Day: November 23, 2020
Best of the best still make mistakes
President-elect Biden has started to name his national security team: Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor, Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as UN Ambassador. Not clear what is holding up Secretary of Defense, but it is likely to be of the same ilk: these are rational, disciplined people with deep experience well-known and well-accepted throughout the foreign policy establishment in Washington. All worked in the Obama Administration.
And all have made their share of mistakes. Tony has admitted to mistakes in Syria. I’d say the withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 was done with insufficient political preparation. I remember briefing Jake at one point on Libya, underlining that the Administration needed to be ready for a major post-Qaddafi state-building effort. That didn’t happen. My one interaction with Avril Haines was more felicitous, as I agreed with much of what she said. I don’t know Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, but I’m sure she like the others has had her share of bad moments. You can’t have a 35-year Foreign Service career without making a few mistakes, some of which might turn out to be big.
But in the aftermath of Donald Trump, we don’t need perfect to make gigantic improvements. His Administration has been a disaster for America’s role in the world. He offended most of our European allies as well as all of Africa, China defeated him in the tariff war and attracted most of Asia to join its free trade circle, he has pulled the rug out from under his own able negotiator in Afghanistan and weakened the US in Iraq, and Russian President Putin is smiling all the way to the Kremlin about America’s withdrawal from important arms control agreements.
Any decision that rises to the top level in the US government is difficult in one way or another. So this new team will no doubt make its share of mistakes after it takes office in January. But they will be disciplined, not erratic, deliberative rather than impulsive, knowledgeable rather than abysmally ignorant, rational rather than biased. They will draw on a lot of expertise both inside the American bureaucracy and outside, in this country and abroad. They will consult with allies but be prepared to lead on the main issues of our time, including the China challenge, Russia’s roguish behavior, the reality of climate change, and the need to maintain strategic arms controls.
There is of course the risk among people who know each other well and have worked together previously of group-think. But I can tell you from having testified in front of Senator Biden a number of times that he is not inclined in that direction. He asks probing questions and doesn’t accept pat answers. He too has made mistakes: he believed George W. Bush when the President said he needed a war powers resolution to make Saddam Hussein back down and not in order to go to war in Iraq. But that is a far cry from deciding to ignore a deadly virus that then kills hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Jake and Tony are committed to a foreign policy that more constructively and visibly benefits middle class Americans. That to me is a worthy perspective. They will surely make mistakes along the way, but regaining popular support has to be one of the first priorities after the calamitous ruin of MAGA, which turned quickly into make America generally alone. One of my correspondents suggested Biden should just aim for MASA: make America serious again. The national security team he is assembling certainly fits that objective.
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Stevenson’s army, November 23
WaPo had the news first, now everybody discusses Biden’s choices for SecState, NSA and UN Ambassador.
Trump exits Open Skies Treaty.
Netanyahu met not-so-secretly with MBS.
Brookings Fellow writes of the politics of Biden’s foreign policy.
Hollow Pentagon: 40% of top jobs lack confirmed officials.
Pollster acknowledges ultra low response rate.
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. 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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Worst and best cases, neither all that great
Younger brother Jeremy Serwer writes:
We’re almost done.
That said, apparently our Constitution provides no prescription for next steps if a President refuses to step down and leave. In a nutshell, the Founders couldn’t imagine this happening, and/or felt that such a President would be impeached/tried/convicted out of office first.
Good piece in The Washington Post today on the issue:
So, a possible worst case scenario, IMHO:
- Enough states certify their Electors to keep Biden over 270
- Trump’s attempts to reverse Electors at the Electoral College fail: legal penalties prevent electors from turning
- A final appeal by the Trump Campaign to the Supreme Court
- Court rules in favor of Biden
- Trump still doesn’t concede
- Preparations proceed for the Inauguration on the Capitol steps (won’t be challenged as Trump would also need to be inaugurated if he thinks he won)
- On January 20, 2021 at noon Biden is either sworn in, or Trump manages to disrupt the Inauguration attempting to co-opt the swearing in ceremony
- EITHER WAY, as of a second after noon on January 20 Trump is no longer President, per the Constitution and the 20th Amendment
- In preparation, the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, and/or the US military is prepared to block Trump and maintain order. Their context for not supporting President Trump: none of these services will execute what their leadership identifies as an illegal order, and our statutes protect that position. Hard to believe there’s not a lot of discussion going on in those offices.
- Biden is inaugurated
- Trump could conceivably be taken from the White House/Oval Office by force
Hopefully, the more likely scenario:
Cooler heads in the Trump family (and/or close enough confidants that Trump will not fire due to what they may know – think VP Pence?), and/or pressure from Republicans in Congress not subject to near term re-election, convince him that he has lost, that he should concede (though he may not). While he may not attend the Inauguration nor assist/facilitate the transition, he steps back from disrupting it and prepares to leave the Oval Office and the White House residence. Best case, he finally concedes and does attend Biden’s Inauguration.
No matter what happens, our country will remain sharply divided over who should be President. There will be demonstrations, potentially violence, though this too will dissipate – PARTICULARLY if we begin to curb the pandemic, consequently restore the economy to a better normalcy, and further reduce the unemployment rate – and those not working and not included in that rate – begin to get jobs back. After all, how much demonstrating can you do if you have your job(s) back, need to be at work, and by so doing are not at risk of virus infection and potentially death?
Finally, some predictions that won’t go away for a bit:
- A poor transition (assuming the GSA head still refuses to support Biden’s transition efforts) results in varied chaos for the new administration, no matter how much they are attempting to fund and execute a transition without cooperation from the Trump Administration.
- Without preparatory knowledge of Operation Warp Speed details, therapeutic treatments, PPE supplies, and vaccine distribution could be delayed or disrupted.
- Other areas of the Biden Administration will be slow to gear up.
- We will not have heard the last from Donald Trump. The Donald and his Trump minions will remain loud via social media and our e-mail IN Boxes. If he stays healthy, and/or a charismatic replacement arises, the 4-year campaign to 2024 will remain a doozy.
- Hopefully, newspapers/cable/radio (e.g., “traditional” media) will stop covering him the way they do now.
- Biden maintains his recently stated position of not prosecuting former Presidents.
- Domestically, policing/race/equality issues return to the forefront, particularly if the pandemic remains extant through all or most of 2021.
- And, in January, a possible victory by Democrats in the Georgia Senate run-offs giving them a tie-breaking majority in the Senate. At this juncture, as likely as it is not; if it happens, my prior trifecta prediction of a Dem sweep comes to fruition – albeit, barely.
Of course, none of the above could be accurate or happen, though I believe some semblance of it will. Our system – even when it’s NOT defined or prescribed – will settle this, as it’s ultimately human beings that make things work. I believe the large majority of Americans are that type of human being.
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