Tag: Balkans
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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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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Stevenson’s army, January 16
The Federal Government is closed today, but I’m open. No broadsheet papers, however — new carrier who’s “never seen snow.”
-Semafor says Iran IRGC has people in Yemen
– Iran admits attack in Erbil.
– US approves Javelins to Kosovo.
– Here’s summary of new CR, with Senate voting maybe tonight.
– RollCall says Speaker Johnson wants to cut DHS via 302[b] allocations
– Sen. Sanders wants vote on Israeli practices in Gaza
Here’s Politico’s report on Dean Steinberg et al.’s visit to Taiwan:
US DELEGATION IN TAIWAN: A delegation of former senior administration officials tasked by the State Department “to travel in their private capacity to Taiwan” is meeting with the island’s post-election incoming senior officials. Landing in Taipei just a day after the election, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met with Lai, outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, leaders of the Kuomintang opposition, and the Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je, who’s set to be a kingmaker in the race for the parliament speakership.
According to Laura Rosenberger, chairperson of the American Institute in Taiwan, the delegation stressed that the U.S. intends to work with all parties in Taiwan, adding there would be more meetings with senior Taiwanese officials on stronger cooperation, including in beefing up Taiwan’s self-defense. There’ll also be continued cooperation in trade and technology, Rosenberger added.
The concern — a parliament run by Lai’s rivals: Rosenberger’s remarks come as diplomats in Taipei are waiting to see how an opposition-led parliament could delay the DPP government’s policies, especially on defense. The Kuomintang, which stresses engagement with China, had a track record of criticizing military procurement on the grounds of corruption allegations.
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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, January 10
Prostate cancer: treatable, not disqualifying from service
WSJ notes Biden’s loyalty to advisers
Iraqi government doesn’t really want to kick US out
Staffers ain’t like they used to be
Administration revives export advisory council
Correction: here’s the right link for Ed Joseph on Serbia
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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, January 9
– Fred Kaplan says SecDef Austin should go. [I’m more concerned to know his medical condition. Presidents and certainly officials in the military chain of command for combat operations should not be afforded the same privacy regarding health as ordinary citizens.]
– Politico says Netanyahu is losing control.
– WSJ tells how Macron bungled French relations in Africa.
– NBC tells what AMLO wants from the US
– Intercept says CNN vets Mideast stories with Jerusalem bureau.
– SAIS prof Ed Joseph discusses Serbia’s election.
– Politico’s China Watcher backgrounds Taiwan’s coming elections
War on the rocks has good think pieces — on Iraq lessons for Gaza and on Army special operations forces.
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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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Vucic got what he wanted and then some
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s Progressive Party won an absolute majority in national parliamentary elections, with double the vote of the main opposition coalition yesterday. His party also won a plurality in the Belgrade city council. The election was “free” in the sense that all registered citizens could vote, but far from “fair.” The government exploited media control, pressure on voters, abuse of institutions and public functions as well as forged signatures and phantom voters. Elections in Serbia are stolen before election day. Elected autocrats are all the rage these days.
Stronger and more recalcitrant
The new parliament replaces one in which Vučić’s party had only a plurality. He gained that in an election that much of the opposition boycotted. The election thus strengthens his hold on power, which is going eleven years. If it sticks together, the one-quarter of the parliament that the main opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence, gained will give it a platform for its anti-violence, anti-corruption, anti-inflation messages. But it will not be able to block legislation or exert substantial influence on foreign and defense policy, which is the prerogative of the president.
We can expect ontinuation of Serbia’s current strong lean towards befriending fellow autocrats in Russia, China, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Hungary. While the Progressives ran on a nominally pro-Europe ticket, they have done little to move Serbia closer to the European Union. Instead they have successfully straddled the East/West divide. Vučić pursues a “non-aligned” hedging policy that flirts with both in order to extract valuable concessions from Moscow, Beijing, Brussels, and Washington.
Some might hope Vučić would use his victory to settle Serbia’s conflict with Kosovo and move definitively in the Western direction. That isn’t going to happen. He has locked himself into intransigient opposition. He refuses even to acknowledge Kosovo’s de facto independence. This would be easy to do. He could turn Milan Radoicic, who led a failed terrorist rebellion in northern Kosovo September 24, over to the Pristina authorities. Serbia recognized the validity of their judiciary in the 2013 Brussels agreement that Vučić has been trying to get Pristina to respect. But he won’t do that. Or anything else to make amends for sponsoring a well-equipped armed rebellion intended to lead on to a Serbian military invasion.
Europe and the US will do nothing
The US, UK, and EU could in the aftermath of this flawed election their pressure on Vučić. They say they want Serbia solve its problems with Kosovo, adhere to Ukraine sanctions against Russia, and speed reforms required for EU accession. But the five EU member states that don’t recognize Kosovo will prevent any push on Kosovo issues. Hungary will block any pressure on Russia questions. The EU as a whole is much more concerned with Ukraine and will let Serbia slide.
The Americans are still claiming that they’ve convinced Serbia to embrace the West. This is laughable but no one in Washington these days wants to tell the would-be emperors they have no clothes. They prefer to pretend that agreements Serbia has renounced in writing are legally binding. “They are being written into the requirements for accession” State Department officials like to explain. That is fine with Belgrade, which knows full well accession is a distant horizon, at best.
I might have some hope for the UK, which isn’t committed to the American pipedreams and isn’t constrained any longer by the EU. But London hasn’t been vocal in denouncing Serbia’s current behavior. It is likely shy of offending Brussels and Washington and anxious to protect its own equities in Belgrade.
What’s the then some?
Vučić’s party wasn’t the only one to do well in yesterday’s elections. Some ultra-nationalists and outright pro-Russian parties did too. That gives Vučić an “Après moi, le déluge” argument. If you are not nice to me, look what might come next!
Some in Kosovo might hope that now at least Pristina can be relieved of the “consequences” the EU mistakenly levied in response to its deployment of mayors to municipal buildings and police to northern Kosovo, where they blocked an armed rebellion. We’ll have to wait and see, but I doubt Pristina will get satisfaction. The EU has developed a habit of favoring Serbia that is going to be hard to break. The US is not far behind.
President Vučić has won his cake. Now he’ll eat it. That’s not good news.
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