#“America First” National Security Strategy (NSS) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

go-redgirl · 7 years

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Nile Gardiner: It's time to admit that Trump's foreign policy has been a triumph

When Donald Trump was elected America’s 45th president in November 2016 the world took a collective deep breath. This was a man derided by his critics as an isolationist, woefully out of his depth on foreign policy matters, and imbued with a supposedly dangerous and reckless nationalism. European leaders queued up to condemn the new leader of the free world in the court of international opinion. But a year into his presidency Trump’s actual record has been far more effective than his detractors predicted. “America First” has not resulted in a U.S. withdrawal from the world. Far from it.

The White House’s new National Security Strategy (NSS), unveiled by Trump himself in December, was loudly attacked by Vladimir Putin’s regime as an aggressive statement of intent on the world stage by the U.S. administration. The first NSS since 2015, it outlines the big-picture strategic thinking of the Trump presidency and, in marked contrast to the previous Obama-era document, places heavy emphasis upon national sovereignty, self-determination and control of borders. All of which British supporters of Brexit can relate to.

A pro-British Eurosceptic himself, Trump is a genuine believer in the value of the Anglo-American Special Relationship — and likes to stand with all America’s traditional allies. In the Middle East, partnerships between the United States and Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all been reinvigorated. In Asia, he has bolstered alliances with Japan and Taiwan, much to the dismay of Beijing. And in Europe the administration has boosted the relationship with Poland, the rising power of Eastern Europe, and placed greater emphasis on working with national capitals than the EU.

Following pressure from Washington, defence spending among NATO allies is increasing for the first time in decades. When Trump entered the White House a year ago, Europe feared he would embark upon a pro-Russian trajectory, yielding to Moscow’s efforts to enhance its power in its “Near Abroad.”

The reality has been remarkably different and the message to America’s allies living in the shadow of the Russian bear is loud and clear: the United States will fight to defend Europe against any Russian attempt to threaten NATO territory. So the Trump presidency has expanded U.S. troop presence in the Baltics, supplied anti-missile systems to Poland and even declared its intent to send defensive weapons to Ukraine.

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uniteordie-usa · 7 years

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The petro-yuan bombshell

http://uniteordie-usa.com/the-petro-yuan-bombshell/ http://uniteordie-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dollar-Value-Since-1913-600x386.jpg The petro-yuan bombshell by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author) The new 55-page “America First” National Security Strategy (NSS), drafted over the course of 2017, defines Russia and China as “revisionist” powers, “rivals”, and for all practical purposes strategic competi...

by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)

The new 55-page “America First” National Security Strategy (NSS), drafted over the course of 2017, defines Russia and China as “revisionist” powers, “rivals”, and for all practical purposes strategic competitors of the United States.

The NSS stops short of defining Russia and China as enemies, allowing for an “attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries”. Still, Beijing qualified it as “reckless” and “irrational.” The Kremlin noted its “imperialist character” and “disregard for a multipolar world”. Iran, predictably, is described by the NSS as “the world’s most significant state sponsor of terrorism.”

Russia, China and Iran happen to be the three key movers and shakers in the ongoing geopolitical and geoeconomic process of Eurasia integration.

The NSS can certainly be regarded as a response to what happened at the BRICS summit in Xiamen last September. Then, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on “the BRIC countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies”, and stressed the need to “overcome the excessive domination of a limited number of reserve currencies”.

That was a clear reference to the US dollar, which accounts for nearly two thirds of total reserve currency around the world and remains the benchmark determining the price of energy and strategic raw materials.

And that brings us to the unnamed secret at the heart of the NSS; the Russia-China “threat” to the US dollar.

The CIPS/SWIFT face-off

The website of the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) recently announced the establishment of a yuan-ruble payment system, hinting that similar systems regarding other currencies participating in the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will also be in place in the near future.

Crucially, this is not about reducing currency risk; after all Russia and China have increasingly traded bilaterally in their own currencies since the 2014 US-imposed sanctions on Russia. This is about the implementation of a huge, new alternative reserve currency zone, bypassing the US dollar.

The decision follows the establishment by Beijing, in October 2015, of the China International Payments System (CIPS). CIPS has a cooperation agreement with the private, Belgium-based SWIFT international bank clearing system, through which virtually every global transaction must transit.

What matters in this case is that Beijing – as well as Moscow – clearly read the writing on the wall when, in 2012, Washington applied pressure on SWIFT; blocked international clearing for every Iranian bank; and froze $100 billion in Iranian assets overseas as well as Tehran’s potential to export oil. In the event Washington might decide to slap sanctions on China, bank clearing though CIPS works as a de facto sanctions-evading mechanism.

Last March, Russia’s central bank opened its first office in Beijing. Moscow is launching its first $1 billion yuan-denominated government bond sale. Moscow has made it very clear it is committed to a long term strategy to stop using the US dollar as their primary currency in global trade, moving alongside Beijing towards what could be dubbed a post-Bretton Woods exchange system.

Gold is essential in this strategy. Russia, China, India, Brazil & South Africa are all either large producers or consumers of gold – or both. Following what has been extensively discussed in their summits since the early 2010s, the BRICS are bound to focus on trading physical gold.

Markets such as COMEX actually trade derivatives on gold, and are backed by an insignificant amount of physical gold. Major BRICS gold producers – especially the Russia-China partnership – plan to be able to exercise extra influence in setting up global gold prices.

The ultimate politically charged dossier

Intractable questions referring to the US dollar as top reserve currency have been discussed at the highest levels of JP Morgan for at least five years now. There cannot be a more politically charged dossier. The NSS duly sidestepped it.

The current state of play is still all about the petrodollar system; since last year what used to be a key, “secret” informal deal between the US and the House of Saud is firmly in the public domain.

Even warriors in the Hindu Kush may now be aware of how oil and virtually all commodities must be traded in US dollars, and how these petrodollars are recycled into US Treasuries. Through this mechanism Washington has accumulated an astonishing $20 trillion in debt – and counting.

Vast populations all across MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) also learned what happened when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein decided to sell oil in euros, or when Muammar Gaddafi planned to issue a pan-African gold dinar.

But now it’s China who’s entering the fray, following on plans set up way back in 2012. And the name of the game is oil-futures trading priced in yuan, with the yuan fully convertible into gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong foreign exchange markets.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange and its subsidiary, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) have already run four production environment tests for crude oil futures. Operations were supposed to start at the end of 2017; but even if they start sometime in early 2018 the fundamentals are clear; this triple win (oil/yuan/gold) completely bypasses the US dollar. The era of the petro-yuan is at hand.

Of course there are questions on how Beijing will technically manage to set up a rival mark to Brent and WTI, or whether China’s capital controls will influence it. Beijing has been quite discreet on the triple win; the petro-yuan was not even mentioned in National Development and Reform Commission documents following the 19th CCP Congress last October.

What’s certain is that the BRICS supported the petro-yuan move at their summit in Xiamen, as diplomats confirmed to Asia Times. Venezuela is also on board. It’s crucial to remember that Russia is number two and Venezuela is number seven among the world’s Top Ten oil producers. Considering the pull of China’s economy, they may soon be joined by other producers.

Yao Wei, chief China economist at Societe Generale in Paris, goes straight to the point, remarking how “this contract has the potential to greatly help China’s push for yuan internationalization.”

The hidden riches of “belt” and “road”

An extensive report by DBS in Singapore hits most of the right notes linking the internationalization of the yuan with the expansion of BRI.

In 2018, six major BRI projects will be on overdrive; the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the China-Laos railway, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, the Hungary-Serbia railway, the Melaka Gateway project in Malaysia, and the upgrading of Gwadar port in Pakistan.

HSBC estimates that BRI as a whole will generate no less than an additional, game-changing $2.5 trillion worth of new trade a year.

It’s important to keep in mind that the “belt” in BRI should be seen as a series of corridors connecting Eastern China with oil/gas rich regions in Central Asia and the Middle East, while the “roads” soon to be plied by high-speed rail traverse regions filled with – what else – un-mined gold.

A key determinant of the future of the petro-yuan is what the House of Saud will do about it. Should Crown Prince – and inevitable future king – MBS opt to follow Russia’s lead, to dub it as a paradigm shift would be the understatement of the century.

Yuan-denominated gold contracts will be traded not only in Shanghai and Hong Kong but also in Dubai. Saudi Arabia is also considering to issue so-called Panda bonds, after the Emirate of Sharjah is set to take the lead in the Middle East for Chinese interbank bonds.

Of course the prelude to D-Day will be when the House of Saud officially announces it accepts yuan for at least part of its exports to China. A follower of the Austrian school of economics correctly asserts that for oil-producing nations, higher oil price in US dollars is not as important as market share; “They are increasingly able to choose in which currencies they want to trade.”

What’s clear is that the House of Saud simply cannot alienate China as one of its top customers; it’s Beijing who will dictate future terms. That may include extra pressure for Chinese participation in Aramco’s IPO. In parallel, Washington would see Riyadh embracing the petro-yuan as the ultimate red line.

An independent European report points to what may be the Chinese trump card; “an authorization to issue treasury bills in yuan by Saudi Arabia”; the creation of a Saudi investment fund; and the acquisition of a 5% share of Aramco.

Nations under US sanctions such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela will be among the first to embrace the petro-yuan. Smaller producers such as Angola and Nigeria are already selling oil/gas to China in yuan.

And if you don’t export oil but is part of BRI, such as Pakistan, the least you can do is replace the US dollar in bilateral trade, as Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal is currently evaluating.

A key feature of the geoconomic heart of the world moving from the West to Asia is that by the start of the next decade the petro-yuan and trade bypassing the US dollar will be certified facts on the ground across Eurasia.

The NSS for its part promises to preserve “peace through strength”. As Washington currently deploys no less than 291,000 troops in 183 countries and has sent Special Ops to no less than 149 nations in 2017 alone, it’s hard to argue the US is at “peace” – especially when the NSS seeks to channel even more resources to the industrial-military complex.

“Revisionist” Russia-China have committed an unpardonable sin; they have concluded that pumping the US military budget by buying US bonds that allow the US Treasury to finance a multi-trillion dollar deficit without raising interest rates is an unsustainable proposition for the Global South. Their “threat” – under the framework of the BRICS as well as the SCO, which includes prospective members Iran and Turkey – is to increasingly settle bilateral and multilateral trade bypassing the US dollar.

It ain’t over till the fat (golden) lady sings. When the beginning of the end of the petrodollar system – established by Kissinger in tandem with the House of Saud way back in 1974 – becomes a fact on the ground, all eyes will be focused on the NSS counterpunch.

Read More: http://thesaker.is/the-petro-yuan-bombshell/

#“America First” National Security Strategy (NSS)#Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)#BRIC countries #China #China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS)#Iran #Russia #Russian President Vladimir Putin

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christinamac1 · 7 years

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Donald Trump's National Security Strategy (NSS) puts America in peril

Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) puts America in peril

Trump’s “America First” Security Strategy Imperils the US http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43066-trump-s-america-first-security-strategy-imperils-the-us, December 29, 2017By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout | News Analysis Last week, with great fanfare, Donald Trump rolled out his new National Security Strategy (NSS). Its guiding theme is “America First.” An analysis of the 55-page document, however,…

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raystart · 4 years

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Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 4

We just held our fourth sessions of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. Today’s topic was Defense Strategies and Military Plans in an Era of Great Power Competition.

Catch up with the class by reading our summary of Class 1 here, Class 2 here and Class 3 here.

Our guest speaker was Bridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ point person for articulating his vision for the National Defense Strategy.

Some of the readings for this fourth class session included: National Security Strategy, 2018 National Defense Strategy, National Military Strategy Summary, The Age of Great-Power Competition, The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied America’s Expectations, The Administration’s Policy Toward China, The End of American Illusion. Trump and the World as It is, Indo Pacific Strategy Report 2019

In this session we provided the students with an appreciation of how the United States National Security Strategy arrived at the conclusion that we are in an era of great power competition with Russia and China. Next, we introduced the National Defense Strategy (NDS) which describes how the military supports the overall National strategy. The NDS observed that we not only faced non-nation states (terror organizations,) but going forward we have to plan for 2+3 adversaries (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and the non-nations states.) The NDS provided an outline of what we need to do (called Lines of Effort) to transform our military.

If you can’t see the slides click here.

Joe Felter (who was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia) began the lesson providing background and context for understanding – What happened? Why did we shift our strategies and military plans? And what do these plans look like today.

Great hopes for international security In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, it marked the symbolic end of the Cold War. The United States emerged as the dominant power in the international system and its Cold War rivals appeared to be moving down a path of reform. We had great hopes for an international security environment that would advance common interests among large and small nations through international cooperation and engagement.

Russia at the time showed promising signs of moving closer to democracy. The break-up of former Soviet states put the country on the path of increasing liberalization and reform. Former Warsaw Pact nations expressed interest in working with and aligning more closely with its former rivals. Several joined NATO.

Meanwhile, China’s economy was growing at an extraordinary rate and becoming more integrated with countries across the region and beyond. All prevailing theories of modernization predicted that this growth and would lead to increasing liberalization and reform in China. It was considered to be on a trajectory towards becoming a “responsible stakeholder” willing to play by the rules of the established order.

Beyond these encouraging developments with our former Cold War rivals the US assumed a position of unparalleled military dominance. Shortly after the fall of the wall this overmatch and dominance of US military power was put on display during Desert Storm where the US achieved quick and decisive victory destroying the world’s 4th largest Army in 100 hours of ground combat.

Optimism turns into reality Fast forward to 2017. Conditions were far from where we hoped in the heady optimism following the Cold War. Putin’s Russia is intent on undermining the US and West in any way it can – aggression in the Crimea and Ukraine and destabilizing activities in Syria; Venezuela and beyond. Adding to this are it’s state sponsored poisonings and assassinations, cyber-attacks against nations and election meddling in the U.S. and other countries.

In China Xi Jinping and the CCP pursuing a deliberate whole of government approach to projecting influence if not dominance of the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Disappointingly, the liberalization and reforms so many assumed would accompany its rapid economic growth did not occur. The CCP explicitly states its intention for China to be a dominant power with benchmarks and years identified. For example, President Xie leads the Central Military Commission that in 2012 committed to building a military that can dominate the region and “fight and win global wars by 2049.”

To do this, China is pursuing a military build-up of an historic scale with a seven-fold increase in its defense budget in the last two decades. It is investing in high tech weaponry to close the gap and in many cases extend their advantage in a range of military capabilities and technologies.

Beijing engages in predatory economics – driving states into significant debt burdens forcing them to make “debt- for equity” swaps in places that undermine their sovereignty Its Belt and Road Initiative makes infrastructure and other investments with a clear nationalist agenda. It is increasing its de facto project power projection capabilities by developing and establishing access to a network of dual use ports, airfields, and other facilities across region. Some argue that China is even in the early stages of establishing a strategically located naval base in Cambodia which course co-instructor Joe Felter raised the official alarm following a visit to the southern port while serving as a senior official in the Department of Defense.

China’s militarization of features in the South China Sea is perhaps the most egregious example of its illegal efforts to build military capabilities and extend the PLA’s ability to project power. Despite Xie’s promise to President Obama in Jing Peng Rose garden 2015 and the international tribunal ruling by the Hauge in 2016 that its claims have no basis in international law, China continued to fortify its illegal claims building runways, radars, missile sites, storage facilities and other improvements.

See time-lapse videos of the reefs turning into a military base here and here.

The U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy These were the conditions we confronted in 2017 when the current National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy was developed. These strategies reflected the realization we are in long term competition with Russia and China and must make a clear-eyed assessment and treat these competitors for who they are and not as we want them to be. As the NSS states Just as American weakness invites challenge, American strength and confidence deters war and promotes peace.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) pulled no punches. It was a real wakeup call for the military and the country. As Bridge Colby said in his talk to the class, “others described it as the first realist document we’ve had as a country in a long time.” Bridge points out that after the Berlin Wall fell we were the sole superpower and the country really didn’t need a defense strategy. We had so many resources relative to the plausible threats that we could essentially overwhelm any adversary.

Besides explicitly acknowledging we are in long term strategic competition with Russia and China. It said that our regional priorities would shift from the Middle East to Indo-Pacific and China. And China is recognized as the more powerful and potentially dangerous threat. The National Defense Strategy outlined three major lines of effort that the Department of Defense needed to execute to face these new 2+3 challenges:

Line of Effort I: Build a more lethal force

Line of Effort II: Strengthen Alliances and Build partnerships

Line of Effort III: Reform the Defense Department

And the US has made important progress across all three of these lines of effort.

(Our students heard this quarter about some of the efforts aimed at reforming the Department of Defense – requirements and acquisition reform from Will Roper, new innovation organizations like the JAIC (Joint Artificial Intelligence Center,) from General Shanahan, AFWERX, Kessel Run, NavalX,…and they’ll hear more later this quarter from General Raymond about standing up a new service branch – the Space Force.)

So how are we doing so far? First the bad news. China is making gains and many are at the expense of state sovereignty across the region which in some cases will be difficult to reverse (ie Hong Kong.) Under Xi and the CCP, China is structurally set up in many ways to compete more effectively e.g. with its coherence and continuity of leadership, civil/academic/military fusion. Other examples include how China’s State-Owned Enterprises can be employed by the CCP for coordinating and projecting influence more efficiently.

But there is good news that bodes well for the outcome of this long term competition. The US has a vision that is largely shared and embraced by those that wish to see the region remain free and open and for the rules-based order to endure.

Significantly we are not asking states to choose between the US and China- but rather to choose their own sovereignty and a vision for future. Our challenge, however, is to ensure our actions match our strategy- demonstrating that the US is a reliable partner and will deliver on its stated goals and objectives.

Bridge Colby gave us some compelling insights on the 2018 National Defense Strategy and participated in an informative Q&A session with our students. He provided an insiders account of the development of the National Defense Strategy and an informed assessment of its execution.

Read the transcript of Bridge Colby’s talk here and watch the video below.

If you can’t see the Bridge Colby talk click here

youtube

Lessons Learned

The National Security Strategy arrived at the conclusion that we are in an era of great power competition with Russia and China

The National Defense Strategy (NDS) describes how the military supports our nations overall strategy

It observed that we still face non-nation states (terror organizations,) but have to plan for 2+3 adversaries – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and the non-nations states

Our regional priorities shifted from the Middle East to Indo-Pacific

China is recognized as the more powerful and potentially dangerous threat

We want our adversaries to choose diplomacy not war. To do so, we..

are developing a lethal force (the NDS Line of Effort I) to decisively defeat adversaries in future conflict

this ensures no state calculates it can successfully use force against the US to achieve its objectives

and therefore it must rely on diplomacy and other means short of war

The US has a significant advantage in its network of alliances and partners

Strengthening these alliances and building new partnerships (the NDS Line of Effort II) will be critical to our ability to compete effectively

#startups #text #startup #advice #busieness #howto #news #tech

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melbynews-blog · 6 years

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Quellenangaben Heft 1/2018 – Hintergrund

Neuer Beitrag veröffentlicht bei https://melby.de/quellenangaben-heft-1-2018-hintergrund/

Quellenangaben Heft 1/2018 – Hintergrund

Matthias Rude – Der dümmste und gefährlichste Krieg

(1) Rede zum Amtsantritt: Trumps Rede im Wortlaut, Zeit Online, 20.1.2017 (http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2017-01/rede-amtsantritt-donald-trump-inauguration-komplett/komplettansicht)

(2) Interview mit George Stephanopoulos, ABC, 18.4.2011 (http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/george-stephanopoulos-donald-trump-14334702)

(3) Interview mit Rona Barrett, NBC: Rona Barrett Looks at Today‘s Super Rich, 6.10.1980 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/rona-barrett-1980-interview-of-donald-trump.pdf), S. 34

(4) Brendan Simms, Charlie Laderman: Wir hätten gewarnt sein können. Donald Trumps Sicht auf die Welt. Aus dem Englischen von Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, München 2017, S. 49f.

(5) Interview mit Larry King, CNN, 2.9.1987 (http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/05/09/donald-trump-1987-interview-larry-king-live.cnn)

(6) Donald Trump im Interview (http://www.playboy.de/articles/interviews/der_echte_Trump); das vollständige Interview vom März 1990 findet sich unter (http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990)

(7) Eugene Kiely: Donald Trump and the Iraq War, FactCheck.org, 19.2.2016 (https://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/donald-trump-and-the-iraq-war)

(8) Auftritt in der Joy Behar Show, CNN, 8.12.2010 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1012/08/joy.01.html)

(9) Interview mit Candy Crowley, CNN, 17.4.2011 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1104/17/sotu.01.html)

(10) Brendan Simms, Charlie Laderman: Wir hätten gewarnt sein können (Anm. 4), S. 120

(11) Morning Joe: Trump: „My Primary Consultant is Myself“, MSNBC.com, 16.3.2016 (http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump-my-primary-consultant-is-myself-645588035836)

(12) Brendan Simms, Charlie Laderman: Wir hätten gewarnt sein können (Anm. 4), S. 128f.

(13) Markus Becker, Uwe Buse, Clemens Höges u.a.: USA: Mephistos Plan, Der Spiegel 6/2017 (http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-149411810.html)

(14) Jörg Lau: Donald Trump: America first!, Zeit 5/2017 (http://www.zeit.de/2017/05/donald-trump-america-first-stephen-bannon-michael-flynn/komplettansicht)

(15) Ebd.

(16) The White House: National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017 (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017- 0905.pdf), S. I.

(17) „The President doesn‘t appear to have read it and, to judge by the speech he gave on its release, he doesn’t agree with much of it.“ – Jeremy Shapiro: Lies, damned lies, and National Security Strategies, ecfr.eu, 21.12.2017 (http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_lies_damned_lies_and_national_security_strategies)

(18) Trump sichert Nato wichtige Bedeutung zu, Zeit Online, 18.11.2016 (http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2016-11/jens-stoltenberg-nato-donald-trump-usa-buendnis)

(19) Ein Jahr Trumps Außenpolitik. Was ist aus „America first“ geworden?, tagesschau.de, 18.1.2018 (http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/trump-aussenpolitik-111.html)

(20) Der Entwurf ist z.B. unter http://bits.de/NRANEU/docs/Npr-2018-PredecisionalDraft1-2018-ocr.pdf einsehbar.

(21) Otfried Nassauer: Maßgeschneidert: Der Entwurf einer Nuklearpolitik für Donald Trump, BITS, 17.1.2018 (http://bits.de/public/unv_a/original-170118.htm)

(22) Jonathan Martin, Mark Landler: Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‚World War III‘, New York Times, 8.10.2017 (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/us/politics/trump-corker.html). – Zum Agieren Trumps im Nordkorea-Konflikt vgl. Matthias Rude: Die Geißel der Menschheit. Der Atomkonflikt mit Nordkorea verschärft sich, Hintergrund 4/2017, S. 34-36 (Anmerkungen und Quellen: https://www.hintergrund.de/allgemein/quellenangaben-heft-42017/)

(23) Stephen M. Walt: The Donald Trump-Kaiser Wilhelm Parallels Are Getting Scary, foreignpolicy.com, 12.10.2017 (http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/12/the-donald-trump-kaiser-wilhelm-parallels-are-getting-scary/)

(24) Ulrich Menzel: Die Ordnung der Welt, Berlin 2015, S. 988

(25) Adam Tooze: Donald Trump: Abschied von den USA, Die Zeit 3/2017, 13.1.2017 (http://www.zeit.de/2017/03/donald-trump-usa-weltmacht-einfluss-globalisierung)

(26) Bernd Ulrich: Guten Morgen, Abendland. Der Westen am Beginn einer neuen Epoche, Köln 2017, S. 60f.

(27) Ebd., S. 71.

(28) Ebd., S. 77f.

(29) Jürgen Wagner: „Trumps“ Nationale Sicherheitsstrategie, IMI-Standpunkt 2018/001, 9.1.2018 (http://www.imi-online.de/2018/01/09/trumps-nationale-sicherheitsstrategie/)

Rainer Werning – Amnesie im Weißen Haus

(1) Unterzeichnet wurde das am 27. Juli 1953 zur Beendigung des Koreakrieges in Panmunjom vereinbarte Waffenstillstandsabkommen lediglich von Nordkorea, der VR China und den beiden US-Generälen William K. Harrison und Mark W. Clark im Auftrag der Vereinten Nationen, die im Koreakrieg de jure als multilateraler Schirm der US-Intervention fungieren sollten, de facto allerdings dem US-Kommando unterstellt blieben – sehr zum Verdruss des damaligen UN-Generalsekretärs Trygvie Lie. Südkoreas damaliger Präsident Rhee Syngman verweigerte nicht nur die Unterzeichnung des Abkommens, er wollte sogar den Krieg fortsetzen. Erst als Washington einem bilateralen Sicherheitspakt zustimmte, sein in Südkorea stationierter Oberbefehlshaber des Hauptquartiers der vereinigten amerikanisch-südkoreanischen Streitkräfte im Ernstfall auch die Kommandogewalt über die südkoreanischen Truppen erhielt und Seoul beträchtliche Wirtschafts-, Finanz- und Militärhilfe in Aussicht stellte, erklärte sich Rhee zur Respektierung der Waffenstillstandsklauseln bereit.

(2) Im Dezember 1996 ging der damalige CIA-Direktor John Deutch vor dem Geheimdienstausschuss des US-Senats von folgendem Dreier-Szenario aus, das binnen der nächsten zwei oder drei Jahre entschieden würde: a) Nordkorea marschiert entweder in den Süden ein und es kommt erneut zu einem Krieg; b) oder das Land kollabiert bzw. implodiert wegen seiner immensen Wirtschaftsprobleme oder c) es kommt irgendwann zu einer friedlichen Regelung und Wiedervereinigung mit dem Süden – „CIA chief says N. Korea future clear within 3 years“, Reuters, 11. Dezember 1996.

(3) Zur Geschichte des Siechtums und schließlichen Scheiterns der KEDO s. Knut Mellenthin: „Weder Krieg noch Frieden“, in: Junge Welt vom 19.9.2017.

(4) „Review of United States Policy Toward North Korea: Findings and Recommendations”. Unclassified Report by Dr. William J. Perry, U.S. North Korea Policy Coordinator and Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1999, S. 11.

(5) Rainer Werning/Helga Picht (2018): Brennpunkt Nordkorea: Wie gefährlich ist die Region? Berichte, Daten und Fakten. Berlin: Edition Berolina.

Kai Ehlers – Multipolare Welt

(1) Albert Einstein, Siegmund Freud: Warum Krieg?, Kleines Diogenes Taschenbuch, 1996

(2) Siehe dazu exemplarisch die Besprechung des Buches „The global Society and its enemies. Liberal Order beyond the Third World War“ , Autor Ludger Kühnhard, in der FAZ vom 6.01.2018, S.6 unter dem Titel „Multipolare Unordnung“ und das Leitthema „Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World“ beim aktuellen „Weltwirtschfatsforum“ in Davos.

Susann Witt-Stahl – Kopftücher statt Glatzen

(1) http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/aggressive-proteste-gegen-trumps-jerusalem-entscheidung-in-berlin-15332707.html

(2) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article171493329/Die-Hilflosigkeit-der-Polizei-bei-Tod-den-Juden-Rufen.html

(3) http://www.taz.de/!5465120/

(4) https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/1073189.streit-um-jerusalem-palaestinensisches-fahnenmeer-am-hauptbahnhof.html

(5) https://uebermedien.de/23715/massenhafte-tod-den-juden-rufe-am-brandenburger-tor/

(6) https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/brennende-israel-flaggen-in-berlin-das-fuerchten-juden-in-deutschland-am-meisten_id_7973801.html

(7) https://www.volkerbeck.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SF202_Antisemit-Strataten-2017.pdf

(8) https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/eine-deutschlandreise-das-land-der-hass-die-juden_id_4443914.html

(9) https://twitter.com/jensspahn/status/939874125648138240?lang=de

(10) https://www.welt.de/debatte/article11148187/Der-Westen-und-das-hoehnische-Lachen-der-Islamisten.html

(11) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article171485945/Markige-Statements-der-Politiker-gegen-Antisemitismus-helfen-uns-nicht.html

(12) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article171493329/Die-Hilflosigkeit-der-Polizei-bei-Tod-den-Juden-Rufen.html

(13) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article171485945/Markige-Statements-der-Politiker-gegen-Antisemitismus-helfen-uns-nicht.html

(14) http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/004/1900444.pdf

(15) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhwedh2k85w

(16) http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2015-10/israel-benjamin-netanjahu-adolf-hitler-holocaust-mufti

(17) https://www.nzz.ch/international/der-importierte-judenhass-ld.1338714

Lou Marin – Gemüse statt Düsenflieger

(1) Michel Tarin, zit. nach Marc Le Duc & Jocelyne Rat: Retour à Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Portraits et reportages, Le Temps Éditeur, Pornic 2017, S. 50.

(2) Marc Le Duc & Jocelyne Rat, a.a.O., S. 44ff. und S. 55f.

(3) Zit. nach Marc Le Duc & Jocelyne Rat, a.a.O., S. 56. Zur Wiederbesetzung 2012 siehe auch S. 64-67.

(4) Marc Le Duc & Jocelyne Rat, a.a.O., S. 78-81; S. 114-117; S. 122ff.; S. 138-143; S. 132-136.

(5) Vgl. zu Sivens und zum Tod von Rémi Fraisse: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_des_25_et_26_octobre_2014_contre_le_barrage_de_Sivens sowie: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_de_Sivens.

(6) Marc Le Duc & Jocelyne Rat, a.a.O., S. 173, 175.

(7) Macron, zit. nach: Olivier Faye, C. Pl. und Manon Rescan: Les partisans du projet crient au reniement et à la trahision, in: Le Monde, 19. Januar 2018, S. 7.

(8) Audrey Garric: La victoire discrète de Nicolas Hulot, in: Le Monde, 19. Januar 2018, S. 7, a.a.O.

(9) Premierminister Edouard Philippe am 17. Januar 2018, zit. nach: Rémi Barroux, Basien Bonnefous, Cédric Pietralunga, Solenn de Royer: Le gouvernement enterre « l’aéroport de la division », in: Le Monde, 19. Januar 2018, S. 6.

(10) Die Projekte werden aufgezählt von Aurélie Delmas, Coralie Schaub: Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Une victoire écolo qui donne des ailes, in: Libération, 18. Januar 2018, S. 2-3.

(11) Vgl. Michael Löwy: Ökosozialismus. Die radikale Alternative zur ökologischen und kapitalistischen Katastrophe, Laika Verlag, Hamburg 2016.

Reinhard Lauterbach – Carl gegen Charles

(1) Charles de Montesquieu, Vom Geist der Gesetze, II. Buch, Kapitel 6. Zit.n. http://agiw.fak1.tu-berlin.de/Auditorium/ModIdATr/SOKap4/CMontesq.htm (Abruf am 20.1.18)

(2) vgl. im Einzelnen: Stanisław Zakroczymski: Reformy PiS to nie demontaż. To powrót do PRL (Die Reformen der PIS sind keine Demontage, sie sind eine Rückkehr in de VR Polen), in: oko-press, 26.12.17. https://oko.press/reformy-pis-demontaz-powrot-prl-o-losach-sedziow-wyrokow-decydowaly-wladze-pzpr/?utm_source=OKO.press+-+Newsletter+codzienny&utm_campaign=3afb889323-Codzienny+newsletter+OKO.press&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_96d3f04fb4-3afb889323-133654529

(3) vgl. u.a.: http://www.dziennikpolski24.pl/aktualnosci/a/krakowski-sad-nie-chce-rozpatrywac-sprawy-smierci-ojca-ziobry,12723792/ (Das Gericht in Krakau will nicht über den Tod von Ziobros Vater verhandeln, 30.11.17, abgerufen: 20.1.18)

(4) Ewa Siedlecka, czas próby (Die Zeit der Probe), in: Polityka, Nr. 1/2018, S. 20

(5) Kandydatów do KRS brak, (Keine Kandidaten für den Richterrat, TVN 24, 16.1.18; https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/zglaszanie-kandydatow-do-krajowej-rady-sadownictwa-za-polmetkiem,806944.html), abgerufen 20.1.18

(6) Diskussionssendung: Czy Polacy to jeden naród, a dwa plemiona? (Sind die Polen eine in zwei Stämme geteilte Nation?), TVN 24, 12.11.17, https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/arena-idei-czy-polacy-to-jeden-narod-a-dwa-plemiona,789533.html (Abruf: 20.1.18)

Wolf Wetzel – Zwischen Aluhüten und linker Systemkritik

(1) zeit.de vom 17. Juni 2013

(2) Jim Garrison „Wer erschoss John F. Kennedy – Auf der Spur der Mörder von Dallas“, Seite 12, Bastei-Verlag, 1992

(3) zeit.de vom 26. Mai 2017

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foursproutwealth-blog · 7 years

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What Would An "America First!" Security Policy Look Like?

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/what-would-an-america-first-security-policy-look-like/

What Would An "America First!" Security Policy Look Like?

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Republicans love to caricature Democrats as big spenders whose only approach to any problem is to throw money at it. As with most caricatures, it is made easy by the fact that it is mostly true. At least when it comes to domestic entitlement programs, nobody can top the party of FDR and JFK when it comes to doling out goodies to favored constituencies paid for by picking someone else’s pocket.

However, Republicans are hardly the zealous guardians of the public purse they would have us believe. While quick to trash their partisan opponents for making free with taxpayers’ money, they are no less happy to do the same – at least when it’s called “national defense.”

Over the next five years, the Trump administration will spend $3.6 trillion on the military. The GOP-controlled Congress’s approved, with Republicans voting overwhelmingly in the affirmative, the “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018” (HR 1892) and the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018” (HR 2810). With respect to the former, the watchdog National Taxpayers Union urged a No vote:

‘An initial estimate of approximately $300 billion in new spending above the law’s caps barely scratches the surface in terms of total spending. The two-year deal also includes $155 billion in defense and non-defense Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) spending, $5 billion in emergency spending for defense, and more than $80 billion in disaster funding. $100 billion in proposed offsets are comprised of the same budget gimmicks taxpayers have seen used as pay-fors over and over and are unlikely to generate much of a down-payment on this new spending.’

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) poses the question that few in Washington – and certainly few Republicans – are willing to ask: “Is our military budget too small, or is our mission too large?” He notes:

‘Since 2001, the U.S. military budget has more than doubled in nominal terms and grown over 37% accounting for inflation. The U.S. spends more than the next eight countries combined.

It’s really hard to argue that our military is underfunded, so perhaps our mission has grown too large. That mission includes being currently involved in combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Niger, Libya, and Yemen. We have troops in over 50 of 54 African countries. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over a trillion dollars and lasted for over 15 years.’

Defense spending is about survival, right? If you need to spend it, you spend it. But realistically, how does one assess whether spending is too much or too little without looking at the strategy the military is tasked with carrying out, and whether it makes any sense?

Proponents of increased – always increased – spending, like Defense Secretary James Mattis, point to real problems with increased accident rates due to poor training or equipment maintenance or the fact that most army brigades and navy planes are not ready for combat. But is that a symptom of too little money or of a force stretched beyond its limits by conducting operations anywhere and everywhere with little regard for actual U.S. interests?

That doesn’t matter politically, though. The message is, if you don’t support giving more money, you are guilty of neglecting the nation’s security and of killing service personnel. No wonder only a brave handful of Republican legislators consistently are willing to say No, like Senator Paul and a few House members: Justin Amash (Michigan), John Duncan (Tennessee), Walter Jones (North Carolina), Raul Labrador (Idaho), and Thomas Massie (Kentucky).

Here’s a crazy idea. What if instead of taking for granted a national security policy that seeks to maintain U.S. supremacy over every square inch of the globe we figure out what our real defense needs are – protecting our own country, not mucking about in the rest of the world – and then structure and fund the forces we need? What would that look like?

To start with, we know what it doesn’t look like: the policies followed by Presidents and Congresses of both parties for the past three decades since the Berlin Wall came down. While the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) takes a commendable but befuddled nod toward genuine American interests – Pillar I (defense of American borders and tightening immigration controls to keep dangerous people out) and Pillar II (ending unfair trade practices and restoring America’s industrial base) – the real meat and potatoes is in Pillar III (“Preserve Peace Through Strength”), which could have been drafted by any gaggle of George W. Bush retreads – and no doubt was – or for that matter by Obama holdovers.

The NSS’s Pillar III is little more than a rehash of the usual litany of “threats” from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc. It’s symptomatic that these are clustered under “Strategy in a Regional Context” as Indo-Pacific (a perfectly ridiculous concept that could best be summed up as “China – bad!”), Europe (“Russia – bad!”), Middle East (“Iran – bad!”), and South and Central Asia. Next comes the region that should be our first concern, but isn’t: the Western Hemisphere (“Cuba and Venezuela – bad!”). Last comes Africa (well, at least we can agree on something), but we still need a dedicated Africa Command (which for some reason is located not in Africa but in Stuttgart, Germany).

Still, just suppose that by some wild unpredictable accident we ended up with a strategy that in some way resembled the “America First!” prioritization Donald Trump promised us? Here’s a possible broad sketch:

1. Western Hemisphere comes first, not last. As they say in New England, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Presumably good walls make even better neighbors. Whatever happened to controlling our own border with Mexico, which was the cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s campaign? That remains hostage to political horse-trading and a budgetary game of chicken in the Washington Swamp. As far as the political class is concerned, the Wall can wait until mañana.

At the same time, the U.S. is all too happy to meddle in our neighbors’ internal affairs under the justification of “democracy promotion.” Recently Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed such meddling was an expression of the Monroe Doctrine, which he said “clearly has been a success, because… what binds us together in this hemisphere are shared democratic values.” Really? That would have been big news to President James Monroe, who promulgated the Doctrine back in 1823 when no other country in the Americas could be described as a democracy and when even most of the U.S. Founding Fathers would have disputed that label for the Republic they sought to create. Monroe’s declaration had nothing to do with democracy. Rather, its core was a warning to other powers not to establish colonies in our hemisphere, an exclusion which we have considered essential to our security for almost two centuries. Even as a relative infant on the international scene, long before our young nation had emerged as a power on a par with those of Europe, the United States considered it reasonable to ask other powers not to step on our toes in our own neighborhood.

2. Respecting the “Monroe Doctrines” of other powers: The regional deference the United States has demanded in our own area for nearly 200 years is precisely the one we today refuse to accord to other respectable powers, namely China and Russia, by conceding the primacy of their security interests in, respectively, the former Soviet space and in the western Pacific. Instead – as under Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush – the Trump administration still rejects the principle of “spheres of influence,” which in practice means not only asserting mastery in the Western Hemisphere but over every square inch of the globe. Today not a single sparrow falls to the ground anywhere but that a divinely omniscient and omnipotent Washington must have the last word about it – generously lubricated with rhetoric about democracy, human rights, rule of law, and other invocations of “universal principles.”

Despite suggestions from the foreign policy establishment, neither China nor anyone else is threatening the sea lanes in the South China Sea. Even America’s closest regional partners do not want to be pushed into a military confrontation with China to suit the agenda of “indispensables” in Washington. American concerns about North Korea can only be solved with Beijing’s security respected – and without the presence on the peninsula of almost 30,000 American “tripwire” troops and tens of thousands more in Japan.

In Europe, NATO forces should stand back from Russia’s borders and territorial waters. NATO expansion should be ended – even after the Trump administrations ill-advised decision to induct tiny and corrupt Montenegro – while a new security architecture in Europe takes shape. The Alliance’s 2008 pledge to bring in Georgia and Ukraine should be withdrawn. Better yet, get us out of NATO entirely! We and our European friends should be finding a way to cooperate with Russia on pulling Ukraine out of its political and economic crisis as a united, neutral state, not pumping in lethal weapons so touch off renewed large-scale fighting.

An American accord with Russia and China is the stable tripod of any rational global peace, and no one else really matters at the moment. Russia boasts the world’s greatest landmass and natural resources unrivalled by any other country. She also has the only nuclear arsenal comparable to America’s. China is the most populous country in the world, with an economy achieving a par with ours and a burgeoning military sector. If American policy had been designed to alienate both of these giants and drive them to cooperate against us – and maybe it was designed to do that – it could not have been more successful.

3. Get the hell out of the Middle East and Central Asia. The NSS risibly refers to the undesirability of America’s earlier “disengagement” from the region, evidently a reference to the Obama administration’s not being quite as bellicose as its authors might prefer (for example, only supporting terrorists in Syria, not invading the place outright), Of dubious value even in its time, President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 declaration that the Persian Gulf region lies within thevital interests of the United States is only a dangerous absurdity now. The entire region designated under the goofy moniker “Greater Middle East” is a welter of ethnic and religious antagonisms and unstable states that for America have only two things in common: (1) they ain’t us, and (2) they ain’t nowhere near us. It’s not America’s job to sort the place out, via such fool’s errands as nation-wrecking in Libya and Syria, nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq (after wrecking them), and “mediating” to “solve the problem” of the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The sole interest the U.S. and the American people have in the region is to ensure that jihad terrorism doesn’t achieve a sufficient foothold as to present a threat to us here. However, our regional efforts have instead served to increase and import that threat, not diminish it. American policy toward the region should rest on two pillars: (1) limiting our contact with it, above all drastically cutting down immigration from the area and, hence, the prospect of importing more terrorists; and (2) instead of favoring terrorism-supporting regimes like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, defer to countries with more direct interests in the region but who also have a fundamentally anti-jihad outlook, principally Russia, China, and India. Let them babysit Afghanistan.

Other than that – include us out.

Granted, this is only an outline, but it’s a start.

Back to the matter of Republicans’ penchant for overspending on the military, the force needed for this concept of “America First!” – one that focuses first of all on defending our territory and people – could only be a fraction of what we spend now.

Wouldn’t it be great to finally get that “Peace Dividend” we were promised until George H.W. Bush decided he’d rather build a New World Order starting in Kuwait?

#Wealth

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foursprout-blog · 7 years

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What Would An "America First!" Security Policy Look Like?

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/what-would-an-america-first-security-policy-look-like/

What Would An "America First!" Security Policy Look Like?

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

‘Since 2001, the U.S. military budget has more than doubled in nominal terms and grown over 37% accounting for inflation. The U.S. spends more than the next eight countries combined.

Other than that – include us out.

Granted, this is only an outline, but it’s a start.

Wouldn’t it be great to finally get that “Peace Dividend” we were promised until George H.W. Bush decided he’d rather build a New World Order starting in Kuwait?

#Wealth

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wionews · 7 years

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Opinion: Will US see aTrade War with China? Trump's State of the Union Speech will have the answer

The US president Donald Trump will be delivering his State of the Union (SOTU) speech on Jan 30, 2018. Given the promises made during Trump’s campaign and the trajectory of the events since he took office, the White House has been gearing up to prepare for a trade crackdown on China. During his Asia Trip, Trump addressed the problems the US is suffering due to unfair and unfavorable trade practices by the other countries. In his ‘America First’ policy, Trump vowed to only engage in fair and reciprocal trade, revisiting several trade pacts made under previous administrations.

The National Security Strategy (NSS), released in December 2017, unabashedly saw the global trade practices as unfit for the US objectives of making ‘America great again’. The NSS categorised China as a strategic and economic competitor, which took advantage of the US-led globalisation initiative.

The US and China have continued to express displeasure at each other’s trade practices. In the last World Economic Forum, 2017, the keynote speech delivered by Xi Jinping expressed a different side of Chinese thinking where Xi prompted liberal and free trade for a globalised world while accusing the US of protectionism. The speech came after Trump Administration took over from Obama administration.

In the period of Trump’s campaign, several allegations were made against China’s unfair, regressive and harmful trade practices, currency manipulation, and imbalance of trade, against which a vision of ‘America First’ policy was promoted. Trump promised to ‘fix’ the trade deficit, engage only in reciprocal and far trade instead of free trade.

As politico published—according to the three administration officials—the crackdown is likely to include new tariffs directed at China. The tariffs are to involve everything from imports of steel and solar panels to intellectual property theft.

The White House was seen keen on addressing the trade issue with China since Trump’s Asia Trips. The events that followed, suggest that Trump administration is past the question of ‘should’ and reached precise measures on ‘how’ to rectify trade imbalance with China. Moreover, trade is one of the policy areas where the President can act without reliance on the Congress.

Underlining the development, there have been serious debates between the Trump senior advisors on the course of trade policy against China as the consequences may be severe. The officials said that even though Trump is undecided on specific policies, there are chances that these tariffs will be sanctioned, attracting severe retaliation from the targeted countries.

Trump’s meeting with Republican Congressional Leaders, at Camp David on 6th Jan 2018, drew caution from going too far on a trade war. The meetings included key Cabinet Secretaries and senior administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, trade advisor Peter Navarro, Council Economic Advisers chairman Kevin Hassett and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn. The Politico reported, a clear divide between the senior members, Cohn and group, calling for more moderate, targeted approach and Navarro, advocating harsh and sweeping actions.

The current administration is known for reversing the actions taken during Obama administration. Trump pulled out from Trans-Pacific Partnership, Paris Agreement on Climate Change, demanded allies to pay their share for security provided under the US and announced renegotiation of two major trade agreements—North Atlantic Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and Free Trade Agreement with South Korea. Not to forget the upcoming World Economic Forum, from 23-26 Jan 2018, will also condense US policy on trade (with China) and face real-time response from the attending nations.

China has already received certain blows on trade, complicating an overwrought relationship. The Congressional Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) blocked Ant Financial, Jack Ma’s company, from acquiring MoneyGram due to concerns for national security. In the cases of import of solar power and washing machines, the US Trade Commission concluded that increased imports are a “substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic industry”.

On 22 Jan 2018, White House decided to enforce tariffs on solar panels and washing machines. Chinese Commerce Ministry criticised the move saying, “the US side once again has abused its trade remedy measures…will resolutely defend its [China’s] legitimate interests”.

Trump has a wide berth for maneuvers in deciding tariffs and import quotas. It can be speculated that he may only choose to target China to signify the US attempt and resolve at punishing China for trade malpractice. It’s likely that his attempts may face challenges at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and may also trigger mirrored actions by countries, barring the US products in their respective markets. The prospects of such tariffs are likely to result in loss of tens of thousands of jobs, alarming the booming solar energy sector in the US, created under the Obama administration.

The reason given behind these tariffs, is to provide much required impetus to the indigenous solar manufacturing, significant for national security and economy.

The attack on solar power has also lead to a debate questioning the intentions behind tariffs against a green, renewable alternative to fossil fuels. The Trump administration increased efforts to repeal Obama administration’s climate rules on the power industry, it proposed measures to give financial support to coal-fired power plants. The administration has also pushed to increase US exports of liquefied natural gas.

In the Obama Administration, the solar power sector enjoyed its boom years resulting in cost competitiveness with natural gas and coal-based power plants. The cost declination in prices of solar panels will be reversed with the execution of the tariffs. Chinese companies hold about 80 percent of the solar manufacturing capacity, the US being the second largest.

The US congressional policies have already reduced Chinese investments from about US$ 50 Billion in 2016 to less than half in 2017. The US’s barring of Chinese investment in US high-tech sector has, ironically, accelerated the pace of tech innovation in China, increasing expenditure on R&D from 1% in 2000 to 2% in 2017.

On Jan 22nd 2018, Pentagon released its National Defense Strategy (NDS), calling for aggressive steps towards the strategic competitors—China and Russia. Previously, the NSS 2017, had already categorised the two nations as a danger to the US national security and international order.

Post the release of NDS, Jim Mattis Secretary of Defense said, "this required some tough choices ... and we made them…based upon a fundamental precept: namely, that America can afford survival.” The paper called China and Russia ‘principal priorities’. China reprimanded the document, calling it ‘a cold war mentality’ and ‘full of unreal assertions of zero-sum games and confrontations.’

On the eve of the release, USS Hopper sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, occupied by China from Philippines in 2012, reviving the Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOP) after months.

On reports of continued militarisation in the South China Sea, Brian Hook, US State Department, vowed to resume FNOPs. The revival of Quad and the new term ‘Indo-Pacific’ and its amplified use by the US and allies have alarmed China into increasing its military presence on the artificial islands.

Moreover, from Trump’s Asia visit, increasing US arms sale have also fueled speculations enticing conflict between China and the neighbors. The US is deploying more military assets in the region, blaming North Korea, but China remains unsure of the US intentions. Seeking closer ties with the Southeast Asian nations against China’s growing militarisation on the South China Sea, Jim Mattis is on his Southeast Asia visit from 22-26 Jan 2018. He visited Indonesia and vowed continued efforts to expand maritime cooperation and make Indonesia as ‘a sort of fulcrum between Indian and Pacific Ocean’.

While aggressive military and diplomatic actions by China has provided legitimacy to the US presence in East Asia, the US naval exercises in South China has also had a reverse effect. China never stopped militarising in the South China Sea, in fact, it increased the deployment of military assets, encouraging tension and disputes.

Tensions in US-China relations have global consequences and Trump’s response to China in both defense and trade will also have inevitable underpinnings for the rest of the world. Under his administration, the US has acknowledged revival of the great power competition and its reduced leverage on land, in the air, and space and nuclear.

Even though Trump may levy strict tariffs on imports from China, will it improve the US standing in the globalized world? Trump’s insistence on ‘America First’ takes away the US credits as the leader of the globalised world. Moving away from multilateral forums, when it is perhaps required most, the US may isolate itself but at the cost of its supremacy.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

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allineednow · 7 years

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<p>Your survival guide to the blizzard of Pentagon papers</p>

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to call his one-page, often one-sentence, activity memos "snowflakes," because they dropped from above, and every one was different. This month and next, the Pentagon will be hit with a blizzard of new reports, all trying to identify and measure threats and outline strategies to counter and defeat them.

This is the field manual for telling them apart:

The National Security Strategy: This is the only one of the significant strategy documents that is already released. Completed in record time under the direction of national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the strategy is a broad umbrella mission statement that describes all instruments of national power -- military, diplomatic, and economic. Additionally, it sets out four main goals: protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, preserving peace, and advancing American influence.

McMaster says Trump's NSS is based on "principled realism" and a clear-eyed view of the world as it is, not as some might wish it to be.

The National Defense Strategy: The Pentagon issues its own master strategy assignment statement next Friday. "There'll be a classified one which is comparatively thick," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters last week, "There will be a shorter one which will basically lay it out, unclassified."

The NDS is a more defined focus on the U.S. military's role in carrying out the president's agenda. In previous administrations, this document was known as the Quadrennial Defense Review, which was mandated by Congress, and made public. But Congress fought that requirement in 2017, responding to criticism that it was a watered-down consensus document for public consumption, instead of providing real guidance.

The Nuclear Posture Review: Late this month, the Pentagon will release the results of its yearlong review reassessing nuclear policy, capabilities, and employment concepts. While a lot of the U.S. philosophy is extremely sensitive, the likely major bullet points are already in the public domain thanks to leaked drafts and public statements.

Pentagon officials, including Mattis, have voiced strong support for maintaining and modernizing all 3 legs of the nuclear triad: submarines, bombers, and land-based missiles. And last March, Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress one critical was to reverse the two-decade policy aimed at reducing the number and kinds of U.S. nuclear weapons.

A draft of the new policy involves enhancing "the flexibility and range of its tailored deterrence options," with several low-yield variants of existing nuclear bombs and warheads. After a draft was leaked, the Pentagon said several drafts have been written amid the building's "robust" discussions.

"[T]he Nuclear Posture Review has not been completed and will ultimately be reviewed and accepted by the President and the Secretary of Defense," the statement said. "As a general practice, we do not discuss pre-decisional, draft copies of plans and testimonials."

The Ballistic Missile Defense Review: This review is expected to be released next month. Against the background of increasingly aggressive and credible threats from North Korea to lob a nuclear-tipped missile in the continental U.S., this review will examine the efficacy of America's multi-layered missile defenses, and make recommendations about how to create the shield more dependable and effective. The BMD review could determine where and how billions of defense dollars are spent.

The Bio-Defense Review: This is another congressionally-mandated document which not only entails the Pentagon but also Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the Agriculture Department. It's expected sometime in February and is aimed at developing plans to protect against bio-warfare, terrorism, and naturally occurring pandemics, and accidents involving the release of deadly bio-agents. It is expected to come up with recommendations for enhancing current biodefense capabilities as well as ways for the civilian and military agencies to work more effectively together.

The FY 2019 Budget: The Pentagon is busily putting together the first property under President Trump. The fiscal 2018 funding was a quick rewrite and modest increase over the Obama plan. It still did not pass Congress because it has caught up in the impasse over immigration reforms and the demand by Senate Democrats to get parity in domestic spending.

But supposing Congress succeeds in lifting or eliminating funding caps, 2019 will bring the military closer to Trump's promised buildup. The petition is more than just a spending plan. Additionally, it functions as a strategic document that indicates the Pentagon's true priorities. This is where we find out how many troops, planes, and ships that the Pentagon wants to fight current wars, and to be prepared for future contingencies. The petition is expected in February.

The National Military Strategy: along with the National Defense Strategy developed by the office of the Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs develops his own separate strategy document that concentrates on developing war plans and the capabilities for carrying them out. There was a public version of the National Military Strategy, but in 2016, Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford decided to keep it classified so as to not give away too much information to potential adversaries.

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derechointernacionalpublico · 7 years

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Hybrid Threats and the United States National Security Strategy: Prevailing in an “Arena of Continuous Competition”

The dividing line between war and peace is blurred. This is one of the messages emerging from the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America adopted in December 2017. The United States is accustomed to viewing the world through the binary lens of war and peace, yet in reality, warns the new National Security Strategy, international relations is an “arena of continuous competition” (p. 28).

This is not exactly a new theme. The idea that war and peace are relative points on a continuous spectrum of confrontation, rather than mutually exclusive conditions, has become quite popular in recent years. Writing in 2013, General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, observed that the 21st century has seen a tendency “toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace”. Speaking in 2015, Sir Michael Fallon, the former British Secretary of State for Defence, declared that contemporary adversaries are deliberately seeking to “blur the lines between what is, and what is not, considered an act of war”. More recently, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary General, suggested that in the past “it was easy to distinguish whether it was peace or war … [b]ut now there’s a much more blurred line”.

The fluidity of war and peace is central to the vocabulary of “gray zone conflict” and “hybrid warfare”. Both concepts are preoccupied with the strategic challenges that adversaries operating across multiple domains present. The notion of gray zone conflict puts the emphasis on the sphere of confrontation, concentrating on the fact that adversaries operate in the area of ambiguity that lies between the traditional state of war and state of peace (see US SOCOM, The Gray Zone). By contrast, the notion of hybrid warfare emphasises the modus operandi adopted by certain adversaries and competitors, focusing on their use of the full range of military and non-military means in a highly integrated manner (see NATO, Wales Summit Declaration, para. 13).

The new National Security Strategy borrows heavily from both sets of ideas. In a section entitled “Preserve Peace Through Strength”, it makes the following points (pp. 27–28):

[A]dversaries and competitors became adept at operating below the threshold of open military conflict and at the edges of international law. Repressive, closed states and organizations, although brittle in many ways, are often more agile and faster at integrating economic, military, and especially informational means to achieve their goals. They are unencumbered by truth, by the rules and protections of privacy inherent in democracies, and by the law of armed conflict. They employ sophisticated political, economic, and military campaigns that combine discrete actions. They are patient and content to accrue strategic gains over time — making it harder for the United States and our allies to respond. Such actions are calculated to achieve maximum effect without provoking a direct military response from the United States. And as these incremental gains are realized, over time, a new status quo emerges.

The concern that adversaries exploit the dividing line between war and peace in an attempt to shift the balance of power in their favour, employing discrete measures across multiple domains in an integrated design, betrays the fact that the NSS is inspired by the gray zone conflict and hybrid threat debates, even though it does not reference these concepts in express terms.

At the heart of the concerns voiced by the NSS is a very palpable unease about the role of international law. The traditional duality between war and peace has always been more of a legal construct than a reality on the ground. While Grotius may have proclaimed that war and peace admits of no intermediate position, this has not prevented States from conflating the two by carrying out acts of warfare under another name. As Christopher Greenwood pointed out some years ago, formal declarations of war were in fact the exception rather than the rule during the 18th and 19th centuries. Examples abound. In 1840, the British Government instructed its fleet in the Mediterranean to seize all Neapolitan and Sicilian ships in a dispute with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies over a sulphur monopoly. Major hostilities were averted only through French mediation. It should not come as a surprise therefore that Hague Convention III on the Opening of Hostilities of 1907, which made it compulsory to notify the existence of a state of war, is among the less successful instruments born at the second Hague Peace Conference.

Nonetheless, the Grotian divide between war and peace remains a vital part of the international legal order. Under the United Nations Charter regime, peace is the normal state of affairs in international relations, whilst war is the exception. The use of force is permitted only as a measure of last resort in self-defence (Article 51) or where collective non-forcible measures are inadequate (Article 42). Key to this scheme are the legal thresholds that divide normality from the exception, in particular the notion of “armed attack” in Article 51 of the Charter, which serves as the trigger for the right to use force in self-defence. Similarly, in the neighbouring field of the law of armed conflict, the existence of an armed conflict triggers the right to move from law-enforcement to a more permissive warfighting posture.

According to the National Security Strategy, adversaries and competitors are taking advantage of these legal thresholds by operating below the level that would permit the US and its allies to respond by using force. As one of us has written in greater detail (see Sari, Hybrid Warfare, Law and the Fulda Gap), this creates an asymmetric legal environment where States that continue to abide by the law are placed at a competitive disadvantage against adversaries that exploit legal ambiguities and violate the rules of international law.

This dynamic is clear to see in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which stipulates that an armed attack against one or more NATO member States in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. NATO’s collective security response is thus tied to the threshold concept of an armed attack under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The conservative view holds that minor incidents, such as localised fighting on a small scale, do not reach the level of an armed attack, even where they involve some loss of life. By using force below this level of intensity in combination with non-forcible measures, a determined adversary is able to achieve incremental gains without enabling its target to mount a direct military response, as the NSS cautions. The build-up to the conflict between the Russian Federation and Georgia in 2008 demonstrates that such a scenario is not farfetched.

Recognising the risk, NATO has declared itself ready in its Warsaw Summit Communiqué (para. 72) adopted in July 2016 to counter hybrid warfare as part of collective defence, including by invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. From a legal perspective, the Warsaw Communiqué may be read as stating the obvious: should hybrid warfare cross the threshold of an armed attack, it would engage the right of individual and collective self-defence. However, the Communiqué may also be seen as a sign that the Allies are willing to reassess the concept of armed attack in the light of gray zone and hybrid warfare tactics. Three elements stand out in this respect.

First, in the Nicaragua case (para. 191), the International Court of Justice defined armed attacks as the “most grave” form of the use of force. However, a strong current of opinion denies the existence of such a gravity threshold (see Chatham House Principles of International Law on the Use of Force by States in Self-Defence, p. 6). Since low-intensity measures are an integral feature of gray zone conflicts and hybrid warfare, they are likely to amplify these voices. In particular, it is difficult to agree with the Court that the provision of weapons and logistical support to rebels by definition constitutes a use of force of lesser gravity not amounting to an armed attack (Nicaragua, para. 195). Russian intervention in Eastern Ukraine shows that such support can easily reach the scale and destructive effect of a direct attack.

Second, in the Oil Platforms (para. 64) and Armed Activities in the Congo (para. 146) cases, the International Court seemed to accept that a series of incidents which do not rise to the level of an armed attack when taken individually may nevertheless do so when viewed cumulatively. Hybrid warfare involves a deliberate pattern of incidents and therefore are likely to bolster support for this accumulation of events approach.

Third, an armed attack does not have to involve physical destruction and loss of life. The Russian military takeover of Crimea illustrates the point. Although Russian forces were present in Crimea with the consent of Ukraine, their actions manifestly contravened the terms of their presence. As such, they amounted to an act of aggression under Article 3(e) of the Definition of Aggression that gave rise to the right of self-defence (see here), notwithstanding the lack of destruction and loss of life. This suggest that non-violent subversive activities directed against the territorial integrity or political independence of a State which are carried out either by military forces or to complement military activities may be considered as constituent elements of an armed attack.

Lowering the gravity threshold of armed attack, adopting the accumulation of events principle and including non-violent subversive activities integrally linked to the use of force among the elements that may make up an armed attack would go some way towards recalibrating the right of self-defence for the challenges of gray zone conflict and hybrid warfare. However, this does not resolve all difficulties. Gray zone and hybrid threats include a broad range of non-violent activities, such as interference in domestic political processes, information operations and economic pressure. Even a greatly relaxed understanding of armed attack does not cover these activities or if it did, it would hollow out the prohibition to use force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. In any event, military force is not an effective response to every subversive act. Fighter jets and battle tanks are of little use in confronting passportisation, election meddling or disinformation campaigns. The utility of force in such circumstances is indirect: to deter an adversary by imposing costs. Recall, for example, the US missile strike against Syrian air bases in April 2017. This puts the spotlight on the legality of forcible counter-measures. While the International Court appeared to leave the door open for such action in the Nicaragua case (see para. 210), the International Law Commission declared forcible counter-measures to be unlawful in its commentary to the Articles on State Responsibility (p. 132). Of course, the latter position is only as good as the authorities on which it is based.

This brings us back to a broader question raised by the National Security Strategy. If the line between war and peace is becoming increasingly blurred, as it is widely claimed, what is the appropriate response? “Principled realism”, a term embraced by the NSS to describe its underlying approach (p. 1), may hold the answer. A realist response recognises that law is a domain of competition, an environment where adversaries and competitors advance their own strategic interests. A principled response realises that the rule of law is a value in itself and that international law is not just a constraining factor, but also a strategic enabler. A principled realism demands that nations strengthen their legal resilience to withstand the challenges presented by gray zone conflict and hybrid warfare and to defend the international legal order itself against subversion by States that operate “at the edges of international law”. Consistent with such an approach, efforts to counter gray zone and hybrid threats should not blur the line between war and peace further. This requires a more robust engagement with, not disengagement from, international law.

[via EJIL: Talk!]

https://www.dipublico.org/108540/hybrid-threats-and-the-united-states-national-security-strategy-prevailing-in-an-arena-of-continuous-competition/

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nebris · 7 years

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The Year American Hegemony Ended

The United States has been the world’s greatest power since 1945, when that mantle—half-passed from London to Washington after the First World War—firmly landed in American hands after the Second World War. Since 1991, when the Cold War ended with Soviet collapse, America has been the world’s hegemon, to use the proper term, the force whose power could not be seriously challenged on the global stage.

For 26 years now—a happy generation—America has been able to do whatever it wanted, to anyone, at any time of our choosing, anywhere on earth. Notwithstanding the decline of major sectors of the American economy, our military has covered the globe with deployments as the Pentagon has divided our planet into “geographic combatant commands” to formalize our hegemony. Our allegedly deep defense thinkers have hailed this as our viceroys enacting Washington’s benevolent imperial will anywhere we desire.

It needs to be said that plenty of the planet has been happy to acquiesce in American hegemony. While we’re hardly the pure-hearted hegemon we imagine ourselves to be, the United States appears like a relatively positive force on the global stage, compared to other options. Even among skeptics regarding America’s global dominance, few pine instead for hegemony under, say, Beijing and its Communist party bosses.

Nevertheless, 2017 gave unmistakable signs that American hegemony, which has been waning for a decade, has now ended. A new age has dawned, even though it’s still early and the sun is far from full. As commander-in-chief, in his first year in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has ranted and raved on Twitter almost daily, with no effect save to confuse our allies about what exactly is going on in Washington. De facto, America has two foreign and defense policies: what the president says and what our national security bureaucracy does. The gap between presidential rhetoric, much of it unhinged, and actual policy toward the world grew throughout 2017.

It’s no wonder, then, that North Korea seems anything but cowed, despite a year of Trumpian rants at Pyongyang. The Kim dynasty keeps rattling its nuclear saber at will, firing off missiles over the Pacific to showcase its power, and Washington’s demands that they cease have had no impact. While the Trump administration propagates the fantasy that North Korea will never become a nuclear power, that troublesome country has plainly had atomic weapons for years. That this unreality-based policy might end badly for everyone—even a merely conventional war on the Korean peninsula will mean millions of refugees and casualties—is obvious and constitutes one of the major what-ifs for the coming year.

The National Security Strategy recently rolled out by the White House with fanfare, however, appreciates none of these new geopolitical realities. It imagines a world where American power, while now confronted by Russia and a rising China, remains above fundamental challenge. Predictably, the president’s release of “his” NSS had barely any connection to the actual document. To be fair to Trump, the NSS always is a political write-up, not really any kind of strategy, and the relationship between its wish-list and actual Beltway policy is often tenuous; the current administration has decided to sever any NSS connection to reality altogether.

It should be noted that President Trump inherited a hegemon in decline. His predecessors did plenty of damage before the current Oval Office occupant decided to inflict more. Bill Clinton’s well-intentioned if often mishandled humanitarian interventions in the Balkans gave the illusion that America knew how to “nation build” broken societies at modest cost in lives and treasure.

We did not, as is demonstrated by the multi-decade debacles in the Greater Middle East initiated by George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. In overreaction to jihadist terrorism, Washington decided to recreate that troubled region by, in effect, handing a broken Iraq to the mullahs in Tehran. The magical transformative powers of the U.S. military on foreign societies turned out to be as much a fantasy as the Bush experiment with mortgage loans for everyone. In a similar vein, the less said about our never-ending war in Afghanistan—which amounts to an effort to coercively make that country what it has never been, politically and socially—perhaps the better.

The loss of American prestige associated with the Iraqi and Afghan debacles is difficult to overstate. Plenty of the world was content to go along with American hegemony so long as it was somewhat competent. No fair-minded strategist, surveying what the Bush administration did in the Muslim heartland, could look at Washington’s defense and foreign policy elites, the architects of grand failures, with any comfort.

Not that Barack Obama made things better. Although he entered the White House with a mandate to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor, he mostly failed to do so. It’s difficult to not have sympathy for President Obama, who when he realized the extent of the Iraq horror he inherited, wanted to abandon the biggest failure in America’s history abroad. It’s less easy to excuse Obama’s missteps in Afghanistan, where a half-hearted “surge” failed to change any facts on the ground that really mattered.

Still, Obama’s biggest failures came elsewhere. His willingness to participate in the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime in Libya on dubious humanitarian grounds birthed violence and crisis graver than existed there in the first place. Worse, taking out the former rogue Gadhafi after he had abandoned his weapons of mass destruction and was cooperating with America’s war on terrorism, sent an indelible message that Washington’s word is no good—so never, ever give up your WMDs. Pyongyang, among others, watched and learned.

Then there’s Obama’s mishandling of Russia, with fateful consequences. His abandonment of his own “red line” in Syria in 2013 was easily read as a grave strategic error, since Obama in effect outsourced U.S. policy in the Middle East to Moscow—the results of which are painfully clear today. Obama’s reticence to do much about Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine a few months later is a matter of record, while his strange unwillingness to confront the Kremlin over its rancid spy-propaganda offensive against the West in 2015 undoubtedly encouraged aggressive Russian interference in America’s election the following year.

Putin and other malefactors got the message that Obama’s America would not stand up to troublemakers who could push back. Diffident messaging is never good for the hegemon’s reputation, especially when it’s already blighted due to incompetence and imperial overstretch. In 2017, in stark contrast, Donald Trump led the country in the opposite direction, with unceasing bluster about American strength and willingness to go it alone, anytime Washington wants to, damn the consequences.

Trump’s screw-the-world style in foreign affairs was on display this month with the White House’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This pleased the Israeli right-wing and major donors to President Trump, yet in no way enhanced American power or prestige: quite the opposite. Reaction from the Muslim world was predictably furious, while the Trump administration made everything worse at the United Nations. There, Nikki Haley, our ambassador, publicly threatened members who didn’t vote with Washington against a UN resolution condemning our embassy move. This was American diplomacy at its most heavy-handed and tone-deaf, and it failed dismally. Virtually the whole world voted against Trump, with even most of NATO siding against Washington. This was a major diplomatic defeat for the alleged global hegemon.

President Trump is all about “strength” and he loves to tweet about our military, his own draft-dodging notwithstanding. In a sense, Trump is a perfect fit for our era, when all America has left is raw military power. Our economy has been in decline for decades, our divided society displays unmissable rot, and our politics are a partisan shamble in the aftermath of 2016. What America has left is its military, which is the ultimate underpinning of hegemony.

However, just how much military overmatch the Pentagon has left, after a near-generation of down-punching in the Middle East against fourth-rate foes without strategic success, is now America’s great imponderable. We have spent trillions of dollars on Iraq, Afghanistan, and killing jihadists all over, and the price in military obsolescence and declining morale is evident to anyone who wants to see.

Our Air Force, which hasn’t faced a serious peer competitor in the skies since the middle of the Second World War, is shedding pilots at an alarming rate, while it has far too few F-22 fighters to maintain air dominance worldwide, which Washington has taken as a given for decades. However, our Navy is in even worse shape, with a staggering number of admirals under a cloud for participation in an appalling corruption-cum-espionage scandal, while our fleet in 2017 demonstrated that it has lost grip on basic navigation at sea, with fatal results. Considering the U.S. Navy has been the guarantor of freedom of navigation on the world’s seas since 1945, the protector of international trade and the backbone of American hegemony, its sad decline has far-reaching consequences.

That said, our Army is equally unready for battle against a peer. In its shadow war in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s ground forces have demonstrated killing capabilities far beyond what America and NATO can do. The combination of Russian long-range artillery and electronic warfare has obliterated whole Ukrainian battalions, and right now they would do the same to the U.S. Army. Grave underinvestment in field artillery and electronic warfare hangs over our army. Russia has excelled at artillery for centuries, and that arm is the great killer on the modern battlefield. Armies that go into battle outgunned by the Russians historically get blasted off the field with heavy casualties. Right now, the U.S. Army is frantically playing catch-up so it can take on the Russians as equals if it comes to a fight

Our army’s opening performance has often been subpar, as demonstrated by defeats like Kasserine Pass and Task Force Smith. However, America always had time on our side to turn it around. We may not if the battlefield is in the Baltics, which the Russians may overrun in a couple days, before the U.S. Army has a chance to stop the invader. These are the scenarios that keep Pentagon planners up at night as we enter the new year.

Above all, Trump’s go-it-alone attitude is precisely the wrong take as American hegemony disappears. Some empires decline slowly, others fall fast after a major defeat; history is filled with both outcomes. Since 1945, Washington has presumed that it can deploy our military anywhere, at the time and place of our choosing, thanks to our dominance of the world’s skies and oceans. Even in a worst case, we could always get our forces home. This should no longer be assumed. The world has changed, American hegemony has collapsed, and if it’s not careful Washington may find out the hard way. Let’s hope cooler and wiser heads prevail in 2018.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.

http://observer.com/2017/12/president-trump-inherited-a-hegemon-in-decline-inflicted-more-damage/

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