For the next president: NATO and other security partnerships

An interesting article from earlier this year that appeared in The American Interest. If you're not a subscriber (which I am not), this will be the only piece you can read from the site this month.

I think there's a general failure to understand the need for security arrangements like NATO or the one the US has with Japan. This need has been demonstrated by history.

Russia's ability to wreak havoc and the need for intergovernmental cooperation in combating things like terrorism are compelling reasons for keeping NATO, for example.

The USA's decision to keep Japan demilitarized and under the American nuclear umbrella has, for decades, prevented a nuclear arms race between China and Japan, also, proponents would say, something that would be contrary to US interests.

What, some will wonder, about George Washington's warning, given in his farewell address, against "entangling alliances."

Washington's words have often been used by people like the "America Firsters" who, after the rise of Hitler, effectively prevented the US from working with other western democracies to, at first, thwart and then, to defeat, the Nazis. Millions of lives were lost as a result of the drag they inflicted on American policies.

Washington was, in fact, the father not only of his country, but also of US foreign policy realism. His warning against "entangling alliances" was rooted in his historical context and was advanced in service to the guiding light of his approach to foreign affairs: to always do what was in the best interests of the country.

At that time, that meant keeping the fledgling United States from becoming a partisan in the conflict between the western world's superpowers of the time, England and France. To be associated closely with either one, to be allied with one country or the other, would put the development of the then-delicate United States at risk. Washington wanted to give the US breathing room to develop its political and economic life, to be able to engage in trade with both of the two major powers without picking sides. When you're the littlest and weakest kid on the block, it's best not to rile up the two neighborhood bullies.

Had Washington been around at the end of World War 2, when the US emerged as the preeminent power of the world, at that time hurtling into a Cold War with a third world economy that had atomic weapons (the Soviet Union), I'm sure that his counsel would still have been to do what was in the best interests of America. At that time, that would entail recognizing the country's changed status among nations and understanding the need to provide leadership to alliances that preserved the freedom and stability for the US. NATO was one of the post-war institutions that did that.

Many argue today that NATO has outlived its usefulness. As indicated above, some disagree with that. They also would say that mutual security arrangements are beneficial to US security and allows this country to act as the "senior partner" in security arrangements with other countries.

It seems to me that the Achilles heel of these arrangements, alluded to in the linked piece, is the failure of nations under the US security umbrella to pay their fair share in manpower, arms, and money. As the article also says, this has allowed western European partner nations to develop social insurance policies that the US doesn't feel it can afford, in part because of other outlays, including those for NATO.

History demonstrates that a United States turned in on itself is less secure than one engaged with the world.

How that might be expressed today is a political issue and I don't advance political opinions here, just historical observations.

But my observation is that addressing how to renew partnerships like NATO in light of cyber-terrorism, terrorism, and the aggression of nations like Russia and China is probably something that should occupy the time and thinking of the next president and the American people.

Varied opinions in Europe...

on President Obama's decision against a land-based missile defense shield there. Western Europe finds the decision "reasoned." Eastern Europe deems it "naive."

Mr. Obama Goes to Moscow, Where the Real Story is Beijing and Tehran

While the Vice President put his foot in his mouth (twice) and his seasoned political pro, Rahm Emanuel, did the same, President Obama was acomplishing quite a lot during his trip to Russia. The BBC reports:

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty.

The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.

Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past".

Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.

These are huge agreements, which also bring huge benefits to US interests.

More broadly speaking, they also may help to lay a foundation for Russia, the US, and India in forming an informal hedge against the Chinese regime in Beijing and Islamic Republic's government in Tehran, each of which appears intent not only on oppressing their own peoples, but also on extending their powers regionally and globally.

One lesson of history is that oppressive regimes with designs on regional or global hegemony need to be checked by other nations cooperatively. In recent weeks, both Tehran and Beijing governments have provided more evidence of their malevolent intentions and of their need to be checke. Better to thwart them now peacefully through temporary, realist alliances, than to face major conflicts with them later.

One might also hope that Russian accords signal an intention on the Obama Administration's part to curb Chinese investment in US bonds, already at an alarming level.

The trip to Russia, I believe, was less about Russia, than it was about China, and certainly about nailing al Qaeda in the mountainous areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's interesting that the Russians are cooperating and hard not to speculate on what sorts of concessions were exacted from the US side,

Obama appears intent to follow a foreign policy realist's approach, a departure both from recent Democratic orthodoxy and from the Wilsonian adventurism of his immediate predecessor, Republican President, George W. Bush.

Parallels Between Tehran 1979 and Tehran 2009?

I briefly address that here.

"Welcoming" the New Administration

Certainly instability born of the disconnect between the Afghan government and its people to which President Obama alluded in his news conference several days ago is at play in a suicide attack on the Ministry of Justice in Kabul.

But there's another factor as well. The Taliban and their allies obviously also are welcoming the new administration in Washington, testing the new president's mettle, and sending a message that they haven't given up fighting.

The attack comes just before Obama's representative, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is scheduled to arrive in Kabul.

Just before that, a secular Pakistani legislator was killed by a bomb in the same city that Holbrooke was visiting at that very moment.

Of course, the attacks aren't meant not only to send a message to the new administration, which appears prepared to undertake the war in Afghanistan and the war on Taliban and al-Qaeda enclaves in Pakistan with new urgency, more troops, and greater firepower. The attacks are also meant to be a warning to Pakistanis and Afghans against collaboration with the United States in the fight against radical Islamist terror groups.

This all would seem to underscore the need for the US to pursue a policy akin to that used in Iraq during the recent surge. It was accompanied by efforts to pacify enemies and would-be enemies, often through the payment of what can fairly be described as protection money to local war lords. The pacification program also included frequent foot patrols and interaction with local populations, fostering trust and quelling enmity.

During the recent presidential campaign, now Vice President Joe Biden famously predicted that early on, his boss would be tested by international troublemakers. Biden didn't need to be a seer to say that. It always happens to new presidents.

But in consideration of this test, Obama may be inclined to look up from days filled with multiple crises and tell the Taliban, "Take a number." Unfortunately, he won't have that luxury.

How Ike Saved Europe a Second Time at Thanksgiving, 1945

The war against Nazi aggression in Europe was over and the Allied commander, General Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower, was extremely ill, at home on leave. Doctors had ordered him to rest. But, in the face of an enormous humanitarian crisis that threatened millions in Europe with starvation, the leader of Europe's liberation Hitler's tyranny, testified about the need of relief from a war-weary United States. Read the story here.

The account, written by William Lambers, ends this way:

We didn't forget about Europe after World War II, and today we cannot forget the hunger that afflicts over 900 million people throughout the globe. Whether it's in Afghanistan, Sudan, Nepal or Iraq, it is vital that hunger and poverty are defeated if we hope to have peace.

Amen to that! Last night, we had a Thanksgiving Eve Worship at the parish I'm honored to serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. The offering was designated for the hunger relief efforts of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

In the midst of the anxieties we're feeling in this country over the recession and our renewed awareness of terrorism, I hope that we'll remember two things, as individuals and as a nation:

First, that in serving and caring for the needs of our neighbors--locally and globally, we're also serving and worshiping God. Jesus says that whenever we care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, or imprisoned, we really serve Him, God incarnate.

Second, as a nation, through the agency of our government and our personal contributions to organizations like Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and Lutheran World Relief, it's wise to remember that it's in our national security and economic interests to contribute to the prosperity and security of destitute national populations. US public and private help to Europe after World War 2, as advocated by Eisenhower, helped establish a peaceful, prosperous, and free Europe. A stable, prosperous world ensures peace for our country, not to mention open markets for US goods and services.

One scandal of contemporary America is that we spend so little on foreign aid, less than one percent of our federal budget outlays most years. We spend less on this than the Netherlands.

Some might think that in saying these things, I'm becoming political, something I steadfastly refuse to do even when commenting on political events. But I've always said that when Biblical mandates are clear, then the Church and clergy should speak out. It's right to help our neighbor. The Bible is clear that those with wealth, whether nations or individuals, have it as a gift from God and it's not to be used selfishly.

On this, as on so many things, Ike was right and wise.

[Also see here.]

Scowcroft, Obama, and Foreign Policy Realism

Brent Scowcroft, National Security advisor to George H.W. Bush, has always been an advocate of foreign policy realism as opposed to the younger Bush's impositionalism. Now, we learn, Scowcroft has not only mentored several of President-elect Obama's counselors, but has also been counseling the incoming president directly. See here.

For background, see my essay from three years ago, Foreign Policy Over Burritos and Tacos.

So, Where Exactly is Yemen?

We read or hear the names of a plethora of countries every day. But I have to confess that as closely as I try to follow world news and foreign affairs, I can't always identify the locations of some countries.

In this era of globalization and of the projection of US power and influence, it seems sort of important for we Americans to be more aware of the world around us. After all, people in Yemen, Bahrain, and other places can't avoid us or the influence of our culture.

Today, the Middle East Strategy at Harvard blog linked to several geography quiz sites. They can be a little discouraging, but educational and fun.

Geography-Maps-Games.com has all sorts of quizzes, testing both national and international geographic knowledge.

Rethinking Schools Online has a map of north Africa and the Middle East to which you have to drag the country names.

Have fun!

Clinton at State...Does It Make Sense?

For any incoming President, building a Cabinet team can be a bit like piecing together a puzzle.

Even if you don't begin with a nod to identity politics, pledging as Bill Clinton did during his transition to the presidency, to have a Cabinet that "looks like America," presidents want to have teams that bring not only competence, but also allow them to placate various groups and interests.

Yet, there's more at play in putting together a Cabinet than completing a checklist.

As a leader myself for much of the past three decades, whether in church, charitable, education, or community groups, I've also subscribed to the notion in whatever effort I lead, I would much rather have strong-willed people who differ with me on some things as part of my leadership group, rather than leaving them on the outside. People who feel that they're out of the loop or denied some of the facts, even when they are not, are motivated to positively influence their own constituencies when they're part of "the team" of decision-makers. This was also the philosophy of Abraham Lincoln, who put together what Doris Kearns Goodwin called his "team of rivals." Goodwin's book of that name has apparently had a huge impact on President-elect Obama. Like Lincoln, who brought in the New York senator who had been his chief opponent for their party's nomination for president to be his Secretary of State, Obama is evidently weighing the possibility of making Hillary Clinton his top diplomat, too.

Does it make sense?

Russia and Georgia Redux

Kenneth Anderson, professor at the Washington Law School of American University, knows a thing or two about Russia and Georgia.

He makes four key points in the wake of the Russian invasion of Georgia for current and potential US foreign policy makers:

First, I share unreservedly the belief that Russia is deliberately undertaking a dangerous, threatening, imperial expansion in the “near abroad” and that it must be opposed and rolled back...

Second, NATO is going to undergo a reshaping in two directions out of this crisis...[T]he idea of NATO evolving into some kind of post Cold War ‘legionnaires of the good guys’, into which Russia would eventually become attached in some friendly way, is dead...On the other hand, the idea of NATO as a genuine mutual protection club is back, at least as far as the Eastern Europeans are concerned; since the Western Europeans are much more interested in gas than protection, however, the forward path of NATO as a re-invigorated mutual protection association is cloudy...

Third, it is a grave error to conflate rolling back Russian expansionism with the idea that Georgia should have actual political, security, and military control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This is a difficult point, but it is essential...You can tell me about how Georgia is a democracy and allied with the US and NATO and those things wouldn’t happen any more. Maybe. But frankly I doubt it...[Georgia, he says, is guilty of ethnic violence in the effort to hold South Ossetia and Abkhazia and would need to engage in more such violence in order to keep the two provinces within Georgia.]...It cannot possibly be, in other words, in the foreign policy interest of the United States to commit itself to a policy of actual, in fact Georgian political and military and security control over zones that would be in the same general ball-park as suggesting that, in the name of territorial integrity, Serbia could run Kosovo...

Fourth,...US policy must also disentangle “democracy” from what Georgian democracy currently is - which is best characterized not as democracy, but instead as “participatory ethnic nationalism.”

As I suggested here, it will take a subtle hand to deal with Russia. According to Anderson, it will take the same subtlety in dealing with Georgia, encouraging democracy with a fair-minded regard for the rights of minorities there. (See also here.) (TY to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit for pointing to Anderson's post.)

"Biden's refreshing lack of ideology"...

according to Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell over at FP Passport. A sampling:

...Biden doesn't bat 100 percent. He went ahead and supported the Iraq war despite warning that President Bush was underestimating the risks (he now says he didn't realize Bush would be so incompetent and that he thought Saddam could be deposed by other means). He called the surge "a tragic mistake" in February 2007 while John McCain has backing it wholeheartedly.

But he has gotten lots of other issues right, in my view: He has been calling for years for more resources in Afghanistan, for a more coherent U.S. relationship with Russia, for engagement with Iran, for a broader U.S. strategy toward Pakistan, and so on.

How much influence will Biden have on Obama's foreign-policy views? We'll have to see. But I imagine it will be considerable. Biden doesn't seem like the kind of guy who will simply stick to the talking points he's handed.

Read the whole thing.

Why the Russian Attack on Georgia is Inexcusable..and Some Spinoff Thoughts from Me

[These are just my thoughts. Please don't think that because I'm a pastor, I think that they're imbued with the truth of God. I'm just me and I could be wrong.]

Columnist Trudy Rubin says that she's gotten a lot of flak for her support of the US government's condemnation of the Russian attack on neighboring Georgia. The objections have, she says, fallen into three main categories:

• Because of the US invasion of Iraq, the US has lost any moral authority in condemning Russia
• Because the Georgian president "miscalculated" by "invading" South Ossetia, a province of the Georgian nation
• Because the US allegedly put the Georgians up to the aforementioned "invasion"

Rubin opposes the Bush doctrine of preemption and acknowledges what she sees as errors in the US policy in Iraq. But, she asserts, "they don't excuse Russia's brutal behavior in Georgia or toward its other neighbors, behavior that began long before Bush took office. America's 'moral standing' is irrelevant in judging Russia's actions." She also says that President "Saakashvili may have acted rashly, and he may have flaws as a leader, but he's the elected president of a tiny nation next to a giant nuclear power." [emphasis mine]

She goes on to write:

Russia presents itself as a champion of Ossetian self-determination. That's absurd. Russia has brutally repressed separatist movements inside its territory, particularly in Chechnya, where Russian artillery and bombs have killed untold thousands of civilians.

This is an important point. A recent poll in the US says that a frightening percentage of Americans think that it's okay for a portion of our country to secede any time it wants. An even higher percentage of younger Americans believe secession is fine.

This sentiment overlooks a fundamental assertion of the Founders, one that was underscored by our own Civil War: Secession or independence can only be legitimate when rooted in moral imperatives.

The Declaration of Independence legitimized the US breakaway from Great Britain on the basis of "self-evident" moral principles. When the Confederate States broke away from the US, they claimed to do so on the basis of similar moral principles. They wanted freedom. But the freedom they wanted was the freedom to enslave others unencumbered by moral considerations.*

The two troublesome provinces in Georgia may want independence. But it appears that the desire has nothing to do with moral principles. That is one more factor which, for Americans conversant with their history anyway, should further delegitimize Russia's invasion of Georgia.

And Russia, which has, at best, limited concern for other peoples' "self-determination," is acting solely on the desire of Vladimir Putin to in some way reconstitute the Soviet Union. As Rubin writes:

Putin has been clear about wanting to restore the Kremlin's former empire, calling the Soviet breakup the "greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."
Given what has happened to Georgia, other former Soviet Republics now have good reason to worry. Putin has threatened to target Russia's nuclear weapons against Ukraine if that country continues efforts to join NATO (and a Russian general just warned that Poland could face attack over a missile-defense deal with Washington).
Russia has cut supplies of natural gas to Ukraine and waged cyberwar against Baltic states. Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko believes Moscow was behind an assassination attempt by poison that nearly killed him...
So it doesn't matter who "started" the crisis in Georgia. It has little to do with Ossetian rights and everything to do with Putin's drive to restore Russian power. Had Saakashvili not sent troops into Ossetia, Russia would have found another excuse to attack.

Rubin, I think, is right to say that the next US president will have to evolve a common policy with the Europeans for dealing with the Russian government's desire to keep its neighbors--and others--under its thumb.
Russia, as Rubin concedes, has every right to develop a sphere of influence via economic and diplomatic means. But Putin's Neo-Stalinism must be confronted by the world. (Please don't think I'm advocating a war with Russia. I'm not.)
There are several implications that arise from the events in Russia, the emailed reactions received by Rubin, and general US ignorance of our own history:
1. Given the enormous challenges represented by the repressive regimes in both Russia and China, the next president will have to make international cooperation a top priority. This doesn't mean ceding US sovereignty, but ensuring its continuation.
2. The US has dithered on this point for thirty years, but it is essential that we develop our own energy sources. There appears to be an increasing consensus, even in this contentious election year, that we must develop multiple energy sources and they must be of the domestic variety. The US can ill-afford to allow itself to be raked over an energy barrel. With the rise of the BRIC nations--Brazil, Russia, India, and China, there will be increased competition for world oil and gas resources. Two of those countries can, I think, be classified as hostile competitors. (Note: I did not describe them as enemies.) In the real world of the twenty-first century, the US must engage these powers, but understand that we cannot look into the eyes of their leaders and detect benign democrats. We must ensure energy self-sufficiency.
3. Reports of the demise of the state in deference to a globalized world in which organizations and corporations that cross national lines play the supreme role are greatly exaggerated. Richard Branson's Virgin brand may, for example, undertake space flight, taking on benign functions previously associated with governments. And the evil of terrorism may be directed by a wealthy person like Osama bin Laden. But governments, with their power (and responsibility) to tax, are the entities that have the greatest ability to help their people or project power in a way that endangers and enslaves their own nation and other peoples. US foreign policy must not forget that we still live in world in which governments wield great influence in human affairs.
4. Domestically, we must give higher priority to teaching history and other social studies. For Americans to so misread the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence as to accept that secession can be undertaken just when people feel like it, thereby legitimizing not just breakaways in distant Georgia, but maybe even within this country, is frightening. The ethnic and religious fragmentations in today's world are buttressed by such ignorance. "A knowledge of the past prepares us for the crisis of the present and the challenge of the future," John Kennedy once wrote. We will do more to ensure America's future with a true, honest, and appreciative understanding of our history and the principles that underlay our Revolution, Declaration of Independence, and Constitution than we will by enhancing science education, important though that is. Ignorant citizens are ill-prepared to make wise judgments when they go to the voting booth. An understanding of our own history will be a positive lens through which to view world events.
End of this far-flung lunchtime rant.

*Ann Althouse, a professor of Constitutional Law, recently wrote about this here.

Author Joyce Hakim also wrote about when secession is legitimate or illegitimate in her readable history of the United States. Writing of the sentiments of the rebel Confederate States in the present tense, Hakim notes:

...the Southerners...believe in "states' rights." They think any state should have the right to pull out of the Union, and that it is tyranny to keep them in against their wishes. They say they are doing the same thing George Washington and the other revolutionaries did against King George: fighting for their freedom. But it is a white freedom they are fighting for, and the North won't let them do it. Revolution is only right, says President Lincoln, "for morally justified cause." The South has no just cause. So, said Lincoln, secession is "simply a wicked exercise of political power."

Not all revolutions or secessionist movements should be wrapped in red, white, and blue bunting.

Imagine...

if the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced that she was awarding Germany's highest civilian honor posthumously to a Nazi death camp commander.

How would we react to that?

What would such an award say about Germany's intentions today or how it viewed its despotic past?

Questions like this rattled around in my mind the other day when I read this profile of George Koval in The New York Times. Koval was the Iowa-born son of Russian immigrants who gained high security clearance to the Manhattan Project in which America's atomic bombs were developed. He then passed the information he gained along to the late Soviet Union.

Koval, of whom I'd never previously heard, died recently. Russian president Vladimir Putin has honored Koval for helping to "speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own.”

Putin's apparent intention for honoring Koval was to give his Russian nation someone to celebrate. But he's honored a spy who betrayed the United States while in the US Army. His greatest achievement was stealing technological secrets that allowed the Soviets to develop atomic weaponry they would not have likely developed on their own intellectual firepower.

Putin could honor people like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author who courageously stood up to Soviet Communism and fought for democracy. Or someone like Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet-era physicist who also became a democracy advocate. Those and countless others like them could legitimately be recognized as Russian heroes.

But it says volumes about Putin, the former KGB-agent who apparently will let go of executive power only in name once his presidential term is completed, and about his nation, that they select as a hero a quisling whose thievery supported one of the most murderous empires in human history.

Democracy is a wonderful system of government. But it doesn't cure all ills. Unless a nation has what I call the metaphysical infrastructure to allow for the functioning of democracy, it won't behave differently from traditional, more despotic, forms of government.

Democracy, of a kind, has come to Russia. But Russia's national inferiority complex, evident since the days of Peter the Great, who slavishly imitated European ways, and the strong tendency of Russians to applaud authoritarianism mean that it's plausible for the country's president to honor someone like Koval.

In this age of radical Islamic terrorism and the rise of China, it would be good for Americans and American policymakers to remember that many Russians and Russian leaders still brood over the way the Cold War ended and still see something laudable and heroic in the Communist era.

If Angela Merkel honored an old Nazi, we would be appalled. We should be no less horrified by Vladimir Putin's recognition of George Koval.

[From The New York Times, above, left to right: George Koval, Vladimir Putin.]