Foreign Policy & Defense Archives - Page 15 of 41

The Iran deal and collective security

Posted on April 6, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

A buoyant President Obama announced on April 2 “a historic understanding with Iran” to defang its nuclear program. Chalk one up for the president’s oft-criticized Middle East diplomacy.

If it holds, the deal will indeed be a major foreign policy accomplishment for a president who badly needs one. But equally, if not more important, it could breathe new life into collective security.

That’s the vision of liberal internationalists like Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. After the colossal failure of balance-of-power politics to keep peace in Europe, they envisioned a new order upheld by great powers acting through legitimizing organizations like the United Nations and formal alliances like NATO.

Continue reading at the Hill.

The Hill: Obama trade agenda

Posted on March 17, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted by Kevin Cirilli in The Hill on the growing tensions in the Democratic party over President Obama’s trade agenda:

Will Marshall, president of centrist Democratic think tank the Progressive Policy Institute, said that “Democratic candidates in 2016 aren’t going to get into trouble for supporting” the trade agreements.

“Most voters understand that America can’t prosper in isolation and they have little interest in yet another reenactment of the long-ago battle of NAFTA,” he said.

Continue reading at The Hill.

National Journal: The Long War

Posted on March 7, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted in an article in National Journal regarding the continued fight against Islamic extremism:

“Obama has been imprisoned by the Iraq and Afghanistan experience,” maintains Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic group. “You have to pick your fights carefully … but just staying out of a conflict is no guarantee that you’re going to escape worse consequences.” Critics like Marshall believe that the United States has been forced to pursue greater military intervention against ISIS now partly because it failed to support a moderate Syrian opposition earlier.

Read the piece in its entirety at National Journal

Politico Pro: Report urges progressives to reconsider Obama trade agenda

Posted on February 26, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI Senior Fellow Ed Gerwin’s latest report was featured in a trade story by Politico Pro‘s Doug Palmer:

A new report urges progressive Democrats opposed to President Barack Obama’s trade agenda with countries in the Asia-Pacific to give it another look, arguing that trade deals support progressive goals in a variety of ways, including by helping economic growth.

“Trade-skeptical progressives … should take a thoughtful look at the details of the Obama trade agenda and how it might better position America in the modern global economy,” Ed Gerwin, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, said in the report. “If they do, they’re likely to find important policies and initiatives for progressives to like.”

“A progressive society that is both prosperous and fair requires strong and inclusive economic growth. The Administration’s trade agenda can play an important role in assuring that America can tap into one key source of economic vitality — surging demand in key foreign markets,” Gerwin said.

The report comes as Congress is gearing up for action on trade promotion authority, also known as fast-track trade legislation because it would allow the White House to submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes without any amendments.

The Obama Trade Agenda: Five Things for Progressives to Like

Posted on February 26, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama went all in on international trade.

The Administration has already been aggressively pursuing the most ambitious set of trade agreements in decades—including potentially groundbreaking deals with 11 Asian-Pacific countries (the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP), and the European Union (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or T-TIP), as well as agreements in key sectors like services, information technology, and environmental products.

Now, to set the stage for eventual Congressional approval for these deals, the President has launched an Administration-wide effort to obtain Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) from Congress. Under TPA, Congress sets detailed priorities and extensive consultation requirements for U.S. trade negotiators, and agrees to follow special expedited procedures for agreements that meet these rules.

Congressional Republicans largely support TPA and the Administration’s trade agenda. There is less support, however, among Congressional Democrats, many of whom have doubts about new trade deals. And, because trade has long been a difficult political issue, it’s quite tempting for these trade skeptics to readily side with those who have consistently opposed trade agreements.

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The Hill: Ukraine crisis tests the West

Posted on February 13, 2015 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Thanks to determined diplomacy by Germany and France, Russia agreed Wednesday to a new cease-fire in Ukraine, to begin Sunday. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel was anything but triumphant, calling the deal a mere “glimmer of hope” for peace.

Merkel has good reasons for curbing her enthusiasm. The previous cease-fire agreement reached last September didn’t hold for long. And Russian strongman Vladimir Putin still holds the high cards in any peace negotiation with Ukraine and the West.

Under the new truce, both pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces are to pull back heavy weapons from the front. But the deal still leaves separatists in control of a big chunk of territory in eastern Ukraine. If the cease-fire is violated and fighting resumes, Ukraine will again find itself in an unequal fight with rebels amply supplied with Russian weapons and, Kiev says, regular Russian troops.

Continue reading at The Hill.

CNN: We’re all culpable over CIA torture

Posted on December 12, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

While studiously avoiding the word “torture,” CIA Director John Brennan told reporters on Thursday that the aggressive interrogation program yielded information that helped the agency find Osama bin Laden. He also called the Senate Intelligence Committee’s damning report on CIA abuses “flawed” by partisanship, as well as “exaggerations and misrepresentations.”

Brennan’s comments are certain to pour oil on the already raging debate over what constitutes torture, how effective it is and who authorized what in the chaotic days and months after the 9/11 attacks. They also put the Obama administration squarely in the crossfire between Democrats defending the committee’s handiwork and Republicans and former CIA chiefs trashing it.

The culmination of a six-year investigation, the committee Democrats’ report was intended to provide a moment of moral reckoning for America. Instead, it has underscored Washington’s inability to rise above partisan truths and forge a common view on how to defend the country from terrorist attacks.

As an exercise in political accountability, a comprehensive report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects after 9/11 is overdue. In its otherwise commendable zeal to avert further terrorist attacks, the agency sometimes overstepped the bounds of decency.

Continue reading at CNN.

The Hill: Shooting yourself in the foot

Posted on December 10, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

What’s gotten into our European friends? Beset by slow growth, tensions over immigration and a rising fever of anti-Euro populism, some leaders are trying to deflect public discontent onto U.S. companies—a move that may turn out to backfire economically

The latest example comes from UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. He recently floated a proposed “diverted profits tax” on foreign companies doing business in Britain. It’s been called the “Google tax” and little wonder, since it’s clearly aimed at U.S. tech companies.

Osborne describes the idea as a way to foil tax avoidance strategies many companies use. That’s a legitimate issue. But what the Chancellor is proposing is a unilateral step that could torpedo the elaborate process the European Union and other governments already launched (through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to develop a common approach to tax base erosion and profit-shifting.

This gambit by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative who is forever extolling Britain’s “special relationship” with America, is unfortunately not an isolated incident.

Continue reading at The Hill.

Europe should focus on spurring European tech growth

Posted on November 26, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The European Parliament is expected to vote on Thursday on whether Google should be required to spin off its search engine. But that vote — and any subsequent legal action by the European Commission against Google — misses the real questions: Why isn’t Europe able to produce the sort of leading-edge tech companies which seem to routinely come out of the United States, and now, Asia? Where is the European Amazon, Twitter, Samsung or even Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company that recently had the biggest global initial public offering ever?

Rather than going after American companies, the European Commission and Parliament should focus on policy changes that would spur European technology growth. In particular, Europe would benefit from boosting spending on research and development; improving the climate for entrepreneurship; and encouraging consumers and businesses to use more data.

Let’s start with research and development spending, which provides essential long-term support for innovative companies. In 2012, Europe spent about 2 percent of gross domestic product (GPD) on research and development. Meanwhile, the United States spent almost 3 percent of GDP on research and development, an enormous gap that has persisted for years. European leaders, aware of the gap, have set a goal of reaching the 3 percent level by 2020. So far, though, there’s been little or no movement in that direction.

Or take support for entrepreneurship. The latest Global Entrepreneurship Index, just released this month, pegs the United States as the top country for entrepreneurship, based on such factors as cultural attitude and availability of risk capital. As the authors of the report note, “the U.S. not only remains the most entrepreneurial country in the world, it also is increasing its lead.” The U.S. has an index score of 85. By contrast, the countries in the European Union have an average index score of 60.1 (weighted by country gross domestic product), and a median index score of 54.5. Some major European countries, such as Italy, make business startups exceedingly difficult. Anything that can be done to make entrepreneurship easier, including relaxing a difficult regulatory environment in some countries, would increase the odds of producing a major tech startup.

Finally, Europe is way behind in the amount of data used per person. Based on a study by Cisco, the Progressive Policy Institute has calculated that European countries such as France and Germany use 22.6 and 18.9 gigabytes of data per person per month, respectively. Meanwhile the United States uses 58.3 gigabytes of data per person per month, triple that of Germany. Just look at data used by business, the differential narrows but is still enormous in relative terms. U.S. businesses use 8.5 gigabytes per capita per month, compared to 4.5 in Germany and 3.7 in France.

Why does data use matter? For Internet companies, data use is a good proxy measure for the size of the potential market. If you want to grow a profitable tech company, it’s easier to do so in the United States, where data consumption is higher. That suggests that if Europe’s leaders want to create the conditions for homegrown tech giants, they should encourage European consumers and businesses to use more data.

It’s easy for politicians to say that they want innovation and growth, and hard for them to take the steps necessary to foster such growth. Taking on Google is an easy shot for the European Parliament, without tackling Europe’s underlying issues.

Read the op-ed on The Hill.

Holding out hope on Iran

Posted on November 25, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Not much has gone right in the Middle East during President Obama’s second term. The White House has been hoping that a nuclear deal with Iran would yield the foreign policy success Washington badly needs after a string of reverses across the region.

But after a weekend of last-ditch diplomacy in Vienna, the deadline for striking such a deal expired yesterday. The anticlimactic result was an agreement to keep talking.

Even that is too much for hardline skeptics, here and abroad, who believe Iran is stringing the world along and has no intention of giving up its nuclear program. In their view, extending the talks another seven months grants Tehran unearned relief from economic sanctions as well as immunity from military strikes to destroy its nuclear facilities.

Continue reading at the Hill.

Exporting U.S. Natural Gas: The Benefits Outweigh the Risk

Posted on October 16, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In a remarkably brief period, America has become awash in oil and natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) we have surpassed Russia as the world’s leading energy superpower, producing more oil and natural gas combined than any other country. This newfound abundance has turned old assumptions about U.S. energy scarcity and security on their head. For the first time since the energy crisis of the 1970s, there is mounting pressure—both domestically and abroad—for the United States to once again become a major energy exporter.

According to the EIA, America’s proved reserves of natural gas have increased in each of the last 15 years to a total of 308.4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2013, up 84% from 1999 estimates. The agency also estimates that unproved natural gas resources were at an increased level of 1,903.7 Tcf in 2009. These U.S. government estimates are in line with other assessments reported by several respected sources.

Most of these reserves are unconventional resources like coal bed methane, tight gas, and shale that have become more accessible due to significant advances in gas extraction technologies. As a result, the oil and gas industry, including expanding gas and oil production, have accounted for more than 9 million full- and part-time American jobs over the past few years.

The energy revolution also shows up in the results of the Progressive Policy Institute’s recently released 2014 U.S. Investment Heroes, an annual survey of the top 25 U.S. companies that invest most in the United States. On that list are 10 energy companies, involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas or energy distribution and power, that invested a total of $57 billion in 2013, representing 37% of the top 25 investment.

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New York Daily News: Hong Kong screams, America is silent

Posted on October 3, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Listening to our government’s weaselly evasions on the protests in Hong Kong makes me wish America had an Aaron Neville Doctrine. Neville is the New Orleans crooner whose soul classic, “Tell It Like It Is,” topped the charts in 1966 and has been covered more than a dozen times since.

White House and State Department officials seem unfamiliar with the concept.

Hong Kong’s students and thousands of others have taken to the streets to protest the Chinese government’s plan to curtail their democratic rights. It began more than a week ago with class boycotts. By this Wednesday, the 65th anniversary of Communist rule in China, more than 100,000 people flooded the city, many of them toting now-symbolic umbrellas.

What they want is simple and universal: the right to genuine self-determination.

Beijing says it is perfectly willing to let Hong Kong residents continue to vote to choose their own leaders — but only for its pre-approved slate of candidates. That’s a blatant violation of the 1984 agreement between China and Britain under which the British colony would revert to Beijing’s control when its 100-year lease expired in 1997.

For its part, China agreed to permit “universal suffrage” in Hong Kong under a new policy of “one country, two systems.” The United States stood as a guarantor of that agreement, which preserved Hong Kong as a little island of political freedom within a vast communist monolith.

Continue reading at the New York Daily News.

The Hill: Leading out front

Posted on September 30, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama’s forceful speech to the United Nations last week appeared to mark a sharp—and welcome—turn in his thinking about Islamist terrorism and the wisdom of U.S. retrenchment.

Rather than dwell on the things a war-weary United States can’t do, Obama spoke with resolve and passion about what America must do. He called out Russia for its aggression against Ukraine and the patent mendacity of its propaganda, promised U.S. help in rolling back the Islamic State, and said Washington would play a leading role in in combating Ebola and climate change.

Gone was the ambivalent note that often creeps into the president’s meditations on American power and the global responsibilities that go with it. Nothing in this speech smacked of “leading from behind.”

Crucially, Obama also brought a new and deeper sense of realism to America’s approach to Middle East turmoil. Up until now, his foreign policy has revolved around the conceit that his administration is “ending America’s wars.” Six years later, it’s glaringly apparent that wars don’t end and terrorists don’t stop killing just because we’ve decided to pack it in.

Continue reading at the Hill.

Five important lessons about America’s long war against Islamist extremism

Posted on September 24, 2014September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Yesterday’s airstrikes on Islamic State and other terrorist targets in Syria yield five important lessons about America’s long war against Islamist extremism:

First, Syria has become a haven for jihadist terrorism. The United States and its allies struck the IS headquarters in Raqqa and other targets along its supply lines into Iraq. U.S. forces also hit the Aleppo base of the Khorasan Group, a gang of al Qaeda veterans whose mission is to stage terrorist attacks against Western targets, including civilian airliners. As both Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta have suggested, early and effective U.S. support for indigenous Syrian rebels might have prevented these foreign jihadis from setting up shop in Syria. Non-intervention is not a painless or risk-free option for Americans, no matter how weary we may be of war.

Second, the administration deserves credit for assembling a regional alliance with Sunni Arab states. Forces from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain participated in yesterday’s strikes, while Qatar offered political support. This underscores both that the United States is not taking sides in a Shia-Sunni civil war, and that moderate Sunnis are taking responsibility for confronting violent extremists in their midst.

Third, the Islamic State can be degraded from the air, but ultimately must be defeated on the ground. Air attacks can buy time for the United States and its allies strengthen Iraqi forces and the Free Syrian Army so that they can eventually drive IS out of their countries. A critical question is whether other regional partners can be induced to contribute to the fight on the ground.

Fourth, President Obama needs to level with the American people about the nature and duration of this conflict. What we are really up against, the enduring source of instability and danger, is not any particular group of Sunni terrorists, but the Islamist ideology that motives them. This fight will be more like the Cold War than World War II. It won’t be settled on any battlefield. Only when the jihadist ideology loses its power to inspire young Muslims to kill for a warped vision of a puritanical, all-conquering Islam will the danger pass. That could take a generation. It will require that America and the international community wage – and above all Muslim political and religious leaders – wage a more effective campaign to discredit and marginalize the Islamist death cult.

Fifth, a resolute, long-term strategy to contain and eventually defuse the threat posed by Islamist fanatics must enjoy broad public and political support at home. Rather than invoking post-9/11 legislation, the White House should heed calls from Congressional leaders, such as Sen. Tim Kaine, to seek new authority for this next phase of U.S. counter-terrorism operations. It’s important that our confrontation with Islamist extremists have explicit Congressional backing and be unequivocally Constitutional. At the same time, however, Congress must refrain from tying the executive’s hands, for example, by imposing arbitrary deadlines or geographical limits on its ability to confront threats to our people or our interests.

CNN: Did Obama sell his ISIS strategy?

Posted on September 11, 2014 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall contributed his views to CNN following President Obama’s recent speech that addressed the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

President Obama’s speech was a characteristic exercise in foreign policy minimalism. He said just enough to convince the public he has a plan to defeat the Islamic State. But he said virtually nothing about how to win the long war against Islamist extremism that began 13 years ago tomorrow.

“There’s no doubt the president answered his critics tonight. They’ve demanded a strategy for rolling back the Islamic State; he gave them a plausible one. They’ve accused him of sounding America’s retreat from global leadership; he highlighted Washington’s catalytic role in orchestrating the world’s response to ISIS’s murderous rampage, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the Ebola outbreak. “American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world,” he affirmed.

“The speech seemed calculated to shore up the public’s sagging confidence in Obama’s stewardship of U.S. foreign policy, and perhaps it will boost his numbers. Donning the mantle of Commander-in-Chief, he conveyed resolve in confronting the Islamist terrorists, while at the same time he was careful not to cross his own red line against reintroducing ground troops in the Middle East. That’s a stance exquisitely calibrated to fit the public’s current mood.

“What was missing, however, was an account of where ISIS came from and how it grew so strong. The president neither defended nor offered second thoughts about his decision to disengage from Iraq and the Syrian civil war. Nor did he explain why demolishing al Qaeda has failed to turn the tide of battle against Islamist extremism, as he had hoped. About the ideology that motivates our enemies, he said nothing at all, except to deny it’s really Islamic. He devoted all of one fleeting sentence to the need for America and the international community to more effectively counter the jihadist narrative that inspires young Muslims from Europe as well as the Middle East to commit atrocities in Islam’s name.

“However politically effective speech proves to be, it was strategically vacuous. At some point, the president needs to focus on the larger war we’re embroiled in, not just the next battle.”