Month: December 2021
Friends in need can get you in big trouble
A young colleague asked some questions this week. I replied. I’ll have a longer piece on these issues and what should be done about them in the next day or two:
Q: What do you believe Dodik realistically hopes to gain from his increasingly alarming proposals to pull RS from the federal government and to establish parallel institutions in Banja Luka? As many have noted, complete secession is highly unlikely. Thus, is he trying to erode federal institutions to gain concessions for greater RS autonomy?
A: I wouldn’t rule out secession, if circumstances permit, but even if they don’t he is trying to achieve de facto independence.
Q: Is it possible that Dodik, as he’s done in the past, is making such claims in an effort to posture for the upcoming elections in 2022?
A: Sure, but more or less democratically validated politicians come under a lot of pressure to deliver what they promise.
Q: Over the past month, much has been written about the West’s loss of focus in the Balkans, and the resulting failure of its deterrence. Many observers have called for greater involvement from the West and its institutions. Few, however, have offered concrete suggestions on what the West’s response should look like. I am curious if you have any thoughts
A: You are seeing the emergence of one prong of Western engagement in the sanctions levied yesterday. I hope to see them extended to people in Belgrade and Pristina, along with clear US and EU denunciations of the authoritarian drift in Belgrade. More direct engagement with the issues, both in the Belgrade/Pristina dialogue and in the discussion of constitutional reform in BiH, could be another prong. So too could be a joint US/EU effort to monitor implementation of dialogue agreements similar to the International Civilian Office, which monitored implementation of the Ahtisaari plan after Kosovo independence.
Q: I assume that Dodik’s antics put Vucic in a difficult position. For one, he has to maintain the nationalists in his base by continuing to act as the figurehead for all Serbs, and thus, at least apathetically, support the plight of the Serbs in Bosnia. At the same time, however, Vucic knows Serbia’s economic future lies with the West. Serious derailment of Dayton in Bosnia, especially with his public support, could further hinder Serbia’s economic future with the West. So, that leads me to ask, can Vucic play a positive role in mitigating Dodik’s brinkmanship?
A: Yes, and that’s what Brussels and Washington count on. But Dodik, like Karadzic, regards himself as a potential rival to Vucic in Serbia, not only as a provincial chieftain in Banja Luka. With Russian encouragement, Dodik may go further than Vucic would like.
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Stevenson’s army, December 10
-New Yorker has a long article on the Afghan collapse based on newly obtained documents.
– The House approved a big bill trying to reduce presidential powers, including some measures opposed by Biden administration.
– Israel want US refueling in case of attacks on Iran.
– Lawfare explains how new Senate-confirmed cyber director has more real power than unconfirmed advisors [like National Security Adviser].
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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Democracy on the defensive, but not lost yet
I read the Biden/Putin phone call on Tuesday and the Summit of Democracies differently from many others. The former was a clear even if not conclusive win for the US. The latter is more equivocal.
President Putin went into the phone call having mounted most of an invasion force and demanding a binding legal prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO. He came out accepting an official-level dialogue with Washington on European security. That is a win for Biden, even if the invasion force remains in place for now. Moscow will continue at the dialogue to demand a commitment that Ukraine not join NATO, but the Americans won’t yield on that.
Ironically, the best guarantee that Kiev won’t join NATO lies in the current NATO members, few of whom are prepared to take on an obligation to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression. Redoubling the irony: Putin’s mounting of an invasion force has convinced any loyal Ukrainian that NATO membership is highly desirable. That makes two own goals for Putin: he has spent a fortune on an invasion force that was unnecessary and counterproductive.
The Summit of Democracies convening remotely today is harder to judge. It is one more sign of what we already know: democracy is under attack both in the US and in many places abroad. The Republican campaign against the validity of the 2020 US election and Republican legislation limiting the franchise in many states have cast doubt on whether the US can survive as a democracy. Events in Myanmar, Sudan, Belarus, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and other places have cast more than doubts. Democracy in all those places has suffered severe setbacks in the past year. Not to mention Russia, Serbia, Hungary, Brazil, and other countries that are suffering longer-term erosion of at least semi-democratic institutions and processes. Not to mention the survival of long-standing authoritarian regimes in Syria, Jordan, the Gulf, China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
What good can the Summit of Democracies do? It is difficult to judge. I suppose preparations for it in countries invited and reactions to it in countries not invited may marginally increase pressure for upholding democratic values. Certainly Washington is well aware of its own limitations as a leader of the democratic world and convener of the Summit. The Biden Administration isn’t doing all it might, as it has hesitated to eliminate the anti-democratic filibuster in order to pass Federal voting rights legislation, but it is prosecuting January 6 rioters and suing states that limit voting rights in Federal court.
There is a possibility that some would-be authoritarians in other places will find themselves pressured and even on the ropes, but the overall trend appears to be in their direction. Authoritarians have learned how to weather less draconian political environments, as totalitarian control has become far more difficult due to modern communications and social media. They have also learned how to help each other survive, in order to avoid any domino effects, especially among neighbors. The pendulum has swung in the authoritarian direction, due in part to the corona virus epidemic and the consequent economic slowdown as well as the rallying cries of ethnic/sectarian/linguistic/racial nationalists.
The pendulum can also swing in the other direction, but the Summit looks incapable of making that happen. A successful Russian invasion of Ukraine, or US agreement to block Ukraine from NATO membership, would make things much worse than they already are. Democracy is on the defensive, but not lost yet.
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Stevenson’s army, December 9
Charlie, preoccupied with orals the last few days, sent this “catchup” last night:
I’ve been busy with orals the past 3 days. Here’s what I think is happening.
– The armed services committee leaders agreed on a compromise NDAA without ever giving the Senate a chance to vote on amendments or the bill. The House substittuted the NDAA package on a bill originally intended to approve a memorial for a Florida terrorist attack. The important statement of managers is here. A summary here. BTW, included in the NDAA package is the first State Dept authorization bill in 20 years. Fred Kaplan wonders if members even looked at the bill.
This morning he added:
– US will send small arms and ammo to Ukraine.
– WSJ says US will tighten sanctions on Iran.
– Harvard report says China will soon lead US in tech.
– NYT reports problems boosting US R&D.
– Big national and defense strategy documents coming early next year.
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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Identity politics have come to America, with a vengeance
Three big social issues plague America today: vaccination, guns, and abortion. On all three, Republicans are preferring harm to their constituency over commonsense public health measures, while Americans on the whole support them.
This is most obvious in Republican opposition to vaccination against COVID. As a result, the corona virus is killing far more Republican voters, mainly in rural areas and the suburbs, than Democrats. Hundreds of thousands of Republican voters have died, and likely hundreds of thousands more will die before the epidemic ebbs definitively. An epidemic of the unvaccinated means an epidemic of mostly Republicans.
Guns are a more complicated story. They kill more Americans by suicide than by interpersonal violence. Suicide is far more common in Republican-dominated rural areas than Democratic-dominated cities, where interpersonal violence is more common. The deaths from guns are an order of magnitude lower than the deaths from COVID, so tens of thousands of Republican voters are dying due to their party’s opposition to gun safety measures that Americans overwhelmingly support.
Abortion is more complicated still. But ending abortion in red states, which is what will happen if Roe v Wade is overturned in the Supreme Court, will saddle those states with the added welfare costs associated with unwanted children and poor mothers, while depriving those states of the economic flows attributable to abortion clinics and associated medical care. Abolishing abortion will also increase law enforcement burdens, as illegal procedures are likely to substitute for some legal ones. Americans on the whole favor the availability of legal abortion in many instances.
Why would a political party choose to harm its own constituency in these ways?
The justifications for the Republican position on vaccination and guns are similar: the issue, they say, is freedom. People should be free to get vaccinated or not and free to own and carry guns or not. This position entirely disregards the impact not only on the people opting for freedom but also on the rest of the population. The obvious analogy is seat belts: they are required to protect the people driving from physical harm as well as the broader population from the economic damage due to injuries in car accidents.
The justification for the Republican position on abortion is the inverse: the issue, they say, is not the freedom of a pregnant woman to choose but rather the right of a fetus, even a non-viable one, to live. Where that right is spelled out in the Constitution I don’t know. Certainly fetuses in the 18th century had no such right. I suspect that if men got pregnant the position would be reversed: freedom to choose would prevail, as it does for vaccines and guns.
Along with denying the validity of the 2020 election results and objecting to teaching about slavery in American schools, these three issues have come to define what it means to be a stalwart Republican today. Identity is not subject to logic or persuasion. Attempts to convince are treated instead as attacks on identity. Once people are convinced their identity is being attacked, they will regard almost any response as justified. Party becomes self. Self-defense is justified.
Thus the growing effort to bias elections irretrievably in the Republican direction, through gerrymandering, restrictions on voting, empowering of state legislatures to interfere in elections and even overturn election results. Texas has no problem with using the added members of the House of Representatives it is entitled to because of increased numbers of LatinX and other minorities to increase white Republican representation in Congress. Other Republican-controlled states will follow suit.
So the Republican positions on these three social issues, by establishing a clear identity, help to justify anti-democratic measures intended to keep Republicans in power no matter what. The consequent deaths are ignored. Those of you who follow the Balkans and the Middle East, about which I more commonly write, will understand what this is all about. Identity politics has come to America, with a vengeance.
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Notes of good news from Syria
I had the honor Sunday to meet and hear Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian clarinetist. His music and spirit were the best news I’ve heard from Syria in a long time, so here he is:
PS December 9. Here is some more from Kinan:
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