Jan. 14, 2020
The last Blog was on the 23rd of Dec. last
year. I have been lazy to get at this blog, but also have been deluged by so
many Christmas and new year good wishes
that I gave up
Trying to answer them all and hope that this blog will
fill you in as to how I am doing etc.
It is now the 16th and I am getting lazier and
lazier. It is very very hot here (32C
90F) and it is enervating (sucking all the energy out of me)
I found this
article and it seems to make sense to me. I am worried that most Americans are
not following the foreign affairs of the States, except of course the matter of
Iran (You should read the history of the relationship of the US with Iran over
the years. (I only remember the Shah of Iran who was a bloody dictator, cruel,
and supported by the US). I am worried because it is going to affect the
everyday lives of all US citizens probably in negative ways if we continue as
we are. I witness the influence of China here in SA as well as in Zambia when I
visited there last year. We are missing the boat, and the Chinese are filling
in the gaps that we have opened up between ourselves and the other countries,
that used to be our allies, without being forced by circumstances. So, here it
is and it means that we have to do a lot of praying and deciding who is going
to lead us in the next elections. It is crucial, I think.
Why Is the United States So Bad at Foreign Policy?
It’s not just Trump. Washington hasn’t had a coherent
strategy for decades.
| JANUARY
13, 2020, 8:59 AM
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger in the Oval Office of the White House on May 10, 2017. MOLLY RILEY-POOL/GETTY IMAGES
In my last column, I described the
“brain-dead” qualities of the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle
East and especially Iran. In particular, I stressed that the administration had
no real strategy—if by that term one means a set of clear objectives, combined
with a coherent plan of action to achieve them that takes the anticipated
reactions of others into account.
What we have instead is brute force
coercion, divorced from clear objectives and implemented by an ignorant
president with poor impulse control. After nearly three years in office,
President Donald Trump has managed to increase the risk of war, push Iran to
gradually restart its nuclear program, provoke Iraq into asking the United
States to prepare to leave, raise serious doubts about U.S. judgment and
reliability, alarm allies in Europe, and make Russia and China look like fonts
of wisdom and order. The Trump administration has made it clear that it thinks
assassinating foreign officials is a legitimate tool of foreign policy and
that war criminals should be lionized, a move that nasty governments are likely to
welcome and imitate.
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fires make it hard for media to stick to old narratives.
Unfortunately, this strategic myopia
goes well beyond the Middle East.
Take, for example, the far more
important issue of China. To its credit, the Trump administration recognizes
that China is the only possible peer competitor that the United States is
likely to face for many decades. This realization is no great feat of genius,
however. Reasonable people can disagree about the magnitude of the China
challenge, but only a blind person could miss the worrisome implications of
China’s rise.
If you thought strategically, you’d
start looking for ways to limit Chinese influence at the least cost and risk to
the United States itself. You’d understand that the United States cannot halt
or reverse Chinese economic growth (and certainly not without hurting itself),
but you’d work hard to keep as many countries as possible on its side on the
issues that matter, including advanced technology. In fact, you’d get serious
about trying to prevent China from achieving a dominant position in potentially
game-changing technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
You’d be focused laserlike on maintaining a solid diplomatic position in Asia,
and over time, you’d be looking for ways to drive a wedge between China and
Russia, too. And you’d try hard not to get distracted by secondary issues and
waste time, attention, political capital, or resources on them.
What has the United States done
instead?
For starters, Trump abandoned the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a slap in the face to the 11 Asia-Pacific countries
that had worked hard to reach an agreement that would have provided some modest
economic benefits and kept them more closely linked to the U.S. economy. Then
Trump launched his own trade war with China. But instead of lining up other key
economic powers, he threatened or waged trade wars with most of them, too.
Instead of presenting China with a united front, the United States has been
facing China more or less alone, with substantially reduced leverage. The
predictable result: a face-saving trade compromise that rolls back the clock
and no progress on the real bones of contention with Beijing.
Next, Trump began his reality show
approach to North Korea: at first threatening “fire and fury” and then getting
bamboozled by Kim Jong Un’s empty promises at their initial meeting. The
result: no breakthrough in U.S. relations with North Korea, no halt to its
nuclear program, and, across Asia, diminished confidence in U.S. judgment.
Meanwhile, Trump has spent most of the
past three years gratuitously insulting key U.S. allies in Europe and
threatening to pull the country out of NATO. Surprise, surprise: When U.S.
officials then tried to convince America’s allies not to buy Chinese
technology—and especially Huawei 5G digital equipment—they got the brushoff
from governments that were now in no mood to do Trump any favors. Chinese
diplomats seeking to preserve Huawei’s position have been quick to take
advantage of Trump’s repeated blunders, telling European officials that they
are more committed to multilateralism and technological openness than the
United States is and highlighting their support for the Paris climate agreement
(another deal that Trump foolishly abandoned). According to Julianne Smith of
the German Marshall Fund of the United States: “The Chinese have started
brazenly claiming that it is China, not the United States, that shares more
values with Europe. [They] also frequently remind European audiences that
unlike the United States, China believes in climate change and multilateralism,
a message that is especially powerful in a place like Germany.”
Now consider this: At a moment when the
U.S. State Department is in free fall, China is upping its game. China now has
more embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic posts than the United States
does and in an era where the future alignment of a number of important
countries could be up for grabs. According to former U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State William Burns:
“We’ve entered an era in which diplomacy matters more than ever, on an
intensely competitive international landscape. … China realizes that and is
rapidly expanding its diplomatic capacity. The U.S., by contrast, seems intent
on unilateral diplomatic disarmament.” As I’ve noted before,
any hope of balancing China in Asia requires the United States to preserve
solid ties to an unwieldy coalition of Asian states, and that will require
knowledgeable, sophisticated, patient, and dedicated diplomacy as least as much
as credible military forces.
Lastly, instead of conducting a
measured and gradual disengagement from the Middle East, and returning to the
balance-of-power approach that the United States employed successfully from
World War II to the end of the Cold War, Trump has allowed local client states,
wealthy donors, and hawkish advisors to drag him back into a pointless
confrontation with Iran. One can only imagine the knowing smiles of
foreign-policy mavens in Beijing as they watch the United States stumble toward
yet another quagmire of its own making.
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In short, despite recognizing that the
China challenge was the most important item on America’s foreign-policy
agenda—with the possible exception of climate change itself—Trump and company
have pursued a series of policies that almost seem tailor-made to give China as
many advantages as possible.
But that’s not the bad news. Though the
Trump administration may have taken the “no strategy” approach to a new level,
this problem has been apparent for some time. Bill Clinton thought the United
States could expand NATO eastward, contain Iraq and Iran simultaneously, bring
China into the World Trade Organization prematurely, and promote hyperglobalization with abandon yet never
face serious negative consequences. George W. Bush believed ending tyranny and
evil forever should be the central goal of U.S. foreign policy and thought the
U.S. military could quickly transform the Middle East into a sea of
pro-American democracies. Clinton was luckier than Bush, insofar as the
negative consequences of his actions did not emerge until after he had left
office, but neither president’s actions left the United States in a stronger
global position.
Barack Obama had a more realistic view
of U.S. power and placed more weight on diplomacy, but he did little to reduce
America’s military involvement overseas and fully backed the energetic use of
U.S. military power. Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan in 2009, supported
regime change in Libya and Syria, and expanded targeted killings of suspected
terrorists with drones or special operations forces. His administration failed
to anticipate Russia’s reaction to Western efforts to bring Ukraine closer to
the European Union and NATO, and he proved unable to unite the country behind
his approach to climate change or Iran. Nor should we forget that in his last
year in office, the U.S. military dropped more than 26,000 bombs in seven different countries.
What’s going on here? When did the
United States get so bad at strategy? Foreign policy is a challenging
enterprise where uncertainties are rife and mistakes are sometimes inevitable.
But an inability to think strategically isn’t hard-wired into American DNA. The
Truman administration faced enormous challenges in the aftermath of World War
II, but it came up with containment, the Marshall Plan, NATO, a set of
bilateral alliances in Asia, and a set of economic institutions that served the
United States and its allies well for decades. Similarly, the first Bush
administration (1989-1993) managed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
peaceful reunification of Germany, and the first Gulf War with considerable
subtlety, expertise, and restraint. Neither administration was perfect, but
their handling of complex and novel circumstances showed a sure grasp of what
was most important and the ability to elicit the responses they wanted from
both allies and adversaries. In other words, they were good at strategy.
Paradoxically, part of the problem
today is the remarkable position of primacy that the United States has enjoyed
ever since the Cold War ended. Because the United States is so powerful,
wealthy, and secure, it is mostly insulated from the consequences of its own
actions. When it makes mistakes, most of the costs are borne by others, and it
hasn’t faced a peer competitor that might be quick to take advantage of
mistakes. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars may ultimately cost more than $6
trillion and thousands of soldiers’ lives, but the lack of a draft limits
public concerns about casualties, and the United States is paying for all of
these wars by borrowing the money abroad, running up bigger deficits, and
sticking future generations with the bill.
This situation helps explain why few
Americans are interested in what is happening overseas or what the U.S.
government is doing about it. According to Diane Hessen,
who has been conducting in-depth interviews with a panel of 500 Americans since
2016, “most voters don’t care much [about foreign policy], and that’s a
problem.” Other recent surveys have asked Americans
to list their top priorities, and foreign policy doesn’t even make the top 10.
When most Americans can’t tell the difference between success and failure—at
least in terms of immediate, tangible consequences—then policymakers will be
under less pressure to come up with strategies that actually work and posturing
will take precedence over actual performance.
And then there’s hubris. Americans have
always seen themselves as a model for others, and victory in the Cold War
reinforced the belief that the United States had the magic formula for success
in the modern world. Moreover, they also believed that almost everyone else
around the world realized this and couldn’t wait to follow their lead, join a
U.S.-led world order, and gradually become just like them. Convinced the tides
of history were flowing their way, U.S. leaders believed they were pushing on
an open door. Who needs a coherent, sophisticated, and carefully designed
strategy when powerful global trends were already pushing the world in the
direction they wanted?
Moreover, as Paul Pillar explains in
his important book Why America Misunderstands the World, the United
States’ unusual historical experience, geographic isolation, large domestic
market, and general ignorance has weakened its ability to fashion viable
foreign-policy strategies. Devising an effective foreign-policy strategy
requires anticipating how others are likely to react, but government
officials—let alone the public at large—frequently know very little about the
countries whose actions they are trying to influence. In addition, the enduring
myth of the “melting pot”—which portrays immigrants to the United States as
readily embracing a new American identity and merging seamlessly into the
fabric of U.S. society—leads the country to discount the power of nationalism,
ethnicity, and other enduring sources of local identity, which in turn leads it
to underestimating the difficulty of state- or nation-building in diverse
societies. Certain of its own rectitude and noble intentions, the United States
is equally slow to recognize that other societies might have valid reasons to
question its motives or to see it as dangerous. Taken together, these blind
spots are a serious obstacle to the development of effective foreign-policy
strategy, especially toward parts of the world whose historical experiences and
cultural elements are dramatically different from its own.
Key features of the U.S. democratic
system also make it harder to devise and implement a coherent foreign and national
security policy, especially when there is no clear and present danger to focus
the mind and impose discipline on foreign-policy debates. When most of the
public is indifferent, the policy process is more easily captured by domestic
and foreign lobbies, especially in an era when money plays such a central role
in politics. Instead of a genuine marketplace of ideas where competing policy
prescriptions are carefully and honestly debated, foreign policy becomes an
arena dominated by the loudest and best-funded voices or the preferences of a
small set of wealthy donors. And as I’ve noted before,
the United States is probably more vulnerable to foreign influence than any
great power in modern history. If a bunch of these special interest groups get
at least some of what they want (e.g., a bigger defense budget, more attention
to human rights, rejection of climate change agreements, unconditional support
for certain client states, etc.), the ability to develop an overall strategy to
benefit the nation as a whole will erode. At best, the United States ends up
overcommitted; at worst, it ends up pursuing policies that are mutually
contradictory and therefore self-defeating.
Ideally, the institutions responsible
for devising and conducting foreign policy would also learn from experience
over time. But as I’ve explored at length elsewhere, there is little
accountability in today’s foreign-policy establishment. Bad ideas survive no
matter how often they are disproved, and people who get things wrong repeatedly
routinely fail upward, while those who get things right are often marginalized.
Consider that the individuals and/or groups that conceived, sold, and bungled
the Iraq War remain respected figures today, and some are considered eligible
for future service. Consider that the op-ed pages of the Wall Street
Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post actually
increased the number of regular columnists who supported that war yet still do
not feature anyone who correctly anticipated that it would be a disaster. If
those who devise bad strategies pay no price and those who propose better
alternatives go unrecognized, why should anyone expect the country to do
better?
One is tempted to see these various
failures as an inevitable consequence of America’s gradual transformation from
a republic into a global empire, a powerful country that cannot stop
interfering all over the world. The Founding Fathers warned that a republic
could not engage in more or less constant warfare without becoming corrupted,
and they were right. Five-star general and former President Dwight D.
Eisenhower understood it,
too. To wage war constantly requires powerful national security institutions,
ever greater government secrecy, and the gradual expansion of executive power.
Checks and balances erode, violations of domestic and international law are
winked at, the media becomes partly co-opted and complicit, dissidents are
silenced or marginalized, and presidents and their minions find it easier and
easier to lie to retain popularity or win support for the policies they favor.
Once public discourse is debased and unmoored from the real world, coming up
with strategies that will actually work in that world becomes nearly
impossible.
As I said in my previous column,
we have reached a point where foreign and national security policy in the
United States is more like performance art. The results of U.S. actions don’t
really matter—save to the soldiers, sailors, aircrews, and diplomats it tasks
with carrying them out. The only thing U.S. leaders care about is how it plays
on TV, on Twitter, or among an electorate more interested in being entertained than
enlightened or ably led. Because the United States is still so powerful and
secure, it can probably go on this way for quite some time. Probably. But it
can’t do so forever, and it will continue to miss opportunities to make itself
safer, more prosperous, and to build a society that lives up to its nobler
ideals.
Stephen M. Walt is
the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard
I celebrated Christmas Mass with the community at
Savannah Park, on Christmas eve. Then joined the Mass in the morning here at
Mater Dolorosa (MD—the old folks home where I live) since most of our African people
use this time to visit their families in the rural areas and celebrate with
them there during the Christmas break.
I made a retreat from the 27th of Dec. to the 1st of Jan, 2020.
Coolock House, next to the Indian Ocean. I didn’t go into the sea because it
was too far and up and down hills with my crutch. Sad.
We had a funeral of a young priest who died of
cancer , 44 yrs, old (Fr. Mncwabe). There must have been 100 priests who
attended ( one could wonder if there is
really a shortage of priests). Even his mom was there and could be consoled by
how many fellow priests showed their love and respect for her son., among the
many others who were also there.
Otherwise, now that the Christmas season is over,
we are going back to the ordinary things that make for every day life now.
I went back to Dr. Naidoo (the orthopaedic surgeon)
and had him order x-rays to see how the knee is doing. Beautiful pictures. But it
looks like I will be hobbling permanently, since the spasms continue to prevent
the physiotherapist from succeeding to get the leg back to its straight position.
So I pray for some divine intervention to get rid of these bloody spasms and
get back to normal. But,at the same time, I pray, may your will be done, and
realize when I see the afflictions some other people have to go through every
day, I am truly blessed and can’t complain.
I want to stop now as it is bed time. I have other
things to share but let me get this off now and catch you up on some other
things later. Good night. Ha. Cas
