Tag: China
Stevenson’s army, January 26
– Several insider stories about the tanks for Ukraine deal reveal bureaucratic politics at work. DOD did not want to send M1s for many reasons. Biden overruled the Pentagon to meet German demands. But DOD will contract to build the tanks, not send them from current stocks. Politico has the diplomatic angle. Fred Kaplan explains DOD. NYT has the Biden perspective, and NYT also details the broader Ukraine arms issue.
Ross Douthat has a powerful insight, that Washington and Moscow are both escalating to reach a peace settlement that is likely just to ensure stalemate.
BU study sees China changing its overseas development approach.
DOD”s Defense Innovation Unit brags in its annual report.
USNews explains America’s broken classification system.
CFR has a bunch of historical resources.
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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Rising hopes can be realized or dashed
Here is the latest version I’ve seen of the German-French plan for normalization between Kosovo and Serbia. It is a step in the right direction, if fully implemented, but with some dubious additions and important missing elements.
What’s new
This latest text has a bit more detail on arrangements for the Serbian community in Kosovo than I have seen previously, especially in Article 7 (the glitch [sic] is in the original):
Both sides advocate for the achievement of concrete arrangements, in accordance with the relevant instruments of the Council of Europe and using existing European experiences, in order to ensure an appropriate level of self-government for the Serbian community in Kosovo and the possibility of providing services in Kosovo. Kosovo.[sic] some specific areas, including the possibility of financial assistance from Serbia and direct channels of communication between the Serbian community and the Government of Kosovo.
The parties will formalize the status of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and ensure a high level of protection of Serbian religious and cultural heritage, in accordance with existing European models.
The first of these paragraphs isn’t great. It fails to make reference to the Kosovo constitution as the basis for these “concrete arrangements.” It also fails to require reciprocity inside Serbia for the Albanian community there. What conditions would govern “the possibility of financial assistance from Serbia”? Nor is it clear what “direct channels of communication” with the Kosovo government means. There is already a Council of Communities that provides such communication with the Kosovo President, as well as Serb and other community representation in parliament and in the government ministries.
As for the Church, the text lacks reference to the longstanding issue of the Decan/i monastery’s property. It should reference implementation of the relevant Kosovo Constitutional Court decision.
What’s missing
Most important is what is missing. There is no apparent reference to recognition of Kosovo by the five EU members that do not recognize it.
The failure to get recognition by the five nonrecognizers is a deal breaker. It might not have to be in this text, but it would have to happen in order for Kosovo to be convinced that normalization was real. Even with those five recognitions, this agreement would not come close to the German/German Basic Treaty it is supposedly modeled after. That entailed the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic both becoming members of the United Nations. There is no such possibility here, as Russia would require an unacceptable price.
EU negotiator Lajcak is said to have met with the five nonrecognizers this week in Brussels. That’s good, but more is going to be needed. Each one will have to be convinced that the time has come to drop their opposition to Kosovo’s European prospects. Washington and EU capitals, not just Lajcak, will need to engage.
The rest of the iceberg
They will also need to engage on pressuring both Belgrade and Pristina to make the necessary compromises. Pressure on Kosovo has long been apparent. It is relatively easy to pressure a country that has no other option than bandwagoning with NATO and the EU. Pressure on Serbia is far less so. President Vucic has played a successful hedging game, balancing Russia and China against the EU and US.
That game may now be up. The Europeans have delivered a tough ultimatum to Serbia, one whose specific content is uncertain but easy to imagine. Branko Milanovic does:
threats must range from the suspension of EU negotiations, elimination of EU support funds (that Serbia gets as a candidate member), reintroduction of visas, discouragement of EU investors, to possibly additional financial sanctions (say, no access to short-term commercial loans), ban on long-term lending by the European banks, EBRD and possibly the World Bank and the IMF, and for the very end elements of a true embargo and perhaps seizure of assets.
@Demush Shasha thinks this has caused a notable change in President Vucic’s tone:
Have been following many of these conferences. This was the most realistic by far. Vucic spoke about need for Serbia to stop “lying to itself” and “open its eyes” and understand the consequences of rejecting French-German proposal.
He noted that Serbia can not stop Kosovo membership into NATO, CoE, etc. He underlined that if Serbia rejects French-Gerrman proposal: (1) EU accession process will be stoped, incl visa ban, (2) withdrawal of EU investments, (3) overall economic sanctions.
I think what we saw tonight is a first clear step in prepping the the ground for agreement with Kosovo.
Let me echo Demush. Something is beginning to move. Branko, a keen observer of the Balkans even if he mostly focuses on inequity worldwide, is opting for taking the agreement rather than suffering the consequences. It is not however yet clear whether the push will be sufficient. We’ll have to wait and see whether hopes are realized or dashed.
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Stevenson’s army, January 20-23
Charlie has been back a few days, but I’ve been down for the count, so here is a massive catchup edition:
January 23:
The ever-valuable D Brief has this: Norway’s military chief said around 180,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured in Ukraine so far. “Russian losses are beginning to approach around 180,000 dead or wounded soldiers,” and “Ukrainian losses are probably over 100,000 dead or wounded,” Defense Minister Eirik Kristoffersen told TV2 on Sunday. He also said an estimated 30,000 civilians have been killed in the war so far, though he didn’t elaborate on how he arrived at any of his numbers.
[This is interesting because the two subjects NOT covered by the western media are Ukrainian casualties and operational restrictions imposed by NATO couontries.]
– We talked in class about George Santos. New York magazine claims to list all of his lies.
– The pending appointment of Jeff Zients to be WH chief of staff resurrected this story about how he failed to create a Department of Trade. As we’ll discuss in class, congressional committees weren’t happy with either the plan or the reorganization power Zients proposed because it weakened their jurisdiction.
-The Economist often has clever headlines. Politico wins the prize this week for: Who Shot the Serif?
January 22:
Happy Year of the Rabbit!
As I read the accumulated papers, I see these items of special interest:
– Congress and the administration are heading to a fight over arms to Turkey.
– Rifts are emerging in NATO over Ukraine aid.
– NYT has background on Taiwan’s “ambassador”
– Paul Kane laments the retirement of Senate “work horses” and includes data on diminished voting on amendments [because of the filled “amendment tree”]
– Ezra Klein analyzes disconnects in the GOP and interviews an author who says GOP politicians have been dominated by conservative media.
– NYT explains how US got $31 trillion debt.
January 20:
I see that a lot has been happening during my travels. The big news on Ukraine is the dispute between US & Germany over tanks. A good catch-up piece is today’s D Brief, a newsletter worth reading regularly.
WaPo also has good background on Ukraine planning. The CIA Director has also been meeting in Kyiv. WSJ has good info on weapons issues.
The Inspectors General for DOD, State & AID have a combined report on US assistance to Ukraine.
On China & Taiwan, WOTR had a good explanation of the delivery delays in US arms for Taipei. It turns out that National Guard units have been training Taiwanese. And WSJ says China’s brick & road initiative is faltering.
Good news for Congress: NYT says lawmakers changed the rules that in effect give them a $34,000 pay boost which they never would have voted for directly.
More good news at State: Sec. Blinken has ordered a shift from Times New Roman fonts for official documents to Calibri. When I worked on the Policy Planning Staff I failed to persuade Under Secretary Pickering to take advantage of the retiring of the Wang Computers and allow overseas cables to be written with upper and lower case letters instead of the required [by the former technology] ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME.
Also January 20:
Many of you know that I favor a return to Regular Order in Congress, the way the armed services committees do the NDAA, with vigorous oversight, a bill open to many amendments, and a compromise process that allows the ill to be signed into law — for 62 years now. But both Democratic and Republican leaders have opposed those open rules. Speaker McCarthy now wants to bring them back. Here’s what happened last time.
Harlan Ullman, the original proponent of shock and awe tactics, now calls for a major revision of US defense strategy.
Fletcher’s Dan Drezner puts his economic statecraft syllabus in his Substack column. I like his work and will review this for things I should be assigning.
The Partnership for Public Service has a guidebook for new officials that has a lot of good ideas on how to be an effective bureaucrat. I probably should make it required reading.
On Politico a sometime historian compares FDR’s help to Britain before Pearl Harbor to the West’s help to Ukraine today. Good background, but I’d note that FDR was constrained by US public and congressional opinion, not by a fear of provoking war with Hitler. Biden is limited by concerns about Russia reactions.
Two European analysts see conflicts of interest in writers about nuclear weapons policy.
A new CSIS report says we should be thinking seriously about letting South Korea get nukes.
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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Stevenon’s army, January 2
Under federal law, 5 USC 6103, today is New Year’s Day, a federal holiday for pay and leave purposes, since January 1 was on a Sunday this year. Enjoy it!
Tomorrow, pursuant to the Constitution, the 118th Congress will assemble, take the oaths of office, and try to do business. CRS explains the procedures for the Senate and the House.
The biggest issue is whether Cong. Kevin McCarthy [R-CA] will get the 218 votes needed to become Speaker. His latest ploy is to issue a package of proposed rules for the House, including changes sought mainly by the Freedom Caucus. Here’s the press release. Here’s the detailed summary. Here’s the text.
In other news, NYT says Russia is still blocking most Ukrainian grain exports, worsening global starvation.
Politico says mail and early voting have benefits for both parties.
NYT also has analysis of new industrial policy for chip making.
Atlantic has a critique of a fascinating new book describing the indigenous tribal empires that fought each other and invading settlers in North America.
Charlie added a bit later:
Now that I’ve read through them, here are the most interesting changes proposed by leader McCarthy:
– The existing PAYGO rule requiring offsets of both spending increases and tax cuts is changed to prohibit only measures with the “net effect of increasing mandatory spending” over 5 or more years.
– Restores a former GOP rule requiring 3/5 vote to increase tax rates.
-Restores Holman rule allowing amendments specifically cutting the pay of government officials.
– Restores rule requiring CBO to consider macroeconomic effects of legislation.
– Creates new select committees on Strategic Competition with China and on “Weaponization of the Federal Government” [the latter as a Judiciary Subcommittee]
– Continues shared jurisdiction over cybersecurity but specifics Homeland Security Committee has jurisidiction over cybersecurity for DHS.
– Renames Oversight and Reform as the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Education and Labor Committee as Education and the Workforce.
– Strikes existing language allowing access to the Hall of the House by the DC major and governors of territories.
– Continues ban on access to House gym of former members who are registered lobbyists or foreign agents.
– Ends proxy voting and remote committee proceedings. Mask mandates and security screening for Members’ entry to the House floor are dropped.
The rule also includes rules for considering several top priority GOP bills on: IRS funding, taxpayer funded abortions, and POL exports to China.
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, December 30
I have a piece in the Hill about the NDAA.
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the foreign policy debates during 1939-43. In many ways, the emerging split in the GOP is like the earlier one.
David Brooks in NYT calls attention to several long articles during the year, including this about the generational split among progressive groups.
WaPo says Venezuelan opposition has given up on Guaido.
Belarus blames Ukraine for attack.
AP reports on today’s Xi-Putin talks.
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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Trump is history, Trumpism is not
Donald Trump has embarked on a massive campaign to monetize his presidency. It is not only the NFT playing cardsj. It is also Truth Social (his social media site that caters to right-wing white supremacy and other extremisms), the political funds he collects for challenging election results and supporting extemist candidates (but spends mostly on himself and his family), and the millions his Gulfie friends are loaning him and investing in his golf courses. Most of this will fail, like his much-vaunted steaks. But he’ll come out enriched, which is ultimately the only purpose he is serious about.
He needs the cash
He is going to need the money. His company has already been convicted of tax fraud. He faces more or less a dozen other investigations. Several of which seem close to bringing charges against him. Today the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on The Capitol will recommend that the Justice Department bring serious, unprecedented criminal charges against Trump. He is a cheapskate when it comes to hiring lawyers and stiffs many of them. But even two or three indictments will generate enormous legal bills. Not to mention the likelihood that his tax cheating will end with hundreds of millions in penalties.
No he won’t be president again
No, this man is not going to be President of the United States again. He has led his party into three losing elections: 2018, 2020, and 2022. What loyal GOPer would want to see a fourth? A large part of the Republican Party is already abandoning him, including Senate Minority Leader McConnell and lots of other members of Congress. Those who aren’t are mostly extremist flakes and committed thieves. Americans are looking for compromise, not further polarization. Serious money and media will steer clear. Florida Governor De Santis is already beating Trump in the polls. He won’t be the only serious contender.
But the alternatives are all tainted
But De Santis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, former Vice President Mike Pence and others are all tainted with Trumpism. Of the top 10, the Washington Post lists only New Hampshire Governor Sununu as leaning hard against Trump. Whoever is nominated (it won’t be Sununu) will have to satisfy the Trump wing of the party. It will turn out for the primaries while many more moderate people stay home. The Trumpians want to block immigration, make voting more difficult, reduce constraints on police violence, cut taxes for the wealthy, ban abortion and gay marriage, challenge election results, and prevent the government from taking necessary public health measures.
American elections are not predictable
These are not positions the American public generally supports. But there is nevertheless no predicting the outcome of the 2024, any more than there was in 2022. There is a large part of the electorate that votes not on particular issues, but rather on the “direction” of the country. Concern about the future direction of American democracy gave the Democrats an edge this year, compared to what would normally be expected in a mid-term election with the economy in trouble, high inflation, and the President under 50% approval. Who knows how the economy and American democracy will be faring in 2024?
Some continuity in foreign policy
Does any of this make a difference to foreign policy, which after all is the main concern of peacefare.net? We don’t really know, though there are indications within the Republican Party that support for Ukraine, NATO, and especially the EU is soft, sympathy with Russia rampant, enthusiasm for Netanyahu’s Israel and Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia higher than in the Biden Administration, and hostility to Xi Jinping’s China marginally stronger.
That said, there has been a good deal of continuity in foreign policy between Trump and Biden, on Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and even China, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. It isn’t easy to pursue a pro-democracy foreign policy in the Middle East, or in China for that matter. Whether that signals a return to bipartisan foreign policy “at the water’s edge” is not yet clear. Trumpism will have to be thoroughly obliterated for that to happen. But it could happen.
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