Month: March 2023
Politics won’t wait for a court decision
Donald Trump’s indictment dominates the news today and will remain a major issue until a plea bargain or verdict. The Republicans are claiming it is politically motivated and unjustified. The Democrats are claiming it is a response to malfeasance and an assertion of the rule of law.
What we don’t know
The truth is we don’t even know what he stands accused of. The grand jury that indicted him holds its proceedings in secret. Only at his arraignment next week will we learn the charges for certain.
These might be, as the Republicans are claiming, election law violations associated with his hush money payments to a porn star in 2016. Or, as many Democrats believe, they may involve business fraud related to those same payments, which were allegedly recorded in his company books as legal fees and laundered through his personal attorney.
No one knows at this point. It might be wise to refrain from comment on the charges until they become public.
What we do know
No other American president has ever been indicted. Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment. Any number of presidents have been guilty of malfeasance, before, during, and after their time in office. But the nation’s prosecutors have not seen fit to drag them into court. This is the basis of the argument that Trump’s indictment is “unprecedented.”
But it is not. Lots of prominent people are indicted. Prosecutors go after company chief executives, members of Congress, lawyers, and yes professors. The list of indicted Federal officials is long. Unless you believe a president or former president should be above the law, you should not be objecting on grounds of “precedent” to indictment of a former president.
Indictment of presidents and prime ministers in other countries is common. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a prominent current example, but so too are former Kosovo President Thaci and former Serbian President Milosevic. The list of former heads of government later imprisoned is also long, but of course not all of them deserved what they got.
Only time will tell
We are going to have to wait a while–maybe even a year or two–to learn whether Trump’s indictment will lead to a plea bargain, acquittal, or conviction. In the meanwhile, the indictment will become a political football, with both Democrats and Republicans trying to score big before the November 2024 election. Most Americans believe an indictment should disqualify a candidate from running for president. But Republicans mostly back Trump and think the indictment is an unjustified political move.
Politics won’t wait for a court decision and the inevitable appeal if Trump is found guilty. In the meanwhile, many other investigations are ongoing. Some involve potentially far more serious violations than the current indictment, including election interference in Georgia and insurrection for the January 6 riot at The Capitol. Only time will tell how this all shakes out.
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Stevenson’s army, March 31
– Both Russia and Ukraine make recruiting push.
– DOD pushes back at unfunded priority lists.
-Iraqi Kurdistan is crumbling, FP says.
– Two former officials assess Israel’s problems today.
– In FA, an interesting case for security guarantees to Ukraine.
– Also in FA, an argument taking seriously Xi’s preparations for war.
– WaPo has a list of nations still recognizing Taiwan.
– Foreign Service union opposes declassifying Afghan dissent memo.
– NYT says DeSantis foreign policy adviser was a hawk.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. 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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Quandaries of the modern professor
Two challenges strike me this week:
- What to do about student use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to prepare written product.
- What to do about the risk that a student may be a spy for a foreign government.
These are real-life quandaries.
AI tools in the classroom
ChatGPT and other AI tools that prepare written product in response to user inquiries are the immediate problem. They go a step beyond what we are all used to. We all use search engines to look for relevant bibliography. We also read Wikipedia to get oriented to a new subject or check facts. I am fortunately not teaching classes with assigned written products these days, but I am supervising graduate students preparing theses. What do I think about use of generative tools to produce written material? Do I feel the same about their use as an exploratory tool and as a final product?
It seems to me the answer to that second question has to be no. Final product has to come from the student her/himself, with citations to sources. But I can’t really object to AI use as an exploratory tool. We all need to start someplace. My own habit is to start as much as possible with primary source materials, but I am an historian. I don’t really see why a political scientist or an economist shouldn’t ask generative AI to summarize the latest data on election results or business cycles. That is a small step past using a search engine on those terms. Even if current AI technology doesn’t deliver much, no doubt future generative tools will.
Learning is key
The real issue then is how you determine what the student has learned, beyond the products of the AI tools s/he may have used. It seems to me that isn’t so hard. Exams (without computers) can serve that purpose. So too can oral presentations or informal chats with the professor.
When I was a graduate student preceptor (teaching assistant) at Princeton, I received a paper from a student who hadn’t performed well in class. He referred in the first paragraph to the “pre-lapsarian Adam.” When I asked him what that meant, he was unable to respond. Plagiarism is not new. I didn’t need “Turnitin,” a software that can now check for it.
Spies in the classroom
No one who teaches international affairs anywhere on earth can be sure he/she hasn’t had a spy–past, present or future–in the classroom. Certainly a goodly number of students at SAIS, both Americans and non-Americans–later pursue careers in their home country intelligence agencies. We also get students who pursue degrees while they are still working for government agencies, or after they have completed careers in them, with intelligence responsibilities. Teaching them analytical methods and policy frameworks is a good idea, not a bad one.
The problem is current spies who hide their true identities. That is what the Washington Post says SAIS’s Russian student pretending to be a Brazilian did. The Post focuses on what he himself might have been doing. The example they give is reporting last year on US attitudes towards a Russian invasion of Ukraine. That Moscow could have gotten reading the daily press. The Post also focuses on what he might have done in the future. Penetrating the International Criminal Court’s computer systems is the case in point, as he had an internship lined up there before being arrested. That seems to me more serious.
Another issue
But I would point to another issue: recruitment. International affairs schools are brimming with students who will go on to bigger and better things, in government and in the private sector. A covert agent might have a field day lining up people living on student stipends and finding it difficult to pay tuition or otherwise make ends meet. Once recruited, such an individual becomes subject to lifetime blackmail.
The consequences could be long term and catastrophic.
The tougher problem
Spies in the classroom seems to me a much tougher problem than AI in the classroom. A professor can be expected to know when students are learning. But professors don’t command the tools required to ferret out covert operatives. That is an intelligence and law enforcement responsibility, not an academic one. Covert spies in the classroom could compromise classmates (or professors) and create problems for decades in the future.
There are more than 750,000 foreign students in the US. Do we really think the CIA and FBI are capable of keeping an eye on even a small fraction of them? And would we want the limitations that would necessarily come if they tried to do so?
No easy answers
Nor would I want the university administration to take on that responsibility. The most we can expect from it is to make reasonable efforts to ensure students are not using false identities. Beyond that, I suppose we’ll need to keep a watch out for suspicious behavior. But I confess as a Foreign Service officer I met several Americans who spied for foreign governments: Walter Kendall Myers (Cuba), Aldrich Ames (Soviet Union and Russia), and Felix Bloch (Soviet Union). I suspected none of them.
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Stevenson’s army, March 30
– IGs report on Ukraine aid.
– RUSI reports on Ukraine lessons.
-WaPo reports on Bibi-Biden split; Axios has more.
– Axios reports on how Zients runs the WH. Note that SecTreas Yellen attends the staff meeting.
-USD Kahl explains why no F16s to Ukraine.
-Trump think tank prepares “battle plans” for Mexico
– Senate votes 66-30 to repeal Iraq AUMFs, but McCarthy may not take House vote.
– Feds work hard to recruit young employees.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. 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, March 29
– WSJ says Russian economy is weakening-
– Harvard prof lists options for enlarging the House.
-Tom Friedman says Netanyahu can’t be trusted
-Navy prof summarizes the role of intelligence in the Iraq war.
–McConnell opposes Iraq AUMF repeal.
– WaPo tells about the SAIS student accused as a Russian spy.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. 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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Renewing the old may be better than new
A distinguished group of colleagues has offered “a new policy framework” for Syria to President Biden and Secretary Blinken. It advocates a more robust Western effort in Syria focused on security (including both stabilization in the northwest and northeast as well as continuing the fight against ISIS), increased humanitarian and early recovery assistance, and continued pushback against the Assad regime.
US troops would stay in northeastern Syria. Implicit is that President Assad would remain in power in Damascus, but the group opposes “normalization,” which several Arab states are pursuing.
The virtues
There is great virtue in many of the specific ideas offered. More cross-border assistance, if need be outside the UN framework, is needed. Better international coordination and cooperation with Turkiye is vital. Repatriating ISIS prisoners and their familities is important to reducing the threat of resurgence. Accountability for war crimes and missing people is indispensable.
These are not new ideas. The group is essentially recommending that the Biden Administration take more seriously its existing objectives and pursue them more aggressively. They take it to task for failing to meet its own objectives:
The Biden administration’s foreign policy priorities of great power competition, international and Middle East stability, human rights, humanitarianism, or combating food insecurity are insufficiently advanced through the current Syria policy.
The new policy framework is mostly the old framework, renewed.
The defects
That said, there are some defects as well. The group advocates a formalized ceasefire, without however specifying how it would be monitored and enforced. They also advocate renewed civilian stabilization assistance in the northeast, where conflict between Iranian proxy forces and the Americans is growing. Civilian assistance requires civilian presence, which is becoming more difficult, not less. They urge accounting for 100,000 missing Syrians, without however specifying a mechanism.
A lot of what the group suggests would require more Western focus on Syria. The more than ten years of war and chaos there as well as the requirements in Ukraine militate against Europe and the US paying greater attention. Three American presidents have decided that US interests in Syria are not a priority. The group is not asking for a major new effort. But even a marginally increased push in Syria may lie beyond what President Biden’s limits. Pressure for removal of the US troops is more likely to increase than decrease.
Alternatives
What are the possible alternatives? That is always an important question, especially when the obstacles to success are formidable. Let me offer a few, without however recommending any of them:
- Negotiated withdrawal of US troops: At some point, maybe now, US troops in northeastern Syria will reach the point of diminishing returns in the fight against ISIS. The US could negotiate with the Russians and the Syrian regime withdrawal of US troops in exchange for commitments to their Kurdish and Arab allies, promising “normalization” in exchange. Of course there would be little guarantee that the commitments would be kept once the withdrawal is complete.
- A big push for stabilization and reconstruction in the northeast: The US could pour a few billion into civilian stabilization and reconstruction directed by their Kurdish and Arab allies. This would create a de facto state in the northeast, financed on a continuing basis by revenues from the oil produced there. That parastate would attract however the enmity of both the regime and Turkiye, making its survival in the long term parlous.
- Back a Turkish takeover of the entire border area and the northeast: President Erdogan has long been threatening another invasion of segments of the northern Syria border Turkiye does not already control. Washington could back his ambition in exchange for commitments to its Kurdish and Arab allies. Such commitments would however likely prove worthless. The Turks see the Kurds as terrorists, not freedom fighters.
- Renew the civilian and military effort against the Assad regime: The US and Europe could urge Gulf partners to renew the armed rebellion against President Assad and Syrian activists to return to the streets. But neither the Arab partners nor anti-regime Syrians are anywhere near ready to do this.
It is easy to see why the group that wrote yesterday’s statement stuck with more modest proposals. All the more dramatic ones have obvious downsides.
Conclusion
It is not satisfying to propose more and better when you know that something else is needed. But under current circumstances, enewing the old may be better than new.
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