Unhappy allies need to carry more burdens

Everyone’s favorite subject this weekend is America’s allies, who are unhappy for many reasons:

1. France and Germany don’t like their phones bugged, and Brazil is also in a lather;
2. Saudi Arabia wants the Americans to push harder against Syria’s Bashar al Asad and Iran’s nuclear program;
3. Israel concurs on Iran and would rather President Obama didn’t insist it talk to the Palestinians;
4. the Egyptian military didn’t like the cutoff of some major military equipment;
5. President Karzai has not yet agreed to U.S. jurisdiction for troops who commit criminal acts in Afghanistan post-2014.

Everyone found the US government shutdown disconcerting.  No one is looking forward to the January budgetary showdown, except maybe Russian President Putin.  He likes anything that brings America down a peg.

There are solutions for each of these issues.  We’ll no doubt reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Europeans, who won’t want to shut down either their own eavesdropping or America’s.  More likely they’ll want us to share, while swearing off Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande’s cell phones.  The Brazilians will be harder to satisfy, but they aren’t exactly what I would call an ally either.  The Saudis may go off on their own to arm whomever they like in Syria, thus deepening the sectarian conflict there.  That could, ironically, increase the prospects for some sort of political settlement at the much discussed but never convened Geneva 2 conference.  It is hard to find anyone at this point who seriously opposes the effort to negotiate a settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue.  The alternatives (war or containment) are worse.  Even Netanyahu has toned down his objections, while unleashing Sheldon Adelson to advocate nuclear war.  The Egyptian military doesn’t actually need more Abrams tanks; it has lots in storage.  Karzai has convened a loya jirga to approve the continuing American presence in Afghanistan and to share the rap for agreeing to American jurisdiction.

But the general malaise is more important than the details.  That comes in part from the sense that President Obama is detached and aloof, more concerned to retrench than to take on new and difficult issues abroad.  That is a correct perception.  He is trying hard to limit America’s international commitments, which have simply become too far ranging for a country that has suffered a major financial calamity, from which it is still recovering five years later.  Not to mention a Congress stingy about foreign affairs.  None of our allies have stepped up their own commitments abroad during that period, unless you count the futile Qatari support for President Morsi in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.  Europe is thoroughly preoccupied with the challenge to the euro.  Japan is enjoying a modest economic recovery.  China–no ally–is diversifying its holdings beyond US bonds.

Retrenchment requires triage.  Syria is the biggest loser for the moment, but there will be others.  It will be particularly damaging if the Congress fails to reign in its worst instincts and indulges in another budget brouhaha.  If we end up in January continuing the sequestration we have come to hate, it turns out the impact will be primarily on the defense budget, not on foreign affairs.  That’s because Defense was cushioned in part from the sequestration cuts and therefore still has a ways to go before meeting its sequester target.  I doubt it will be allowed to happen.  Defense will get relief that will have to come out of someone else’s hide.

The time is ripe for a more equitable distribution of burdens worldwide.  That will be the great diplomatic challenge of the next ten years:  developing the kind of coalitions that can deal with future Syrias far more effectively than we have dealt with the one we’ve got.  Mali was a good indicator of the right direction, though I doubt we’ll follow up the modest military success with the kind of civilian effort its long-neglected northern regions require.  Our allies may be unhappy now, but they face even greater burdens in the future.  Our diplomats need to convince them to do what is needed.