Month: October 2019
Time to spill the beans
Yes, I do know both Bill Taylor and Kurt Volker. Bill and I worked together at USIP for several years. We were good colleagues, not personal friends. Kurt I know less well, but he was for a while a colleague at SAIS in the Center for Transatlantic Relations. Both are bright, devoted, distinguished professional diplomats, but like all of us they have their distinct personalities and foibles. Bill is more moderate and cautious, Kurt more daring and political, in the sense of making known his Republican affiliation. I have no idea what party Bill prefers.
That is the rule among Foreign Service officers: they keep their professional interactions apolitical, even if many of us have strong preferences. I have been a registered Democrat since my last years in the State Department in the 1990s, but I rarely mentioned that while in the Service and I never asked anyone else about political affiliation.
Bill’s contribution in the now-public text messages exchanged among US officials concerned with Ukraine is clear: he questioned whether the effort to squeeze Ukraine into conducting a judicial investigation of former Vice President and now presidential hopeful Biden by denying military assistance was proper. To the even modestly practiced eye, it looks like the use of public office for private gain, which is the definition of corrupt abuse of power. It might have been legitimate had the Trump Administration provided any credible evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, or asked through judicial channels, but they didn’t. This was what President Trump often accuses his opposition of doing: a witch hunt intended to knock the strongest candidate (at least in current polling) out of the race.
My guess is that Bill’s days in Kiev, where he is serving as an interim ambassador in a post he occupied from 2006 to 2009, are numbered. Trump will want to be rid of him as soon as possible but may hesitate for a while fearing what testimony Bill will give in Congress once he is freed from government service. I can’t imagine Bill will want to stay, though his devotion to Ukraine might weigh in that direction. In any event, he won’t have much influence after questioning the President’s corrupt attempt to get a Ukrainian judicial investigation going by leveraging US military assistance.
Kurt is already out of government service and was deposed Friday behind closed doors in the House, which saw fit to make public some of the unclassified text messages. His situation requires a bit more explication.
Kurt was an unpaid Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations. In my view, he has done good things in that role most notably getting the State Department to declare that the US would not recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, which Moscow seized by force from Kiev in 2014. He has also advocated successfully for the US to ship lethal, even if defensive, weapons to Kiev’s forces, which are still battling an insurgency Russia supports in southeastern Ukraine.
So when President Trump held up on Congressionally authorized arms shipments to Ukraine, Kurt would have been understandably anxious to get them moving. That was what he was trying to do when he engaged with the Ukrainians and the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. There is nothing inherently wrong with Kurt having helped Giuliani. Diplomats often help Americans and American companies to do things that are consistent with US policy. The problem here is not his making an appointment or arranging a phone call, per se, but rather what the President’s personal lawyer was up to: he was using the arms shipments to get the Ukrainians to do what Trump wanted for his campaign. Kurt clearly understood this and might have objected, but let’s remember: he wanted the arms shipments to restart. The President’s purpose he might well have considered above his pay grade.
There is one other wrinkle in Kurt’s story: while unpaid in his government role, he continued to be affiliated with a consulting firm that had business with the Ukrainian government. He is reported to have “recused” himself from contact with that aspect of the business. I don’t know whether his dual role violated the law, and there have been no allegations of wrongdoing of which I am aware. But it doesn’t pass my smell test, which also dislikes Hunter Biden’s roles in China and Ukraine, even if there was no wrongdoing. Appearances matter. Kurt might have known better.
Whatever foibles Kurt and Bill may display, the bigger picture is clear: the President of the United States thinks he has the right to demand foreign investigations of his political opponents, which amount to illegal foreign assistance to his campaign. He did it with Russia, which he encouraged to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Now he is doing it again with Ukraine and China. He said so yesterday:
The lesson here is clear: even consummate professionals end up getting sullied if they serve with this Administration. It is time for those who can afford to do so to leave, spilling the beans to Congress as well as the press and helping to liberate from Trump’s grip the 20 Republican Senators needed to remove this President from office after he is impeached in the House.
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One more failure
I’d like to revise my judgment yesterday that the appointment of Richard Grenell as Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations is bizarre. It is likely worse than that, possibly even tragic. I hasten to add that I have not talked with the White House about it. There is no point: they lie too much for me to rely on anything they say.
A few things are nevertheless clear. Grenell is a John Bolton protege and far right advocate who has gone out of his way to offend his German hosts. If you wanted to make common cause with Europe in the Balkans, Grenell is the last American you would choose for the task. The Germans have made it clear they will not accept land swaps in the Balkans. Bolton was an advocate of land swaps between Kosovo and Serbia. The logic was compelling for an ethnic nationalist: Serbs want to be governed by Serbs and Albanians by Albanians. Anything else is too hard. Equal rights is liberal democratic clap trap, at home and abroad.
In addition, land swaps would kill two Clinton accomplishments with one blow: Kosovo will become the eastern province of Albania, sooner or later, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be partitioned. Don’t worry about how many people will be displaced or die in the process, or even the radicalization of the Bosnian Muslims if they are forced into a rump Islamic Republic. Serbia will be so delighted to gain northern Kosovo as well as Republika Srpska that it will love the Americans again. It might even be possible to cut a deal with the Russians to recognize the annexation of Crimea in exchange for UN membership for rump Kosovo, which won’t matter for long as it will join Albania in due course. That is the kind of crude ethnonationalist logic the Administration is applying elsewhere, in particular to Israel and Palestine. Why not in the Balkans?
What does this mean for the good people of Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia? Pandora’s box will be opened with the border changes:
- Serbs will leave from south of the Ibar in Kosovo,
- Albanians will be pushed out of Serbia,
- Muslims will try to seize Brcko in Bosnia to prevent partition there,
- Bosnian Croats will declare the re-creation of their Herzeg-Bosna parastate.
In short, this is a formula for destabilization of the Balkans, precisely what the Russians have sought. Is it any wonder that the Trump Administration might try to deliver it?
Ironically, Secretary of State Pompeo* has been visiting Macedonia and Montenegro, the two newest members of NATO. He’ll get an earful there about the dangers that lurk in any land swap arrangement. Montenegro, because it has been governed for many years with the support of minorities, is not so much in danger, though quite a few of its Albanians might like to join Kosovo and most of its Serbs remain opposed to its independence. Macedonia is certainly at risk if some sort of land swap becomes a reality, even if many Albanians there will be reluctant to lose their sweet power-sharing arrangement in Skopje.
You might think the Trump Administration has enough trouble of its own making in the Middle East, Ukraine, North Korea, China, Venezuela and half a dozen other places, without reviving the zombie idea of land swaps in the Balkans. But they seem determined, with Grenell’s appointment, to add the Balkans to the list of their foreign policy failures.
*The original post said it was Vice President Pence. Apologies for my mistake.
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Stevenson’s army, October 5
Bloomberg reports [sorry, there’s a limited paywall] that WH has ordered a “substantial” cut in the NSC staff. Article says current number is 310, but that includes support and Sit Room staff, since Congress has already limited professional staff to 200 by law. Goal is to limit leaks. Good luck.
Already leaking, former officials “horrified” by many presidential calls to foreign leaders. POTUS doesn’t follow the script.
Saudis and Iranians seem to be moving toward peace talks.
Spotlight on Sondland. The US Ambassador to EU inserted himself into Ukraine matters
In Brussels, Sondland garnered a reputation for his truculent manner and fondness for the trappings of privilege. He peppered closed-door negotiations with four-letter words. He carried a wireless buzzer into meetings at the U.S. Mission that enabled him to silently summon support staff to refill his teacup.
Sondland seemed to chafe at the constraints of his assignment. He traveled for meetings in Israel, Romania and other countries with little or no coordination with other officials. He acquired a reputation for being indiscreet, and was chastised for using his personal phone for state business, officials said.
Sondland also shuttled repeatedly back to Washington, often seeking face time with Trump. When he couldn’t gain entry to the Oval Office, officials said, he would meet instead with White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, preferring someone closer to Trump’s inner circle than national security officials responsible for Europe.
“He always seemed to be in D.C.,” a former White House official said. “People would say, ‘Does he spend any time in Brussels?’ ”
Trump’s man
Sondland’s approach to the job was seen more as a source of irritation than trouble until May, when he moved to stake his claim to the U.S.-Ukraine relationship.
After Zelensky’s election, White House officials began making plans for who would take part in the U.S. delegation to attend Zelensky’s inauguration.
National security adviser John Bolton removed Sondland’s name from the list, only to see it reinserted, a clear indication that Bolton had been overruled by the Oval Office.
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, October 4
Extra weekend reading: the Volker testimony to the House committees; the texts released by the House committee chairs.
The texts show a bureaucratic political game, as described in the first part of this Post column: twice Amb. Sondland, a political appointee who donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee, tries to cut off Amb. Taylor, the career official now acting ambassador [charge] in Kyiv, when Taylor raises the link between military aid and investigating the Bidens. But after Taylor raises the point a second time, Sondland very formally gets into the record “there is no quid pro quo.” You can read; you decide.
CJR has a good explanation of how hard this issue is for the news media.
I especially liked this section: The press, on the whole, does not consistently use language commensurate with overt wrongdoing. (The Times’s print headline this morning, calling Trump’s admission a “brash public move,” is a case in point; so was Jonathan Karl’s claim, on ABC, that “this is becoming less a question of what the president did than a debate over what is right and what is wrong.”) As journalists, we’ve been taught to believe that the biggest scandals are those that require intense, meticulous digging; as human beings, we’ve been taught to believe that no right-minded person would own up to wrongdoing in such a haphazard way. And so, as ever with Trump, we seek rationality in the irrational. The effect, as the Washington Post’s Ashley Parker wrote recently, is that “Trump’s penchant for reading the stage directions almost seems to inoculate him from the kind of political damage that would devastate other politicians….
When it comes to Trump and his media supporters, shamelessness and misinformation are two sides of the same coin. The more shameless Trump is, the less we can see the boundaries between right and wrong, between believable and unbelievable. If you’ll say anything, nothing is implausible, which, in turn, makes a wild conspiracy sound just as plausible as the truth. Someday, the house of cards might collapse. But not today.
Yesterday I noted the pro-oil decision that angered farmers. Today the administration made a pro-farmer announcement on ethanol.
So far only CNN seems to have the story that Trump told Xi in June that he would go easy on Hong Kong while the trade talks continued.
Earlier this week, I noted that NYT said the administration actually did a cost estimate on Trump’s suggestion of a border moat filled with snakes and alligators. We haven’t seen that estimate. Maybe it’s on the supersecret WH server. But Peter Singer, tongue in cheek, has his own estimate, roughly $2.5 billion in set-up costs, plus annual operating costs of $1.8 billion.
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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Bizarre
I got into the office this morning to find this in my email:
President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Appoint Individual to a Key Administration Post
President Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to appoint the following individual to a key position in his Administration:
Richard Grenell of California to serve concurrently as Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Federal Republic of Germany.
That, plus multiple requests to comment from outlets that broadcast in the Balkans.
So I’ll try to do that here: it’s bizarre. I had assumed that the recent appointment of Matt Palmer as Special Representative for the Balkans, if it did anything, ensured that no one else would get the job of resolving the remaining issues between Kosovo and Serbia as well as within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now the Administration has chosen to name in addition a controversial political figure who has managed to deeply offend Berlin, one of America’s most important allies, to handle the sensitive issues in the Belgrade/Pristina talks.
What does that signify?
To me, it communicates confusion and disorder in US policy, not the clarity of purpose and desire to cooperate with the European Union that is required. What might the relationship between Palmer and Grenell be? I don’t know. Political appointee Grenell clearly outranks professional diplomat Palmer because he has an ambassadorial title (never mind he is presumably closer to the White House), but if one has the Balkans and the other has the Pristina/Belgrade dialogue, the logical chain of command would be the opposite.
In short: this is an appointment likely to cause even more uncertainty about US policy than already prevails. I suggest the press try to get Palmer and Grenell to clarify. Not me.
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Peace Picks | October 7 – 11
A Vision for the Future of Missile Defense | October 7, 2019 | 9:30 am – 12:00 pm | 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
The CSIS Missile Defense Project is pleased to welcome Vice Admiral Jon Hill, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, to speak on his vision and intent for the Agency. An industry panel will follow his remarks.
Event Schedule
9:30-10:30 Conversation between VADM Jon Hill and Dr. Tom Karako, Director, Missile Defense Project.
10:30-10:40 Coffee break
10:40-12:00 Panel discussion featuring Sarah
Reeves, Vice President of Missile Defense Programs, Lockheed Martin
Space, John Schumacher, Vice President, Washington Operations,
Aerojet Rocketdyne, Paul Smith, Vice President and Program
Director of GMD, Boeing, Dr. Mitch Stevison, Vice President,
Raytheon Missile Systems, and Brig. Gen. Kenn Todorov (USAF, ret.), Vice
President of Missile Defense Solutions, Northrop Grumman Corporation.
More than a Wallet: The Role of the Private Sector in Development | October 7, 2019 | 10:00 am – 11:30 am | 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
The international community predominately sees the private sector as the answer to the gap in financing for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but what other roles can the private sector play in development? Large multinational corporations have been operating in some of the most fragile contexts for years and could offer technical assistance to NGOs and aid agencies. The private sector also supplies 9 out of 10 jobs in developing countries and can help encourage foreign direct investment. Development agencies could also learn from the private sector’s longstanding and resilient value chains throughout emerging markets. This event will explore these topics and feature representatives from the U.S. government, multinational corporations, SMEs, and development practitioners.
FEATURING
CEO, CollaborateUp
Senior Vice President, Middle East and North Africa, Chemonics International
Senior Advisor, mClinica
Private Sector Engagement Coordinator, USAID
New Strategic Visions and Power Competition in the Middle East |October 8, 2019 | 9:00 am | Atlantic Council, 1030 15th St NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20005 | Register Here
In collaboration with the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the conference will discuss new strategic visions and power competition in the Middle East. The event is organized within the framework of the fifth edition of MED – Rome Mediterranean Dialogues, which will take place later this year in Rome.
The growing power of China and the renewed assertiveness of Russia seem to be a prelude to a new phase of depreciation of Western impact on the rest of the world, if not the opening of a great competition for the redistribution of power and international status. In the context of this global reassessment, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, illustrated by the current collapse of the Middle Eastern order. The idea of a “Russian resurgence’” in the Middle East set against an American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike and warrants further examination of renewed power competition in the region.
We hope you will join us for this important event, which will also mark the release of a new collected volume, “The MENA Region: A Great Power Competition,” edited by Karim Mezran and Arturo Varvelli.
9:00 a.m. Introductory remarks
Amb. Giampiero Massolo
President
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
H.E. Armando Varicchio
Ambassador
Embassy of Italy to the United States
9:30 a.m. Update on current US strategy toward the region
Mr. David Schenker
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
US Department of State
10:15 a.m. Transatlantic foreign policy in the MENA region
Amb. Barbara Leaf
Senior Fellow
The Washington Institute
Dr. Haizam Amirah-Fernández
Senior Analyst
Elcano Royal Institute
Mr. William Wechsler
Director, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs
Atlantic Council
11:40 a.m. New policies for old actors: Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey
Dr. Jon Alterman
Director, Middle East Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Dr. Mark N. Katz
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Atlantic Council
Dr. Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi
Research Fellow
Royal United Services Institute
Dr. Gönül Tol
Director, Center for Turkish Studies
Middle East Institute
1:00 p.m. Lunch Served
1:20 – 2:30 p.m. Keynote Address: A new strategic vision for the United States
Gen. Joseph Votel
Former Commander
US Central Command (CENTCOM)
Moderators
Dr. Karim Mezran
Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East
Atlantic Council
Dr. Arturo Varvelli
Senior Research Fellow and Co-Head, Middle East and North Africa Center
ISPI
The Global Challenge of Political Polarization | October 8, 2019 | 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm | 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
Political polarization is tearing at the seams of democracies around the world, from Bangladesh, Brazil, and India, to Poland, Turkey, and the United States. Why is polarization coming to a boil in so many different places at once? Is polarization similar everywhere or marked by substantial differences? How can severely divided democracies restore at least some national political consensus? Are there relevant lessons for the United States from polarized democracies elsewhere? Thomas Carothers will address these questions, drawing on the new book he has co-edited with Andrew O’Donohue, Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization. Anne Applebaum, Naomi Hossain, and Sarah Yerkes will provide in-depth perspectives on key country cases.
THOMAS CAROTHERS
Thomas Carothers is senior vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In that capacity he oversees all of the research programs at Carnegie. He also directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and carries out research and writing on democracy-related issues.
ANNE APPLEBAUM
Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a senior fellow at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
NAOMI HOSSAIN
Naomi Hossain is a political sociologist at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, currently based at the Accountability Research Center at American University. She is the author of The Aid Lab: Understanding Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success.
SARAH YERKES
Sarah Yerkes is a fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic, and security developments as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa.
CARLOS LOZADA
Carlos Lozada is the nonfiction book
critic of the Washington Post and a Carnegie Endowment visiting
scholar. He is also an adjunct professor of political journalism with the
University of Notre Dame’s Washington program.
Trade, Development, and Security: A Discussion on the Potential of a US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement | October 9, 2019 | 9:00 am – 10:30 am | Middle East Institute, 1763 N St. NW Washington, District of Columbia 20036 | Register Here
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host an event addressing the possibility of a US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement within the wider context of Egyptian development, economy, and security. A US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement has been under discussion, on and off, for the better part of two decades. A new report launched by MEI, “Trade, Reform and Revitalization: Towards a Free Trade Agreement,” finds that a free trade agreement would be mutually beneficial, but its success will depend on the adoption of the kind of reforms integral to the growth of Egypt’s economy. Without vibrant growth, powered by an active private sector, Egypt’s economy may falter, affecting its political and economic stability and security.
To address this topic, CEO of the AmCham Egypt Inc in
Egypt Hisham Fahmy will be accompanied by Deborah Lehr,
CEO of Basilinna, and Mirette F. Mabrouk, the director of MEI’s
Egypt Studies program. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, MEI’s senior
Vice President, will moderate the discussion.
Belt and Road in Latin America: Where does the future lie? | October 9, 2019 | 9:00 am – 10:30 am| 1030 15th St NW 12th Floor, Washington DC, 20005 | Register Here
Over the past six years, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded across the globe, drawing varied reactions ranging from full-on support to deep-running skepticism. Latin America and the Caribbean, long considered peripheral to the BRI, is increasingly engaging with the initiative – 19 countries have already signed on. As BRI continues to evolve, what are some new areas and trends to watch? What are the implications of BRI for regional governments and the business community? In what ways could BRI affect the United States and its interests?
Join the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center on Wednesday, October 9, 2019, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (EDT) for a high-level conversation on the BRI in Latin America and its implications for the region.
*Speakers to be Announced*
By, With, and Through: A Closer Look at CENTCOM’s Approach in the Middle East | October 10, 2019 | 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm | Middle East Institute, 1763 N Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20036 | Register Here
The effective prosecution of America’s new global priority of competing with China and Russia requires the reallocation of U.S. military resources from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. This in turn places a higher premium on U.S. security cooperation with partners in the Middle East.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)’s “By, With, and Through” approach can help further the goals of security cooperation and specifically develop closer ties with partner forces in the region. But is it working? And if it isn’t, what are the main challenges both at home and abroad, and what will it take to generate better results?
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to convene a
panel of experts to reflect on this subject. Bilal Y. Saab, MEI’s Senior
Fellow and Director of the Defense and Security Program, will discuss some of
the key findings of an upcoming publication in the 2019 Fall issue of The
Washington Quarterly entitled, “Broken Partnerships: Can Washington
Get Security Cooperation Right?.” He will be joined by General Joseph
Votel, former CENTCOM Commander and currently a nonresident distinguished
senior fellow at MEI; Dana Stroul, senior fellow in The Washington
Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics; and Kenneth
Pollack, author of Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab
Military Effectiveness and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute. The conversation will be moderated by Eric Schmitt of
the New York Times.
Elections, Peace Talks, and U.S. Policy: What’s Next for Afghanistan? | October 10, 2019 |1:00 pm — 2:30 pm | One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20004 6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center | Register Here
Eighteen years after U.S. forces entered Afghanistan, the country is not only still at war—it is also in a state of flux. Its political future is uncertain, with the final results of a September 28 presidential election not expected until November. The fate of a fledgling peace and reconciliation process has been unclear since U.S. President Donald Trump called off talks with the Taliban. The direction of U.S. policy, and particularly the future American military presence, is also a major question. This event will take stock of Afghanistan’s various challenges amid so much uncertainty; discuss what we can expect to see in the coming weeks and months; and consider the best—and worst—ways forward for Kabul and Washington.
Speakers
Independent Consultant
Director, Center for Stability and Development, CNA Corporation
Journalist and TV Host, Voice of America
Senior Program Officer for Afghanistan, U.S. Institute of Peace
Social Activist and Co-Founder, Her Afghanistan
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