Finding enemies: US security strategy

1) Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera; 2) Chemi Shalev, Haaretz; 3) crib sheet of Trump’s friends and not-friends from the Atlantic.

Trump’s strategy is to protect the American people and the American way of life, his means to that end being to inculcate a fear of ‘the other’ – fear of immigrants and fear of Muslims. Photo by Reuters 

Laughable leadership: Trump’s strategy astray

By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera
December 19, 2017

The least popular first-year US president on record saw fit to begin his “America First” National Security Strategy (NSS) speech by trashing his predecessors. It was a “Trump first” moment, albeit in the name of “the people”.

President Donald Trump boasted (pdf) of a “new and very different course” for the United States, when only 3 in 10 Americans reckon he’s on the right course for the US. He said, “When the American people speak, all of us should listen.” Yet he’s doing anything but listening to the more than two-thirds of the American people who disapprove of his leadership.

The gap between rhetoric and reality couldn’t have been wider; the contrast couldn’t have been sharper. Trump bragged that the US is “leading again on the world stage”, just as his UN ambassador Nikki Haley was being chastised at the UN Security Council on Monday. [US outnumbered 14 to 1 as it vetoes UN vote on status of Jerusalem]

The US was isolated and outnumbered at the UNSC with 14 to 1 votes against its stance on Jerusalem. It stood alone, defensive and defiant, as ambassador Haley whined about the world’s “insult” to the US, rejecting its decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. She warned her audience that the humiliation wouldn’t be forgotten.

Monday’s scene at the UN makes Trump’s assertions about renewed US respectability and influence around the world seem laughable. It is indeed a symptom of a greater problem of rudderless leadership in the US, and by extension, in the world.

What’s new in the new NSS?

Any national security strategy must, by definition, recognise threats, prescribe actions and underline priorities. And so Trump’s NSS lists all major threats and challenges the US faces today and prescribes “priority actions” to deal with them, albeit under different headlines. It uses the same jargon and structure and voices the same concerns and diatribes that previous NSS reports included in the past three decades.

But Trump’s doctrine reveals a zero-sum vision that leads to a zero-sum strategy: Us vs them. It is a vision of an alien world that’s hostile to US interests, a vision that led the US to pull out of the Paris Climate accords, from UNESCO, and from the Trans-Pacific partnership, among others.

That’s not America first; it’s America alone.

Trump claims his strategy puts American security and American interests first. So have all other previous presidents. Trump insists he’s pursuing “peace through strength”, as if previous presidents pursued peace through weakness. He boasts of “promoting American prosperity” as if his predecessors promoted American poverty. He argues that his NSS “puts America first”, as if Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W Bush or Barack Obama put America second or last.

It would’ve been fine if that were merely a play on words, or if the US were withdrawing from the world to take care of its own. Indeed, it would’ve been welcomed if Washington became a benevolent hegemon that led the world by the power of its example rather than the example of its power. Alas, it is not.

A three-tier national security strategy *

President Trump has advanced a three-tier strategy to protect the homeland, promote American prosperity, and preserve peace through strength. But his logic is populist, his style antagonistic, and his policy is belligerent.

To protect the American people and the American way of life, Trump bases his strategy primarily on fear of “the other” – fear of immigrants and fear of Muslims. It is populist nationalism that’s more interested in erecting walls than building bridges.

To promote American prosperity, Trump bases his strategy mainly on treating economic security as national security. This is no different than “it’s the economy, stupid” approach pursued by President Clinton in the early 1990s.

But Trump’s strategy of deregulation and tax cuts at home, and confronting “competitors” abroad, could mean a race to the bottom – potentially to new tariffs – and even trade war with the likes of China, leading to global recession.

Equally or perhaps more dangerous is Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy. Again, no one expects the US to abandon its formidable military power to pursue a pacifist foreign policy. But the president’s emphasis on military force to deal with threats – real or imagined – and his increase of the US military budget to some $700bn – is terribly dangerous.

His suggestion of taxing foreign states for their protection is utterly preposterous and renders the US a mercenary power. Demanding of US allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere that they increase their military spending is utterly outrageous and could be dangerously destabilising. Whatever happened to arms non-proliferation treaties?!

A new era for a new strategy

A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, you’d expect the US to enjoy the fruits of its achievements and build on the successes of the past. But, while Trump may speak of “advancing American influence”, in reality, he’s undercutting the US’ leadership of a world order it created and championed for decades.

Trump portends to devise a new strategy to face new challenges in a new era. In reality, his strategy may be responsible for ushering in a new era of greater global instability, hostility and chaos.

And nowhere is this as clear as in the greater Middle East, where Trump rewards Israel’s aggression, inflames religious hatred, boasts of a war with no limits or deadlines in Afghanistan, escalates the US “war on terror”, floods the region with billions of dollars worth of arms, and makes Faustian deals with bullies and dictators.

In sum, Trump has embraced a hyperrealist foreign policy and sees no real value in universal values. Trump’s America will make new partnerships with those who share Trump’s goals, and transform common interests into a common cause.

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.  

If you want to read it, National Security Strategy of the USA, 2017

Demonstrators wave national flags and placards during the pro-Trump ‘Mother of All Rallies’ on the National Mall in Washington on Sept. 16, 2017. Photo by Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images 

Trump’s Personality Is Greatest Obstacle to His America First Policy

In landmark speech, President Trump elevates Iran to North Korea-level of clear and present threat to U.S. homeland

By Chemi Shalev, Haaretz premium
December 19, 2017

Donald Trump’s contentious and narcissistic speech at the Ronald Reagan Center in Washington D.C. on Monday night detracted from the seriousness with which America’s new national security strategy should be examined, but it is also an indication of its Achilles’ heel. Whether Trump conceived the rather revolutionary new policy that he sought to present, participated in its formulation or simply succeeded in reading it from start to finish, his one-dimensional, egotistical, capricious and pugnacious personality is the biggest obstacle to achieving its objective, which is to make America recover whatever greatness Trump thinks his predecessors lost.

Trump and his aides were undeterred by the protests that met his election-campaign use of the “America First” slogan, which associates to pre-World War II Nazi sympathizers in the U.S., and now they have enshrined it as the title of Trump’s new national security policies. At its core, the America First strategy is based on a worldview that would have received widespread support in Europe in the 1930s, by which all nation-states are fighting to better their position at the expense of others. Integration, globalization and multilateral co-operation agreements pursued by those who preceded Trump were signs of naiveté, weakness and loss of self-confidence.

Trump’s America, on the other hand, will always look out for number one. It will promote beneficial bilateral alliances at the expense of multilateral accords, expand and strengthen its army so it can intervene in self-defence wherever it deems fit and use capitalism and trade to make friends and defeat enemies. American may inspire the world and serve as a role model but it will stop trying to reconstruct devastated nations or to press for human rights in countries with oppressive regimes.

Although early Israeli headlines focused on Trump’s assertion that Middle East regimes no longer view Israel as the crux of the region’s problems, the more significant news on Monday concerns Iran. Alongside Trump’s familiar complaints about the terrible nuclear deal signed by Barack Obama, the new American paper elevates Iran to a North Korea level of direct threat. Iran is depicted not only as a danger to America’s national security around the world but as a threat to the homeland itself. Like Pyongyang, Tehran is said to be developing ballistic missiles in order to threaten and perhaps bomb the United States with unconventional weapons. The document strengthens doubts about Trump’s willingness to adhere to the nuclear deal for much longer. It also justifies apprehension – in Jerusalem, the better word might be hopes – that the road to a direct military confrontation between Iran and the U.S. is already paved.

On the other hand, it’s clear that there is a great gap between the new strategy’s resolute determinations about America’s enemies, including China and Russia, and the way Trump has conducted himself since his inauguration.

In theory, Russia is a strategic foe that seeks to weaken America and erode its ties to Europe, in practice Trump has personally damaged U.S.-European ties more than Vladimir Putin could have dreamed of. In theory, the U.S. deplores a Russia that “interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world”, as the new policy states. But in practice, Trump denies the most blatant case of such Russian intervention, describing it as a conspiracy hatched by frustrated liberals with the assistance of double agents and other traitors in the administration, especially the justice apparatus. In theory, Trump should have been standing up forcefully to Putin, in practice he once again looked like an eager poodle wagging his tail on Monday night when he described Putin’s recent phone call in which he thanked Trump for intelligence that led to foiling a terror plot.

The new American doctrine is bound to draw wide support in the nationalistic American right as well as among its adherents and allies in the Israeli government and beyond. An America that puts Iran and radical Islam squarely in its gun sights, that seeks to impose its will through its fortified army and thriving economy, that shrugs off any presumption to fix the world or to protect its poor and oppressed and who is indifferent to European wishes or the emotions of world/Muslim opinion – as shown in Monday’s lopsided 14-1 Security Council vote on Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem – this is the stuff of which Netanyahu’s dreams are made. If there is any hope for those who wish to see such a pessimistic and egocentric policy fail, it lies in the fact that fate has chosen Donald Trump to implement it.

Where Countries Stand With Donald Trump: A Crib Sheet

The American president tells the man behind a brutal anti-drug campaign that he is doing a “great job.”

 Picture: Jim Bourg / Getty / Chones / Dn Br / Shutterstock / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic 

By Uri Friedman, The Atlantic
May 25, 2017

In April, while recruiting allies against North Korea, Donald Trump reportedly applauded a vicious war against drugs that has resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, according to a transcript of the conversation made by the Philippine government and leaked to several news outlets this week. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

Duterte reviews his troops. He declared martial law in May on the island of Mindanoa so the army could wipe out Islamist militants, much to the admiration of Pres. Trump. Photo by Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images. 

Later in the conversation, Trump invited Duterte, who has bragged about personally executing criminals, to the White House.

It’s yet another reminder not just of Trump’s soft spot for strongmen, but also the degree to which he has broken with his predecessors in prioritizing value-neutral transactions—in this case, apparently: I’ll give you a green light on the drug war in exchange for your support on North Korea—over the promotion of democracy and human rights.

With Trump vowing to put “America first,” the question is who comes second, third, and 193rd. The U.S. president has thrown allies and adversaries into a state of flux unseen in decades. Consider one illustrative example from Trump’s first trip overseas: After meeting with the American president in Brussels, European Union President Donald Tusk acknowledged that the two men don’t “have a common position, a common opinion on Russia.” We now live in a world where long-standing diplomatic relationships can fray or flourish at the speed of a tweet or a leak from inside the Oval Office. Countries such as Australia and China appear to have recently risen in Trump’s esteem, while others, including Canada and Syria, have fallen.

Below, in alphabetical order, is a breakdown of where key countries seem to stand with Trump at the moment. I repeat: at the moment. As things change and Trump takes his foreign policy in new directions, I’ll update the status of countries on the list and add new ones.

AUSTRALIA

Status: Friend

Relations with one of America’s most loyal allies hit a snag amid reports of a hostile call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an Obama-era agreement for the United States to resettle refugees from detention centers off the Australian coast. But the alliance has since steadied, with Vice President Mike Pence promising to honour the refugee deal during a visit to Sydney. Still, Australia is a test case—perhaps the test case—for how international alliances could shift during the Trump era. If Australian leaders come to view the U.S. as unreliable, they may invest more in the relationship with their largest trading partner, China.