Tag Archive for: Donald Trump

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Flickr user Christian Haugen.

Hey, ya!

The greatest reality TV show on earth continued apace this week, with the revelation that literal Fake News adorned the walls of some Trump Organization properties. This corker of a piece from Amelia Lester in Saturday’s Good Weekend pulls back the curtain on how life inside the beltway morphs when a new President gets to work. And here’s some fine journalism on the back of recent tensions between the Oval Office and the FBI. But the pick of the week has to be this chronicle of All The President’s Lies:

‘Trump told a public lie on at least 20 of his first 40 days as president. But based on a broader standard — one that includes his many misleading statements (like exaggerating military spending in the Middle East) — Trump achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end until March 1.’

If these walls could talk… well, some in Berlin’s Bundestag do just that: they’re tattooed with graffiti left by Soviet vandals in 1945, which was rediscovered in 1995 and is viewable today if you can get yourself on the public tour. Cool.

Some choice reading on the DPRK this week; let’s kick off with this eye-opening new report from 38 North. The publication, part of the North Korea Instability Project, unpacks the hermit kingdom’s use of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Also from 38 North are these two quick reads, the first on Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in’s role in halting North Korea from developing long-range nukes, and the second on North Korean propaganda on foreign leaders. But this longread from Undark steals the show: author Sara Talpos delves into the work behind a program that’s aiming to unite the Korean peninsula’s health care system.

Re-upping this 1973 interview between Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci, and Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran. It’s entirely absorbing. Some great volleys and rallies in there raise the tension through to the final line.

Headlining our fresh research pics this week is an effort from Breakthrough—a climate change focused organisation from Down Under—called ‘Disaster Alley: Climate Change, Conflict & Risk’. For a fascinating look at findings from the 2017 Arab Youth Survey, don’t go past the white paper that unpacks the results and offers expert commentary. CSIS’s Energy and National Security Program has a great new interactive report on how to manage environmental hazards born of onshore oil and gas production. And wrapping things up, NBR has a new commentary on the flavour of the month: China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the impact it’ll have on Eurasia.

And finally, if you’re in the market for a new job, here’s a good one: designer-in-chief for the board games used to train CIA operatives. Don’t hate the player…

Podcast

The Longform Podcast’s new episode this week (61 mins) features senior reporter Ginger Thompson, who sits down to talk about her latest report and interview series for National Geographic and ProPublica on the horrors that took place in the Mexican border town of Allende. Thompson argues that a US-led drug bust from Texas sparked a massacre back in 2011, the horrors of which are still emerging.

Videos

The Center for a New American Security this week hosted a bevvy of big names at their annual conference. Robert Kagan, Secretary Mattis, Kori Schake, H.R McMaster, Graeme Allison and many others were on hand to navigate issues including transatlantic cooperation, PLA missile strike doctrine, civ-mil relations, surveillance and privacy, and conflict in Asia. Dip in here.

ASPI was fortunate to (again) host Admiral Harry B. Harris, Commander of the US Pacific Command, in Brisbane earlier this week. To catch up with what the Admiral had to say about the challenges that the US and Australia will face in an increasingly contested Asia–Pacific, check out our event video (23 mins).

Sick of Tokyo drift? Maybe try, Minsk drift. Or at least that’s what one tank driver had in mind as he practiced some sweet maneuvers in the Belarusian capital’s streets in the lead-up to a major military parade. We suspect that next time he mightn’t be as quick to hoon around…

Events

Canberra: Chris Barrie, Robyn Eckersley and Will Steffen are but some of the stars who will convene at UNSW ADFA in a couple of weeks to talk about how we might meet the international security challenge posed by climate change. With three years left to make a menaningful difference, it’s one not to miss.

The Coral Bell School’s annual flagship event, Australia 360, has just been announced for 8 August. Senator Penny Wong will headline the half-day conference, which will unpack Australia’s role in the Asia–Pacific and its prospects for the future. It’s an unmissable opportunity for all you policy wonks out there. Register now.

(Ed. Note: While Dave will be back here with Suggests next week, I’m signing off as I move on from ASPI. Thanks for all the fun, gang — Millie)

North Korea’s real strategy

North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons is often depicted as a ‘rational’ response to its strategic imperatives of national security and regime survival. After all, the country is surrounded by larger, supposedly hostile states, and it has no allies on which it can rely to come to its defense. It is only logical, on this view, that Kim Jong-un wants to avoid the mistake made by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, both of whom would still be alive and in power had they acquired deliverable nuclear weapons.

In fact, North Korea’s appetite for nuclear weapons is rooted more in aggression than pragmatism. North Korea seeks nothing less than to decouple the United States from its South Korean partner—a split that would enable the reunification of the Korean Peninsula on Kim’s terms. In other words, North Korea does not want only to defend itself; it wants to set the stage for an invasion of its own.

Of course, such a scenario is, in many ways, the stuff of fancy. But to be a North Korean today is not necessarily to accept the world as it is. And North Korean propaganda continues to reiterate the view that the Korean Peninsula consists of one people, sharing one language and one culture, indivisible—except by outsiders like the US. By this logic, the North needs to find a way to discourage those outsiders from intervening in the peninsula’s affairs.

As it stands, the US-South Korea relationship operates on the basis of something like the North Atlantic Treaty’s collective-defense clause, Article 5: any North Korean aggression against South Korea will, it is assured, be met by the combined forces of South Korea and the US. Such a counterattack would be decisive, ensuring the total destruction of the North Korean regime.

If North Korea had long-range nuclear weapons, however, it might be able to change the strategic calculus, by threatening to launch a nuclear attack on the US mainland in response to US intervention on the Korean Peninsula. The US might intervene anyway, launching its own devastating attack on North Korea. But it might also choose not to risk casualties on its own soil.

If the US did shirk its collective-defense responsibilities, South Korea would still have plenty of recourse against its northern neighbor. After all, South Korea’s conventional forces are far better trained, equipped, and motivated than their North Korean counterparts. But it is hard to say whether the North Koreans know that. Like many dictatorships before them, they may be the first to believe their own propaganda—in this case, that they can succeed against a South Korean foe that is not buttressed by American military might.

In any case, North Korea—which has invested heavily in forward deployed special forces and other asymmetrical elements of contemporary warfare—seems to be gearing up for an offensive, if only it can get the US out of the way. Against this background, efforts to bring the Kim regime back to the negotiating table—spearheaded largely by China—are misguided.

Such efforts aim to persuade North Koreans to freeze all missile and nuclear tests, in exchange for a scale-down and delay of annual joint exercises by US and South Korean forces. Advocates of this so-called ‘freeze for freeze’ approach say that such a tradeoff is only fair: the North cannot be expected to suspend its efforts to strengthen its defensive capabilities if the US and South Korea are pursuing supposedly hostile military cooperation in its near-abroad.

But this argument has it backward. In fact, it is the North whose activities are inherently hostile, and the South, along with the US, that is focused on defense. Indeed, planning for the annual US-South Korea spring exercises is always based on the premise that North Korea has invaded the South, not vice versa. North Korea knows this well.

But North Korea also knows that, without joint exercises, a military alliance becomes weak and hollow. In 1939, for example, when Germany invaded Poland, the British and French, per their treaty with Poland, declared war on Germany. But, in reality, they did little to protect Poland, which Germany subjugated rather quickly. If the US suspends joint military exercises with South Korea, its willingness or ability to respond to North Korean aggression in the South may become similarly weak.

This scenario is all the more dangerous, given the possibility that the suspension of missile and nuclear tests may not actually lead to a concomitant weakening of North Korea’s nuclear program. Testing is only a small element of a weapons program—and not necessarily an essential one. There is no sign that the North Koreans would actually end research and development of nuclear weapons.

In fact, the idea that North Korea will abandon its weapons programs in exchange for the promise of security and regime survival has been tested has failed whenever it has been tested. In September 2005, five world powers, including the US, offered North Korea an unimpeded civilian nuclear program, energy assistance, economic aid, and diplomatic recognition, as well as a promise to establish a regional mechanism for maintaining peace and security in Northeast Asia. A US commitment not to attack North Korea with conventional or nuclear weapons was also included in the deal.

All North Korea had to do to secure these benefits was abandon its nuclear-weapons programs and accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. But the North was not willing to allow for a credible verification protocol. Instead, it attempted to limit verification to that which was already known. In the end, it walked away from the agreement, rather than work to find an acceptable way forward.

A stronger and more purposeful US-China dialogue on North Korea is essential to resolving what is emerging as the world’s most urgent security problem. But the discussion should focus on direct measures to impede and undermine the country’s inherently aggressive nuclear program—not to offer more concessions that will only strengthen a rogue regime’s hand.

Trump’s Afghanistan surge: a sense of déjà vu

 

Image courtesy of the US Department of Defense.

Even after weeks of waiting, the Trump administration has yet to reveal its decision on what it will be doing in Afghanistan. This delay isn’t surprising, given the many other troublesome domestic issues competing for President Trump’s attention. Defense Secretary James Mattis did, however, promise at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this week that a new strategy on Afghanistan would be delivered by mid-July. But more importantly, reliable official sources suggest that President Trump will allow the Pentagon to decide the troop levels in Afghanistan. If true, this would be a welcome development from the approach followed by President Obama, who micro-managed the war and set troop levels according to a political timetable rather than according to operational needs.

As everyone in Washington circles knows, the delay is very much due to the internal debate in the White House between officials from the State and Defense departments, who have put up policy proposals, and the political advisers, notably Steve Bannon, who want to reduce America’s military commitment in Afghanistan. While Trump said virtually nothing about Afghanistan during the presidential campaign, in 2012 he stated that it was ‘time to come home!’

The importance of making a decision increased significantly following the devastating suicide-bomb attack in a highly secure area of Kabul on 31 May during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The bombing killed 150 people and wounded more than 450, making it the worst terrorist attack since 2001. No one claimed credit for it, but the Afghan government accused the Haqqani Network, an integral part of the Taliban, of carrying it out. Given the Haqqani Network’s long-time association with Pakistan’s military intelligence, Afghan President Ghani subsequently declared at a peace conference in Kabul that ‘Afghanistan is enmeshed in an undeclared war with Pakistan’.

While Trump’s instinct is to get out of Afghanistan, it’s nevertheless expected that when a decision is eventually made public the administration will announce a modest troop surge of 3,000 to 5,000 military personnel. It’s very well known that the top brass is firmly in favour of such an increase in troop numbers.

General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, would also be pleased with such a decision, given that he requested ‘a few thousand’ more troops to break the ‘stalemate’ in the war at a hearing with the Senate Armed Forces Committee in February 2017.

While Trump’s preference would be to leave Afghanistan, he’s also determined to defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups. The White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, said so on 9 May when he stated that the President wanted to eliminate all terrorist threats to the US and its allies. This was echoed by General Curtis Scaparotti, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, when he recently told a congressional hearing that ‘NATO and the US, in my view, must win in Afghanistan.’ But while winning may be Washington’s ultimate goal, according to Defense Secretary Mattis, ‘we are not winning in Afghanistan,’ as he bluntly told Senators at a Congressional hearing this week.

However, if winning means defeating the Taliban, ISIS and their ideological fellow travellers, then that simply won’t happen. If some 140,000 US and NATO combat troops were unable to defeat the Taliban over 15 years or so, an additional 3,000 US military personnel, mainly involved in training and mentoring, will certainly not achieve that goal. The best the US can hope for is to weaken the Taliban so as to force it to the negotiating table. But, at this point, given that the Taliban now controls or contests 40% of Afghanistan, it has absolutely no incentive to start talking with the Afghan Government and Kabul’s Western allies.

One of the critical reasons the Taliban still hasn’t been defeated—and isn’t about to be, either—is that Taliban fighters are able to move easily back and forth over the border into Pakistan, where they can find refuge and safety. Notwithstanding the repeated affirmations by the Pakistan military and most recently by the new Pakistani ambassador to the US that there are no longer Taliban safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas, indications are that the Taliban is still getting support from military elements. The bottom line is that no country has managed to defeat an insurgency as long as the insurgents are able to readily escape across a friendly border.

US National Security Advisor General McMaster, who had a tour of duty in Afghanistan, would be the first to acknowledge that the surge would fail to achieve its objectives and would simply amount to throwing good money after bad unless the border with Pakistan is sealed, thus preventing Taliban fighters from escaping into Pakistan.

Accordingly, President Trump will need to tell Islamabad forcefully that it must completely close down the border to Taliban egress and regress, and that all remaining ties between Pakistan and the Taliban must cease immediately. Pakistan’s failure to do so would test the patience of an increasing number of senators and Congressmen and could lead to a complete cut-off of military and economic aid. Already, many lawmakers are wondering whether Pakistan is friend or foe in the war against terrorists.

But most importantly, Washington needs to convince Islamabad that it’s not in Pakistan’s long-term interest to continue to support the Taliban and other terrorists. A return to power of those groups in Kabul would embolden the Pakistani Taliban—the TTP, as it’s called in Pakistan—which would most likely get support from and safe haven among the Afghan terrorists. That wouldn’t be good news for Pakistanis, who have already suffered immensely at the hands of home-grown terrorists. It would further threaten the stability of Pakistan—a nuclear state that has serious governance issues.

So, while the commitment of additional US personnel—possibly for many years—won’t lead to a ‘win’ in the traditional military sense, it will nevertheless send an important message to the Afghan Government that the US and NATO will not abandon it. It will also send a message to Russia, which has increasingly been meddling in Afghanistan, including by arming the Taliban, that Washington isn’t about to give Moscow free rein in Afghanistan.

Merkel, Trump and defining the new ‘West’

Image courtesy of Pixabay user Unsplash.

Angela Merkel’s frustration, clearly aimed at the United States and Britain, boiled over in her extraordinary speech in Munich late last month.

‘The times in which we can fully count on others are to some extent over, as I have experienced in the past few days’, the German chancellor said. ‘We Europeans’, she added, ‘have to take our destiny into our own hands.’ And, to prove the point, she repeated the line in Berlin a day or so later.  Merkel is a cautious and careful leader and a strong trans-Atlanticist, as she has reaffirmed since the G7 summit in Sicily. The fact she made such a comment is a reflection of the depth of her displeasure and concern.

The tone of the lecture President Trump gave fellow NATO leaders in Brussels on the need to lift their defence expenditure was bad enough, although it could scarcely have come as a surprise to other NATO countries. And Trump is right on that point: the European NATO members need to improve their game significantly. His failure to reaffirm NATO’s mutual defence commitments, however, sent a terrible signal to Europe.

The President’s stance at the recent G7 meeting in Sicily on issues such as climate change and trade simply added to this sense of exasperation. Merkel described the US position on climate change as ‘unzufriedenstellend—unsatisfactory’. Trump’s decision since to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement can only have reinforced this. His various egregious comments about Germany being ‘bad, very bad’ for its success in exporting cars to the US also didn’t go down well. The German reaction was to advise the Americans to make better cars.

Apart from reacting to Trump’s poor performance in Brussels and Sicily, three serious worries underlie Merkel’s comments.

First, these are deeply uncertain times for Germany and for Europe. Brexit has provided the greatest, but not the only shock to the framework that has brought stability to Europe since World War 2. The British decision to turn its back on membership of the EU has thrown all the cards in the air and there’s no way of knowing what the new Europe will look like.

Embedding Germany in Europe (especially a better relationship with France—the Germans must be hugely relieved to have Macron as President) has been a fundamental plank of the global security framework and of German foreign and security policy. So the Chancellor’s comments must also be seen as a wake-up call for the other Europeans, a heartfelt plea from a convinced European in favour of a stronger Europe.

Second, and more fundamentally, Europeans are starting to doubt whether the values and objectives that seemed to define ‘the West’ are still shared by key Western players. Britain’s decision to leave the EU and Trump’s ‘America first’ policy—on show for all to see in Brussels and Sicily—have been especially concerning in this regard.

Protestations from some British media commentators that it’s withdrawing from the EU but will remain part of NATO and therefore of the ‘Western’ security alliance miss the point: the European project has been as much about security as about economics. And, for the Chancellor and others, it’s becoming clear that the Trump administration does not seem to share a commitment to some of the things the Europeans hold dear, including international agreements on issues like climate change. ‘America first’, the Europeans feel, is increasingly being shown to mean ‘America only’. ‘Pittsburgh not Paris’, as the president’s put it so pithily.

And, finally, it’s worth remembering that Merkel’s in the middle of a serious election campaign, with the federal poll due in Germany in September. So her public comments must be seen against that background, especially as a reaction to the extreme nervousness of the German electorate about all these uncertainties—and others.

A ZDF (German television) poll in October 2016 had 82 per cent of Germans assessing the US-German relationship as good. A similar ZDF poll in June 2017 shows this figure falling to just 29 per cent, with 79 per cent of those polled doubting that the US under Trump is now a reliable security partner for Europe. As a response to this, 89 per cent want a stronger and more united Europe.

Merkel is very likely to be returned as chancellor. Polling in Germany suggests her CDU/CSU coalition is pulling ahead of the opposition Social Democrats (SPD)—38 per cent to the SPD’s 27 per cent, according to a 3 June Emnid poll—and Merkel’s personal popularity is way ahead of the SPD’s chancellor-candidate, Martin Schultz. The CDU has done remarkably well in three German state elections this year.

All of this explains why the Chancellor said what she did. That she did so is nevertheless remarkable. The Europeans are feeling that the world has turned upside down and President Trump’s recent visit and the Brexit decision have just reinforced this sense that they’re on their own. Ironically, getting the Germans to accept responsibility and have a greater role internationally, commensurate with their political and economic weight, is something we’ve all wanted for some time.

Some commentators have speculated that Merkel might now emerge as the de facto leader of whatever ‘West’ is produced after the current renovations. She, no doubt, is horrified by such suggestions. But hers is a voice well worth listening to.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Twitter user @TheOnion.

Let’s kick off with some light relief: those legends over at The Onion have been toiling away on a set of documents which reveal the true functions and dysfunctions of the Trump administration. The trove is made up of 700 “leaked pages, and will be released by way of document dumps in the style of Wikileaks and the Panama Papers. The New Yorker gives us a glimpse of what’s out there so far:

‘Among the leaked Trump documents: a string of e-mails between the President and Boeing’s C.E.O., about Trump’s desired upgrades—marble everything—to Air Force One; some of the Vice-President’s handwritten notes, with helpful illustrations, describing puritanical inventions of his, like a “nose harness” to prevent the smelling of “sinful smells,” like a woman’s skin, and a “blouse that cannot flutter in the wind”; and three of the President’s idiosyncratic daily briefings, written on children’s placemats.’

Following the USN guided missile destroyer Dewey’s Freedom of Navigation Operation near Mischief Reef on Wednesday, our friends over at Lowy have launched a clever interactive map and timeline that details the history of the United States’ FONOPS. *hat tip* And while we’re on the topic of great think tank initiatives, CSIS’s Beyond Parallel project has also been busy working on a solid new feature that was released this week. By correlating South Korean election dates over the last 60 years with the timestamps from North Korean military aggravations, the dataset, which is the first of its kind, shows that the ‘provocation window’ between the two countries has become increasingly narrow.

Although they’re not interactive efforts, it’s definitely worth your time to check out some fresh reports from our think tank counterparts across the globe—unsurprisingly, recommendations for the Trump administration have been front and centre. First up, this effort from the Asia Society Policy Institute looks at future areas of cooperation between the US and India and lays out some policy recommendations about putting the South Asian giant at the top of the priority list. In another recommendation for The Donald, a fresh report from the Atlantic Council argues the benefits of giving the NATO alliance a make-over. Turning to the Middle East, it’s worth taking a look at this paper from the Washington Institute, which advocates a two-state solution and looks at where Trump should push for concessions from Prime Minister Netanyahu. And finally, a new report from the Institute for China-America Studies offers a comprehensive run-down on US and Chinese stakes in the South China Sea, and identifies where the two countries’ ideologies conflict most significantly.

With the weekend upon us, it’s time to get your longreads in order. We recommend this stellar profile which dives into the story-so-far of US Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

STAT, an online publication that focuses on compelling medical and scientific journalism, launched a series called ‘State of (Trump’s) Mind’ back in March. While there’s only a handful of pieces available at this stage, the most recent is a doozy. By comparing Donald Trump’s interviews from the 1980s/90s alongside his unscripted remarks over the past few months, the author details possible neurological reasons for the decline in Trump’s oration skills. And in a same-same-but-different kind of way, The New York Times offers a particular brand of fun to wordsmiths and the rest of us: try your hand at a set of copy-editing quizzes…. Word to your mother.

Podcasts

Bobo Lo has been doing the rounds on the back of the paper he released recently through the Lowy Institute. He was in Canberra last month and delivered a lecture through the Harry Rigby series at the ANU, where he tackled Russia’s impact on Western policy-making (63 mins).

Following their successful conference earlier this week on the state of US civil-military relations, CSIS’s International Security Program has launched a podcast mini-series called ‘Command Climate’. Available in its entirety online, the series gives a platform to experts, policymakers and practitioners to discuss a different aspect of civil-military relations. It’s fascinating for those wanting an insider’s perspective on how America’s armed forces reflect its population. The whole series is available here.

Video

Four Corners’ report on the Sydney Siege made for gripping television. Catch up with Part One online this weekend (53 mins); Part Two will be aired on 29 May.

Events

Canberra: Capital-dwellers should hustle over to the ANU this week for two events hosted by the SDSC. First up on Monday evening Kim Beazley will launch a collection of essays in honor of Paul Dibb. And come Thursday lunchtime the Center will launch a new Centre of Gravity paper penned by Nick Bisley. Don’t miss ‘em.

Sydney: On 30 May, join the USyd Southeast Asia Centre’s Michele Ford as she hosts a pair of prominent members of the ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representative, HE Dato’ Shariffah Norhana Bt Syed Mustafa of Malaysia and HE Mr Tan Hung Seng of Singapore. The trio will unpack Australia’s relationship with the Association, and look at where engagement might take us in an increasingly contested Asia. Register here.

Calming the waters in the South China Sea: a win–win for China

Image courtesy of Pixabay user Pexels.

A year ago, there were real fears that contested claims over tiny specks of coral in the South China Sea could spark a war in Southeast Asia involving China, the 10 ASEAN member states and the US. The risks greatly multiplied after a special tribunal convened in The Hague under the Law of the Sea ruled in July 2016 that China’s territorial claims in Philippine waters had no legal basis. What has transpired since then demonstrates the pragmatism of regional states, the limited extent of US influence in Asia, and says a lot about how China intends to wield power.

There was some dangerous brinkmanship in the lead-up to the July ruling. The US and China postured aggressively, using a mixture of rhetoric and sabre-rattling. China showed no sign of backing down from its claims, swiftly building runways and installing weaponry on some of the disputed islands. The US sailed warships and flew aircraft close to some of the islands, claiming the right to conduct freedom of navigation operations.

For ASEAN member states, these belligerent manoeuvres were deeply unsettling. Much as China’s militarisation of the South China Sea alarms the littoral states, there’s no desire to either pick a fight or choose sides. Nor was there much faith in the Obama administration’s much-touted pivot towards East Asia. The US expected ASEAN to stand up to China and wholeheartedly endorse the Law of the Sea tribunal’s ruling, but some governments were unsure whether the US had their back in case China refused to comply. Instead, under heavy pressure from Beijing, ASEAN blinked and issued a series of watered-down statements—or took no position at all.

Against this volatile background, there was considerable relief when towards the end of 2016 Rodrigo Duterte, the maverick newly elected President of the Philippines, who campaigned on taking a firm stand against China, unexpectedly decided to shelve the ruling and vie for better relations with Beijing.

What happened next was instructive about China’s behaviour towards the region. First, China’s belligerent tone subsided. Next, Chinese officials fanned out across the region, offering bilateral cooperation on maritime security. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Beijing promised progress on a code of conduct for the South China Sea—a quest that’s been languishing for more than a decade.

To some extent, China was lucky. The momentum against Beijing’s claims, spearheaded by the Hague ruling, started flagging as soon as the US election season got underway. One of the considerations driving Manila’s backdown from pressing its legal victory was a sense that Washington was distracted and that there was no certainty that the US would come to the defence of the Philippines, whatever the treaty guarantees. The pivot turned into a U-turn after President Trump took office in January 2017.

All this allowed China to make its own pivot to a more cooperative posture on the South China Sea. Towards the end of 2016, China’s coastguard, which is the most visible presence in disputed waters, offered bilateral agreements to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. In early 2017, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials made encouraging noises about completing a framework for the code of conduct.

Sure enough, by the end of April a draft framework of the code finally materialised. The framework is threadbare and doesn’t appear to be binding. The first of its general provisions states that the aim is to provide a ‘rules based framework containing a list of norms to guide the conduct of parties and promote maritime cooperation in the South China Sea’. However, the first item under the heading of ‘Principles’ states that the code is ‘not an instrument to settle territorial disputes or maritime delimitation issues’.

The code essentially preserves the status quo vis-a-vis territorial claims. At best, when completed, it might facilitate practical maritime cooperation and encourage the implementation of existing international agreements for managing incidents at sea. Most observers expect the completion of the code to take years, however.

Meanwhile, China has kept up construction activities in the disputed area of the South China Sea. Its vessels have even appeared in new areas to the east of the Philippines in a major shipping route, particularly for ore-bearing Australian vessels. What has changed is the appetite for challenging Beijing.

The Trump administration has shown little inclination to resume freedom of navigation operations—although this could reflect the vacuum in the chain of command because of the slow appointment of senior positions at the US Defense Department. A series of phone calls President Trump made to ASEAN leaders in late April suggest that Washington is reasserting its interests in Southeast Asia, but for now the main security challenge for the US is further north on the Korean peninsula.

ASEAN remains uncomfortable. Despite the Philippine government’ steering of a final statement that avoided any reference to China’s building activity in the South China Sea at the 28–29 April ASEAN summit in Manila, there was no real consensus on the issue.  But the silence of objecting member states suggests that ASEAN has neither the stomach nor the means to challenge China’s strategic advance. Australia has come under pressure from Washington to fill the gap but, with so much trade at stake, Canberra favours a more balanced approach—much like its ASEAN neighbours.

China appears to have sensed an opportunity to modify its hard diplomatic posture, which did considerable damage to its image in the run-up to the Hague ruling. There was a palpable sense of relief in Beijing that constructive cooperation could replace harsh uncompromising rhetoric after President Duterte signalled his back-down from pressing compliance with the legal ruling.

Instead, Beijing swiftly deployed bilateral security engagement and smothered the region with the economic promise of the Belt and Road Initiative. Indonesia found itself being wooed by the Chinese coastguard months after a serious clash between its navy and the coastguard in the Natunas. The Philippines was told its fishermen could return to Scarborough Shoal, although there was no evidence that Chinese vessels were pulling back. Surprised Malaysian maritime law enforcement officials were presented with a draft agreement by their Chinese counterparts after a single meeting.

In sum, Chinese policymakers might well reflect on the year since the Hague ruling and consider the outcome a ‘win–win’. While it seems likely that Beijing’s more cooperative mood will generate modest progress on confidence building measures that will help lower tensions in the South China Sea, the net result is that China’s strategic position in the region has been strengthened and is unlikely to be challenged.

Turnbull, Trump and the Intrepid

I’ll defend to the death John McCarthy’s right, facilitated by The Strategist, to uphold the dignity of the Prime Minister in the face of insults from the American President. There’s no excuse for bad, belittling and bullying behavour. Thank goodness we never see that in Australian politics or in public service life. All this huffing about national dignity, self-esteem, obsequiousness and stature sound more like the diplomatic playbook from some fictional Balkan principality. It takes more than a nasty phone call to derail an alliance. Did anyone pause to notice that Trump really delivered Turnbull a massive favour in that phone call? Donald Trump accepted what I believe diplomats might call un sac de merde in the form of President Obama’s parting gift to Trump—a promise to accept asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru. Only the strength of the alliance relationship persuaded Trump to honour his predecessor’s promise. That tells you we still have some standing and respect in Washington.

Malcolm Turnbull isn’t noticeably lacking in self-esteem. He seemed to handle the call and then welcomed the outpouring of support from America’s establishment that followed it . Others of our political elite have described President Trump as ‘barking mad’, ‘terrifying’ and a ‘dropkick’. (The CIA is presumably working on a suitable translation of that last epithet for the President: ‘It’s a sporting analogy, Sir, implying good physical coordination.’) Let’s not shirtfront Trump on the USS Intrepid with that one. While the Americans are sufficiently self-assured not to be bothered by small-scale slings and arrows, this all points to a reality of Australian international life: that the one country we can safely, endlessly and joyously insult without fear of retaliation is the United States. But look at the reaction when the hard words get flung in our direction. Faced with a snappy response from a new President who has just been handed an unpalatable request, our elites are strapping on their top hats and spats to defend the honour of Ruritania.

Turnbull and Trump are both pretty smart cookies. Barring the remote possibility of an unscripted disaster, the meeting on the Intrepid will provide a basis for two savvy leaders to confirm the alliance relationship is a good thing, a beautiful thing no less, with a GREAT future. And full marks to the unknown Australian official who selected the gift for Mr Trump. A happy Turnbull told SBS: ‘We have a beautiful timber gift, it’s made of jarrah and silver ash, by an Australian craftsman from Bungendore and it’s designed to hold golf balls.’ You bet it is, Prime Minister!

Meantime our own Greek chorus of alliance belittlers should perhaps tone down their wailing over the passing of the alliance relationship. There’s no doubt that a number of ‘Australian leaders of stature’ (as John McCarthy calls them) have identified the Trump ascendancy as the right moment to start back-peddling furiously on cooperation with the US. Listening to them, it seems the only time Australia wasn’t kowtowing to the Americans was during the all-too-brief moments when the same leaders-of-stature were steering the ship. It didn’t seem that way at the time.

It’s time, though, for our current and prospective political leaders to start paying attention to some of the Greek chorus. The more their claims are ignored, the less it looks like the current establishment is prepared to set out the case for the contemporary US alliance.

The argument for the alliance should be a vital component of DFAT’s forthcoming White Paper. The Prime Minister might also consider making a parliamentary statement after the budget about the Australia–US relationship. That was the old-fashioned, pre-Twitter, way governments used to tell Australians about what was really important.

Handshakes on the Hudson: Turnbull, Trump and the importance of the personal connection

Malcolm Turnbull will meet Donald Trump for the first time this week. Their meeting on board the museum ship USS Intrepid coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. The timing and setting are highly symbolic, emphasising the wartime origins of the ANZUS alliance. Although, as James Curran has pointed out, there’s a risk that meeting in a museum creates a perception of ‘complacency and nostalgia’, of basking in past glories, rather than looking to the future.

Both leaders come to the meeting with agendas. Turnbull will be tempted to talk about the past, and to invest Trump in the history of ANZUS. Trump will be preoccupied with the crises of the present, particularly North Korea and Syria. The history of the alliance is a rich one, and current crises demand attention, but both leaders would be wise to talk about the future: the changing shape of the order in Asia, and how each country plans to respond to it.

Beyond that, the main point of the meeting is to establish a personal relationship between the two men. Trump appears not only to respond to the personal approach but to consider it essential to any partnership. Like an ASEAN meeting, the mere fact that the gathering is taking place is important, especially from Australia’s point of view. There’s already been some disquiet in Canberra that it’s taken this long to happen. Trump may be famously unpredictable, but Turnbull needs to emerge from the meeting better able to predict his actions. Both need to better understand each other’s motivations, priorities and limitations. Personal interaction is invaluable in this regard.

This meeting follows on from a bad start—the now infamous phone call reportedly described by the President as the ‘worst call of all’. However, Vice President Mike Pence’s recent successful visit to Sydney appears to have settled the so-called refugee deal, leaving Turnbull and Trump free to move on to larger matters.

In the wake of the phone call, some argued that the leader-to-leader relationship is but one facet of a broader and deeper alliance, the inference presumably being that it doesn’t matter much whether prime ministers and presidents get along. That’s risky thinking. While too much shouldn’t be read into the phone call, the relationship is important. The leaders are the alliance’s custodians. They have a unique ability to shape it, and the relationship between them is highly relevant to that.

The only time the alliance was in real peril was when relations between Gough Whitlam and Richard Nixon frayed following Whitlam’s criticism of the American bombing of Hanoi in 1972, and deteriorated to the point that Nixon directed that Whitlam be snubbed and ordered a review of all intelligence sharing with Canberra. On the other hand, the benefits can be real when the relationship is good. For example, John Howard’s ability to secure a higher level of access to US intelligence was attributed to the personal intervention of President George W Bush after the two leaders had developed a strong working association and friendship.

For Australian prime ministers, effective management of ANZUS is an essential component of the job. Both their colleagues and the public expect it. To achieve it, diplomats and advisers brief the PM, but there comes a point when it comes down to the two leaders, and Turnbull’s well aware of that.

The idea that a prime minister and president might be friends started with Harold Holt and Lyndon Johnson. Their relationship was spontaneous and sincere and came to be envied by Holt’s successors. John Gorton even left his schedule open during his 1968 visit to Washington in the hope that LBJ might extend their meeting to offer him an impromptu and ‘unceremonious’ sandwich, as he had to Holt the year before. Gorton’s sandwich never came. Genuine friendship is rare and can’t be forced, but it isn’t necessary for good alliance management. In Holt’s case, there came to be a perhaps unfair, but pervasive, perception that the friendship became almost apostolic. Some argue that hints of this were also evident in the Howard–Bush relationship.

More important than friendship is respect between leaders, and more important still is their understanding of the other’s character and temperament as well as where their national and political interests lie, and those aren’t always the same.

Turnbull has at least one advantage: he can learn from the examples of other world leaders. He’d do well to look to Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who, as Nick Bisley notes, spoke to Trump primarily about family and concentrated on the personal connection and a round of golf before turning to policy. Turnbull and Trump are unlikely to be driving golf balls into the Hudson River, but Turnbull seems to already be working on the assumption that the President is as susceptible to charm as he is sensitive to criticism.

In a recent Facebook Live interview, Turnbull praised Trump, noting that he’s ‘a remarkable politician’ who comes ‘from a completely unique background, completely non-political’. Turnbull also came to politics from a non-political background. His past lives as a lawyer, a journalist and one of Sydney’s leading business figures may give him an edge in dealing with a president who until recently was a property developer and reality TV star. While they are very different men, concentrating on what they have in common may be the key for Turnbull in dealing with Trump.

Asia’s American menace

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

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.

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