Tag: Immigration
Stevenson’s army, September 6
In most administrations, the National Security Adviser, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense speak to each other often — in weekly breakfasts and/or lunches, by phone perhaps daily, and of course in White House meetings. CNN reports that relations between John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are so bad that they have gone weeks without speaking to each other outside of formal WH meetings. CNN also says that acting chief of staff Mulvaney has installed his own foreign policy team. Historically, there have been some strong rivalries among these officials, but they still consulted frequently on many issues. This is a dangerous situation if their personal conflicts prevent the Government from doing its basic security job.
Alice Hunt Friend of CSIS says that the border wall funding raid politicizes military spending in unfortunate ways. [I think the reprogramming is politically stupid and unjustified, but I actually think DOD under the circumstances made reasonable choices on where to take the money — mostly from activities that contractually and logistically were less urgent. They could have done it in even worse ways, such as taking the money only from Democratic districts or overseas.]
Americanized Brit Andrew Sullivan thinks Boris Johnson can pull it off.
At FP, another writer thinks Netanyahu maybe can’t, even if Likud wins the election Sept 17.
CSIS has papers on some of the splits between SASC and HASC in their NDAA bills, which they hope to reconcile before October 1. Here’s their paper on the space force.
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).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, September 4
– NYT has long article on the US-Israeli conflict over attacking Iran.
– Politico has a neat graphic on the trade wars.
-State admits political reprisals.
– Lawmakers angry over mil con funds shifted to border wall and delays in releasing military aid to Ukraine.
My long Labor Day weekend in Atlanta made me miss a couple of other editions of Stevenson’s army, so here they are:
September 3
– NYT says North Korean missile tests show much improved capabilities, which Trump minimizes. Even SecState Pompeo said to believe DPRK is just stringing US along.
– NYT also says sharp disagreement inside administration over future CIA role in Afghanistan.
– Media have more details about US-Taliban agreement.
– Hill has long potential agenda this month.
– Xi tells Duterte that China rejects international court ruling on South China Sea.
– Iraq imposes new ROEs for US air operations.
September 1
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II in Europe — Hitler’s attack on Poland.
It also marks a new round of US tariffs on Chinese goods. NYT has a summary of the where the trade war stands.
WaPo has an interesting story of how the Russians tried to interfere in US politics in Maryland, of all places, in 2016. It reveals their divisive playbook, which they and others are likely to use again next year.
The FT has a fascinating article on the East India Company by the author of a new book on that company. With its own private armies and taxes, bolstered by lobbyists and investors in London, the EIC was the first, but certainly not the last, private company that really functioned as a government.
And now for some reading suggestions. I like revisionist histories that force me to re-think my understanding of the past. Here are four from the past couple of years that I found especially persuasive.
World War I: I’m now persuaded that Russia shares much of the blame for the start of the Great War by its policies to dominate Turkey and by mobilization during the July 1914 crisis. After deep dives into long-hidden Russian archives, Sean McMeekin showed that even Barbara Tuchman got the sequence wrong by relying on the falsified memoirs of the Russian Foreign Minister. McMeekin’s books on Russian diplomacy and the July crisis changed my view of German war guilt, though Austria-Hungary still deserves shared blame with Russia.
FDR’s boldness: I had long admired Franklin Roosevelt’s strategic bravery in maneuvering the United States in support of Britain and against Hitler, believing that he was just ahead of public opinion, skillfully pulling it along. Lynne Olson”s Those Angry Days persuaded me that, much of the time, FDR vacillated, doing less than many of his advisors urged and hoped. He still was a great leader, just not quite as bold as I had thought.
Slave Power’s influence on foreign policy: I never thought that slavery and its perpetuation had much impact on American foreign policy until I read Matthew Karp’s eye-opening history. Karp details how the South dominated key foreign policy posts and consciously advocated policies to protect and even extend slavery in the decades before the War of the Rebellion. Defenders of slavery really had a “deep state.”
The Revolutionary War: I used to have a typical American high school student’s view of our war for independence as a story of brave patriots, toughened at Valley Forge and led by George Washington, who finally triumphed at Yorktown. Two books have changed my understanding of that conflict. One was Andrew Jackson O’Shaunessy’s study of British politics during the conflict, The Men Who Lost America. He argues that the British gave up for broader strategic reasons. Add to this Holger Hoock’s Scars of Independence, which describes the local violence on both sides and the mistreatment of Loyalists during and after the war. The good guys won, but they won dirty.
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).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, August 28
– WSJ is filled with several important stories today.
– Excerpt of a book by former SecDef Mattis, due to be released next week.
– Hurricane relief funds are being diverted for border wall. In class, we can talk more about Congressional rules about transferring funds.
– US wants to block undersea data cable involving Chinese and US tech companies.
-US plans direct talks with Houthis about Yemen war.
– WaPo says niche publications are surging. That’s why it’s hard to research Congress through Google: all the inside information is behind paywalls that lobbyists are willing to fund.
– Defense News says SecDef Esper wants more US basing in Indo-Pacific.
– Lawfare, a site with good articles on legal aspects of national security, says Congress is concerned but unlikely to act on 5G.
– NYT has article by former FSO who wrote dissent channel message critical of Muslim ban and now feels she has to leave State Dept.
– Boris Johnson can also play constitutional games: he has asked the Queen to suspend Parliament.
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).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, August 18
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an 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, follow the instructions below:
Wow! Both the Times and Post have lengthy, front-page articles about Stephen Miller. The NYT has more of his background and consistent efforts to limit immigration. The Post details his efforts in the Trump White House and by clever bureaucratic maneuvering throughout the executive branch.
Check out what states win and which lose congressional seats depending on whether only citizens are counted for redistricting.
Despite some presidential candidate calls for ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster, the Post says it’s not likely.That’s good, in my view.
Meanwhile, note the Russian and Chinese efforts to test South Korean air defenses.
Peter Feaver says US civil-military relations may suffer if people conclude that our war in Afghanistan has been a failure.
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).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Trump’s radical foreign policy fails
Time for a roundup on where President Trump stands on his promise to deliver great deals for America. Spoiler alert: there are no surprises and only one modest success.
Every administration chooses its priorities. Trump has chosen Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, NAFTA, and immigration.
The “maximum pressure” program on Iran has caused economic distress but no willingness to renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA), from which the United States withdrew. Iran is back to enriching uranium and accumulating quantities above the JCPOA limits, but Tehran is still hoping Europe, Russia, and China will find ways to import its oil. Iran is also flexing its muscles in the strait of Hormuz, signaling its ability to cause an oil supply disruption that would hike oil prices globally.
North Korea is thumbing its nose at Trump’s effort to portray Kim Jong-un as his best friend. His short-range missile launches are a clear signal of defiance. There is no progress to report in the nuclear negotiations, and it is increasingly clear that the US will need to settle for an agreement that falls way short of the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization it has sought. Some sort of freeze is the best that can be hoped for.
The trade war with China is going badly: it is costing both Americans and Chinese a lot, slowing economic growth worldwide, and undermining global norms for trade and investment that the Trump Administration claims to be defending. There is little hope it will end soon. Trump seems to be committed to making the tariffs permanent, but it is hard to picture how he can face the electorate in 2020 if the tariffs have led the world and the US into recession.
Trump promised improved relations with Russia, and he has not retreated from his effort to befriend President Putin and hold him blameless. But Moscow has made life difficult: its documented interference in the 2016 election, its continued efforts worldwide to counter US interests, its occupation of part of Ukraine, its repression of domestic dissent, and a Congress determined to hold Putin accountable has forced Trump to tighten and expand sanctions. Relations with Russia are not improving (and shouldn’t).
Trump is ratcheting up sanctions on Venezuela, trying to force out President Maduro. But so far shock and awe has not shocked or awed the Venezuelans, as Harold Trinkunas put it in today’s New York Times. President Maduro is still in power. Juan Guaidó and his supporters are still in the streets, where enthusiasm has flagged. Most of Latin America would like a negotiated settlement, but John Bolton is not up for that. He wants Maduro to flee.
The NAFTA renegotiation was an apparent success so far, as it generated a new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement with modest updating and improvements. But the negotiation with Ottawa and Mexico City was only half the challenge. The new agreement faces serious challenges to its approval in September in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives that President Trump has done little or nothing to court. Will the House really approve NAFTA 2.0 while it is conducting investigations that could lead to impeachment?
Immigration is the one area of actual success for Trump, if you buy into the need to reduce it: illegal entries and asylum seekers are said to be down. Refugee entries are definitely down. But the price has been astronomical: separating children from parents, inhumane and even deadly conditions in detention facilities, denial of refugee resettlement to people in danger of their lives, and inspiration to white supremacists to commit violence. And for those who think the wall is important: little of it is being built.
The Trump Administration is a radical one: it has tried in all these areas to achieve goals that are extreme. The failures are obvious. The question is whether enough Americans will care. Certainly people worldwide do: America is not popular these days, especially but not only with its European allies. Trump is a white supremacist, but the Nordics he so much admires don’t like him.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Blithering
This is a president of the United States in near total self-delusion. Ninety percent of what he says and implies in this rambling peroration is untrue. The simple facts are these: most undocumented immigrants and drugs in the US come through regular border crossings, few come through areas where this is no fencing, crime rates by undocumented immigrants are lower than by native-born Americans, and the overall numbers of undocumented immigrants have fallen dramatically for decades. There is no immigration crisis and no need for more than modest extensions and modernization of existing border barriers.
Trump belatedly realized that closing down of a large part of the US government in order to get border wall funding was a big political mistake. Republican Senators had started to defect on keeping the government closed, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell was warning Trump that he could no longer hold the line. Trump’s approval rating, already unusually low, had fallen further. The strong economy he inherited from Barack Obama is starting to tremble. Special Counsel Mueller has indicted one of Trump’s closest pals for crimes incident to long-denied cooperation with Wikileaks on release of Russian-hacked documents purloined from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Things are going to get a lot worse.
The re-opening of the government is only for a few weeks. But Trump won’t be able to shut it down again. Instead he is threatening to declare a national emergency that would give him authority to spend money on his border wall. That move would trigger lawsuits that will prevent any border wall construction for years to come.
The Special Counsel has now unveiled a web of cooperation between Trump’s campaign, his friends, Wikileaks, and Russia that suggests the worst: a candidate for President not only willing to accept illegal foreign assistance, but to do so in the form of stolen emails. For details, see law professor Jennifer Taub’s Tweetsummary:
Thread We Have Seen the Mueller Report –– And It’s Spectacular 1/
RSS - Posts
