Perception, information, disinformation – foreign policy runs on such things

Mark Episkopos recalls a metaphor famously used by James Jesus Angleton, a veteran of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) counterintelligence chief at the CIA 1954-1975. As one might guess, there were controversies over Angleton’s actions in that role. As David Rogarge wrote: “Angleton … was one of the most influential and divisive intelligence officers in US history.” (1) Describing the world of espionage as a “wilderness of mirrors” was one of his signature phrases.

The chimaera of “credibility”

Episkopos picks up on that phrase to describe the world of international diplomacy more generally:0

[T]hese problems of perception are no less salient in the peripheral world of statecraft, where leaders must deter adversaries and uphold international commitments not, for the most part, by their actions but by the signals they transmit to their counterparts. The structure of the international system is held aloft by these signals and the vast array of policies, institutions, and arrangements underpinning them.

The basic currency behind signaling is credibility, backed by a commensurate capability to make good on the signal one is trying to send. For instance, the NATO alliance and its collective defense provision, Article 5, rest on America’s assurance that it will come to the defense of its European partners if they are subject to aggression by another state. As I have written with my colleagues Anatol Lieven and George Beebe, all the available evidence suggests that the Russian leadership more or less sees this U.S. security assurance as credible and shapes its approach toward NATO’s eastern flank accordingly. [my emphasis] (2)

“Credibility” is important. The word is also one of the most over-used phrases in the US politics of foreign policy. War hawks typically insist that even in seemingly very marginal situations, the US must be ready to go to war to preserve its “credibility.”

But Episkopos is correct in saying that in military alliances, credibility really is an important factor. If Paraguay entered into a treaty commitment to military defend, say, Yemen, that would have zero credibility because it would be way beyond their capability. On the other hand, in the case of the most over-used (and most badly-used) analogy in American foreign policy, the Munich Agreement of 1938, credibility was a serious part of the damage it did. Because France had a treaty commitment to defend Czechoslovakia against attack. The fact that the deal gave Hitler Germany control of the Skoda defense works in Czechoslovakia was materially far more significant:

At that time [1938] the Skoda Works was one of the largest armaments complexes in Europe. The production volume of Skoda Works between August 1938 and September 1939 alone was nearly equal to that of all British arsenal factories in that period. The adverse loss of Skoda Works to Germany drastically increased Hitler's military power.

In a conference between Goering, Mussolini, and Ciano on 15 April 1939, one month after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, Goering told his junior partners in the Axis of the progress of German preparations for war. He compared the strength of Germany with the strength of England and France. He mentioned the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in these words: "However, the heavy armament of Czechoslovakia shows, in any case, how dangerous this country could have been, even after Munich, in the event of a serious conflict. Because of Germany's action the situation of both Axis countries was ameliorated, among other reasons because of the economic possibilities which result from the transfer to Germany of the great production capacity (armament potential) of Czechoslovakia. That contributes toward a considerable strengthening of the axis against the Western powers." The Skoda arms works, which had made Czechoslovakia the best armed of the successor states to the Austro-Hungarian empire, turned out arms for the Third Reich in quantity, as it had done for the vanished Czechoslovak republic. [my emphasis] (3)

So, the Munich Agreement was damaging to Western “credibility.” But not because Neville Chamberlain somehow came up short in a testosterone contest while negotiating with Adolf Hitler.

The fog of diplomacy

But this is why official diplomatic statements have to read with an awareness of the various signaling that countries are always doing on foreign policy issues. That doesn’t mean it’s hopelessly vague. It just means that people have to be aware of the context.

This Deutsche Welle report on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), including its policy on NATO, gives some examples of the practical importance of managing diplomatic signaling carefully. (4)

The interview in that report with Alice Weigel, the head of the AfD, includes quite a bit of doubletalk. She says, for instance, that she agrees with the perspective of French President Emmanuel Macron that there needs to be a more European focus for NATO in the sense of less reliance on the US. Weidel calls it “strengthening NATO’s European arm.”

Macron, it’s worth noting, just rejected building a government with the left-leaning New Popular Front (NPF) that gained the most votes in this French parliamentary election, holding Marine LePen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party in second place. Instead, he appointed Michel Barnier of the Gaullist Republican Party, a conservative who will not have a majority in Parliament and will depend on the AfD passively accepting him by not moving to oust him. “The fates of Barnier - and Macron - rest with Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), which gave tentative support to Barnier's nomination. But the party made clear it could withdraw support at any point if its concerns on immigration, security and pocketbook issues are not met.” (5)

As David Broder describes it:

While the president [Macron] last week ruled out a government led by the left -wing alliance, his consultations with Le Pen in effect sought her approval before a new broad-right administration could form. LePen threatened “no-confidence” votes on potential candidates who might make deals with the center-left, or even a right-winger hated by her party like Xavier Bertrand. But she told Macron that she would not immediately no-confidence a Barnier government, instead publicly demanding that it should “respect” her RN’s agenda and its over ten million voters. (6)

This was a very conscious choice by the French President: “Macron and the leftists combined have 57% of the votes in the assembly which makes for a censure-proof majority.” (7)

So Weidel giving a nod of approval to Macron’s statements on foreign policy does not mean that she is accepting the French idea of the European NATO partners assuming a much more significant portion of the military functioning of NATO. However, she also says explicitly that she wants more German autonomy on military affairs, wants all US military bases removed from Germany and all US nuclear weapons, as well. If that’s not a hint, I’m not sure what one would be. Although she says, no, no, she wouldn’t want Germany to have nukes, no sirree. But that’s obviously not a universal sentiment within the AfD.

It's interesting to note that she frames her pitch in terms that are reminiscent of what left-leaning peace activists were saying back in the 1970s. (Although she does say that she wants Germany to remain and NATO member.) But the 1970s were, you know, half a century ago. And quite a few things have changed since then. And that was a moment of realistic, practical hope that nuclear non-proliferation and management of confrontations between the US and the Soviet Union (the latter of which, btw, doesn’t exist anymore).

Now, lots of things have changed with Germany, too, since 1945. But Weidel’s combination of getting rid of American nukes in Germany, Germany becoming more “sovereign” in security affairs, its Germany-First vibes, its hostility to the European Union, and its fondness for Russia’s foreign policy is enough to give even the most Germany-friendly observers the heebie-jeebies about the Afd’s longer-term goals for Germany.

Also, in looking at diplomatic signaling, whether a party is more or less “Russia-friendly” or “anti-Russia” can only be understood in terms of what policies are being referenced. The US and Britain were major-league “pro-Soviet” during the Second World War, anti-Soviet pretty much as soon as the war ended, and since 1972 “detente-ish” part of the time and Cold War-ish the other part. The US and the USSR concluded the major SALT II nuclear arms agreement in 1979 and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan soon after.

But even during the Reagan Administration, both sides continued to respect the terms of the treaty, even though it was never formally ratified by either side, and even after it technically expired in 1985 both sides continued to respect the terms. Meanwhile, the US heavily subsidized what we then grandly called the “brave mujahadeen freedom fighters” (now known as “jihadist terrorists”) in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

From the viewpoint of US interests, which then and now include avoiding obliterating humanity in a nuclear war, “pro-Soviet” and “anti-Soviet” didn’t equate to “good” and “bad.” Pretty much all of foreign policy involves picking among which interests a country shares with another country and others which it does not.

The point here is that the AfD’s current Germany First posture sounds a heck of a lot like plain old German revanchism. The fact that Putin’s government in Russia finds it convenient at the moment to have the AfD do what they are doing politically in Germany and sharing the Eurasianist ideology popular on much of the Russia right does not mean that an AfD-dominated Germany and a Putinist Russia would be permanent allies or that the results would be good for either country. I mean, Germany and the USSR had a very effective alliance between 1939 and 1941. It didn’t last longer. And the actual results didn’t turn out to be so great, either.

US diplomatic signaling in the final months of the Biden Administration

I continue to be struck by how much the Biden Administration’s policies seem to be on autopilot in Ukraine and Israel. The policy seems to be, let Ukraine do pretty much what they want, including publicly shaming their allies for not acceding to their every demand on weapons and the parameters on their use. And with Netanyahu’s government it continues to be: don’t put any restraints on Israel’s military operations at all.

The Kursk incursion into Russia by Ukraine looks like a major military blunder. Ukraine withdrew large numbers of troops from its internal front and sent them into Russia, where Russia is killing large numbers of their best-trained troops and destroying lots of their armored vehicles, while Russia can push forward inside Ukraine against weakened Ukrainian lines. It certainly looks like the US should probably have pressed them to reconsider such a planned move.

Episkopos looks at how the US and NATO messaging to Russia over Ukraine may seem less than entirely clear. And, at the same time, Russia’s response to the West’s actions also seem to be surprisingly restrained as Ukraine and NATO go past what might look like Russian “red lines” in the war:

Moscow enjoys a considerable degree of deterrence on the question of direct Western intervention in the war, if for no other reason than the eventuality of such a move spilling into a wider regional war one hair’s breadth removed from a nuclear confrontation. But the same cannot be said of its ability to deter the West from doing all it can to aid Ukraine indirectly.

Putin’s latest scheme to dissuade further Western involvement in the Ukraine war was to threaten to arm the West’s adversaries in retaliation, supposedly under the belief that this policy would raise costs on Ukraine’s Western partners such that they would either back down or at least refrain from further deepening their commitment to Kyiv.

Yet, three months later, Russia has yet to make good on this threat. As it turns out, this kind of punitive tit for tat was never quite fit for purpose, not least because Russia lacks the capacity to make good on it without running a red pen through other parts of its global portfolio of military, economic, and political interests. [my emphasis] (6)

And when it comes to Israel, it’s hard to imagine that any formal US expression of “concern” about this or that Israeli action is taken seriously by anyone. The Biden Administration since last October 7 has shown again and again and again that it will not put any meaningful restrictions on military sales, subsidies, and exports to Israel. Nor will it decline to use US forces to help Israel fight wars that Israel itself instigates. In that situation, diplomatic signaling becomes far less meaningful.

A Harris Administration would hopefully at least do better on the diplomatic signaling. And hopefully will improve the US approach to the Ukraine War. And while that is more doubtful when it comes to Israel, that certainly needs to change as well. “We’ll back Israel no matter what they do but we’ll make vague statements of concern now and then” is not so much diplomatic signaling as it as reflexively bad policy. And if that’s the policy, any diplomatic signaling other than to just endless repeat that policy mantra is not credible.

We know what Donald Trump’s policy looks like: blowhard posturing for the TV cameras and a transactional approach whose overriding concern is shoveling money into the Trump family accounts. The whole concept of diplomatic signaling seems to be an alien concept to Trump.

Notes:

(1) Robarge, David (2009): The James Angleton Phenomenon. Studies in Intelligence 53:4, (Studies in Intelligence is a CIA publication.) <https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Cunning-Passages-Contrived-Corridors.pdf> (Accessed: 2024-03-09).

(2) Episkopos, Mark (2024): Ukraine & the West are crossing red lines. Why isn't Russia reacting? Responsible Statecraft 08/27/2024. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-redlines-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2024-03-09).

(3) GlobalSecurity.org (2013): Czecho-Slovak Skoda - 1918-1945. 2013-30-08). <https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/skoda-cz.htm> (Accessed: 2024-04-09).

(4) Inside the far-right blueprint for Germany’s Eurasian future: DW Analysis. DW News 09/06/2024. <https://youtu.be/ZFmpxuNxycM?si=poYKCjqa7FvFy52L> (Accessed: 2024-07-09).

(5) Pineau, Elizabeth (2024): France's Macron names Brexit negotiator Barnier as new prime minister. Reuters 09/05/22024. <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-weighs-barnier-option-drawn-out-search-prime-minister-2024-09-05/> (Accessed: 2024-07-09).

(6) Broder, David (2024): Michel Barnier Is in Office, Marine Le Pen Will Hold Power. Jacobin 09/06/2024. <https://jacobin.com/2024/09/barnier-premier-france-le-pen> (Accessed: 2024-07-09).

(7) Mamedov, Eldar (2024): How Macron Endangered French Democracy and Support for Ukraine. Responsible Statecraft 09/07/2024. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/france-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2024-07-09).