Tag: United States
Stevenson’s army, March 26
Take a moment to consider the enormity of what just happened and the even greater enormity of what has to happen now. The Senate approved an 880-page bill approving extra spending of $2.2 Trillion. Until now, total discretionary spending in FY 2020 was planned to be $1.119 Trillion. So the government now has to spend twice as much as was already appropriated.
That $2.2 Trillion amounts to a 46% increase in total federal spending, which includes $2.9 Trillion in mandatory spending. The deficit for FY2020, originally estimated at $1.073 Trillion, will now more than triple, given the new spending and the shortfalls in revenue because of the economic lockdown.
So the national debt held by the public will surge from $16.8 Trillion by another $3.3 Trillion in one year.
In addition to managing the exploding debt,the US government has to manage the stimulus. Small businesses have been promised $350 Billion in loans. Yet the Small Business Administration, with only 3,877 people, has an annual budget of only $665 million and will now have to process claims for more than 500 times as much.
Throughout the government, agencies will have to figure out regulations, develop forms, establish processes for reviewing and approving them, and then disbursing the money. And if they don’t, or don’t do it fast enough, the stimulus will fail.
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).
Our race is “human”
What is it like, this time we are spending distancing ourselves from others and trying to avoid falling victim to Covid-19? I wrote this piece last Thursday, but it still applies:
I’m finding it peaceful and even quietly enjoyable. Johns Hopkins/SAIS was already scheduled to be on Spring Break, so I wasn’t expecting to be working as usual. I had planned to spend most of the 10 days in San Antonio and Atlanta enjoying my children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. Canceling that trip was a big disappointment.
But staying at home, trying to catch up on both professional and personal business, getting ready to teach via Zoom and talk to students on Skype, ordering supplies to be delivered, occasionally puttering in the garden, listening to music, and watching a bit more TV than usual is not a bad way to wait out an epidemic. Our long walks in the neighborhood are particularly enjoyable.
Yesterday it was a mid-afternoon 4.5 miles. The weather was sunny and warm, so lots of people were out in this suburban-seeming part of the District of Columbia. Parents and children, many on bikes and scooters. There was little traffic. Rush hour was noticeably less frenetic than usual. People are saying hello as they pass, but they don’t tarry, and some go out of their way to maintain that six feet of separation.
It is all deceptively non-threatening. You wouldn’t know what we are all doing is trying to avoid a virus that could threaten our lives, especially but not exclusively in my age group. I imagine sooner or later most of us will get it, but it would be better not to get sick at the peak of the epidemic, when hospital beds will be full and personnel scarce.
Meanwhile our various governments–Federal, state and local–are trying hard to recover from a late start caused by the lack of testing capability and the associated contact tracing. Even now, tests are few compared to countries that have been successful in responding effectively, like South Korea and Hong Kong. Hospitals are approaching capacity in some urban centers, but there is still a long way to go and the system isn’t likely to be able to meet the demand.
For months President Trump tried to talk down the risk, in an apparent effort to calm the stock market and limit the economic damage. But the virus wasn’t listening. His failure to properly prepare and react is now costing trillions as the economy slows markedly, people lose their jobs, and businesses start to go under. He wants checks sent to big US companies and American taxpayers, hoping that $1200 or so will assuage their anger before the November election. He is far less concerned with those who have no health insurance (he is still trying to undo Obamacare in the courts), without having even hinted at what would replace it), those who can’t live on unemployment insurance, and those who don’t get sick or family leave.
Yesterday I received our census questionnaire, which I happily filled out on line. But I was not happy with the choices for defining my race and national origins. I grew up in an America where white Anglo-Saxon protestants (WASPs) were the majority. Jews and even Catholics did not fit there. We were minorities. Now I am expected to check that I am “white.” How did that happen? There just weren’t enough Anglo-Saxon protestants, so the majority expanded itself by accepting non-Anglo-Saxons, Catholics, and anyone else who would accept the label “white.”
That label however doesn’t just refer to the color of my skin, which admittedly is whiter and pinker than my wife’s or my children’s, who are all “black.” “White” is increasingly an ethnic identity, one that has taken on a political significance in Trump’s America. He has declared himself a “nationalist,” by which he meant to convey to his supporters “white” nationalist, or in the terminology of my youth a white supremacist or racist. I don’t care to be associated, however remotely, with that ethnic identity. So I checked “other” on the census form and wrote in for race “human.” I hope many others will do likewise.
In my America, I’m pleased to say, there are many who might. The folks I see walking in this quiet neighborhood are a rainbow of colors and faiths. Their yard signs proclaim welcome to others, no matter where they come from or what language they speak. I’m pleased to live among such people. We believed Covid-19 was real from the first. We also think global warming is real and caused in large part to human activity. We are appalled at the disinformation our President is spreading in an effort to coverup his own culpability for a disastrous epidemic.
Human is our “race.”
Bosnia needs Biden
Ismet Fatih Čančar, who holds a BA in Economics from Sarajevo School of Science and Technology and University of Buckingham and an MA in International Political Economy from King’s College London (where he studies under the Chevening scholarship program awarded by the United Kingdom), writes:
The results of last week’s primary confirmed the heavy frontrunner. Winning four out of six states that voted, Joe Biden has completed a turnaround rarely seen in American politics. Barring a political scandal, Biden is the preemptive candidate to secure the nomination of the Democratic party. When he faces Trump in November, it will be a clash of two opposing ideologies. However, some 5000 miles away, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small country in the Balkans, Biden’s win could mean salvation.
The history and present
Biden’s history with Bosnia goes back to the 1990s. During his Senate Foreign Affairs Committee tenure, he was a staunch supporter of American intervention to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide of Muslims in Bosnia. Following Joe Lieberman’s and Bob Dole’s lead, he was also one of the first to support lifting the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims and advocated for “lift and strike” – a NATO air power mission. Through those murky times, Biden’s passionate speeches in the Senate drew the sympathies of Bosnians as a rare, genuine friend.
The last visit of a high-level US official to Bosnia was in 2009 – and it was Joe Biden. During his stay he urged the political elites to turn the page from nationalistic politics and focus on real reforms that would pave the way for EU and NATO accession. Little has changed since he last set foot in Sarajevo. On the contrary, the country has regressed on its Euro-Atlantic road.
The recent political crisis, whose chief architect is Milorad Dodik, has once again put the country in crisis. Calling actively for secession from the Bosnian state, the nationalist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has a history of threatening peace in Bosnia. While Dodik is already under sanctions by the US, the failure of the EU to follow this course of action has led to lukewarm results.
Additionally, the Kosovo-Serbia issue has regained momentum with US engagement. According to this report, redrawing borders along ethnic lines is back on the menu. Such a solution bears catastrophic consequences. Dodik has been abundantly clear he intends to use this partition in pursuing the independence of Republika Srpska. But more so, politics of this kind move us further away from what the US goal for the region was in the first place – the establishment of liberal democracies and the integration of the Balkans into the modern Western world.
Restoring US credibility
In his platform published in Foreign Policy, Joe Biden has put strengthening democracy at the helm of his global agenda. He has committed to making the United States prepared to lead again “not just with the example of our power but also with the power of our example”. The challenge the United States will face under Biden is restoring its credibility as a world beacon of democracy that entails an integral respect for human rights and opposition to authoritarianism and nationalism. Bosnia and Herzegovina could be a good starting point.
Biden’s reengagement could shift the focus of the American administration to help solve the structural issues in the country. It could safeguard Bosnia by countering the breakthrough of Russian interference through Dayton’s Peace Accords – which Holbrooke himself said would need upgrading. Being a sui generis state with two entities and three constituent people, Bosnia is damned to be dysfunctional. The solution is chartering a new constitution of a civil (citizen) character on the basis of the civil constitutions many modern European countries possess. This is a condition Bosnia has to fulfill if it is ever to see the entrance doors of NATO and EU.
Handling such a complex issue would again grow America’s reputation in the world as a credible and trustworthy factor that can effectively address crises around the globe. However, the challenge also implies a risk of failure; the inability to gather partners along the way, primarily in right-wing Europe which is increasingly displaying a more xenophobic character. Bringing the EU along with US lead is mandatory for the region. I wrote earlier about the United Kingdom initiative in taking a more active role with its allies in Bosnia. Together, the Anglo-American partnership could establish a new leadership format. Biden’s personal experience in solving similar issues can lead the way.
For this to work, American pressure has to fall on Serbia to give up the Greater Serbian ideology, the same ideology that was responsible for the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia during the war. Until Serbia and Republika Srpska acknowledge what has been done under Milosevic’s and Karadzic’s rule – both in Bosnia and Kosovo – and stop the revisionism of settled historical records, no relationship will be prudent or friendly in the future. Furthermore, redrawing borders should be an absolute red line. Biden knows this. He experienced the consequences of Serbian ethno-national exclusivism first-hand and has understood that staying silent to nationalist ideologies is not an option. It instead leads to new conflicts in the Balkans.
If Biden really is as he says ready to “champion liberty and democracy, reclaim our credibility, and look with unrelenting optimism and determination toward our future” then keeping the status quo in Bosnia is counter-productive. The worst possible solution for Biden’s US, as the face of a democratic administration, is doing nothing. That would not only betray everything that was successfully done during the Clinton administration, which is deliberately undermined by the current Trump administration, but would also surrender Bosnia and the Balkans to growing Russian hegemony.
Making America great by making America good again
America cannot be made great again through Trump’s selfish and xenophobic media tirades that are music for right-wing ears all over the world. America can only be great if it establishes the far-reaching political vision that is occasionally seen in Biden’s election campaign. Freedom, peace and a sense of responsibility for the global good seeks the support of democratically-minded men and women all across the US, and especially Bosnian Americans who have found their second homeland in the United States.
Stevenson’s army, March 17
– A Trump NSC staffer on global health defends the way it was handled on the NSC
– An Obama official .rebuts Bolton on that matter.
– Politico says senior incoming officials had a pandemic wargame just before Trump’s inauguration. [They should have known, is the lesson.]
– The House finally sent its first coronavirus recovery bill to the Senate — by approving by unanimous consent [voice vote] a resolution telling the Clerk to make “technical corrections” in the text. Rep. Gohmert [R-Tex.], who had threatened to object, withdrew his objection.
– Politico notes limits to possible use of troops for domestic help against the pandemic.
– How to allow vote by mail by November elections.
– US forces in Iraq are being relocated to larger bases.
There was a late addition:
– The administration wants to send checks directly
to Americans to help offset the economic effects of the coronavirus. I
support that, but not that the Obama administration did the same in 2009 with virtually no GOP support.
– The National Intelligence Council in 2008 warned that America and the world would face pandemic threats in the 2020s.
– And the ever-valuable D Brief shows
the Chinese response to Sen. Cotton’s fabricated claim that the Chinese
developed the coronavirus as a weapon against the US.
Here’s a brief list of Chinese diplomats who are sharing a conspiracy theory on Twitter in what appears to be a coordinated campaign of disinformation — spreading a lie that the U.S. created the coronavirus in a military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.:
- Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman who seems to have initially tweeted this conspiracy last Thursday; his tweet was then shared by multiple diplomats and embassies, including—
- Lin Songtian, Chinese ambassador to South Africa;
- Lijian Zhao, Ambassador to the Maldives;
- Zhao Yanbo, Ambassador to Botswana;
- Quan Liu, Ambassador to Suriname;
- Chang Hua, Ambassador to Iran;
- Wang Xianfeng, press officer to the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan;
- the Twitter account for China’s Embassy to France;
- China’s Embassy in Manila;
- Embassy in Jordan;
- Embassy in Chad;
- Embassy in Uganda;
- and the Twitter account for China’s Embassy in Cameroon.
One takeaway from all the conspiracy sharing: It would sure seem that “more people inside the MFA [China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs] are seeing this kind of stuff as a good career move,” tweeted Matt Schrader, China analyst at the U.S.-based think tank, Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Another POV: “Chinese party-state [is] taking a page out of Russia’s info ops playbook, using their Ambassadors’ @Twitter accounts for a coordinated disinfo operation,” tweeted Laura Rosenberger, who directs the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “The party-state is waging an info war using COVID-19, and using this moment to try new methods.”
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).
Dear Hashim,
Kosovo President Thaci responded to Shaun Byrnes’ post on peacefare.net from Saturday with these tweets:
Hashim Thaçi@HashimThaciRKS· Mar 13 Disappointed to see friends of Kosovo & mine @DanielSerwer & Byrnes being deceived by fake news. There is no secret deal or whatever btw Kosovo & Serbia. One can be achieved through a transparent process w/ US leadership & I invite u to help. @RichardGrenell is doing a great job
Hashim Thaçi@HashimThaciRKS·Mar 13 Washington has full attention on Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. It is the burden of our generation to end the conflict & open path for Euro-Atlantic integration & economic prosperity. We need support for this process, not obstacles, nor opposition. It’s about our children.
This is my response to the President, whom I have known since his first, post-war visit to the US in 1999:
Dear Hashim,
I’m entirely sympathetic to the Euro-Atlantic ambitions of Kosovo and have repeatedly lent my efforts to that cause. But it is not wise to believe that Washington pays “full attention” to the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, which has been an entirely opaque process. Few in Washington even know it is happening, and fewer care. This inattention has given Belgrade-hired lobbyists the opportunity to influence an Administration that cares little about the Balkans and not at all about Kosovo, which it regards as a product of the despised Clinton Administration.
Worse than American inattention and pro-Serb bias is that the people of Kosovo and Serbia know nothing about what is being discussed in your repeated meetings with President Vucic. Your citizens have been demanding transparency. I have asked more than once for an update. Nothing is forthcoming. That leaves you open to rumors, which aren’t necessarily accurate. Only the transparency you promise can fix that problem.
Richard Grenell is a man who has failed as Ambassador to Germany and is failing as a temporary Director of National Intelligence. He is however doing a great snow job in the Balkans, flaunting minor transportation agreements as big steps forward. He is also working hard to pressure Prime Minister Kurti with threats of withdrawing US troops and aid. Albin has bent but not yet broken to the US demand that he end the tariffs on Serbian goods. Grenell’s ultimate objective is the land/people swap the Trump Administration has been pushing and you have indicated you might accept. A majority of your population, including the Serbs south of the Ibar, are opposed to this ignoble idea, which would make Kosovo a source of instability throughout the Balkans and beyond.
You can of course prove me wrong in thinking you are ready to trade slices of Serb-populated Kosovo for slices of Albanian-populated Serbia: give the Kosovo parliament a full and honest account of the talks with Vucic. This should include the agendas, any drafts or proposals from either side, and a full transcript of the dialogue at the highest level and in any working groups. Then turn over responsibility for the dialogue to the government, as the Constitutional Court decided is correct and the parliament has now confirmed. Making Albin the lead will take the heat off you and put the Serbs in a difficult position, since their prime minister–a protégé of the president–cannot pretend to have the kind of popular mandate Albin has.
You are no doubt disappointed in the results election that brought Albin to power, as they left your party in third place. But working with the second place finishers to bring down the Prime Minister will do Kosovo no good at all. It risks igniting a storm that will end any prospect of suspending the tariffs or moving ahead even incrementally with the dialogue with Serbia.
To a Kosovo patriot, and I hope I am right in assuming you would like to be considered one, speed should not be the priority. There is no advantage in pursuing an agreement before Serbia’s April 26 election. President Vucic will be freer to make concessions to Kosovo after the election than before. Kosovo would be wise to wait even longer: until after the Americans go to the polls November 3.
If there is then a President Biden–a true friend of Kosovo–you can expect him to empower a serious envoy to collaborate with Europe, something Grenell can never do because had and President Trump loathe the European Union, in reaching serious agreements between Kosovo and Serbia. Joint US/EU action is a prerequisite for bringing irresistible pressure to bear on Belgrade. Grenell isn’t even trying. If Trump is re-elected, whoever is in power in Kosovo will have to hunker down again to shield your country from the onslaught of bad partition ideas the likes of Grenell will continue to generate.
Most of your citizens want a deal with Serbia that recognizes the Kosovo state as sovereign and independent within its current borders and enables it to enter the United Nations. That isn’t on offer yet. Kosovo needs to be ready to walk away from a bad deal in order to get a good one, in the right time and with the help of both the US and EU. Until then, incremental improvements are all that can be hoped for. Successful statecraft requires that you encourage your citizens to be patient. Good things come to those who can wait.
A bad deal 2
I’ve already said I think the rumored deal between Belgrade and Pristina is a bad one. Some discussion of why is in order. I hasten to warn however that I have not seen the text and will have to rely on yesterday’s post from Shaun Byrnes for what it contains. I’m tired of waiting for something more definitive. If you want me to rely on the actual text of the proposed agreement, please send it to me. Absent that, here are a few points:
- Land/people swap: Admittedly I don’t know the geography, but any movement of boundaries or borders on an ethnic basis will open Pandora’s box. Milorad Dodik has made this perfectly clear in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he intends to pursue partition if there is a swap between Kosovo and Serbia. He is being quiet about that for the moment to please Belgrade, but that is a purely tactical move. He is serious about pursuing independence for Republika Srpska if a swap happens anywhere in the Balkans. Principles matter.
- Non-recognition by Belgrade: The agreement reportedly does not include Serbia’s recognition of a sovereign and independent Kosovo, but merely a promise by Serbia no longer to stand in the way of UN membership. Accepting this would be incredibly stupid for Pristina. It is Russia, not Serbia, that ultimately blocks UN membership and will continue to do so until there is an agreement with the US to permit it. Kosovo must have not only Serbian recognition but also exchange of diplomatic representatives at the ambassadorial level and agreement to demarcate the border. Until all that happens, no Kosovo citizen should be prepared to accept a deal, much less a president responsible for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of his country.
- An Association of Serb Municipalities with undefined responsibilities. The association idea was a bad one when it was introduced in the 2013 Brussels-negotiated “political” agreement. Now that it is clear Serbia would use such an association to try to govern the Serb-majority municipalities from Belgrade and to block effective sovereignty from being exercised in Pristina, it is much worse. The Kosovo Constitutional Court has issued a decision that prescribes in detail what kind of association would be consistent with the constitution. Pristina should concede nothing more, and nothing indefinite.
As a prelude to this repulsive agreement, Washington is openly pressuring Prime Minister Kurti to unilaterally abolish the tariffs his predecessor imposed on Serbian (and Bosnian) goods. Influenced by Serbian-hired lobbyists, the Trump Administration has even threatened to withdraw both its peacekeepers and its assistance package from Kosovo. President Thaci is trying to cause Kurti’s government, which depends on support from people who oppose the tariffs, to fall. Kurti is trying to compromise by suspending some of the tariffs this weekend, but this hasn’t satisfied either Washington or his President. Vucic really doesn’t care: the tariffs make it easy for him to blame Pristina for stalling the agreement.
There is no good reason to rush to an agreement before the Serbian elections in April, or even soon thereafter. All of Pristina thinks Thaci is rushing to try to forestall an indictment by the Special Tribunal in The Hague, whose prosecutor is a Trump-appointed American. Vucic has made it clear he will not do a deal under pressure before he gets a renewed mandate. Richard Grenell–US Ambassador to Germany, acting but temporary Director of National Intelligence, and Special Envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo–is trying to deliver a diplomatic triumph to help President Trump’s re-election campaign and get himself a better job, even though he is unqualified for all the jobs he already has.
For America’s successful 1990s interventions in the Balkans in favor of liberal democracy to end in this mess would be shameful, but that is precisely what the ethno-nationalist Trump Administration wants. It views Kosovo and Bosnia as Clinton triumphs, which makes them second only to Obama successes in arousing the President’s jealousy and loathing. Shameful is not something he avoids.
There is an American election in less than eight months. Anyone who wants things to come out right in the Balkans should be prepared to await its outcome.