Stevenson’s army, March 11
The Cyber Solarium Commission [note that meme from 1953] is releasing its report. I can’t find the actual document on its site, but here are good articles from WaPo and from NYT.
WSJ notes US troops now leaving the Middle East.
Vox notes the competing ideas on a stimulus package to offset the coronavirus recession.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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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Biden v Trump
I’ve testified many times before Joe Biden, who was a stalwart of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before becoming Vice President. He was knowledgeable, inquisitive, and amiable. In other words, the precise opposite of Donald Trump, who is ignorant, uninterested, and grumpy. Biden will be the Democratic candidate who gets a chance to take down this entirely unworthy, corrupt, and egotistical sham of a president.
He’ll be doing it with a base the opposite of Trump’s as well. Biden will be strong among blacks and other minorities, college graduates, and women. Trump is strong among whites, high school dropouts, and men. The presidency will be decided largely by which of them gets more people out to the polls. Turnout will be crucial. This means the campaign will be ferocious, as each candidate tries to motivate his own voters with negative images of the other.
Trump will come down hard on the false allegations of Biden misbehavior in Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani will return in his role as attack dog. Biden will try to stay above that fray but will need to clarify his own and his son’s roles, about which nothing illegal has even been alleged, much less demonstrated. Biden will come down hard on Trump’s many foibles: his intemperate tweeting, his expensive golf outings, his failure to separate himself from his business interests, his appointment of incompetents, his erratic decisions, his botching of the response to Covid-19, and his softness on Putin and other autocrats.
I suppose the vice presidential candidates will be of some importance. Biden’s best bets are Amy Klobuchar, who might be able to help deliver Minnesota, and Stacy Abrams, who will turn out black voters and Sanders supporters in droves. Trump will likely dump Vice President Pence, who is a nonentity he can blame for the corona virus mess, in favor of a woman. Nikki Haley is the odds on favorite at the moment. She has been anxious to preserve her relationship with Trump after quitting her job as Ambassador to the United Nations.
On domestic policy, Trumpworld and Bidenworld are far apart. Trump wants to wreck Obamacare while Biden wants to widen it. Trump wants to roll back environmental regulations while Biden would expand them, especially in response to global warming. Trump favors tax breaks for the well off, Biden favors them for the working class and poor. Trump has increased the Federal deficit by close to 50%; Biden helped to halve it during the Obama administration. Trump opposes abortion while Biden favors a woman’s right to choose. Trump has failed to favor any serious gun control while Biden would tighten registration.
The candidates are also far apart on foreign policy. Biden supports America’s alliances, favors multilateralism when possible, and will be prepared to act unilaterally when necessary to protect American national security and prosperity. Trump has been willing to abandon American allies in favor of dubious autocrats, acts impulsively without consulting others (or even his own advisors), and favors foreign leaders willing to flatter him. On trade, Biden has long supported agreements that lower barriers to American exports while Trump has been willing to impose burdensome tariffs that raise the prices of imports, to the detriment of both American producers and consumers.
In the parts of the world I worry most about, the two are also far apart. Both men favor reducing American commitments in the Middle East, but Trump has done it without the necessary diplomatic backfilling whereas Biden is acutely aware of the need for continued American leadership even as the number of troops goes down. Trump has supported the Greater Israel fantasy of the settler movement while Biden is a two-stater. Trump has pursued a so far failed policy of maximum pressure on Iran in order to get Tehran back to the negotiating table. Biden would take the US back into the nuclear deal and seek to negotiate further agreements from inside it.
In the Balkans, Biden is a strong supporter of the Dayton agreements and the independence of Kosovo. Trump doesn’t know where the Balkans region is, even if his wife is Slovene. Trumpworld is nevertheless pushing changes of borders and threatening Kosovo’s prime minister if he doesn’t unilaterally back down from tariffs imposed on Serbian and Bosnian imports by his predecessor. Some in Trumpworld are even threatening withdrawal of US troops from Kosovo, forgetting that they are there these days mainly to protect the Serbs.
There haven’t been any clearer choices in my lifetime. Biden is my choice.
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Stevenson’s army, March 10
-CSIS ran a pandemic war game last fall and has lessons applicable to the coronavirus problem.
– Here’s a summary of the law Congress passed last week to respond medically to the coronavirus. The administration is now considering new legislation to respond to the economic effects and looming recession.
-NYT details many of the ways North Korea has evaded sanctions and made money.
– Daily Beast says Taliban leader whom Trump talked to is on targeted kill list.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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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At risk
President Trump, concerned about the stock market’s more than 20% falloff, is still minimizing the risk and pushing for aid to the travel industry (including his own hotels of course) as well as a payroll tax cut, which he hopes will bury the memory of his massive tax cut for the wealthy in 2017. Neither move will do much for the non-payroll poor, who either vote for or against him because he is a racist. There is no buying them off his poor opponents or his poor proponents. He knows it.
I suppose his economic moves might cheer the markets temporarily, but there is no way we don’t get a big slowdown and likely a contraction this quarter and into the next. The failure of the US government to act promptly against Covid-19, has condemned us all to self-quarantine. While the economy is digitalizing, face-to-face interaction is still indispenable to industries that handle physical stuff and important to others, like teaching international relations. Presidents Xi and Trump may want to purvey happy talk, but reality bites.
It’s biting me too. I’m scheduled to travel to San Antonio Sunday and Atlanta during the following week to visit with our grandchildren, whom I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving. I’m not really worried about protecting myself from the virus. Lots of sanitizer and surgical masks will do a decent job of that, with some residual risk. But if we happen to cross paths with an infected person and are advised to self-quarantine, we could end up stranded for a couple of weeks in one of the destinations or the other. As attractive as that might be for seeing the grandchildren, it won’t help me get my work done. Nor will housing a grandparent for an unexpectedly long period, sick or not, be easy on the kids. So we need to choose between taking the risk or canceling the trip. Ugh.
Many millions of people are now making similar decisions. The Italian government has made it for them: stay home except for work and emergencies it says. I won’t be surprised if we end up there, but the President is still thinking more about his re-election prospects than about the welfare of the American people. Fortunately, they get the final say. How anyone watching the bozotic performance of this Administration in responding to Covid-19 would want it back in office come November is beyond me. It would be fitting if the germophone fell to a virus. Trump is at risk.
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Stevenson’s army, March 9
– DOD has 60 vacancies, about 1/3 of Senate-confirmed positions, and time is running short for filling them. And Politico says WH is resisting Esper nominees.
– Details of the Afghan deal are also missing — and the president even suggests Taliban may take over.
-Lawfare has a legal analysis of the deal.
– Numerous stories tell of the administration’s missed opportunities to deal with the coronavirus. Consider Dan Drezner and Peter Baker of NYT.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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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Arm twisting
Pristina daily Koha Ditore published this interview over the weekend. Fitim Gashi asked questions; I replied:
>Below you can find the question for the interview that Agron mentioned to you.
Q: How do you see the historical role of the United States in the creation of the state of Kosovo and current politics?
A: The US was vital to the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo, which had the good fortune to fight its devastating war with Serbia during the unipolar moment when Washington could do almost anything it liked in the world without serious opposition. It was also a moment in which liberal democracy, based on human rights for all, was the dominant paradigm.
The situation today is quite different. Washington has been withdrawing from overseas commitments, the Trump Administration is an ethnic nationalist one, and Russia and China are challenging US hegemony in various parts of the world.
Q: What is the impact that the US has on political decision-making in Kosovo, and why is this impact so great?
A: Partly because of its leadership role in 1999 and thereafter, the US is still first among equals in the diplomatic sphere in Pristina. The impact is great because Kosovo remains heavily dependent on US military, diplomatic, and political support. It is also great because Kosovars want it that way. When I urge them to diversify their support, they reject the notion.
Q: How do you see the role of the United States in the final phase of the dialogue. Is there any attempt to get this process out of the hands of Brussels?
A: Trump has no use for the EU and Grenell as no use for Germany, which is the most important of the European countries from Kosovo’s perspective. That said, the EU and Germany have much bigger problems today than Kosovo, which they seem glad to leave to the Americans, who are desperate for some sort of diplomatic triumph in the leadup to November’s elections. My advice: keep Germany involved. It is today the strongest defender of the liberal democratic ideals on which Kosovo was founded.
Q: Who should mediate the dialogue and where should the agreement be signed?
A: I’d prefer to see the US and EU working together in tandem, since that is a formula that has consistently brought good results in the Balkans. I couldn’t care less where the agreement is signed. Does anyone remember where the Dayton agreements were signed? The Trump Administration has promised the White House Rose Garden. I would guess he will get his way if there is to be an agreement.
Q: What compromises can be delivered by the parties in the final agreement and can they be painful for Kosovo?
A: Kosovo should be willing to compromise on ensuring the safety and security of Serbs and Serb monuments and other property throughout Kosovo, consistent with its constitution. Serbia should be expected to offer whatever it gets on those issues to Albanians living in Serbia. That’s called reciprocity.
Diplomatic recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as exchange of representatives at the ambassadorial level should also be reciprocal. All the existing bilateral technical agreements should be implemented.
Q: Has US policy on Kosovo changed with the Trump administration? If so, in what sense?
A: Yes, it has changed. The Administration has made it clear in public it would accept a territorial and population exchange that previous Administrations ruled out. Grenell and Palmer are committed to that formula, even if it has been rejected on its merits by Pristina and Belgrade. I also think Washington has shifted from expecting a reciprocal agreement on tariffs and an end to the de-recognition campaign to insisting on unilateral concessions by Kosovo. It is easier for Washington to twist the arm of a friend than twist the arm of an adversary.
Q: Prime Minister Kurti’s plan for partial and conditional lifting of tax on goods from Serbia was rejected by the US Envoy for Dialogue, Richard Grenell. Can the prime minister face sanctions if his decision-making is not in line with the Trump administration’s stance?
A: I might not apply the word “sanctions,” but he should certainly expect to suffer a cold diplomatic shoulder and possibly more concrete consequences. Welcome to the world of sovereign states. Trump is particularly vindictive and Grenell will imitate him.
Q: There has been criticism that Kosovo’s leaders are making decisions under pressure. Is Kosovo ready to take its own decisions, not to be subject of any international pressure?
A: We are all subject to pressures. The key is to make good decisions even under pressure. I wouldn’t yield on anything vital before the American election in November.
Q: Should Kosovo hurry to dialogue and reach the agreement?
A: No. Kosovo has to be ready to walk away from a bad agreement, even one supported by the US, in order to get a good one.
Q: So far, Kosovo has suffered from a lack of consensus in dialogue with Serbia, this was also confirmed by recent actions, where the president was part of reaching some agreements, while Prime Minister Kurti appeared uninformed. How much can this approach affect Kosovo getting into a bad deal with Serbia?
A: Only unity saves the Serbs, and only unity will save the Kosovars. The Americans are exploiting political divisions in Kosovo and pressuring their friends because it is easier than pressuring their adversaries. My advice: don’t fall for it. Those who cave on issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity will not be remembered well.
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