Category: Uncategorized
Requiem for the world order
The post-World War II liberal order was already shaky. The past four American presidents have all contributed to undermining it. Clinton bombed Serbia without UN Security Council authorization. W mistakenly invaded Iraq in 2003. Obama neglected to nurture the 2011 Arab Spring, especially in Syria but also in Egypt. Biden gave unconditional support to an Israeli government that has violated the laws of war. Putin has pitched in with his 2003 invasion of Georgia as well as his 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. Xi is conducting rehearsals for war with Taiwan.
Trump will bulldoze the foundations
But none of that has quite destroyed the world order. Trump will enjoy that privilege. He has already said he will cut a deal with Russia on Ukraine. The only way to do that is to stop assistance and surrender Ukrainian territory to Moscow. That will undermine NATO, even if he doesn’t withdraw from the Alliance.
Trump has no inclination to defend Taiwan. He has suggested South Korea and Japan should get their own nuclear weapons so the US can withdraw its troops. Trump will give carte blanche to Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. He will aim to reduce American troops in the Middle East, no matter what the consequences. A Trump Administration will do nothing to support democracy in the Middle East or elsewhere.
There is a big question mark on Iran. It is already a nuclear threshold state. It would need no more than weeks to obtain enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is spoiling for war with Iran. Biden has tried to restrain that impulse. He made it clear the US would not support more than the tit-for-tat exchanges of the past few months.
Would Trump continue to restrain Netanyahu? Or would he extend his unconditional support to war with Iran? If he does, any remaining foundations of the world order will be in smithereens.
The man of peace
Trump keeps on repeating he wants the fighting to stop in Ukraine. He claims to be a man of peace. But peace is not something you get when you concede to aggression or when you support it. Peace in Ukraine will require more support to Kyiv. Peace in Gaza and Lebanon will require constraints on Netanyahu. Trump appears poised to do precisely the opposite.
The implications of what Trump does will be wide and deep. Conceding to Putin in Ukraine will lead to future wars. Partition of Moldova, Bosnia, and Kosovo will follow. Invasions of the Baltics and Poland could be next. Supporting Netanyahu in Gaza and Lebanon will lead to future Palestinian or Lebanese efforts like October 7.
There is precious little any of us can do about this. American presidents have enormous leeway in foreign policy. Once he dismantles the Foreign Service and the Defense Department civil service, there will be no “deep state” resistance.
The precedent
The last time the US withdrew its commitment to world order was in the 1920s and 1930s. Republican Party isolationism then prevailed over Woodrow Wilson’s commitment to the League of Nations. America Firsters waved Nazi flags at Madison Square Garden. The US clamped down on immigration and hiked tariffs. The Nazis copied American racism. World War II was one of the results.
The world order will not be the only victim of the next Trump Administration. A lot of Americans will eventually die to stem the authoritarian resurgence his election will encourage. We acted reluctantly and too late against Germany and Japan. We are likely to delay too long this time around as well. The price for “peace in our time” can be astronomical.
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All good, until it’s not, in Atlanta
I am now past my second week of outside poll watching in Atlanta (Fulton County). Minus three days off for a jaunt to Boston to give a talk at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. By my count, I’ve now spot-checked 21 of the 34 early voting centers in the county. I’ve been to a couple more than once.
No wait no mess
I’m delighted to report that I have continued to find nothing to complain about. The early voting centers are adequately staffed and equipped. I haven’t found more than a 15-minute line anywhere. All the polling center managers say they haven’t had a longer line since early voting started.
That’s despite the record numbers of people voting. More than half of the number of people who voted in Georgia in 2020 have already voted. Most people exiting report that voting took no more than 5 minutes. None have registered complaints with me.
The Georgia Democratic Party has been concerned that polling centers post notices citing the disqualification of two candidates. All the polling centers I’ve visited display the notices prominently, along with the ballot, both inside and outside.
Four of the polling centers have had individual police officers stationed discreetly outside. I saw no indication voters felt intimidated or inhibited from voting. None of the police officers reported any incidents.
It would be hard not to conclude that Fulton County knows what it is doing and has done it well.
A long way to go
Of course there is a long way ahead. Early voting continues through November 1. Vote review panels are starting this week. Those are the panels that decide on a voter’s intention if it is not clear on the ballot. They also supervise duplication of ballots that can’t be machine read. I’ll have my first opportunity to contribute to those processes Friday, in Hall County north of Atlanta.
I am expecting an assignment to poll watch inside a polling center, also in Hall County, for election day. I am also expecting for this week assignments to ballot count monitoring. That is likely to continue for a few days after November 5.
The controversies to come
The process so far looks good to me. But that of course doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems. And even if there aren’t problems, some people will want to invent some. No one should imagine that Donald Trump is going to take a loss in Georgia without protest. He no doubt has both his mouth and his lawyers ready to complain about fraud if he loses. If he wins, he’ll extol the process.
The people voting so far in Georgia are disproportionately women. This spells trouble for the Republicans, joy for the Democrats. But of course the percentage could be reversed this week or on election day. And you really can’t tell how people vote when you ask them how the process went. Nor are there enough lawn signs or other indicators to tell you anything meaningful.
The Georgia state election board is still resolving quite a few issues, some in court. That is due to a MAGA takeover, which has put election deniers in charge. They are still trying to change the process. That is outrageous while the voting is taking place and so close to Election Day. When the courts refuse their proposals, they will no doubt complain that the election wasn’t fair.
It’s all good, until it’s not.
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Decent v indecent: you know what I mean
The choice in the American presidential election is a simple one. One candidate is decent. The other is indecent. This is true in many areas.
The economy
Trump mismanaged the COVID-19 epidemic and tanked the economy. Biden revived it. It is now growing more strongly than the pre-COVID rate.
The US economy is outpacing other countries:
Trump gave tax cuts to the rich that were expensive and did not deliver on his promises.
Biden has been really good for manufacturing:
If those aren’t enough reasons to vote for Harris, here’s another one for those in red states. Your economies depend far more on government programs than those of blue states:
Trump aims to cut those programs, give more tax breaks to the wealthy, and pay for them with tariffs the poor will shoulder more than the rich:
Immigration
Comparison of Trump’s and Biden’s immigration policies is complicated. But the numbers of illegal crossings surged during the Biden Administration as the COVID-19 pandemic receded:
The percentage of the US population that is immigrant is close to the earlier peak in 1890:
But deportations under Biden have been higher than under Trump:
More important: the US needs workers and entrepreneurs. Those immigrants Trump wants to deport open about a quarter of the new businesses in the US each year. The US has had more job openings than unemployed workers since 2018, except for the period of the pandemic:
Massive deportation would make the shortage of workers worse, reigniting inflation (along with the Trump tariffs). Immigrants have had lower crime rates than the US-born for at least 150 years. There is simply no moral, economic, or law enforcement reason for mass deportations, which would be violent and expensive.
Social issues
I can understand people who don’t like the idea of abortion. I don’t like it either. But that is not the issue. The issue is who should decide whether to end a pregnancy. I can’t imagine anyone more appropriate to do that that the pregnant woman herself, particularly if it is done before the fetus can survive. That was what Roe v Wade allowed. It should be allowed again, in all states. Anything less than that is bound to lead to confusion and strife. Governments should have a strictly limited role.
I don’t worry too much about the movement to ban books in libraries, even though the number of challenges is rising sharply:
I’m sure banning will guarantee books are read more rather than less.
But I do worry about the efforts to limit what schools teach, particularly about slavery and racism. Slavery was an abominable institution that tortured millions of people and killed many of them. No one should graduate from an American high school without that understanding. Students should also understand that enslavement of Africans was vital to America’s–and the world’s–economy for several hundred years before it was abolished. The wealth it produced is still in the hands of descendants of those who did not produce it. I’m not sure what we can do about that, but we should all appreciate the facts.
Foreign policy
The main foreign policy differences are all too apparent. Trump will back Israel to the hilt and surrender Ukraine (or part of it) to Russia. Harris will back Ukraine so long as the Ukrainians want to fight and try to restrain Israel. It is unclear what Trump would do about Taiwan. If he follows his own lead from Ukraine, he would hand it to China. Harris would likely follow Biden’s backing for the status quo against Chinese encroachments. On China, belligerence is bipartisan. Not much daylight between them.
More generally, Harris will back US NATO and Asian allies. Trump will try to wriggle free of alliance commitments.
In the past he has threatened NATO allies with letting them be attacked if they don’t ante up to 2% of GDP spent on defense by 2024. Today that means mainly Italy (where significant numbers of US troops are based), Spain, Portugal, Belgium (where NATO headquarters are located), Slovenia, and Croatia. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed the laggards over the 2% mark.
Trump has also suggested that Asian allies (South Korea and Japan) get their own nuclear weapons so that US forces can withdraw. That is a really bad idea.
Identity
Important as the issues above are, I suspect this election will come down to identity. The aging but wealthy heir Trump and the untested, fake hillbilly Vance are unabashed liars and fraudsters. They have tapped into a deep vein of white, especially male, supremacist feeling in the American population. It was always there, but they have allowed it to surface. Harris and Walz represent the opposite. The Vice President is an accomplished, well-educated Black woman running with an experienced white male as her second.
Many Americans won’t worry about the policy issues. They will vote on identity. Democrat v Republican, young v old, urban v suburban v rural, liberal v conservative, minority v majority, rich v poor. I hope they will also consider another dimension: decent v indecent. You know what I mean.
Please register and vote!
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Register now and vote when you choose!
I’ve been doing my thing with the Georgia Justice Project and VoteRidersGA for the past 10 days or so. Writing notes to people encouraging them to register and vote. Georgia, it turns out, has lots of people convicted of felonies who have either completed probation or can get off it. They can vote without paying fines or jumping through other hoops.
Of course I’ll never know what impact this will have, if any. But given the extensive efforts to limit voting, I’m willing to pitch in to encourage it. This is a non-partisan effort, even if I am a registered Democrat (who sometimes has voted Republican).
The question of course is what motivates people to limit voting. If you ask, they will tell you they want to limit voting fraud, not voting. But there is no evidence in any of the 50 states of significant voter fraud. And the “anti-fraud” efforts are concentrated in Black and other minorities areas as well as college campuses. That tells you all you need to know about the real purpose. Their efforts are counterproductive when it comes to fraud. Those challenging voter registrations are tying up election officials in mountains of paperwork, making it difficult to maintain the quality of elections in battleground states.
Nevertheless, there has been some progress in opening up the election process to encourage broader participation, partly due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The National Council of State Legislatures lists a number of states that permit “vote by mail”:
- Eight states—California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington and the District of Columbia—allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.
- Two states—Nebraska and North Dakota—permit counties to opt into conducting elections by mail.
- Nine states—Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming—allow specific small elections to be conducted by mail.
- Four states—Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico—permit mostly-mail elections for certain small jurisdictions.
Forty-seven states offer some sort of “early” voting before Election Day.
Polls can make inaccurate projections for many reasons. But one of the more difficult factors to take into account is turnout. At this point in the campaign, that is the main objective of both the Democrats and the Republicans. Convincing the few remaining undecided voters is far more difficult and labor intensive than getting your own cadres to the polls. So register, or check your registration, and vote when you can!
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Advantage Harris, but the set isn’t over
Those who imagined Kamala Harris lacked charisma and enough time to build the momentum required to run for President have already proven wrong, less than 48 hours after she became the candidate. The campaign has already taken in more than $100 million in smaller donations and even more in large ones. Tiktoks of the dancing Vice President are all over the web. The Democratic Party has united in backing her. She can win.
Republicans are having trouble finding more than her boisterous laugh to criticize. To be sure, Donald Trump is calling her a socialist and extremist. That isn’t finding much traction when applied to a career prosecutor. The contrast with his 34 felony convictions, giant civil judgments against him, and his criminal indictments is dramatic:
What Americans want
What a large slice of American wants is the Biden Administration without Biden. They want the health care provided by Obamacare. They want the access to abortion that Trump’s Supreme Court nominees took away. The pace of inflation is way down and continuing to decline while employment is holding up reasonable well. They like that, even if they complain about price levels. They don’t complain about Biden’s tax policies, which have increased taxes on the rich and reduced them on the middle class. America’s recovery from COVID has outpaced other major countries:
On foreign policy, Americans want support for Ukraine and Israel, while hoping for an early end to their wars. Support for NATO is strong. So too is support for Taiwan and other allies in the Pacific.
They would get none of that from Trump
Trump would disappoint Americans on all those fronts. He has doubted the value of US alliances in both Asia and Europe. He has even suggested that South Korea and Japan should get their own nuclear weapons, rather than sit under the US umbrella. Taiwan would have to defend itself from China.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to end Obamacare, vaunted his Supreme Court nominees, and presided over a confused and ineffective response to COVID-19. His minions have prepared plans to fire tens of thousands of competent civil servants. He intends to reduce taxes on the super rich and increase them on the middle class, via his 10% tariff.
Ad Harris
So Harris is having a good week. Trump is having such a bad one he is reportedly wondering whether he can dump JD Vance as vice presidential candidate. If you don’t get that right, are you qualified to be president?
Harris’ first big decision is likewise choosing a vice president. There is ample talent available. The question is who will help her with the most Electoral Votes. I don’t pretend to know, but I won’t be surprised if it is someone from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.
I’ve got friends who suggest it should be a Republican, even Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney. That would be unlikely to please the Democratic base. It’s an idea that will need to await the formation of a cabinet next year.
The long road to November
Sustaining momentum is difficult. Harris will need some future projects to talk about during he campaign. She may focus on the bipartisan immigration legislation that Trump blocked from passing in the House. She will surely push for a clearer path to citizenship for undocumented people, especially those brought to the US as children. Student loan forgiveness is another possibility, as is legislation on national rules for abortion and limits on presidential immunity.
The Democrats are fortunate that their convention is August 19-22, which gives Harris time not only to pick her vice president but also to try to ensure that the convention goes smoothly. I was in Chicago for the 1968 convention that went south. Demonstrations are to be expected. The police need to handle them well. Getting a prominent Republican or two to speak at the convention would be a good idea. Cheney or Kinzinger or fit there well, not because of policy positions. They know who Trump is and are willing to say it plainly.
There is no telling what may happen by fall. Biden and Harris will need to be in sync. She has already demonstrated that she is quick. Now she needs to demonstrate that she can manage a unifying convention, a big campaign, and Trump’s unrestrained attacks.
PS: Here is they guy who wasn’t sharp enough to be president:
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Talk should focus on the possible
Here are the remarks I prepared for today’s panel in Pristina, Kosovo on “The Future of the Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia: the possibilities for new dynamics in the process and the impact of new US and EU elections.” The Group for Legal and Political Studies sponsored the event.
- Here in Pristina I face a great challenge. I need to say something sensible about the Dialogue in front of people here in Pristina who have spent years observing it and engaging in it.
- Fellow panelist Sonja Biserko is also closer to the Dialogue than I am. She has been observing the political moods in Belgrade since before my first trip to Kosovo in 1998, as war was brewing.
- Anything I say will be from a more distant, professorial perspective.
- That perspective tells me there is no better alternative than a peaceful and friendly relationship between Belgrade and Pristina.
- When I said this to Kosovo Albanian friends during and soon after the war they laughed grimly. They said they would never want to talk with Belgrade again.
- But it soon became clear that Serbia was Kosovo’s biggest security threat, an important factor in its economy, and a major influence on its Serb population.
- Not to mention its influence on other countries, which has prevented universal recognition of Kosovo independence.
- Neighbors don’t have the privilege of ignoring their neighbors if they want security, prosperity, the loyalty of their minority populations, and international recognition.
- I participated in the first training for talks with Belgrade around 2004, for the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government. Bajram Rexhepi, then Prime Minister of the provisional institutions, was a participant, along with several other ministers and directors general. Maybe some of you were there.
- I soon after helped to train Serbian foreign service officers for their engagement with Kosovo.
- But quite rightly the international community decided that independence needed to come first. And so it did, as Martti Ahtisaari recommended, along with his EU and American collaborators.
- Then of course there was the need to ensure implementation of the Ahtisaari plan, a process that the International Civilian Office supervised well.
- So it was 2011 before the dialogue with Belgrade officially began. This was the technical dialogue, which Edita Tahiri and Borko Stefanovic led.
- The goal of the technical dialogue was to improve the lives of people in both countries.
- It produced a lot of agreements by 2013, many of which were not fully implemented in the timeframes foreseen.
- These included agreements on civil registry books, cadastral records, freedom of movement, recognition of diplomas, custom stamps and duties, regional representation, telecommunications, and energy.
- In 2013, the participants raised the level of the dialogue and set a new goal: political normalization.
- This political dialogue resulted in the 2013 Brussels agreement, which famously included the Association of Serb Municipalities.
- But the Association was not a standalone, unilateral proposition.
- Kosovo agreed to create it in exchange for Serb participation in Kosovo’s institutions, especially municipal elections, the police and judiciary, as well as non-interference by either side in the other’s progress toward the EU.
- Since 2013 there has been some progress on implementing the technical agreements. But there has been virtually none in meeting the goal of political normalization. I would even say that Belgrade has reversed some progress.
- It has reneged on all the 2013 commitments. It has maintained de facto governance over the Serb population in the Serb-majority communities of northern Kosovo. Serbia organized the boycott of municipal elections there. Belgrade has withdrawn Serb officials from the police and courts. And Serbia has done everything it could to block and reverse recognition of Kosovo and its entry into the Council of Europe.
- Pristina has done nothing to implement its commitment to create the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities.
- For the past three years, Gabe Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak have tried to pressure Pristina into creating the Association, with no success. That should not be surprising, as the agreement to create it included obligations for Belgrade as well.
- Instead of fulfilling those, Serbia has chosen to make things worse, through purposeful violence. Last year it kidnapped two Kosovo police from Kosovo territory, rented a mob to attack NATO peacekeepers inside Kosovo, and organized a terrorist attack that was supposed to provide the excuse for a Serbian military intervention.
- Most recently, Belgrade has torpedoed the proposal to re-call the non-Serb mayors in the north and conduct new elections.
- It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the technical dialogue was far more productive than the political one.
- I have to ask: why is this the case?
- Belgrade, it seems to me, is not ready for political normalization. By the end of last year, President Vucic was expressing his hope for changed geopolitical conditions that would enable Serbia to retake part or all of Kosovo. The newly inaugurated Serbian government includes vocal supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also includes the leading advocate of the “Serbian world,” a euphemism for Greater Serbia.
- President Vucic has de facto achieved the Serbian world in half of Bosnia and in all of Montenegro. Why wouldn’t he want to extend that success at least to northern Kosovo?
- I am not convinced that Pristina is ready for political normalization either.
- Albanian Kosovars first want to hear that Serbia regrets what Slobodan Milosevic did in 1998 and 1999. They want to see Belgrade encourage Kosovo Serbs to look to Pristina for governance, including law and order. Pristina wants Belgrade to be ready to give Albanians in southern Serbia comparable privileges and representation to those Serbia enjoys inside Kosovo for Serbs.
- I suppose if Belgrade were to fulfill its obligations under the 2013 agreement Pristina would too. But that isn’t going to happen.
- EU and US policy needs a reset. While I don’t expect diplomats to admit it, they need to return to a more practical, less political, dialogue. Political normalization is a bridge too far. Serbia won’t be interested in surrendering its sovereignty claims until the war in Ukraine ends the Russian annexations there. Kosovo won’t be interested in forming the Association until it is confident that Serbia accepts its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- But both Belgrade and Pristina can welcome smoothing movement of people, goods, and finance through their mutual border and enabling more licit trade, investment, and commerce.
- Pristina has rightly begun to insist on the use of its official currency, the euro, in transactions in Kosovo. But that is creating problems for the Serb communities, which receive subsidies from Belgrade for health and education—and likely other things as well—in Serbian dinars.
- This is the kind of practical issue the EU and US should focus on. Belgrade and Pristina need to agree on transparency for Serbia’s subsidies and a scheme for how they can proceed smoothly.
- Both Belgrade and Pristina should be interested in a serious crackdown on organized crime that exploits the lack of law and order in northern Kosovo.
- Now would be a good time for Belgrade to ensure that Milan Radoicic pays for his crimes and is unable to recover politically. Serbia should turn him over to Kosovo for trial. No doubt Serbia could name some Albanian candidates for similar treatment.
- Another issue I’d like to see discussed in the Dialogue is Belgrade’s intimidation of Kosovo Serbs who join the Kosovo Security Force or police. It is high time to put an end to the threats and violence that they and their families suffer at the hands of Belgrade’s proxies.
- That is the practical direction in which prospects for success lie. Saying farewell to failure requires getting the priorities right.
- Political normalization will come when Pristina and Belgrade are ready for it. My guess is that Belgrade will be first, because its EU accession will depend on recognition of Kosovo.
- More than one of the 27 member states of the EU will insist on it, even if the member states do not adopt it as EU policy.
- In the meantime, the Dialogue should focus on practical problems that can be solved in practical ways. It is a mistake to require politicians to do more than they are ready to do.
- That’s my professorial take.
I added a few extemporaneous remarks about the US election:
- The good thing about American elections is that we know the outcome only after we count the votes.
- Our 18th-century constitution makes predictions difficult, because of close races in a few battleground states.
- A Biden election will lead to continuity in defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Western Balkan states.
- A Trump election will lead to surrender of Ukraine to Russia, unqualified support for Israel’s war on Gaza, and doubts about US commitment to NATO and Asian allies.
- And it will lead to revival of partition ideas in the Western Balkans, with catastrophic consequences.
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