Month: July 2023
Stevenson’s army, July 13
I’ll be away for several days and unable to curate the news. Here are a few items for today:
– F16s to Turkey may depend on F35s to Greece.
– WSJ says several Russian officers have been “detained”
– Here’s the list of amendments still up for action by the House on the NDAA
– RollCall says House appropriations committee allows first pay raise since 2009
– Dan Drezner ponders why Biden’s low approval
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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NATO reborn, but can it win?
NATO this week did itself proud. It renewed its commitment to Ukraine, painted both the Russian and Chinese threats in technicolor, and made commitments to defense expenditure and modernization that could make a real difference, if implemented in coming years. Though the specter of a Donald Trump re-election looms, for now the Alliance is in the safe and steady hands of Joe Biden.
Failure should not be an option
Even more than before the Summit, the fate of the Alliance now depends on the outcome of the Ukraine war. Failure should not be an option. If Kiev’s offensive continues to stall, Moscow will be able to claim a win. The territory Russia has seized is only 15% or so of the country it once sought to subjugate entirely. But that territory would give Moscow the capability of threatening Ukraine’s remaining seacoast and the port of Odesa. Just retaining Crimea, which it seized in 2014, would give Moscow a handsome reward for aggression.
NATO needs to view the remainder of the Ukraine war as its own. Moscow already sees it that way. For good reasons, the Alliance has chosen to fight with both hands tied behind its back. It equips and trains the Ukrainians but does not engage its own military forces. So far Russia has reciprocated that decision by not attacking a NATO member. But President Putin tells his people every day that he is fighting all of NATO.
Would that it were true. European and North American supplies have too often arrived long after the need has become evident. What sense did it make to delay the arrival of battle tanks, longer-range missiles, air defenses, and F-16s? Russia has shown no restraint in attacking Ukrainians, including daily bombardments against civilian targets. It is more than time to give the Ukrainians whatever they need to prevent that from continuing.
The war’s outcome will be decided in Moscow
That said, the war’s outcome will be decided in Moscow. President Putin will not give in. He would not survive if he did. But the Wagner rebellion showed his weakness. He will now have to buy off or repress discontent, which will grow as state resources wither and more bad news from the front comes home. There is no predicting when the regime will blow, but the fuse has been lit.
It would be preferable if the Russian people got to decide when and how. But that is unlikely. They did nothing during the Wagner rebellion. The other possibilities are the cronies, the secret services, and the military. There is little sign of their discontent, but one general has disappeared and another has been fired for complaining about lack of support for his troops in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s whereabouts aren’t known, though the Kremlin claims he met with Putin after abandoning the rebellion.
Go figure.
Patience is a virtue
While supplying Ukraine with training, materiel, and intelligence, the United States will need to exercise patience. That is difficult, especially with an election year approaching. Some Republicans have inclined toward limiting assistance to Ukraine, as do some on the left. Donald Trump has hinted that as president he would have let Putin have what he wanted. That alone should be good reason to vote against him in 2024. A reborn NATO won’t be worth much if it can’t persist into the next presidency.
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Stevenson’s army, July 12
– Unhappy Zelensky takes what he can get.
– The official communique criticizes China as well as Russia.
– Culture wars threaten the NDAA.
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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Big fish caught in Serbia, lots of questions unanswered
Yes: the US Treasury has sanctioned Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency, former Defense and Interior Minister, and bestie to President Vucic. His misdeeds, according to the US, include drug and arms trafficking as well as facilitating malign Russian influence. This is a big step. I heartily welcome it.
Questions
Then come the questions. Why wasn’t this done earlier? The world has known about Vulin’s misdeeds for years. The US did not just discover that Vulin has been trafficking in drugs and arms. Maybe he trafficked in the wrong directions recently? His subservience to Russian objectives is also well known. Did he send some weapons to Russia, to compensate for the much-ballyhooed Serbian munitions going to Ukraine?
Vulin is, among other things, the leading advocate for “the Serbian world.” That is a concept hard to distinguish from Greater Serbia, Milosevic’s aim in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It is also an analogue to “the Russian world,” the banner under which Putin is trying to carve out parts of Ukraine. President Vucic has avoided associating himself too closely with the concept, though he has pursued it in practice in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro.
That raises the question of whether Vucic knew about the sanctions move before they happened. Did he object? Did he welcome them as a way of dissociating himself from someone who had become a liability in dealing with the Americans and the Europeans? And how will he react now that it is done? Will he fire Vulin or keep him on? Or will he shifted elsewhere to keep him out of the way until the time comes for resurrection?
No answers yet
I can’t answer any of these questions yet. The Americans aren’t likely to comment on the timing of this move. But an enterprising journalist might get them to link a bit more derogatory information. Vucic is unlikely to fire Vulin outright, unless he has reason to believe that Vulin, like Yevgeny Prigozhin, was planning to contest his hold on power. If Vulin is kept on, it will be a clear sign of where Vucic stands: not with the West. If he is shunted off someplace, the signal may remain ambiguous.
We’ll need to wait and see how things shake out.
What if Vucic turns westward?
This moment is an opportunity for Vucic. If he really wants to turn westward and embrace Serbia’s European prospect, he could use the occasion of US sanctions on Vulin to good effect. That would mean not only firing him but expelling the extensive Russian intelligence service presence in Serbia, aligning Serbia with EU sanctions on Russia, closing Moscow’s supposedly humaniarian base near Nis, ending support for Serbia’s agents inside Kosovo and Montenegro, and disowning Milorad Dodik’s efforts to separate Republika Srpska from the authority of Sarajevo’s institutions.
Vucic could also mend democracy in Serbia. That would entail freeing the media from government domination, respecting the independence of the judiciary, restraining the police, favoring gun control, and encouraging freedom of expression and association. Not to mention moving quickly to implement the acquis communautaire requirements for EU admission.
First to applaud
I’ll be the first to applaud if anything like that happens. But it won’t. Whatever happened with Vulin, Serbia’s broader turn westward still seems far off.
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Stevenson’s army, July 11
– NYT sees Biden playing the long game to restore balance in US-China relations
– WaPo tells how Biden at al. got Erdogan to agree to admit Sweden to NATO
– US today said Turkey would get F16s [It’s curious that the Biden people aren’t — yet — claiming credit which they probably deserve.]
– SAIS Prof Mary Sarotte says German model won’t work for Ukraine in NATO
– Ed Luttwak also has an analysis of the Ukraine war.
– House Rules Committee is deciding which of 1400 amendments will be allowed for House NDAA debate. DOD weighs in with SAP [statement of administration policy] on items already in the bill.
– I was struck by Peter Beinart’s discussion of Israel’s long term options, and especially by Finance Minister Smotrich’s 2017 master plan as well as his recent comments.
– I was dismayed by the Gallup poll showing a further deep drop in US confidence in higher education.
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, July 10
– NATO summit in Vilnius. Biden says Ukraine isn’t ready for membership.
– Jake Sullivan explains more.
– Max Boot says his heart is for admission but his head says no.
-Congress is back in town with only 12 days to get things done before August recess.
-Kremlin says Putin met with Prigozhin after mutiny attempt.
-Guardian says Sudan is on brink of civil war.
– Gzero saays South Korea is moving away from China, toward US
– Trump critic says his officials worried about nuclear war.
– Gordon Adams says Afghan withdrawal report shows State’s weaknesses.
– Former CAPE official responds to critics.
Axios says Biden has bad temper, but only in private.
My story: When I joined his Senate staff, Ted Kaufman told me, “Joe has a temper.” Having just spent 6 years working for John Culver, who was called “Big Vesuvius” for his outbursts in the HFAC, I said I could handle that. “But he really gets mad at times,” Ted replied. I said, “I know the difference between kilotons and megatons. I can handle Biden.” [And I did.]
Charlie added later:
I’ve long told my classes, “If you know how the system works, you’ll know how to work the system.” And the way Washington really works is through connections and conversations and perseverance.
The New Yorker has an excellent example this week, an article by historian Kai Bird about the effort to nullify a denial of a security clearance for the leader of the Manhattan Project that built the atom bomb, Robert Oppenheimer.
Bird and Martin Sherwin, who had co-authored a book about Oppenheimer, tried to get a DC law firm to take up the case, only to be blocked by a partner whose father had chaired the panel that punished Oppenheimer. Later they used Hill connections from long ago to try to get the Obama Administration to reconsider the matter. A legendarily effective Senate staffer, Tim Rieser, got his boss and other Senators to sign a letter to the Secretary of Energy, who has jurisdiction over the weapons labs and thus their security procedures. Unsuccessful at that time, they renewed their effort in the Biden administration, got additional letters from former officials, and finally favorable action by Secretary Granholm.
People mattered, both for and against Oppenheimer’s case. Organizations mattered: DOE officials were reluctant to revisit the issue or make legal rulings. The process mattered: connecting the advocates with people empowered to act. What a neat story, especially with a happy ending. —
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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