Tag Archive for: Donald Trump

Asia’s American menace

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Image courtesy of Pixabay user Pexels.

US President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy—based on tactics and transactions, rather than strategic vision—has produced a series of dazzling flip-flops. Lacking any guiding convictions, much less clear priorities, Trump has confounded America’s allies and strategic partners, particularly in Asia—jeopardizing regional security in the process.

To be sure, some of Trump’s reversals have brought him closer to traditional US positions. In particular, he has declared that NATO is ‘no longer obsolete,’ as it supposedly was during his campaign. That change has eased some of the strain on the US relationship with Europe.

But in Asia—which faces serious security, political, and economic challenges—Trump’s reversals have only exacerbated regional volatility. With so many political flashpoints threatening to trigger violent conflict, the last thing Asia’s leaders need is another strategic wild card.

Yet, in Trump, that is precisely what they have. The US president has shown himself to be more mercurial than the foul-mouthed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte or the autocratic Chinese President Xi Jinping. Even the famously impulsive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un seems almost predictable, by comparison.

Perhaps the most consistent feature of Trump’s foreign policy is his obsession with gaining short-term advantage. In one recent tweet, he asked why he should label China a currency manipulator, when the Chinese are working with the US to rein in North Korea. Just days earlier, Trump had called the Chinese the ‘world champions’ of currency manipulation.

That tweet may offer additional insight into Trump’s Asia policy. For starters, it highlights North Korea’s sudden emergence as Trump’s main foreign-policy challenge, suggesting that the strategic patience pursued by former President Barack Obama could well be replaced by a more accident-prone policy of strategic tetchiness.

This reading is reinforced by Vice President Mike Pence’s claims that the recent low-risk, low-reward US military strikes in Syria and Afghanistan demonstrate American ‘strength’ and ‘resolve’ against North Korea. Such claims reflect a lack of understanding that, when it comes to North Korea, the US has no credible military option, because any US attack would result in the immediate devastation of South Korea’s main population centers.

The Trump administration’s current strategy—counting on China to address the North Korea challenge—won’t work, either. After all, North Korea has lately been seeking to escape China’s clutches and pursue direct engagement with the US.

Given the bad blood between Xi and Kim, it seems that Trump’s best bet might be some version of what he proposed during the campaign: meeting with Kim over a hamburger. With the North Korean nuclear genie already out of the bottle, denuclearization may no longer be a plausible option. But a nuclear freeze could still be negotiated.

Trump’s reliance on China to manage North Korea won’t just be ineffective; it could actually prove even more destabilizing for Asia. Trump, who initially seemed eager to challenge China’s hegemonic ambitions, now seems poised to cede more ground to the country, compounding a major foreign-policy mistake on the part of the Obama administration.

Of all of Trump’s reversals, this one has the greatest geostrategic significance, because China will undoubtedly take full advantage of it to advance its own objectives. From its growing repression of political dissidents and ethnic minorities to its efforts to upend the territorial status quo in Asia, China constantly tests how far it can go. Under Obama, it got away with a lot. Under Trump, it could get away with even more.

Trump now calls China a friend and partner of his administration—and seems to have developed a fondness for Xi himself. ‘We have a great chemistry together,’ he says. ‘We like each other. I like him a lot.’

That fondness extends beyond words: Trump’s actions have already strengthened Xi’s position—and undercut his own—though Trump probably didn’t realize it. First, Trump backed down from his threat not to honor the ‘one China’ policy. More recently, Trump hosted Xi at his Florida resort, without requiring that China dismantle any of the unfair trade and investment practices that he railed against during the campaign.

The summit with Trump boosted Xi’s image at home ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress later this year, where Xi may manage to break free from institutionalized collective rule to wield power more autocratically than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. It also indicated the Trump administration’s tacit acceptance of China’s territorial grabs in the South China Sea. This will embolden China not just to militarize fully its seven manmade islands there, but also to pursue territorial revisionism in other regions, from the East China Sea to the western Himalayas.

Trump believes that ‘lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away,’ owing to his relationship with the ‘terrific‘ Xi. In fact, his promise to ‘Make America Great Again’ is antithetical to Xi’s ‘Chinese dream‘ of ‘rejuvenating the Chinese nation.’

Xi’s idea, which Trump is unwittingly endorsing, is that their countries should band together in a ‘new model of great power relations.’ But it is hard to imagine how two countries with such opposing worldviews—not to mention what Harvard University’s Graham Allison has called ‘extreme superiority complexes’—can oversee world affairs effectively.

It is conceivable that Trump could flip again on China (or North Korea). Indeed, Trump’s policy reversals may well turn out to be more dangerous than his actual policies. The need for constant adjustment will only stoke greater anxiety among America’s allies and partners, who now run the risk that their core interests will be used as bargaining chips. If those anxieties prompt some countries to build up their militaries, Asia’s strategic landscape will be fundamentally altered.

ANZUS, war powers and killing the chicken to scare the monkey

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Future historians might well consider that this current period is a turning point in Australian strategic history.

Last month, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop pointed out that ‘[many] of our assumptions founded on the international rules-based order that evolved after World War II, now appear less certain.’ She called on the United States to ‘play an even greater role as the indispensable strategic power in the Indo-Pacific,’ a call she had made earlier in the year in Los Angeles, at the US-Australia Dialogue on Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. On that occasion, she said that ‘[most] nations wish to see more United States leadership, not less, and have no desire to see powers other than the US, calling the shots.’

Clearly, while other challenges exist, the question of China looms large. There is no doubt in my mind that the ANZUS alliance is the most important strategic alliance we have. As Peter Edwards argued in 2005, ‘successive Australian governments, both Labor and Coalition, have convinced themselves, and sought to persuade their public’ that the benefits of the alliance are five-fold:

  1. the security guarantee;
  2. access to high-level US policy-makers;
  3. access to unique intelligence information;
  4. access to advanced science and technology; and
  5. the economic benefits of the Free Trade Agreement.

While intellectual challenges can, and have, been mounted to each of these five claimed benefits, I am sure that the alliance enjoys considerable public support. It certainly has my support. Indeed, as ASPI’s own research in 2008 demonstrated, ‘an overwhelming majority of voters and major party candidates see the ANZUS alliance as important to Australia, the only question being whether they see it as “very” or “fairly” important.’

The big strategic question for Australia is how to negotiate the tension between our key security partner and our key trading partner.

We’ve never had this question arise in the first 220 years of European settlement. From January 1788, when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, to 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, we’ve had first Britain and then the USA as our trading partner and strategic ally. But now China is our largest two-way trading partner in goods and services (valued at $150.0 billion in 2015–16), our largest export market ($85.9 billion) and our largest source of imports ($64.1 billion).

Last year the RAND Corporation published a report called ‘War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable’. It makes sobering reading. Their research team concluded that:

‘war between the two countries could be intense, last a year or more, have no winner, and inflict huge losses and costs on both sides. The longer such a war continued, the more significant economic, domestic political, and international effects would become. While such non-military effects would hit China hardest, they could also greatly harm the U.S. economy and the U.S. ability to meet security challenges worldwide.’

This is something that really cries out for attention by all members of the Australian Parliament.

What happens—or does not happen—is of the highest significance to Australia. The signals we send to either side about Australia’s position requires extensive consideration in the Australian Parliament.

Australia would not be spared from disruption to our economy and demography. RAND said a US-China war could shrink China’s GDP by 25–35% and the USA’s by 5–10%. But given our much higher trade dependence on China—four times more reliant as a proportion of GDP than the US—a 30% contraction would not be out of the question. And demographically? Seeing Chinese Australians and Chinese students on our streets shows how integral they’ve become to our nation’s fabric.

A war with China would rip Australia’s economic and social fabric apart. I don’t think any Australian participation in the South China Sea ought to occur until every member of the Australian Parliament has had a chance to vote on it, and has been put on the spot to explain their reasons individually—not hide behind the line of their respective party.

I believe that parliamentary authorisation is workable and can be formulated in a suitably flexible way that takes a variety of contingencies into account, protects the security of classified information, and copes with the time-sensitive nature of emergency military deployments. In requiring Parliamentary approval, it is necessary to distinguish between ‘wars of choice’ and ‘wars of necessity’. Wars of necessity refer to military actions taken in self-defence and require the use of rapid and/or covert military force.

At the moment, the danger is one of a surprise war, as a result of an escalation during (say) a freedom of navigation exercise, in which Australia’s Executive deploys forces without any effective check from the legislature, since the only option parliament has is to bring down the government through a motion of no-confidence—something that backbenchers in a governing political party can hardly be expected to do, whatever their misgivings about a particular military deployment.

Furthermore, using the line and military strategy attributed to Sun Tzu, China may decide to ‘kill the chicken to scare the monkey’—sink an Australian vessel to warn off the United States Navy. The signals we send to either side about Australia’s position are of the highest economic and strategic significance. What we do requires extensive consideration in the Australian Parliament.

Whilst this debate has been both energised and exercise by the Trump Presidency, it’s worth remembering it was no less than the husband of Candidate Trump’s rival who said, while he was in office, ‘We will act multilaterally where we can, unilaterally when we must’. Australia alone should decide which wars we go to, and the circumstances in which we go to them. That goes to the heart of our sovereignty. Australia must not get involved in a South China Sea conflict until every member of the Australian Parliament has voted on it, and explained their reasons individually—not hide behind a party line.

What’s more, that process should be enshrined in Australian legislation; no Australian military actions ought to occur without parliamentary authorization, except in self-defence. More than ever, since 1788, it’s a law whose time has come.

The second year of Europe

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More than four decades ago, US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger declared 1973 to be ‘The Year of Europe.’ His aim was to highlight the need to modernise the Atlantic relationship and, more specifically, the need for America’s European allies to do more with the United States in the Middle East and against the Soviet Union in Europe.

Kissinger would be the first to admit that the Europeans did not take up his challenge. Nevertheless, we again face a year of Europe. This time, though, the impetus is coming less from a frustrated US government than from within Europe itself.

The stakes are as high as they were in 1973, if not higher. Russia shows no sign of withdrawing from Crimea or stopping its efforts to destabilise eastern Ukraine. There is genuine concern Russia might employ similar tactics against one or more of the small NATO countries on its border.

Refugees have added to Europe’s strain, as has terrorism inspired by events in the Middle East or carried out by attackers from the region. Brexit, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, has now formally begun; what remains to be resolved are its timing and terms, which will determine its impact on the UK’s economic and political future and on others contemplating withdrawal from the EU. Greece and a number of other countries in southern Europe continue to be burdened by high unemployment, growing debt, and a persistent gap between what governments are being asked to do and what they can afford.

But of all the challenges confronting the EU, France’s upcoming presidential election holds the most significance for Europe’s future, and perhaps for that of the world. Polls indicate that any of the four candidates could emerge as the eventual winner. What makes this uncertainty different and truly consequential is that two of the four, National Front leader Marine Le Pen and far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, support policies far outside the French and European mainstream. If either wins the second-round run-off on May 7, it could mean the end of French membership in both the EU and NATO, raising existential questions for both organisations—and for all of Europe.

Such scenarios were unimaginable until only recently. For decades, Europe has constituted the world’s most successful, stable, and predictable region, a place where history seemed to have all but ended. The goal of making the continent peaceful, whole, and free had largely been realised.

But dramatic change has come to Europe. One factor is the willingness and ability shown by Vladimir Putin’s Russia to use military force, economic coercion, and cyber manipulation to advance its agenda. But an even greater challenge to modern Europe comes from its own politicians, who increasingly question the value of the EU, the heir to the European Economic Community established in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome.

The rationale behind Europe’s six-decade-long integration process—often called the ‘European project’—was always clear. Western Europe, and above all Germany and France, had to be unified to such a point that war, which had so often characterised the continent’s past, would become unthinkable.

This has been achieved, as has considerable economic progress. But, along the way, the European project lost its hold on Europe’s citizens. The EU’s institutions became too distant, too elitist, and too strong, not taking into account the national identities to which Europeans remained attached. The ill-advised creation of a monetary union without a fiscal counterpart made matters worse. The bureaucrats had overreached.

The rise of populist, nationalist candidates on both the left and the right in France and elsewhere in Europe is the result. And even if one of the two establishment candidates prevails in France, much will remain uncertain. The immediate crisis will have passed, but the long-term challenge will remain.

It is apparent that the EU needs to be rethought. It needs to move away from “one size fits all” to something more flexible. There also needs to be a rebalancing of power away from Brussels, the seat of most EU institutions, toward the national capitals.

Governments need to do more to create the prerequisites of faster economic growth while enhancing workers’ ability to contend with the inevitable elimination of many existing jobs as a result of technological innovation. Germany, whether led by its current chancellor or her principal opponent after its general election in September, will need to take the lead here.

Europeans, appropriately enough, will mostly determine Europe’s future. But the Trump administration also has a role to play. Trump’s shortsighted support for Brexit and other exits from the EU must end; a divided, weaker, and distracted Europe will not be a good partner in NATO. It may be true that Asia is more likely than Europe to shape the history of the twenty-first century. But the lesson of the last century should not be lost: what happens in Europe can and will affect global stability and prosperity.

What I tell my non-American friends

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Image courtesy of Flickr user Kelley Minars.

I frequently travel overseas, and invariably my foreign friends ask, with varying degrees of bewilderment: What in the world is going on in your country? Here is what I say.

First, do not misinterpret the 2016 election. Contrary to some commentary, the American political system has not been swept away by a wave of populism. True, we have a long history of rebelling against elites. Donald Trump tapped into a tradition associated with leaders like Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan in the nineteenth century and Huey Long and George Wallace in the twentieth century.

And yet Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million. He won the election by appealing to populist resentment in three Rust Belt states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—that had previously voted Democratic. If a hundred thousand votes had been cast differently in those states, Trump would have lost the Electoral College and the presidency.

That said, Trump’s victory points to a real problem of growing social and regional inequality in the United States. J.D. Vance’s recent best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy compellingly describes the vast difference between California and Appalachia.

Research by the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton shows that the demographic trends among lower-income whites without a college degree are worse than those for African-Americans, who historically anchored the lower extremes of inequality. In 1999, mortality rates among whites with no college were around 30% lower than those of African-Americans; by 2015, they were 30% higher.

Moreover, manufacturing employment, once a prime source of high-paying jobs for working-class whites, has fallen sharply over the last generation, to just 12% of the workforce. These previously Democratic voters were attracted by Trump’s promises to shake things up and bring back manufacturing jobs. Ironically, Trump’s efforts to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation would make their lives worse.

The second thing I tell my foreign friends is not to underestimate Trump’s communications skills. Many are offended by his tweet storms and outrageous disregard for facts. But Trump is a veteran of reality television, where he learned that the key to success is to monopolize viewers’ attention, and that the way to do that is with extreme statements, not careful regard for the truth.

Twitter helps him to set the agenda and distract his critics. What offends commentators in the media and academia does not bother his supporters. But as he turns from his permanent self-centered campaigning to trying to govern, Twitter becomes a two-edged sword that deters needed allies.

Third, I tell my friends not to expect normal behavior. Normally, a president who loses the popular vote moves to the political center to attract additional support. This is what George W. Bush did successfully in 2001. Trump, by contrasts, proclaims that he won the popular vote and, acting as though he really did, appeals to his base voters.

While Trump has made solid centrist appointments to the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, his picks for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services are from the extremes of the Republican Party. His White House staff is divided between pragmatists and ideologues, and he caters to both.

Fourth, no one should underestimate US institutions. Sometimes my friends talk as though the sky is falling and ask if Trump is as dangerous a narcissist as Mussolini. I tell them not to panic. The US, for all its problems, is not Italy in 1922. Our national political elites are often polarized; but so were America’s founders.

In designing the US Constitution, the founders’ goal was not to ensure harmonious government, but to constrain political power with a system of checks and balances that made it difficult to exercise. The joke goes that the founders created a political system that made it impossible for King George to rule over us—or for anyone to ever do so. Inefficiency was placed in the service of liberty.

It is still early in the Trump presidency, and we cannot be sure what might happen after, say, a major terrorist attack. So far, however, the courts, the Congress, and the states have checked and balanced the administration, as Madison intended. And the permanent civil servants in the executive departments add ballast.

Finally, my friends ask what all of this means for American foreign policy and the liberal international order led by the US since 1945. Frankly, I don’t know, but I worry less about the rise of China than the rise of Trump.

While American leaders, including Obama, have complained about free riders, the US has long taken the lead in providing key global public goods: security, a stable international reserve currency, relatively open markets, and stewardship of the Earth’s commons. Despite the US-led international order’s problems, the world has prospered and poverty has been reduced under it. But one cannot be sure it will continue. The US will need to cooperate with China, Europe, Japan, and others to manage transnational problems.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump was the first major party candidate in 70 years to call the American alliance system into question. Since taking office in January, statements by Trump and his appointees suggest that it is likely to persist. American hard and soft power, after all, stems largely from the fact that the US has 60 allies (while China has only a few).

But the stability of the multilateral institutions that help manage the world economy and global commons is more uncertain. Trump’s budget director speaks of a hard-power budget, with funds cut from the State Department and the United Nations system. Other officials advocate replacing multilateral trade deals with ‘fair and balanced’ bilateral arrangements. And Trump is repudiating Obama’s efforts to address climate change. I tell my friends I wish I could reassure them on these issues. But I cannot.

Trump’s message to Xi: get tough on North Korea

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Image courtesy of Pixabay user ndemello.

The much anticipated first meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping ended in smiles all around at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxury private club in Florida. That’s good news for Australia. When China and the United States get along, political leaders and public servants in Canberra and capitals across the Asia–Pacific can breathe more easily.

Though Trump tweeted in advance that talks with China’s president would be ‘very difficult’, it was evident that he was determined to have a positive meeting. Gone—at least in public—was any trace of Trump’s previous combative rhetoric about China ‘raping’ America on trade or building a ‘massive military complex’ in the South China Sea. Trump was a welcoming and gracious host. Xi, in turn, was keen to demonstrate that the US–China relationship is stable. ‘We have a thousand reasons to get China-US relations right, and not one reason to spoil the China-US relationship’, he told Trump.

Undoubtedly, the upbeat coverage of the visit in the Chinese press and optimistic statements by senior Americans are significant. The world’s most consequential bilateral relationship has undergone a positive re-set after a rocky period. However, Trump’s decision to order missile strikes on Syria, which were executed while he dined with Xi in Florida, sent a stark message not only to Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad but undeniably to Xi Jinping as well.

The chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun that killed nearly a hundred civilians, including children, took place 60 hours before Xi’s plane landed in Florida. Trump could have delayed the missile strike on Syria until Xi’s 24-hour visit was over. But he chose not to, putting Xi in an awkward position. The message was clear: the United States continues to view itself as the global power with the right to take unilateral military action.

Over the past six years of atrocities in Syria, China has vetoed six United Nations Security Council resolutions specifically targeting the Assad regime. While Xi was in Florida the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that China opposed the use of force, but stopped short of condemning unilateral American actions—as Beijing has done in the past and most probably would have done this time too had Xi not been spending the night in Florida.

Chinese state-run media outlets have only briefly reported on the US strikes on Syria and were initially entirely silent about the implications of the strikes for North Korea and its refusal to halt its nuclear program. The tabloid Huanqiu Shibao (Global Times), known for its nationalistic stances, initially tried to offer public commentary. It stated in an editorial on Saturday that Trump wanted to prove that he cannot be dismissed as a ‘businessman president’ and that ‘he can use military force when necessary’. However, the Chinese-language version of the editorial was removed without explanation from the newspaper’s website the following day. Finally, on Monday a new Chinese-language editorial was published discussing whether North Korea would become ‘the next Syria’.

Though Trump’s decision to swiftly authorise the missile strikes obviously sends a strong signal to Pyongyang, it’s equally profound for Beijing: the United States wants China to use all possible means to halt North Korea’s nuclear program. In fact, one of the only pointed statements in the otherwise bland White House briefing of the Trump–Xi meetings was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s statement: ‘(we are) prepared to chart our own course if this is something China is just unable to coordinate with us’.

China has persistently called for multilateral talks to peacefully resolve the stand-off on the Korean peninsula and staunchly opposed use of force. As the North’s largest source of food and energy, China certainly is in a unique position to exert increased pressure on Pyongyang. But Beijing isn’t willing to let the North Korean regime collapse for several reasons, among others for fear of the millions of refugees who would likely spill over the border into China.

A unilateral decision by the United States to destroy North Korean nuclear facilities would be extremely risky. The challenges of the Korean peninsula and Syria cannot be compared. Whereas Syria could be targeted without fear of immediate retaliation, North Korea has the capability to cause severe damage to South Korea and perhaps even to Japan. North Korean artillery units deployed along the demilitarised zone could devastate Seoul, situated a mere 50 kilometres from the North Korean border. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and gradually growing missile force could cause catastrophic loss of life if not completely neutralised in an initial US strike.

In sum, while the optimistic mood in which Trump bade Xi farewell—with the promise to visit China soon—is good news, Xi Jinping has returned home with a clear warning: don’t underestimate Trump’s desire to get tough on North Korea.

Trump the ideologue?

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Historians may come to see the American actor Alec Baldwin as US President Donald Trump’s most useful ally. Baldwin’s frequent and widely viewed impersonations of Trump on the comedy show ‘Saturday Night Live’ turn Trumpism into a farce, blinding the president’s political opponents to the seriousness of his ideology.

Of course, politicians are parodied all the time. But with Trump, there is already a tendency not to take his politics seriously. The form of those politics—unhinged tweet-storms, bald-faced lies, racist and misogynistic pronouncements, and blatant nepotism—is so bizarre and repugnant to the bureaucratic class that it can overshadow the substance.

Even those who seem to take Trump seriously are failing to get to the root of Trumpism. Democrats are so infuriated by his misogyny and xenophobia that they fail to understand how he connects with many of their former supporters. As for establishment Republicans, they are so keen to have a ‘Republican’ in office implementing traditional conservative policies—such as deregulation and tax cuts—that they overlook the elements of his agenda that upend their orthodoxies.

Part of the problem may be that Trump has come out on both sides of most major debates, championing a brand of politics that privileges intensity over consistency. This may cause Trump-watchers to dismiss attempts to establish an ideological foundation for Trumpism—such as Julius Krein’s new journal American Affairs—as hopelessly oxymoronic. But the fact that Trump is no ideologue does not mean he cannot be a conduit for a new ideology.

The British political establishment learned this lesson the hard way. For years, conservatives and liberals alike underestimated Thatcherism. They failed to see that behind Margaret Thatcher’s blonde hair and shrill voice was a revolutionary politics that reflected and accelerated fundamental social and economic changes.

Thatcher, like Trump, was no philosopher. But she didn’t have to be. She merely had to attract people capable of refining the ideology and policy program that would eventually bear her name. And that is precisely what she did.

Apart from those ideologues, the first to grasp the significance of Thatcher’s political project were on the far left: the magazine Marxism Today coined the term ‘Thatcherism’ in 1979. These left-wing figures saw what those in the mainstream didn’t: Thatcher’s fundamental challenge to the economic and social structures that had been widely accepted since World War II.

An editor of that magazine, Martin Jacques, who did as much as anyone at the time to provide a theoretical understanding of Thatcherism, recently explained to me why its significance was so often overlooked. ‘Political analysis at that time was very psephological and institutional,’ he said. With its focus on ‘the performance of political parties,’ he explained, it missed ‘the deeper changes across society.’

There are powerful parallels between the late 1970s and the present. Just as Thatcher recognised growing dissatisfaction with the old order and gave voice to ideas that had been languishing on the margins, Trump has acknowledged and, to some extent, vindicated the anguish and anger of a large segment of the working class who are fed up with long-established systems.

Also like Thatcher, Trump has attracted ideologues ready and willing to define Trumpism for him. Front and center is Stephen Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, the ultra-nationalist home of the racist alt-right, who now serves as Trump’s chief strategist.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Bannon defined Trumpism in terms of national security and sovereignty, economic nationalism, and the ‘deconstruction of the administrative state.’ As he put it, ‘[W]e’re a nation with an economy. Not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders.’

This reflects a fundamental conflict between Thatcherism and Trumpism: the latter aims to sweep away the neoliberal consensus of unregulated markets, privatisation, free trade, and immigration that comprised the former. But, even if the ideas are different, the tactics are the same.

To consolidate support, Thatcher would go head-to-head with carefully selected enemies—from British miners to Argentina’s president, General Leopoldo Galtieri, to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Similarly, as the Hudson Institute’s Craig Kennedy recently told me, ‘Bannon wants to radicalise the anti-Trump liberals into fighting for causes which alienate them from mainstream America.’ Every time Trump’s opponents march for women, Muslims, or sexual minorities, they fortify Trump’s core support base.

Jacques argues that the British Labour Party’s failure fully to come to terms with Thatcherism is the main reason it spent almost two decades in the political wilderness. He believes that Prime Minister Tony Blair was the first leader to recognise Thatcherism for what it was: a new ideology that upended long-held rules and assumptions. But, Jacques asserts, Blair merely adjusted to the new ideology, rather than attempting to change it.

None of this bodes well for Trump’s opponents, who are still a long way from recognising the ideological implications of his presidency. Indeed, they remain so distracted by Trump’s apparent lack of leadership skill and even mental capacity—which, to be sure, cannot compare to that displayed by Thatcher—that they have yet to grasp the depth of the divisions and neuroses that Trump has exposed.

It might be cathartic to call Trump an idiot, to laugh at his misspelled tweets and taped-up tie, but the implications of his presidency are serious. If Trump’s progressive opponents fail to engage seriously with the forces that Trump’s victory reflected and reinforced—in particular, the backlash against neoliberalism—not even impeachment will be enough to put the Trumpian genie back in its bottle.

Why Malcolm should head for Mar-a-Lago

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Image courtesy of Flickr user sergio_leenen.

Two specialists on strategic and economic issues have urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to plan an early visit to Mar-a-Lago, the same venue where US President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold crucial talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

ASPI executive director Peter Jennings told the National Press Club on Wednesday the Trump-Xi summit was crucial to regional security and Australia’s economic interests and he was surprised that the Prime Minister hadn’t already made the journey. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the meeting was likely to be the most important for Australia of Mr Trump’s four year term and there were compelling reasons for Mr Turnbull to have a face to face meeting with him quickly. Willox argued that

‘We need to be very alert to the outcomes there because if they walk away without some agreements about trade and about a future economic relationship in which they can live with each other, I think we’re going to be in for a very rough ride over the next four years..

There’s a good story for Australia to tell. Getting close to the President and his immediate advisers is something we need to do. We don’t want to be left behind and left out of conversations at that presidential level.’

In Willox’s view, Australia has to try as much as possible to steer a middle course. Industry and business are very concerned that Australia could become collateral damage in a rapidly escalating security situation or trade war. In either case there could well be a phone call from the White House to the Lodge asking bluntly: ‘Which side are you on?’

‘That’s the nightmare scenario for Australian policy makers with the impact cascading through the economy. If Friday’s meeting goes badly I’d bet London to a brick that one of the first three phone calls the President makes is to Australia and we need to take advantage of that relationship, not just in the defence relationship but in the broader relationship.’

ASPI’s Jennings said China was increasingly willing to use economic levers to try to deliver political outcomes. It’s doing that now in an attempt to stop South Korea deploying an anti-missile system, and Australia shouldn’t naïvely imagine it couldn’t happen here. The government has to be aware that there are strategic risks in Australia becoming too dependent on its deep economic relationship with China. ‘For us to get caught or entangled in a security dispute or a trade dispute between the US and China is perhaps the worst of all worlds.’

Jennings said that Australia was heading into a period of increased risk and deep uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific, and that the Trump Presidency was contributing to that uncertainty. While every incoming administration struggled to find its feet, and to appoint the thousands of officials needed in key jobs and to set an agenda for government, he’d never seen an administration so deeply beset with problems in its first 100 days as the Trump White House.

‘This might self-correct,’ he said. ‘We have stabilising influences like General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense and Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. They’re working hard to convince friends and allies that the US isn’t abandoning its essential stabilising role in the Asia-Pacific.’

This lack of policy clarity opens up opportunities for Australia to help shape the President’s thinking, particularly in areas in which Australia is considered a trusted partner, such as defence, regional security and intelligence

Jennings said that North Korea’s developing ballistic missiles mean that it’s in Australia’s interests to develop missile defences for its deployed forces, and the partner is the US. Behind closed doors, the Americans would press China hard to use whatever leverage it has to stop the DPRK’s nuclear and missile testing. There’s a strong American view that North Korea can’t be allowed to weaponise a nuclear warhead fitted to an intercontinental ballistic missile.

According to Jennings, the US could consider a range of pre-emption strategies to prevent missile launches and to disable what was known of the nuclear weapons infrastructure, by cyber or kinetic means. The Americans have been practising pin-point strikes against terrorist targets for decades. ‘But the risks are enormously high. What can they do to stop the regime from launching an all-out retaliatory assault on South Korea? How do they persuade the Chinese that a strike isn’t designed to bring the whole regime down?’

The starting point should be to clearly understand that the US will not tolerate a North Korea able to hit the American mainland with a nuclear weapon. Washington has concluded that Obama’s strategy of strategic patience didn’t work, that the DPRK was unlikely to be reliably deterred and that, with or without China, some action would be taken to blunt the North’s program.

‘If that sounds scary, it’s meant to. We are entering a really difficult and dangerous strategic age.’

The Strategist Six: Yoichi Funabashi

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Welcome to The Strategist Six, a feature that provides a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, analysts, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

1. You’ve watched the Japan–US relationship evolve for more than four decades. What’s your assessment of bilateral ties today, and how do you evaluate Prime Minister Abe’s management of relations with the Trump administration?

It was positive that Prime Minister Abe has twice been able to meet with Donald Trump, both as president-elect and after the inauguration, because the new administration is both unpredictable and appears set to challenge America’s role in the liberal international order. Japan has significant interests in maintaining that order, so I think it was imperative that Prime Minister Abe was able to share his strategic views with the new president, as well as seek certain reassurances on issues like Article 5 and the provision of extended deterrence. So on the strategic front, the Abe–Trump meetings have been quite helpful and productive, but on the economic and trade policy front, the US and Japan appear to have divergent views on how to tackle the trade imbalance and answer other economic questions. To that end, it remains to be seen how well the Aso­­–Pence economic dialogue can tackle these challenges.

2. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the scrapheap, what can countries like Japan and Australia do to ensure high-quality trade liberalisation and economic integration continues in the Asia–Pacific?

Yes, the TPP is politically dead, but I think it’ll remain a useful concept, even if it needs a different name. Japan and Australia should continue with the TPP without the US—the TPP-11—which should be used to push for higher standards of rules and norms to support regional trade liberalisation. The question is really about the role that China plays in the region’s trade affairs. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is now the “lowest common denominator” trade deal, so I think it’s reasonable for Australia and Japan to work with other like-minded TPP signatories to have some of the TPP standards incorporated into RCEP. It could also be conducive and productive for China if it were to take advantage of the opportunity to push for structural reform in their domestic economy.

3. It’s been one year since Australia’s competitive evaluation process rejected Japan’s bid to build our future submarine fleet. As a strategic partner, how important is Australia to Japan?

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with Australia’s decision to favor French over Japanese submarine technology, but I also think Japan was unprepared and became a competitive player too late. I don’t think it changed the fundamental strategic value Tokyo sees in Canberra. Cooperation between Japan and Australia has always been crucial to maintaining peace and security in the Asia–Pacific. Indeed, strong cooperation between the two countries is even more necessary today given the uncertainty around America’s commitment to region, our desire for stability in the South China Sea, and as we face the contingency phase of managing North Korea. In those areas, Japan and Australia are natural allies and must deepen cooperation.

Japan has been a bit uneasy with what it sees as Australia’s somewhat schizophrenic views on China, as it’s still yet to reconcile the two strands of its economic cooperation with China and strategic cooperation with the US. Of course, Australia isn’t alone in this situation. But it means it’s particularly important for Canberra and Tokyo to continue to share strategic assessments of regional developments, particularly around China’s risks and opportunities.

4. What does Japan see when it looks at Xi Jinping’s China?

Xi Jinping has completely ended China’s ‘peaceful rise’ strategy, and now poses serious threat to peace and stability in the Asia­­–Pacific. It has been a rude awakening for Japan to appreciate that China had ended that phase, and we aren’t so sure where China’s now headed. On the regional stage, China has emerged as a revisionist power and Japan is most nakedly exposed to its aggressiveness. On the global stage, China is still basically a free-rider that hasn’t decided yet to be a responsible stakeholder and rule-maker. It’s not sustainable, and I think that the moment of truth will come when China defines its role on the Korean Peninsula. This is the third crisis on the Peninsula since the 1990s, and so “business as usual” simply won’t work. I think we have to admit that strategic patience has failed completely, and I think China should be blamed for that failure. So how China will respond to this situation and how we can coordinate a policy to work with China on the DPRK will be the biggest test in my view.

5. Can Prime Minister Abe’s international agenda survive his prime ministership?

The stability of Japan’s domestic politics has allowed it to play a more meaningful role in supporting regional stability. It’s most likely that this domestic political stability will continue until 2021, when Abe will be forced to step down—despite the current scandal he faces, I think it’ll be a fleeting moment. I’m more worried about the political dynamics after Abe leaves. Traditionally whenever Japan has had a long-tenured government we’ve seen political turmoil follow. That might be the case again.

I’m particularly concerned about the possibility of right-wing populist sentiments being unleashed more visibly after Abe retires. Abe, as possibly the most conservative leader Japan’s had in the past 70 years, has been in a strong position to stave off pressure from right wingers. He’s certainly incorporated some of their political dynamics and aspirations into his politics, but policy-wise he’s proven to be much more centrist. That’s helped to stablise our domestic politics, as well as Japan’s relations with its neighbours, particularly China and South Korea, although those relations have continued to be strained. Actually, how well Japan manages its relationships with Beijing and Seoul is central. If those relationships become further strained it may cause a backlash from conservatives. Similarly, if Trump and Abe can’t manage their relationship, or if Trump turns out to be hopelessly unhelpful for Japan and the US–Japan relationship, then that could stimulate anti-US sentiment that radically changes Japan’s domestic politics.

6. Japan’s aging and shrinking population represents a significant challenge for the country. Does Japan need to seriously review its immigration policies in order spur economic growth and underwrite stability?

The Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation has argued that Japan should relax its immigration policies and welcome a very modest number of around 150,000 per annum for the next 30 years, or something similar. At this point however, the Abe government simply isn’t interested in introducing changes to the country’s immigration policies. While they have pursued a back-door policy to allow foreigners to come to Japan for 3–5 years, it sort of acts like a rotation system. That’s perhaps better than nothing, but they should be treated as more than laborers. And once we open that door to foreigners, they should be welcomed as fellow citizens. We need a plan to get there, because the Japanese economy simply won’t revitalise if we don’t adjust our immigration policies.

Countering Beijing’s manoeuvres in the South China Sea

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Last month it appeared that the Chinese were again on the move in the South China Sea.

The provincial administrator of Beijing’s land claims in the region told Chinese state media that work would soon begin on  an ‘environmental monitoring station’ on Scarborough Shoal, a large reef system  just 140 nautical miles west of Subic Bay, well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Former Philippines National Security Advisor, Roilo Golez, explained that China planned to build an airfield, a radar facility, a government administrative centre, living quarters and a resort on the fragile coral atoll. The immediate reaction of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was to express his frustration at being powerless to stop China’s island building on Manila’s door-step. ‘We cannot stop China from doing this thing,’ Duterte said.

During the last decade the Chinese have effectively seized over 80 percent of the South China Sea, an area about the size of Western Europe from Poland’s eastern border to the English Channel. The Chinese claim almost all of the waters from Hainan in the north to Indonesia and Malaysia in the south. This area carries over half the world’s merchant shipping, it is a key military transit route, an important fishery, and its seabed holds valuable oil and gas reserves.

In five years the Chinese have built 12 militarily significant facilities in the South China Sea including three major fighter bases towards the centre of the sea, each with protected facilities for 24 fighter-bombers. The facilities apparently planned for Scarborough Shoal would extend this network to provide the Chinese with radar coverage over much of the Philippines strategic heartland, including Subic Bay naval base.

Beijing is applying Chinese domestic law to all claimed areas and it has harassed and arrested numerous foreign fishing and other vessels. Beijing appears intent on turning most of the South China Sea into something approaching an internal waterway.  China’s announcement on Scarborough Reef posed  acute  dilemmas for Manila and Washington .

The full extent of what happened next is yet to be revealed. However, the Philippines lodged a formal protest in Beijing and it appears likely that Washington also expressed strong views in private indicating that unless China changed course, the issue would sour Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington. In the face of this gathering storm, a Chinese government spokesman suddenly denied that Beijing had announced any plan to build facilities on Scarborough Shoal.

Many observers will assume that the crisis has been defused. Well, not quite. While Beijing was professing its innocence, Kyodo News in Taiwan revealed the views of officers of the Chinese South Seas Fleet reported in an internal PLA journal. These Chinese officers reportedly wrote that Beijing had secured the central leadership role in the South China Sea and other players couldn’t match its military supremacy in the region. The article argued that the PLA should brace for ‘endurance warfare’ to secure strategic advantages with patience and long-term planning. Over time, the balance of power had tilted toward China.

What should Washington and other allied capitals make of these developments? All indications are that Beijing’s goals in the South China Sea are unchanged but, as a tactical ploy, it wishes to avoid any immediate escalation of tensions. Renewed Chinese action on Scarborough Reef can be anticipated.

The White House appears to have three main options.

First, Trump could adopt a minimalist approach. He could restate the Obama administration’s interest in seeing all regional disputes resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law and turn a blind eye to the Philippines’ plight.

Even though many senior Americans are frustrated by the dysfunctionality and corruption in Manila, this option seems unlikely. Walking away from the Philippines would do enormous damage to alliance credibility globally and would run counter to the known strategic stances of key administration officials.

Second, Trump could adopt a holding position, whilst simultaneously seeking to protect Philippine sovereignty and alliance credibility. He could, for instance, convey his concern about Chinese plans to Xi Jinping. US aircraft and ships might also conduct patrols in the area in a manner similar to those ordered by President Obama early last year.

To add further weight to this option, the President could state explicitly that Washington’s treaty with the Philippines covers Scarborough Shoal and that US forces will work with the Philippines Armed Forces to maintain security for all Philippines sovereign territory. This second option would be unlikely to threaten Chinese cooperation in other spheres where Washington needs Beijing’s support, such as in restraining North Korea’s nuclear missile programs.

A third option would be for Washington to conclude that it has little choice but to respond to Beijing’s sustained expansionism and competitive behavior by developing a competitive strategy of its own. This would likely be a long-term approach that would include a range of diplomatic, information, economic, geo-strategic, immigration, legal, military and other measures. They would be tailored over time to constrain Beijing’s assertiveness, encourage responsible international behavior, and protect the core interests of the US and its allies.

Beijing’s actions are forcing the Trump administration to make tough choices. There is a great deal at stake for everyone in the Western Pacific.

ASPI suggests

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Image courtesy of Flickr user SpaceX.

This week’s ASPI Suggests is blasting off in three…two…one….

SpaceX gave a new meaning to reduce, reuse, recycle this morning, as it made history by successfully launching a pre-loved Falcon 9 rocket into orbital space. If optimised, CEO Elon Musk believes that reusing rockets could lower launch costs by as much as 30%. The launch was live-streamed on SpaceX’s YouTube channel—watch it here (coverage starts at 11 mins 50 secs). Hold tight for the launch crew’s cheers and celebration. SpaceX employees have every reason to be popping the champagne—this success brings them one step closer to Musk’s larger goal of colonising Mars, a plan which rests on a reusable rocket system that would mean spaceships could be used 12–15 times across a single trip.

Here are three strong pieces that take the refugee experience from various angles. First, a look at Canada’s 12-month social experiment ‘adopting’ Syrian refugees—and what happened at ‘Month 13’. Second, a fascinating write-up on Sweden’s apathetic refugee children, who ‘seem to have lost the will to live’ after deportation plans are set in motion. And third, a wrenching story closer to home, that of a self-immolation last year on Nauru—the act and the fall-out.

Let’s take a quick and important detour to salute Bob Silvers, the maestro behind The New York Review of Books, who recently passed away aged 87. Silvers, who founded ‘the paper’ in 1963 (!), worked until days before his death and has been lovingly remembered by a heft of the Review’s contributors. One of the kindest tributes is this touching reflection in The New Yorker.

CT mind Andrew Zammit headlines this week’s fresh research picks, with a brand new paper for Westpoint’s Combating Terrorism Center. In his report, Andrew holds a magnifying glass to the evolving threat of Australian jihadism. Sticking with the Asia–Pacific, a new report from the Center for American Progress argues that the US, Japan and China should seek out areas of common interest in Southeast Asia. A fresh publication from CNAS (PDF) details the west’s evolving understanding of Chinese thoughts on military escalation and escalation management, building on findings from a ground-breaking RAND report from 2008. And finally, after extensive polling, a new release from the Pew Research Center looks at public attitudes towards cyberspace in the age of fake news and trolling.

It’s not often we find ourselves directing Strategist readers over to Teen Vogue; in fact, this might be a first. But it likely won’t be the last, given the magazine’s emerging penchant for political/policy commentary. (Remember this cracking take, ‘Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America’?) Anyway, they’re back at it again, this time with a solid 101 on Trump’s nuclear weapons policy.

Podcasts

As North Korea continues its quest to test the extent of the international community’s patience with its controversial missile tests, the Global Dispatches podcast gang recently sat down (20 mins) with Kelsey Davenport, the non-proliferation policy director at the Arms Control Association. They discussed possible policy paths that the Trump administration could take to address the hermit kingdom’s aggressive ways, and the strategic intent behind the Kim regime’s testing of specific technologies.

And while it’s not traditional Suggests fodder, we couldn’t go past the new podcast from the team behind This American Life and Serial: S-Town. The superstar producers have pulled a Netflix, with all seven episodes released simultaneously earlier this week. Expect the division between rural and metropolitan lives which so pertinently affected the 2016 presidential election to be central to this investigative thriller—and if we can’t convince you to check it out, maybe some of our friends can.

Video

For the last two decades, CSIS has hosted an annual health-check for the US–Japan alliance. For the 2017 round, an esteemed panel gathered in DC to talk about the latest report of the Mt Fuji Dialogue. It’s well worth a watch for anyone looking to get a handle on how distinguished Japanese analysts coming to terms with President Trump and how they hope to deploy some gai-atsu of their own (1 hour 56 mins).

Events

Melbourne: You’ve likely heard that Allan Gyngell, former head-honcho over at ONA, has a new book, Fear of Abandonment, coming down the line. While we’ll have a primer for you next week, you can also get along to the launch event at La Trobe Uni on 5 April, when the author will sit down for a chat with Fairfax’s Daniel Flitton. Deets here.

Canberra: Head along to the screening of a brand new, eye-opening documentary, where senior military officials and veterans detail the importance of climate change to the maintenance of global peace and security throughout the 21st century, and how it can act as a catalyst for future conflict. The Age of Consequence will screen at ANU on 5 April, and is a must-watch for anyone passionate about climate change and/or US politics.