Category: Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

Dominus Flevit

Bob Claude |
Source: Author

Coming within sight of the city, He wept over it and said “If only you had known the path to peace this day, but you have completely lost it from view”.

Luke 19:41-42

This iconic photo of modern-day Jerusalem was taken during my pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the spot where Christians believe Jesus Christ wept over the city’s coming destruction by the Romans.  The golden dome is the Dome of the Rock, where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to heaven. What is less obvious is that it is built on the Temple Mount, which is where the Jewish temple used to stand before the city’s destruction. Behind the Dome of the Rock is the Church of  the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Christians believe Christ died and rose from the dead. The wall immediately in front of the Golden Dome was built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent on top of the remnants of the walls of the former Byzantine, Roman and Jewish rulers of the city.

The photo illustrates the sad history and current reality of Israel, Palestine and the entire Middle East. Whether it was the Persians, the Romans, the Turks or others in between, the region has been the crossroads of the world and the battleground of political and religious empires for millennia. Each outsider won a temporary victory only to be displaced by later, more powerful newcomers.  Like the layers of Jerusalem’s wall, the rivalries and resentments from these conquests run deep and are part of the everyday life of the people.

Recent history shows that progress in untying this Gordian knot of conflict only occurs when one of the leaders in the area courageously and publicly acts. The Camp David Accords hosted by President Jimmy Carter that produced the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty were possible only after President Anwar Sadat’s courageous trip to Tel Aviv to meet Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.  This peace has now held for over four decades. In contrast, The Oslo Accords of 1993 that created the Palestinian Authority were initially negotiated in secret between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization rather than through a similar public initiative. While the agreement resulted in the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the corresponding lack of commitment on both sides has been reflected in Israel’s settlement policy and the continuing attacks on Israel by Hamas and others terrorist groups.

When weighed along with the disastrous effects of our military interventions in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, the lessons become clear.  The US cannot bring a peace to the Middle East unless the parties are first willing to take the risks of peace themselves   Worse, direct military intervention simply adds a new layer on to the ancient piles of resentment and conflict. This land deserves our prayers for peace, but realism and a certain amount of humility must necessarily temper America’s involvement in the region.

Foreign Policy

Ukraine – The War within American Foreign Policy

Bob Claude |
Source: Adobe Stock

Joe Biden arrived in Washington promising a plethora of conflicting foreign policy goals. Much was made of a new “foreign policy for the middle class”, which appeared to be a rejection of the old liberal hegemonic model of his predecessors Bush and Obama. Yet Biden also claimed “America is back” to being an international leader throughout the world.  Climate change also was supposedly a driver, as well as the old Obama Administration “pivot toward Asia”.   These priorities have now been eclipsed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Administration’s stated goal of weakening Russia. If Ukraine and Europe remain the top priority, this new priority will prevent any real progress on any other foreign policy goals.

The administration’s focus on defeating Russia in Ukraine conflicts with the rest of the world’s more pressing priority of ending the war as soon as possible.  For developing nations, the war is causing a hunger crisis that threatens their people’s lives and national stability. Russia and Ukraine supply 28% of the world’s wheat exports, 29% of barley and 15% of maize.  They are also leading exporters of potash and fertilizer, which allows other nations to grow their own food. Ukraine itself provides the calories necessary to feed 400 million people (see the recent leader in The Economist magazine “The Coming Food Catastrophe”). In response, India and other nations are embargoing the export of domestically grown wheat and other foodstuffs in a move reminiscent of protectionist measures taken during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, the call to uphold the international rule of order rings hollow with nations that experienced invasion and conquest by western nations in the past.  Whether it is China, India or other countries, they remember their colonial past and do not believe that they should sacrifice trade and other relations with Russia for a far-away conflict.  As I mentioned in this previous post, their past has made them the ultimate realists dedicated to preserving and building their own sovereignty against more direct threats. 

President Biden’s Russia-Ukraine myopia also weakens the effort to respond to more direct challenges. Japan, India, Indonesia and Southeast Asia nations are more concerned about the threat from China than Russia. They are undoubtedly wondering if the vaunted pivot to Asia has now turned 180 degrees towards Europe.  Latin America also needs our attention and is equally unconcerned about Ukraine. Indeed, Russia has threatened another Cuban missile crisis by proposing to station military assets with fellow anti-American authoritarian regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.  A policy centered on Ukraine may thus result in a direct strategic threat to the American homeland.

Washington’s obsession about Ukraine thus endangers its ability to achieve other critical foreign policy objectives. It makes it more difficult to recruit developing countries to fight climate change and protect America from real national security threats. Something will have to give. At this point, the climate change agenda is most at risk.  The only other way to accomplish all of these objectives is to paper them over with billions of American budgetary dollars.  Russia’s invasion highlights the need for increased domestic commitment on the American home front, but a spending spree of that scale currently lacks any real American public support and could endanger our own economic goals. If the Administration wants to take that road, it must prepare the American people to make significant sacrifices in taxes, spending and domestic policy.  The choices this may entail will be the subject of the next article in this series.  

Foreign Policy

Ukraine – The Future of European Security

Bob Claude |
Source: Adobe Stock

No sensible man will advocate our plunging rashly into a course of international knight errantry;…But neither will any brave and patriotic man bid us shrink from doing our duty merely because this duty involves the certainty of strenuous effort and the possibility of danger.

Theodore Roosevelt, America Part of the World’s Work, February, 1899

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a pivotal moment in modern European history.  The feared Russian military juggernaut that spawned one of the most successful military alliances in history has now been proven to be a shadow of the threat it was supposed to be. Moreover, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s recent comments about using the war to further weaken Russia means it will continue to bleed arms and men in a long war of attrition, absent escalation of the war by the use of WMD. The shock of the invasion has also prompted Western Europeans to finally start to step up in the defense of their continent (see this video about the impact on Germany). The US should harness their new-found resolve to end its unconditional commitment to the defense of Europe and to transition NATO to a European-only alliance.   

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began as a stopgap measure to protect a socially and economically prostrate post-WWII Europe from the very real threat of a Stalinist Soviet Union.  Today, Western Europe has an economy that is 10 times the size of Russia’s and a larger military (for more background, see the analysis by Prof. Stephen Walt in this article).  Britain and France are also nuclear powers and are capable of expanding their strategic capability to adequately deter a Russian nuclear threat. The likely addition of Sweden and Finland to the alliance will add Swedish armaments and Finland’s experience to the alliance.  It also extends the NATO ‘s borders with Russia and forces it to dilute its force strength along that border.

In contrast, Russia’s failures in Ukraine shows its military currently lacks the capability of mounting a complex operation on a broad front.  It will take years for the Russians to learn the lessons of these failures and it is not clear that their sclerotic political system can do so.  Thus, the only likely real threat to Western Europe in the next five years would occur on a much narrower front such as the Baltic states, which could be defended by the current European membership plus the new Scandinavian members.

In fact, Europeans already have such an alliance in the European Union.  The Treaty of Maastricht creating the EU has a counterpart to the Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which requires members to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all. Specifically, Article 42.7 of the Maastricht Treaty says

If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations charter”.

https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_article_427_an_explainer5019/

Thus, the real purpose of NATO is to commit American troops and potentially our own homeland to the risk of defending Europeans.

This commitment dilutes our ability to respond to more direct and immediate threats. First, we have serious domestic social and economic needs that demand our time and attention here at home. Moreover, as both a Pacific and an Atlantic power, the United States has crucial geopolitical interests in Asia as well as in Europe.  No institutional equivalent of NATO exists in Asia to counter the challenge of China and North Korea. Those security threats will have to be managed with an active diplomacy involving the Pacific Rim nations and India.  Finally, we must address threats in our own hemisphere where China is seeking influence and immigration from failed states in Latin America is threatening American opportunity here at home. 

It will take at least five years for Europe to build its defense capability to the point where it can defeat a Russian attack even on a narrow front.  The U.S. should increase the number of troops in Europe to prevent Russian intimidation during that transition.  At the same time, we should announce our intention to end our Article 5 defense commitment as part of a restructuring of NATO.   After the five-year transition, American troops should be withdrawn from Europe and reassigned to other potential threats.

While Theodore Roosevelt called America to fulfill its duties at home and abroad, his caution against engaging in “knight-errantry” calls us to stay focused on the proper priorities and live within our national means. The US formed NATO to meet a critical post – war duty, but it is now fulfilled and it is time to should move on to address new duties and challenges.