Tag: Canada
Stevenson’s army, March 24
– US retaliates after deadly drone strike in Syria.
– US complained to Israel about new law.
– Dan Drezner warns about Taiwan dilemmas, citing this article.
– CSIS study sees Chinese pressure ineffective. Here’s that report.
– WSJ says – Ukraine trouble getting troops.
-Canada doesn’t want to take lead in Haiti.
– Blinken refuses to declassify dissent cable.
– RollCall finds less party unity in House, more in Senate last year.
– Senate is taking up AUMF repeal, but look at Politico’s list of amendments:
Here’s a quick rundown of amendment to expect in the Senate next week on the AUMF:
- Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) amendment would empower “the President to use force against forces of Iran, a state responsible for conducting and directing attacks against United States forces in the Middle East and to take actions for the purpose of ending Iran’s escalation of attacks on, and threats to, United States interests.”
- Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) amendment would require Senate approval for any World Health Organization convention or agreement or treaty.
- Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) amendment would create a joint select committee to look into the United States/Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021.
- Sen. Pete Ricketts’ (R-Neb.) amendment would require the president to certify “that Iraq, Israel,and other United States partners and allies in the region have been meaningfully consulted on the ramifications of repeal.”
- Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-Alaska) amendment ensures that the AUMF repeal won’t impact the effectiveness of U.S. response to Iran.
- Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) amendment would appoint an inspector general to oversee Ukraine aid.
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Stevenson’s army, November 8
HuffPost lists the states which are regularly slow to count ballots. Don’t expect results in close races tonight.
PM Trudeau says China interferes in Canadian elections.
I urge you every now and then to go on fas.org and look for recent CRS reports. Here’s a new one on emerging military technologies.
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, February 11
– WaPo has ticktock on ISIS leader raid.
– Military complains of distracting calls from WH & Congress on behalf of individuals seeking to flee Afghanistan.
– NYT has good background on Canadian trucker protests.
– Politico China newsletter tells how China is a political issue in coming elections
– David Ignatius complains about political infighting in Ukraine.
– FP says BJP is pushing hijab ban for votes in India.
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. 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, October 30
I want to stop reading election news. There’s nothing new under the sun. The polls have been consistent for weeks, so now the news is in outliers. What if they are true? Now reporters are hedging their bets by discovering little facts that point the other way. If the polls are “wrong,” I don’t think it will be methodological error but turnout problems because of postal and voting logistics and suppression efforts.
Meanwhile, it does look like NSA O’Brien is looking for a bigger job. SecDef?
Defense News jumps on the post-election bandwagon by profiling the possible new SASC chairman. Congress has been formally notified of F35 sale to UAE.
Former APSA Congressional Fellow Paul Musgrave has a clever piece on the problems of moving to Canada.
Just Security has been running a series of articles on legal issues in foreign policy. Today, I’d urge reading the pieces on War Powers Reform and Treaty Withdrawals.
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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Respect
Hard not to write about John McCain, but most of what needs saying has been said: he was a Vietnam War hero, a stalwart supporter of a strong and democratizing American role in the world, and a flawed presidential candidate who lowered the level of electoral discourse with his choice of a know-nothing vice presidential candidate whose name should be forgotten. I disagreed with many of the Senator’s domestic policy preferences and didn’t vote for him, but give him ample credit for saving the Affordable Care Act at a crucial moment.
McCain liked to be called a maverick, but he only occasionally behaved like one. A Republican loyalist to the end, McCain was critical of President Trump but never quite broke with him completely. This is unfortunate, as he might have led a Congressional rebellion to limit Trump’s worst impulses. But to expect that of someone dying of a malignant brain tumor really is too much. McCain merits a lot of credit, especially for his principled stand on supporting human rights and democracy, at home and abroad.
It is apparently also too much to expect the President to show even minimal respect for a war hero whose entire life is admittedly a condemnation of Trump’s. He managed to issue a pro forma recognition of McCain a day or two after his death and to order flags flown at half mast, after pointedly refusing to answer questions about McCain and having the White House flag raised in a purposeful show of disrespect.
It is hard for me to understand how the US military puts up with Trump, never mind likes him. It is not only McCain he disdains. Trump has failed to visit troops in a conflict zone since becoming president. His most intense personal interest in the troops was on display when he needed them for his now-cancelled parade in Washington. The troops will be grateful that isn’t happening.
McCain’s death represents a big loss for American foreign policy. He was a stalwart of NATO and advocate for a strong American leadership role abroad. Trump thinks the allies are worthless and the leadership role too expensive. His Make America Great Again has amounted to making America alone again, as it was after the first world war when it declined to join the League of Nations. We know how well that worked.
Trump touts his trade deal with Mexico, which updates a small portion of NAFTA. It is only a little more real than his denuclearization agreement with North Korea and his “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians, both of which amount to nothing. Never mind that the Mexicans have refused to pay for his wall and he is stiffing the Canadians over a few million additional dollars of dairy exports, wrecking relationships that the US should be treasuring.
Everyone is looking for a hedge against Trump’s bombast and unpredictability. My own today is to think about the other great American to be buried this week: Aretha Franklin. I saw and heard her at Radio City Music Hall about 1995, but here she is the year I graduated:
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Putin’s pet
President Trump is on his way to a meeting Monday with Russian President Putin. Along the way, he is doing precisely what Putin most wishes for.
First Trump trashed NATO. That’s the alliance Putin loves to hate. Trump not only criticized the allies for failing to meet the 2024 2% target for defense spending, he also fired a salvo at Germany for importing gas from Russia. Sitting next to him when he did that at breakfast were Secretary of State Pompeo, Ambassdor to NATO Hutchison, and Chief of Staff Kelly. All looked stunned, but Kelly did not bother hiding his discomfort. The White House spokesperson put him in his place by claiming he was disappointed in the breakfast offerings.
Then last night, in an interview that became public while he was at dinner with Prime Minister May in London, Trump compounded the felony. He not only blasted his host for not favoring “hard” Brexit and allowing immigrants to damage the “fabric” of British society, but also attacked the mayor of London for being soft on terrorism. The racist tone of these remarks is apparent to anyone who listens. The “special relationship” between the US and UK hasn’t known a lower moment in the past 100 years.
Then this morning we read that Trump is preparing to cut a “deal” on Syria in which Putin promises something he can’t deliver: withdrawal of the Iranians and their proxies from Syria’s border with Israel. In return, the US would withdraw from Syria, something Trump has promised publicly he would do, leaving the Kurds to cut a deal with Assad. This is an idea Netanyahu is pushing, along with relieving Russia from US and European sanctions.
The next shoe to drop will be Ukraine. Trump believes Crimea rightfully belongs to Russia, since people speak Russian there. Never mind that many people throughout Ukraine speak Russian, as well as Ukrainian. He may accept the Russian annexation, thereby putting a big smile on Putin’s face and completing an extraordinary week for the Russian president: NATO undermined, the UK/US relationship weakened, Syria won, and Crimea absorbed. What else could go right?
The pattern is clear: Trump is Putin’s pet president doing precisely what Moscow wants. The only real question is why.
I have favored the view that money is the main reason. Trump’s real estate empire, about which he cares more than anything else, is heavily dependent on Russian investment and purchases of condos. Putin could turn off the flow of rubles in an instant. No wealthy Russian would buck the president, who gets to decide which oligarchs prosper and which don’t. Trump’s finances wouldn’t survive a month without Moscow’s support.
But it is also possible that Trump himself was recruited long ago. He hired people for his campaign who were Russian intelligence assets. Special Counsel Mueller has already indicted some of them. Trump’s visit to Moscow in the late 1980s, when it was still the capital of the Soviet Union, has raised questions. The Republican attempt yesterday in Congress to discredit the former chief of FBI counter-intelligence operations, Peter Strzok, suggests how desperate they are to stymie an investigation that has already gotten to one degree of separation from Trump.
But the Congress is also beginning to react appropriately to Trump’s surrender of American interests to Putin. It has passed a strong resolution in support of NATO and against concessions to Putin on Ukraine. Republican discomfort with Trump’s “national security” tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union is starting to show. The trade war with China is causing a lot of heartburn in the Middle West and other areas of the country the Republicans need to keep on their side.
But Putin is still making Trump sit and beg. He is Putin’s pet.
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