Month: February 2023
Stevenson’s army, February 5
– NYT has a ticktock on US decisions to shoot down the spy balloon.
– NYT also reveals the campaign that saved several LCS from decommissioning. [Proving again that where you stand depends on where you sit.]
– New Yorker explains GOP rift over Ukraine.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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A balloon should not pop diplomacy
The Chinese balloon reminds me that I am among the few who have witnessed a balloon launch. It was in Sicily in the late 1970s. The Italians and Americans were launching a balloon to study the ozone layer. I was science counselor of the US Embassy in Rome. Why not enjoy a day or two in Sicily talking with scientists?
Uneventful
The launch itself was uneventful. With the helium bubble at the top of the balloon, it measured something like 100 meters high. It would round out into a ball only as the atmospheric pressure lessened with altitude. The launch sounded like the soft fluttering of a small flock of birds. It was nothing like the launch I attended several years later in Natal, Brazil of a US Air Force rocket with a similar purpose. Then we weren’t much more than 100 meters from a very noisy launch that seemed to fire the missile directly over our heads.
The Italian balloon lacked navigational capability. As it approached the Eastern Seaboard, the Americans decided it presented a threat to commercial aviation, so they asked the Italians to destroy it. That they did. Could the Chinese have destroyed the balloon had the Americans asked them to do it? Certainly the Chinese should have that capability, if only to prevent the balloon from interfering with one of their own aircraft. But they apparently did not.
What are the Chinese up to?
The Chinese unquestionably have better means of observing the US than a balloon. Their satellites may not be as good as ours, but they needn’t be to gather lots of information. I suppose the lower cost of a balloon may have appealed to someone in the bowels of the Chinese bureaucracy. The ready and apologetic acknowledgement on China’s part suggests it was not an intentional provocation.
If the Chinese were seeking to provoke the Americans, they have succeeded. Republicans in Congress are criticizing Biden for not shooting it down right away and also for postponing Secretary of State Blinken’s trip to Beijing. Of course they would also have criticized him if he hadn’t postponed the trip or if he had shot down the balloon.
What are the Americans up to?
President Biden decided to let the balloon proceed on its merry way to the East Coast. The alternative was to try to shoot it down. But if it was in fact flying at >90,000 feet over Montana, that may not have been easily doable. The Administration has cited concern about the remnants falling to the ground, but the missile would also fall. Its fragments could cause more damage than the balloon and its payload.
My guess is the Americans are exploiting the balloon’s progress to gather intelligence. Both the balloon’s data gathering and its operation likely present opportunities. It is not a bad idea to make sure we know what the Chinese are targeting and how they do it. This isn’t likely their first balloon. Nor is it likely their last.
The Americans shot the balloon down once it could be expected to fall in the Atlantic Ocean. Falling debris would then not be an issue. The Americns will try to recover the balloon and its especially its instruments. That would provide answers to a lot of questions.
Mutual surveillance
David Frum argues in The Atlantic that mutual surveillance is a good thing and ought to be encouraged, as it was once upon a time with Russia. An Open Skies agreement with China today is unlikely. Domestic politics in both the US and China would preclude it under current circumstances. But the Chinese are unlikely to have gained enough intelligence from this balloon to compensate for the embarrassment they have caused themselves. So net, US gains, so long as it is able to contain the domestic criticism and proceed in due course with Blinken’s visit to Beijing. A balloon should not pop diplomacy.
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Stevenson’s army, February 4
– SO there was a spy balloon over Montana.
– NYT notes China has lots of surveillance capacity.
– WSJ answers questions.
– CIA warns China wants to be able to retake Taiwan by 2027.
-NYT tells timetable for new weapons in Ukraine.
– Atlantic Council analyst wants better process on technology security.
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A decent agreement still seems far off
The US and EU are exterting a lot of pressure on Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti to agree to create an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in negotiations with Serbian President Vucic. Kurti has set six conditions:
1. The association must be by the Constitution and laws in force in the Republic of Kosovo.
2. The association cannot be monoethnic, must change its name, cannot have/carry any public (or executive) power, and must only serve the horizontal cooperation of municipalities according to the Constitution and the law on local self-government (Chapter 5).
3. The association is part of the final agreement and is implemented after mutual recognition. And, in connection with the latter, only after Serbia accepts the principles of the UN Charter in its interstate relations with the Republic of Kosovo.
4. Before the establishment of the Association, the illegal structures of Serbia in the north of Kosovo are extinguished and all illegal weapons are handed over.
5. The rights of national minorities and the relevant protective mechanisms should strengthen the principle of reciprocity between the two respective states, as well as take into account European standards and models.
6. The President of Serbia withdraws the letters sent to five (and other) EU member states for not accepting the application of the Republic of Kosovo for EU membership (which also represents a violation of the same Thaçi-Dacic agreement of 19 April 2013).
One by one
These conditions are a step forward, even if they fall short of the Pristina proposal for the association that I have suggested. Let’s examine the conditions one by one.
- The requirement that any association conform to the Kosovo constitution is now well-establshed. As for Kosovo’s laws, I am not certain what conforming to them would entail. In any event, laws can be changed, if mutual interest requires it.
- Here too there is some consensus that the association should not be monoethnic. There are non-Serbs who live in Serb-majority municipalities. Municipalities in Kosovo have subsantial powers that in theory might be pooled through horizontal cooperation. But the powers should remain with the individual munipalities. I understand why the Prime Minister might like for the association to have a different name, but a rose by any other name smells just as sweet (or sour).
- This is a vital point. The association will pose a far lesser threat to Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity if it is implemented after Serbia has accepted that sovereignty and territorial integrity. I have no reason to believe that Serbia has accepted this point.
- Yes, creation of the association should be the occasion for disbanding all illegal structures and armed groups that Belgrade supports inside Kosovo. This should include all employees of the Serbian security services. All activities of Serbia inside Kosovo should become transparent and accountable.
- Yes again. Whatever Serbs get inside Kosovo Belgrade should offer inside Serbia to Albanian-majority municipalities. Reciprocity is the rule between states. Serbia has not accepted this point, to my knowledge.
- Serbia’s efforts to prevent Kosovo membership in international organizations, including the EU, will have to cease once an agreement is reached. Without this, there is no normalization.
Overall
I have no reason to believe that Belgrade is seriously considering meeting several of these conditions. Whether it does so will depend on pressures from Washington and Brussels. So far, the pressure on Belgrade has been sporadic and inconsistent. The Americans and Europeans fear pushing Serbia further into the philo-Russian, pro-China camp. The pressure on Pristina is high and unrelenting. I call it diplomatic bullying, undertaken because Kosovo has no alternative but to look West. Now that Prime Minister Kurti has met the Americans partway, I hope they will forget some of their resentments of his past. Most of his six conditions are eminently reasonable, though I would add a seventh: the US and EU should act as guarantors of any agreement, ensuring its good-faith implementation.
The problem is that Brussels and Washington are unlikely to be able to convince President Vucic to accept even the most reasonable of Kurti’s conditions. Vucic has intentionally stoked his nationalist opposition with a daily media diet of accusations and vituperation against Kosovo Albanians. He faces no serious threat from Serbia’s relatively small liberal democratic opposition. Nor does he see much upside to resolving the conflict with Kosovo. Serbia would then need to institute serious reforms in order to prepare itself for EU accession. Some of those reforms would pose political and judicial risks to Vucic’s hold on power.
I continue to hope I am wrong. But a decent agreement between Kosovo and Serbia still seems far off.
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Stevenson’s army, February 3
– US agreement with Philippines is a big deal.
– Meanwhile, NYT says China is gaining in Indonesia.
– US intelligence doubts Ukraine gain in Crimea.
– Russia may expand attacks.
– India boosts defense spending 13%.
– Senators want to block F16s to Turkey.
– In FP, Rand analysts discuss lessons from Ukraine.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, February 2, 2023
– McConnell punishes two of his critics.
– McCarthy rewards some of his.
– Bipartisan group warns DOD against unfunded priority lists.
– Poll shows US views on Ukraine options.
– Commerce official brags about effects of trade restrictions.
– Analyst urges making Commerce the 18th intelligence agency. Reasonable case to me.
– Nonpartisan agreement on some Constitutional amendments. These also look surprisingly reasonable.
– Jim Fallows has good list of things we Americans should know about China.
– DOD wants to manage itself better.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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