Month: March 2020
Stevenson’s army, March 13
– US air strikes have been launched against Iran-linked forces in Iraq. WSJ has a good story,as does NYT.
– On the health front, WSJ reports that the president’s speech was done mainly by Kushner and Miller, and the coronavirus task force was not included.
WaPo also reports disarray in WH over the speech.
Politico has more on Kushner.
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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A bad deal
Shaun Byrnes, a retired US diplomat who served as chief of the U.S. Diplomatic Observer Mission in Kosovo in 1998-99, writes:
Kosovo President Thaçi and Serbian President Vučić have prepared a draft comprehensive agreement to end the conflict that has defined Serbia’s relationship with its Albanian citizens for a century. It is now almost ready for signature but movement on it is being blocked by Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti’s refusal to lift tariffs on Serbian imports and a constitutional dispute over who is in charge of the dialogue with Serbia. The draft reportedly includes the exchange of territory.
Washington is threatening to withdraw US troops in retaliation and Thaçi is using escalating US pressure on Kurti to engineer his government’s collapse. Thaçi claims Kurti’s refusal dangerously threatens relations with the US.
Kurti has taken the more responsible approach, unilaterally removing some tariffs on March 15th and offering to remove the rest on April 1st if Serbia responds constructively. And he wrote to Secretary of State Pompeo that he will lift the tariffs and will himself resume the dialogue if Serbia responds constructively to his phased removal of tariffs.
At the close of an extraordinary session of Kosovo’s Assembly near midnight on March 11th, the Assembly’s Speaker proposed ending the tariffs at the same time Thaçi gives up leading the dialogue. It is not clear what will now happen.
Kosovo leaders need to be reminded that US friendship is and will remain firm regardless of the disagreement over the tariffs.
In 2016, the Thaçi and Vučić decided to reject the EU’s step-by-step approach begun in 2013 in favor of a big, comprehensive deal. The EU had mediated a series of technical agreements — university diplomas, license plates, auto insurance, and the like — that would culminate in a comprehensive agreement finally “normalizing” their relationship by Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence. But few of the technical agreements were implemented and the dialogue stagnated.
The two presidents met secretly, according to many accounts, often under the aegis of former EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Mogherini. By November 2019 these meetings produced a draft reportedly ready for signature but for a few details.
The draft included, according to leaks, an exchange of territory (some parts of Kosovo north of the Ibar river, and some portions of the Preshevo valley in southern Serbia), an association of Serbian municipalities with authorities that reportedly remain to be agreed, extraterritoriality for Serbian monasteries, and no de jure recognition by Serbia, rather a Serbian commitment not to block Kosovo’s UN admission.
What Russia will do in the UNSC remains problematic, despite Putin’s assurances to Vučić and Thaçi in 2018 that Russia will support whatever Serbia and Kosovo agree on.
An exchange of territory (partition) and the association raised red flags with many diplomats and observers. Partition risks forced population exchange and even violence. Worse, it could revive dreams of radical nationalists elsewhere in the Balkans. A virtually autonomous Serbian association of municipalities smacks of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska. osovo has enough dysfunction without adding another ingredient.
In office barely a month, Kurti is under intense and escalating pressure from the US, and growing pressure from his coalition partner, to lift the tariffs immediately so dialogue can resume and the comprehensive agreement completed.
Vučić will not re-engage without Kosovo first completely lifting the tariffs. Kurti has offered to compromise: to phase out the tariffs by first ending them on raw materials on March 15th. Apparently 80% of the imports are raw materials so Kurti’s move goes a long way toward what Serbia, the US and the EU have been requesting. Furthermore, Kurti offered to remove remaining tariffs beginning April 1st provided Serbia responds constructively by removing all non-tariff barriers to trade with Kosovo and halting its campaign to persuade states recognizing Kosovo to withdraw recognition.
Washington has rejected the compromise and insists on all tariffs being removed now and threatened to halt millions of dollars of financial assistance and subsequently to withdraw US troops from Kosovo.
However, Vučić will not resume the dialogue until after Serbian parliamentary elections on April 26th. His public goal is to have his Progressive Party better its previous decisive parliamentary victory and he does not want to give radical nationalist opponents any excuse to accuse him of selling out Kosovo.
Vučić refused to move forward last week when pushed by National Security Adviser O’Brien, Special Envoy Grenell and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner, reiterating he will not reopen the dialogue until Pristina lifts the tariffs. Even Kushner’s promises of vast amounts of foreign assistance and investment did not move Vučić.
In an interview after he returned home, Vučić declared he would not return to Washington to resume the dialogue until after the elections and criticized the rush to reach a quick deal. Vučić has been happy to let Kurti take intense pressure from the US to resume the dialogue because of his refusal to lift the tariffs immediately.
So what’s the rush? Kurti will lift most of the tariffs this weekend and Vučić is in no hurry to resume negotiations. Furthermore, unlike Washington, Brussels has welcomed Kurti’s decision to begin phasing out the tariffs and is not putting heavy public pressure on him to do more. Finally, whence will come the “hundreds of millions of dollars” of foreign direct investment and assistance promised by Washington, especially when the US has not coordinated its initiative with the EU?
It would be wiser to move gradually and build consensus among political leaders and society for the changes that the final agreement will produce. Kosovo’s politicians and public need transparency: there has been none. Thaçi needs to be open about the contents of the deal so politicians and society can decide on it, rather than be surprised later by it and its consequences. Kosovo needs time to develop a consensus on how to proceed with the dialogue in a democratic manner, and not be pushed into quick decisions.
In closing the Assembly’s extraordinary March 11th session on the tariff, Kosovo’s Assembly Speaker, Vjosa Osmani (an LDK deputy chairman), in a rebuke to Thaçi, called for lifting the tariffs at the same time he withdraws from the dialogue. Osmani’s rebuke highlighted Thaçi’s refusal to bow to the constitutional requirement that it is the government’s prerogative to lead such a negotiation.
It is Washington and Thaçi that are pressing for a deal now, and hence escalating pressure on Kurti to lift the tariffs. President Trump, O’Brien and Grenell are behind the push for a quick agreement.
Trump is looking for a quick deal to boost his reelection prospects that are looking dimmer because of the economic and health crisis spawned by the pandemic coupled with the collapse of the price of oil and the likelihood that former Vice President Biden will be the Democratic nominee.
For his part Thaçi sees the deal as an addition to his legacy but has other more important political considerations. He would like to bring down the Kurti government to protect himself and his corrupt cronies from Kurti’s effort to root out pervasive corruption. Thaçi’s aim is to then forge a new coalition government composed of the LDK, Kurti’s current coalition partner, and the PDK, the party Thaçi founded.
Trump’s intervention to take over the dialogue has given Thaçi the opportunity to do so. He is exploiting threats of US punitive action as a bludgeon against Kurti and is trying to rally the LDK and parliamentary opposition to demand the tariffs be lifted immediately. In public statements this week, Thaçi charged that Kurti’s actions threatened relations with the US and the “very future of our state,” an irresponsible charge.
While the LDK’s leader supports Thaçi, for now the Assembly is not supporting Thaçi and the situation is at stalemate.
It is worth reminding Kosovo leaders that no comprehensive deal will end Serbia’s hostility to its former province. Until Serbia acknowledges what it has done in Kosovo under Milosevic’s rule their relations will neither be normal nor friendly.
Of more importance, we should remind Kosovo’s leaders that the US is and will remain a firm friend and that will not change regardless of what Trump, O’Brien, Grenell, Pompeo and Kushner may threaten. Kosovo should not be compelled to accept a consequential agreement with a hostile Serbia its politicians and public have not seen because of the self-serving motives of one politician.
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Dump Trump
Here is the President last night making a hash of his measures to meet the corona virus challenge:
He managed to get three things wrong in a short address, read haltingly from a teleprompter. Only a slovenly White House would allow such mistakes.
More important: he said nothing that even begins to repair the damage his Administration’s failure to test Americans from early on has done to prospects for containing the contagion. We basically have no idea how many people have been infected. Instead, Trump focused on economic measures intended to rescue the rise in the stock market that he likes to brag about. Most of that rise–83% as of tonight–is already gone.
There is no sign the slide is yet at the bottom, and the flood of news about school and business closings suggests it is not. The State Department, where I spent my day, has instructed most employees to stay home tomorrow. My employer, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has gone to remote teaching until mid-April (but we are on spring break next week). Let’s not even think about what canceling entry to the US for Europeans other than Brits means: there are 2-3,000 flights across the Atlantic daily. I don’t know how many of those are to and from the UK. Maybe 25% of the total? That would make a minimum of 1500 aircraft idled.
The steam is going to go out of the global economy quickly. Recovery depends on how quickly we get back to normal. At this point, it looks like weeks or months, not days, unless Trump gets lucky and the virus just disappears in warm weather, as he has predicted. Il get to 70 Fahrenheit here tomorrow. But even that won’t reduce the onus on his Administration for having mismanaged the epidemic from the first. In the meanwhile, thousands of people my age will have expired due to negligence. Fox News won’t be telling its viewers that however.
Americans re-elected George W. Bush after they understood that he had invaded Iraq by mistake (that’s the charitable version of the story). I suppose we are capable of re-electing someone who allowed an epidemic to spread out of control and grind the economy to a halt. But I certainly hope not. The corona virus should spell the end of Trump. If the Republicans won’t do it before the election–and they won’t–the rest of us should do it at the polls. Dump Trump.
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Stevenson’s army, March 11
The Cyber Solarium Commission [note that meme from 1953] is releasing its report. I can’t find the actual document on its site, but here are good articles from WaPo and from NYT.
WSJ notes US troops now leaving the Middle East.
Vox notes the competing ideas on a stimulus package to offset the coronavirus recession.
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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Biden v Trump
I’ve testified many times before Joe Biden, who was a stalwart of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before becoming Vice President. He was knowledgeable, inquisitive, and amiable. In other words, the precise opposite of Donald Trump, who is ignorant, uninterested, and grumpy. Biden will be the Democratic candidate who gets a chance to take down this entirely unworthy, corrupt, and egotistical sham of a president.
He’ll be doing it with a base the opposite of Trump’s as well. Biden will be strong among blacks and other minorities, college graduates, and women. Trump is strong among whites, high school dropouts, and men. The presidency will be decided largely by which of them gets more people out to the polls. Turnout will be crucial. This means the campaign will be ferocious, as each candidate tries to motivate his own voters with negative images of the other.
Trump will come down hard on the false allegations of Biden misbehavior in Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani will return in his role as attack dog. Biden will try to stay above that fray but will need to clarify his own and his son’s roles, about which nothing illegal has even been alleged, much less demonstrated. Biden will come down hard on Trump’s many foibles: his intemperate tweeting, his expensive golf outings, his failure to separate himself from his business interests, his appointment of incompetents, his erratic decisions, his botching of the response to Covid-19, and his softness on Putin and other autocrats.
I suppose the vice presidential candidates will be of some importance. Biden’s best bets are Amy Klobuchar, who might be able to help deliver Minnesota, and Stacy Abrams, who will turn out black voters and Sanders supporters in droves. Trump will likely dump Vice President Pence, who is a nonentity he can blame for the corona virus mess, in favor of a woman. Nikki Haley is the odds on favorite at the moment. She has been anxious to preserve her relationship with Trump after quitting her job as Ambassador to the United Nations.
On domestic policy, Trumpworld and Bidenworld are far apart. Trump wants to wreck Obamacare while Biden wants to widen it. Trump wants to roll back environmental regulations while Biden would expand them, especially in response to global warming. Trump favors tax breaks for the well off, Biden favors them for the working class and poor. Trump has increased the Federal deficit by close to 50%; Biden helped to halve it during the Obama administration. Trump opposes abortion while Biden favors a woman’s right to choose. Trump has failed to favor any serious gun control while Biden would tighten registration.
The candidates are also far apart on foreign policy. Biden supports America’s alliances, favors multilateralism when possible, and will be prepared to act unilaterally when necessary to protect American national security and prosperity. Trump has been willing to abandon American allies in favor of dubious autocrats, acts impulsively without consulting others (or even his own advisors), and favors foreign leaders willing to flatter him. On trade, Biden has long supported agreements that lower barriers to American exports while Trump has been willing to impose burdensome tariffs that raise the prices of imports, to the detriment of both American producers and consumers.
In the parts of the world I worry most about, the two are also far apart. Both men favor reducing American commitments in the Middle East, but Trump has done it without the necessary diplomatic backfilling whereas Biden is acutely aware of the need for continued American leadership even as the number of troops goes down. Trump has supported the Greater Israel fantasy of the settler movement while Biden is a two-stater. Trump has pursued a so far failed policy of maximum pressure on Iran in order to get Tehran back to the negotiating table. Biden would take the US back into the nuclear deal and seek to negotiate further agreements from inside it.
In the Balkans, Biden is a strong supporter of the Dayton agreements and the independence of Kosovo. Trump doesn’t know where the Balkans region is, even if his wife is Slovene. Trumpworld is nevertheless pushing changes of borders and threatening Kosovo’s prime minister if he doesn’t unilaterally back down from tariffs imposed on Serbian and Bosnian imports by his predecessor. Some in Trumpworld are even threatening withdrawal of US troops from Kosovo, forgetting that they are there these days mainly to protect the Serbs.
There haven’t been any clearer choices in my lifetime. Biden is my choice.
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Stevenson’s army, March 10
-CSIS ran a pandemic war game last fall and has lessons applicable to the coronavirus problem.
– Here’s a summary of the law Congress passed last week to respond medically to the coronavirus. The administration is now considering new legislation to respond to the economic effects and looming recession.
-NYT details many of the ways North Korea has evaded sanctions and made money.
– Daily Beast says Taliban leader whom Trump talked to is on targeted kill list.
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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