Day: March 17, 2020
Stevenson’s army, March 17
– A Trump NSC staffer on global health defends the way it was handled on the NSC
– An Obama official .rebuts Bolton on that matter.
– Politico says senior incoming officials had a pandemic wargame just before Trump’s inauguration. [They should have known, is the lesson.]
– The House finally sent its first coronavirus recovery bill to the Senate — by approving by unanimous consent [voice vote] a resolution telling the Clerk to make “technical corrections” in the text. Rep. Gohmert [R-Tex.], who had threatened to object, withdrew his objection.
– Politico notes limits to possible use of troops for domestic help against the pandemic.
– How to allow vote by mail by November elections.
– US forces in Iraq are being relocated to larger bases.
There was a late addition:
– The administration wants to send checks directly
to Americans to help offset the economic effects of the coronavirus. I
support that, but not that the Obama administration did the same in 2009 with virtually no GOP support.
– The National Intelligence Council in 2008 warned that America and the world would face pandemic threats in the 2020s.
– And the ever-valuable D Brief shows
the Chinese response to Sen. Cotton’s fabricated claim that the Chinese
developed the coronavirus as a weapon against the US.
Here’s a brief list of Chinese diplomats who are sharing a conspiracy theory on Twitter in what appears to be a coordinated campaign of disinformation — spreading a lie that the U.S. created the coronavirus in a military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.:
- Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman who seems to have initially tweeted this conspiracy last Thursday; his tweet was then shared by multiple diplomats and embassies, including—
- Lin Songtian, Chinese ambassador to South Africa;
- Lijian Zhao, Ambassador to the Maldives;
- Zhao Yanbo, Ambassador to Botswana;
- Quan Liu, Ambassador to Suriname;
- Chang Hua, Ambassador to Iran;
- Wang Xianfeng, press officer to the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan;
- the Twitter account for China’s Embassy to France;
- China’s Embassy in Manila;
- Embassy in Jordan;
- Embassy in Chad;
- Embassy in Uganda;
- and the Twitter account for China’s Embassy in Cameroon.
One takeaway from all the conspiracy sharing: It would sure seem that “more people inside the MFA [China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs] are seeing this kind of stuff as a good career move,” tweeted Matt Schrader, China analyst at the U.S.-based think tank, Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Another POV: “Chinese party-state [is] taking a page out of Russia’s info ops playbook, using their Ambassadors’ @Twitter accounts for a coordinated disinfo operation,” tweeted Laura Rosenberger, who directs the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “The party-state is waging an info war using COVID-19, and using this moment to try new methods.”
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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Dear Hashim,
Kosovo President Thaci responded to Shaun Byrnes’ post on peacefare.net from Saturday with these tweets:
Hashim Thaçi@HashimThaciRKS· Mar 13 Disappointed to see friends of Kosovo & mine @DanielSerwer & Byrnes being deceived by fake news. There is no secret deal or whatever btw Kosovo & Serbia. One can be achieved through a transparent process w/ US leadership & I invite u to help. @RichardGrenell is doing a great job
Hashim Thaçi@HashimThaciRKS·Mar 13 Washington has full attention on Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. It is the burden of our generation to end the conflict & open path for Euro-Atlantic integration & economic prosperity. We need support for this process, not obstacles, nor opposition. It’s about our children.
This is my response to the President, whom I have known since his first, post-war visit to the US in 1999:
Dear Hashim,
I’m entirely sympathetic to the Euro-Atlantic ambitions of Kosovo and have repeatedly lent my efforts to that cause. But it is not wise to believe that Washington pays “full attention” to the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, which has been an entirely opaque process. Few in Washington even know it is happening, and fewer care. This inattention has given Belgrade-hired lobbyists the opportunity to influence an Administration that cares little about the Balkans and not at all about Kosovo, which it regards as a product of the despised Clinton Administration.
Worse than American inattention and pro-Serb bias is that the people of Kosovo and Serbia know nothing about what is being discussed in your repeated meetings with President Vucic. Your citizens have been demanding transparency. I have asked more than once for an update. Nothing is forthcoming. That leaves you open to rumors, which aren’t necessarily accurate. Only the transparency you promise can fix that problem.
Richard Grenell is a man who has failed as Ambassador to Germany and is failing as a temporary Director of National Intelligence. He is however doing a great snow job in the Balkans, flaunting minor transportation agreements as big steps forward. He is also working hard to pressure Prime Minister Kurti with threats of withdrawing US troops and aid. Albin has bent but not yet broken to the US demand that he end the tariffs on Serbian goods. Grenell’s ultimate objective is the land/people swap the Trump Administration has been pushing and you have indicated you might accept. A majority of your population, including the Serbs south of the Ibar, are opposed to this ignoble idea, which would make Kosovo a source of instability throughout the Balkans and beyond.
You can of course prove me wrong in thinking you are ready to trade slices of Serb-populated Kosovo for slices of Albanian-populated Serbia: give the Kosovo parliament a full and honest account of the talks with Vucic. This should include the agendas, any drafts or proposals from either side, and a full transcript of the dialogue at the highest level and in any working groups. Then turn over responsibility for the dialogue to the government, as the Constitutional Court decided is correct and the parliament has now confirmed. Making Albin the lead will take the heat off you and put the Serbs in a difficult position, since their prime minister–a protégé of the president–cannot pretend to have the kind of popular mandate Albin has.
You are no doubt disappointed in the results election that brought Albin to power, as they left your party in third place. But working with the second place finishers to bring down the Prime Minister will do Kosovo no good at all. It risks igniting a storm that will end any prospect of suspending the tariffs or moving ahead even incrementally with the dialogue with Serbia.
To a Kosovo patriot, and I hope I am right in assuming you would like to be considered one, speed should not be the priority. There is no advantage in pursuing an agreement before Serbia’s April 26 election. President Vucic will be freer to make concessions to Kosovo after the election than before. Kosovo would be wise to wait even longer: until after the Americans go to the polls November 3.
If there is then a President Biden–a true friend of Kosovo–you can expect him to empower a serious envoy to collaborate with Europe, something Grenell can never do because had and President Trump loathe the European Union, in reaching serious agreements between Kosovo and Serbia. Joint US/EU action is a prerequisite for bringing irresistible pressure to bear on Belgrade. Grenell isn’t even trying. If Trump is re-elected, whoever is in power in Kosovo will have to hunker down again to shield your country from the onslaught of bad partition ideas the likes of Grenell will continue to generate.
Most of your citizens want a deal with Serbia that recognizes the Kosovo state as sovereign and independent within its current borders and enables it to enter the United Nations. That isn’t on offer yet. Kosovo needs to be ready to walk away from a bad deal in order to get a good one, in the right time and with the help of both the US and EU. Until then, incremental improvements are all that can be hoped for. Successful statecraft requires that you encourage your citizens to be patient. Good things come to those who can wait.
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