The Trump Trifecta

Donald Trump is set to win a blowout Trifecta. Here’s his betting slip:

In first place, immigration. The mob is miles ahead of the intelligentsia. Asylum has outlived its utility. Where Congress fails to act, Trump is willing to push the limits of Presidential authority, Biden not so much. Advantage Trump.

Second place in Donald Trump’s winning trifecta goes to Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is entitled to broad latitude in its own defense, but we are way past that point. We have become the complicit enabler of bad behavior, and voters know it. Advantage Trump.

In third place, Ukraine. Whatever may have been imaginable a year ago, no one seriously believes Russia can be pushed out of Ukraine now. Hawks won’t get the funds from Congress to pursue that strategy, and Biden hasn’t adapted to the battlefield realities, either in Ukraine or in our Congress. Advantage Trump.

Can a bombastic blathering orangutan win an election? Maybe he can – if he knows which way the wind blows.

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Putin’s Defiance May Be An Opening Bid

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, “There will be peace when we will achieve our goals”, and  “Victory will be ours”, as reported by the Associated Press.

Putin’s apparently defiant statement may be a coded trial balloon. Look deeper, and it is easy to interpret Putin’s message as an opening negotiating position and veiled invitation.

In the same press conference, his first including Western journalists since February 2022, Putin said he wanted to reach a deal with Washington to free U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich and U.S. businessman Paul Whelan. “We’re not refusing to return them,” Putin said. His offer to negotiate on this seemingly unrelated matter, in this context, cannot be an accident.

Putin defined his war goals, and there is plenty of wiggle room therein:  “de-Nazification, de-militarization and a neutral status”. These are subjective, open to interpretation, capable of flexible definition, and make room for the give-and-take of negotiation. They are the kinds of goals that can allow each side to declare victory at then end of a successful negotiation.

Moreover, the war itself is ripe for settlement. Neither side has a realistic hope of substantially improving their negotiating strength, nor a realistic hope of improving their battlefield position. Both sides are currently incurring high costs, without hope of gain. There is nothing to be won and much to be lost by refusing a reasonable deal.

Borders change, life goes on, if the parties will allow it. Now may be the time.

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Don’t Poke the Bear

It’s simple and practical advice. Ukraine and NATO did not follow it.

The Bear is mauling its neighbor. That’s wrong. However it may not have occurred if Ukraine had sought a less confrontational relationship with Russia, and charted a course to a non-aligned non-NATO future.

A negotiated end to hostilities may be possible. It would require an end to Ukraine’s intent to join NATO and other concessions.

For NATO, it’s all very well to say it’s up to Ukraine to decide if it wants NATO membership. However it is also up to NATO to decide if it’s prudent to encourage or accept Ukraine. It would be better to publicly send the signal that all know to be true: Ukraine will not be a NATO member in our lifetimes.

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Ukraine Realpolitik

Be realistic. Putin can, and will, achieve his primary objectives: permanent possession of Crimea, and confidence that Ukraine will not fall Westward. The only questions are how that will occur, at what cost, to whom.

German navy chief Schoenbach admitted publicly the unspeakable truth, “the Crimea peninsula is gone, it will never come back, this is a fact,”. He resigned over the remarks, but if it’s a sin to acknowledge that publicly, it’s essential that policy makers understand it privately, and plan accordingly.

What Putin seeks is not a threat to the US or NATO. Biden and NATO should negotiate a path to that outcome. It is inevitable. The only political question is how to get there. Fortunately, a mutual climb-down best serves everyone’s interests. Better sooner than later.

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Profile in Courage

I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Richard V. spencer
Secretary of the navy
Resignation Letter November 24, 2019

Well said, and well done.

The problem with these acts of courage is the same one Germany faced in its time of crisis. As leaders of conscience and allegiance to the Constitution stand up to authoritarian abuse of power, they purge themselves, leaving in place those who do not stand up to authoritarian abuse of power.

That is a moral dilemma no one has solved.

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Trump is a Russian Stooge

Trump is giving Turkey a pass on acquiring the S-400 for the most corrupt of reasons – to help Russia break NATO and defeat America’s stealth technology. That is the effect, and that is the intent. It’s not the first time he has publicly damaged US security for the benefit of Russia. We can only guess at what he’s done in private.

How confusing and dispiriting it must be for our Defense Department to struggle with a commander-in-chief who brazenly and publicly acts as the agent of one of our most dangerous adversaries.

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Who Gains?

Always ask, ‘who gains’? There are no major leaders in Iran who see a shooting war with the U.S. as in their interests. The same cannot be said inside the White House.

In looking for a culprit, the evidence must be viewed as possibly diversionary, not decisive. In looking for a culprit behind the culprit, one must look to motive and opportunity.

The Bolton faction is unlikely to spark the war they seek without a forcing event. They have every reason to want a provocation. No orders need be sent to proxies. A hint will do. An alignment of interests will do. Those who could spark conflict, and draw the U.S. in for their own small reasons, know exactly what to do.

When the next provocation comes, ask not where the finger points. Instead, ask, ‘who gains by pointing the finger’?

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The Fire is Still Burning

After a year of Trump, there’s a dangerous tendency to believe it wasn’t that bad.

Not so fast! There should be little comfort in disasters delayed, but not averted. The shoes have not dropped, but the threats to our democracy remain:

• Trump has not attacked North Korea – not yet.
• Trump has not fired the second round of investigators who would expose his crimes – not yet.
• Trump has not pardoned those who would rat him out to save themselves jail time – not yet.
• Trump has not fired Secretary Tillerson, one of the few adults in the room – not yet.
• Trump has not defied court orders – not yet.
• Trump has not forced those loyal to him in government to illegally harass, audit, or impede newspapers, TV channels, or reporters as Nixon did – not yet.
• Trump has not, post-election, incited crowds to violence against fellow citizens – not yet.
• Trump has not tried to raise insurrection against the FBI, the judiciary, or other parts of government potentially thwarting his criminality – not yet.

We all know that he is capable of these transgressions and more. He remains the same narcissistic, egomaniacal, ignorant, juvenile, volatile, vengeful, dictatorial demagogue he always has been.

Watching and waiting is not enough. Trump must be confronted and constrained before he mis-steps. On this, patriotic Republicans, Democrats, liberals, moderates and conservatives must see their mutual interest and should act in unison.

 

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Containing the Commander in Chief

Since the Cold War, Presidents have had the ability to use the nation’s nuclear weapons without prior authorization by Congress.  Current law allows Presidents to shoot first and asks questions later.  This must change.  The time has come to rein in the President’s authority within traditional Constitutional limits by updating the War Powers Resolution.

Current doctrine rests on three assumptions – that unbounded Presidential authority to use the military is necessary for defense (the Necessity assumption), that the Constitution gives Presidents that authority (the Commander in Chief assumption), and that elections will reliably choose Presidents with the judgment, character and wisdom appropriate to such power (the Character assumption).  All three assumptions are false.

Necessity: Rapid military response by a President acting alone would be required in only the most extreme and unlikely scenarios.  The President’s authority to act alone can and should be limited to those situations.  Congress should update the War Powers Resolution to limit Presidential authority to take military action to emergencies in which Congress cannot be consulted, and to require that other senior officials outside of the President’s chain of command concur with the President’s judgement.  An exception should be made in only the most exigent circumstances.

Commander in Chief: Presidential authority to command the military is not absolute.  Military commanders, including the Commander in Chief, are always limited to the lawful use of forces under their command.  As the Constitution puts it, the President’s authority as Commander in Chief applies only “when called into the actual Service of the United States”.  Congress has the sole authority to make war and define the lawful parameters under which the Commander operates.

It has always been so throughout history.   It is the Sovereign power of a country which delegates military authority to Commanders, such as the President; Commanders have no self-authorizing power to make war.  For the United States, the sovereign power to make war is vested solely in Congress.

Character:  Presidential elections sometimes fail to bring us leaders who are widely trusted, both Democrats and Republicans.  At times this has been more obvious, troubling and dangerous.  However well chosen a President may be, it is unwise to delegate too much power to any one person.  We are flawed creatures, and our Constitution was designed to provide a measure of protection from human frailties.

Irresponsible Presidents are a rarity, but we cannot rely on that alone.  We need an updated War Powers Resolution to provide rapid defense in emergencies, but to deny any President the means to start unauthorized war.  Any broader authority subverts the Constitution, and places us all at untenable risk.

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The Urgent Common Enemy of Right and Left

The on-going clash between left and right is putting at risk the stability of Constitutional democracy, the rule of law, peace, and prosperity.  Conservatives and Liberals must stop shouting at each other long enough to notice and protect more important shared values, and to halt the destruction of institutions in motion now that threatens to destroy us all.

Left and right speak to some common goals including shared prosperity, and respect for democracy and the rule of law.  Where left and right part is the means.  Left sees state intervention on behalf of those who struggle as the means to shared prosperity, whereas right sees less fettered market forces as the means to shared prosperity.

Neocons and demagogues push the right a fatal step further – they see the destruction of the state as legitimate means to an end.  Economic self-interest has been perverted into hostility to the state, hostility to foreigners, and hostility to stabilizing international norms and institutions.  For some conservatives, it has been a convenient rhetorical tool to sell limited taxation and regulation at the ballot box.  However most conservatives never sought to destroy the institutions of democracy.

Now, reap the whirlwind.  The destruction of the state and the rise of demagogues is a danger to all, right and left.

[H]istory tells us where this leads – demonizing foreigners, domestic political opponents, and the judiciary, domestic strife, calls to violence, and the inevitable final refuge of struggling dictators – war

That brings us to Thomas Picketty, whose simple and unassailable observation about income and wealth reveals a dangerous failure to deliver on the promise.  Left and right can debate why until the cows come home.  What’s undeniable is that the status quo isn’t working well enough for too many of us.  That is an unstable situation, and it is a fundamental threat to peace, prosperity and democracy.

The #1 most pressing problem is that left and right are dissipating all their energies debating the means to prosperity, and are missing out on the far more important shared concern.  Demagogues and authoritarians seek to destroy the state as a path to free markets and personal power.  They will take us all down with them if we do not act.  The green elephant in the room (above) threatens to destroy us all.

The hope is in a faith that unites many: Constitutional democracy, rule of law, state institutions, the international security architecture, and a kind of global integration good for all.  This is where we must turn our attention.

This is a call for good people on the right and left to put aside the questions that divide, for a time, and turn to the far more urgent problem – how do we preserve Constitutional democracy, the international security architecture, peace, and human decency against the rising tide of nationalism, foolish demagoguery, authoritarianism, and ill-informed or malevolent leadership?

If we don’t act, history tells us where this leads – demonizing foreigners, domestic political opponents, and the judiciary, domestic strife, calls to violence, and the inevitable final refuge of struggling dictators – war.

Don’t wait until it’s too late.

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American First, but How?

How will Trump act out his slogan, “America First”?

There are two broad possibilities, one transactional, the other strategic.  The transactional stream views each choice as a zero-sum game.  When one country gains an advantage, another loses.  The strategic stream seeks opportunities for mutual gain, sees peace and prosperity beyond our borders as good for America too, and considers whether both short and longer term consequences will be good for us.

Here are some examples:

TRADE

Transactional

• We win if we maximize our exports and minimize our imports
• We win if we exclude goods that can be made domestically

Strategic

• We win if we maximize trade volume balanced equally
• We win if we achieve full employment domestically, even if we import at high volume
• We win if we and other countries have stronger economies, rising wages and improving working conditions

NATO

Transactional

• We win if we have a strong military
• Allies must take care of themselves, and be no burden to us
• If our allies need help, we will be there if we see it as in our interests to do so at the time.

Strategic

• We win if we and our allies all have a strong military
• When our allies are strong, it’s good for us.
• If our allies need help, they can rely on us 100%.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Transactional

• We can weather the storm at home, if it comes
• Drill, baby, drill

Strategic

• Instability beyond our borders is a threat to us
• We can prosper by developing and selling the energy solutions of tomorrow

ISRAEL

Transactional

• Israel right or wrong

Strategic

• General peace and prosperity for all is good for us and good for Israel

So the questions is not, America First or World First.  The question is, which vision of America First really does put America first?

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Pax Americana is a Good Deal

Donald Trump wants to end Pax Americana because it costs too much. Countries protected by American military dominance must pay, according to Trump, because we can’t afford our present posture.

Contrary to Trump, we can’t afford to abandon defending others. The cost of our own defense would rise, and we would endanger ourselves, if we walk away.

There’s a quid pro quo in place. Everyone benefits. Especially America. If we stop providing global stability, others would need to see to their own defense, and the fundamental post-war deal would unravel. We would trigger a dangerous return to a multi-polar, unstable world. That kind of isolationism is dangerous and misguided.

By providing a security umbrella we save others money, that much is so. But we also save ourselves, and we increase our own security. Countries under our umbrella pose no threat to us, and they pose no threat to others. Thus our potential rivals face a simplified defense posture, and so do we. They need only concern themselves with a unified western world, and we need only concern ourselves with a few rivals.

Could we ask for more from our putative friends? Yes. Specifically, we must demand that the Saudis and others abandon tolerating and promoting religious fanaticism. Their cash and their troops are secondary. Trump should know this if he aspires to be President.

If Trump has his way, and we return to a multi-polar world, all military budgets would be larger, especially ours. Each country would necessarily go after its own parochial agenda, with our ability to moderate allies’ behavior greatly diminished. The risks of local tensions escalating out of control would be much greater.

Pax Americana remains a safer and cheaper situation for all. We must not abandon it, even if Mr Trump wins the election. He claims he listens to the best people. Let’s hope he does, before he triggers a of round regional conflict and global re-militarization.

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Update: An editorial in USA Today concludes, “this prospective commander in chief’s views are not just irresponsible: they are cataclysmically dangerous.”

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The Russia Game

 “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”  

Winston Churchill

Just how Putin interprets that national interest is coming into focus, and it is a dangerous vision. Look beyond the claimed intentions, and discern the pattern emerging from the actual actions:

• Intention 1: Re-establish for Russia the sense of might, malice, and unpredictability with which the Soviet Union was formerly viewed. The subtext is clear – fear us, respect us, for you don’t know what we will do.

• Intention 2: Provoke, confront and test the limits of Western acquiescence to bold decisive military aggression – for example, to taking America’s proxies off the battlefield in Syria, to shooting down civilian aircraft (KAL 007 take 2), to taking Crimea, to taking part or perhaps all of Ukraine. Look for more to come – right up to, and perhaps over, the brink of live fire between Russian and American forces.

• Intention 3: Secure Syria for Russia, with Assad as the means.

Of these, the third is the least of our concerns. The first two pose a serious threat. There is no appetite in the Oval Office for confronting Russia in the skies over Syria. Yet direct confrontation is where this all leads.

Washington will soon be forced to make a choice between a potentially apocalyptic confrontation, and abandoning the field. If there are no sleepless nights in the White House, there should be.

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A Deft Shift in Syria?

It’s time to switch sides, to utilize Assad and his government as a means to defeat the Islamic State, and to cooperate with Russia to do it.  How do you do that without being seen to renounce the prior policy?

John Kerry formulated it this way – Assad’s removal “doesn’t have to be on day one or month one or whatever”.  “[W]e’re not being doctrinaire about the specific date or time,” Kerry said.

This is rhetorical prelude to what’s become increasingly obvious – defeating ISIS without Assad may be impractical or impossible.  Moreover, it may be undesirable to destroy Assad’s government, even if it were possible.

We’ve learned the hard way the chaos that resulted from destroying the Iraqi army, the Iraqi government, and the general de-Bathification.  In hindsight, that’s how we won the war and lost the peace.  We should not repeat that mistake in Syria.  We dare not destroy the institutions of government that hold a country together and make social order possible.

We should switch sides, work with the Russians, accept that we many need to retain Assad, for now, and ultimately seek to re-make the Assad government at a later stage.  Kerry’s new formulation may be the first step along that road.

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No More War

No more war. Don’t they get it in the White House?

Syria’s troubles are important, and we should do what we can to be useful and helpful. Cruise missiles, however, have no utility in this situation. We can only make things worse by injecting more violence into a situation we cannot control.

How can we be useful? Perhaps our options for genuine help are limited. I would propose this framework – work a deal with Russia to define an end-game that protects Russia’s interests as much as ours. They have a lot to lose if the war drags on, too. And so far they have blocked serious external pressure for an obvious reason – western plans to stop Assad are not in their interests. We need to solve that problem. Our bombs cannot do that.

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Syria? Seriously?

It’s no surprise that those who advocated perpetual war, a war on “terror”, whoever that is, with no definable victory or end, war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and so many others, are now making the case for Syria.

Cheney-conservatives (a shrinking minority of conservatives) see America’s authority in the world as primarily rooted in our ability to maintain fear of our military power and will. The thinking goes that failure to act leads to a decline in our influence. But that is a bad and dangerous mis-reading of history.

American power is based, at its core, on moral and economic progress, on the attractiveness of the American experiment, and not at all on our kinetic capability. If power alone carried the day, we could all be speaking German or Russian. But military power is only useful to America to the extent that it is seen (by the intended foreign audience) as right – engaged only as a last resort, minimally, for legitimate self defense.  Use of military power as a preventative is self-defeating and undermines the true source of our power and influence.

So where does that leave us in Syria? I’ll make common cause with the isolationist-conservatives, the Tea Party, and the anti-war liberals. There are no good options, but many very bad ones. Great caution.

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Commanders in the Field

When pressed over war spending, withdrawals from our most costly overseas engagements, and the devastating public debt incurred to pay for it all, the Republican mantra over matters military is to “listen to commanders in the field”.  That is the equivalent of letting the tail wag the dog.  They don’t really believe it, either.

Where, when and how to engage our military is a strategic decision, not a military one.  It should be informed by military options available, costs and risks, but those are secondary to the big questions – should we be there, and why?

“Listen to commanders in the field” is a smoke screen, a coded transmission.  It means ‘expand the war effort, stay the course, send more troops’.  Decode the transmission, and ask yourself, is that good for America?

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American Exceptionalism is No Exception

Empires fail when the elites start believing their own press releases.  American Exceptionalism is no exception. 

Our relative wealth and comfort in the world rests on a foundation of having had something that others wanted.  In the prior century, the then-center of the developed world, Europe, badly needed what America could provide – the industrial and military capacity to fight and end Europe’s internal wars.  We were richly rewarded for that effort, with global economic, political and military dominance.

Now, our conservatives continue to peddle the same export – military might and power.  However the conditions have changed.  No one is a buyer anymore, and, quite the contrary, our muscle flexing around the world is seen as unnecessary and unwanted.

Why care what others think?  Well, because our wealth depends on it.

What we need is a new export.  And the good news is we have it – if we will redirect our national resources away from military adventures and towards our best exports, high technology, high value add manufacturing, medical technology, and cultural exports are just a few examples.

Failure to refocus our resources will be tragic.  We will find our ability to manufacture at home gutted beyond repair, and that our trade and finance deficit will ultimately undermine our ability to import the goods we need from China, the oil we need from everywhere, our capacity to send the military around the world, and our ability to float the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  We will all suffer if that occurs.

Export – or die.

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An Idea Just Crazy Enough to Work

If the intent of Israel’s periodic attacks against the Palestinians is to deter or prevent future attacks against Israel, the policy has not been particularly effective.

Israel should adopt a new publically declared, predictable, and proportionate use of force in response to Palestinian attacks.  Israel should calculate the quantity of ordinance used in new Palestinian attacks against Israel, and launch its own attacks using ordinance only up to a limit of 80% of the ordinance expended by the Palestinians.  An objective measure, such as kilograms of TNT-equivalent power, should be used.  The figures should be updated and publically announced by Israel following each attack by either side.

A policy of responding to attacks with counter-attacks that are potent, but objectively less severe, may be a more effective deterrent than alternating periods of cease-fire and excessive retaliation, and both sides may find a way to spiral down the cycle of violence.

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