighbors think. Maybe that’s because he’s afraid of further charges of weakness from domestic critics and voters in the wake of his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maybe it’s both. But at this point the reasons for his position matter much less than his position itself..

Boosting the U.S. military footprint in Eastern Europe, especially in a steady, methodical way, would project an image of strength that he so desperately seeks now, and in theory enough to offset the effects of his decision (for now) not to use force to save Ukraine (which in my view will at the very least increase Moscow’s dominance of the country, either through a military occupation, attacks that enable Putin to peel off regions of Ukraine’s east, or a coup or other machinations that install a puppet government in Kyiv).

And although Moscow will huff and puff, the presence of Americans in places like the Baltics in particular are likely to keep the Russians out – and in ways that the presence of, say, Danes and Spaniards won’t.

Some big questions would remain. For example, what if Putin tried to destabilize the Baltics by stirring unrest among their sizable Russian populations? And will Germany, which is actually blocking the efforts of NATO countries to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces apparently and in part for fear of antagonizing Russia further, be OK with using the American bases on its soil to help maintain U.S. forces stationed on NATO’s easternmost front lines?

I don’t have the answers here. But worrisome as the tripwire strategy is, unless Washington is ready for some significant give-and-take on Eastern Europe’s future, it’s much better than some of the alternatives I can imagine:

>like a Russian takeover of Ukraine without any offsetting steps that really could create big doubts about American reliability in places unmistakably vital to the U.S. future – especially global semiconductor manufacturing leader Taiwan – and tempt more aggression by China (mainly against Taiwan);

>like so many foreign weapons flooding into Ukraine that they could either trigger a Russian preemptive attack on their own, or give Kyiv enough confidence to mount the kind of full-scale resistance that following an invasion that would produce fierce enough fighting to spill over into neighboring countries. Alternatively, such a conflict could push President Biden into more active U.S. military involvement that might become particularly dangerous because of its very haste.

After his summit with Putin in Geneva, Siwtzerland last June, the President said “I think that the last thing he wants now is a Cold War.“ Unfortunately, largely because he’s painted himself into such a tight diplomatic corner, for now, that may be the best of a series of bad outcomes for Americans. And for Europe East and West, it’s certainly better than the other kind of conflict.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Foreign Policy Pillar is Looking Hollow at Best

Tags

alliances, allies, Beijing Olympics, Biden, China, Emmanuel Macron, European Union, France, Fumio Kishida, Germany, Japan, multilateralism, NATO, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olympic boycott, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

What’s worse than “terrible”? It’s an important question because if that’s a term that accurately describes President Biden’s last week or so in office, then something even stronger is clearly needed for the setbacks suffered recently by multilateralism – the foundation of his foreign policy. And most troublingly, the idea that U.S. foreign policy success requires the cooperation of major allies has been failing most conspicuously when it comes to dealing with America’s two biggest global rivals – Russia and China.

Let’s deal with Russia first, but not because I view it as the biggest threat to the United States – or even much of a threat at all. In fact, I’ve long and repeatedly written that the fate of Ukraine has no importance for America’s national security, and that Washington should accept some form of the kind of spheres of influence-type deal in Eastern Europe that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed.

But the Ukraine crisis is making the most headlines right now, the subject dominated his long press conference last Wednesday, and Mr. Biden is nowhere near taking my advice. Indeed, that presser added powerfully to the evidence that the United States and its allies are deeply divided over how to respond to actual and possible Russian moves against Ukraine.

As the President made clear, “[I]t’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page.  And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.  And there are differences.  There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens — the degree to which they’re able to go.”

Indeed, that very day, France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the European Union seek separate from U.S. efforts a new security agreement with Russia. Macron did state that “It is good that Europeans and the United States coordinate” but added “it is necessary that Europeans conduct their own dialogue, We must put together a joint proposal, a joint vision, a new security and stability order for Europe.”

Since Europe is a lot closer to Russia and Ukraine that the United States, and will be much more dramatically affected by events in that region, this French position seems entirely legitimate to me. At the same time, it’s tough to believe that Macron would place such importance on a Europe-only effort if he was completely happy with what he knows of American diplomacy so far.

Germany’s views seem even farther from Washington’s. Its new government has not only refused to join some other European countries (notably, the United Kingdom) in supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine. It’s blocked at least one NATO country – Estonia – from sending its own Made in Germany arms to bolster Kiev’s military.

Moreover, trade-dependent Germany, whose trade with Russia in energy and other goods is substantial, doesn’t even seem very keen on deterring or punishing Moscow for invading Ukraine with the kinds of sanctions that are widely viewed as the strongest – cutting Russia off from the global network used by almost all the world’s financial institutions to send money across borders for all the reasons that money is sent across borders. At least Berlin is sounding more open to halting final approval of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline if Ukraine is invaded.    

Asian countries seem more prepared to resist aggression from China, especially the military kind (as opposed to Beijing’s economic efforts at intimidation). Since this post last September reporting on steps they’ve taken to transition from U.S. protectorates to countries more closely resembling genuine allies, some have made even more encouraging moves.

For example, Indonesia reportedly “is preparing itself militarily” to deal with Chinese moves against islands located in its territorial waters and major straits through which much of its (and the world’s commercial shipping) travels. The Philippines – another Southeast Asian country embroiled in maritimes disputes with China, has just bought cruise missiles from India, and reportedly some of its neighbors are interested in these devices, too.

At the same time, despite a virtual summit between President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan’s policy on using its forces to help any U.S. attempt to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack remains ambivalent at best. South Korea looks more hesistant still.

Nor is Japan backing the United States to the hilt on sanctioning Russia economically following a Ukraine attack, or even close. After the Biden-Kishida session, an anonymous U.S. official said (in a briefing posted on the White House website) that although the Japanese leader “made it clear his country would be ‘fully behind’” Washington on the issue, his response concerning economic responses Tokyo would support was “We did not get into the specifics about possible steps that would be taken in the event that we see these [potential Russian] actions transpire.”

The refusal of so many U.S. allies and others to join the Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott versus the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing also casts major doubts on the President’s emphasis on multilateralism. Can any countries declining even to keep their officials alone out of China for the games (as opposed to their athletes) be counted on to push back more concretely and powerfully against future provocations from China?

Athletes and sports fans know well the expression “Change a losing game.”  For all you others, it means that if a strategy or approach is failing, switch to an alternative.  But for the future of American foreign policy, the most important part of it remains unspoken, and the one that the President needs most urgently to heed:  “Change it before you’ve lost.”   

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time for a Nuclear-Armed Taiwan?

Tags

alliances, allies, Asia, China, East Asia, geopolitics, Indo-Pacific, Japan, national interests, national security, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Porcupine Theory, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, vital interests

Since early in the nuclear age, students of international relations scholar from time to time have advanced a dramatically heretical idea: that a world in which more than a few countries possessed nuclear weapons would be safer than a world in which such arms were limited to those countries that already had them. The  reasoning: Attacking nuclear-armed countries is a lot riskier for the aggressor than attacking non-nuclear countries, so the risk of wars breaking out would fall. If you think about the success of the little mammal with big quills, you can see why this notion has become known as the “Porcupine Theory”.

I bring up the subject because I increasingly find myself wondering whether encouraging Taiwan to build a nuclear arsenal would be the best way for the United States to safeguard interests in the island’s independence that have become vital recently because Taiwan has become the world leader in manufacturing advanced semiconductors – which are so crucial to the national security and prosperity of every country, including the now lagging United States.

There can’t be any doubt that the burgeoning importance of Taiwan’s independence and the apparently burgeoning determination of China to reestablish control over what it views as a renegade province, have produced a situation that’s increasingly dangerous for the United States. China, after all, is a power whose conventional military forces may now be strong enough to defeat America’s if it decides to help Taiwan fight off a Beijing attack.

In principle, Washington could resolve to turn the tide by using its own weapons of mass destruction in a battle for Taiwan. But China’s own arsenal is now so powerful that the result could be a full-scale nuclear exchange that brings disaster to the U.S. homeland. In other words, as I’ve written for years, America arguably has lost escalation dominance in Asia, and may have no choice but to acquiesce in China’s takeover of the island and its world class tech capabilities.

Nonetheless, this dire threat so far hasn’t deterred U.S. leaders from moving closer to declaring their intent to defend Taiwan militarily (notably, e.g., as reported here), and ending the posture of “strategic ambiguity” that has so far helped keep the peace in the region. So no one can responsibly rule out push coming to shove in this intensifying crisis.

To date, the United States has opposed countries like Taiwan from crossing the nuclear weapons threshhold mainly because Washington has rejected the Porcupine Theory. In addition, however, this anti-proliferation stance, especially toward allies and quasi-allies like Taiwan, has stemmed from the nuclear weapons parity that the United States enjoyed vis-a-vis the old Soviet Union and today toward Russia, and the overwhelming superiority of its nuclear forces versus those of China and North Korea in Asia. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the Asian nuclear balance has deteriorated from the U.S. standpoint.

The United States has also always viewed its security alliances with Germany and Japan in particular to be essential to preventing their reversion to the disastrously militaristic ways of the 1930s and 1940s. Nuclear weapons controlled by these two countries were therefore completely out of the question. (Interestingly, a revealing difference of opinion between then President Barack Obama and then presidential candidate Donald Trump was sparked by these issues in 2016.)    

Reliability concerns, however, have also dominated Washington’s position on nuclear weapons spread outside the U.S. alliance network. Specifically, American leaders have always worried about these devices being acquired by unstable governments (which supposedly are less capable of securing them against terrorists and other extremists) and so-called rogue states (which supposedly would be more likely to use them or threaten their use).

A nuclear-armed Taiwan could resolve the prime dilemma for the United States by letting it off the hook for the island’s defense. After all, if China hasn’t yet pulled the trigger on a Taiwan without nukes, it makes sense to believe that it would be much less likely to attack the island if a conflict could bring Taiwanese nuclear warheads falling on Chinese soil.

It’s true that, as I’ve heard various observers argue, that the semiconductor problem may be exaggerated – because, for example, the United States could keep the relevant technology out of Chinese hands by bombing the factories and labs. In theory, the Taiwanese may have plans to blow up these facilities themselves. But it’s also true that these speculations could be way too optimistic – especially since the most crucial knowhow resides in the heads of Taiwanese scientists and engineers, who would need to be protected somehow against a Chinese roundup.

An American endorsement of a nuclear Taiwan could also bring benefits throughout Asia, signaling to Beijing that continuing its bellicose behavior could convince the United States to give a nuclear green light to Japan and South Korea.

Moreover, the longstanding main U.S. anti-proliferation rationales look a lot weaker today. Taiwan is clearly neither a rogue state nor a country with an unstable government. Ditto for Japan and South Korea, for that matter. Besides, precisely because of the weakening U.S. military position in East Asia, and consequently growing worries about Washington’s willingness to make good on its nuclear commitments, many observers believe that all three countries are already latent nuclear powers. (See, e.g., here.) That is, they could build nuclear weapons quickly whenever they wished.

Yet encouraging Taiwan to go nuclear would hardly be risk-free. If and when openly announced, it could spur the Chinese to attack – to enable them to capture the island before its nuclear-ization was completed. A nuclear Taiwan would also be less deferential to American wishes. In fact, its semiconductor superiority has already enabled it to resist some U.S. demands related to plans for increasing microchip production and supply chain security cooperation between the two countries. (The same has held for South Korea, as reported in the linked article immediately above.)

More broadly, nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea would certainly undermine America’s post-World War II status as kingpin of East Asia, and all the benefits it ostensibly creates for Americans in one of the world’s most economically important regions.

But even if those benefits were nearly as great as widely believed (and continuing U.S. difficulty opening Asian markets to American exports makes clear that they haven’t been), a nuclear-armed Taiwan would create much bigger benefits: dramatically reducing the odds that China acquires some of the world’s most important technology, and that the risk of a Chinese nuclear attack on the United States if Beijing resulting from a conflict over Taiwan.

The key, as suggested above, would be supporting nuclearization without provoking all-out Chinese aggression – suggesting that this goal deserves more attention in Washington than it’s receiving these days.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A New U.S. Manufacturing Growth Report That’s the Good Kind of Boring

Tags

aerospace, aircraft, aircraft parts, automotive, Boeing, Build Back Better, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted output, infrastructure, interest rates, Iran, Iran deal, Israel, Joe Manchin, machinery, manufacturing, medical devices, nuclear deal, Omicron variant, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber products, PPE, quantitative easing, Russia, semiconductors, stimulus, supply chains, Taiwan, tariffs, therapeutics, Trade, Ukraine, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Today’s Federal Reserve after-inflation U.S. manufacturing data (for November) were refreshingly (though encouragingly) boring, with one exception – some genuinely eye-popping revisions in specific, high-profile industries.

Overall real manufacturing output improved on month by 0.68 percent, adding to the evidence that domestic industry has bounced back from summer and early fall doldrums caused partly by damage from Hurricane Ida and partly by a global semiconductor shortage that depressed automotive production.

And in this vein, the November results weren’t dramatically impacted by the vehicle and parts sector, whose inflation-adjusted production rose by a 2.22 percent figure that’s clearly strong but decidedly un-dramatic compared with the roller-coaster it’s been on for most of the year.

In addition, revisions for manufacturing as a whole were modest and mixed.

The list of November’s biggest monthly manufacturing growth winners indicates how broad-based industry’s sequential constant dollar output gains were in November. No fewer than six of the major manufacturing subsectors tracked by the Fed enjoyed price-adjusted production advances of more than one percent. Aside from automotive, they were aerospace and miscellaneous transportation (whose 1.64 percent increase included another strong rise in aircraft, as will be detailed below); paper (up 1.63 percent); plastics and rubber products (1.45 percent); non-metallic mineral goods (1.25 percent); and textiles (1.21 percent).

The biggest losers were petroleum and coal products (down 1.24 percent on month); machinery (off by 0.66 percent); apparel and leather goods (0.53 percent); and printing and related support activities (0.50 percent).

But even in this group, hopeful signs can be found. As RealityChek regulars know, drps in machinery production are worrisome because its products are used so widel in the rest of manufacturing and in big non-manufacturing sectors like construction and agriculture.

But the November decline followed one of those eye-popping revisions. October’s originally reported 1.27 percent sequential decrease is now judged to be a 0.59 percent increase.

Moreover, the printing and petroleum and coal products fall-offs were both preceded by October real production advances that have been downwardly revised (from 4.97 percent to 3.79 percent for the former, and from 1.41 percent to 1.18 percent for the latter) but were still impressive.

Manufacturing industries that have been prominent in the news during the pandemic generally performed worse in November, save for aircraft and parts – whose performance was spurred by news from industry giant Boeing that continues to be pretty good. (See, e.g., here and here.) After-inflation production climbed by 1.90 percent month-to-month in November, and October’s 1.43 percent increase was revised up to 1.54 percent.

Even with a second downward revision to September’s inflation-adjusted output (from 0.45 percent all the way down to a negligible 0.09 percent), constant dollar output in aircraft and parts is now 15.86 percent higher than in February, 2020 – the last full data month before the CCP Virus began seriously distorting the U.S. economy.

Pharmaceuticals and medicines, however, lost even more growth momentum. Despite major demand for and use of vaccines, their price-adjusted output dipped by 0.15 percent sequentially in November, and October’s decrease was revised from 0.51 percent to 0.76 percent. But September saw another one of these enormous revisions – from a downgraded 1.04 percent production fall to a 0.76 percent gain. All told, these industries are now 13.54 percent bigger in constant dollar terms as of November than in February, 2020.

The news was worse in the crucial medical equipment and supplies sector – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators. Real production in November was off by 0.61 percent month-to-month in November, and October’s previously reported 1.08 percent decrease is now estimated at a greater 1.91 percent. Moreover, September’s results saw their second big downgrade – first from an initially reported 1.53 percent growth to a 0.73 percent gain, and this morning to one of just 0.16 percent. So since February, 2020, after-inflation production in this sector is up a mere 0.65 percent.

As with the entire economy, the manufacturing sector is being pushed and pulled by what seems to be an unprecedented number and type of forces and government decisions. On balance, though, unless the Omicron variant of the CCP Virus prompts much more voluntary or officially mandated disruption at home or abroad than seems likeliest now, further manufacturing growth still looks like the best bet for the foreseeable future.

Although prospects for stimulus from President Biden’s Build Back Better bill seem barely on life support due to West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s continuing objections, and the Federal Reserve yesterday announced further reductions in its stimulative bond-buying (AKA quantitaive easing), infrastucture bill money should soon begin flowing.  Further, the central bank still made clear that heavy levels of quantitative easing will continue for months more, and is in no rush to start raising interest rates.

Most consumers still have plenty of money to spend, even though further inflation could weaken their appetites. U.S. employment levels keep rebounding strongly by most measures. Supply chain knots continue untangling, albeit not always quickly. Mr. Biden is keeping nearly all of his predecessor’s China tariffs in place, which is preventing predatory Chinese competition from taking customers from domestic manufacturers. The brightening Boeing picture will help its entire vast U.S.-based supply chain. And American and overseas demand for both CCP Virus vaccines and now therapeutics will surely keep growing whatever the rest of the domestic or global economies do.

One set of gathering clouds shouldn’t be neglected, however. I don’t mean to sound alarmist, and don’t believe conflicts are imminent, but what the investment community calls “geopolitical risk” is troublingly on the rise in Asia (due to mounting Chinese pressures on Taiwan) and Europe (due to Russia’s military buildup on the Ukraine border). Moreover, although negotiations to slow Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability have resumed, this has been ongoing and nearing critical threshholds. And it’s far from clear how well a nuclear Iran would go down with Israel – just as it’s far from clear how well domestic manufacturing and the rest of the economy could withstand a second major non-economic disruption in a very few years.