Category: Daniel Serwer
Stevenson’s army, May 18
Sally Quinn says there’s not much left of the DC social scene.
Dan Drezner explains the lack of leaks from the Biden WH
Politico says DOD may keep Trump boost in DOD psyops.
Administration approves new arms for Israel, probably too late for Congress to block.
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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Israel may win the war but lose strategic high ground
It’s been hard to write more about Gaza, both because I’ve been busy with professorial responsibilities this week and because so much has already been said. But a few points merit reiteration:
- The fighting is not really about Gaza. Israeli moves against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and on the Haram al Sharif triggered the Hamas rocket barrages. Hamas gains by claiming the mantle of resistance in Jerusalem. Netanyahu gains by creating an emergency situation that may give him another lease on the prime ministry.
- American influence is marginal. Biden doesn’t want to leave his right flank open to Republican criticism. Washington doesn’t talk with Hamas but may exert some pressure via Qatar or Egypt. Having paid a price in international opinion, Israel will want to meet its military objectives before stopping.
- Israeli measures to minimize civilian casualties are grossly insufficient. Some think they target civilians. I can’t really say they don’t, but it is also possible the damage is collateral. They do warn before bombing civilian structures, but Gaza is such a densely populated place even the best-intentioned belligerent would likely kill civilians. The bombing of Hamas’ underground tunnels in populated areas ensures that above-ground structures will collapse.
- The fighting inside Israel between Arab and Jewish citizens is new and important. The center of gravity of this conflict has moved from Gaza and the West Bank to Israel inside the Green Line and East Jerusalem. The successful Israeli efforts to mitigate threat by fencing off the former cannot be applied to the latter. Only ethnic cleansing will rid Israel of its own Palestinian population. That is precisely what Netanyahu and his extremist supporters want to do.
- The Palestinian Authority and the Gulf States are more irrelevant than ever. Mahmoud Abbas disappointed Palestinians by postponing long-postponed elections. Pleased to see Hamas hammered, the Gulf states have failed to use their new-found relations with Israel to protect Palestinians. Iran will gain sway with Palestinians for its support of resistance.
- The fighting has undermined American support for Israel. Already in trouble with Democrats because of his blatant preference for the Republicans, Netanyahu has managed to provoke even stalwart backers to object to what Israel is doing in Gaza. Biden gave Netanyahu lots of room to maneuver, but even he is now insisting on a ceasefire.
- Liberal American Jews (that’s most of us) are fed up. They don’t like Hamas but also do not want to support an Israel that causes dozens of civilian casualties in Gaza every day, treats Jewish and Arab citizens differently, attacks worshippers on the Temple Mount, and coddles right-wing Jewish supremacist thugs.
Israel will benefit from destroying Hamas leadership, infrastructure, and hardware in Gaza, but most of the points above suggest that the political terrain is shifting against Netanyahu, if not Israel per se. Things will not be the same after this war: Palestinian citizens of Israel, liberal Jews in the US, Democratic leadership in the White House and congress, Gulf states, and others will have shifted their sympathies noticeably in the Palestinian direction, even if not towards Hamas.
There is no sign of a similar shift inside Israel. Netanyahu’s buildup of siege mentality among its Jewish citizens has worked well in his favor. Hamas’ rockets help. The gulf between Israeli Jewish public opinion and the rest of the world is widening. Israel may win the war but lose strategic high ground.
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Stevenson’s army, May 17
– Jonathan Swan of Axios has Politishocking story of how, right after the election, President Trump used his personnel office to prepare a memo ordering US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, Somalia, Germany, Iraq & Syria by January 20. The memo, never shown to NSA O’Brien or WH Counsel Cipollone, was sent to newly installed acting SecDef Miller. Pushback from O’Brien and CJCS Milley led to a meeting where Trump agreed to less drastic withdrawals.
-NYT reports that Biden, in private meetings, is often deliberative, temperamental, demanding of information, slow to decide. Sounds pretty normal to me.
-Politico questions whether Biden has too many Special Envoys.
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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It’s not only about Montenegro
Colleague Mike Haltzel has a lot to say about Montenegro:
Hard for me to disagree with any of this, but I might have put more emphasis on Russia’s and Serbia’s efforts to undermine Montenegro’s independence. It has been their troublemaking, including through the Serbian Orthodox Church, that has made it difficult for a pro-EU opposition to emerge in Montenegro. President Djukanovic has had a virtual monopoly on liberal democratic ideals because the main serious political alternative has been Serb ethnic nationalist.
Now Montenegro is in a kind of ethnic security dilemma: anything Montenegrins do to preserve their identity is perceived as attacking Serbian identity and the Serbian state; and anything Serbs in Montenegro do to preserve their identity is perceived as an attack on Montenegrin identity and the Montenegrin state. Perhaps the biggest losers in this have been minorities, whom the Serbs see as devotees of President Djukanovic because they have consistently participated in governing coalitions with his political party. With no apparent way of winning them over because Serb identity excludes them, self-identified Serbs in Montenegro are hoping to intimidate and chase out Bosniaks, other Muslims, and Albanians while enfranchising as many ex-patriot Serbs as possible.
Russia and Serbia are strong supporters of Serb ambitions in Montenegro, not least because the former aim to undermine NATO and the latter to pursue the latest Serb fantasy, the “Serbian Home.” That’s the updated moniker for Greater Serbia, a single state that incorporates parts of neighboring states that Serbs inhabit (i.e. part of not only Montenegro but also Kosovo, Croatia, and Bosnia). It isn’t going to happen, but Serbia is aiming at least to re-impose its hegemony on its neighbors, even if that means destabilizing them, slowing their progress towards the EU, or undermining their credentials as NATO allies.
I’ve never quite understood a country that wants unstable neighbors, but in a zero-sum world it would make sense. Whatever I gain will come at my neighbors’ expense. The world since the financial crisis of 2007/8 has been close to zero sum, especially in Europe. Unwelcome migration, Brexit, the Greek financial crisis (and the threat of other financial crises), slow economic growth, and nationalist populism have undermined the attraction of the EU and provided Moscow and Belgrade with opportunities to project their more autocratic alternatives. The availibility of Chinese money has compounded the incentives to turn East rather than West, though Montenegro’s own billion-dollar loan is already going south. It should be a warning to others.
The US has already begun its post-pandemic economic expansion. Europe has not. Let’s hope it comes sooner rather than later, not only for Montenegro’s sake.
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Stevenson’s army, May 13
– WH released a 34-page executive order on cybersecurity. And a shorter fact sheet. And the transcript of a press briefing. Now you know what I know.
– 3 defense think tanks released a defense budget simulator. But it doesn’t seem to be working yet. Bookmark for later.
-Experts released a plan to prevent the next pandemic.
-Peter Feaver asseses the old officers’ screed.
-DOD refuses to discuss Afghan relocation in open session.
– And Politico says the Afghan blame game is on.
Note: I’ll be away for a few days but a neighbor will save my papers. I’ll have more news next week.
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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Stevenson’s army, May 12
– Are the Russians conducting microwave attacks against Americans? Or is that implausible?
– Are retired officer attacks on Biden beyond the pale?
– Do we need a new ICBM? [My view: if the costs are low enough, it makes sense to force an enemy to have to worry about taking out ICBMs as well as other nuclear capable systems.]
– WSJ says US tariffs have sharply cut US imports from China
– CFR has new backgrounder on Taiwan.
– Lawfare writer doubts private sector owns 85% of US critical infrastructure
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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