Tag Archive for: Donald Trump

ANZUS in Trumpland—should we have seen it coming?

Andrew Davies’ recent post on the possibility of Donald Trump as US President presents an interesting alternative future that could cause a fundamental rewrite of our defence plans. In concluding, he noted Andrew Carr’s concerns that the lack of deep thinking about such potential black swan events suggests our defence thinking is trapped within strongly institutionalised boundaries. There’s much truth in that, but first let’s unpack the matter.

Alternative futures are useful: the future starts here and spreads out into the future cone that most will be familiar with. You just need to decide what aspects of the range of possible futures form the left and right of arc for planning purposes.

The Shell Oil Company was a major early player in the field, and is credited with foreseeing, in the early 1980s, that a seismic change was coming in the Soviet Union. The alternative futures method gave Shell an inkling that something was up, while the vast intelligence agencies of the Western defence establishment missed it because the defence agencies dealt in what was expected to happen not what might happen.

The Trump phenomenon isn’t unexpected either. Not Trump personally—albeit Shell was tracking Gorbachev before the CIA—but rather the broader issues and deeper trend lines that underpin his worldview and its popularity with significant portions of the American public. I’ll claim a little credit here. Way back in 2004, I devised an alternative future based on two axes: America being deeply involved in the world or not, and globalisation deepening or not. There were reasons for that choice however, to cut to the chase, those two variables can also be found in a close reading of Hugh White’s 2000 Defence White Paper (PDF). Take a bow Hugh, but this also shows those were well-known variables even back then.

If you use those two variables as drivers you end up with an alternate future chart like this (see link for larger version):

If you haven’t used these diagrams before, take a minute to understand what it’s telling you. There are four broad possible worlds described in the diagram. There’s no attempt to assign likelihoods, but they allow us to explore the differences between them.  (I haven’t changed the words since its 2004 airing hence there are some anachronisms i.e. G7 might be the G20 now).

In the diagram, I’ve estimated where Trump’s policies fall (red star) and where Hillary Clinton’s policies fall (blue star). Andrew Davies’ discussion of alliance abandonment, nuclear proliferation, trade wars with China and putting ‘America First’ explains why Trump’s star is situated where it is. In that world we might indeed find ourselves ‘Home Alone’—with all the opportunities and worries that presents. The various issues noted in the diagram might be found in a Trump world, though not necessarily simultaneously. Even so, we can get a feeling for the overall ambience and texture of such a possible time.

Clinton’s polices aren’t without concerns, especially with her apparent conversion to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. While the rebalance to the Pacific may continue and a tougher line be taken overall, globalisation may also be under threat in a future Clinton world.  The recent Brexit vote perhaps confirms this opposition to globalisation is more than just American.  The ‘Cold War Redux’ world retains a deeply engaged America but it’s not all good news for us. Regardless who becomes President we mightn’t get today’s world, as the two Andrews imply is the position the 2016 Defence White Paper assumes, but a different, unexpected one.

How would our new 20-year defence acquisition plans fare in either of the two worlds we might be on track for? The point of alternative futures for defence planning is that the force structure should be useful in whichever future emerges. Force structure isn’t based on the future you expect or wish for, but on the range of futures you think possible. The art is to invest across all possible worlds, rather than over or under-investing in any one future. The table below—derived from the earlier diagram—shows a balanced investment approach.

Force Tasks Budget Allocation by Percent
Regional Security 36%
Niche forces for Coalition operations 26%
Managing Transnational non-state actors 17%
Defence of Australia 17%
R&D 4%

This reveals why Australia’s defence plans don’t embrace alternative futures. If you hedge across different futures, some ‘sacred cows’ might fall by the wayside because of dubious future utility. There are a range of methodologies available to help people plan for the future. Alternative futures is one—which can also be used in reverse as Assumptions Based Planning (PDF). There is also grand strategy, risk management, opportunism, design thinking and non-linear thinking.  Each is appropriate to solving specific problems, and no single approach addresses all matters.

The issues raised by Donald Trump’s ascent were arguably readily foreseeable and should accordingly already have been incorporated into our latest Defence White Paper and future force structure plans. But the abovementioned posts by Davies and Carr suggest otherwise. People will argue that ‘Trump won’t win so who cares?’, but I’ll side with Carr. Thinking outside of the constraints our defence thinking is trapped within becomes more important as the level of uncertainty ramps up. Alternative futures offer one way to do that.

Brexit, Trump, sub-zero bonds, China: a Kiwi perspective

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ken Teegardin

Britain will today vote to leave the European Union or not. In November the United States will vote to have Donald Trump as President or not.

Either would send global shockwaves. A rocky two years would follow a ‘Brexit’ vote as exit terms were negotiated. It would weaken the European Union, with geopolitical implications. There would be trans-Atlantic, European and wider economic impacts.

A Trump presidency’s impact at home and abroad would be unpredictable, a potentially disorderly political and economic force in an already increasingly disordered world. Even votes to stay or for Hillary Clinton would, if the margins are narrow, cause global political and economic shivers.

Brexit-ism and Trump-ism are symptoms of deep ills, reactions against all-knowing and all-owning elites who have presided over growing inequalities and other societal reshapings that have upset, disempowered, dispossessed or scarred ‘everyday’ folk who feel left out and/or let down, outcasts-in-their-own-lands.

Across Europe this mood has lifted anti-elite parties’ votes and installed anti-elite regimes in Greece and Poland. So even ‘Bremain’ or pro-Clinton votes would not be durably definitive. The post-1945 liberal-democratic hegemony of centre-right/centre-left parties in the ‘west’ is ending. What comes next is unclear—and western-type countries alone will not decide as they have for 250 years.

There are other economic threats, some potentially systemic. One stems from central banks’ slip into negative interest rates—so far in Japan, the Eurozone, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. The United States’ Federal Reserve, which lifted back off ground-zero (to 0.25%-0.5%) only last December, has stalled and might even head back down.

Trading banks which need to deposit funds with negative-rate central banks have to pay, not receive, interest. That squeezes margins. In addition, an investor scramble for safe havens amid global economic sluggishness and political instability has crashed the yield on sovereign government bonds. Japan’s 10-year and 15-year bonds this month went below zero, joining Switzerland’s 10-years. Germany’s 10-years went negative last week.

Rating agency Fitch calculated $US10 trillion in sovereign bonds globally were sub-zero—before Germany’s went negative. This has serious implications for pension funds and insurance companies’ reserves. Japan’s Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi said last week it was considering giving up its primary dealership in government bonds. Several German savings banks plus the big Commerzbank have looked at storing notes in vaults to avoid depositing funds with the European Central Bank.

That is the equivalent of ‘everyday’ folk stuffing notes under the mattress. The alternative is no better. If interest rates start rising at some point, that would cut bonds’ capital value, which could cause a big shock—a ‘supernova’, Janus Capital’s Bill Gross said.

And the global economy hasn’t yet ‘recovered’ its GDP and trade levels after the 2007-08 global financial crisis (GFC). That includes China. It spent heavily on infrastructure and houses to offset the GFC. That added massively to debt, including now tottering corporate debt.

That and the many other distortions in the autocrat-run Chinese economy (and society) are increasing the potential for a major domestic shock, which would have global repercussions—as suppliers, including Australia, found when China wound down its infrastructure splurge and so imports of iron and other minerals.

These multiple turmoils spell economic and political risk for New Zealand, direct—limited in the case of Brexit and Trump—and indirect through the global impact—potentially serious. Is the government here nervous? Not if you sat in on Bill English’s bland, near-pollyanna opening words to Parliament’s finance and expenditure committee last Thursday.

He talked of GDP growth at near 3% (actually, migration-driven), low unemployment, a high work participation rate, more jobs, wage rises faster than low inflation, low interest rates, the infrastructure build and an increasingly diversified export sector which has weathered the dairy crash. All this underpinned confidence and promised reasonable business investment.

English did acknowledge ‘a range of risks’ but did not detail them. So how prepared are he and his advisers for a shock?  

There is a fiscal ‘cushion’. Banks meet the Reserve Bank’s liquidity stress tests. The Reserve Bank, Treasury, Financial Markets Authority and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment share information fortnightly on systemic risks. The Budget economic update explored some risks. The next long-term fiscal forecast is canvassing a wider range of potential diversions than past such forecasts.

But officials are not exploring ‘what-if’ scenarios so as not to be blindsided, as they were by the GFC, if things go really bad in unexpected ways.

Well, there is always the mattress.

Trump and the traditions of American foreign policy (part 2)

MMGAThe Jacksonian foreign policy call to arms, as we argued in part one, isn’t driven by the moral underpinnings of the Wilsonian tradition or the quest for an ‘open door’ world of the Hamiltonian tradition. Rather it’s instead animated by the instinct, in the first instance, to protect members of the ‘folk community’ from threat. The influence of that attitude can be seen in a variety of historical and contemporary examples.

For instance, Jacksonians were against the US intervention in Bosnia, due to limited threat this posed to direct American security interests, but were accepting of the push for US intervention against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, as the Iraqi dictator’s move was perceived as a threat to world oil supplies, and hence, a potential threat to the economic well-being of Jacksonian America.

Similar rationales have been evident in Jacksonian support for American interventions in both World Wars. Here, it wasn’t the atrocities committed by the Central Powers, the Nazi’s nor the Imperial Japanese army but rather the sinking of American ships in the Atlantic and the attack on Pearl Harbour that assisted presidents Wilson and Roosevelt respectively to overcome the ingrained American aversion to ‘foreign entanglements’.

In the latter case, as FDR biographer Jean Edward Smith has documented, the President, during the tense US–Japanese diplomacy prior to Pearl Harbour, was ‘like Lincoln prior Fort Sumter’ in wanting ‘Japan to be perceived as the aggressor’ in the event of open conflict.

That desire to be seen as the righteously aggrieved party to a conflict also speaks to the importance Jacksonian’s attach to the protection of ‘national honour’ and ‘reputation’:

‘Honor…is not simply what one feels oneself to be on the inside; it is also a question of the respect and dignity one commands in the world at large. Jacksonian opinion is sympathetic to the idea that our reputation – whether for fair dealing or cheating, toughness or weakness – will shape the way others treat us’.

Such reputational calculus has been evident throughout the history of American foreign policy from Robert Kennedy’s assertion in his memoir, Thirteen Days, that he advised his brother, President John F. Kennedy, against a Pearl Habour-esque ‘sneak attack’ against Soviet missile sites in Cuba, to the Jacksonian opprobrium directed at President Obama after he failed to follow through on his ‘red line’ statement regarding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

All of those key themes—protection of the community from direct threat, narrower definition of the ‘national interest’ and protection of American ‘honour’ and ‘reputation’—have been evident in Trump’s various public statements on foreign policy.

Take for instance Trump’s ‘plan’ to ‘bomb the shit out’ of ISIS and ‘take their oil’. That speaks both to the Jacksonian desire to protect its community from direct threat (construed in this instance as both physical and economic) and Jacksonian conceptions of ‘honour’ (ISIS are an inherently ‘dishonourable’ adversary and therefore the US is justified in utilising any means to destroy them).

Such themes pose problems for those who would have us believe that Trump is a ‘Nixon-Kissinger realist’. The Jacksonian tradition isn’t entirely consistent with even Nixon and Kissinger’s rather narrow conception of foreign policy ‘realism’. Indeed, we would do well to recall here that Nixon and Kissinger themselves spent much of their time in office assuaging (or to be unkind, pandering) to Jacksonian opinion as they attempted to extricate the US from Vietnam without losing ‘credibility’ with adversaries and allies alike. It wasn’t a coincidence that Nixon and Kissinger framed their strategy of withdrawal as ‘peace with honor’.

Jacksonians are also predisposed to be bloody-minded once the US is engaged in a conflict and resistant to rationales for their resolution short of ‘total victory’. Additionally, once adversaries are defined as an ‘enemy nation’ (for instance, Iran since 1979) it becomes extremely difficult for Jacksonian opinion to be swayed to support efforts at normalisation. Conversely, Jacksonian opinion, in the absence of direct threats to American security is likely to advocate a minimalist or, in the words of George W. Bush during the 2000 election campaign, a ‘humble’ foreign policy.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, has rightly lambasted Trump’s disparate statements on foreign policy as ‘dangerously incoherent’.

Yet simply labelling such Trump assertions that the US should abandon long-standing alliances such as NATO if allies don’t ‘pay their own way’ or that it wouldn’t be a bad thing for South Korea and Japan or Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons as ‘dangerous’ doesn’t directly address the Jacksonian sentiments that underpin their appeal to Republican voters.

Clinton, along with the foreign policy establishment in Washington, would do well to recall Max Weber’s observation that while ‘Interests (material and ideal), not ideas, dominate directly the actions of men’ the ‘images of the world created by these ideas’ have very often served as switches determining the tracks on which the dynamism of interests kept actions moving.

Thus far in Trump’s rise as standard bearer for the GOP it’s clear that the Jacksonian tradition has been the ‘switch’ that has determined the tracks on which his foreign policy will run. Hillary Clinton and the foreign policy establishment ignore its influence at their peril.

Trump and the traditions of American foreign policy (part 1)

Image courtesy of Flickr user Little Koshka

In the wake of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s address to the Center for the National Interest in Washington DC on 27 April, there has been much conflicting punditry either decrying or justifying the foreign policy program sketched by ‘The Donald’.

Paul Pillar dismissed it as a ‘bumper sticker speech’. The foreign policy enunciated, Pillar argued, was not only ‘so general and vague as to be platitudinous’ but also laced with ‘blatant contradictions and inconsistencies’ such as Trump’s description of American Cold War foreign policy as ‘a golden age’ simultaneous with the dismissal of American ‘participation in the type of international institutions that were a major and even indispensable part of US policy during those years’.

Trump’s assertion that under his leadership the US would be ‘getting out of the nation-building business to focus on creating stability in the world’, led Daniel Larison of the The American Conservative to note that while ‘Many Americans will cheer the first part of this statement…the second part potentially commits the US to a very ambitious and activist role in the world’.

Such sentiments of restraint and a narrower definition of American national interests have led still others to find policy coherence where arguably none exists. Crispin Rovere, for example, on the basis of Trump’s 27 March interview with David Sanger and Maggie Haberman in the New York Times and his 27 July foreign policy speech, has claimed that Trump is a ‘Nixon-Kissinger realist’.

What has been missing from most of those reactions is an appreciation of the core well-springs of Trump’s musings on foreign policy: the Jacksonian tradition of American foreign policy detailed by Walter Russell Mead.

Robert J. Merry has come closest in that respect when he noted that the coming Trump–Clinton presidential contest is shaping as contest (among other things) between whether ‘nationalism’ or ‘globalism’ will guide American foreign policy. Trump’s ‘America First’ sloganeering places Trump in opposition not only to the group of neoconservatives that have had a stranglehold on GOP foreign policy debates in recent times but also to the broader post-Cold War consensus amongst Washington’s foreign policy establishment that US national security is best served by the US remaining the ‘indispensable nation’, in former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s oft quoted phrase, that brings both order and justice to the international system.

Merry argues that the strain of nationalism that Trump has tapped is driven by a number of foreign policy-relevant core sentiments. Trumpian nationalists, he argues: ‘don’t care about dominating world events’ but ‘want their country to be powerful, with plenty of military reach…to protect American national interests’; they ask ‘whether the national interest justifies the expenditure of American blood and treasure’ when interventions abroad are proposed; and the ‘fate of America’ is their primary consideration.

Mead argued that American foreign policy since the founding of the Republic has been defined by the evolution of four contrasting yet complementary traditions of foreign policy: the Hamiltonian (promotion of an ‘Open Door’ world), Jeffersonian (maintenance of a democratic system), Jacksonian (populist values, military strength), and Wilsonian (moral principle). A fundamental distinction amongst the four traditions is between those that that seek to perfect and protect the virtues of the Republic (Jeffersonian and Jacksonian) and those that seek to remake the world in its image (Hamiltonian and Wilsonian).

That concerns, in Walter McDougall’s memorable terms, the historical debate as to whether the United States would be a ‘promised land’ or ‘crusader state’. The history of American foreign policy since 1945 demonstrates that it has been the extroverted ‘crusader state’ Hamiltonian and Wilsonian traditions which have prevailed. However, the nascent nationalist–globalist divide depicted by Merry points to the recrudescence of the Jacksonian tradition.

That tradition is defined by a number of core characteristics that clearly resonate with Trump’s rise as the GOP’s standard bearer.

The Jacksonian tradition—named after the Republic’s 7th (and in his time, just as controversial as Trump) President Andrew Jackson—is based on what Mead terms a ‘community of political feeling’ defined by principles of populism, individualism, honour and courage.

Drawing on the work of David Hackett Fischer, Mead identifies the basis of the populism central to the Jacksonian tradition with the protestant ‘Scotch-Irish’ element of British colonisation of North America. The ‘Scotch-Irish’, Mead argues, shaped by centuries of conflict in Ireland, ‘established a culture and outlook formed by centuries of bitter warfare before they came to the United States’.

That tradition, according to Rogers M. Smith, established by the mid-19th century something akin to an ‘American creed’ whereby many Americans ‘identified membership in their political community not with freedom for personal liberal callings or republican self-governance…but with a whole array of particular cultural origins and customs’ strongly linked to North European ancestry, Protestantism, belief in the superiority of the ‘white race’, and patriarchal familial leadership.

In order to understand the importance of the Jacksonian tradition’s influence on American foreign policy one must recognise its central engine: Jacksonians ‘believe that government should do everything in its power to promote the well-being—political, economic, and moral—of the folk community. Any means are permissible in the services of this end, as long as they do not violate the moral feelings or infringe on the freedoms that Jacksonians believe are essential’.

It is that engine—as we shall discuss in part two—that has been driving Trump’s emergent foreign policy narrative.

Clinton vs Trump: the future of the Asia–Pacific rebalance

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ted Eytan

After months of campaigning, business mogul turned celebrity politician Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have clinched the number of delegates needed to win their respective parties’ nomination for the US presidency. With the nominees all but confirmed, global attention is now turning to the policies that will define a Clinton or a Trump presidency. Of particular interest is what will become of President Obama’s policy legacies, including the US rebalance to the Asia–Pacific.

The US ‘pivot’, later relabelled rebalance to avoid the negative implication that the US might avoid its responsibilities elsewhere, acknowledged the increasing importance of the Asia–Pacific and signalled a new era of security policies focusing on US engagement with the region. Through diplomacy, military cooperation and stronger economic ties, it aimed to cement a broad balance of power that would allow the US to maintain and expand an inclusive and rules-based regional order.

Of the two, Clinton appears more inclined to continue the rebalance. During her time as Secretary of State, Clinton played a pivotal role in the creation and implementation of the policy shift, going so far as to declare ‘America’s Pacific Century’ in 2011. During her four-year tenure, she made 62 visits to 26 Asia–Pacific countries—including her well-publicised ‘listening tour’ of Japan, China, Indonesia and South Korea in February 2009—pushing for enhanced diplomatic and economic ties with regional partners. Given her long history of diplomatic engagement in the region, Asia–Pacific leaders will likely be assured that Clinton’s personal commitment to the region will continue during her presidency.

As a product of the traditional Washington foreign policy establishment, Clinton is an avid believer that the US should maintain its position as the leader of world affairs. That view, combining humanitarianism with a hard-line willingness to use coercive force when necessary, will likely see her strengthen America’s traditional and burgeoning partnerships in the Asia–Pacific. On China, Clinton is widely expected to be more assertive than her predecessor and apply greater pressure on Beijing over maritime issues and its assertive behaviour in the region.

Clinton’s position on the rebalance is markedly less clear from an economic perspective, compared with her position on diplomacy. Her view of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), considered by many to be a cornerstone of the rebalance, has changed significantly since she announced her presidential ambitions. Having slated the TPP as the gold standard in trade deals in 2012, she has since voiced her disappointment at the final deal, because it didn’t meet her standard of guaranteeing more jobs and better wages for Americans.

Given the Democrats’ middle-class voter base, that position during an election campaign isn’t surprising. It’ll be of interest to see if that position evolves if she’s successful in November. Clinton hasn’t detailed whether she’d seek to renegotiate with the 11 other TPP nations as president, however, a foreign policy advisor has suggested that Clinton still supports the goals of the TPP that advance US interests in the region. While it would remain up to Congress to ratify any deal, this seems to suggest that the opening of trade links with partners in the Asia–Pacific would be on Clinton’s agenda in 2017.

The potential of a President Trump raises far more questions for the future of the rebalance. His ‘America First’ strategy features a myriad of ideas that don’t fall into any established foreign policy camp, or indeed appear to follow clear lines of reasoning. His nationalist isolationist tendencies, however, are a cause of deep concern for those in favour of the rebalance.

Trump’s view of the US alliance structure within the Asia–Pacific is at clear odds with the nature of the rebalance. He’s previously suggested a withdrawal of US troops from Japan and South Korea, implying that the US gets nothing from the US–Korea alliance. On issues of the South China Sea, he has displayed an almost deliberate lack of interest in increasing the US military presence in the region. He has also derided engagement with the region’s maturing multilateral institutions, commenting that he was ‘sceptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down’. With those remarks, Trump could not only threaten the success of the rebalance, but also undermine the core principles of modern-day US strategic policy.

On relations with China, Trump appears singularly focused on economic issues, with the constant affirmation of a ‘strong and smart America’ that doesn’t let China take advantage of it. In an attempt to boost the US manufacturing industry, he has declared China a currency manipulator, proposed a 45% tax on Chinese imports ‘if they don’t behave’ and called for an end to Chinese export subsidies.

The TPP therefore seems doomed to fail under Trump. He has voiced dissatisfaction with the TPP, labelling it a ‘horrible deal’ that will ‘lead to nothing but trouble’ for Americans. Given that it’s commonly believed the TTP was designed with the intention to exclude China and prevent it from benefiting from the preferable market access members will enjoy, this steadfast opposition seems contrary to his goals of restricting Chinese growth and indeed the traditional trade inclination of the Republican Party.

Whichever way the election plays out, the future of the rebalance is likely be uncertain come 2017. Neither candidate has given the actual term ‘rebalance’ much airtime during the campaign to date, perhaps in an attempt to separate themselves from the Obama legacy. There remains the possibility that the TPP will be ratified during the ‘lame duck’ period post-November, taking that particular issue off the table. Given the instability in Africa and the Middle East, Clinton may be hard-pressed to go against her interventionist tendencies and focus her attention more squarely on the Asia–Pacific. Then there’s the Trump factor. Even if he is unsuccessful in his presidential bid, the deepening nationalist sentiment that he has tapped into may remain a part of the American psyche for years to come. Regardless of whether it’s Trump or Clinton in the Oval Office, the next president may well be faced with an American public still seeking to redefine their country’s role in the world.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Flickr user Patrick Gruban

Welcome back to ASPI suggests, where we kick off this week’s reading, listening and viewing suggestions with the confirmation of eight candidates vying for the top job at the United Nations—half of whom are women. From 12–14 April, the candidates had two hours to state their case to the General Assembly (and the rest of the world as each session was broadcast live). The Australian has a short piece on the specifics of what’s likely to be the world’s most challenging job interview, while TIME takes a more in-depth look at each candidate’s background and platform. Watch this space for more on the Secretary-General race—one of the good burghers of Australia, Kevin Rudd, is yet to announce his highly-anticipated candidacy…

Also on the UN, we thoroughly recommend checking out the brand new report that came out of last October’s Challenges Annual Forum, written by ASPI’s Lisa Sharland. The report discusses findings from a number of recent UN reviews on peace operations, peacebuilding, women, peace and security and the UN’s sustainable development goals.

The Strategy Bridge, now a well-established forum for military-related chat, recently unfolded a sharp series on the topic of military leadership in the 21st century. The editors roamed far-and-wide to pull together a collection of 15 pieces from a range of well-versed professionals both inside and outside of the US military. Insights and ideas abound.

As the Permanent Court of Arbitration prepares to hand down its decision in the landmark Philippines v China case, CNAS researchers Mira Rapp-Hooper and Harry Krejsa have released a report exploring a range of potential rulings and the impact that each might have on China, ASEAN and the US, as well as on future arbitration. The research concludes:

‘The Tribunal’s ruling will likely usher in a period of heightened regional tensions as the relevant players jockey to maximize the political mileage they can derive from the decision. With any hope, however, all will place this much-awaited ruling in its historical and geopolitical context, and acknowledge that it is an early step toward longer-term clarity in the South China Sea that may not yield immediate tangible changes. Indeed, the ruling’s greatest political value will come if it sets meaningful precedent and is embraced by the region as legitimate and useful. This may, in turn, help to catalyze future cases that reduce the vexing disputes in the South China Sea.’

If you’re in need of a slightly larger dose of maritime security info than usual, be sure to check out the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA’s brand spanking new collaboration, the Maritime Awareness Project. MAP aims to deliver expert analysis and news on maritime security issues in the Asia–Pacific and to help observers of the South and East China seas to better understand each dispute.

When considering the most likely hotspot for maritime conflict, few would pick the Baltic Sea. However, after several Russian Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft made some startlingly low passes over the USS Donald Cook earlier this week, many (including the ship’s crew) have been left with their mouths agape. The Pentagon has slammed the manoeuvres, which saw the grounding of the ship’s helicopter operations while a series of videos shot by crew show the dangerous proximity of the Sukhois to Donald Cook. Foreign Policy also offers some complementary analysis on the lack of subtlety in Russian approaches to international relations.

While we’re on the verge of declaring a moratorium on all things Trump here at The Strategist HQ, there’s almost no escaping The Donald’s spectre when it comes to the US–Mexico border fence. Happily, The Atlantic has a safe space for all of us, with their photo essay on an art project by Ana Teresa Fernández. The Mexican-born American artist led a team to paint three large sections of the fence sky blue, effectively ‘removing’ parts of the imposing barrier. Neat idea.

Podcasts

Intel wonks should definitely check out the latest offering (51 mins) from the International Spy Museum’s podcast series, Spycast. This week’s episode includes an interview with former CIA IO and daily intelligence briefer David Priess on the history of the President’s Daily Brief, the most tightly managed intelligence briefing in the world—a subject which he recently published a book on.

CSIS’s CogitAsia podcast series has an excellent listen for Southeast Asia watchers—an in-depth look at the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar’s National League of Democracy, and the internal and external challenges that her party must face after its 1 April inauguration. Listen here (32 mins).

Videos

CSIS’ Zbigniew Brzezinski Annual Prize acknowledges the ‘importance of geostrategic thinking with a transcending moral purpose’. The inaugural recipient was Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. In delivering some short remarks before a wide-ranging Q&A (1 hour), Gate’s offered his realist view of American role in promoting democracy and human rights abroad, the blending of ‘tough-minded realism with high-minded idealism’.

Events

Canberra: As part of their Power, Ethics & World Order Seminar Series, the ANU’s Department of International Relations will next week host Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, who will take the temperature of the R2P initiative in the UN Security Council. Register online.

Sydney: The University of Sydney’s Southeast Asia Centre will be hosting a fascinating conversation with Jim Hoesterey of Emory University on Indonesia’s promotion of ‘moderate Islam’ in an effort to counter domestic terrorism and Daesh’s influence. Mark your diaries for 20 April and register here.

Letter from Washington: Trump’s bizarre and dangerous foreign policy

Edited image courtesy of Flickr user Thomas Hawk

Following Senator Ted Cruz’s much expected defeat of Donald Trump in the 5 April Wisconsin primary, Trump’s goal of winning the majority of delegates by the time the Republican Party holds its convention in July has now become even more elusive.

Although the odds of becoming his party’s presidential candidate are against him, it’s still possible that he could receive the nomination even if he doesn’t win in the first ballot. He is, after all, a great deal-maker—as he keeps reminding everyone.

Accordingly, it’s important to examine Donald Trump’s views of some of the critical international issues he would need to deal with were he to get to the Oval Office. And, quite frankly, based on the few statements on foreign affairs he’s made on the campaign trail—most of them incoherent and unfocused—there’s little to feel confident about. Quite the contrary; were Trump to implement some of his convoluted and confused ideas on foreign affairs, the world would undoubtedly be a more dangerous place.

Let’s look at some of the remarks he’s made on foreign policy, particularly on three issues that would have deep ramifications for the Asia–Pacific region and beyond.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post in March, Trump was asked what he thought about China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and how he would deal with the situation. He argued that the best way to halt China’s militarisation of the artificial islands would be to threaten its access to the US market. He repeated that threat in another long interview with The New York Times. While China does hold some $4 trillion of US reserves, in the long-run China’s access to the US market is critical for its continued economic growth which is heavily dependent on being able to export its cheap products. But more importantly, continued economic growth is vital to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. So if such a measure were implemented by a Trump administration, it’s unlikely that Beijing would simply roll over. Furthermore, the financial knock-on effects for the rest of the world of a trade showdown between its two largest economies would be enormous.

Staying in the Asia–Pacific, Trump has repeatedly stated that he doesn’t believe the US gains anything by having bases in South Korea and Japan. Accordingly, he said that he would pull US forces from the two countries unless the host governments ‘substantially increased their contributions to the costs of housing and feeding those troops’. Scaling back the US military’s presence in such a manner would be welcomed heartily by Beijing, as those bases are the linchpin of American primacy in Northeast Asia. It would also ring alarm bells with America’s edgy regional allies and friends who are already worried about Washington’s commitment to the rebalance. It would force regional countries to increase their defence spending to compensate for the US withdrawal. But, more worrisome, it would most likely make regional allies less supportive of America’s approach to the region which would in make it easier for China to assert itself in the Asia–Pacific.

However, much more alarming than the military vacuum which an American departure from Northeast Asia would create is Trump’s statement that he would be ‘open to allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear arsenals rather than depend on the American nuclear umbrella’. Such a dangerous policy position goes against the many international agreements and protocols designed to limit nuclear weapons proliferation. If such a position became official policy in a Trump administration, it isn’t possible to sufficiently stress how destabilising it would be to have two additional nuclear-armed countries in an already highly toxic and dangerous environment as is Northeast Asia. Moreover, it would give the green light for other countries to develop their own nuclear weapons, essentially beginning an Asia–Pacific arms race.

Turning to the Middle East, Trump has also indicated that because the US is now less dependent on Middle Eastern oil than it was before, there’s less reason for US troops to remain there. As with a withdrawal from bases in Northeast Asia, a US military withdrawal from the Gulf—the US 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain—would be a strategic disaster. Another military vacuum would be created, making it more difficult for the US to protect its allies, including Israel, and its vital strategic interests in the region.

With the Americans gone, Iran would easily fill the vacuum and further expand its presence in the wider Middle East. Already Iran is playing a destabilising role by supporting militarily the al-Assad regime in Syria, backing its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, and having a major influence on the Iraqi government. With an American withdrawal, the Iranians—now free of the sanctions shackles—would feel emboldened to press their presence even more, making the Saudis and the other Gulf states very nervous indeed. And it would give the already restive Shiite population in the Gulf countries a boost in confidence in their opposition to the Sunni-dominated Gulf governments. That would mean bad news for the stability of the Middle East.

So in the unlikely event that Trump wins the Republican Party nomination and, even more improbably, goes on to win the general election in November, we could expect radical changes to the White House’s approach to some of the more pressing foreign affairs issues. For all intents and purposes, Trump wants to rip up the post-WWII international order but without suggesting an alternative to replace it. In that regard, he’s effectively a crypto-anarchist disguised as an isolationist. Fortunately Congress would be there to block or dilute any ill-considered foreign affairs decisions by President Trump. However, that isn’t the way for a superpower to run an effective foreign policy. On the contrary, such a scenario would undoubtedly be exploited by China and Russia, which could only mean bad news for global stability.

US grand strategy, alliances and Trump

Image courtesy of Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Donald Trump’s recent statements about US foreign policy—see the transcript of his exchange with The New York Times—serve to open up a point of electoral differentiation between the candidates. But they also raise a deeper, more fundamental question: are we entering a new era of US grand strategy, one in which America relies less upon its traditional alliances? Given the way Washington has thought about its allies since the early 1990s, it’s a fair question.

US grand strategy was at its clearest in the years between 1941 (post-Pearl Harbour) and the end of the Cold War, though foreshadowed by US support for Britain and France in World War One. Then Americans felt themselves engaged in a contest with authoritarian great powers seeking world domination. Michael Lind, in his classic work The American Way of Strategy, observes that alliances were the key to victory in all three world wars of the twentieth century. Victory wasn’t merely military and technological. Superior economic strength allowed the US and its allies to pursue a strategy of siege warfare against their opponents, starving them into submission.

That period was over by the 1990s. George H.W. Bush spoke of a new world order. Great-power adversaries were thin on the ground. US strategists were exploring the meaning of unipolarity. Robert Jervis wrote that the US no longer needed a grand strategy, and that it was vain even to attempt to define one in an age of secondary threats.

Alliances were still seen as useful—as long as they became something other than what they had been. NATO was told it could go out-of-area or out of business. Even a NATO that agreed to go out-of-area, though, left Washington frustrated and unhappy. Coordinating NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999 was nothing but a chore for US diplomats—it meant trying to keep 19 countries on board for each individual bombing mission.

After 9/11, the US put its faith in unilateralism and coalitions, not alliances. Neither proved especially successful. But it would be wrong to imagine that their weaknesses made the US think better about its allies. NATO became a political instrument, expanding eastwards, taking on members that added little strength but heaped new responsibilities upon the traditional partners. New members were more like Facebook friends, one critic observed, than genuine security contributors.

Obama achieved a partial restoration of alliances as instruments of US foreign policy, especially in Asia as a consequence of the rebalance. But he was also busy recalibrating that foreign policy. With the US itself stepping back from the use of force, US allies typically followed suit. But allies never had the option of withdrawing from their own regions. Eastern Europeans fretted about a more aggressive Russia. Saudi Arabia worried about the regional power balance in a post-US Middle East. And US allies in Asia grew more concerned about China’s rise and the inexorable progress of North Korea’s nuclear program.

In short, in the 25 years since the end of the Cold War, US enthusiasm for alliances has wavered, bringing into question the degree of US attachment to the winning formula of the twentieth century. Meanwhile—and especially in recent years—the concerns of its allies about regional power shifts have grown. The result has been a set of alliances that now sorely need fresh signals of US commitment, not—as Donald Trump thinks—fresh signals of disengagement.

True, Trump might well be intending to signal to US allies that he expects them to carry more of the load while the US embarks upon a program of domestic recovery. This is, after all, a man who said the Iranian nuclear deal might have been improved by Kerry’s walking away from the table now and then. He bluffs. But if he isn’t bluffing, and if major US allies decide that security has to become more of a national enterprise and less of an international one, some turbulent waters lie ahead.

For Australia, those waters will pose major strategic questions. At the moment Canberra’s trying to manage two distinct strands in its defence diplomacy: accommodating a rebalancing US in the Asia–Pacific while reaching out to a new set of Asian partners. We’ve seen ANZUS shift up a gear as a result of efforts in Washington and Canberra to work together more closely. But a US that pulls back from its alliances is going to create problems in both areas—not only will ANZUS falter but our prospective partners in Asia will also be distracted, trying to redefine their own priorities in a radically different strategic order.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Flickr user Kevin Doncaster.

After romping in the Florida primary on Tuesday, critics and analysts are starting to take seriously the once seemingly slim chance of The Donald taking the Oval Office. The Economist’s Global Forecasting Service has ranked a Trump presidency as a top-10 risk event with the potential to hurt the global economy and increase domestic security concerns in the US. Check out Politico’s assessment of the ranking here. Dutch news site de Volkskrant has a handy infographic that will help you to determine when Trump’s flip-flopping stances on foreign and domestic policy most closely matched your own; and The New York Times sat down with Anthony Senecal, the Trump family butler, to get the goss on how ‘the king’ lives in his rare moments out of the limelight. And yes, Senecal confirms that The Donald does indeed craft his own bouffant each day, despite the in-house salon.

For another sobering look at the upcoming work of the next Commander in Chief, have a gander at this piece at War on The Rocks, which looks at the likelihood of the next administration continuing with the long-heralded Third Offset Strategy, and this series of interviews at Defense One, where leading policy experts, military officers, journalists and government employees were asked their thoughts on what the 2016 presidential candidates get wrong about the future of war. While the candidates’ misportrayal of terrorism certainly made the list, a different US entity is working to set the story straight—the real life Mad Men (and Women). The Atlantic has the scoop on meetings between top government officials and Madison Avenue’s finest creative directors to stymie online radicalisation.

Meanwhile, the Afghan National Army is employing a very different technique to recruit new troops and to counter the Taliban by laying down some sweet beats. The Afghan Army is undergoing some serious cultural changes, most notably its efforts to boost the number of female officers in their ranks.

Coming hot on the heels of International Women’s Day last week, and after we went to press, Foreign Policy Interrupted released a report which found that women accounted for a mere 21% of guests talking foreign policy on US cable television in 2014. Read about it in this New York Times opinion piece by FPI’s founders.

Finally, this week has seen the delivery of two strong home-grown research efforts. The first from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney surveys the state of hub-and-spokes alliance system in Asia (PDF). The second, from The Lowy Institute, is a compelling interactive tool which allows an exploration of the global diplomatic footprints belonging to G20 and OECD nations.

Podcasts

Two giants of the US think tank scene have this week released podcasts on the refugee crisis that continues to confound and challenge Europe. The Center for Strategic and International Studies took on the EU–Turkey migration deal (14 mins), while Brookings hosted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, who delivered remarks before a free-flowing discussion on the situation in Syria (58 mins).

For some lighter listening over the weekend weekend, check out this week’s episode from The Dead Prussian series, where Ghost Fleet co-author August Cole discusses how fiction can promote innovative thinking in national security and defence (20 mins).

Videos

Late night TV talent John Oliver regularly receives praise and viral hype for his punchy deep dives on issues of public concern—his recent piece on the dangers of The Donald was his most viewed to date. This week, Oliver delivered a deft examination of the complex and crucial issue of encryption, which has percolated through the media over recent months. Catch up on Facebook, or on YouTube (for those Stateside or with a snappy VPN).

Norton, the computer security company, has released episode two (24 mins) of its fascinating documentary effort, ‘The Most Dangerous Town on the Internet’. The series examines the interesting intersection between real life and the digital world, and the dangers and benefits of online anonymity. Check out episode one (20 mins) along with some background on the series here.

Events

Melbourne: Get along to PwC’s Southbank office next Wednesday to take in a panel discussion on the impact of the still-fresh Japan–Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, and the prospects for the strengthening Japan–Australia relationship. Register online.

Sydney: Indonesianists, be sure to mark your diaries for 9 April, as Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono—Indonesia’s sixth president—will be speaking at a free event at UNSW on his path from villager to the leader of the world’s third largest democracy. But don’t sweat it, Canberrans: you too can see SBY when he’s in town to deliver a keynote address at ASPI’s Defence White Paper conference. Be sure to register your interest here.

Acting in Australia’s interest in the South China Sea

HMAS Stuart North East Asia Deployment

Just under a year ago Admiral Harry Harris was the keynote speaker at the ASPI Future Surface Fleet dinner. Immaculately attired in his starched whites he warned—with a firm delivery—that China is building a ‘great wall of sand’ in the South China Sea. He was absolutely right.

But since then, what’s actually happened to stop this build up? Although Washington has authorised a few confusing demonstrations that it’s still prepared to sail or fly through the disputed territory, Beijing’s land reclamation activities have continued apace. If anything, the past year has demonstrated this is China’s sea and attempts by the US to internationalise the waters are little more than transient, meaningless annoyances, easily brushed away. The stark reality is that every day, in every way, this mare nullius has already been occupied.

That’s the huge challenge Harris took on when he attempted to address this issue: trying to turn back the clock. A couple of years ago it may have (theoretically) been possible to find some way of dividing up the sea between the rival claimants. Today it isn’t, and it’s the sort of thing that’s far too important to be left to the Admiral. China has decided to act; Harris’ noisy objections are nothing more than an annoying gadfly to the real decision makers in Zhongnanhai. In fact, the more noise the US makes over the South China Sea, the more it emphasises the reality that Beijing is in control.

After all, what can the US do?

The very thought that it might be worth going to war over the South China Sea suggests a certain detachment from reality. Most importantly, China has already occupied the islands. Washington may fly planes and sail ships through the region, but they’re not staying there. Any transient demonstration of power demonstrates nothing more than the reality that Washington isn’t a participant in this game. The rival ASEAN and Taiwanese claimants for those waters took too long to negotiate an agreement. Beijing has acted and now there’s a fait accompli. How will that be turned back? With force?

Hardly. Harris is talking up a storm: he’ll only get one if China plays ball and attempts to interdict one of his passing demonstrations. The problem is that these are far more likely to emphasise US weakness than serve as a warning.

Imagine if, for example, a US plane is downed. What next? The stakes here aren’t big enough for war and it’s not the first time a plane’s been lost. In mid-2001 a collision between an EP-3 Orion and a pair of J-8 interceptors resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot and the signals intelligence plane making an emergency landing in Hainan. Tensions escalated, a carrier group sailed through the region to demonstrate Washington’s ‘resolve’, and Beijing returned the aircraft’s equipment in bits, having carefully catalogued every item, nut and bolt.

It’d be difficult to chalk up any similar incident occurring today as representative of some kind of success in checking Beijing’s expansion. And just say the Orion had been brought down; is this really the way the US wants to go to war with China?

The second alternative is far worse. What if President Trump were to deliberately order the Seventh Fleet to sail in and provoke a response from the Chinese? Currently, I suspect Beijing would hold fire and ignore the deployment; after all, the fleet would soon sail away and that’s the real point; China’s there to stay.

The danger is, though, that missiles might be fired, because from that moment on escalation wouldn’t be just a possibility, but a necessity.

At the moment, and speaking theoretically (we’ve got no real idea how advanced warheads have become) a US carrier group could defend itself from missiles fired at it, but sailing into danger wouldn’t be a wise way to find out. China has its missiles based on the mainland. That means the conflict wouldn’t be able to be limited to the waters around the islands as, say, the Falklands War was. Escalation would be immediate and the risks are too great to consider. The principle of freedom of navigation is all very well, but I certainly don’t want to die for it. Yet that’s what Harry Harris is asking us to be prepared to do.

And finally, what exactly is Australia’s stake in this? Why are we bothering to fly aircraft all the way up here? What if it was an Australian Orion that was shot down, as a Chinese paper recently suggested, by a ‘rogue missile’? What would our reaction be—to suffer an immediate and dramatic plunge in our standard of living by refusing to sell LNG to China or perhaps to boot out the legitimate students who’ve come to Australia to study?

Harris speaks well. He has a dramatist’s ability to turn a semi-plausible idea into a story told with vigour, urgency and power. But that’s all it is—drama—and it doesn’t mean he’s right. Perhaps most critically, his interests aren’t Australia’s, although there’s an increasing and dangerous tendency to conflate what Washington wants with what Canberra should do.

Time is on China’s side. I want it to be on Australia’s as well.