Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in China, meeting with President Hu today in a diplomatic effort to warm military-to-military relations between the two countries. Gates’ trip is in advance of the Obama-Hu summit in Washington next week. Military relations had frosted over this summer following $6.4 billion in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
Gates’ meeting with Hu followed on the heels of an encounter with Chinese defense chief Liang Guanglie, where the two agreed to begin regular strategic security talks in an effort to reduce tensions. The Pentagon believes that a structured long-term dialogue will build trust and focus on longer term issues as the United States—regardless of administration—will likely arm Taiwan for decades to come.
Top of the to-do list on military cooperation will no doubt be North Korea, and it’s hardly coincidence that Gates used this visit to highlight advances in Pyongyang’s military technology that could threaten the West Coast within five years. Further, as Michael Chase points out in a series of PPI memos on the Chinese military, getting Chinese buy-in on North Korea may rely in part on building trust first in areas like humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and anti-piracy missions, to name a few.
Sino-American tensions in military relations are nothing new, but Secretary Gates’ trip continues to expose a fascinating—and potentially dangerous—rift inside the Chinese bureaucracy: the lack of communication between Beijing’s military and civilian leaders.
This week, China unveiled the J-20, its first and only stealth fighter. China’s bizarre choice of this week—during Gates’ visit—to flex its newfound military muscles by test-flying the J-20 for the first time. When Gates signaled to President Hu that the test flight was unnecessarily provocative, Hu replied that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with Gates’ visit. Pointedly, Gates acknowledged his concern about the Chinese military acting independently of the political leadership, a problem that could in a worst-case scenario lead to unauthorized military action against, for example, Taiwan.
Getting China’s leaders to communicate with one another is well-outside the Obama administration’s powers, of course, but continuing to press Beijing’s political leadership on the issue is a good start.
In early December, President Obama described his role as a “north star out there” for Americans – a distant guide that keeps us moving towards a goal. He was defending his tax and benefit compromise with Republican leaders, explaining that compromise was in the country’s DNA and that there was value in moving in generally the right direction.
But is Obama – or anyone in the last two decades – a “north star” for American foreign policy? Keep in mind that when I say “north star”, I’m talking about the core, uniquely American values that guide our leaders, no matter which party they come from.
Furthermore, the “north star” is not to be confused with the “Kennan Prize” of American diplomacy, named for renowned diplomat George Kennan upon coining the guiding term “containment” for America’s strategic approach to the Soviet Union. No one since the legendary Kennan has distilled an overarching American strategy into such a perfectly appropriate, yet bumper-sticker length slogan.
At foreign policy conference after foreign policy conference, academics compete for the next iteration of mythical award, which is all shined up to be ceremoniously bestowed in columns and blog posts upon the author the next great foreign policy framework.
With the “north star” concept, I’m looking more broadly. Kennan won his prize for a specific strategy vis-a-vis a specific enemy. I’m asking for America’s guiding foreign policy values to be articulated. Not tactics or strategies, but values. And not liberal, progressive, or conservative ones, but American values.
I suppose the void exists because world events since the end of the Cold War have been scatter shot. Consider major American foreign policy events since 1991:
— Disintegration of the Soviet Union
— Bill Clinton’s “Peace Dividend”
— September 11th
— Afghanistan
— The Global War on Terror (run a muck)
— Iraq
— Diffusion of power to individual actors
— Iran and North Korea struggling to get the bomb
— Lack of progress in Israeli/Palestinian peace
— The rise of democratic world powers (Brazil, India)
— … and autocratic ones (China)
It’s hardly a cohesive group, hardly lending itself to a coherent “north star.” In retrospect, it’s really tough to argue that the Iraq war comes from the same value set as a strategy to resolve the Israel/Palestinian divide. But as America emerges from its pressing, all-consuming commitments (Iraq, Afghanistan), the Obama administration will have time to breathe, reassess, and think about America’s guiding north star in foreign policy.
Lacking one is a big concern to us here at PPI, and you’ll be hearing more from us on it in the near future.
The brutal Egyptian suicide bombing at a church on New Year’s Day has rightly outraged the world. And yet, rather than focus on those specifically responsible for this brutal attack (most likely some splinter group of Al Qaeda), some – including many right wingers – are using the opportunity to stoke anti-Islamic sentiment. Islam-hater Robert Spencer laments that “Islamic jihadists and Sharia supremacists continue, with ever increasing confidence and brutality, to prey on the Christians in their midst, while those who should be working to protect them make excuses and look the other way.” “A disproportionate share of religious persecution happens in Muslim-majority countries,” writes Gary Bauer. Marty Peretz wrote that “already in the new year there is already news of Islamist terror.”
While there certainly is a problem with jihadist violence towards minorities in the Middle East, the right’s outrage would have a lot more credibility were it not part of a broader anti-Islamic campaign. The hysterical campaign against Park51 in New York City last year was a turning point in American conservatism’s relationship to Muslims, illustrating beyond a reasonable doubt the sheer Islamophobia on the right.
“Muslim life is cheap,” Peretz infamously wrote during the Park51 non-controversy. He apologized for another line in the same article, wherein he called for Muslims to be stripped of their First Amendment rights. But about Muslim life being cheap, well, it was “a statement of fact, not value,” he said later.
The astonishing thing about Park51 was that powerful figures in the conservative movement revealed themselves as concerned with Islam, suddenly and selectively. Sarah Palin called on “peaceful Muslims” to reject the planned Islamic center, as if erecting such a building were a statement of violence. John McCain said Park51 would “harm relations, rather help.”
Here’s an idea: avoiding sweeping statements about Islam’s supposed propensity towards violence would help relations. It’s something those who claim to be so concerned with Islamist violence might want to consider.
In the new issue of Vanity Fair,journalist Peter Bergen argues that we are, in fact, winning our war against Al Qaeda. “[I]t is not the West that faces an existential threat, but al-Qaeda,” he writes. “Above all, we need to keep al-Qaeda in perspective, remembering that its assets are few, and shrinking.”
Now, Bergen is one of the few Western journalists to meet Osama Bin Laden, and among the world’s foremost experts on Al Qaeda. He also opposed the Iraq War for the same reason President Obama did, as a distraction from the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In other words, Bergen is not just another hawk or war cheerleader, reflexively supporting military action divorced from any realistic aim. He does not claim progress in this war because he always mistakes militarism for wisdom, as, say, Republican hack Bill Kristol does. So it’s very worth taking what Bergen has to say very seriously.
Even if he is wrong about the astuteness of continuing to fight in Afghanistan, as I think he is, Bergen points to a larger truth about the vast majority of commentary and analysis about Al Qaeda: most of it focuses not on Al Qaeda but on us. Our blunders, our costs, our misguided decisions and our weaknesses. Very little looks at developments from Al Qaeda’s point of view. And from Al Qaeda’s point of view, things don’t look so pretty.
Bin Laden imagined Muslims rising up worldwide and overthrowing their oppressors after 9/11, so inspired by the attacks would they be. That obviously hasn’t happened. Al Qaeda imagined the U.S. ceasing its support for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other un-Islamic regimes in the Middle East. That hasn’t happened, either. Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, believed his organization could gain control of a state and expand its Taliban-like rule outward. Nope. In fact, all of Al Qaeda’s larger goals of restoring the caliphate and ushering in a period of worldwide ultra-Islamic rule have failed to materialize.
Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda is much further away from achieving its primary aims than it was before the attacks, when it could at least claim to have a mini-state within Afghanistan. Yes, the U.S. has expended great resources, lost thousands of soldiers, and traded away many valuable liberties and values. I think Bergen understates these costs when he writes, “During the past decade, misguided actions taken in the name of the War on Terror—notably the invasion of Iraq, the bungled war in Afghanistan, and the heavy-handed approach to the treatment of prisoners—have bought bin Laden and his allies some time.”
True, Al Qaeda still exists, and arguably might even still be able to execute another attack on the American homeland. But it has not done so in nearly 10 years, and not for lack of trying. The ultimate way to defeat Al Qaeda is not just to prevent it from killing Americans—though of course that is a major sub-goal of ours—but to kill or capture its current members, and convince prospective future anti-American jihadis not to join its cause. Preventing Al Qaeda from achieving its larger Islamist aims is a prime way to do that. Even the most committed ideologues can only fight for so long without making significant progress towards its goals, after all.
All of which is to say that things probably aren’t as bad as they seem. Things probably aren’t as bad as they always seem. Al Qaeda has a fundamentally unrealistic goal and a deeply unappealing ideology. As long as the U.S. and its allies refrain from making too many too mistakes, as long as we play the long game and keep Al Qaeda isolated, as long as we protect the American homeland, we will win this war. We already are.
Maybe it’s just the growing pains of an adolescent superpower, but China has begun to flex its newfound muscles in ways inconsistent with its “peaceful rise.” Its bullying behavior demands a firm pushback from the United States – starting next month when Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington for talks with President Obama.
The unmistakably imperious trend in China’s conduct has definitely caught the world’s attention. Take its recent arm-twisting campaign to prevent nations from participating in a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Liu Xiaobo, a prominent democracy activist serving an 11-year sentence for subversion. Nineteen countries caved shamelessly to China’s demands. In a display of insecurity worthy of Burma’s insular and paranoid junta, the government also cracked down on domestic dissidents and barred travel to Oslo.
Look, I realize that Tom Friedman gets a lot of guff from the liberal intelligensia. Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone has practically made a second career out of eviscerating Friedman’s sometimes tortured contortions of the Queen’s Tongue. Certainly, Taibbi scores the odd point: “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” Friedman once wrote about George Bush’s Middle East policy, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” What?
Fair enough. But Tom, a long-time friend of PPI no less, is an insightful writer who, more often than not, is on the right side of history. Take his column this weekend on the “U.S.S. Prius“:
Spearheaded by Ray Mabus, President Obama’s secretary of the Navy and the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the Navy and Marines are building a strategy for “out-greening” Al Qaeda, “out-greening” the Taliban and “out-greening” the world’s petro-dictators. Their efforts are based in part on a recent study from 2007 data that found that the U.S. military loses one person, killed or wounded, for every 24 fuel convoys it runs in Afghanistan. Today, there are hundreds and hundreds of these convoys needed to truck fuel — to run air-conditioners and power diesel generators — to remote bases all over Afghanistan.
Mabus’s argument is that if the U.S. Navy and Marines could replace those generators with renewable power and more energy efficient buildings, and run its ships on nuclear energy, biofuels and hybrid engines, and fly its jets with bio-fuels, then it could out-green the Taliban — the best way to avoid a roadside bomb is to not have vehicles on the roads — and out-green all the petro-dictators now telling the world what to do.
Let’s just say I’m happy Tom’s reading my stuff. Yep, on October 12, I wrote the following piece in the Los Angeles Times on the same topic to mark the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the U.S.S Cole in Aden harbor:
America forgets Oct. 12 as seamlessly as it remembers Sept. 11. Ten years ago today, 17 U.S. Navy sailors were killed and 39 injured in an Al Qaeda attack against the U.S. destroyer Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. The Cole was relatively defenseless during a 24-hour refueling stop when suicide operatives pulled alongside in a small, explosive-laden boat and detonated a charge, ripping a 40-foot hole in the hull.
Though the lessons from 9/11 will be debated for years, Oct. 12’s message is succinct. It is best summed up by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James T. Conway: “Energy choices can save lives on the battlefield.” The armed forces are searching for next-generation green energy technologies because they provide power at the point of its consumption, which decreases the military’s need to resupply with carbon-based fuels.
…
Mabus is setting big goals for an energy-independent military. He wants to sail a “Great Green Fleet” by 2016 — a full carrier strike group composed of nuclear and hybrid electric ships, as well as biofueled aircraft. By 2020, Mabus wants half of the Navy’s energy to come from alternative sources.
That’s why the Obama administration should consider a Pentagon innovation fund. A few well-spent dollars would help companies tackle the technological learning curve and reduce costs.
To get to where Mabus wants to go, ideas need cash. The Pentagon may have a truly out-of-control budget, but consider this: Radar, GPS and the Internet all started as military-funded projects. The next green technology could be sitting in a lab somewhere, begging for a few dollars to help produce it on a bigger scale.
With conservatives pushing this climate change denial nonsense, it’s an important point that the military is innovating on green-tech because it can’t wait for the political “debate”. So much the better as more-and-more mainstream writers pick up on this narrative.
The Obama administration released its Afghanistan review this morning, and while everyone will be digging through it for truths and obfuscations, it’s worth simply comparing the review’s conclusions to President Obama’s “Terms Sheet” he dictated at the outset of his Afghanistan surge. Obama’s six-page terms sheet, first revealed and released in Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars, calls for measuring progress in Afghanistan by answering questions in related to governance, Pakistan, training of Afghan forces, and international support. Let’s look at the new review and compare it to some parts of the old one, shall we?
The new review concludes that “the momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible.”
The initial review, however, called for “reversing the Taliban’s momentum” everywhere, not merely arresting it in some places (my italics). Small word change, big difference.
The new review says that “We are also supporting Afghanistan’s efforts to better improve national and sub-national governance, and to build institutions with increased transparency and accountability to reduce corruption – key steps in sustaining the Afghan government.”
The initial review had specific benchmarks to measure governance progress: Has President Karzai made merit-based appointments in the areas most essential to our mission? Has the Afghan government begun to implement an effective reintegration/reconciliation program? The new review is silent on these critical matters.
The new review holds that Afghanistan forces “have exceeded ANSF growth targets, implemented an expanded array of programs to improve the quality and institutional capacity of the ANSF, and sharply improved their training effectiveness.”
The initial review called for “accelerated ANSF growth while improving quality.” On this score, the U.S. is doing quite well, according to what was released today.
The new review argues that “Emphasis must continue to be placed on the development of Afghan-led security and governance within areas that have been a focus of military operations.”
The initial review insisted that we needed to establish “a program to transfer responsibility from ISAF to ANSF province by province.” No mention in the new document of what has been achieved, only on what must still be done.
Despite the negative balance sheet, on these and other scores, today’s review is cautiously optimistic. We are making progress, however fragile and recent. “Most important, al-Qa’ida’s senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001,” Obama’s new review argues. Reviewing the first assessment, however, reminds us that weakening al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan was not the primary goal. Perhaps it should have been.
It’s clear that China’s Navy is growing in size and quality. Not only does China have the largest navy in East Asia, it has an increasingly modern and capable force of imported and indigenously produced destroyers, frigates, missile patrol craft, and submarines. Beijing is even planning to deploy its own aircraft carriers, a development sure to alarm neighbors such as Japan, Vietnam, and India.
But what does it mean for American policy makers? Should the United States increase its own maritime power in response to Beijing’s growing strength? Are there diplomatic levers that Washington might pull to forestall potential Chinese aggression? Below, I explore these issues, first by giving a brief history of China’s evolving naval strategies since the People’s Republic began in 1949. (It’s critical that U.S. policy makers understand the evolution of China’s thinking about the roles and missions of its navy.) Then, I provide a full accounting of recent Chinese naval hardware developments. Finally, I draw policy recommendations designed to help American policy makers manage the challenges that have arisen as a result of China’s improving capabilities, regional assertiveness and expanding global interests.
In short, the U.S. will need to strengthen its ties to key countries in East Asia and develop strategic and tactical military concepts and capabilities that would allow it to counter China’s growing military power. Meanwhile, U.S. policy makers must seek collaboration with the Chinese military in an effort to highlight the benefits of being a global stakeholder to Beijing.
Next month, Chinese President Hu Jintao will be visiting Washington and Defense Secretary Gates will be visiting Beijing. Though the U.S. and China have had their disagreements of late – over North Korea, over human rights, over currency valuations – both have much more to gain from cooperation than conflict.
Such was the general consensus at a PPI Event today entitled, “China’s Choice: Regional Bully or Global Stakeholder?” The event featured: The Honorable Chris Coons, U.S. Senator (D-Del.), Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee; The Honorable Wallace “Chip” Gregson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Harvard University; James Fallows, The Atlantic Magazine; Michael Chase, Naval War College.
Sen. Coons kicked off the event by relating the experiences of a newly elected Senator who had spent the last several months on the campaign trail listening to the ordinary Americans’ trepidations about China.
“I’ve seen and heard the growing frustrations of average Americans, and their perceptions, or misperceptions, about the rise of China,” Coons said. “Americans are deeply concerned we’ve lost our economic and manufacturing edge and Washington has taken its eye off the ball.”
But Coons also registered an optimistic note: “I don’t view it as a zero-sum game. China’s rise does not have to mean the decline of America.” The Senator expressed hope that the U.S. and China could overcome the short-term impasses over such issues as trade and intellectual property and could have a “long-term harmonious relationship”
Assistant Secretary Gregson followed Coons with a similar hope. “Together,” he said, “the U.S. and China can build a new century of global prosperity, and the time to begin is now…both countries have a great deal to gain from cooperation.”
Gregson highlighted the importance of the Pacific region, which is home to 15 of the world’s 20 largest ports, including nine in China. Five of the world’s seven largest standing armies (China, North Korea, South Korea, India, and Pakistan) are there as well. “China sits at a fulcrum,” said Gregson.
The Assistant Secretary outlined the three pillars of the U.S. approach to China:
An effort to sustain and strengthen bilateral cooperation;
An effort to strengthen relations with other Asian allies;
And that a rising China should abide by global norms and international laws.
He noted that China’s military build-up, which has often been less than transparent, has raised real concerns. “This type of military build-up far exceeds China’s defensive needs,” he said. “We call upon China to become more transparent. We are not asking for an unreasonable degree of disclosure. Just enough to allow all parties to avoid miscalculation.”
Professor Nye, author of a new book entitled The Future of Power (about how power is transitioning from the West to the East, and from state to non-state actors), spent a few minutes musing on a question he posed: “Can the rise of China be peaceful?”
Referencing Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War and the rise of Germany in the early 20th Century, Nye noted that the rise of a new power often provokes fear from rivals, and “if we fear too much it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Referencing FDR, Nye argued the more apt position to take with China was that “the greatest thing we should fear is fear itself.”
“There is a rise in Chinese power, but a mistake to over-estimate it,” said Nye. “The size of China’s economy and our economy may be equal in size by 2030, but they will not be equal in composition, and per capita income will only be 1/3 of our per capita income.”
Fallows, who spent four years living in China and has written about his experiences inPostcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China (and is writing another book about China), argued that in most respects, the fundamental arrangement and consensus between the U.S. and China has been remarkably stable for the last 30 years: It’s better to work together than as enemies; China’s prosperity need not be at the direct expense of the United States; and there are going to be real disagreements.
As for America’s perceived sense of decline in the face of a rising China, “The central thing here is that the issues that matter to America’s viability have nothing to do with China,” said Fallows. “They would be identical if China did not exist. The greatest concerns are the functionality of the political system.”
Chase, who has written three memos on China’s military for PPI, noted that one of the challenging things about assessing China’s military prowess is that the military hasn’t been involved in a hot war since 1979 (Vietnam). Chase recommended a path of working with China as well as building up our military capacity to match China’s possible threats.
The event concluded with a question about climate change, which will probably be the most pressing challenge that the U.S. and China will have to solve. Nye noted that China has now surpassed the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions. Fallows put it simply: “There is either a collaborative strategy of the U.S. and China, or no hope at all.”
The US was in an awkward position in Cancun. The administration clearly wanted to show leadership, but it was hamstrung by an inability to deliver legislation with any tangible commitments. Since that seemed unlikely to change in the new Congress, US negotiators were left playing defense on the key issue — mitigation.
This makes movement in other areas (such as finance and forests) difficult, though that is in part due to US insistence on parallel, rather than serial, treatment of issues.
The result was sometimes bizarre diplomatic displays by the US, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s address — essentially a remedial crash course in climate science. Secretary Chu did not take questions, one suspects because it would have been difficult to answer the obvious one — how does the US plan to meet the President’s 17%-cuts-by-2020 goal articulated last year?
Difficult, but not impossible. The awkward position in which US officials find themselves and the effects it has on US credibility and capability make the administration’s continued avoidance of serious public discussion of EPA carbon regulations puzzling. Research at RFF and elsewhere indicates that EPA regulations, either on the books already or likely in the near future, could achieve emissions reductions in the range of the President’s goal.
I’ve studied these regulations over the past year or so, and I’ve been repeatedly surprised by their likely impact. Vehicle fuel economy standards, new power plant permitting rules, and whatever the agency decides to do for existing sources can each make a significant emissions impact. Perhaps more interestingly, coming EPA regulations ostensibly aimed at other pollutants could have a big impact on carbon by pushing a substantial portion of coal plants into retirement, and replacing them with cleaner technology.
It’s not clear why the US administration and negotiators didn’t trumpeting these regulations as evidence of a commitment to cut emissions. It’s possible it is felt that a regulatory approach won’t be understood or taken seriously by the international community, but EPA regulations are far from the only complex issue on the table (just ask your local climate finance expert for a quick summary if you suspect otherwise). And other countries are undoubtedly familiar with a regulatory approach — for many it is their preferred domestic environmental policy. One thing is certain, though — the best way to ensure that the international community (and the American public) fails to understand or appreciate the EPA’s capabilities is for the administration and its negotiators to refuse to explain them.
Another possibility is that the administration worries that hyping EPA’s powers is politically dangerous. The agency is more effective, this argument goes, if it can operate quietly and at its own pace. To put it more directly, to speak of regulation is to destroy it — perhaps because Congress would respond by seeking to cripple the agency.
But the President should not forget that his party still controls the Senate, and that he still wields the veto pen. Even if the President resigned himself to giving up EPA powers (or delaying them) as part of a compromise, it would surely be in his interest to say how strong these powers are, thus increasing their value in any bargain.
Moreover, the argument that regulatory emissions cuts are more effective if kept quiet contradicts what is arguably the central dogma of US foreign climate policy — that US action is valuable not for its small contribution to global goals, but as a tool for unlocking negotiations and prompting action elsewhere. If US negotiators can’t or won’t talk about the best policy tool the US currently has, they can’t do their jobs. This makes the long term likelihood of a meaningful international agreement much smaller.
EPA regulation is not the first, best option for US climate policy; it is above all likely to be more costly over the long run than a pricing mechanism. But neither this admission, nor the fact that EPA regulations are legally required, are good reasons not to forcefully and frequently articulate their emissions benefits. Perhaps we as a country should be embarrassed that we cannot adopt a national climate policy that more closely approaches the ideal in terms of both costs and benefits. But the administration should not let any embarrassment about what the country cannot currently do prevent them from talking about what it can.
As my colleague Dallas Burtraw pointed out in his talk here this week, US credibility on climate requires that the administration be a lot bolder — not by making new commitments that it lacks the domestic powers to back up, but simply by publicly, loudly, and clearly saying what it can and will do with the tools it already has.
Last Friday the AFL-CIO and several big unions came out against the U.S.-Korea free trade deal. As news, this was strictly “dog-bites-man” stuff. The bigger story is the appearance of cracks in Labor’s usually monolithic opposition to trade pacts.
Several unions, namely the United Auto Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers, endorsed the agreement after President Obama wrung concessions from Seoul on cars and U.S. beef earlier this month. Ford Motor Company, which strongly opposed the original deal negotiated by the George W. Bush administration on the grounds that it didn’t do enough to pry open South Korea’s auto market, is also on board.
The unusual split in Labor’s ranks makes it easier for Congressional Democrats to back Obama. Although voting treaties up or down is the exclusive prerogative of the Senate, it’s significant that the deal also has the support of Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich), a tireless defender of the U.S. auto industry and long the House’s leading skeptic of free trade agreements.
If the Senate approves the treaty next year, it will be a major boost for Obama’s pledge to double exports over the next five years. It may also signal a shift in trade politics within the Democratic Party. As a candidate, Obama played to his party’s anti-trade gallery, even pledging to re-negotiate the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement. Now, as President, he recognizes that opening overseas markets is integral to economic recovery. With consumers still winding down their debts, and businesses hoarding cash, a good part of the economic demand we need to create jobs must come from abroad.
In fact, the Commerce Department reported Friday that U.S. exports rose to their highest levels in more than two years. The U.S. trade deficit (in goods and services) fell to $38.71 billion, a more than 13 percent drop over the previous month and considerably less than the $44 billion economists had predicted. Best of all, U.S. exports to China grew nearly 30 percent to reach a record high of just over $9 billion. Along with a slight decrease in Chinese imports, that narrowed the monthly U.S. trade deficit by 8 percent, to $25.52 billion. This was the best economic news we’ve had for some time, and it sent stocks soaring.
South Korea has the world’s 12th largest economy. By lowering its high tariffs and dealing with non-tariff barriers to U.S. communications and financial services firms, the deal could boost U.S. exports to South Korea by $10 trillion annually, the administration says. Crucially, thanks to Obama’s success in getting South Korea to modify its auto provisions, it exempts up to 25,000 U.S. vehicles from Seoul’s environmental and fuel economy standards, and builds in safeguards against a surge of imported cars from South Korea.
That was enough to satisfy the UAW and Ford though not, it seems, the rest of organized labor. Intriguingly, the automakers’ union also parted company from the AFL-CIO in backing another controversial Obama deal: his tax-cut compromise with Republicans. It’s another sign that, even within the progressive camp, arguments for spurring job-creating growth are prevailing over class warfare themes.
South Korea is more than a major trading partner. It’s also a key U.S. ally. North Korea’s recent artillery attack on one of its islands – and China’s refusal to condemn it – seems to have made Seoul more tractable about negotiating changes in the treaty. In any event, the free trade pact also offers the United States an opportunity to cement relations with an prosperous market democracy that increasingly shares our apprehensions about Beijing’s propensity for throwing its weight around in the Asia Pacific.
The U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement would be worth ratifying on foreign policy grounds alone. But unlike several previous bilateral trade pacts with small nations, this one will deliver real benefits to America’s struggling economy.
The Center for New American Security (CNAS) just released a new report on the way forward in Afghanistan. As the report’s title indicates, “Responsible Transition” calls for the United States to hand over responsibility for security to the Afghans over the next few years. The plan involves leaving 25-35,000 U.S. troops behind to defeat Afghanistan, with the rest withdrawn by 2014. “Responsible Transition” also calls for America to put more pressure on Pakistan to crack down on extremists.
CNAS’s plan to scale down the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is a wise one, recognizing as it does that “all options are likely to be suboptimal” but a long-term nation-building project is particularly suboptimal. But it seems wishful thinking that more pressure on Pakistan coming from the Obama administration will do what nine years of pressure haven’t already: convince Pakistan to expel the Taliban and any other troublemakers from its territory. As long as Pakistan knows we need it more than it needs us, it can take U.S. money while doing little.
Moreover, as Michael Cohen points out, CNAS’s report entirely sidesteps the thorny issue of talking with the Taliban. This is a key issue, since the Taliban have deep roots in the Pashtun community. Any long-term peace is going to have to include elements of the Taliban, as the administration sometimes seems to realize.
A more realistic plan would be something along the lines of what the Afghanistan Study Group and the Center for American Progress have recommended. Encouraging political reconciliation must be at the forefront of U.S.’s strategy going forward, not simply an afterthought. Military operations will have to take a backseat to diplomacy and politics if long-term progress is going to be made. Deal-making will have to include bargains with the Taliban, unsavoury though that prospect is. There simply is no other way to bring a modicum of stability to the troubled region unless the Taliban are made a part of some power-sharing agreement.
It’s a positive sign that the gang at CNAS recognizes that a sizable U.S. footprint in Afghanistan is unsustainable. As the strongest boosters of large-scale counterinsurgency approaches, CNAS has an important role to play in forming a strategy that focuses primarily–and eventually, exclusively–on preventing terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland. That should always be the top priority. When the Obama administration releases its Afghanistan review next week, let’s hope it agrees.
Beijing has arm-twisted nineteen countries to not send representatives to tomorrow’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. At issue is the honoree, Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political prisoner whose views on human rights and democracy don’t jive particularly with the Chinese Communist Party’s. Imagine that.
On the surface, Beijing’s deft deployment of “soft power” seems impressive: to keep nineteen countries from attending supporting democratic movements is impressive. “Soft power,” as Harvard professor Joe Nye explains in an October Washington Quarterly article, is an area where Beijing is just coming into its own.
But Nye also points out that Chinese soft power has limits:
It is not easy for governments to sell their country’s charm if their narrative is inconsistent with domestic realities. In that dimension, except for its economic success, China still has a long way to go.
Such is the case with the Nobel event. Let’s examine the nineteen no-shows, and their political and press rankings from 2009 by Freedom House, the NGO that tracks these sorts of things:
Country
Political Status
Freedom of the press status
Afghanistan
Not Free
Not Free
China
Not Free
Not Free
Colombia
Partly Free
Partly Free
Cuba
Not Free
Not Free
Egypt
Not Free
Partly Free
Iran
Not Free
Not Free
Iraq
Not Free
Not Free
Morocco
Partly Free
Not Free
Pakistan
Partly Free
Not Free
Russia
Not Free
Not Free
Saudi Arabia
Not Free
Not Free
Serbia
Free
Partly Free
Sudan
Not Free
Not Free
The Philippines
Partly Free
Partly Free
Tunisia
Not Free
Not Free
Ukraine
Free
Partly Free
Venezuela
Partly Free
Not Free
Vietnam
Not Free
Not Free
Yikes. Only two unfettered “free”’s in the lot. In other words, as Nye acutely observes: ‘[I]f the authoritarian growth model produces soft power for China in authoritarian countries, it does not produce attraction in democratic countries. In other words, what attracts in Caracas may repel in Paris.” How spot-on.
And if you’re interested in hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, come see Joseph Nye, Under Secretary Michele Flournoy, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and a host of others talk about these issues at a PPI panel discussion on China, next Tuesday, December 14th in DC. Click here to see the invite and RSVP.
Taking its cues straight from Will Marshall’s keyboard, no doubt, the Obama administration correctly labeled China as an “enabler” of North Korea over the weekend. If Pyongyang is the crack addict in the alley behind my house, Beijing keeps it high.
Beijing’s unwillingness to curtail the Hermit Kingdom’s frustrating bellicosity falls within its national interest. Well, in the short term, anyway: As North Korea continues to cause headaches in Washington, Beijing is probably quite content to let a distracted DC spend time and energy containing the North and placating the South. Further, China alone maintains significant diplomatic leverage over the Kim dynasty, and a mischievous Pyongyang reinforces Beijing’s position as regional powerbroker.
Consider the flip side: If North Korea starts to behave itself, China not only loses that pivotal position, but Washington can spend more time focusing the basket of issues it would prefers keeping front and center: currency valuation and debt, trade, improving military ties, freedom of international waterways, and India’s UN Security Council seat, amongst others.
But as the Korean situation continues to deteriorate, it should be dawning on the Chinese that an escalation isn’t in their interests, either. With each Northern provocation–the Cheonan sinking, the Yeonpyeong Island shelling, and the consistent threat of another nuclear test launch–the South Korean public loses patience with diplomatic responses. Should the day arrive when a military response is unavoidable, the egg will ultimately end up on Beijing’s face: it will be drawn into full-blown crisis-control mode if for no other reason than to manage the inevitable refugee catastrophe awaiting on its boarder.
In talks with the Chinese, the Obama administration must highlight these facts: allowing a rambunctious Kim to needle Washington’s eye is fine for today, but it serves no one’s interest to allow such behavior continue. This is the choice China faces: regional broker or global stakeholder — it’s very difficult to be both over the long term.
If you want to learn more, you should check out PPI’s All-Star panel on US-China relationship next Tuesday, December 14th, featuring UnderSecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, new Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Harvard professor Joe Nye, writer James Fallows, and Naval War College professor Mike Chase.
MEDIA COVERAGE:
The event is open to the press. Media in attendance are required to register in advance of the event to Steven Chlapecka at 202.525.3931 or schlapecka@ppionline.org. Camera pre-set: 9:30 a.m.
Hosted in collaboration with the University of California Washington Center.
The democratic cause lost an eloquent and effective champion yesterday when former Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) succumbed to cancer at age 70.
Over nine terms in the House of Representatives, Steve distinguished himself as one of that body’s preeminent spokesman on international affairs. He understood that the foundational principle of a liberal foreign policy – what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called its “fighting faith” – is implacable opposition to tyranny. And he applied that principle with unswerving consistency, backing Eastern Europe’s bid for freedom from its Soviet overlord, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and democratic reformers challenging pro-American autocrats in the Phillipines and South Korea.
We at PPI drew inspiration from Steve and were proud to count him as a friend and sometime contributor to our work. See his chapter in our 2006 book, With All Our Might, in which he argued presciently that Pakistan is the pivotal battleground in America’s fight against al Qaeda and Islamist extremism in general.
Finally Steve was a staunch backer of the National Endowment of Democracy, serving on its Board and receiving its Democracy Service Medal in 2001.