Hope is lost
There is no more Hope. Hicks, ultimate loyalist, is the latest announced departure, but dozens have already left, some voluntarily, others under pressure, and still others fired. Most notorious are the wife abusers, but there was also the head of the Centers for Disease Control who traded in cigarette stocks, the National Security Adviser who was in the Russians’ pocket, the head of the FBI fired for refusing to pledge personal loyalty to the Don, the Secretary of Health and Human Services who racked up a million dollar travel bill, and the Communications Director who never actually got a US government paycheck before getting himself cashiered for an interview he gave to The New Yorker. Rachel Maddow offered this version of the story in today:
She updates that from time to time.
Churn is pretty common in US administrations, but this one is setting records. On top of the political appointees, there is a massive exodus of Civil Service and Foreign Service officers, many of whom can’t stomach the President and some of whom figure their prospects will improve if they get out before the wheels come off.
This is happening in a moment where presidential leadership, both domestically on guns and internationally, is wanted and needed. The President is so erratic and nonsensical on guns that no one can follow him–yesterday he suggested just confiscating them from people deemed dangerous and worrying about due process thereafter. How well is that going to work?
The international scene is crying out for America to make itself clear. In Syria the military commander has said we plan to keep the troops on the ground to prevent the return of ISIS but not counter Iran or President Assad, even though that is what the Secretary of State says our objective is. In Israel/Palestine, everyone is expected to believe that son-in-law Jared Kushner has a magic plan he is about to reveal, but he no longer can even read classified material. I’d bet he’ll be going back to New York soon, without revealing his brilliant scheme. The North Koreans are ready to talk, but the President has said that is pointless, even while his Secretary of State signals that is what we want to do.
But the worst is Russia. President Putin spent a good part of his state of the Russian Federation speech today making it clear that Russia sees itself as a rival to the United States, which it is targeting with every weapon in its arsenal. But Russia is no superpower. It is a declining regional petropower suffering a demographic implosion even as its economy fails to keep up with the rest of the world’s growth. That is not to say it isn’t dangerous: it has invaded Ukraine, pulverized the relatively moderate Syrian opposition in order to support a war criminal president, and is trying to expand its footprint in the Middle East wherever would-be autocrats rule (for the moment that’s Egypt, Turkey, Libya, and Syria).
Trump’s people will claim he has done a great deal to counter Russia. What it amounts to is some limited lethal weapons for Ukraine’s army, some expansion of sanctions, and shutting down some “diplomatic” facilities. But President Trump has conspicuously avoided criticizing President Putin and has failed to speak up against, or even acknowledge, Russia’s blatant meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. While we can suppose that some of the massive increase in America’s military budget is aimed to counter Russia, the President has nowhere said so. Leadership is silent on Putin and Russia, except to occasionally come to their defense.
It is all too clear why: Trump’s personal real estate empire depends on Russian money, much of it likely headed to the laundry. Today’s news that Kushner has been gaining massive financing for his personal real estate ventures from people who meet with him suggests he has jacked up “pay to play” to a whole new level: hundreds of millions of dollars for his personal pockets. Remember when Trump complained loudly that someone might have benefited from contributions to the Clinton Foundation, an allegation never proven? In my mind, there no doubt Trump is benefiting, invisibly but massively, from his reluctance to criticize Russia or to move more aggressively against interference in the US election.
Hope Hicks was wise to announce she is leaving this sinking ship. It may still take a long time, but it is going down.
PS: For a well-done but ultimately flawed argument that Russia is stronger than its statistics suggest and Trump less a patsy than he appears, see Benjamin Haddad’s piece.
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Patriotic Americans shouldn’t tolerate it
Jared Kushner can’t get a top secret security clearance? That was obvious long ago. His real estate empire leaves him open to undue influence, especially by China and Russia. He apparently compounded the problem by discussing his personal business during official government contacts with foreigners and by failing to report at least some of those his high-level contacts. No one should be surprised: Kushner has made it clear from the first that he believes the normal rules don’t apply to him, hence his failure to fill out his security forms fully and accurately.
But the same is true for his father-in-law. Donald Trump never had to fill out the security forms, but that doesn’t change the obvious: his far-flung business empire leaves him open to undue influence as well, not just by China and Russia. Witness the tug-of-war his minions are involved with in Panama. He, too, believes the normal rules don’t apply, hence his failure to separate himself from his businesses and his use of his family in official roles that don’t require Senate confirmation.
We can’t expect National Security Adviser McMaster and White House Chief of Staff Kelly to take on the President the way they did Kushner, but they need to try to mitigate Trump’s serious exposure to foreign leverage over his decisions.
McMaster is trying to do this by installing an orderly decision-making process, one that has been so successful it has opened wide gaps between what the US government is actually doing and what the President is saying and tweeting. Hence the effort in eastern Syria to stabilize the region US troops and their allies control, despite the President’s explicit disavowal of nationbuilding. Likewise the mixed signals on North Korea: while the President threatens fire and fury, the State Department is pursuing negotiations. Or the decision to send lethal, albeit defensive, arms to Ukraine, despite Russian objections and Trump’s own disinclination.
Kelly is also trying to install a more orderly process and has succeeded in ousting some of the worst of Trump’s staff. But his own views are so dramatically right-wing that he at the same time encourages the worst of Trump’s instincts on limiting immigration, reducing refugee resettlement, and minimizing the response to a groundswell of popular sentiment in favor of gun safety measures.
Nothing can save Trump from himself. He has still not criticized Russia for interfering in the 2016 election or ordered the US government to respond with either defensive or offensive measures. He is trying to channel the gun debate into a ridiculous discussion of arming teachers, a proposition that at best will be adopted in a few more communities and at worst will lead to more deaths in school gun battles. Trump is trying to dismantle Obamacare piece by piece, rather than in one fell swoop, an effort that will hurt more people in the states he won than elsewhere. His one clear victory in Congress is a tax cut bill that benefits the rich far more than anyone else and a bipartisan spending compromise that ends any Republican claim to fiscal restraint.
Special Counsel Mueller has now indicted and even gotten guilty pleas from people only one degree of separation from the President. Several of these people were deeply enmeshed in Russian money, as is the President himself. No, nothing has been proven yet against him personally, but it defies logic to imagine that he has also not been subjected to Russian influence. He publicly welcomed Russian help during the campaign (in obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails), as his son did in private. Seeking or receiving such help is illegal. I’ve said it before: he is either a dupe or an agent. It is hard for me to understand how any patriotic American would tolerate it.
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What Black Panther is really about
If you really want to know what Black Panther is about, read son Adam. He knows. My engagement with popular culture is so limited (unless you count opera and other classical music, which you shouldn’t) there is little hope I have anything interesting to say.
But I know a little something about international affairs and conflict, on which Black Panther has important things to say. When the thrill of the fight is over, the film rejects the notion that a strong and violent autocrat, even one with justifiable resentment who says he intends to liberate the oppressed, would be better than an equally strong but popular and merciful leader, not only for Wakanda but also for the rest of the world. Erik Killmonger gets a decisive thumbs’ down, not only from T’Challa, but also from the writer and director.
Erik has suffered an enormous injustice: his father’s murder and his own abandonment. He has trained and exercised his entire life in a determined effort to exact revenge. He is strong and clever. Ruthless, he does what he thinks he needs to do not only to gain power but also to keep it forever. He still gets soundly beaten. No end justifies the means.
Instead the film serves up an alternative, one that appears explicitly and surprisingly after the credits. Then T’Challa calmly offers Wakanda’s technology and brains to the rest of the world, rejecting his own father’s determined effort to keep Wakanda secret and isolated. The forum for this almost trite reassertion of globalist values is, of course, the United Nations General Assembly hall.
Rather than impose its power on the rest of the world, T’Challa chooses to offer it to all.
What we’ve got here is the triumph of generosity over selfishness, of sharing to make everyone better off rather than hoarding to make America first, of calm intelligence over frenzied ignorance, in short of Barack Obama at his best over Donald Trump at his worst.
Despite all the African regalia, music and choreography, Black Panther isn’t much about race, partly because its two protagonists (and almost everyone else) are both black.* The one significant white guy in the movie is a CIA agent–usually on the side of ignorance and the forces of evil–who joins forces with T’Challa and, despite himself, does his bit for the internationalist cause. Nor should anyone miss the decisive role of powerful and brainy women in determining the outcome, as well as the ultimately decisive entry into the final battle of a self-interested but still important ally.
I admit that I don’t often find a film that depends this much on special effects and gratuitous violence all that edifying. But how many movies are out there that teach this lesson about international relations: in the end, alliances, ideals, cooperation, generosity and intelligence beat lone strong men, brutal realism, vengeance, selfishness, and egotism.
*I predict I’m going to get in trouble for that sentence.
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Peace picks, February 26 – March 4
- The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy | Monday, February 26 | 12:00pm – 2:00pm | Atlantic Council | Register here |
Earlier this month, the Pentagon released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which described an increasingly challenging international security environment and a need for the United States to strengthen its nuclear posture to deter strategic attacks on itself and its allies. This conversation will explore the US nuclear posture; assess the costs and benefits of changes to US nuclear policy under the Trump Administration; and analyze how America’s nuclear weapons contribute to its broader national security goals. The event will also feature the launch of Dr. Kroenig’s new book titled “The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy.” A conversation with: Matthew Kroenig (Atlantic Council), Adm. Cecil D. Haney (United States Strategic Command, Ret.), Rebecca Hersman (Center for Strategic and International Studies), James N. Miller (Harvard University); moderated by Thom Shanker (New York Times).
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- History of Modern Public Diplomacy: The Origins of the Founding of the United States Information Agency (USIA) | Monday, February 26 | 1:00pm – 2:30pm | Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) | Register here |
The United States Information Agency (USIA) took the lead in the war of ideas between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II. Although USIA no longer exists, it is important to reminisce about the origins of its founding and how it has played a role in modern public diplomacy. The lessons of the past should be understood and presented for the benefit of those on the future front lines of U.S. public diplomacy. CSIS is hosting a public event to examine USIA’s experience in the 1950s and 1960s, and will build upon previous conversations and a commentary that talked about the lessons learnt from the agency’s merger with the U.S. State Department in the 1990s. Featuring Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), Caitlin E. Schindler (Institute of World Politics), Gregory M. Tomlin (United States Military Academy at West Point), and Elizabeth “Betsy” Whitaker (George Washington University and Georgetown University), with CSIS expert Daniel F. Runde (Director, Project on Prosperity and Development).
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- Nuclear Risks in Northeast Asia | Tuesday, February 27 | 10:30am – 2:00pm | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | Register here |
China’s rise and North Korea’s rapidly developing nuclear and missile programs have catalyzed a debate about whether the United States should rely more heavily on nuclear weapons in its efforts to protect the security of Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, civilian nuclear energy programs risk the stockpiling of plutonium. South Korea and China are considering programs to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel, as Japan wrestles with the realization that it is unable to make fresh fuel from the plutonium it has already extracted. Join Carnegie for a discussion, hosted jointly with Nagasaki University, of the most urgent nuclear challenges facing international actors in this increasingly tense region. Featuring two panel discussions: “Extended Deterrence in North East Asia,” with Rebecca Hersman (Project on Nuclear Issues, CSIS), Jina Kim (Korea Institute for Defense Analyses), Jon Wolfsthal (Nuclear Policy Program, CSIS), Fumihiko Yoshida (Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University), and Toby Dalton (Nuclear Policy Program, CSIS); and “Security Risks of Civilian Plutonium Use in North East Asia,” with Thomas Countryman (U.S. Department of State), Se Young Jang (Nuclear Policy Program, CSIS), Victor Reis (U.S. Department of Energy), Tatsu Suzuki (Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University), and James M. Acton (Nuclear Policy Program, CSIS). Opening remarks by Susumu Shirabe (Nagasaki University) and James Acton.
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- Trump’s Trade Policy in Asia: A One-Year Review | Wednesday, February 28 | 10:00am – 11:30am | Brookings Institution | Register here |
On February 28, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies and the U.S.-Japan Research Institute will host a panel of experts to assess the drivers and outcomes of Trump’s trade policy in Asia over the first year of his administration. They will discuss how Japan and the United States can deepen trade and investment ties despite the American withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the chances of a successful renegotiation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) and its impact on broader U.S.-South Korea relations; and whether the administration’s condemnation of predatory economics in the region and use of unilateral trade measures will effectively deter Chinese mercantilism or trigger trade friction. The discussion will by moderated by Mirya Solís (Co-Director, Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings), featuring Meredith Miller (Senior Vice President, Albright Stonebridge Group), Eswar Prasad (Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Devleopment at Brookings), Shujiro Urata (Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University), and Jeffrey J. Schott (Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics).
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- Reevaluating U.S. Security Assistance to the Middle East | Thursday, March 1 | 1:30pm – 3:30pm | Middle East Institute | Register here |
Since 9/11, American security strategy has focused on building the military capabilities of global allies in order to advance shared goals and address joint threats. In the Middle East, the results of this approach have been mixed at best. Frustration over U.S. security assistance to the region has grown in Washington, as funding and arms transfers to various state and non-state partners have led to unintended consequences, prompting the Trump administration to reevaluate U.S. aid to Egypt, Pakistan, and the Palestinians. The Middle East Institute (MEI) will convene a panel of experts to examine these key issues, with a keynote address by Lee Litzenberger (senior advisor, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State) with Amb. (ret.) Wendy Chamberlin (President, MEI). The keynote will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Missy Ryan (Washington Post) and featuring Michele Dunne (CEIP), Mara Karlin (SAIS and the Brookings Institution), Justin Reynolds (Cohen Group), and Bilal Y. Saab (MEI).
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- Afghanistan: Assessing Progress and Prospects for Regional Connectivity | Thursday, March 1 | 3:30pm – 5:00pm | Atlantic Council | Register here |
Please join the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center for a discussion with Dr. Mohammad H. Qayoumi where he will discuss how Afghanistan can play a pivotal role in integrating the economies of Central Asia and South Asia. Dr. Qayoumi will provide an overview of the progress achieved in the past three years in the areas of regional connectivity and discuss the tremendous opportunities that need to be explored in the future. Afghanistan can serve as the land bridge that can help connect Central Asia to South Asia and serve as the catalyst for bulk energy transfers between the two regions. Similarly, as a data transit country, Afghanistan can play a key role in shortening multiple Internet paths within the region. A conversation with: Dr. Mohammad H. Qayoumi, Chief Advisor on Infrastructure to H.E. President Ashraf Ghani of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and Mr. Manish Tewari, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Moderated by Dr. Bharath Gopalaswamy, Director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.
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The risks of something nutty
I’ve been trying to follow my own good advice: Donald Trump is a distraction from the real things going on in this troubling and troubled world. Best to ignore his inanity and focus on what matters.
It isn’t easy. President Trump spent much of the week flogging the idea that we should arm school teachers to prevent mass shootings. This is a patently bad idea for many reasons:
- The perpetrators are always armed with greater fire power than a teacher could conceal;
- An armed teacher who survives confrontation with a perpetrator would face serious risks once the SWAT team arrives;
- The risk of harm to innocent bystanders from a teacher with a handgun would be far greater than the risk from the SWAT team;
- Few teachers would take up this privilege;
- The environment in schools would however become far more antagonistic between teachers and students than it already is, since the idea is to keep secret which teachers are armed;
- There would be a risk of students getting hold of a teacher’s gun;
- Administration of such a program, including training and storage of weapons and ammunition, would be burdensome, not to mention the costs of insurance and legal settlements.
Even the stationing of trained and armed uniformed guards in schools has not demonstrably helped.
Trump’s advocacy of this bad idea, which pleases his National Rifle Association donors, distracts from other things going on, most notably the indictments of his senior campaign officials (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) on top of the indictments of more than a dozen Russians who hacked the 2016 election.
There can no longer be any doubt that Russia conspired to discredit the electoral process and support Trump’s candidacy. Nor can there be any doubt that President Putin blessed, if he didn’t actually order, the effort. The Russians also appear to have relieved Manafort and Gates of debt obligations while they were serving the campaign, in return for something still unknown. Both are likely headed for lengthy prison terms for “conspiracy against the United States” and other crimes, even as Trump’s supporters at a conservative political conference this week chanted “lock her up!”
That is not the whole story of this week’s real news. Washington has let it be known it has intercepts of the the Kremlin approving if not ordering an attack by Russian mercenaries on US soldiers and their allies in eastern Syria a couple of weeks ago. Moscow is also participating with the Syrian government in a ferocious bombardment of civilian targets in East Ghouta, outside Damascus, killing hundreds. A UN Security Council resolution intended to initiate a ceasefire is still held up, by guess who? Moscow is trying to eke out at least of few more days of air raids on East Ghouta, in hopes that is will surrender to Damascus after almost seven years of siege.
Trump continues his refusal to criticize Moscow, even if much of his Administration is trying to find ways to bite back. That in the end may be this week’s real news: what the President says is increasingly disconnected from reality and aimed mainly to protect himself from the Special Counsel’s investigation. The more he hears Mueller’s footsteps, the crazier Trump gets. He is becoming a kind of pugnacious and erratic figurehead presiding over an Administration that is far more in touch with reality and trying to prevent him from doing what his predecessor called “stupid shit.” I hope the saner folks succeed, but the risks of Trump doing something nutty are increasing.
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Success without victory
In October of 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan with a goal of rooting out the Taliban government in Kabul and establishing a peaceful democratic state in its place. Sixteen years later the war continues with no sign of resolution, as the Taliban continue to launch attacks on U.S. forces and Afghan civilians. For policymakers in Washington, what is the best approach to end the conflict? Does the US have a strategy to declare victory in Afghanistan?
February 16 the Middle East Institute’s Director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies, Marvin G. Weinbaum, moderated a discussion featuring Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow and researcher on drug trafficking at Brookings; Christopher Kolenda, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former senior advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Department of Defense; Ahmad Khalid Majidyar, director of MEI’s IranObserved Project; and Ronald Neumann, former US ambassador to Afghanistan and currently President of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Here is the full video of the event:
Weinbaum opened the panel with a question: Given the U.S. administration’s signaling their intention of “winning” in Afghanistan, what does “winning” look like?
The panel agreed on the operating goal for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan: ensuring no terrorist attacks on the United States based out of Afghanistan. Neumann commented that the White House’s strategy appears sensible, despite the failure to explain it in depth. Since the enemy in Afghanistan is a non-state group with a capacity to regenerate, a realistic concept of victory must be limited: “far less than surrender on the deck of the Missouri.” Felbab-Brown noted that this limited goal of reducing the potential for terrorist attacks has been America’s core strategic objective since 2001, but there has been little reckoning with what that looks like in real terms. Can that goal be accomplished by military force alone? How much will it need support from the Afghan government? Does success require completely defeating the Taliban, or negotiating their existence under a democratic system?
Majidyar added that the US has a second vital interest in Afghanistan: with a porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a renewed Afghan conflict can easily destabilize its nuclear-armed neighbor. Thus, American success also requires enabling the Afghan government to control its territory and police its borders with minimal foreign assistance. Majidyar suggested that this goal, and the goal of leaving an Afghan government capable of enforcing nternal security and engaging cooperatively with its neighbors, will remain a challenge.
The panelists disagreed, however, on the necessity of a fixed timetable for withdrawal.
Neumann opposed setting a hard deadline, noting that American objectives require leaving a competent partner on the ground in the Afghan government, which still after 16 years remains incapable of good governance. He criticized the Obama administration’s emphasis on fixed timetables, which the Taliban exploited to lay low and gather forces. A conditions-based plan of withdrawal hinges on political will, with an expectation that the operation to build up the Afghan military will continue into 2019 or 2020.
Felbab-Brown echoed Neumann’s criticism of the Afghan government, but advised that setting deadlines can produce reforms by pressuring Kabul into action. Majidyar argued that the Obama administration intended to produce changes in the Afghan government with their timetable, but it had the unintended effect of producing more corruption in Kabul, as America’s local and international allies limited their involvement in anticipation of a US pull out.
As a final answer to Weinbaum’s question, Kolenda summarized the three general possibilities for a military victory: a decisive victory over the enemy, a transition of responsibility to the host-nation government (which was the goal under Obama), or a negotiated settlement that satisfies US interests. Kolenda implied that this third possibility has the most realistic chance of success.
Following up on that point, Weinbaum turned the discussion to the possibility of negotiation: If there can be a solution through negotiations, how prepared are both sides to come to an agreement?
The panelists were pessimistic on the chances for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban in the near future. Majidyar pointed out that while Washington and Kabul have given concessions to the Taliban as inducements to talk (such as releasing Taliban prisoners and allowing them quasi-diplomatic privileges in foreign countries), the Taliban have made no positive moves in return. While the American position is that any talks must involve both the Taliban and the Afghan government, the Taliban refuse to recognize the government in Kabul. Felbab-Brown agreed that the Taliban had no incentive to negotiate before next year’s presidential elections, and added that an electoral crisis (which she predicted is likely) would strengthen their cause. It is possible that the Taliban are signaling their willingness to negotiate only as a stalling tactic, while gathering power to unleash after US withdrawal.
The panelists agreed that negotiations must be thought out, with a clear understanding of what would be an acceptable result that satisfies American and Afghan interests. Kolenda was firm in stating that the US will not leave Afghanistan without guaranteeing the country’s stability, while arguing that the Taliban have already agreed to much of American objectives for the country. Success is within sight. He agreed with Neumann, though, that the specifics of negotiations – how they will verify and enforce the results – have not been sufficiently thought out. Majidyar and Felbab-Brown warned that the Afghan government (with or without participation from the Taliban) must engage in a process of building national consensus and reconciliation, or else risk a reignited civil war potentially worse than that of the 1990s.
The panel concluded with a contradiction: the best way forward in Afghanistan is a negotiated outcome, but it is unclear whether there is a willing negotiating partner. Does Washington have an exit strategy in Afghanistan if US interests remain unmet? What responsibility does America have if civil war breaks out after we leave? While we refuse to countenance failure, the route to success without a clear military victory remains unclear.
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