The View from Right Field

Is Anybody Surprised We Can’t Get Other Countries to Back Our Plan for Syria?

The Wall Street Journal reports the United States is having trouble getting other countries to provide troops and logistical support for an effort to stop an ISIS resurgence in Syria.  Hmm.  I wonder why.  Could it be that the request was initially made in January, after President Trump had tweeted that we were going to withdraw all of our troops from Syria?  The Administration has seen backtracked on the President’s tweet and is now planning on keeping some troops in Syria.  But who knows when the President might tweet another withdrawal.  Why should anybody commit to help when President Trump could change his mind at any time?

It’s not unlike President Obama and his last minute, 180-degree turn on bombing Syria for violating President Obama’s redline on use of chemical weapons.  Why should anybody believe us or cooperate with us when they could be left hanging at any time?

Ryan Crocker on the United States’s Middle East Policy – and More

On Thursday evening, Ryan Crocker and Danielle Pletka spoke to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on “How Effective Is America’s Middle East Strategy.”¹  Mr. Crocker has been ambassador to, in alphabetical order, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Syria.  He has also served in Iran, Qatar, and Egypt.  He has been named a Career Ambassador and has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Ms. Pletka is Senior Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, at the American Enterprise Institute.

Among the things former Ambassador Crocker said (I will also include some things Ms. Pletka said):²

In response to the question what the Trump administration’s Middle East strategy is, former Ambassador Crocker said, “You’re asking the wrong guy.”  He said there is no strategy.  He cannot connect the dots of the various individual things the Administration is doing into a policy and strategy.

Does this Really Disqualify Joe Biden?

Joe Biden is thinking about running for president.  In fact, he recently just about announced, apparently by mistake, that he is running for president.  But, as he has been getting ready to announce, he has been hit with a number of complaints from women about the somewhat weird things he has done in the past.  One woman, who I think was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016, said the former Vice President came up and smelled her hair and kissed her on the back of the head.  Other women have said similar things.  Clearly, former Vice President Biden hasn’t had a good understanding of personal space and the things you should and should not do.  But, so far, the complaints have been about things he did in public, things that were a little creepy and not what people do today, but that’s about it.

Still, it appears a fair number of people, in theory on his side of the political spectrum, think these things should disqualify Joe Biden from running for president. 

Happy Birthday, NATO

NATO has a birthday coming up.  On April 4, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will turn 70.  The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949.  Its first twelve members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, and West Germany in 1955.  Post-Franco Spain joined in 1982.  With the fall of the Berlin Wall, countries in eastern Europe rushed to join, thirteen more so far, with North Macedonia being the thirtieth soon.

There will be a number of articles on NATO’s anniversary in the next few days.  The Economist has already published a lengthy piece on “NATO at 70” in its March 16 issue.  Ivo Daalder, former ambassador to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. wrote an excellent article in last Friday’s Chicago Tribune.  While these articles cover the subject of NATO and its future better than I can, I would like to add a few thoughts to the birthday celebration for what has been best defensive military alliance in history, thoughts related to its future.

Concerns about NATO’s future have increased, especially among the foreign policy elite, since Donald Trump was elected president 2016.  President Trump, after all, said NATO was obsolete while on the campaign trail in 2016,¹ and he has been pretty obnoxious since then about the failure of many NATO countries to increase up their defense spending in line with commitments they have made in 2014 to get their defense spending up to 2% of GDP by 2024.

If 2016 Was the “Presidential Election from He**,” What Will 2020 Be?

Actually, the question may be “Isn’t 2020 That Way Already?”  It seems pretty clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee – if he decides to run, but back to that in a moment.  First, the Democrats.

The Democratic contest seems to be a race to see who can get as close as possible to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who would, based on publicity levels in the MSM, have the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination wrapped up by now if not for a group of old white men in Philadelphia in 1787 who set the minimum age for president at 35.¹  On the other hand, we wouldn’t have Ms. AOC to kick us around if those same old white men had set the same age, i.e., 30, for the House of Representatives as they did for the Senate.² 

Foreign Policy After Trump: A Return to Normal or Is There a New Normal?

Commentators left, right, and center are explaining, and complaining, about why Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, failed to reach an agreement.  Cutting through all of the commentary, the main reason is because President Trump is himself.  Maybe an agreement could have been reached if President Trump did things differently, in terms of preparation, etc.  But complaining about President Trump being himself is silly, at least at this point.  He is what he is.  He is not going to change, no matter how much some of us might wish it.

And things are going to continue as they have been.  For example, in January, I asked if we were bugging out of Afghanistan because of what President Trump said then, but now it appears we are staying.  Similarly, in December, President Trump said we were leaving Syria (which is why Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned), but now it looks like we may be keeping some troops there, after all. 

With President Trump, there are times when we don’t know, from one day to the next, what our policies are.  And we have almost two years to go.  Of course, while some people see that as a long time, others look at it and say we can elect a new president in less than two years – and then everything will be fine again. 

What’s More Important: Stormy Daniels or Nuclear Powers Fighting a War?

While official Washington and its media are focused on Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress yesterday that Donald Trump is a liar and racist and was deeply involved in efforts to pay hush money to Story Daniels, on the other side of the world, two countries that have nuclear weapons are fighting a near-war against each other.  India is bombing Pakistan, and Pakistan is fighting back.

I remember, in 1998, when Pakistan finally developed a nuclear bomb.  India already had one, but now the two of them, countries which had fought each other four times in the prior 50 years, both had nuclear weapons.

Will Trump Reach a Real Agreement With China? More Importantly, Can Pandas Fly?

Donald Trump has delayed the March 1 deadline for increasing tariffs on Chinese imports, saying that he expects the details of a final deal between the U.S. and China will be worked out at a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, to be held at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  One question, of course, is what any such agreement would provide.  Would it just cover China agreeing to buy more stuff from the United States or would it really change the way the Chinese economy works?

The Economist, in a leader in its current issue (“Can pandas fly?”¹), encourages President Xi to, inter alia, limit the state’s role in allocating capital and temper China’s industrial policy.  The Economist says that “[a] more economically liberal China would end up richer and make fewer enemies.” 

But this misunderstands President Xi’s priorities – and the priorities of his predecessors.  Thirty years ago, Deng Xiaoping crushed the protesters in Tiananmen Square because maintaining control was worth putting his economic reforms on hold for a time.  It is the same with President Xi.  Growth is nice, but political control is more important.
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¹ “Can pandas fly?” was the title of the leader in the print edition of The Economist.

When Donald Meets Kim [Jong Un]

As Donald Trump heads for his second meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank and State Department official in both the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations (as well as serving in the Treasury Department under Ronald Reagan), wrote in The Wall Street Journal on “How to Negotiate With Kim Jong Un.”  Here are the five steps Mr. Zoellick suggests:

“The first step must be to address the danger of warfare on the Korean Peninsula. … The North Korean army is too big.  Negotiators must reduce both its size and its capacity for surprise attack.  The goal should be to equalize the North and South Korean militaries at smaller levels.

The 1992 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which helped end the Cold War in Europe, offers examples of terms.

What’s Going to Happen In Venezuela?

Venezuela is starving.  Literally.  Aid is on its borders, but President Nicholas Maduro is refusing to let it in because the aid has been organized by opposition leader Juan Guaido (and countries supporting him).  Already, at least four people have been killed and hundreds injured, reportedly by Venezuelan security forces, including militia. 

What happens next?  Obviously, nobody knows, but 2019 is the 30th anniversary of two possible outcomes.  The first is Tiananmen Square.  In 1989, people in China were starting to demonstrate for more rights and liberties.  The protests reached a peak in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in early June.  The Army faced off with the protesters.  The Army won because it was willing to shoot the protesters until they disbanded and left.  Deng Xiaoping was willing to put his economic reforms on hold to maintain political power.