The View from Right Field

The Biggest Danger In a Dangerous World

I think almost everybody would agree that these are dangerous times, perhaps the most dangerous times most of us have faced.  But where we may disagree is as to what the biggest problem is.  Some will say it is COVID-19.  Others will say it is climate change or systemic racism.  Figuring out how to restart the economy is the biggest for some.  And still others will argue it is polarization and the inability of our political leaders in Washington to do almost anything.  Legitimate arguments can be made on behalf of any of these (and others), but I see it as something else: the world.

In a talk to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on June 26, Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama,¹ compared the situation in the world today not to the 1930s, which was suggested by the question he was asked, but to the early 1900s, the time before World War I.  As before World War I, there are a number of competitors for power today, some world and some regional.  There are no effective international organizations.  There is a rising world power (then Germany, now China).  And there are tensions around the world, with forces deployed around the world, too.

George Marshall on Character

In a speech on “Marshall and His Generals” at the George Marshall Foundation on July 20, 2017, Dr. Stephen Taaffe talked about the four criteria that Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall used to pick the high-ranking officers¹ for the U.S. Army during World War II.²  Let me mention them, in reverse order:

1. General Marshall wanted to know them personally or know somebody who knew them personally.

2. Age.  (Sorry.  I realize it is politically incorrect today, but General Marshall didn’t want older generals.)

China, WHO, and the Next Time

In a conversation with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week, former New Zealand Prime Minister and former head of the United Nations Development Programme¹ Helen Clark said that, at the multilateral level, the world has not risen to the challenge of Covid-19.  She noted that, in 2014, the UN Security Council declared a public health emergency with respect to Ebola, but this time, the Security Council has done nothing.  As to why, she says it relates to the toxic nature of international politics.

Which is true.  But it seems to me the reason is more specific than that.  While Donald Trump does not believe in multilateral organizations and is, in my opinion, a terrible president in terms of foreign relations,² the biggest reason there has been no coordinated international action on Covid-19 is simple.  It’s China.  It appears China screwed up big time on Covid-19.  The best information is that Covid-19 started in Wuhan, China.  But for some reason China did not get on top of it right away (or at least didn’t do enough).  There are a number of possible reasons (and there needs to be an investigation), but regardless of the reason(s), at this point it looks like China had a chance to stop or contain this virus before it spread.  But it didn’t, and now it’s killing people all over the world.³  And the problem with a coordinated international response, from China’s part of view, is that part of such a response would be an investigation that would make China’s failings more difficult to hide.

The Fed Is Acting as Central Banker for the World. Why Isn’t President Trump Complaining?

At the end of March, the Federal Reserve announced it was establishing a temporary lending facility under which foreign central banks could borrow dollars by giving the Fed their Treasury securities.  Such repurchase agreements, or repos, allow borrowers to temporarily exchange Treasury securities for dollars.  By entering into a repo agreement, foreign central bank don‘t have to sell their Treasury securities in unstable markets in order to get dollars they need for transactions. 

This facility is in addition to other programs the Fed has already set up to lend dollars to fourteen other central banks in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, and Australia.

What’s With WHO? WHO’s With China?

No, this is not some 2020 version of Abbott and Costello.  It’s a question about how the World Health Organization, and China, are doing vis-à-vis the Covid-19 pandemic.  The answer is not good – or at least not nearly as good as they should be.¹  WHO ignored a report from Taiwan on December 31 that about person-to-person transmission of Covid-19 in Wuhan.²  WHO ignored the report because Beijing won’t allow WHO to include or listen to Taiwan.  When President Trump imposed a partial travel ban on travel to China on January 31, WHO was saying that travel bans were a bad idea.  WHO didn’t declare Covid-19 a pandemic until March 11, which was absurdly late.

So, what do we do with WHO – and more importantly China?  President Trump is delaying U.S. contributions to WHO.³  I understand the frustration, but is that what we should be doing now?  Is WHO the real problem or is it China?  If it is China, what do we do about them? 

For some good thoughts on the latter, look at these comments by former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, now a Fellow at the Hoover Institution:

North Macedonia Joins @NATO – And That’s Good.

As we all focus on Covid-19, there are other things happening in the world, some of them good.  One happened in late March, when North Macedonia became the 30th nation to join NATO.¹

I am sure that Russia either will object or has already objected to North Macedonia joining NATO.²  They will give the normal “reasons”: Russia is being surrounded by enemies.  These are lands in which Russia has a natural and historical interest.

Coronavirus. Europe Travel Ban. What Kind of a Country Do We Want to Be?

On Wednesday evening, I tweeted my thoughts about President Trump’s address to the nation on the coronavirus situation.  What I’d like to do here is look at his address, and the ban on travel from Europe (technically, the Schengen zone), from a different point of view.

The Economist publishes an annual installment of “The World If” articles.  The articles are about things that could happen in the future (or might have happened in the past), some good, some bad, and what might be (or have been) the consequences.  Alternate history articles, in a manner of speaking.  One of the articles in 2017 was about the risk that the United States, and other countries, face from a prolonged loss of electricity.  It’s low risk, but if it happens … wow.  Here are some excerpts from the article:

“On March 13th 1989 a surge of energy from the sun, from a ‘coronal mass ejection’, had a startling impact on Canada.  Within 92 seconds, the resulting geomagnetic storm took down Quebec’s electricity grid for nine hours.  It could have been worse.  On July 23rd 2012 particles from a much larger solar ejection blew across the orbital path of Earth, missing it by days.  Had it hit America, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have destroyed perhaps a quarter of high-voltage transformers ….

Bernie and Fidel

Like a lot of people on the left, though possibly more than most, Bernie Sanders has a Fidel Castro problem.  The problem is that Senator Sanders likes him – or, at least, he wants to like him.  Fidel said all the right things.  And he supposedly did all the right things: educating the kids, providing health care to everyone, transforming society.  (There was the lack of freedom, political prisoners, etc., but some people on the left sort of skip over that.) 

The difficulty for this view is that, regardless of what may have happened before 1990, things have gone downhill since the Soviet Union collapsed and money from Moscow stopped coming in.¹  But that apparently hasn’t stopped Senator Sanders from believing, as he said on “60 Minutes” last month:

Joe Biden’s Big Problem: “Why Is Joe Biden’s Son Working For a Ukrainian Energy Company?”

Actually, former Vice President Biden has a number of problems in his campaign, but then so does Donald Trump.  I have made my thoughts about President Trump pretty clear over the last several years, so I won’t go over them again.  Other than to say: Would you trust President Trump if he said he had your back in a fight?

But back to former Vice President Biden.  One of the big brouhahas regarding the former Vice President’s campaign is the job and money that his son, Hunter, got from a Ukrainian gas company while Vice President Biden was in office.  Some people may think this is a manufactured controversy, dug up only now to embarrass former Vice President Biden and hurt his campaign.

Well, it’s not.  It was a problem when it happened.  See this post, “Why Is Joe Biden’s Son Working For a Ukrainian Energy Company?”, from May 14, 2014.  It should have been dealt then, but neither former Vice President Biden nor the Obama administration did anything about it.  And now, former Vice President Biden has to deal with it today – or lose to President Trump in November.
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UPDATE (3/10/20 9:20 am): Cleaned up the wording in the last sentence. 

Leaving Afghanistan – This Time It’s Probably for Real

Last weekend, negotiators for the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement which, if implemented, will result in some US forces leaving Afghanistan this year and the rest next year.  I had a few comments, but instead of writing a long post on the agreement and whether it is good or not, etc., I’m just going to list those comments:

1. While some reports called this a “peace agreement,” peace seems unlikely.  The only way there is going to be “peace,” in the sense of no fighting, is if the Taliban wins – and that would not be a peace worth the name.