The foreign policy community up to the election spent considerable energy assessing the terrain in lieu of another possibly Trump term. The beehive has of course only woken up even more now.
This quick essay takes the temperature on the spectrum from staunch defenders of liberalism over cooler heads to pro trump advocates.
Note that a suspicious amount of articles on Foreign Affairs are copyright Council for Foreign Relations.
Lloyd J. Austin III
(Outgoing) Lloyd J. Austin III who commanded CENTCOM under Obama and as Secretary of Defense under Biden underscores with perfect accuracy why he is on the team in the article with the one-dimensional title The Price of Principle Is Dwarfed by the Cost of Capitulation in Ukraine:
THE STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE OF A JUST CAUSE
[…]
The spirit of Ukraine has inspired the world. It has reminded us all to never take our freedom for granted.
We fully understand the moral chasm between aggressor and defender.We will not be gulled by the frauds and falsehoods of the Kremlin’s apologists. And we will continue to defend the Ukrainian people’s right to live in security and freedom.
This power-liberal voice who clearly thinks in terms of the self-aware law enforcer versus the self-aware criminal is echoed often in the printed media. Surprisingly it was not echoed in the voting booth. Something else must have mattered more to the voters than the ethical imperatives.
If your attitude is that..
Russia has paid a staggering price for
Putin’s imperial folly
…then you can only reach the conclusion that this is a fight between forces of good against forces of evil.
Putin is not just hammering at the norms of the international system built at such terrible cost by the Allies after World War II. He is shoving us all toward a world where might makes right and where
empire trumps sovereignty.
Referring to World War 2 in the face of Russia will probably invoke the wrong response from Russia. Even the average Joe sees NATO as an enemy encroaching like in ‘40. NATO is the fist of the Empire.
He is not only the first black man to become Secretary of State. He is the first completely colour-blind black man to become so. He is a Mister White surrounded by Black-hearted Despots and Tyrants.
Well, Austin. The Russian people overwhelmingly feel USA is responsible for the war in Ukraine, NOT the Ukrainian people. Levada.ru
The Russian people are very much aware of the tensions between Russia and NATO and they are by no means convinced that NATO is a good friend. Levada.ru
The Russians do support the war efforts, but also would be happy to have avoided the war if it could have been so: Levada.ru
A little less sabre rattling and perhaps the Russian people would not have support these efforts.
Robert C. O’Brien
Rober C. O’Brien, National Security Adviser to Trump, is the dark mirror image of Lloyd Austin and a stark reminder that the term spectrum is a bad way to describe politics. They are more alike than opposites. In his article The Return of Peace Through Strength, we are reminded that whatever Trump is, he operates in a conservative space.
But where Austin soars on wings of justice, O’Brien sails on waves of force. It is difficult to discern where O’Brien is talking, where he interprets Trump’s words through his own perspective and where Trump’s own voice is showing through.
And Trump was a peacemaker—a fact obscured by false portrayals of him
[…]
Trump was determined to avoid new wars and endless counterinsurgency operations, and his presidency was the first since that of Jimmy Carter in which the United States did not enter a new war or expand an existing conflict.
[…]
Trump has never aspired to promulgate a “Trump Doctrine” for the benefit of the Washington foreign policy establishment. He adheres not to dogma but to his own instincts
Our interest is in the chances of another war, major or minor. Trump, he says, made several advances that could be interpreted both ways. Investment in hypersonic missiles. Deterrent? Probably. But can he forever hold the balance between threats and action? When he flaunts the dangers, he is making a gamble.
Biden would opt for war long before his hands were forced, we know that. But we don’t know what Trump would do if push came to shove.
And worse, advisers like O’Brien can easily prove to be the real liability in Trump’s government if he trust them too much. Trump may not want war, but O’Brien?
As China seeks to undermine American economic and military strength, Washington should return the favor—just as it did during the Cold War, when it worked to weaken the Soviet economy
If O’Brien has misread China, he has effectively become the driver of a new war. Demonstrations of strength become unprovoked provocations. But Trump is also walking a dangerous edge:
Trump disinvited China from the annual Rim of the Pacific war games in 2018: a good defensive team does not invite its most likely opponent to witness planning and practice. (China, naturally, sent spy ships to observe.)
Or China sent spy ships to investigate if their enemy prepares for war? This is a question worth answering and it merits investigation. The concept of enemy is a fluid one. Every country continually monitors the temperature in other countries in their internal dialogue. If it drops below zero and is followed up by aggressive manoeuvres masquerading as “defensive”, then apparently even whole countries experience a kind of gut reaction to aggression. It takes very little internal change in a neighbouring country before they are regarded as enemies. America sees most other countries that have evaded submission as de facto enemies.
He (and probably also Trump) encourages their allied countries to spend more. But his claim is that the Trump camp unlike the Biden camp is also willing to assist countries a bit lower on the democratic ladder.
But the [Biden] administration undermines its own putative mission when it questions the democratic bona fides of conservative elected leaders in countries allied with the United States, including the former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Perhaps there’s a bit of sympathy for similarly fated people who have garnered an emblem of immorality on a different ethical axis than the moral compass they grew up with as children.
These leaders are responsive to the desires of their people and seek to defend democracy, but through policies different from those espoused by the kind of people who like to
hobnob in Davos.
Almost apologetic, he struggles to break out of a defensive position, and succeeds with his Davos reference.
Honestly, compared with the Lloyd Austin’s to-do list, the difference is less striking than it seems. They are betting on slightly different horses, but they want to win the same race. If they speak for their (former) bosses, then we’re probably not better off than before the election.
The Biden administration, however, seems less interested in fostering good relations with real-world democratic allies than in defending
fictional abstractions such as “the rules-based international order.”Such rhetoric reflects a globalist, liberal elitism that masquerades as support for democratic ideals.
This rebuttal however is interesting. The Rules-Based International Order" has become a trademark of the Biden administration (and as such he of course can’t use it). But to O’Brien, it is just that - a political emblem that one flashes to gain moral points.
He advocates modernisation of nuclear arsenal, modernisation and increase of battle ships, nuclear-carrying bombers, reignite development in hypersonic missiles and a long list of other hardware that could do with an upgrade.
The article quotes the latin adage “Si vis pacem, para bellum”. And he really means it when he say prepare for war.
Peter D. Feaver
This Special Adviser for the National Security Council under the younger Bush writes from a different vantage point: The expert/academic adviser. Or deep state as Trump would say.
His article How Trump Will Change the World is full of ill omens. Trump is surrounding himself with even fewer experts and professionals this time and even more MAGA-zealous personnel than last term. Putin and Xi will out-manoeuvre them easily. Putin stands to gain once Trump pushes through with his peace plans. Xi will experience a little bit of rough weather from tariffs, but nothing more.
Trump has surrounded himself with anti-Ukraine and pro-Putin advisers
[…]
China’s economy might experience some pain, although the pain to U.S. consumers would be greater and more immediate.
[…]
I will not say “it will be interesting to see how it turns out”, for the simple reason that what this is a clash of perceptions, and they have deep roots. Political fights on this level never ends for the simple reason that on any turn of events, all perspectives are always fully vindicated. Everything proves every theory, if we are allowed to interpret motives freely. Putin wanted to take Kiev but he failed and now must be desperate for way to demonstrate superiority for his legacy in another way. Even scholars must provide solid basis for claims.
The democratic crusaders will always see the hands of the despot in the shadows, and vice versa.
The problem with the Feavers of the world: They may be right. Contradicting them just takes immensely more than merely a fist in the table.
The two former class of staff whose toughness could easily be characterised as hollow (Lloyd Austin clinging to a simplistic moral version right out of a Hollywood production and Robert O’Brien dishing out recipes on how to act tough), lacking psychological insight into their opponents.
Feaver even hints at the firings in wait as announced by Trump as small scale purges:
he can get the cooperation or capitulation he seeks simply by leaving the threat of a purge hanging in the air—and he would be right.
[…]
they may have the simplest of loyalty tests: ask any individual in a position of authority whether the election of 2020 was stolen or whether the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was an act of insurrection.
To Feaver, the chess board is way more complicated than what Trump’s future advisers are ready to face. This takes expertise, which Trump had in the first term, but such good men, he suspects, will have less opportunity this time around.
But all of these discussions are still moving below the ideological radar.
Feaver fails to see that Trump - representing more than just American conservatism and chaos - may be the proverbial bleep on the high altitude radar that explains why he eludes all attempts at detection closer to ground.
The Austins, the O’Briens, the Feavers of the world are still on the same team: They are government people.
Trump is not government stock. His inner drive has a consistency stemming from his romantic vision. But if Feaver and others are correct, in that Putin, Xi and others we collectively fear, can grasp that, they may be able to manipulate Trump, use his romanticism against him.
The stark difference between government-minded people and outsiders is the reason the government is so uniformly minded for a war with Russia and China.
The only point worth remembering, though, is this: Even after four years of presidency, Trump will hardly make a dent in the extremely entrenched mentality of the establishment. He lacks the philosophical skills.
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