Tag: United Kingdom
Stevenson’s army, March 31
– The British missed it, too. They had a pandemic wargame and ignored the results.
-WSJ says hidden Chinese lending threatens emerging markets.
– DOD wants more of its budget secret.
– Report says Xi flattered Trump into dropping “Wuhan virus”
The uphill fight to vote by mail.
WH has released a 5g strategy report.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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, January 29
– President Trump unveiled his vision for Arab-Israeli peace. NYT says the Arab reaction was “muted.”
The only money figure I noted was “$50 billion” in “investment” in Palestinian territories, presumably only from Muslim nations. The Netanyahu government plans to seize the moment by annexing territories the Trump plan would allow.
– CNAS has a new report on how to deal with China, commissioned by Congress. It tracks the proposals by CFR and others. There seems to be a consensus on using foreign and domestic policies to compete vigorously with PRC.
– In class we’ll talk a lot about organizational cultures. There’s a new SOCOM report recognizing a need for some changes in its culture.
– Jim Lewis of CSIS analyzes the impact of the UK decision to use some Huawei products.
-FT warns that India and China are both facing stagflation.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, 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, January 28
–Britain won’t ban Huawei.
– Congress may punish such action.
– WSJ says Putin outfoxed US in Venezuela.
– NYT says Russia is outmaneuvering US in Africa, too.
– Israelis report US is building bases in Iraq close to Iran.
-House Democrats warm to resuming earmarks.
– FP calls O’Brien the anti-Bolton.
-Conservative Max Boot says Pompeo is worse than Tillerson.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, 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, December 13
Along with agreement on the NDAA and USMCA, congressional leaders now have a deal on spending bills, avoiding both a government shutdown and another CR.
First time ever, the Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning Armenian genocide.
Here’s the language.
The president seems to have a deal rolling back sanctions on China for some trade concessions.
How many wars are we in today? Still 19, according to the 6-monthly report to Congress under the war powers law.
Who loves us, hates us? Pew has a new international survey.
Politico’s London branch reviews UK election results.
The latest in the Post’s Afghanistan series,this time on the security forces. But former Amb.Ryan Crocker pushes back.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, 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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The tide is turning
I hope I’m right: the tide is turning. President Trump, Prime Minister Johnson, President Putin, and President Erdogan are all being taken out to sea. I won’t miss any that drown in the polluted waters they have created.
- Donald Trump
He has had a terrible summer on many fronts, not just his prediction that Hurricane Dorian would make a beeline for Alabama. The G7 treated him like a pariah. The North Koreans continue to launch missiles. The Iranians are amping up their enrichment of uranium. He has suspended the Afghanistan negotiations he hoped would allow a drawdown of American troops and canceled primaries in states where he feared facing an opponent. He is misappropriating money from the military to build a border wall that won’t prevent most illegal immigration. The economy is slowing and the deficit is ballooning. China is still absorbing trade war blows without yielding at the negotiating table.
2. Boris Johnson
It is hard to recount all of the new prime minister’s comeuppances in the past few weeks (his mandate began only on July 24!), but suffice it to say he has lost his majority in parliament (including his brother), lost his bid for a very snap election, and lost the legal means of crashing the UK out of the the European Union while suspending parliament in a way that has generated widespread protest. None of this seems to phase him or his supporters, but I think there is a pretty good chance his party will do poorly in the election when it happens sometime in the next couple of months. Only Labour’s weak leadership is helping the Conservatives at this point. It is now completely unclear whether or when the UK will exit the EU.
3. Vladimir Putin
His losses in the Moscow municipal election are not enormously consequential to running the city, but Putin made concerted efforts to prevent them so they matter nevertheless. The opposition is learning how to challenge him successfully, even if only symbolically so far. But as one Russian put it to me: “we love our czars until we don’t. Then we string them up.” The Russian economy and Putin’s popularity are both sinking fast, as did a Russian nuclear missile under development that Putin had boasted of.
4. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Turkey’s economy is also in big trouble, along with its president. Erdogan’s party has lost mayoral elections in both Ankara and Istanbul, even if it did well in other places. He has the Turkish Army stuck in several dicey situations inside Syria, where the Russians, the regime, and the Kurds are all taking pot shots at Turkish soldiers and their Turkoman and Arab allies while Ankara tries to force Syrians back. Erdogan has strained relations with the US and much of the rest of NATO almost to the breaking point by buying Russian air defenses. He is still campaigning ineffectually for extradition of his arch-nemesis and alleged coup-plotter Fetullah Gulen from the US but hasn’t been able to convince an American court to send him to Turkey.
All four of these leaders are wannabe autocrats who come from a common political perspective: they are ethno-nationalists who respectively seek to protect the interests of dominant ethnicities at the expense of other citizens of their countries. They have all denigrated foreigners and minorities as well as immigration and liberal democracy while trying to maintain their own dominant ethnic group in power.
But they also all govern in nominal, if illiberal, electoral democracies. We’ll have to wait a while to see how far the tide has turned. Johnson faces an early election, likely within the next few months. The US will go to the polls in November of next year. Erdogan is relatively safe, with presidential elections required only in 2023. Putin is in principle term-limited, though he may seek to change that, but in any event safe from electoral challenge until 2024. All will do their best to bias the media and the electoral systems in their favor, but I think there is a pretty good chance we’ll see the backs of all of them. The sooner the better.
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Overload
The Trump Administration has taken on a lot of foreign policy burdens:
- Replacing Venezuelan President Maduro with opposition interim President Guaido.
- Ending North Korea’s nuclear program.
- Solving the Israel/Palestine conflict.
- Getting Mexico to end transit of asylum-seekers headed for the US.
- Negotiating a trade deal with China.
- Initiating talks on nuclear, missile, and regional issues with Iran.
Right now, President Trump is in London taking on still a few more burdens: encouraging Brexit, negotiating a trade deal with whatever remains of the UK thereafter, and pushing Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister. So far, he is failing at all these things.
That is not surprising. The US government finds it hard to do two things at once, much less six high priorities and dozens of others lower down the totem pole. It is hard even to talk about priorities when there are so many. And some interact: you can’t impose tariffs on China without weakening Beijing’s commitment to sanctions on North Korea. Nor can you get Europe to support Jared Kushner’s cockamamie Middle East peace plan while dissing the Union’s interest in maintaining the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Any serious president would be re-examining and resetting priorities, with a view to accomplishing something substantial before the November 2020 election, less than 18 months off. Trump isn’t going to do that, because he believes he can create reality by what he says rather than what he accomplishes. Today in London he said the protests were negligible and the crowds adoring. He was booed pretty much everywhere he went in public. The photos with the Queen (courtesy of @Weinsteinlaw) couldn’t be more telling:
But no doubt Trump and his loyal press will portray the state visit as a great triumph.
That however does not change the reality. Trump has bitten off far more than he can chew. American prestige almost everywhere is at a nadir. Only in countries where ethnic nationalism or autocracy or both are in vogue does Trump enjoy some support: Hungary, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, and Israel. Making America great again is admired only by those who have similar ambitions.
Without wider international support, there is little prospect that Trump can deliver on more than one or two of his foreign policy priorities before the next election. Failure to cut back on the multiple, sometimes contradictory, efforts makes it less likely that any will succeed. The Administration is overloaded and doomed to failure.
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