US policy toward Cuba has obviously been a recurring theme in US politics since the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Most dramatically in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
The current focus on Cuba over the protests that broke out there recently is giving us an idea of how the Biden-Harris Administration will approach Latin America.
In this situation, I recommend a critical attitude about the reports we are getting, especially in the corporate media. Even more than we should routinely be applying to news reports about breaking news. In general, the US public is skeptical about military interventions. But that skepticism is widespread and vague. On the other hand, there is a focused and politically potent lobby of voters from Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan immigrant communities that are heavily concentrated in the state of Florida that tends to have a strong preference for harsh US policies and even aggressive regime-change actions by the US government against Latin American governments they don't like.
The current mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, has even encouraged the Biden-Harris Administration to consider US air strikes against Cuba as an immediate option in the current situation. Which is crazy talk. But its an indication of the political clout in Florida of those with pro-interventionist agendas. In Miami, the mayor says military action may be needed in Cuba Miami Herald 07/14/2021:
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez says the U.S. should explore air strikes against Cuba, telling Fox News on Tuesday that “what should be contemplated right now is a coalition of potential military action in Cuba” similar to U.S. interventions in Panama and Yugoslavia under presidents from both parties.
Asked if he was suggesting air strikes in Cuba, the Cuban-American Republican responded: “What I’m suggesting is that option is one that has to be explored, and one that cannot be just simply discarded.”
Suarez, a Miami-born lawyer whose father was Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, did not directly call for military action. But he said it should be considered, and pointed to past military interventions that included the killing of Osama Bin Laden with a U.S. air operation in Pakistan.
Yes, Virginia, there really are warmongers in the world.
This is a statement on US policy toward Cuba from the Congressional Research Service, which amazingly has maintained a decent reputation for realistic policy analysis, Cuba: U.S. Policy Overview CRS 06-21-2021:
Since the early 1960s, when the United States imposed a trade embargo on Cuba, the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward Cuba has consisted of economic sanctions aimed at isolating the Cuban government. ...
The Biden Administration maintains that it is conducting a review of policy toward Cuba; currently, sanctions imposed during the Trump Administration remain in place. During the U.S. election campaign, Biden said he would reverse Trump Administration policies that harmed the Cuban people without advancing democracy and human rights. The White House press secretary said on March 9 that although a Cuba policy shift was not among the President’s top priorities, the Administration was “committed to making human rights a core pillar” of policy and “to carefully reviewing policy decisions made in the prior administration, including the decision to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.” On June 23, the Biden Administration opposed a U.N. General Assembly resolution (approved by vote of 184 to 2, with 3 abstentions) urging the United States to end its embargo on Cuba; the Obama Administration had abstained on the annual resolution in 2016. [my emphasis]
Critics of Trump's isolationist-nationalist foreign policy sometimes said that America First could wind up looking like America Alone. I guess 184-2 with three abstentions isn't quite alone. Biden's policy toward Cuba is, so far, more hostile than Obama's was. Trump reimposed sanctions on Cuba by arbitrarily designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation that Biden could have ended any time since his January 20 inauguration. The US and Israel were the only two countries voting against the UN resolution. Brazil, Colombia, and Ukraine were the three abstaining. (Adopting Annual Resolution, Delegates in General Assembly Urge Immediate Repeal of Embargo on Cuba, Especially amid Global Efforts to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic UN Press Release 06/23/2021)
It's noteworthy that the government of Mexico under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is offering Cuba humanitarian aid and at least publicly seems to be distancing itself from the Biden-Harris position. As the UN vote shows, virtually the entire world disapproves of the US sanctions policy that Biden is maintaining.
Here are some recent news reports on the situation:
Argentina's Atilio Boron offers a distinctively left position in Cuba, el bloqueo y la crisisPagina/12 13.07.2021
From the American left, Ben Burgis weighs in, The US Must End Its Brutal Sanctions Against Cuba, Not Intervene ThereJacobin 07.12.2021. This is a "left" position in the US. As the UN vote showed, virtually the entire world takes the same official position, including every one of the NATO allies.
James Bloodworth, Cuba Doesn’t Know How to Handle the New Protests Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy-com.libproxy.berkeley.edu/2021/07/13/cuba-protests-castro-history-special-period/
This is a Deutsche Welle Español discussion that includes the Cuban writer Amir Valle, who portrays the current protest melodramatically (and frivolously) as an uprising of the entire Cuban people against the Cuban regime, Protestas en Cuba: ¿El principio del fin? A fondo 07/15/2021.
The Latin American policy of the Biden-Harris Administration has mainly been a focus in US news in the context of immigration and refugees with Mexico and Central America.
I recently visited Mexikoplatz (Plaza de México) in Vienna, dedicated to Mexico in 1956 for the reason explained on this monument there in Spanish:
My translation: "In March of 1938, Mexico was the only country that officially protested to the League of Nations against the violent annexation of Austria to National Socialist [Nazi] Germany. In homage to this act, the City of Vienna bestowed the name of Mexico on this park."
At the close of la intervención estadounidense en México (Mexican-American War in the US) with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848, Mexico lost more than half of its territory to an Anschluss by its hostile neighbor to the North. At the time of the Austrian Anschluss, that was 90 years in the past. By comparison, 90 years ago was the midst of the Great Depression in the US, of which a few Americans alive today have personal memories, and many more have parents or grandparents who had adult memories of the time.
Mexico and other countries in Latin America know very well that American actions in their region are not always well-intentioned. And don't always respect their national sovereignty or promote democracy and the rule of law. To name only one of many additional examples, there was the process by which the former Colombian state of Panama became a separate country with the support of the Teddy Roosevelt Administration that wanted to have the US build and control the Panama Canal.
Recent elections in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico have opened some new possibilities and risks for Latin America, and I plan to post more on this. In this post, I'll focus on Venezuela.
Venezuela
I won't try to recount here what a clown show the Trump Administration coup attempt against Venezuela's government of President Nicolas Maduro has been. And continues to be, because the Biden-Harris Administration hasn't backed off from it or the aggressive economic sanctions that accompany it.
Not everything is foreign policy about oil. But for the US and 'Venezuela, almost everything is about oil. Because Venezuela is a petrostate. In fact, "Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is a case study in the perils of petrostatehood." (Amelia Cheatham and Rocio Cara Labrador, Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate 01/22/2021) That one sentence from the website of the stereotypically Establishment Council on Foreign Relations, is an excellent brief statement of what always needs to be at the center of awareness when discussing US-Venezuela policy and of Venezuelan politics.
Being a petrostate is a blessing when oil prices are strong. It's a curse when they drop, which is what has happened in recent years. An oil industry as big as Venezuela's drains labor power from other sectors, which is a huge reason that agriculture in Venezeula is chronically deficient despite excellent land and resources for it.
Maduro is now making publicly conciliatory moves to Biden's government. And is offering favorable deals to foreign oil giants on very favorable terms. Erik Schatzker et al describe the current government initiatives as expressed by Maduro in a long interview with Bloomberg in Venezuela’s Maduro Pleads for Foreign Capital, Biden Deal in Caracas InterviewBloomberg News 06/18/2021
The hawkish Eli Lake (Maduro Has Only Himself to Blame for Venezuela’s PlightBloomberg News 06/18/2021) describes the latest gestures this way, in a passage far too typical of the poor coverage of Venezuelan affairs in the US press:
“If Venezuela can’t produce oil and sell it, can’t produce and sell its gold, can’t produce and sell its bauxite, can’t produce iron, etcetera, and can’t earn revenue in the international market, how is it supposed to pay the holders of Venezuelan bonds?” he said. “This world has to change. This situation has to change.”
It’s tempting to concede his point. Trump’s policies — imposing sanctions, attempting to get humanitarian aid directly to Venezuelan citizens and recognizing the head of Venezuela’s legislature as its interim president — have not produced free and fair elections.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that Venezuela’s economy was in free fall before the U.S. imposed sanctions. Indeed, the hyperinflation and collapse of the oil sector has more to do with the socialist policies and corruption of the Maduro regime than with the economic penalties imposed on it for stealing the 2018 election.
While corruption (a chronic problem around the oil sector with petrostates) and government policy (as on longterm investment in oil infrastructure) played a role, we still need to keep the central point in mind: "Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is a case study in the perils of petrostatehood."
Refugees leaving Venezuela constitute a serious humanitarian crisis, which is inevitably worsened by US sanctions. The US press and public seems to take economic sanctions as a peaceful alternative to war, which they can be. But many of the economic sanctions the US imposes does hurt the well-being of ordinary people, with the aim of creating popular pressure on the government being sanctioned. Americans need to be very realistic about this.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) currently describes the situation this way:
People continue to leave Venezuela to escape violence, insecurity and threats as well as lack of food, medicine and essential services. With over 5 million Venezuelans now living abroad, the vast majority in countries within Latin America and the Caribbean, this has become one of the largest displacement crisis in the world.
Ongoing political, human rights and socio-economic developments in Venezuela compel growing numbers of children, women and men to leave for neighbouring countries and beyond. Many arrive scared, tired and in dire need of assistance. [emphasis in original]
Yesterday, I wrote an article about the progress @POTUS & @VP have made on the int'l front this past week. I observed that it was the result of sound diplomacy, hard work, experience & vision. I immediately got slammed by some folks for suggesting I was being blindly supportive.
I try to think of foreign policy on two different tracks. One is a more fundamental critical perspective that wants the US to not be an imperialist state and consistently work to promote peace and nuclear disarmament and to exert a leadership role is a serious effort to deal realistically with the climate crisis.
The second is to look at foreign policy as it stands, realizing that even the most enlightened approaches to foreign policy with the interests of arms manufacturers in particular completely subordinated to the US national interest as defined by promoting a peaceful, democratic, and nuclear disarmed world and climate responsibility would have to work in a world where strong conditions of interaction established in the world system.
The first perspective is something like Wilsonian internationalism without the imperialist perspective, white racism, and bad international agreements that heavily defined the actual Wilson Presidency. The second would look more like the "realist" world as seen by thinkers like Stephen Walt combined with the pragmatic perspective of strategic restraint as envisioned by the folks at Andrew Bacevich's Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Here I'm looking at Rothkopf's analysis more from the first perspective. And part of the best news in that perspective is that the Biden-Harris foreign policy team distributes real competence in foreign policy management. Competent management only produces good results if the policy is good, of course. But having the foreign policy run on the basis of perceived national interests and not on the principle of how the President's private business can wrangle good private deals out of it is in itself a good thing. In the tweet thread, he writes:
This last point illustrates another key point that has not gone unnoticed around the world. This administration is returning to alliances with a keen awareness of our own limitations and missteps at home and abroad. These are not the unilateralists of the Bush era. These are not the narcissists of the Trump era. And they act with more skill and confidence and clarity of vision than the Obama or Clinton teams certainly did in their first terms in office. None of this is opinion or spin. The facts are there. This administration, led by the president with the most foreign policy experience of any in modern history, is getting off to a better start than any of its predecessors in the last 30 years.. [my emphasis]
Rothkopf himself mentions a couple of significant reservations about the current policy, the one-sided tilt to Netanyahu's government in the recent chapter Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Cold War rhetoric about China.
I would add a big reservation about Latin American policy. I was less impressed with Kamala Harris' recent trip to Mexico and Central America than he. But he does argue in the theet thread that there was real progress: "She re-engaged in a constructive way with Mexico after the threats, demagoguery, human rights violations at the border and sheer insanity of the prior administration. She got AMLO to agree to a cabinet level security dialogue that is essential and was by no means assured."
I'm working about a post on the encouraging recent developments in Latin America. The Obama-Biden Administration's Latin American policy was poor, which unfortunately has pretty much been the case for the last two centuries. Obama tilted distinctly against the center-left governments that had been in power and for the conservative oligarchs, with Argentina as one dramatic example. And Biden hasn't ended the ridiculous clown coup attempt initiated by Trump in Venezuela. In terms of competence along, that policy is so bumbling and foolish that even close US allies surely can't be impressed by it, even ones that have cooperated in that farce.
Three congressional aides said Congress was officially notified of the intended commercial sale on May 5, as part of the regular review process before major foreign weapons sales agreements can go ahead. ...
Congress was informed of the planned sale in April, as part of the normal informal review process before of the formal notification on May 5. Under U.S. law, the formal notification opens up a 15-day window for Congress to object to the sale, which is not expected despite the ongoing violence. ...
U.S. law allows Congress to object to weapons sales, but it is unlikely to do so in this case. Because Israel is among a handful of countries whose military deals are approved under an expedited process, the typical window for objecting will close before lawmakers can pass a resolution of disapproval, even if they were inclined to. [my emphasis]
I don't see any way that Israel and other governments will not take the fact that this arms sale is proceeding now as a huge endorsement of Israel's current military actions against Palestinians. According to the Reuters timeline, the approval was given before Benjamin Netanyahu initiated the current round of violent confrontations after the failure of his negotiations to form a new government.
If Austria's government flying an Israeli flag at its mains government building was a clear diplomatic signal of approval for Netanyahu's current actions - former Austria President Heinz Fischer did an editorial describing it as an amateurish diplomatic move (Einseitigkeit auf dem Dach des Kanzleramts? 05/17/2021) - the US proceeding with this trance of arms sales will surely be seen by all sides as complete support for Israel's current actions.
As of this report, the civilian deaths were 20-to-1 higher on the Palestinian side (Gaza Flare-up: 212 Gazans Killed in Israeli Strikes, IDF Downs Drone Near Jordan BorderHaaretzWiener Zeitung "Fighting between Israel and Hamas escalated in what has become the heaviest flare-up since the 2014 Gaza War. At least 212 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, and 10 in Israel in the most intensive aerial exchanges in years."
The Biden-Harris Administration is even blocking efforts by the UN Security Council to call on Israel for a cease fire. (Michelle Nichols, U.S. pursues quiet Mideast diplomacy, thwarts U.N. statementReuters 05/17/2021) Hamas has already called for one.
A lot of the reporting and analysis on the US position has mentioned that the Biden-Harris Administration wants to tilt away from the US focus on the Greater Middle East to the diplomatic-political-military confrontation with China, and so finds the current outburst in Israel-Palestine particularly unwelcome in that regard. Since it's so commonly reported, I assume the White House is promoting that angle on the story. That's also not very encouraging. Because the main message would seem to be, "we don't really care what Netanyahu's government is going with the American aid and arms that the receive."
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, convened the special videoconference of ministers after issuing repeated statements in recent days imploring an end to the rocket fire against Israeli civilians by Hamas, and urging that Israel “act proportionately and avoid civilian casualties.” ...
Among the 27 member countries, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and Luxembourg are among those most critical of Israel. Countries in Eastern Europe, especially Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, are among those in strongest support of Israel, though in recent days the flag of Israel has flown prominently over the HQ of Germany’s biggest governing party and official buildings in Austria and the Czech Republic in a show of support. Greece and Cyprus have also grown closer to Israel in recent years, partly because of tensions with Turkey.
France typically seeks to stake out more neutral ground, but President Emmanuel Macron’s office has issued statements in recent days that tilted decidedly toward Israel. The Elysée’s statements “firmly condemned rocket launching claimed by Hamas and other terrorist groups targeting the Israeli territory,” but were vaguer when referencing Israeli bombing.
On that, they said Macron had given his condolences to “the many Palestinian civilian losses resulting from military operations and ongoing clashes with Israel.” Macron also reiterated his “unwavering attachment to Israel’s security and its right to defend itself in line with international law,” but failed to reiterate his support for the rights of Palestinians, or recall the status of Jerusalem under international law, in line with France’s historic position. ...
[M]any diplomats, officials and experts said the EU’s best chance for influence in the Middle East was more likely to come from France, which after Brexit is the EU’s only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. [my emphasis]
We'll see what comes out of EU diplomacy on this. But if France is the best hope in the EU for influencing a move to a cease fire, and the French President is taking a very public position of supporting Israel's disproportionate attacks against the open-air prison it runs in the Gaza Strip, that doesn't give a lot of cause for optimism.
How serious he is about doing anything to push the EU on this is very questionable. But Turkey is holding around 3.5 million refugees, mostly from Middle East wars who became refugees in no small part because of previous US policies, based on the EU-Turkey agreement that Germany's Angela Merkel negotiated in 2015. Since European politician have been pretty feckless in developing a decent immigration policy that complies with international law since the refugee crisis of 2015-16, though, Turkey can threaten to send large numbers of refugees to Europe. And, as we saw in 2020, such a threat puts EU leaders into a panic. We'll see what develops.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Director of National Intelligence came out with a report today saying that Vladimir Putin authorized operations during the election to under -- denigrate you, support President Trump, undermine our elections, divide our society. What price must he pay?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: He will pay a price. I, we had a long talk, he and I, when we -- I know him relatively well. And I-- the conversation started off, I said, "I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared."
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you know he doesn't have a soul.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I did say that to him, yes. And -- and his response was, "We understand one another." It was-- I wasn't being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office. And that -- that's how it came about. It was when President Bush had said, "I looked in his eyes and saw his soul."
I said, "Looked in your eyes and I don't think you have a soul." And looked back and he said, "We understand each other." Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders in my experience, and I've dealt with an awful lot of 'em over my career, is just know the other guy. Don't expect somethin' that you're-- that -- don't expect him to-- or her to-- voluntarily appear in the second editions of Profiles in Courage.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he's a killer?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what price must he pay?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The price he's gonna pay we'll-- you'll see shortly. I'm not gonna-- there's-- by the way, we oughta be able that ol' -- that trite expression "walk and chew gum at the same time," there're places where it's in our mutual interest to work together.
That's why I renewed the [START nuclear arms control] agreement with him. That occurred while he's doin' this. But that's overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity, that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear exchange. But that and SolarWinds as well. He's been -- they've done some mischievous things, to say the least. And so we're gonna have -- I'm not gonna announce what I'm doing, but he's gonna understand that -- [my emphasis]
"Walking and chewing gum" over Russia in the 19th century
Russia has been around for a while. In the early decades of the United States' existence, the country's foreign policy was less worried about Russia than about Barbary Pirates, Britain, France, Spain and the challenge of dispossessing the native population in North America.
During the first part of the 19th century, republicans and democrats in Europe and the "New World" generally took a dim view of Russia because it was seen as the ultimate guarantor of the royalist regimes of the so-called Holy Alliance in Europe after the defeat of Napoleon and the 1815 Peace of Paris.
But even then, things weren't that simple. Thomas Jefferson in his mansion in Monticello kept prominently displayed busts of Napoleon and of Alexander I of Russia, the emperor who had defeated Napoleon and was the protector of the Holy Alliance. In 1813, Jefferson was a post-Presidential "elder statesman," as we used to say. But he was still an influential voice on political matters. And he understood very well that even in 1813, foreign policy was complicated. His biographer Dumas Malone wrote about Jefferson in this period in Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello (1981):
Toward the end of 1813 a Federalist paper in Philadelphia printed an extract from a private letter of his, written a couple of months earlier. In this he voiced his detestation of Napoleon, describing him as "the unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the Continent of Europe with blood." At the same time the ex-President expressed his gratification at the recent disasters of the unprincipled French Emperor in Russia and the successes of "the virtuous Alexander [I of Russia]." From this extract alone it would seem that, at a time when his own country was at war with the British, he was siding with them against their inveterate foe [France], and his strong language was particularly disturbing to members of his own party who retained pro-French sentiments. [my emphasis]
Jefferson later explained the context of that letter, which had been published by a Federalist Party partisan. The War of 1812 was still going on in 1813, and the Federalists were in the process of fatally discrediting themselves by their pro-British partisanship. Jefferson was the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, which evolved into today's Democratic Party but in those days was known as the Republican Party. Then-President James Madison was a Republican.
The quotation was from a letter of [Jefferson's] replying to one from Dr. George Logan, a Quaker. This former supporter of his had once gained favor in Republican circles, and reprobation in Federalist, for his efforts to prevent war with France. A doctrinaire pacifist now seeking to end the war with Great Britain, he besought Jefferson to ask Madison to "come forward with just and honorable proposals for peace." He was entirely confident that these would be accepted. Instead of brushing him off as a visionary, Jefferson wrote him a long account of Anglo-American relations, leaving no doubt of his own conviction that the object of procuring a just peace would be "best promoted by a vigorous and unanimous prosecution of the war [i.e., of the US war against Britain]" As he explained to Leiper, the references to Napoleon, while indisputable, were incidental. They were being quoted wholly out of context by a former friend who had become a "bigoted partisan of England, and malcontent of his own government." [my emphasis]
Foreign policy with Russia was complicated even in 1813.
Since Jefferson's reputation has fallen considerably in recent decades, especially among the party he originally founded, I assume I'm not doing any favors by comparing him to Jefferson. But the party founder and third US President did know something about walking and talking at the same time in foreign policy matters. And the example above shows how Jefferson was balancing a variety of partisan and ideological considerations and his understanding of the general US interest in how he was evaluating foreign policy.
His busts of Napoleon and Alexander I could be taken as a symbol of that complexity. Napoleon was a military aggressor. But his conquests also advanced the progress of political and economic reforms of a liberal nature across Europe. Alexander became the backstop of reactionary regimes in Europe. But he was also an internal reformer in various ways, most notably in establishing a system of public education in Russia. Alexander came to the throne after cooperating with a successful plot to assassinate his father Tsar Paul I (Pavel Petrovich). Alexander was also sort of a "killer" type, it seems.
My general attitude toward Biden' foreign policy is pretty much "trust but verify," which was Reagan's famous phrase for nuclear arms control. Or maybe "be skeptical and verify" would be closer. Because I think the US spends way too much on the military and that our foreign policy is far too militarized and should be focused much more on pressing dangers to humanity like nuclear proliferation and climate change.
But I'm not alarmed by this particular turn of events. Does Putin really mind that much if Biden calls him a killer without a soul? He may take it as a compliment, although in diplomatic terms he obviously knows it's an insult. And of course Russia expects other countries to respond to attempts to interfere in their internal politics.
A lot of foreign policy is posturing, sending signals, saving face, and satisfying various internal constituencies and external actors. And when countries are negotiating with each other, just like in business or labor negotiations or a lawsuit, both sides are going to assume that the other side will try to maximize its advantages and get as much as they can. And that their opposite numbers will be hardnosed and practical in their approach to negotiations.
In the real world of US foreign policy, the military-industrial complex and its allies in think-tanks and politics are and will continue to be hardnosed in pursuing policies that lead to bigger and bigger military budgets. People who actually favor a peaceful, practical, and democratic foreign policy need to build a lot more clout than they currently have.
The Biden administration has created an completely unnecessary confrontation with Russia at a time when reasonable working relations with Moscow are extremely important for achieving two immediate and key administration goals: rejoining the nuclear agreement with Iran, and a peace settlement in Afghanistan facilitating U.S. military withdrawal from that country and an end to America’s longest war.
The administration approach combines many of the errors committed by Washington officials, politicians, and the media in recent years. First, you have an intelligence report based on evidence that the public cannot see stating that it is “likely” that the Russian government ordered attempts to influence the elections. This report is then turned by the administration and much of the media into an absolute certainty. In a recent ABC News interview, Biden says Putin will “pay a price” for what the report says his government has done. As usual, the issue is personalized by attributing the decision to Putin himself, and the U.S. statement is accompanied by gratuitously insulting language which is likely to offend even many Russian opponents of Putin. Does nobody remember the advice of Teddy Roosevelt — hardly a weakling on U.S. security — to speak softly and carry a big stick? [my emphasis]
Lieven also reminds us that we can be try to be realistic about Putin's government, which is admired by rightwingers and even the most radical rightists, and still be critical-minded about simplistic "Russiagate" claims, "In essence (assuming that the allegations [about Russian election interference in 2020] are true), Russia did what thousands of Washington lobbyists are paid to spend their lives doing (perfectly legally): influence U.S. politicians, media and policies in favor of particular foreign governments." I don't take Lieven to mean that the US shouldn't distinguish between legal and illegal influence operations.
It's also worth noting that current celebration in the West of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny does not mean that if he were the leader of Russia he would pursue a fundamentally different foreign policy, since he rose to his present level of influence in Russian politics with a distinctly Russian national-chauvinist tone, although in the last decade he has put more emphasis on the fight against corruption.
Putin had obvious pragmatic power reasons to prefer Trump as President over Clinton or Biden. Trump may have been inclined to actively help him in some areas, and may have been subject to blackmail in some way. Certainly Trump weakened the credibility of the US as player in world politics and particularly within the NATO alliance, both goals of Putin's government. But Trump also continued to increase the military budget, and didn't obviously cater to Putin's foreign policy preferences in places like Syria. Russia's power-balancing interests would also be aided by increase US tension with China, a country with which Russia currently has good relations.
Whatever benefits Trump may have provided in term of basic espionage gains, Trump's main policy benefit from the standpoint of Putin's government was in being a chaos agent. Trump was spectacularly incompetent in actually running the government, including the military, intelligence, and diplomatic parts. And he was terrible at negotiating with other countries, shown particularly by his dealings with North Korea. And as we see with the bizarre clown coup attempt in Venezuela, Trump was no good at regime-change operations either, and Putin seems to be genuinely worried about the US targeting such operations at Russia and its immediate neighbors, especially nations once part of the Soviet Union.
I assume that Putin's government regards the Biden Administration as a mix of blessing and curse. He isn't going to provide Putin a lot of opportunities to look like he's slapping the US around, and Biden obviously isn't going to kowtow to Putin personally in the way Trump did. But for substantive agreements affected things like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal or the Iran nuclear deal, the Russians will probably be relieved to have an adversary in the White House who actually knows something about foreign affairs and who doesn't see the Presidency as a professional-wrestling promotion act.
Related: Biden's February 4 foreign policy speechContradicciones 02/06/2021
Biden's Presidency hasn't hit its two-month mark yet. So in foreign policy, there haven't been any events to celebrate as a dramatic breakthrough. Rejoining the non-binding Paris Climate Accord is probably the closest.
It seems to have become a toxic piece of Beltway Village rhetoric that a new President has to bomb somebody as a normal rite of passage. Trump version of it, coming less than three months after taking office - also in Syria, country on which the US has not declared war, produced its own cringe-inducing moments in punditry, which is saying a lot: Jim Naureckas, The Essential Pundit Take: ‘Trump Became President’ by Bombing SyriaFAIR 04/17/2017. The reference there is to CNN's Fareed Zakaria, and Naureckas observed:
Note the assurance with which Zakaria insists that a military attack on a sovereign state, unauthorized by the United Nations and unjustifiable in terms of self-defense, signifies a new respect on Trump’s part for “global norms” and “international rules.” Clearly, for Zakaria as for most pundits, the norm is that international law does not apply to the president of the United States—a doctrine that is usually referred to by the euphemism “American exceptionalism.”
Note, too, the contempt with which Zakaria dismisses the idea that a “pesky Congress” should constrain a president’s ability to make war; who needs a constitutionally mandated declaration of war when you’ve got a “broader moral and political purpose”? [my emphasis]
The Biden-Harris Administration is rolling out its China policy, obviously one of the most consequential areas for US foreign policy. The Obama-Biden Administration undertook a shift in foreign and military policy to put more emphasis on balancing China's rising economic, political, and military influence. Trump made a big deal of rhetorically posturing against China and imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, because he loved the idea of tariffs even though he didn't seem to actually understand how they worked. But decide the narrative of some commentary even on the left that Trump was actually dovish, he continually promoted large increases in the Pentagon budget that were largely focusing on building up for a potential military confrontation with China.
Before taking office, Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and others who have now joined the Biden Administration explicitly stated that they do not favor a Cold War with China, titanic ideological struggles, or fruitless efforts to restore American primacy. And they certainly expressed a desire for more positive consultation with allies and partners than occurred during the failed Trump Administration.
But since taking office, the dominant themes and initiatives on China and East Asia today sound more like the old zero-sum, dominance-oriented Trump “strategy” toward Beijing of yesterday. These include repeated references to strategic competition and the correctness of Trump’s basic hardline approach to Beijing, the formation of a Pentagon Task Force focused on how best to counter China, and assertions of a need to restore America’s “traditional role” in Asia. There have been formal statements by leading Biden officials hyping the central importance of the “pacing threat” posed by China, and, as noted above, about cooperation with Beijing in some areas, as needed. While correctly stressing the top-priority requirement to strengthen U.S. competitiveness and Washington’s image in the world, the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, as with other Biden documents and statements, seems to avoid talking specifically about how best to engage Beijing and East Asia in more positive-sum, cooperative ways that benefit all parties. [my emphasis]
Swaine in an earlier piece discusses one of the biggest potential flashpoints in US-China relations, which is Taiwan. (A word of caution: China’s aggressive Taiwan flyovers could be just the startResponsible Statecraft 01/26/2021) "Last weekend’s flight of more than two dozen Chinese military aircraft across the midline of the Taiwan Strait and the strong U.S. verbal response reaffirming support for Taiwan reflect the continued escalation of Sino-U.S. tensions, a dynamic that needs to be brought under control as soon as possible."
This kind of probing and testing really is a normal part of external powers testing the responses of a new leader in a major rival power. But, as with ritual but deadly American Presidential bombings of Syria, "normal" does not equate to "benign".
EU relations to China are also a major element affected US-China policy. Wolfgang Münchau's Eurointelligence in a March 5 item (That sums it up scroll down) reports:
The mercantilism at the heart of German foreign policy was expressed with brutal clarity by [former German Chancellor] Gerhard Schröder in a rare article published in the newspapers of the Handelsblatt group. He is saying: forget human rights. Foreign policy is about self-interest and gain alone. A moralising foreign policy, as he calls it, does not work. This is obviously a position we disagree with strongly. But it differs from Angela Merkel's foreign policy only in terms of its honesty. He describes the status quo. He is not calling for something that does not exist, both in Germany and the EU. It is also the guiding philosophy of the EU-China comprehensive agreement on investment, with the exception that Schröder, unlike the proponents of CAI, does not pretend that the deal would co-opt China into a dialogue.
Schröder's point is that under the Biden administration, the US is now focused on China as a systemic rival and is asking the European to join the coalition. He questions whether this is in the European interest. [my emphasis in bold]
The issue is fraught because the term genocide is generally reserved for situations in which mass killing is occurring. As the Economist noted in a recent article, that is not what’s happening in Xinjiang, although reports of arbitrary mass incarceration, torturous re-education programmes, forced labour and forced sterilisation have horrified international observers.
The human rights concerns are real and substantial. However, countries also instrumentalize human rights issues all the time. Complete moral purity in human rights policy is not likely to prevail among countries run by human beings any time soon. And even the best of intentions in human rights has to be acted out in an international systems with many conflicting interests and goals among countries.
As a practical as well as humanitarian matter, it's in the interest of the US and the EU to push for more humane treatment of the Uighur Muslims. Because it's something that Muslim countries and peoples are very aware of the Uighur situation. However, some Muslim countries in 2020 expressed explicit support for China's Uighur policy, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, the "State of Palestine", Syria, the UAE, and Yemen. (Zachary Basu, More countries join condemnation of China over Xinjiang abusesAxios 10/08/2020)
I have a more general concern that the concept of "genocide" is becoming diluted as it is applied to more and more instances of atrocities and persecution. But that's a topic for another day.
On the Uighurs, see also: John Bellinger III, China’s Abuse of the Uighurs: Does the Genocide Label Fit?Council on Foreign Relations 02/03/2021. "There is a difference between use of the word genocide in common parlance, and even by human rights groups, and the Genocide Convention’s definition, which is quite narrow," Bellinger notes.
