In a rare presidential address last week at Fort Myer, Virginia, Donald Trump outlined his administration’s strategy for the United States’ future engagement in Afghanistan. Trump avoided admitting outright that he was authorising an increase in the number of US troops in that troubled country, saying instead that military leaders would make such decisions. Yet the reality is that Trump’s plan will deepen American involvement in a military mission that has already lasted for 16 years.

Trump, who campaigned on the promise to extricate the US from foreign conflicts, reiterated in his speech that he shared the ‘American people’s frustration’ about a foreign policy that has already cost too much time, energy and money, and too many lives. His new strategy, he said, is the result of deep reflection by him and his national-security team, about how to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes the source of a terrorist attack on the US like that of September 11, 2001.

Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush sought the same goal. In fact, though Trump attempted to portray his strategy as a stark break from those of his immediate predecessors, many of the steps he announced have been tried already. Still, there are key differences in Trump’s approach, which will have serious long-term consequences for Afghanistan.

For starters, Trump has dropped the ‘nation-building’ element of America’s Afghan strategy. Criticising previous efforts to ‘rebuild countries’ in America’s ‘own image’, rather than putting US security interests first, Trump asserted that the US will no longer engage in explicit state-building, aimed at helping Afghanistan to become a relatively modern political and economic entity. It will, however, demand that the Afghan government deal effectively with corruption, improve governance, and make better use of the resources it receives from the international community.

Second, Trump brought Pakistan much more explicitly into his Afghan policy than Bush or Obama did, arguing that the country will face significantly increased US pressure to crack down on the terrorist sanctuaries along its border, from which insurgents launch attacks on Afghan and NATO forces. If Pakistan fails to do so, Trump declared, it will ‘have much to lose’. Already, Trump has determined that Pakistan should no longer be paid for providing valuable services to American, NATO, and Afghan forces, and has even blocked a large payment to the country that was already due.

Finally, Trump has invited India to play a larger role in Afghanistan, despite the risks India faces in a country that Pakistan views as a second front in its historic struggle with its southern neighbour. Trump appreciates what India has already done, but is urging it to do even more, using its vast earnings from exports to the US to help rebuild Afghanistan’s economy. He also suggested that the US will work with India to create an Indo-Pacific security zone. In any case, it seems that the potential for US–India security cooperation in the region, while only hinted at in Trump’s speech, has already been discussed by the two governments.

The implications of Trump’s speech extend beyond America’s policy in Afghanistan. The address also sharpened the contours—already limned during his May visit to Saudi Arabia and his July visit to Poland—of what might be called the ‘Trump doctrine’.

Trump, it seems, sees a world split between the West and the ‘rest’, with conflict all but inevitable. In Saudi Arabia, Trump invited Muslim-majority countries to join the West in eliminating adherents of Islamic radicalism. In Poland, he challenged the West to demonstrate its will to resist the impact—physical and philosophical—of its adversaries.

Trump is not targeting only the Muslim world. His speech on Afghanistan also pointed to his efforts to contain China. While Trump seemed briefly to be more interested in securing the Chinese government’s help in reining in North Korea, Trump seems eager, now that the North Korean nuclear crisis has apparently been returned to the back burner, to resume his administration’s focus on constraining the Asian giant.

But the Trump doctrine seems no more capable of limiting China than it does of eliminating the terrorist threat to the West. In fact, in the long term, the strategy Trump laid out at Fort Myer will probably have the opposite impact.

If military force has not succeeded in stabilising Afghanistan in the last 16 years, it is difficult to imagine how Trump thinks it will work now. What is needed is precisely what Trump rejects: a serious and sustained effort to build the Afghan state and economy, in order to give hope to Afghanistan’s young population (the median age is only 18.6). Young men will lay down their weapons only if they have confidence in the future.

Moreover, cornering Pakistan will serve only to force its government to align itself more openly with actors like the Haqqani network, a guerrilla group that has been fighting NATO and Afghan forces. This would strengthen insurgent groups’ control over border areas, effectively creating a buffer state between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As funding from the US declines, Pakistan probably will also deepen its ties with China. It has already sent its foreign secretary to Beijing to meet with her Chinese counterpart. In the statement issued after the meeting, China pledged total and unconditional support to Pakistan.

If the goal of the Trump doctrine is to create a stable global backdrop against which America can pursue its own interests, it is doomed to fail. In fact, it is likely to have the opposite effect, unleashing a destabilising genie that will be almost impossible to put back in its bottle.

It’s been a busy week for editors googling pictures of Terminators (as in the Schwarzenegger variety). The main driver has been reportage on an open letter to the UN, signed by 116 tech industry leaders from around the globe, calling for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons (i.e. killer robots). The UN plans to debate autonomous weapons in a meeting this November.

The call for a ban on killer robots has faced plenty of criticism: a piece at Wired says that it ‘just isn’t practical’, as there’s just too much incentive for advanced militaries to continue developing them. A couple of Brookings Institution authors argue similarly that AI is becoming essential to keep up with the increasing speed of warfare. And drones are already emerging as an important component of the defence of Guam against North Korean missiles. A piece from RealClearDefense includes comments from the Atlantic Council’s August Cole, who encourages the international community to develop a ‘legal, moral and ethical framework’, but he notes that even that might be too much to expect agreement on.

Celebrity entrepreneur and AI doomsayer Elon Musk signed the open letter, but that could just be because he thinks ‘Skynet’ will gain control over all of them when the war for humanity’s survival begins. If you don’t know what Skynet is in this context, you can educate yourself by watching the 25th-anniversary cinema re-release of Terminator 2 in 4k 3D—or read this piece about some of the film’s scientific flaws.

US President Donald Trump has given his seal of approval on a new strategy in Afghanistan. The defence policy wonks are out in force. A piece by Kelly Magsamen, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia–Pacific security, says Afghanistan is now Trump’s war, and she has additional questions. William F. Wechsler, former US deputy assistant secretary for special operations and combating terrorism, argues that the announcement should precede a period of constant US diplomatic interaction with officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. And a brief from the Council on Foreign Relations on the subject offers the grim evaluation that the US is resigned to a perpetual stalemate in Afghanistan.

For a little more variety, you might be interested to know that there are multiple new TV programs about the CIA’s past role in Latin America’s drug trade. There’s a great piece at The Strategy Bridge from Australian Army officer Mark Gilchrist about the inherent chaos of war. It’s difficult to describe succinctly, but I recommend you check it out. And you may be interested to read this Brookings piece about the coming of age of China’s sixth generation of leaders ahead of the next party congress. If military history is more your thing, you might enjoy this long read from the Smithsonian Magazine about Chuck Parsons’ clandestine work in the Philippines during World War II.

In terms of research content this week, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has a new 80-page report on the United States’ 250 years of irregular war that should be of interest to any war historians out there. CSIS has a couple of new reports, too: one on Russia in the global arms market (that one’s high up on my personal to-read list), and one on European terrorism since 1970.

Lastly this week, let’s take a moment to envy our American friends who were able to observe the total solar eclipse on Monday. President Trump was caught looking at the eclipse without special glasses—a big no-no (American readers take note: those glasses can be recycled). Julian Assange defended the President on Twitter using some half-correct optical science, which just made the whole ordeal even more surreal.

Podcasts

War on the Rocks’ Bombshell podcast this week covers a variety of geopolitical goings-on, including in North Korea, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Charlottesville.

And from the team that brought you the Dead Prussian podcast comes War for Idiots. This week’s episode gives an in-depth discussion of the Clausewitzian concept of a military ‘centre of gravity’.

Video

Australia’s ambassador to Russia, Peter Tesch, sat down for a 20-minute chat with the Australian Institute of International Affairs this week. He offers an Australian perspective on modern-day Russia, and discusses the economic opportunities and challenges for Australians in Russia.

A VICE news segment discusses North Korea with Clinton-era energy secretary Bill Richardson. Richardson reflects on some of the interactions he’s had with the North Koreans, and expresses optimism about the potential for a deal of some kind (4 mins).

Chatham House has put together a short informational video on the potential for cyber attacks against satellites and space assets (1 min).

Events

Canberra: This Saturday is the ADFA/UNSW Canberra open day. There’ll be drill displays, a C-130 fly-by, small training drones and military working dogs.

Melbourne: The Lowy Institute is hosting an evening panel discussion on 29 August about some of the findings from the 2017 Lowy Institute poll. The event is being held at the wonderful National Gallery of Victoria, where you can also see an exhibition of works by legendary Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Last week Prime Minister Turnbull committed Australia to join the United States in a war with North Korea. His remarks were strangely brief and informal for such a weighty issue, and left it rather unclear under what circumstances he would be willing to fulfil that commitment. Much of the language he used—phrases like ‘shoulder to shoulder’ and ‘joined at the hip’—seemed to suggest that the specific circumstances of conflict were irrelevant: we would fight alongside America however the war had come about, come what may.

Turnbull did use the words ‘if there is an attack on the United States’, which may have been intended to limit the commitment to supporting America in responding in self-defence to a clear act of aggression by North Korea. If so, he would have been well advised to make that clearer, because in the current context that’s far from the most likely scenario in which America would seek Australia’s military support against Pyongyang.

Despite Kim Jong-un’s bellicose talk, a serious direct attack on America or its allies has always been very unlikely, because the North Koreans know that it would lead to a devastating war that would destroy their country. And the Americans understand that perfectly well. Their real concern is the North’s rapid progress towards developing an ICBM. And while the temperature may have gone down a little in recent days after last week’s heated rhetoric, that problem hasn’t gone away.

No one seriously believes that diplomacy and sanctions will fix things. So over the next few months, the North Koreans will probably stage further tests offering clear evidence of progress towards an operational ICBM force. Would the US then launch a war—and it would be a very big war indeed—to stop them? It’s far from clear where Washington stands on that at present. Much of the tough talk about military options being on the table is intended to scare Pyongyang, but how would the Americans jump if their bluff was called?

The messages from the administration on that are mixed. Key figures like secretaries Mattis and Tillerson seemingly swing between caution and belligerence, while many others in Washington plainly believe that a major war is better than a North Korean ICBM.

And obviously, after all that’s been said, doing nothing would be a humiliating backdown, and a big blow to President Trump’s ego and America’s credibility. So it’s really quite possible that a war with North Korea will be initiated by the White House in the next few months.

One hopes that Turnbull has thought carefully about whether his commitment to stand shoulder to shoulder with America would still hold if that happens. It would be a much tougher call than supporting America if it was fighting in self-defence against clear aggression. It would require him to do more than simply invoke the alliance as ‘the absolute bedrock of Australia’s security’.

He would have to weigh the real strategic questions involved, and there are no simple answers. It’s not enough to say that North Korea’s nuclear and missile forces are a threat to regional security: one has to decide whether that threat is bad enough to justify what it would cost to remove it.

These are very hard choices between very unpalatable alternatives, but they must be faced realistically. The direct threat posed to the US itself is less than it appears at first sight, because America is so well placed to deter a North Korean nuclear attack on the US. There is always a theoretical chance that deterrence might fail in some way, but no leader in Pyongyang could be in any doubt that an attack on a US city would result in the total destruction of North Korea. That means the risk of such an attack being mounted by a rational leader is very low indeed.

That leaves the risk of an irrational action, or an accidental launch. Neither of those can be completely ruled out. Accidents are always possible, especially as one might imagine North Korea’s command and control systems leave a little to be desired. An act of sheer irrationality is also clearly credible, either by the North Korean leadership or by a subordinate in the chain of command.

This risk is not new or unique to North Korea. For decades America has lived with the threat of nuclear attack from a number of nuclear powers as a result of deterrence failure, accident or irrationality, and so have many other nations. Adding North Korea to the list of countries that could hit the US with nuclear weapons increases the risk somewhat, but doesn’t change its nature fundamentally. And it’s hard to argue that America would be justified in launching a war costing hundreds of thousands of lives to eliminate that risk, or that Australia would be justified in supporting it.

But that is not the only consequence of a North Korean ICBM. I have argued elsewhere that the more significant effect would be to weaken America’s alliances in Asia by undermining the credibility of US extended nuclear deterrence undertakings. But it hardly makes sense to fight a major war to try to avoid that. And Trump’s suggestion that he would do so only adds to the broader damage to US strategic credibility in Asia and beyond caused by the president’s tendency to issue threats that he can’t realistically fulfil.

Turnbull should both think and speak very carefully before further committing himself and Australia to support US policies that seem certain—however things play out—to do a lot of damage to America’s strategic position in Asia, and hence to Australia’s real interests.

On 3 July, two of the planet’s three most powerful leaders met in Moscow. It was their 20th encounter at least since March 2013 and the latest in a long Sino-Russian discourse that began in 1618. The Russians and Chinese don’t leak transcripts, but Xi and Putin presumably welcomed a 37% increase in two-way trade in the first quarter of 2017—especially as the value of trade for 2016, US$66 billion, had fallen from US$88 billion in 2012.

They doubtless passed over the reality that in recent years Chinese investment in Russia—as opposed to credits—has been under US$2 billion. That’s less than in countries in Africa and Latin America and in Kazakhstan, according to Andrei Klepach, chief economist at Vneshekonom Bank. The reason given by Xin Zhongyi, of Gerzhouba Corporation, is ‘the very specific Russian business culture’, to which the Chinese ‘hope to grow accustomed in 10–15 years’. Russia’s 2016 GDP was one-tenth of China’s (the figure was 15% when measured in purchasing power parity) and China now accounts for 14% of Russia’s trade, so commerce, though growing, is not the mainstay of the present propinquity.

The relationship carries a heavy sediment of history, with a tangle of unresolved tensions (see pg. 3–10). For now it rests firmly on converging perceptions of national interest. Both leaders present as tough men who deal ruthlessly with any threat to their pre-eminence. Putin has used military force externally four times (with at least 10,000 deaths in Ukraine alone). Xi has, in effect, changed China’s maritime borders, and is trying something similar on the Sino-Indian border, so far without bloodshed. Both depict their rule as the only alternative to anarchy and foreign depredation. Both control massive domestic paramilitary forces, suggesting that both, however oddly, feel insecure.

Under a constitutional amendment he oversaw in 2008, Putin can rule until 2024, and could be president for life. Xi shows an intent to emulate him. Both have built a cult of personality: a Russian poll nominated Putin as the second-greatest figure in world history, after Stalin. The Chinese media was referring to Xi as ‘Uncle Xi’, until it was decided that that sounded undignified. As the ANU’s China in the World Centre has noted that Xi has become ‘COE—Chairman of Everything’.

There’s an important ideological dimension: under the guise of defending ‘traditional values’, both promote a cultural relativist challenge to the notion of universal human rights, and oppose humanitarian intervention and democratic revolutions or reforms anywhere, stigmatising them as a ‘Western’ conspiracy. Both will have been gratified by the swelling ranks of the dictators’ club. Their shared neighbour, Mongolia (the only country to have defeated them both), looks like the newest candidate member. And both share a view of how the world should look that recalls Orwell’s 1984, where the planet is divided into three spheres of influence. Putin has repeatedly called for NATO to be disbanded and Lavrov for the building of a post-America world. For Putin, the US has no legitimate interests anywhere on the Eurasian continent. Xi, too, may wish the US to leave East Asia, though presumably in an orderly way.

Even given both men’s innate caution, when they met in Moscow they may have shared a wink of Schadenfreude over the most acute crisis in the US since the Civil War. For both Putin and Xi, former students of Marxism–Leninism, Trump may be proof that the contradictions of US capitalism are shunting it into the dustbin of history. That prospect might give Putin an inner glow, but Xi’s attitude may be ambivalent—he sent his daughter to study at Harvard, and in 2015  the US took 18% of China’s exports. And both leaders would presumably much prefer a competent foe to the wrecking ball they now face.

Names matter, which is why Beijing and Moscow insist they are partners, not allies. In their view, alliances are hostile to someone, but, apart from their critics, they’d say they aren’t hostile to anyone, other than terrorists and separatists, as they define them. So they can’t be in an alliance.

But content matters too. They surely share intelligence on terrorists and ‘splittists’, and experience in bridling the internet. Russia has much to offer on cyber warfare, email hacking and fake news. But even the Russians must be impressed by the capacity for social control that China’s two million web-police demonstrated in erasing the death of Liu Xiaobo. In less than a second, Chinese face- recognition technology can check hundreds of thousands of images from ubiquitous video cameras against databases of all suspect people, nationwide.

At the Hamburg G20 meeting, for the first time Xi and Putin collaborated against the EU, rejecting a proposal by Donald Tusk to ease refugee pressure on the EU by imposing UN-level travel bans and asset freezes on people smugglers. Similarly, the unprecedented joint naval manoeuvres in the Baltic look like reciprocation for Russia’s partnering with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea and around the Senkaku Islands. In Vasily Kashin’s view, ‘the actual level of defense cooperation and policy coordination is that of an alliance’.

But as Bobo Lo has argued, crucial in determining the essence of Sino-Russian ties is that they remain less important to each than each’s relations with the US. And despite their confidence that their interests now converge, crucial too is the legacy of four centuries of dealings: a complete lack of illusions about each other. Both would endorse the Leninist principle of kto-kogo: all that matters is who will dominate whom. Today, the dominant party looks set to be China.

After last year’s shock US election result, many critics of Donald Trump had hoped he would grow into the presidency and heed its reasonable conventions. Not so.

After more than six months, his administration has been characterised by chronic chaos and toxic infighting (two chiefs of staff and two press secretaries, not to mention serial leaking); by an unprecedented laxness in the use of language (outgoing communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s profanity-laced interview to the New Yorker); by an inability to pass any key legislation, notwithstanding Republican Party control of Congress (last week’s failure to repeal Obamacare); by an inability to establish and then respect priorities (vacillation over Syria, North Korea); and by an inability to staff key official positions (of the 570 key agency positions requiring Senate approval, only 50 nominees have been confirmed). Above all, there is no adult supervision in this White House.

Hardly any serious American thinker disagrees with this litany of charges. Left-leaning liberals view it with a mixture of dismay and a smug I-told-you-so satisfaction, while conservatives either vent their anger or try to change the subject. In between, there is much sighing and shaking of heads.

Abroad, leading newspapers and commentators use strong language, expressing not the customary resentment of America but uncomplicated contempt and even downright disgust.

In June, the Pew Research Center’s survey of people in 37 countries found that a median of just 22% had confidence in Trump to do the right thing in foreign policy, compared to 64% during the final years of the Obama era. A striking 47% expressed a positive view of Communist China; the US was just two percentage points higher at 49%.

As disturbing as these observations are, here’s a more disturbing thought: what if the decline of US prestige and influence that has accompanied this administration’s first six months is a harbinger?

That is a more plausible prospect than you might think. After all, although Trump has contributed to the loss of America’s global standing and, consequently, a reduced ability to lead and persuade, let’s not forget the reckless dissipation of US credibility and prestige in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks. (Iraq, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, the GFC, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and so on.)

Barack Obama, of course, was self-evidently far more popular than both his successor and predecessor George W. Bush. Yet even under his leadership, Washington’s demands and requests were increasingly ignored: by not just its long-time foes in Tehran and Pyongyang, but also its largest aid recipients, Cairo and Jerusalem.

On Obama’s watch, US influence had faded at global summits, too—from the G20, where the Germans rejected the US Treasury’s loose fiscal policy prescriptions in the wake of the financial crisis; to security talks, where Washington failed to reverse Russia’s incursion in Ukraine or implement Obama’s regime-change policy in Syria.

Remember, too, that Trump was elected in large part because so many ordinary Americans railed against the establishment. During last year’s primaries, whenever Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders questioned Washington’s penchant for military intervention in the Middle East, promoting democracy across the globe and subsidising the defences of allies, they resonated with war-weary voters. The same Pew surveys that show widespread contempt for Trump’s America consistently showed a distinctly isolationist public mood in pre-Trump America. (See, for instance, this one from 2013.)

None of this is to deny America’s great strengths. It remains the world’s largest economy, the issuer of its reserve currency and its lone military superpower. Thanks to the shale gas revolution, the US is on the track to becoming more energy efficient and independent. With higher immigration and fertility rates than other developed nations, it is also in a relatively good position to deal with an ageing population.

It’s just that US prestige and influence have waned during the past 15 years and they are likely to wane in what the CNN host Fareed Zakaria calls the ‘post-America world’. What emerges in place of the kind of US global hegemony that has defined the post–Cold War world remains to be seen.

But one thing is clear: the very real tensions between Trump and the establishment are producing a foreign policy that is difficult to comprehend. That happens to perplex and even frighten US allies, such as in our region, as the University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer told me recently.

That matters greatly if you want to keep in check a rising China—the only true power capable of destabilising regional order and threatening US primacy. (By themselves, Iran and Russia lack the will and capacity to overturn the balance of power in the Middle East and Europe, respectively.) If America is serious about foreign affairs in coming years, it needs a president who is thinking strategically and working closely with its allies to preserve the Asian peace and prosperity that US strategic pre-eminence has ensured for generations.

But that is not happening, because Trump is such a loose cannon and strikingly ignorant of the world—a potentially deadly combination in a crisis. What he is doing, however, is unnerving US allies in East Asia, which is no way to preserve the regional balance of power in the face of a rising China.