Stevenson’s army, January 23
-Politico reports attacks on Houthis.
-Defense Priorities analyzes the options.
– Fred Kaplan is encouraged by emerging Gaza peace plan.
– RollCall sees Palestinian aid as an issue.
-Semafor says Israel want 2km no man’s land in Gaza
– Iran hawks Gerecht and Takeyh say Iran doesn’t want a war
– NYT worries about tipping point in Mideast conflicts
– FP’s Steve Walt says in terms of foreign policy, it doesn’t matter whether Trump or Biden wins
– New reports on Trump on Ukraine and Trump on Taiwan [from Politico’s China Watcher:
TRUMP WON’T COMMIT TO TAIWAN’S DEFENSE: The likely Republican candidate in the November U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump, refused to commit to a U.S. defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt.
Publicly declaring his position on Taiwan’s defense would put him in “very bad negotiating position” with Beijing, Trump said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. Trump laced those comments with complaints about the self-governing island’s dominance of the global semiconductor supply chain. “Taiwan did take all of our chip business … they took our business away. We should have stopped them. We should have taxed them. We should have tariffed them,” Trump said.
Lawfare summarizes new cyber laws.
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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The sun is not setting on the US
Pantelis Ionomou asked “has the sunset of the West begun?” My own answer to this question is “no.” But that requires some explication.
The problem is real
There is no doubt but that electoral autocracies are rising while liberal democracies are declining:
The question is whether this trend will continue, where, and for how long.
2024 will see an unusual number of elections, including in big countries. Two merit particular attention: the US presidential and Congressional contests and India’s parliamentary election. The Economist rates both as “flawed democracies,” though India’s is more flawed than America’s.
Prime Minister Modi is favored to win another parliamentary majority, perhaps with a reduced number of seats. The big question is whether he will use a new mandate to further restrict Indian democracy. I wouldn’t bet against that. Modi has turned many of India’s Hindus against its massive Muslim population, the largest Muslim minority in any country on earth.
The US is particularly important
In the US, polling suggests that former President Donald Trump has a good chance of returning to the White House. As in India, the odds are he would use a second term to do additional damage to American democracy. Trump has pledged to use the Justice Department against political opponents and fire large numbers of experienced and law-abiding civil servants. He has even claimed in court absolute immunity for actions taken as president, including assassination of a political opponent. He has also avowed the intention to use dictatorial powers on “day 1” to close the border and drill, presumably for oil and gas:
The question is whether Trump will win in November against Joe Biden.
It will be tight
I doubt it. He will certainly not win the popular vote, which he lost by 7 million in 2020. It is hard to imagine any New Yorker or Californian who voted for Biden last time around who will turn out to vote for Trump this time. But one of America’s democratic flaws is its presidential election procedures. Its 18th-century constitution gives the presidency to someone who wins a majority of votes in the Electoral College, regardless of the popular vote. There it is state “electors” who determine the outcome.
Each state gets a number of electors equivalent to its number of members in Congress (plus three for the District of Columbia, which is not a state). This indirect system favors smaller states since all states (but not the District) have two members of the upper house, regardless of population. It enables a candidate with strong support in less populous states to win.
Trump has that going for him. Without it, the Republicans would be permanently out of power, or forced to change their politics. They have lost the popular vote in all but one election (2004) since 1992.
The 2024 election will come down to a contest in only a handful of states. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are particularly competitive. Polling shows Biden trailing Trump in the first two, as well as in the Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona “battlegrounds.” If this polling pans out, Biden is toast.
But don’t count Biden out
So why do I think the US will not continue in that direction? Polling is notoriously unreliable this far out from an election. Many of the current polls are showing improbable shifts of minorities away from Biden, whose record on their issues is far better than Trump’s. They may be signaling unhappinesss with being taken for granted, but in the polling booth I don’t know many traditional Democrats who will make the mistake of voting against their own interests.
Muslim Americans are particularly important in Michigan. All the Arabs I know (none of whom are in Michigan I should note) are deeply disappointed in Biden’s unqualified support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Ditto my Bosnian Muslim friends with his policies both in Gaza and in the Balkans. But they will in November face a choice between Biden, who has at least tried to moderate Israel’s approach and steer it towards saving Palestinian lives and establishing a Palestinian state, and a profoundly Islamophobic, race-baiting Trump. Last time around, Trump completely abandoned Palestinian concerns, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and gave Prime Minister Netanyahu far more unqualified support than Biden has done.
The polling is also showing a surprising shift of Black voters to Trump, but women are heading in the other direction. This is despite record low unemployment among Blacks and a narrowing of the gap with whites. Biden has appointed an unusual number of Black judges and other officials, as well as an unprecedented number of women. Young people would like a younger candidate than Biden. But Trump is only a few years younger. He is also more addled than Biden:
Trump’s white supremacist and anti-abortion advocacy may not loom large today. But any decent electoral campaign on Biden’s part will remind the electorate of both.
Trump will be a crook and Biden’s economy will look good
I hardly need even mention the many criminal indictments and civil cases against Trump, some of which will result in ignominous outcomes for him before November. He will likely be a convicted felon by then. He will also have lost control of many of his businesses. That won’t deprive him of his base, which is oblivious to his wrongdoing and convinced he is being persecuted, but it will repulse some independents and encourage at least as much turnout among Democrats as among Trumpistas.
The Republicans are pursuing Biden’s son Hunter, but they haven’t really pinned anything unknown on him. Nor have they connected their allegations to the President.
The continuing strength of the American economy, which is going uncredited to Biden among much of the citizenry, has been a problem for him. It has caused high inflation, increased interest rates and home prices, and pushed up gasoline prices. But many of these important consumer issues will be in the rear-view mirror by November. Another ten months should bring inflation close to the Fed’s 2 per cent target, enabling reduction of interest rates. Gasoline prices are not likely to rise much as the economy softens a bit. US energy production is higher than ever and gasoline prices are falling. Interest rates appear to have peaked and consumer confidence last month jumped.
Bottom line
Absent any big surprises between now and November, Biden is far more likely to be gaining than losing against Trump in the key states. I can’t be sure it will suffice. But I am more hopeful than discouraged. The sun is not setting on the West, at least not in the US.
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Stevenson’s army, January 21
OK, so you don’t have to wait for the broadsheets. Here are some stories, already online, that will be on front pages tomorrow.
– US is working with Arab governments on a master plan to end the Gaza war, as both Axios and WSJ report.
– WSJ also reports that US intelligence says Israel has destroyed only 20-30% of Hamas forces.
-WaPo says US plans long campaign against Houthis.
– Politico says Houthis expect new weapons from Iran.
– NYT reports growing doubts about US in Taiwan.
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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Serbia is not a lost cause
Today’s wars in Gaza and Ukraine are so dreadful they eclipse other bad news. In Serbia, the President and his security services (yes, they are his, though he shares control of them with his Moscow buddies) are agitated. Two opposition figures have dared to lay flowers on the grave of a Kosovo Albanian girl Serb forces murdered in 1999. The security services arrested, beat, and tortured the first flower-layer, Nikola Sandulović. They have now prevented the second, lawyer Čedomir Stojković, from leaving Serbia. He writes:
Yesterday in Davos 2024, for the prime-time news of the most watched television, A. Vučić said the SAME WORDS about the graves of Albanians as Adolf Hitler and J. Goebbels about the graves of Jews: “Whoever lays flowers on the graves of Albanian children will bear eternal public disgrace because of that, because that is putting the face in the mud, about which the prosecution and the police should do their job….because I laid flowers on the grave of an Albanian child, the president publicly encouraged my public lynching and promised “the work of the prosecution and the police” on that gesture of mine.
Serbia is returning to autocracy
Serbia has repeatedly held elections since Slobodan Milosevic fell 2000. But its Freedom House scores have declined markedly since Vucic first came to power in 2014. Freedom House then ranked it a “semi-consolidated” democracy. In 2019 it degenerated to a “transitional or hybrid” regime.
Its ranking will no doubt decline further towards autocracy when last year’s events are considered. They include police violence against peaceful anti-violence demonstrators, a Belgrade-sponsored attempted insurrection inside Serb-majority northern Kosovo, mobilization of the Serbian army along the border with Kosovo, a free but unfair parliamentary election, and a blatantly fraudulent Belgrade election. Serbia is today what Freedom House terms a “semi-consolidated authoritarian regime” or worse.
The West is putting up with it
Parliamentarians throughout Europe are concerned. But many of its governments are turning a blind eye. So too is Washington, where officials overvalue minor bits of Serbian cooperation on weapons for Ukraine and acceptance of Kosovo documents and license plates. The European Commission continues negotiations with Belgrade on EU accession, but the process has crawled to a virtual halt.
Still, there is no concerted effort to counter Vucic or seek alternatives. In Europe, Hungary’s opposition neuters any effort to levy “consequences” on Serbia. In the US, the State Department is turning a blind eye. “Europe whole and free” is still the mantra there, despite Vucic’s slide towards autocracy. No one wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes. That would mean more work for America’s tired diplomats.
Serbia is not a lost cause
Serbia’s more liberal opposition is not everything I might like. It won’t give up on Kosovo. But it is a lot better than Vucic’s Serb nationalists and Russophiles. A relatively united opposition came close to winning the December 17 election in Belgrade, despite Vucic’s import of illegal voters from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The opposition performed less well in the country as a whole and captured only one-quarter of the parliament. But that is better than it has done at time in the past.
President Biden has long argued that it is better for Serbia to be in the EU accession process than outside it. I debated that issue with Senator Biden in a Congressional hearing in the 2000s. His preference prevailed. But I still think I was right: it was a mistake to turn a blind eye then and it is a mistake to continue to do it.
Washington needs to read Belgrade the riot act: no more goodies until we see a real turn towards democracy inside Serbia, de facto if not de jure acceptance of Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Real diplomats shouldn’t accept Serbia as a lost cause.
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Quit and change course before you lose
A cold-eyed look at the Gaza war is overdue.
During the atrocious October 7 attack on Israel, Hamas killed as many as 1200 civilians, kidnapped over 200, raped an unknown number, and and committed crimes against humanity.
The Hamas attack did not however threaten the existence of the Israeli state, which struck back quickly. The attack was “existential” in the imagination of some Israelis as well as some Palestinians, but not in its real consequences.
The Israeli attack on Gaza has killed upwards of 23,000 Palestinians, 15,000 or so of them civilians and most presumably women and children. Israel has detained thousands and destroyed about half the built structures in Gaza. The International Criminal Court will decide whether Israeli conduct constitutes genocide.
Israel hasn’t lost, but it hasn’t reached its objectives either
The outcome thus far is obviously not to Israel’s advantage. The Israeli attack aimed to destroy Hamas, which Israel had previously helped to finance and sustain, as a military and governing entity. Israel has also aimed to free the hostages. It has so far fallen short of both goals. Hamas has gained support both in Gaza and the West Bank. Nor have the Israelis achieved their secondary objective of releasing the hostages, upwards of 140 of whom remain in captivity.
It will not be easy for Israel to change course. Prime Minister Netanyahu can remain in power only if the war continues. He is resisting international pressure, including from President Biden, to desist. The end of the war will open a political process certain to hold him responsible for the intelligence and military failures that allowed the Hamas attack to be successful.
Other options
A growing number of Israelis favors prioritizing hostage release over destroying Hamas. This could only be achieved in a negotiated exchange with Hamas (and possibly other Palestinian factions in Gaza) for Palestinians detained in Israel. There is no guarantee however that Hamas can or will deliver all the hostages. Nor do the Israelis want to release all their imprisoned Palestinians, at least some of whom are responsible for killing Israeli Jews.
There is little apparent support in Israel for the course President Biden is proposing. He wants steps towards a Palestinian state that would sweeten the deal for the Palestinian Authority. A reformed PA would take over governing Gaza. Biden believes that would incentivize the Arab Gulf monarchies to finance post-war stabilization and reconstration. It would also allow progress on normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Israelis and Arabs who would support that course are well-intentioned but relatively few.
Some Israelis want to de-populate Gaza as well as the West Bank, claiming both as Israeli territory. This course would be sure to create a permanent threat to Israeli security in Egyptian Sinai. It would also destabilize Jordan, which would have to receive many of the West Bank Palestinians. Jordan’s pro-Western monarchy is vital to Israeli security. Any alternative would likely be far more radical and supportive of the Palestinians, who already constitute more than 50% of Jordan’s population. So forced displacement would be entirely counter-productive. That however doesn’t mean the Israelis won’t try to do it. The settlers and security forces are pressuring some West Banker Palestinians to leave.
What’s most likely?
At some point, the Israelis are likely to accept a ceasefire and try to negotiate a hostage deal. Two questions arise. Will they do so before the destruction in Gaza becomes unfixable? Will Hamas release the hostages and risk Israel re-starting the war thereafter?
Leverage in a negotiation comes from having an alternative to a negotiated solution. The alternative for Israel is to pursue Hamasees it regards as responsible for October 7 by other than conventional military means. Israel could conduct a campaign of targeted air strikes and assassinations. That is not a bad alternative. Doing it soon would maximize the odds of Gulf financing for PA takeover, stabilization, and reconstruction in Gaza.
The alternative for Hamas is to fight on, risking a war of attrition that it might not be able to sustain even if it does serious damage to Israel and PA credibility. Hamas will try to retain at least the Israeli soldiers it has captured, but getting rid of the civilians would increase sustainability. Keeping pregnant women and children captive and alive is not what most fighters want to be doing.
Bottom line
Both Israel and Hamas need to think about quitting and changing course before they lose. The sooner they do it the better. I’d prefer Biden’s two-state option, but the prisoner exchange is the more likely first step. It will be a difficult negotation and likely an incomplete exchange initially. But if it comes with a ceasefire and enhanced humanitarian relief for Gaza’s civilians, it would be a good thing. Certainly better than mass displacement.
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Stevenson’s army, January 20
– NYT says Israel weighs hostage vs. Hamas goals
– Multiple reports on splits in Israeli cabinet: WSJ; FT ; WaPo
– Biden says 2 state option has various forms
– Fred Kaplan assesses Mideast conflicts
– Russia rejects new arms control talks
– Guardian assesses European political movements
– WaPo assesses new North Korean actions.
– UN report says Sudan RSF is supported by UAE
– ISW assesses long term costs of Ukraine defeat
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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