COMMENTARY ON THE CURRENT
STATE OF AFFAIRS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
How are the trends in international
power politics going for the United States?
Not so good.
Pick a geographic region. How about
that perennial hotbed, the Middle East?
·
Victory in the war in Afghanistan - the war President
Obama christened the “must win” war, supposedly the “right” war as opposed to
“Bush’s” Iraq war, the war to root out
Al Qaeda and find Bin Laden – victory in that war is slipping away the same way
from us the same way victory in Vietnam slipped away from us, the war in which
the US military did not lose major engagement but nonetheless the US lost the
prize. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, feted in Washington as a hero under Bush,
is reviled under Obama for refusing to sign a status of forces agreement with
the US. Karzai refuses to sign unless we meet his pre-condition to help launch
serious peace talks with the Taliban. Karzai has some justification: the fight
with the Taliban is clearly not over, and he does not want to be left twisting
in the wind by a retreating US. My guess is that he is acutely aware of what
happened to US allies in South Vietnam when the North took over. The US wants
the Taliban defined out of the Afghan Bilateral Security Agreement, defining the
US role as only to combat “terrorism” defined as Al Qaeda and attacks on US
bases. The Taliban is a “domestic problem”, not terrorism. “Not my problem,”
says Obama. The Taliban, remember them? Driven from power in 2001 at the cost
of American lives. Brutal fundamentalist Islamists who imposed the burkha and
everything it stands for on women, outlawed television and broadcast music, and
who assassinate government officials, bomb schools and bazaars, and are now
killing Afghan election workers to disrupt the Afghan election – acts of terrorism by any definition. But
limiting the US role to fighting Al Qaeda sounds good to US citizenry tired of
all these foreign adventures, and it will be good political cover domestically
when things go badly after the US withdraws. But wait - if the Taliban returns to power, as
certainly as night follows day Afghanistan will once again become a haven for
Al Qaeda and surrogate training grounds against the US. If that happens, the
very purpose of the “must win war” is defeated. A war that does not accomplish
its stated objective is a war that is lost. Ahh, but not on Obama’s watch. “Not my problem.” No, it’s
our problem.
·
US bungling in Syria has made Vladimir Putin
look like a Bolshoi-ballet caliber diplomatic star. Syria is Putin’s wet dream.
While Secretary Kerry whines that Putin is not part
of “the solution,” Putin is implementing Russia’s own solution. He
believes that Russia will be more secure if the Shiites win the Islamic wars
convulsing the region, rather than the Sunnis who have caused him so much
problem in Chechnya. He has made common cause with Shiite Iran against two
mutual enemies, the US and Sunni rebels. With Iran’s and Putin’s backing, Bashar
Assad is still in power, has “delayed” delivery of his stockpiles of chemical
weapons, is winning the war against the rebels, and is thumbing his nose at the
US and the UN. As a result, Russia has regained immense influence in the Middle
East. As a bonus, the US has managed to thoroughly piss off all of its
traditional allies in the area: when is the last time that Israel, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Turkey and Egypt have agreed on anything? They all agree that the
current policies of the US are dead wrong. That consensus may be the only thing
that Obama has accomplished in the region. Well, maybe one other thing: with
the assistance of both Turkey and Jordan, Saudi Arabia recently announced that
it is supplying mobile anti-aircraft missiles made in China and anti-tank
missiles made in Russia to the Syrian rebels. It may be sweet irony that these
weapons will be turned on the Assad regime supported by Russia, but doesn’t it make you just a little
squeamish that our allies will use up some of their oil money by becoming Russian
and Chinese arms suppliers to Sunni rebels? Doesn’t sound very good to me. About
the only viable strategy left in Syria is to hope that the war drags on forever,
weakening all the participants equally until something happens to change situation.
·
Of course, a certainty that could be that
something is Iran getting the bomb. It will get the bomb. Soon. This is not all
Obama’s fault. Clinton knew this was coming. Bush knew this was coming. Obama
knows this is coming. None of them stopped it. The Kerry Iranian “interim”
accord to stop it is a farce rivaling Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in our
time.” It has not stopped Iran from a doing anything that will prevent its
achieving its nuclear ambitions. In exchange for an agreement to talk,
sanctions have already been eased on airplane and car parts, pharmaceuticals, medical
equipment and currency transfers. Iran’s economy and currency have both begun
to stabilize. In exchange, Iran started the “talks” with a flat (and
consistent) position that dismantling any nuclear facilities are not an option.
I suppose that is better than arguing over the shape of the negotiating table
(for those of you who may not remember, that was the only thing that discussed
for months at the beginning of the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War). The
next step will be an agreement that features more concessions by the West and
more promises by Iran – and Iran will get the bomb. Iran has medium range
missiles, and so does North Korea. For that matter, Russia has been testing and
redeploying medium range missiles in violation of its treaties with the US. And
they are all working together. No matter how you cut it, not good.
·
Or maybe the collapse of the government in Iraq
will be the catalyst that changes things? Aided by the neighboring war in
Syria, Al Qaeda is resurgent in Anbar Province, and seized Fallujah in January.
Need I say more?
·
And then there’s Egypt. The Arab Spring has led
to total turmoil in Egypt. The Obama administration is completely at odds with
General Sisi, who kicked out President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who were
rapidly moving the new Egyptian democracy toward an Islamic fundamentalist
theocracy. This week General Morsi met Putin in Moscow to negotiate the supply
of Russian weapons. Until now, Russia
has had virtually no influence in Egypt since the overthrow of Gamal Abdel
Nasser in 19- when? Let’s see, are the Egyptians more impressed by the
mullah-bowing bicycle-helmet-wearing Obama who has been remarkably friendly
with the Muslim Brotherhood, or the bear-hunting Chechen-rebel-killing bare
chested ex-KGB host of the Winter Olympics?
·
Pakistan and Turkey are conundrums uniquely
their own. Pakistan continually lurches between Western-oriented secularist and
Islamists who support the Taliban. Pakistan was unhappy about the violation of
its sovereignty to kill Osama Bin Laden. The US was unhappy that he appeared to
was be protected there, and that the doctor who helped us identify his
whereabouts is in prison. The Pakistani Taliban have hardened their grip on the
commercial city of Karachi, where last month alone they bombed and killed police officers, shot and killed
three journalists, gunned down three polio-vaccination workers, and slit the
throats of six people at a shrine. The Taliban “raises” money in Karachi
through extortion, kidnapping and outright robbery to support their stronghold
home along the Afghan border, also a haven for Al Qaeda and Afghan insurgents. In
Turkey, there were anti-government protests nationwide this past summer, and
demonstrators again marching in the capital this month. Turkey’s embattled
Islamist-tilting President claims a
corruption probe into his regime is a “Western plot” to disrupt Turkish “peace
and stability.” Suffice it to say both Pakistan and Turkey have drifted away
from the US, and they are both in turmoil albeit less dramatic than
Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.
As usual, the Middle East is a
mess - only without question the influence and position of the US in this mess
has declined dramatically in the past 5 years. No contest, Putin is winning the
Obama-Putin diplomatic wars in the Middle East. So what has gone wrong?
For starters, “nation building”
does not work on a short timetable: it requires a long term commitment. The
United States has never been much on long horizons. Certainly, we have been
unable to sustain a long term commitment to much of anything since Vietnam.
Remember the Paper Tiger? The inability to be in it for the long haul was the
essence of disdain for the paper tiger of American military power. The Vietnamese lived in Vietnam, they were in
it for the long term. Including the war against the French, the Vietnam War
spanned 29 years. The US soldiers were newbies to the neighborhood, interlopers
who would soon be sent home. The Sunnis and Shiites have been at each other’s
throats for centuries, not decades, and they aren’t going anywhere. The Middle
East is their neighborhood, their home. The US cannot waltz in with its
formidable military power and expect to change people’s religiously based
beliefs and traditions in a few years, then pull out. Ain’t gonna happen. It’s easy to say if we are not
committed to the long term we should not go in, but the consensus was that Al
Qaeda headquartered in the Middle East had become a direct threat to the
security of the United States. Remember 9-11? Thus, Obama’s statements that the
Afghanistan wars the war we “must win.” But “limited objectives” in war don’t
work very well. Not in Vietnam, not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Saying we went in to “take out Al Qaeda” or
“get Bin Laden” is like trying kill the weeds in your lawn with one application
of broad leaf herbicide: the weeds are going to come back, with a vengeance.
A broad consensus committed to a
long term strategy is what is required to prevail. However, with a culture
characterized by fast food, sound bites and attention deficit disorder, the
United States seems incapable of maintaining a coherent long term strategy
based on immutable interests. The problem nis that the United States is and its
major political parties are sharply divided on this as they are on just about
everything else. So, Republican in the White House, we lurch one way. Democrat
in the White House, we lurch the other way. A house divided against itself
cannot stand.
What should we be doing?
·
In Syria, stay out. Short of that, do everything
that 1) keeps us out of a land war; 2) bogs down and drains Iran and Russia;
and, 3) supports our actual allies in the region, who also control most of the
oil in the region: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Emirates. If
that means abandoning “democracy,” so be it. Pure democracy doesn’t even work
well in the West. While we should support and encourage more democratic,
republican government with respect for human rights, insisting on overnight
one-person one-vote democracy from a poverty stricken uneducated and uninformed
populace with no tradition of democratic rule is a suicide pact – one that the
generals in Cairo chose not to participate in.
·
In Iraq we already screwed up by announcing a
timetable and withdrawing after the “surge” achieved control of the country.
There is no appetite for going back in, too late for that now. What we can do
now is to try to prevent the country from becoming an Iranian puppet. The one
positive role Saddam Hussein did serve was as a counter balance to Iran. While
the situation in Iraq is improved from the time when Saddam Hussein tortured
his own people and invaded his neighbors, if Iraq falls under the sway of Iran,
that would be a geopolitical disaster for the US. With Syria on one side and
Iran on the other and Al Qaeda gaining strength inside, salvaging even this
modest objective will not be easy. To do so, we will have to work with our
“allies” who share these objectives, Israel, Jordan, the Saudis, and Egypt. We
should support the Iraqi government in the areas in which it actually can
govern, and especially we should support the Kurds in the north even if that
disturbs Turkey, which has a restless Kurd population of its own). The Iraqi
Kurds have proved to be pretty good allies and administrators, and are
definitely anti-Shia-Iran. Iraq was one of those make believe countries put
together by departing colonial powers, so if it fragments into several pieces,
so what? That is better than a unitary Iranian puppet.
·
In Afghanistan, whether or not we like it, we
are “in.” We should not make the same mistake as we did in Iraq by snatching
defeat from victory with an announcement of withdrawal based on a domestic
political timetable with no basis in the tactical situation on the ground.
Reduce forces, yes, but not below what is needed to deny the Taliban control,
and stabilize Afghanistan. Reduce forces, support the government and stay the
course.
Pick another region. How about one
in which the United States does have immutable interests, the Western
Hemisphere, known as the Americas? Any student of geography or the history of
world politics will quickly come to the conclusion that maintaining dominant
influence in your own neighborhood is critical to power, and sometimes to
survival. There is even a word for it: hegemony. In other words, what happens
in Mexico and Venezuela is more important to the United States than what
happens in the Ukraine or even China. So how are we doing in our own backyard?
Not so well , but here it is more a matter of passive neglect rather than active
bungling.
·
Venezuela, blessed with some of the largest oil
reserves in the world, used to be a stable, prosperous democracy, and a pretty
good ally of the United States. However, the country’s elite became
increasingly corrupt, and most of the people lived in poverty despite the
country’s prosperity. In 1999, during the last years of the Presidency of Bill
Clinton, the Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez as President under the banner of
the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Chavez promised to eliminate both
corruption and poverty. A clue to Chavez politics: he once claimed that
capitalism had killed life on Mars. He set about to fundamentally transform
Venezuela, and he succeeded. In the tradition of Adolph Hitler, Salvador
Allende and yes, Mohamed Morsi, this freely elected socialist never intended
that there ever would be a subsequent election that could remove his party from
power. One of the first things he did was to implement habilitating laws in
both 1999 and 2000, for a combined 18 months, that allowed him to perform
functions reserved for Congress under Venezuelan law. The United States, under
Clinton, Bush and Obama, has done virtually nothing to reverse this situation.
Venezuela is now a close ally of Cuba (which trained the Chavista intelligence service),
and a leader of the anti-American “pink tide” that has led to socialist
governments in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina. I5 years after the
socialist Chavistas took power in Venezuela, the country is in an absolute
shambles. It admits to an inflation rate of over 56%, economists state the
reality is much worse than that. Shortages of basic foodstuffs are endemic, they
are running out of medicines and supplies, and inventories of such things as
car batteries and parts are depleted and can’t be replaced. Toyota and General
Motors have both closed assembly plants indefinitely. A Chavista militia known
as the 23rd of January 23 Collective roams the streets on
motorcycles to intimidate political opponents, and recently gunned down
protestors – sounds chillingly like the Nazi Brown shirts. Characteristic of
socialist states, freedom of the press is a memory. The new “President” is once
again ruling by decree, with the consent (by bare majority) of “Congress.”
Maduro has blasted anti-government politicians as “coup plotters”, and of
course, branded them as fascists. He issued warrants for their arrests, and
just this week a key leader of the resistance turned himself in in a courageous
political gamble to galvanize the opposition. People, mainly middle class high
school and college students, are being shot and killed in anti-government
protests in the streets. Another socialist workers paradise.
·
Brazil’s economy is in a tailspin. The
performance of the supposed emerging engine of South America, not long ago the
darling of the emerging market countries,
is now far below that of its emerging market peers, China and India. The
country witnesses mass street protests over inflation and poor public services.
·
Argentina is going through another of its bi-decennial
financial collapses, brought on by its socialist government that spends more
money than it has, borrows what it needs, and then predictably devalues its
currency and defaults on its debt, then repeats the cycle. The Argentine peso
recently fell 15% in only one week. As usual, this is entirely of the
Argentines own doing.
OK, South America
is a mess, but at least we didn’t cause it, even if we are blamed for it. In
fact, maybe it will work to our favor because it is the most socialist
countries that are most in turmoil. Mexico and Chile are doing pretty well.
Chile’s economy is growing at about 4%, a figure the US should envy, and
despite concerns over income inequality and continuing battles over the
practices of General Augusto Pinochet 20 + years ago, the President was just
elected with 62% of the vote. Like Chile and the rest of Latin America Mexico also
struggles with severe income inequalities (3000 to 1 vs the US at 16 t0 1), but
it is also consumed by its intense civil war against drug cartels and organized
crime. Despite this, its economy is growing at about 4% and many economists
predict that it will soon become the largest economy in Latin America,
eclipsing Brazil. The country has the time to worry about preserving the
habitat of the Monarch butterfly. Relations with the US are not remarkably
worse. Maybe there is a message here: US butt out and things will be better
than if you stick in your unwanted big nose? Sad to say, if Latin America is
Exhibit A, perhaps no strategy is better than a bungled strategy.
What about
Europe? How is the US doing there? Europeans do tend to like Obama better than
they did Bush. However, starting with the much disputed but won’t-go-away
claims that Obama returned the White House bust of Winston Churchill to the
United Kingdom as one of his first acts in office, to revelations of NSA spying
on the private telephone conversations of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and most
recently the “open mike” recording of a conversation between Victoria Nuland,
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt,
the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine plotting to “Fuck the EU” – well, maybe not so
good. The biggest issue in Europe today is the fate of the Ukraine:
·
Following the Orange Revolution in 2004, the
Ukraine tried to move to the West and out of the Russian orbit. This was to
have been completed with Ukraine joining the EU this year. Diplomatic ballet
star Putin managed to torpedo that earlier this year, propping up a pro-Russian
regime with billions of rubles. There have been demonstrations and riots in the
streets since last November as the future of the Ukraine - Russian or European – hangs in the balance. According
to Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia from 2004 until 2013, the protests
in Kiev are at root about “two visions of the world and two choices of life:
independent, Western democracy or Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” or Western freedom
vs. Putin’s vision of a restored Russian empire. The Ukraine was the jewel of
the Russian empire. By comparison of importance, Syria is a side show. ”A
triumph for the protestors would mark the end of Putin’s dream of a restored
Russian empire. Their defeat would mean a huge rollback of European influence
and values. The credibility of the U.S., already eroding in the region, would
vanish. Putin knows this.” At the moment, the smart money has to be on the
Russians, who are likely to send in Russian soldiers if invited by their
beleaguered friend, the current Ukrainian President. Naturally, he is blaming
neo-fascists and the West, especially the US, for his problems. Unless the
protestors in the streets are supported by more than expressions of concern by
Biden and hints of “sanctions” and vague “consequences” by Obama, they will
fail. I agree with Mr. Saakashvili, “The expression of concern by Western governments
is not enough.” Failing to support the Ukraine would put Obama in the company of
George Bush the First, who in 1991 in a speech dubbed “Chicken Kiev” told
Ukrainians not to seek independence and integration with the West. It was wrong
then, it is more wrong now.
·
Georgia. The original Georgia, not the one next
to Alabama. Georgia, that belligerent, threatening country east of Turkey that
Russia invaded in 2008 to peel off the provinces of Ossetia and Abkhazia in
response to Georgia’s stated intention to join NATO. You may not remember this,
but I guarantee you the Ukrainians in the streets of Kiev do. Georgia is
desperately trying to keep its independence from Russia and join the EU in
August – unless that is torpedoed by Putin in the same manner that Russia has forced both Armenia and the Ukraine to abandon
their plans of joining the EU. So goes the Ukraine, so likely goes Georgia. And
Moldova. The stakes could not be much higher.
So overall,
although much is still in play, since 2008 the trend in Eastern Europe has been
against the Western democracies and in favor of Russia. Our attention has been
elsewhere. It should not be. But we cannot be everywhere. There is an old
military maxim, defend everything and you defend nothing. You have to
prioritize. Between the Ukraine or
Syria, the math is easy: the Ukraine. Bring
the Ukraine into the EU and Russia’s ability to influence Syria and the rest of
the Middle East, and anywhere else for that matter, takes a severe body blow.
Lose the Ukraine and Russia’s power to do mischief to our country is immensely
enhanced. Despite the trappings of the Sochi Olympics, Russia is not our friend. Probably less than 5% of the U.S. electorate can tell you where
the Ukraine is, let alone what’s going on there, so political opinion polls
will tell us to pay attention to Syria and Afghanistan, which are in the
headlines daily. Stupid. What leaders are supposed to do is lead: determine what the priorities
should be and act accordingly. Not react to opinion polls. I suppose one could
say that is exactly what Obama is doing with respect to Obamacare. But in this
case, there are no second chances, there is no opportunity to grant selective
waivers or extensions. Rather than
plotting for ways to fuck the EU, the US should be working hand in hand with
the EU. The EU should be taking the lead here, it’s in their “hegemony,” but we
should be right behind them, actively pushing and providing support – boatloads
of it.
OK,
that leaves Asia and Africa. Is China a friend or a rival? Definitely it is a
rival. Whether or not it is a friend depends on the issue, and increasingly the
US and China seem to be on opposite sides of most issues.
·
Last year, China unilaterally declared an
extension of its “territorial waters” into the East China Sea way beyond
international norms, claiming several islands also claimed by South Korea and
Japan. A US Navy intelligence analyst concluded from recent Chinese military
training exercises that the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is
practicing scenarios in which the military takes the Senkaku Islands in a brief war with Japan – not that anybody expects a war,
China has conducted similar exercise for a long time aimed at Taiwan, this is
more of a gloved fist to exert diplomatic pressure. The recent report by the UN
on the “crimes against humanity” routinely perpetrated by North Korea also not
insignificantly implicated China as North Korea’s enabler. China supports the
Assad regime in Syria. China has reacted to Secretary Kerry’s calls for more
internet freedom in China as “naïve.” All sounds pretty good!
·
Riots in Thailand, traditionally one of Asia’s
strongest economies and most stable democracies. Interestingly, as in Venezuela
and the Ukraine, it is middle class protestors that are in the streets, trying
to bring down a populist, socialist government they claim is corrupt, and is ruining
the economy and the country. There does not a seem to be outside agitators
involved, this appears to be a purely domestic squabble, but it is another
example of a world in turmoil, and least in part caused by a global economic
downturn.
·
India – where the likely new President will be a
person who has been denied a visa to even enter the United States because the
US deemed he did not do enough to curb ethnic religious riots in his Province
that resulted in the deaths of Muslims. My guess is we will be trying to back
our way out of that one.
·
Central Africa is engulfed in seemingly
interminable tribal-religious civil wars. Much the same, only Chinese inroads
into Africa with an aim at access to its mineral wealth are well known.
So how are the trends going for the
US? Clearly, the world is a very nasty place right now. When has it not been? The Middle East, where
we have been actively involved, is a mess and it’s not going well for us mainly
because we do not have the national stomach to finish what we started. The jury
is still out on Eastern Europe, but Russia is making a strong power play and
the smart money is on them. We have to do more if we are to put the bear its
cage, which is important for the freedom of Europe and the peace of the Western
world. Ironically, closer to home in
Latin America, all but ignored for the past decade, there are some bright
spots. There are storm clouds gathering in Asia, driven by a nationalistic and
expansionist China. Africa is wallowing. Overall, not so good. Not terrible,
yet. Certainly not hopeless. But, not so good.
By now, we all are
familiar with the observation that insanity is doing the same things and
expecting different results. We need to change what we are doing in order to
change the trends. Radical changes are
not necessary. After all, the people driving the ship of state are not complete
idiots. Nonetheless, the change must be big enough to make a difference. Minor
tweaks won’t cut it. We are still the most powerful economy in the world, and
the leader of the free world. We are not using those levers sufficiently to
achieve our objectives. We also have undoubtedly the most powerful military in
the world, but we are misusing it, abusing it and too much on our over-extended
military to achieve our objectives. And we must be sure that we are committing
our resources to the right objectives. Part of change is reprioritizing.
Putting it all
together, in order of our priorities, we should be making these changes:
1) The Caribbean
Basin, acting on our own to create economic prosperity and recognition of human
rights with and among our neighbors. At is fundamentals, it’s all about jobs, education and human rights. Economic
prosperity does amazing things to engender domestic tranquility, international
peace, and stability.
2) Europe, a
bedrock of democracies and the second strongest economic powerhouse in the
world, working in partnership with the EU to regain the economic footing of
both our economies, and actively working together against the resurgence of an
aggressive Russian empire by aggressively supporting the true independence of
former Soviet Republics that are trying to join the EU;
3) we don’t need
to build nations in the Middle East; we
need to prevent Al Qaeda from regaining bases and to prevent Iran from
dominating the oil fields of the Middle East, militarily staying the course in
Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, and elsewhere joining arms with our
allies, with no litmus test of their democratic performance, letting them do
the heavy lifting while at the same time encouraging steady improvements in
human rights. In the meantime, we need to cut out the b.s. lip service and
implement a real and aggressive no-holds-barred program to make the US independent
of Middle Eastern oil in the very near term. Sorry, windmills and solar farms
aren’t going to get that done in my lifetime.
4) Containing
China in conjunction with our allies in Asia, forging strong economic ties with
them while simultaneously taking steps to wean our economic health as quickly
as possible from dependence on the Chinese economy.
5) I disagree with
Obama on most things, but at times his restraint or timidity, whichever it is,
in committing our military has been admirable. We can’t save all the puppies in
the pound. We should not be committing our soldier’s lives except as a last
resort. But we should resting and rebuilding, rather than cutting, our military capability in order to be able
to respond as necessary when things go wrong, as they will. In the meantime we
should resist the urge to use it just because we have it, and refrain from
militaristic adventurism to intervene and “fix things” elsewhere. Walk softly
but carry a big stick – but use that stick only when it is clearly in our
interests to do so. Whether we should have gone into Iraq the second time was
hotly debated, and still is; whether we ever should have been in Kosovo and
Serbia and Somalia and Nicaragua should have been. Such debate is not just healthy,
it should be mandatory. Come to think of it, under our Constitution, it is – or
at least, was.
