Tag: United States

Time for tough love in the Balkans

Friends in the Balkans wonder what the candidacy of Kamala Harris will mean for them. There is precious little direct evidence to go on. But some things are obvious. Biden’s withdrawal was no surprise. Nor was his endorsement of Harris. But her attitude towards the Balkans is anyone’s guess. Here is mine.

Extrapolating

Harris is a strong supporter of Ukraine’s struggle against the Russian invasion. She will want to see Kyiv win and Moscow lose. She won’t settle easily for partition. That attitude will likely transfer to the Balkans. I wouldn’t want to be the one telling a female, Black, and Indian President that people of different ethnicities can’t live together.

Harris is also hawkish on China, like Biden as well as Trump. Kosovo may look like Taiwan (and Ukraine) to her. That would mean it needs to be nurtured and defended from territorial claims by a former sovereign. She is unlikely to be sympathetic to the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities or the autonomy of Republika Srpska. Someone needs to advise her early and often that both are bad ideas.

Still extrapolating

This fall’s campaign and election in the US will be in large part about preserving liberal democracy, that is democracy based on equal individual rights protected by the rule of law. Those who want support from her Administration should be aligning themselves with that objective. Partitionists and ethnic separatists should take heed.

The Biden Administration has adopted a policy of appeasement towards Serbia. There is however no reason why Harris should continue it. President Vucic has oriented Belgrade eastward, aligning himself with China, Russia, and other autocracies, including Azerbaijan and Hungary. Serbian munition supplies to Ukraine are worth something, but they will likely flow for economic reasons even if the political soft soaping is ended.

Appeasement has manifestly failed. It is time for tough love. That’s something Harris’ hard-edged temperament will find amenable.

Who’s is charge?

While writing this post, I learned that Alexander Kasanof will be the deputy assistant secretary of state in the European bureau responsible for both the Balkans and public diplomacy. That combination is an innovation.

President Harris is unlikely to spend much quality time on the Balkans. People lower down in the bureaucracy count. Jim O’Brien will clearly remain engaged. I don’t know Kasanof, but his background in Ukraine may well be a plus for those who would like the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the current Balkan states reinforced. Besides, he is a Johns Hopkins/SAIS graduate. Let’s hope he knows about tough love. I wish him well!

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine, to date

The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on February 24, 2022. It is now two and a half years since then. The Russians started with overwhelming advantages in equipment, money, manpower, and geography. How has it gone? How might it go in the future?

Geography matters

On the eve of the invasion, the Russians had troops poised to Ukraine’s north in Belarus, east in Donbas, and south in Crimea. Ukraine was poorly defended in the north and south. The Russian armored column aimed at Kyiv, only 100 miles from the Belarus border, proceeded well. The Russians made it to the suburbs and the airport before the Ukrainians stopped them and decimated their lengthy armored column as well as the forces they intended to deploy at the airport.

Despite weeks of effort, the Russians failed to take Kharkiv, a Russian-speaking city less than twenty miles from the Ukraine/Russia border. The Russians were more successful in Donbas and the south, where they advanced, respectively, westward from territory occupied in 2014 and northward from Crimea. The fall of Mariupol in May 2022 was a major defeat for Ukraine.

The Russians largely held on to their gains in the south and east, but the Ukrainians stopped them from taking all of Donestk and short of Odesa. Ukrainian boat drones sank the flag ship of the Russian Black Sea fleet. A Ukrainian offensive in the summer of 2022 failed to make more than marginal gains in the south, but it forced the Russians to leave the east poorly defended. That enabled a Ukrainian offensive that retook a substantial area near Kharkiv by fall. Kyiv then also managed to retake Kherson in the south.

Stalemate

Since then, the confrontation lines have moved little. Russian forces during 2023 dug in, preparing multiple lines of defensive fortifications along the 600-mile front. Only in the winter of 2023/24 and spring of 2024 did Russia gain significant territory near Kharkiv. That was courtesy of the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, which held up assistance to Kyiv, and the Biden Administration, which blocked Ukraine from bombarding staging areas inside Russia. Once aid started to flow again, the Biden Administration authorized Kyiv to strike the staging areas. The Ukrainians within weeks began pushing the Russians back to the border. They have also forced the Russian Black Sea fleet out of Crimea.

In short, neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have much to show for the past year or even two. The Ukrainians have foiled the Russians’ most ambitious hopes: to take Kyiv, Kharkiv, or Odesa, But the Ukrainians have been unable to roll back the Russians from territory gained in 2014 in the east and in 2022 in the south.

People matter too

As notable as the geography is the sociology. Ukrainians mostly fled west to Ukrainian-speaking areas as well as European Union member states rather than Russia and Belarus. There were instances of spying for, and defections to, Russia from the security services. But the Russian-speaking population, including the President, mostly chose loyalty to Kyiv. Support among Ukrainians for continuing the war flagged some in 2023. And it is weaker in the east and south where most of the ground fighting has taken place. But continuing the fight has remained the majority view. Throughout, support for President Zelensky and for regaining control of 100% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, has remained high.

Russian human rights abuses during and after combat were rife. These included murder of civilians and prisoners of war, shelling of civilian targets, kidnapping and trafficking of Ukrainian children, and pillage. The Russians did not spare Russian-speaking Kharkiv and Mariupol, where indiscriminate attacks and other abuses were intense. Russian President Putin nevertheless proceeded in September 2022 with annexation of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, despite not controlling their entire territory.

A more authoritarian Russia turns to totalitarians for help

The war in Ukraine has also had global repercussions. In Russia, it has enabled President Putin–reelected with a ridiculous 87% of the vote in March 2024–to widen his autocracy. He has chased liberal media and civil society from the country, ended any pretense of an independent judiciary, and murdered political opponents. The Russian governing system has earned the epithet “hybrid totalitarianism,” which requires not only obedience but also vocal support.

Moscow has turned to much-sanctioned Iran and North Korea to acquire weapons. While China hasn’t supplied weapons systems, Russia depends on Beijing for political support, oil and gas sales, and dual-use components. Thus Moscow’s westward thrust into Ukraine has increased its political, economic, and military dependency on Asia while cutting it off from the West.

The West rediscovers geopolitics

In the U.S., the 2022 invasion reawakened concern about Russian intentions and European security. But it also generated among some Republicans a return to isolationism reminiscent of the 20th century inter-war era. President Biden attempted to forestall the invasion by releasing classified information concerning the Russian preparations. He also mobilized NATO to provide massive military, economic, and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv and the EU to sanction Moscow.

NATO has deployed additional forces along the easternmost flank of the Alliance. European NATO members are raising their defense budgets and planning responses to any future Russian moves against Moldova or Alliance members on its eastern flank. Concern about Russian territorial ambitions gave Finland and Sweden a strong push toward joining NATO and the EU good reason to reduce dependence on Russian energy.

The unipolar moment of Pax Americana was short. It reigned uncontested only a decade or so until 9/11. It then ended definitively with the withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011. Now Russia and China are not just building up their capacities but also using them. Russia is applying in Ukraine the skills it acquired in Syria after deploying its air force there in 2015. China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.

The division of the world will not be so neat as during the Cold War. India, Hungary, and Serbia, for example, are trying to straddle the growing divide between East and West, as the Philippines did in the Pacific during the presidency of Rodrigo Duerte. Much of the global South likewise aims to hedge and extract benefits from both East and West.

The East is doomed, but the West may not fare well either

Hard as it may be to picture on any given day, the contest between East and West has a foreseeable eventual outcome. The Russian economy, though growing faster than anticipated, is increasingly dependent on oil and gas exports to gain funds for military expenditures that do not benefit consumers. China faces a major financial crisis. Its local governments are deeply in hock. Both countries are in dramatic demographic decline. The Iranian theocracy is aging and limping economically, crippled by sanctions. North Korea is a nuclear armed totalitarian state that keeps its population in dire poverty. If these were the main threats to liberal democracy, we would have little to fear.

But they are not. The main threats to the West are internal. Racism, protectionism, populism, and charlatanism are combining with greed, corruption, inequity, and disinformation to produce political forces that aspire to permanence in power. Liberal democracy is at risk in both the US and Europe, where only centrist right/left coalitions are keeping extremists out of power. The decisive factor in the Ukraine war may no longer Russia’s staying power, but rather the West’s. The Ukrainians will continue to fight, but they will have the means only if we continue to support them. That is only one reason why the election of Kamala Harris is vital.

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Doing the right thing, bravo!

From 2019.

He hesitated more than many would have liked, but Joe Biden has done the right thing. Bowing out of the presidential race and endorsing his vice president for the job will make it competitive once again. It will also ensure his legacy as the president who restored the American economy to prosperity and the American psyche to sanity. The Democratic Convention in Chicago August 19-22 will be a crucial opportunity to project unity, commitment, and optimism.

Behind but not by much

Polling shows Harris often lagging Trump but doing about as well or a bit better than Biden against him. How the future campaign will affect those numbers is uncertain of course. But she is starting from no more than a few inches behind. Articulate, energetic, and smart, she will do well in a debate with Trump, which means he will try to avoid one.

Her other virtues are also clear. She will be running on a platform, a record, and an identity that will make her particularly appealing to the poor and middle class, women, the college-educated, minorities, and entrepreneurs. And, oh yes, (the relatively few) people like me who worry about America’s role in the world and threats to its national security. But many of us vote in the District of Columbia, where Harris will get well over 90%.

Trump is going to have trouble

Trump is going to have trouble with Harris. His problems with women are apparent in a life history that features rape and other sexual abuses, two failed marriages, salacious comments about his daugher, a current wife who doesn’t want to be seen with him, hush money paid to a porn star, and a friendship with child-trafficker and pimp Jeffrey Epstein.

Pals in exploitation of women (and girls)

Harris won’t put up with the kind of discourtesy Trump practiced when wandering around the stage during a debate with Hillary Clinton. His inarticulate blathering about sharks and electrocution will seem childish next to her laconic wit. Trump will try to paint Harris as a radical leftist, but her career and record as a prosecutor will stand her in good stead.

The campaign and the election

None of this means Harris necessarily wins. One of the good things about American elections is that the results are not known in advance. The less than 11 weeks between the end of the Democratic convention and November 5 will be intense. Biden should be able to help Harris in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. There and elsewhere turnout will be vital. Harris needs not only to win, but to win decisively in order to forestall Republican claims that the outcome was rigged.

The Republicans are planning a major effort to support such claims. The Democrats will also be watching the polls closely in the battleground states. The fate of Trump’s lying lawyers, at least some of whom states have disbarred and many of whom are disgraced, may deter blatant lies. But if the outcome is close, there will be no alternative to battling it out in court.

The schedule after November 5 calls for “ascertainment” of results by December 11, the Electoral College meeting December 17, and communication of the results to Congress by December 25. The Congress tabulates the results January 6. There is a lot of room for malfeasance, lies, fakery, and violent protests in November and December.

Trump has made it clear he will not accept defeat. A January 6-style riot anytime in between Election Day and Counting Day is certainly a possibility. Law enforcement will need to be attentive. No one showed up when Trump called for demonstrations outside the Manhattan courtroom where he was convicted of 34 felonies. But that was Manhattan, not Pittsburgh.

Harris will bury Trumpism

I look forward to Harris’ inauguration on January 20 next year. And to the reconstitution of a respectable Republican Party that is able and willing to compete not only for electoral votes but also for popular votes nationwide. It is time to end the ridiculous cult that has created a god of a lying, cheating, bombastic racist. And a party that has to depend on the Electoral College, not the American people, to win the presidency.

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Step aside, please

I signed on yesterday to this appeal to President Biden to step aside with colleagues from the national security/foreign policy community:
Dear Mr. President:
We write as former U.S. officials who have strongly supported your presidency and your
initiatives to strengthen U.S. foreign and national security policy. We have welcomed the
measures you have taken to promote U.S. alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Americas; to
manage relations with great powers; and to address global issues such as climate change. These
initiatives have been built on your decades-long record of support for responsible U.S.
international engagement.
We also strongly endorse your urgent call for civility in the public debate, the critical importance
of which was underscored by the recent assassination attempt on former President Trump and the
tragic loss of life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Reasoned debate is essential to America’s democracy
and global leadership, which you have long championed.
With the deepest appreciation for your many decades of inspired leadership, we strongly believe
that ongoing concerns surrounding your continued candidacy and the growing likelihood of an
electoral college victory for Donald Trump put your national security accomplishments – and our
country and your legacy – at an unacceptable level of risk. Donald Trump’s vision, approach,
and expressed intentions concerning our nation’s security are in fundamental conflict with the
values and principles for which you have stood. We also are keenly aware of the comments you
made in March 2020, in which you indicated that you viewed yourself as “a bridge” to “an entire
generation of leaders” who represent the country’s future.
We strongly believe that now is the time to pass the mantle of leadership, and we respectfully
urge you to do so.
With deepest appreciation,
Gordan Adams
Former Associate Director for National Security Programs, Office of Management and Budget,
1993-1998
J. Brian Atwood
Former Under Secretary of State, former Administrator, USAID
Rick Barton
Former Assistant Secretary of State
James Keough Bishop
U.S Ambassador (Ret)
Robert Boorstin
Former NSC Senior Director
Ralph L. Boyce, Jr.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia (2001-2004) and Thailand (2004-2008)
Peter Bradford
Former Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Kenneth Brill
Former U.S. Ambassador
Rosa Brooks
Former Counselor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Scott Busby
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and former Director, National Security Council staff
Piper Campbell
Former U.S. Ambassador
Wendy J. Chamberlin
U.S. Ambassador (Ret)
Richard Christenson
Former Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassies in South Korea and Japan
Richard A Clarke
Former National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism
Steven Coffey
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor
Geoffrey Cowan
Former Director, Voice of America
Chester A. Crocker
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Peter Eicher
Former Deputy U.S. Representative to the UN Human Rights Commission.
Mark Fitzpatrick,
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-Proliferation (Acting)
Bennett Freeman
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Peter W Galbraith
Former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia
Anthony W. Gambino
Former USAID Mission Director to the DR Congo
Larry Garber
Former Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID
Jonathan S. Gration
Former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya
Holly Hammonds
Former Senior Director for International Economic Affairs, National Security and National
Economic Councils
William C Harrop
U.S. Ambassador (Ret)
Robert Herman
Former Member, U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff
Paul Hughes
Former Deputy Director, Humanitarian Assistance and Anti-Landmine Policy, OASD (SOLIC),
Office of Secretary of Defense, and retired US Army Colonel
Karl F. Inderfurth
former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001)
Thomas C. Krajeski
Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and to Bahrain
Anthony Lake
Former National Security Advisor
David Lambertson
U.S. Ambassador (Ret)
Claudio A. Lilienfeld
Former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative
Frank Loy
Former Undersecretary of State
Jamie Metzl
Former National Security Council staff, 1997-1999, Senior Coordinator for International Public
Information, U.S. State Department, 1999-2001
Diane Orentlicher
Former Deputy for War Crimes Issues, U.S. Department of State
Susan W. O’Sullivan
Former Asia Director, State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Maria Otero
Former Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights
Ted Piccone
Former Associate Director, Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State, and former Director,
National Security Council staff
Charles L. Pritchard, Sr.
Former Ambassador and Special Envoy for Negotiations with North Korea;
Former Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director,
Asian Affairs, NSC
Susan Reichle
Senior Foreign Service officer (Ret), Counselor USAID (Ret)
Peter F. Romero
Former Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State
Barnett R. Rubin
Former Senior Advisor to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009-2013)
David Sandalow
Former Under Secretary of Energy, former Assistant Secretary of State and former Senior
Director, National Security Council
Teresita C. Schaffer
Former U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near
East and South Asia
Eric Schwartz
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration and former NSC
Senior Director
Tod Sedgwick
Former U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia
Daniel Serwer
Former Special Envoy, U.S. Department of State
John Shattuck
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Rights, and Labor and former Ambassador
to the Czech Republic
David B. Shear
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Derek Shearer
Former U.S. Ambassador to Finland
Tara Sonenshine
Former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Daniel Spiegel
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva
Richard W. Teare
Former Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu
Richard Wilcox
Former Director, Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs, National Security Council
E. Ashley Wills
Former Ambassador to Sri Lanka and The Maldives

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How the Democrats will win

She’s right.
How the Democrats will win

I am a registered Democrat. Unlike most of the media and virtually all Republicans, I believe the Democrats can and will win. This is how they will do it:

  1. Biden will withdraw as a candidate. Campaign contributions will balloon.
  2. The convention will enthusiastically select a new candidate, most likely Kamala Harris.
  3. She will choose as her vice president one of the younger Dems with a national security track record.
  4. Both will run on Biden’s economic and political record and against Trump’s unpopular platform. Or if you want the official version.
  5. Biden will campaign for her energetically in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
  6. She campaign nationally but focus extra attention on Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona.
  7. The Democratic Party will produce a first-rate get-out-the-vote campaign drawing on younger voters.

Every step will be fraught with peril, but it is doable. Ukraine and Gaza may haunt the candidate, but rarely does foreign policy decide an American election.

Biden has succeeded…

Ultimately the merits weigh heavily in favor of the Democrats. The economy is doing at least as well as under Trump. Energy production and exports are way up. Consumption and imports are happily down.

The only real demerit is persistent inflation, which is slowing. It could still reach the 2% target sometime in the fall. Unemployment is up from historic lows due to the Fed’s anti-inflation rate increases, but employment growth is still healthy. Despite Trump’s opposition, Congress is providing ample assistance to American science and industry, green technology, and Ukraine. Contrary to Trump’s assertions, violent crime is declining. So too is illegal immigration, due to Biden Administration action that may not hold up in court.

…Trump will not

Biden took action because the Republicans blocked legislation to better control the border. Many of them want to ban abortion and in vitro fertilization countrywide. Trump has said he intends to deport tens of millions of immigrants and fire tens of thousands of civil servants. Neither is feasible or desirable. Republicans defend the January 6 rioters. Two-thirds even want them pardoned. Trump is intending to give more tax breaks to rich Americans while raising taxes (via across-the-board tariffs) on people who spend rather than invest. That’s why some rich Silicon Valley types are supporting him:

He’s right.
Day Two

Trump has vowed to be a dictator on Day One. You don’t have to ask how he will govern on Day Two if he allowed that opportunity. Only someone prepared to ignore the will of the people would run on the Republican platform. Even after the disastrous debate and the controversy surrounding his competence since, Biden is no more than a couple of points behind Trump. Once the Biden cloud has passed, the sun will shine.

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Biden is toast, but don’t burn him

I expect President Biden will soon announce the withdrawal of his candidacy. That’s good. His decline since I saw him up close last winter is obvious. While I would still far prefer him to Trump, he is wise to throw in the towel. He has a fantastic record of restoring the country to sanity and steady economic growth, reknitting its alliances, appointing capable and diverse officials, getting a lot done on climate change, meeting the Russian challenge in Ukraine, shoring up defenses against China, and I could go on. Bowing out now ensures a positive legacy.

Challenges ahead

The rumor mill suggests the convention will be an “open” one with several candidates to replace Biden on top of the ticket. That seems to me a bad idea. It ensures a floor fight that will necessarily be divisive. It could also stimulate street demonstrations, which could get out of hand. I favor handing the baton to Kamala Harris. Biden has repeatedly avowed that she is ready to take over. He should let her do so.

The campaign against Trump will still be an uphill battle, no matter the candidate. The Democrats need not only to unify. They need to present a clear and compelling alternative to Trump’s lying, criminality, and immorality. He is a terrible candidate. That Biden in his weakened condition is still running neck and neck with him in the polls suggests the Democrats can recover from the last few weeks to win.

Biden can help

Biden can be a useful surrogate in the effort. He still has strong Democratic support and could help to get voters to the polls. He is a formidable fundraiser and a savvy political operative. His sterling record contrasts dramatically with the chaos and decline of Trump’s presidency. Biden may be toast, but it would be a mistake for any successor candidate not to use his record and his savvy.

Whoever the Democratic candidate, s/he should rely a good deal on Biden, whether or not he remains in the presidency. The mistake Al Gore made–not to rely on President Clinton’s record–should not be repeated. Biden has been a successful president. Running away from him would be a big mistake.

Trump is worse than too many think

I’m hearing wishful thinking about a second Trump term. To the contrary, it will be far worse than his first. Just listen to what he says. He wants to weaponize the Justice Department, claiming falsely that Biden has done it. He wants to cut taxes for the rich again and raise them on middle class people who (necessarily) spend most of their income. Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and won’t protect Taiwan. And he’ll support extremists in Israel who want to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. If you think the world is problematic now, just wait until a new Trump presidency.

Trump will also use a return to the White House to deliver retribution to those who oppose him. Take it from the Australians:

Part II isn’t out yet.

And remember this: Trump deployed unidentifiable law enforcement personnel on the streets of Washington (and wanted them to fire on demonstrators), he has praised the January 6 rioters, he is a committed racist, and he has appointed Supreme Court Justices who think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to decide on her own health care. That’s in addition to being a rapist, a tax cheat, and a Russian asset. Trump is far worse than too many think.

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