Topic: Foreign Policy and National Security

“Fort Trump” and Mounting U.S. Tensions with Russia

By Ted Galen Carpenter

Washington’s relations with Russia have been deteriorating for years, but new U.S. actions could make matters considerably worse.  One major source of irritation for the Kremlin has been NATO’s military exercises in countries on Russia’s border.  Those war games have proliferated since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, when the United States and European Union countries helped demonstrators oust Ukraine’s elected, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and Russia responded by annexing Crimea.

Russian anger also has been directed at “rotational” U.S. military deployments in NATO’s easternmost members.  Those supposedly temporary assignments of American units have become nearly continuous.  Now there are indications that the Trump administration may dispense entirely with the diplomatic fiction that sequential rotational deployments do not constitute a permanent U.S. military presence.

During a state visit to Washington in mid-September, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, promised to provide $2 billion toward construction costs if the United States built a military base in his country.  In a transparent appeal to the U.S. president’s notorious vanity, Duda even offered to name the base “Fort Trump.”  Poland “is willing to make a very major contribution to the United States to come in and have a presence in Poland,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “If they’re willing to do that, it’s something we will certainly talk about.”  He added that the United States would take Duda’s proposal “very seriously.”

American Conservative columnist Daniel Larison warned that putting a U.S. base in Poland “would further antagonize Russia, and it would create one more overseas military installation that the U.S. doesn’t need to have.  Trump is often accused of wanting to ‘retreat’ from the world, but his willingness to entertain this proposal shows that he doesn’t care about stationing U.S. forces abroad so long as someone else is footing most of the bill.”  The cost issue would be the least of the problems created by establishing a permanent U.S. military presence in a country bordering on Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave.  The rotational deployments are bad enough, but ostentatiously building a major base would escalate that provocation.

As I discuss in a recent article in the American Conservative, Washington’s growing military ties with Ukraine, a country that is an even more central security concern for Moscow, constitute an especially provocative move.  Secretary of Defense James Mattis has acknowledged that U.S. instructors are training Ukrainian military units at a base in western Ukraine.  Washington also approved two important arms sales to Kiev’s ground forces in just the past 9 months.  The more recent deal included the extremely lethal Javelin antitank missiles—the kind of weapons that Barack Obama’s administration had prudently declined to send to Kiev.

Potentially even more worrisome, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker disclosed during a September first interview with the Guardian that Washington’s future military sales to Kiev would likely involve weapons for Ukraine’s air force and navy as well as the army. “The Javelins are mainly symbolic and it’s not clear if they would ever be used,” Aric Toler, a research scholar at the staunchly pro-NATO and anti-Russia Atlantic Council, asserted.  One could well dispute his sanguine conclusion, but even Toler conceded:  “Support for the Ukrainian navy and air defence would be a big deal.  That would be far more significant.”

Relations with Russia already are bad enough without pouring gasoline on the fire.  Unfortunately, the Trump administration is doing exactly that.  Perhaps the president is embracing these provocative initiatives to rebut hysterical critics who charge that he is “soft” on Russia—or even worse, is a Russian agent.  Whatever the motive, Washington’s recent actions are reckless and need to be abandoned.

 

 

Topics:
Foreign Policy and National Security

A Contemporary Economist’s Account of the “Crowning Folly of Tariff of 1930”

By Alan Reynolds

“[T]here came another folly of government intervention in 1930 transcending all the rest in significance. In a world staggering under a load of international debt which could be carried only if countries under pressure could produce goods and export them to their creditors, we, the great creditor nation of the world, with tariffs already far too high, raised our tariffs again. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of June 1930 was the crowning folly of the who period from 1920 to 1933….

Protectionism ran wild all over the world.  Markets were cut off.  Trade lines were narrowed.  Unemployment in the export industries all over the world grew with great rapidity, and the prices of export commodities, notably farm commodities in the United States, dropped with ominous rapidity….

The dangers of this measure were so well understood in financial circles that, up to the very last, the New York financial district retained hope the President Hoover would veto the tariff bill.  But late on Sunday, June 15, it was announced that he would sign the bill. This was headline news Monday morning. The stock market broke twelve points in the New York Time averages that day and the industrials broke nearly twenty points. The market, not the President, was right.”

– Dr. Benjamin M. Anderson [chief economist at Chase National Bank 1920-39], Economics and the Public Welfare: A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914-1946 (Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1979, pp. 229-230)

Topics:
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy, Foreign Policy and National Security, Government and Politics, International Economics, Development & Immigration, Tax and Budget Policy, Trade Policy

Beijing’s Bullying of Taiwan Is Backfiring

By Ted Galen Carpenter

            Beijing continues to intensify its diplomatic campaign to isolate Taiwan internationally, and as I describe in a recent article in China-U.S. Focus, that bullying strategy threatens to trigger dangerous tensions between China and the United States.  Chinese leaders were shocked and angered when Taiwanese voters endorsed Tsai Ing-wen and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the 2016 elections.  The communist regime soon moved to adopt an aggressive strategy of diplomatic strangulation.  During her presidency, Beijing has induced five of the 22 countries (mostly small, poor nations in Africa and Latin America) that had still recognized Taipei when she took office to switch ties to Beijing.  The latest defector is El Salvador. 

            Although the Chinese strategy appears to be paying off in the narrow sense of achieving its primary objective, it may ultimately come at an unacceptably high price.  The campaign is producing the opposite reaction in Taiwan of what Beijing seeks.  Tsai and her government have adopted a stance of outright defiance, making it clear that Taipei will not be bullied into taking steps toward reunification with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

More ominously, American supporters of Taiwan are pushing back firmly, and they are moving to increase Washington’s support of the island’s de facto independence.  The State Department immediately issued a statement that Washington was “deeply disappointed” by El Salvador’s decision—even though the United States itself does not maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.  

 Taipei’s friends in Congress ratcheted-up their support for the beleaguered democratic island.  Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Asia subcommittee, indicated his intention to propose a measure pressuring countries to stick with Taipei.  Among other things, his legislation planned to authorize the State Department to downgrade relations or alter foreign assistance programs to discourage countries from making any decisions deemed adverse to Taiwan.  “The Taipei Act of 2018 would give greater tools and directions to the State Department in making sure we are as strong a voice as possible for Taiwan,” Gardner told Reuters.  A little more than a week later, he and a group of bipartisan co-sponsors, including Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ed Markey (D-MA) carried through on that pledge and introduced the legislation.

Their initiative is just the latest indication that American backers of Taiwan are becoming more vocal and proactive in pushing U.S. measures to counter the PRC’s hardline policies.  A major step occurred in March 2018 when President Trump signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act, which encouraged “officials at all levels of the United States Government” to visit and meet with their Taiwan counterparts and to “allow high-level officials of Taiwan” to enter the United States and to meet with their U.S. counterparts.  That legislation, which passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly, ended Washington’s practice adopted when the United States recognized the PRC in 1979 of authorizing meetings only with relatively low-level Taiwanese officials.  It was especially noticeable that the new law specifically promoted interaction by “cabinet-level national security officials.” 

In early July, the Pentagon sent two U.S. warships through the Taiwan Strait, the first such passage in more than a year, in a display of support for Taipei.  That move occurred on the heels of a State Department request that the Defense Department send a small contingent of Marines to guard the American Institute in Taiwan (Washington’s de facto embassy in Taipei).  The United States also invited two senior Taiwanese military officials to participate in a May ceremony at the U.S. Pacific Command. 

Any one of these episodes might not be all that significant, but taken together they confirm that Washington’s backing for Taiwan is escalating.  Beijing can blame itself for much of that development.  The PRC’s strategy of diplomatic strangulation is backfiring, and the surge of Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait is making matters even worse.

Beijing would be wise to dial back its confrontational policies toward Taiwan.  However, Taiwan’s supporters in Congress, the media, and the Trump administration need to appreciate just how sensitive the Taiwan issue is to PRC leaders and the Chinese people.  Excessive, ostentatious U.S. diplomatic support for Taiwan could bring the PRC and the United States closer to a dangerous confrontation.  Both sides need to exercise much greater caution and restraint than they are showing now.

 

 

 

Topics:
Foreign Policy and National Security

Results from the 2018 Libertarianism vs. Conservatism Post-Debate Survey

By Emily Ekins

As part of a yearly summer tradition, the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute co-host a debate in which interns at both think tanks debate whether conservatism or libertarianism is a better ideology. Following this year’s debate, the Cato Institute conducted a post-debate survey of attendees to ask who they thought won the debate and what they believe about a variety of public policy and philosophical issues. The post-debate survey offers a unique opportunity to examine how young leaders in the conservative and libertarian movements approach deep philosophical questions that may be inaccessible to a general audience.

2018 Intern Debate Survey

Despite agreement on domestic economic issues and free trade, the survey finds striking differences between conservative and libertarian  attitudes about Donald Trump, immigration, transgender pronouns, government’s response to opioid addiction, police, defense spending and national security, domestic surveillance, and religion. The survey also went further than just asking about policy and used Jordan Peterson’s 12 principles for a 21st century conservatism to examine the underlying philosophical differences between libertarian and conservative millennials. 

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Topics:
Constitution, Law & Civil Liberties, Foreign Policy and National Security, Government and Politics, International Economics, Development & Immigration, Political Philosophy, Poverty & Social Welfare, Regulatory Studies, Social Security, Tax and Budget Policy, Trade Policy

Preparing for Peace? Or Just More War?

By Christopher A. Preble

In yesterday’s Washington Post, George Will makes a familiar argument: “if you want peace, prepare for war.”

Drawing mostly on key episodes from the late Cold War period, Will suggests that Ronald Reagan’s military buildup was instrumental to bringing down the Soviet Union. He places particular emphasis, with an assist from John Lehman, on the importance of a massive naval buildup in the 1980s.

As it happens, I served in the Navy during this period. Lehman was the Secretary of the Navy when I was an NROTC midshipman at George Washington University. I witnessed what such a force could do when it was called upon to fight – not the Soviet Union, but rather Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1991. And that war was over in a matter of weeks.

But fast-forward to today, and the picture is more complicated. The issue is not whether we are preparing for war, to prevent war, but rather why we fight so many wars in the first place. We have a political class that engages in war, but with little consideration of the long term strategic benefits. War, in short, has become a matter of habit.

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Topics:
Foreign Policy and National Security

Will Trump’s Foreign Policy Matter for the Midterms?

By A. Trevor Thrall

In a recent piece at The Hill, I argue that Trump’s terrible approval ratings for his handling of foreign policy will matter more than most people think.

The basic argument consists of four points:

1. Trump has made foreign policy more important to Americans today thanks to his “America First” approach:

The genius of Trump’s “America First” slogan was the way it allowed Trump to connect foreign and domestic politics under a single populist and nationalist banner. When Trump says he’s protecting American workers, he could be talking about tax cuts, illegal immigration, “horrible trade deals,” or terrorism. Trump’s America First strategy has blurred much of the historical difference between foreign policy and domestic policy. All of this makes foreign policy more important moving forward.

2. Trump’s foreign policy has been historically unpopular:

Not only does Trump suffer lower approval for his handling of foreign policy than all presidents back to Ronald Reagan, but majorities of Americans oppose Trump’s calling card issues. Fifty-eight percent oppose building a wall along the Mexican border and 67% think that illegal immigrants currently living in the United States should eventually be allowed to apply for citizenship. Twice as many Americans (49%) think raising tariffs will hurt the economy as think it will help (25%)…

3. Foreign policy approval feeds into overall presidential approval:

… even though the impact of foreign policy is most obvious during a war or international crisis, it plays a key role in shaping the general narrative of a president’s performance while in office. One analysis, for example, found that public approval of the president’s handling of foreign policy has a larger impact on his overall approval rating than does his handling of the economy.

4. Trump’s net-negative presidential approval ratings signal big trouble for Republicans at the midterms:

Research suggests that Trump’s current 41% approval rating historically would typically result in about an 8-point national advantage in voting for Democrats…. Looking at data from each president’s first midterm elections going back to 1946, the four presidents who did not enjoy a net-positive approval rating saw their party lose an average of 49 seats in the House and 6.5 seats in the Senate.

The bottom line is that Trump’s handling of foreign policy hasn’t done Republicans any favors this year and is likely to be an even bigger problem for Trump himself in 2020.

Thanks to Hannah Kanter for the background research and contributing to the writing of the original commentary.

Topics:
Foreign Policy and National Security, Government and Politics

A Visit to San Diego’s Liberty Station

By Christopher A. Preble

San Diego, CA – Over the course of my research into the conversion of former military bases, more than one person has suggested that I take a look at Liberty Station, the former Naval Training Center located in the Point Loma district of San Diego, that is now a thriving mixed-use community.

Operated for over 70 years as a Navy training base, NTC San Diego was included in the 1993 BRAC. It officially closed in April 1997. The city designated a master developer, Corky McMillin Cos. in 1999 to execute the reuse plan, and the site now hosts shops and businesses, schools, a megachurch, private homes, open spaces, and a vibrant arts district.

I visited there for the first time this week, and now I understand why the Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment calls Liberty Station “one of the most successful base reuse projects in the country.”

Several people who have lived in San Diego for decades, and who have special understanding of Liberty Station’s history, were able to explain to me why that’s been the case.

“San Diego is a Navy town,” explained Jerry Selby, a program manager for the City of San Diego, and “San Diegans wanted [Liberty Station] to succeed.” There was extensive community input, and considerable planning. With some other closed bases, the local communities couldn’t come together on what they should become. “By contrast, Liberty Station was a defined piece of land. You could get your head around what it could – and should – be.”

I met Alan Ziter at The Lot, a movie theater complex in the historic Luce Auditorium, with an adjoining restaurant and bar that offers terrific views of the former base. As executive director for the NTC Foundation, the non-profit organization established in 2000 that’s responsible for the renovation and reuse of 26 historic properties in ARTS DISTRICT Liberty Station, Ziter has a unique perspective on what has been accomplished, and what remains to be done.

“This place was always about education and training,” Ziter explained as we walked among the galleries and past dance studios, “and I like to think that’s what it still does – except now for the arts.”

They do other educating, too, at Liberty Station. What started with High Tech High in the early 2000s is now the High Tech Village, a campus that also includes High Tech Middle and High Tech Elementary, all part of the San Diego Unified School District.

San Diego is home to Balboa Park, one of the finest urban parks in the country. But the flat open spaces of NTC Park on Liberty Station’s east side, along the San Diego Bay, have become popular with soccer players, picnickers, and 5K racers.

In one section of NTC Park are sets of black granite markers and trees along a paved walkway. Each set memorializes a submarine lost in World War II, 52 in all, and includes the story of how the boat was lost, and the names of those now “on eternal patrol.” It’s a simple but powerful memorial. 

I was tempted to read them all, but I wanted to make my way to Liberty Public Market, a throng of eateries and boutique shops reminiscent of Boston’s Faneuil Hall or Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, though on a smaller scale.

 

One of the other big attractions in the retail area is Stone Brewing, a sprawling restaurant and brew-pub that features more than 40 beers on tap. Business was steady but not crowded on a Wednesday evening. Maggie helped me navigate the extensive menu. She came to San Diego nine years ago from Chicago, and she’s been working at Stone for five. 

She explained that it was a pretty typical weekday evening, but that it’s very busy on the weekends. People come with kids and big groups. They just say, “let’s meet at Stone,” knowing they’ll be able to seat them. You generally don’t need to reserve a room or big table, she explained, although they also have numerous rooms and meeting spaces suitable for private events. 

My favorite part of the story? When I pointed out what a really terrific space it was, and all the more remarkable for having once been a former Navy mess hall, she chuckled. “I know! My grandfather trained here during the Korean War.” 

Liberty Station has managed to preserve the historic charm of this place that hosted hundreds of thousands of sailors on their way to war. It honors the memory of those who didn’t return. And it is now one of the coolest places that I’ve ever visited, in one of my favorite American cities. You should definitely check it out.

 

 

 

Topics:
Foreign Policy and National Security

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