Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Globalists’ Dangerous Tantrums over Syria and Ukraine

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America First, Cold War, Eastern Europe, FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, globalism, globalists, Harry S Truman, ISIS, jihadis, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Soviet Union, spheres of influence, Syria, terrorism, Trump, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, World War II, Yalta

If you know more than a little something about contemporary American history, you’ve no doubt been struck (or you should be struck if you haven’t been already) by the close resemblance in one key respect between the firestorms around the two big foreign policy-related uproars of the day these days, and the big foreign policy uproar of the late 1940s and early 1950s: The cries of “Betrayal” and “Backstabbing!” generated by President Trump’s withdrawal of the small American troop deployment in Syria, and his lack of interest in keeping Ukraine fully independent of Russian designs, fully recall similar charges that followed Washington’s early Cold War acquiescence in the Soviet Union’s establishment of control over Eastern Europe.

And there’s a very good reason for the similarities among these over-the-top reactions in all three cases – today’s version of which is all too capable of pushing the nation into repeating catastrophic foreign policy mistakes. In all of them, a combination of immutable geography and irrefutable common sense has established ironclad limits on American power. In all of them, America’s existential security and prosperity rendered these limits entirely acceptable. And in all, crusading globalists have reacted not with gratitude for the nation’s favored circumstances, but with tantrums that have slandered any support for the prudence logically suggested by these circumstances as evidence of treason and/or degeneracy. It’s the policy equivalent of refusing to take “Yes” for an answer.  (See this 2018 article of mine for the fullest statement of these views.) 

The Cold War event mainly responsible for the McCarthyite claims of spies and traitors shot through the U.S. government was Yalta conference of 1945 held by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his British and Soviet counterparts Winston S. Churchill and Josef V. Stalin,  At that late-World War II meeting in Crimea, FDR agreed to accept Moscow’s clam to the countries located between German and Soviet territory as a sphere of influence.

Roosevelt’s decision reflected his awareness that the enormous Red Army had planted stakes in Eastern Europe after having fought it way through the region on its way to Berlin, that it had no intention of leaving, and that dislodging these forces militarily at remotely acceptable cost was impossible. Interestingly, his successor Harry S Truman fully agreed, even though by the time he became President, the United States enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear weapons.

“Yalta,” however, became a synonym for treason for many Americans, and the next few years (including under the Democrats) became an time of loyalty oaths, persecution, and show trials, Although many of the charges that the U.S. government had become a nest of spies turned out to be true, “McCarthyism” nonetheless ruined numerous innocent lives as well, and for more than a decade stifled badly needed dissent within the national security bureaucracy.

But guess what? Despite Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and the mass, multi-generation human tragedy that unfolded behind the Iron Curtain, the United States not only survived but generally prospered. Further, the serious problems it did experience had absolutely nothing to do with the fates of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or even the former East Germany etc.

Self-interest and restraint in foreign policy go hand-in-hand just as neatly these days when it comes to Ukraine and Syria. As I’ve written, even more than Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s independence has never been considered a vital American interest because it’s never been a significant determinant of the nation’s safety or well-being; because it’s located even closer to the center of Russian military might than Eastern Europe; because as a result the United States is militarily incapable of mounting a sane challenge with conventional forces; and because on top of these assets, Moscow has long possessed nuclear forces that can obliterate the United States many times over.

As for Syria, Mr. Trump’s critics are caught in one or both intellectual time warps. The first has hurled them back to the era when the United States was thoroughly addicted to Middle East oil. However long it lasted, though, it’s now unmistakably over, thanks to the fossil fuels production revolution of the last decade or so.

It’s true that this oil still matters a great deal to Europe and East Asia, huge chunks of a global economy whose health still matters in turn to the United States (though less lately, since both regions seem chronically incapable of or unwilling to generate acceptable growth other than by amassing enormous – and unsustainable trade surpluses with America). But both regions are eminently capable of fielding the military forces needed to preserve the oil flow. P.S. So do the Middle East’s two biggest powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Their deadly struggle for geopolitical supremacy notwithstanding, both would collapse economically without the revenue brought in by their oil exports. Just ask Iran, which is being bankrupted by President Trump’s – unilateral – sanctions.

The second time warp has the foreign policy Never Trump-ers trapped in the early post-September 11 period, when the nation discovered its shocking vulnerability to Middle East-borne terrorism. Yet as I’ve repeatedly written, and experience can not have made clearer, the best way by far to protect the American homeland from this deadly threat is not continuing to chase jihadist groups around an uncontrollable region whose terminal dysfunction will keep them appearing and reconstituting, but securing America’s far more controllable borders.

Additionally, though less important, terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda have been blessed with the unique gift of antagonizing every other significant actor in the Middle East, for either ethnic (Arab versus Persian versus Turk) or religious (Sunni versus Shia Muslims) reasons. And the Russians, who are now supposedly the new kingpins in the Middle East, have no interest in seeing a serious jihadist revival on their borders. So an American exit from the region will leave it full of countries with every reason to sit on Islamic lunatics, not to mention rife with their own mutual antagonisms and historic rivalries. A chaotic balance of power to be sure, but an entirely durable one. (These arguments have just been made powerfully here.)

During the Cold War, it took debacle in Vietnam, with all the devastation it brought to America’s economy, society, and domestic and national security institutions (some of which still haven’t fully recovered), to teach globalists and the public they led, that geography and common sense mustn’t be completely ignored. Let’s all hope that their America First-oriented opponents, including a critical mass of the body politic, can keep them away from the levers of power before they produce a similar disaster.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: So JFK on Cuba Should be Trump’s North Korea Model?

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Bay of Pigs, Cold War, Cuba, Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy, Kim Jong Un, Michael Dobbs, Nikita Khrushchev, North Korea, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Robert E. Kelly, Soviet Union, The National Interest, Trump, Turkey, Vienna summit

The race for this year’s foreign policy chutzpah award couldn’t be tighter. Just when I thought political scientist Robert E. Kelly had grabbed an insurmountable lead with his new National Interest article downplaying the horror of a possible North Korean nuclear strike on the United States, along came Michael Dobbs with a jaw-dropping venture into fake history-land masquerading as an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post.

Dobbs’ achievement? An article comparing President Trump’s performance in the North Korea crisis so far with former President John F. Kennedy’s in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that failed to mention either the April, 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion: the June, 1961 U.S.-Soviet summit in Vienna: or the way in which the October, 1962 U.S.-Soviet showdown in the Caribbean actually ended.

According to Dobbs, a former Post correspondent turned historian (chiefly of the Cuban crisis), Kennedy was a model of reasonableness and restraint whose unique, “overarching sense of history” led him “to consider the interests of future generations of Americans, and ultimately all of humanity” and thus deserves much credit for preventing the showdown from turning into an apocalyptic nuclear war.

As Dobbs put it (employing terminology used in a contemporary letter from Kennedy’s wife, Jackie), the former president acted like a “big man” who knows “the needs for self-control and restraint.” Mr. Trump, however, has “indulgently” decided to “play chicken” and respond in kind to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s “explosive rhetoric” – a dangerous effort to “out-crazy” Pyongyang that reflects a “little man” outlook “moved more by fear and pride.”

But the Bay of Pigs invasion is kind of important because Kennedy’s support for this disastrously failed attempt by CIA-supported Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro persuaded Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to reach a secret deal with Havana to deploy medium-range missiles in Cuba in the first place – in part to deter another attack either by Cubans or by the United States. So the former President’s actions (which, to be sure, continued a policy of his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower) were largely responsible for creating the Soviet gambit in the first place.

Just as bad, as Kennedy admitted, his failure to order nearby American forces to come to the overwhelmed exile army’s rescue “no doubt” convinced “his superpower rival…that ‘I’m inexperienced. Probably thinks I’m stupid. Maybe most important, he thinks that I had no guts.'” The source for this passage? Dobbs’ own missile crisis history.

Has President Trump approved any similarly reckless blunders that sent such dangerous messages? No.

The Vienna conference is kind of important because this first meeting between the American and Soviet leaders reinforced Khrushchev’s impression of his Cold War counterpart as a weakling. According to one account of the summit and its aftermath:

“‘Roughest thing in my life,’ Kennedy had told James Reston of The New York Times, after it was all over. ‘He just beat the hell out of me.’ Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was contemptuous of his boss’s performance. ‘Khrushchev scared the poor little fellow dead,’ he told his cronies. British prime minister Harold Macmillan, who met with Kennedy shortly after he left Vienna, was only slightly more sympathetic. He thought that the president had been ‘completely overwhelmed by the ruthlessness and barbarity of the Russian Chairman.'”

The source for this passage? That same Dobbs missile crisis history.

Have any of President Trump’s exercise in personal diplomacy failed so utterly? No.

Finally, the Cuban crisis’ resolution is kind of important because Kennedy had a relatively easy out: an offer to remove U.S. missiles stationed in neighboring Turkey that Moscow (understandably) viewed as too close for comfort. This central element of crisis-ending deal struck by Kennedy and Khrushchev was kept secret (at Washington’s insistence), but it’s importance is now recognized by the historical community – including Dobbs.

Does President Trump have a comparable option? Evidently not – unless you count my proposal to pull American troops out of South Korea, which would remove any remotely plausible reason for North Korea to threaten U.S. territory, and turn the problem of handling North Korea’s nuclear forces over to its powerful and wealthy neighbors. Yet no American political leaders on any point on the political spectrum have expressed any support.

Dobbs of course has every right to idolize Kennedy and slight Trump. What he has no right to do after this piece of propaganda is to present himself as anything but a hack.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Obama’s Worrisomely Mixed Signals on Paris

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France, Francois Hollande, G20, Iraq, ISIS, law enforcement, Middle East, NATO, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paris, Paris attacks, Syria, terrorism, Turkey

We keep learning more and more about the Paris attacks’ crucial details, and there’s surely more to come. Yet along with the early implications and lessons I discussed yesterday, another big trend is becoming crystal clear: President Obama’s verbal response so far has been remarkably tepid, and arguably confused. More serious, it’s contrasted strikingly with what we’ve heard from France’s President Francois Hollande about the strikes – which indicates that two of the most important countries in the coalition opposing the terrorists who are likely responsible see the threat in significantly different ways that could hamper any responses.

On Friday night, in the midst of the attacks, the French leader did refer to the assaults as a “crime.” But he emphatically changed his tune by Saturday. Those remarks described the attacks as “an act of war” that was “prepared, organised and planned from outside the country by Islamic State, but with help from inside.” He added, “We will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group.”

President Obama’s initial statement on Friday expressed appropriate outrage, and pledged America’s solidarity with France in “the fight against terrorism and extremism.” But he also continued a pattern of describing such events as law enforcement challenges, terming the attacks “crimes” and vowing to “do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice….” Although Obama mentioned the need to “go after any terrorist networks that go after our people,” his unwillingness “to speculate at this point in terms of who was responsible” prevented him from connecting these efforts to the military efforts he has authorized against ISIS.

Since then, the White House has issued statements agreeing with the “act of war” description. But these statements (so far) haven’t come from the president himself. Speaking on the eve of the summit in Turkey of the G-20 countries (the world’s twenty largest economies), Mr. Obama mentioned that “as a NATO ally [of Turkey’s] we have worked together to bring about pressure on ISIL” in order to “eliminate the environment in which ISIL can operate.” But he again mentioned “hunting down the perpetrators of this crime [in Paris] and bringing them to justice.”

Again, I don’t favor seeking ISIS’ military defeat, because even if it’s achieved, the terminally dysfunctional Middle East will soon enough serve up a comparable threat. Instead, U.S. military operations in the region should focus on keeping ISIS off balance long enough to hamper its capacity to carry out international operations until Washington can secure the border tightly enough to protect the U.S. homeland from terrorism.

But if the president does mean to fight ISIS abroad principally, he needs to figure out whether he’s going to be a commander-in-chief or a police chief, and work as effectively as possible with as many allies as he can. And as the Paris attacks make terrifyingly clear, time isn’t on his side.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: With Allies Like These Against ISIS….

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allies, ISIS, Kurds, Middle East, Obama, oil revenues, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Turkey

It’s lucky for President Obama that ongoing American fears about ebola and most recently yesterday’s shootings in Canada have distracted so much public and media attention from the fight against ISIS terrorists in the Middle East.

About a month and a half after the president unveiled his strategy to defeat the Islamic army, U.S. air strikes and military aid have for the moment blunted its advance on the town of Kobani near the border of Syria and Turkey, and saved thousands of Yazidi refugees from ISIS massacre or enslavement. But the jihadis continue scoring victories in Iraq, and Mr. Obama has acknowledged that meaningful victory “won’t be quick.“

Even more disturbing, however, have been the obstacles Washington has faced in building a viable international coalition to wage the war against ISIS and to prevent the United States from having to reintroduce significant combat forces into the region – a goal that often seems to be the president’s bottom line.

Mr. Obama has spoken repeatedly of how his success in constructing the coalition, and especially bringing regional governments on board, is showing that “the people and governments in the Middle East are rejecting ISIL and standing up for the peace and security that the people of the region and the world deserve.” But today, a senior Treasury Department official made clear just how exaggerated that encouraging claim remains.

In a speech in Washington, D.C., David Cohen, the Treasury official in charge of staunching the impressive revenue streams that have helped make ISIS so formidable, publicly accused “a variety of middlemen, including some from Turkey,” along with “Kurds in Iraq,” of selling and reselling ISIS-extracted and/or refined oil, and helping the organization earn more than $1 million per day from such energy sales.

Turkey, of course, is a NATO ally, and Kurds have been among ISIS’ main targets and victims, as well as U.S. aid recipients. Both Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish officials angrily denied the charges, but as Cohen broadly hinted, active government complicity hasn’t been necessary. ISIS’ Turkish and Kurdish business partners are part of “a long-standing and deeply rooted black market connecting traders in and around the area.”  In other words, these activities have long been – and continue to be – winked at by the regimes in question.

With allies like these, it’s difficult at best to see how the United States can defeat ISIS mainly working through a coalition, and thus avoid large-scale American ground involvement. If Mr. Obama believes that denying the terrorists an Afghanistan-like haven from which attacks on the American homeland ultimately can be planned and launched, he’ll need to adopt the only remaining strategy capable of promoting vital U.S. interests at acceptable levels of cost and risk.

As I’ve advocated, the United States will need to authorize much more extensive air and special forces operations. But the aim would not be to prosecute the kind of open-ended campaign(s) that would be needed not only to defeat ISIS but to contain all the successor and wannabe groups certain to pop up in the Middle East and other failed regions. Rather, the aim would be to keep ISIS (and any others) off balance and unable to turn to nation-building just long enough to enable the U.S. government to enhance further its already considerable energy self-sufficiency and to seal its borders. Thus protected from the only two major threats that Middle East terrorists could pose, Americans would be able to regard this terminally dysfunctional region with the indifference it so richly deserves.