Tag: United States
Gulf arms trade
While the US and Western Europe remain major suppliers in arms trade to Gulf states, other regional and global powers have strengthened their relationships with Gulf states as well. On March 25, the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) hosted a panel discussion on “Gulf Security in a Multipolar World: New Defense Ties Reflect Competition for Influence.” The discussion featured five speakers:
Jon Alterman: Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Alexandra Kuimova: Research Assistant, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Shana Marshall: Associate Director at the Institute for Middle East Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs
Bilal Saab: Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute
Pieter D. Wezeman: Senior Researcher, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Emma Soubrier: Visiting Scholar, the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, moderated
The West and the Gulf
Wezeman indicated that the US and Europe are major suppliers of weapons, training, technology, and manpower to Gulf states, especially to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Kuimova added that the US, the UK, France and Germany have increased their domination over the Gulf market from 2015 to 2019.
Saab emphasized that there is decreased regional confidence in US security commitment to its Gulf partners. He listed three major breakdowns in their partnership:
- Bush administration’s planning for a never executed attack on Iran
- Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran
- Trump administration’s assassination of Soleimani
The US never consulted on these major regional moves with its Gulf allies. But the US is desperate to sell arms to the Gulf, especially now that there is a power competition with Russia and China. Alterman believes nevertheless that the Gulf aims to maintain a close relationship with the US.
Intraregional Dynamics
Marshall stated that intraregional movement of arms has continued throughout Gulf history. The Gulf finances arms transfers from the US and Europe to non-Gulf monarchies and authoritarian republics, including Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. There have also been smuggling and proliferation. Additionally, regional production forms a basis for intraregional trade. The GCC aims for domestic production for itself and its regional allies, loosening the West’s grip on regional arms and capital transfers. It also broadens the GCC’s geopolitical influence by increasing political and commercial activities. Marshall concluded that having its own indigenous defense industry for arms sales and transfer is an integral part of effectuating Gulf foreign policy.
Wezeman thinks that the development of arms industry shows a state’s desire to be a regional power with strategic independence. It’s difficult to be a self-sufficient arms industry due to the inability to produce all materials and technologies. State indigenous arms industries have to depend on their allies to some extent.
Other players
Wezeman stated that China and Russia have entered the Gulf market by offering niche products. They may play a bigger role in the future. Kuimova indicated they are among the top ten arms exporters in the world and have increased their interests in the Gulf through security collaboration and economic cooperation, including arms trade and investment. Although Gulf states haven’t placed any orders for S-400 missile system or the Sukhoi Su-35 aircraft with Russia yet, the number of Gulf states that receive China’s arms supplies has increased. Kuimova attributed Gulf states’ arms requests from China and Russia to three reasons:
- The Gulf lacks the domestic technological basis needed to design and produce advanced weapons.
- Western suppliers limit their weapons sales to the Gulf for political and humanitarian reasons. Russia and China request few such conditions.
- Duplication of sources allows the Gulf to benefit from competition in terms of prices and conditions.
Alterman stated that China is trying to have comprehensive strategic partnerships with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, and Egypt. While Russia is not a desirable alternative partner to the US in the region, China can be a supplement to the US. He listed China’s motivations as follows:
- The Chinese need to secure energy from the Middle East independently of the US.
- American hegemony isn’t in China’s interests. China’s rising profile in the Middle East can draw US attention away from the Western Pacific and put a wedge between the US, Europe, and China.
He emphasized that China focuses more on business than security. How China-Middle East relations will develop still remains an open question.
Here’s the video for this panel discussion:
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Bullying
Congressman Eliot Engel’s statement on Friday deserves the attention of Balkan-watchers:
“To say that the United States and Kosovo have a warm and close relationship would be understating the depth of our ties. The United States led the campaign to end Milosevic’s genocidal ethnic cleansing and has been the most powerful and consistent friend of the independent and sovereign Republic of Kosovo. I’ve visited Kosovo many times and can confidently say Americans do not receive a warmer welcome anywhere else around the world.
“I’ve been proud to be a partner of Kosovo governments led by a variety of political parties. I do not take sides on who should run Kosovo. That is a decision for the people of Kosovo. I will always work with whomever they choose.
“This is why I have been increasingly concerned with the heavy-handed tactics the Trump Administration is using with Prishtina. The State Department has long called for Kosovo to lift its tariffs on Serbia. But this Administration turned to economic penalties just a few short weeks after the Kurti government took office. Rather than letting a new government facing a pandemic staff its agencies and set up internal procedures, the U.S. contributed to a political crisis in Prishtina over the tariffs on Serbia.
“There are good reasons for Kosovo to lift tariffs, mostly that they are hurting Kosovo more than they are providing leverage to reach a peace deal with Serbia. Regardless, tariffs are a legitimate tool of a sovereign nation. As such, they’ve been imposed around the world by President Trump against friends and foes, alike, for economic and political reasons.
“Rather than using overbearing tactics with a friend which relies on our support, the United States should have patiently worked with the now-outgoing Kosovo government—as it sought to work with the previous Kosovo government—to improve policies which promote prosperity and a lasting peace. Strong-arming a small democracy is the act of a bully, not a mature partner. Regardless, I will continue to work with whatever government the people of Kosovo select now and in the future.
“Moreover, the pressure imposed on Prishtina for its tariffs is decidedly unbalanced. Serbian diplomats are transiting the globe pressing countries to derecognize Kosovo, and Serbia is deepening relations with Moscow and purchasing significant amounts of Russian weaponry. In fact, under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) passed by Congress in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, these arms purchases require the Administration to impose sanctions on Serbia. Neither have we imposed those sanctions, nor have we energetically pressed Serbia to end its derecognition efforts.
“Something’s wrong with U.S. policy and we need to correct it. We should start with rebalancing our approaches toward Serbia and Kosovo. We should work with our European allies to treat both countries as independent and sovereign partners, applying consistent standards to both sides as we try to restart peace talks. When U.S. law says we should sanction Serbia due to its security ties with Russia, we should.
“Additionally, the U.S. should immediately restart its assistance through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The MCC model is based on objective, data-driven indicators and a mutually agreed upon compact between the U.S. and the recipient country. Using this assistance as a bludgeon for actions not related to MCC or its mission twists the agency into just another transactional pressure tool—precisely what it was not intended to be.”
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Stevenson’s army, March 30
– Pres. Trump said yesterday he hopes the country can be “back to normal” by June. British health officials said social distancing could be needed until September. Meanwhile AEI & Hopkins experts have a phased, conditions-based plan for dealing with the pandemic that looks reasonable. Here’s the actual document. What it requires is work every day to restore and expand health services to monitor the disease.
– WSJ says companies need federal guidance in allocating medical supplies.
– Army Corps of Engineers is looking at convention centers as temporary hospitals.
– NYT says China’s epidemic monitoring system failed because of political tampering by officials who didn’t want to send bad news to Beijing.
– NYT reports on France’s forever war in the Sahel.
– WaPo’s Jackson Diehl says Pompeo is doing a terrible job .
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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Resignation
If you want to know where the virus is, consult the Johns Hopkins map. To make a long story short, we have a worldwide pandemic just beginning the step rise portion of its logarithmic increase. But we know the situation is a lot worse, since Russia and most of Africa are reporting few cases. Even in the US, now with the top number of cases in the world, testing is still so rare that the numbers could be a wild underestimate. The inestimable Dr. Anthony Fauci is estimating 100-200,000 future deaths in the US. This is many, many times the number of deaths from polio at its peak in 1952.
But where are we in our effort to understand and come to terms with this disaster? How did this happen? Why weren’t we better prepared? Why did the US not react more quickly and effectively? The answers are all too clear: in addition to the initial Chinese effort to keep the virus secret, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) combined through error, neglect, and over-regulation to slow the testing vital to isolating Covid-19 and getting it under control.
What should we expect of our political leadership at this point? Nothing good if it remains the same. If Trump really were the hard-charging chief executive he portrayed in his TV show, he would long ago have fired the heads of the responsible agencies. But he isn’t, and he fears what they would say about him once released from government service. HHS Secretary Aznar is particularly sycophantic, so he is presumably safe. The other two may end up sacrificed, but way too late. CDC and FDA are going to need a thorough shaking up, but any new Trump Administration appointees aren’t likely to be more competent than their predecessors.
The real culprit here is the President. He played down the burgeoning epidemic and thereby signaled that it didn’t merit emergency priority. President Trump was more concerned with the stock market numbers than the numbers of infected Americans. He still is, signaling that he might be “reopen” the economy by Easter. This is irresponsible: until testing in the US becomes ubiquitous and the number of cases demonstrably levels off–something weeks if not months in the future, it simply won’t be safe to send most people back to work. Doing so would infect millions more and cause more economic damage than the virus has inflicted so far, which is already dramatic.
We are talking many trillions in lost production, and trillions more in government expenditures to cushion the blow and meet the health challenges. That doesn’t even count the values of the lives lost.
Things aren’t going to get better any time soon. I’m resigned to that. But resignation is what Donald Trump should do. He was never qualified by intellect, temperament, or experience to be President of the United States. He is now demonstrating that at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. If ever there was a president who should resign, this one is it. That he won’t is just one more demonstration of his unsuitability for the job.
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What they don’t say counts
The State Department issued this Joint Statement of Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell, Ambassador Philip Kosnett, and Special Representative for the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer on Kosovo yesterday:
The United States stands with the people of Kosovo. We commend the continued efforts of the health professionals and others who are working hard, at great risk, to reduce the progress of COVID-19 in Kosovo. In this time of uncertainty, we urge Kosovo’s leaders to follow Kosovo’s Constitution and the rule of law. We are committed to working with any government formed through the constitutional process.
In addition, we continue to urge Kosovo’s leaders to lift the tariffs completely. We believe the tariffs are harming the people of Kosovo by hindering regional cooperation against COVID-19 – including by delaying the entry into Kosovo of needed supplies – and hindering economic growth.
We want to make clear there is no secret plan for land swaps between Kosovo and Serbia, as some have speculated. Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell has never seen nor discussed such a plan. The U.S. Government’s focus on supporting the recent agreements to re-establish air, rail, and highway connections between Kosovo and Serbia aims to improve the economy and create economic momentum. We believe this momentum will give new energy to a dialogue process that would lead to mutual recognition.
This is at least in part a response to Shaun Byrnes’ A Bad Deal posted here two weeks ago, but it is also an attempt to justify the Trump Administration’s unfriendly policy toward Kosovo’s Albin Kurti-led government.
Let’s take it para by para:
- That phrase “stands with the people of” is a tip-off, as it is used to distinguish between the people and the government of a foreign country. It’s what the Americans say about adversaries like Iran: we stand with the Iranian people. The US embassy put out an unusual statement supporting the holding of the no-confidence vote that brought down Prime Minister Kurti’s government earlier this week. This happened in the face of European opposition to the no-confidence vote. The bottom line is clear: at a moment when the Kosovo government was confronting the Covid-19 challenge, the Trump Administration decided nevertheless to push for the government to fall.
- Urging the complete unilateral lifting of the tariffs ignores a basic principle of diplomacy: reciprocity. The Trump Administration is asking Kosovo to meet a Serbian demand without anything in return. What Pristina has sought is suspension of the de-recognition campaign that Serbia has conducted worldwide. Is it really too much to ask that a country that wants Kosovo to buy its goods to stop trying to get other countries to reverse their recognition of Kosovo? In any event, Kurti did lift some of the tariffs unilaterally and indicated a willingness to go further, without the slightest sign of reciprocity on Serbia’s part. Where is the pressure on Serbia to reciprocate?
- The notion that Grenell has never seen a plan is not credible. Several, of uncertain origins, have been published. Presidents Thaci and Vucic have both referred to land swap discussions. Even if the US was not involved in those (which is unlikely), US intelligence will have reported on them, including any maps that were exchanged. Grenell is the acting Director of National Intelligence. It is notable that Kosnett and Palmer are not associated with this denial of having seen a plan. It suggests they have.
Like many government statements, this one tells us more by what it omits than by what it includes, but there is one important inclusion: the line at the end referring to mutual recognition. Note there too is an omission. If land/people swaps are off the table, it should have read “mutual recognition within their current borders” or “mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity.” What they don’t say counts.
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Albin’s fall could be Hashim’s
Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti lost a vote of confidence yesterday, abandoned by his main LDK coalition partner. He remains in office as caretaker, though it is unclear to me whether he’ll get another crack at forming a government. More likely he’ll be forced to cede to someone else or take the country to an early election. The latter would be difficult with Covid-19 around.
The Trump Administration welcomes Albin’s fall, as he was refusing to bend to its demand that he unilaterally abolish all the tariffs his predecessor had levied on Serbian goods, in retaliation for Belgrade’s campaign against recognition of Kosovo. Washington has abandoned the traditional American policy of support for Kosovo’s democracy and territorial integrity and is now twisting Pristina’s political arms in favor of a deal with Serbia that would damage both. There have been many ugly moments in Kosovo, so this one doesn’t really rate in the hall of infamy. But it isn’t pretty.
Albin was trying to deny emergency powers (to deal with Covid-19) to President Thaci because he feared Hashim would use them to cut a deal with Serbia unacceptable to the government. This despite the fact that both the parliament and the constitutional court have said the government should have the responsibility of negotiating with Belgrade. The Prime Minister made the mistake of firing an important figure from his LDK coalition partner when the Interior Minister suggested the President should get the emergency powers he wants. That, along with intense American pressure, seems to have turned the LDK against Albin.
I suppose Hashim will now try to cobble together a government more to his liking that will grant him the emergency powers he has sought. Albin is in a weakened position, as his party can’t govern without coalition partners that are unlikely to be available. But there are signs Albin would do well in new elections. The country is solidly against the kind of exchange of territory with Serbia that Hashim is open to, but if he can he’ll try to proceed with the deal with Belgrade as quickly as feasible after the April 26 Serbian election.*
The big question is why. All of Pristina thinks the Americans have promised Hashim protection from prosecution, in particular by the Special Chamber that operates in The Hague to deal with particular crimes committed before, during, and after the 1999 Kosovo war. I don’t know whether that is true, and I’ve long doubted that the Special Chamber prosecutor has the needed evidence to indict. But the prosecutor is an American the Trump Administration appointed. It is not hard to imagine he could be told to indict or not indict.
The President is no doubt concerned about his legacy and doesn’t want an indictment to mar it. But he should think twice before going ahead with a land/people swap that could lead to the end of the Serb presence in Kosovo, because those not on territory traded to Serbia will either flee or gradually relocate over the next few years. Kosovo would then be ripe plucking for Albania’s eastern province. The father of his country could find his legacy turned to the political equivalent of dust.
*Correction, 3/26: the Serbian election has been postponed due to Covid-19. I should have known.
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