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Who’s in Charge?
At his confirmation hearing on Thursday, General James Mattis, warning that the nations of the north Atlantic were “under the biggest attack since World War II” and described Russia as the “principal threat” facing the United States. He called NATO “the most successful military alliance probably in modern history, maybe ever.”
After giving a full-throated defense of NATO, Mattis said he supported the European Reassurance Initiative, which right now is pouring troops and heavy equipment into eastern Europe to protect it against Russia. “Since Yalta,” Mattis said,
… we have a long list of times we’ve tried to engage positively with Russia. We have a relatively short list of successes in that regard.
I’m all for engagement but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to and there’s decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and increasing number of areas where we’re going to have to confront Russia … I have very modest expectations about areas of cooperation with Mr. Putin.
He also said, “If we did not have NATO today we would need to create it.”
He described it as urgently important to take coordinated action to shore up the alliance against Russia:
I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with Mr. Putin and we recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance and that we take the steps — the integrated steps, diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps, the working with our allies to defend ourselves where we must.
In a written questionnaire, he wrote that he believes the alliance “must harness renewed political will to confront and walk back aggressive Russian actions and other threats to the security of its members.”
Congressman Mike Pompeo, Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, accused the Russian leadership of “aggressive action” in meddling in the US elections, “asserting itself aggressively” by occupying part of Ukraine and of doing “doing nearly nothing” to destroy Islamic State. Of Russian hacking, he said, “It’s going to require an incredibly robust American response.”
Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson (who, oddly, said he hadn’t ever discussed Russia with Trump) said he favored maintaining U.S. sanctions against Russia; he also averred that NATO allies were right to be alarmed by Moscow’s growing aggression. He blamed an “absence of American leadership” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said the United States should have taken stronger actions to deter this.
General John Kelly, nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, agreed “with high confidence” with the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian hacking.
So I was thinking, “Okay, perhaps this won’t be so bad. There’s clearly a big difference between what Trump says and what he means. These appointments suggest he’s not utterly clueless.”
But this morning, I look at the news and see that Trump has gone out of his way to cause panic in Europe. “Asked whom he trusted more, Merkel, a longtime US ally, or Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump called it a draw — at least for now. ‘I start off trusting both, but let’s see how long that lasts,’ he said. ‘May not last long at all.'”
The Times quoted Trump as saying he was interested in making “good deals with Russia,” floating the idea of lifting sanctions that were imposed as the U.S. has sought to punish the Kremlin for its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and military support of the Syrian government.
“They have sanctions on Russia — let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia,’’ Trump said, according to the Times. “For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it.’’ …
Repeating a criticism of NATO he made during his campaign, Trump said that while trans-Atlantic military alliance is important, it “has problems.”
“It’s obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” Trump said in the Bild version of the interview. “Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should” and NATO “didn’t deal with terrorism.” The Times quoted Trump saying that only five NATO members are paying their fair share.
I have a few questions. First, why did he nominate a cabinet full of men who are (in my view) quite realistic about Russia if he’s really of the opinion that Russia is ready to make “good deals?” Does he really think that NATO doesn’t “deal with terrorism?” By “obsolete,” does he mean that he believes Russia no longer poses a serious threat?
Is he aware that the US Army 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team just arrived in Poland, and that General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, described this as “a significant moment in European deterrence and defense,” specifically noting that this “enables our force to rapidly be ready and postured should they need to deter Russian aggression?”
What’s the point of doing this if the Commander-in-Chief believes NATO is “obsolete,” and is ready to “make some deals” with Russia?
Is it some sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine? Can you really blame people for finding the idea that he’s being blackmailed by Putin plausible? If Americans can’t make sense of this — or at least, this American can’t — how can we expect adversaries to make sense of it? I truly don’t know whether we’re committed to NATO, or to any of our allies. I don’t think it’s possible to know, given how strange and mixed our signals are.
How do you understand this? How do you think the Kremlin understands it? Iran? North Korea?
Published in General
Does it matter if he thinks it is obsolete? Only 5 NATO countries seem to feel strongly enough about their treaty obligations as to fully fund and update their military accordingly. That is 5 out of its 28 members. It seems that the NATO member themselves have deemed the treaty as obsolete. Trump is just recognizing that fact.
I’m curious now. Would there be a strategic advantage if Trump was playing good cop/bad cop? I honestly have no idea; I’d love to hear Claire’s opinion on it.
I think you understandably focus on foreign relations too much. To the average Trump voter, and quite possibly Trump himself, foreign relations are a distraction and irritation – a playground for toffs and beltway elites. He is more than willing to cede that ground to mainstream Republicans if he can get what he really wants, a restructuring of the economy and trade deals that he considers far more important.
He is sincerely irritated at the chronic free-loading by the Europeans, but will work through establishment figures to get those problems addressed.
Yes.
1) If he was being blackmailed, I’d think he would have the sense to be a bit more subtle about giving Russia such nice PR, unless the mixed-signal approach is more 32-dimension chess we rude mortals can’t grasp. I mean, really: if you’re worried about what Putin has in his bulging dossiers, wouldn’t you soft-pedal Everything Rooskie and count on an easily-distracted public not to notice what you’re really up to?
2) What could they have on him that would turn his base against him? The old rule in politics for avoiding a social scandal was blunt: don’t be caught with a dead woman or a live man. This is no longer the case. Donald Trump could be caught in a hotel room with conjoined twin prostitutes, one of who was female and deceased, the other of whom was male and alive, and he would not only suffer no consequence among his supporters, his choice of Siamese Twin hookers would be praised by the hardcore for efficiency and innovation.
I do not say this to demean his supporters. There’s a reason they don’t care. I was talking today about the supposed Russian Dirt with a well-educated friend who is unemployed. He voted for DJT because Hilary would encumber the economy, and Trump, he believes, will give it its reins. He has deep reservations about the man but they are micro, and Hillary’s policies are macro. He has a mortgage and kids in college and is remarkably disinclined to care about hooker-stories if it means the regulatory burden on his industry is eased enough to allow expansion.
3) Re: dropping sanctions so we can make good deals about the nuclear, which is so important. Remember when we banged on the START treaties and all the MIRV negotiations and SLIBM sub-codicil limitations et al because they subscribed to the fiction that capability was more important than intention and character? If the USSR had 90,000 nukes, and we reached a deal where we both had 86,000 nukes, huzzah! Peace in our time, and oh there’s a cultural exchange too as a bonus. Everyone relax.
Does the US enter into negotiations with France to limit the # of nukes? No. So why do we have to bargain numbers with Russia? If Carter had ceded eternal control of Poland in exchange for the diminished production of the SS-20, the Right would have mocked him for thinking he’d bought anything but recognition of a slave state. Now we’re expected to nod when Russia gobbles a part of a sovereign state and we drop sanctions for arms-control limitation treaty agreements.
The Seventies called, and they don’t want their arms-control treaties back, because they sucked.
I don’t think so. I can’t reliably predict how every actor in the world will react, but my best guess is that we really do have huge, massive policy disagreement between the cabinet and the president. I don’t know whether to believe that he really didn’t discuss issues this significant with his nominees.
But I could see drawing many other conclusions. Some of the people who will be drawing conclusions don’t think the way we do — they may react in ways that don’t seem rational to us. I can’t predict the consequences of this, but bad signalling about what a nation is and isn’t prepared to defend has historically led to war. If it is a good-cop-bad-cop act, it’s one where the potential payoff is vastly outweighed by the risk.
The next place Russia’s going to pop up is Libya, which will prompt a fresh flow of refugees and more pressure on the EU. How we react to that will be a pretty important gauge of what we really intend.
Wrt domestic politics it’s quite good – gets everyone’s attention, gives the’base’ enough circus to keep it happy, gives the establishment enough sense to keep its desperate hope on life support.
Wrt foreign policy – yeah, maybe not so great. Otoh I’m not sure there’s that much cred left to shred, so?
Wrt blackmail – ha! I don’t believe it. Because unless they were male underage sex workers it would not make a blind bit of difference to support for Trump. And maybe not even then.
What I do find plausible is business interests in the Russosphere. Why hasn’t he released his tax returns? Is that Exxon connection a real thing?
Reminiscant of a MidEast Prince granting his grandson a Koenigsegg Agera on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday. The crash should be spectacular and the video will go viral and well a-trended on Twitter.
Trump is being much kinder than I would be to Merkel here. Putin is many things but at least he’s not a traitor to his own people.
Also it’s sooooooo nice of Obama to start caring about NATO and the defence of Eastern Europe all of a sudden 5 days before he leaves office. He didn’t seem so concerned when he scrapped the Son Of Star Wars program back in his first year in the job.
People who play chess know that the game starts getting fun at the first sacrifice … the first time you’re willing to trade a knight for a bishop, or even pawn for pawn. When you see the kind of pieces your opponent wants to play with, and which ones he’s willing to surrender, then you can learn more about his game. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a conflict between those who want to confront Russia somewhere-somehow versus those who want to placate Russia so to make a deal. At that point, we’ll see who Trump sacrifices; until then, we can’t know what kind of game he wants to play.
My guess is that Mattis will reveal the real Trump. Mattis is clearly committed to NATO and he’s already had some friction (according to the dishonest media, admittedly) with Trump’s team. But at the same time, Mattis is probably Trump’s best player, so how Trump handles Mattis is going to reveal a lot about this game.
Right now, the game hasn’t started yet.
NATO could at least do with a thorough renovation. Kicking France, Turkey and Germany out would be a good start.
A good executive surrounds himself with good people who have different viewpoints.
This is typical in well run organizations. Ones where all words, speeches and powerpoints must be in alignment and all issues must never be aired in meetings are signs of the Palace of Versailles.
I recall Trump saying Nato needs repurposing , I do not recall him saying it should be scrapped. I also heard it is not a free ride for the partners.
Much of this is pure projection of issues which are not real. I expect General Mattis was playing to the crowd , which is in full anti Putin bellow right now. I would like to hear Mattis compare the threat of a conflict with Russia versus a conflict with China. He was not asked that to my recall.
China is the far more worrisome adversary, but that is hardly the fad in Congress these days. They all want to get tough with Putin because China scares them to death.
Here’s my question: What exactly do the hawks want the US (and this is about the US; NATO is little more than a drunken uncle at this point) to do re Russia? I see some of the US Armies most powerful ground weapons being unloaded in Poland and to do what exactly? Invade Russia if Putin doesn’t…what? The people of this country must know exactly what we intend to do–and why–before they send in their young men and women to die. I have three nephews who served in the Marine Corps and saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In total they saw six deployments–all while the bullets and bombs were flying. Two of them planned to make it a career, but left the Corps after they saw no real goal to be achieved. I haven’t spoken to them about their experiences, and they wouldn’t talk about it anyway, but I suspect there is some bitterness–some of it probably because they saw some of their men (they were officers) get wounded or killed. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lasso the hawk without hearing some very good reasons. Abstractions about NATO’s historical success is thin gruel (Read this book to get a sense of our “success” against totalitarianism). And I don’t give a damn about loud talk that Putin is the devil himself. That’s what we heard about Saddam and gee that certainly turned out well.
According to the Speccy (I won’t register with The Times), DT said:
I’m not panicking.
Thx. I just now got the kindle version. It sounds like some ideas that have been taking vague form in my own mind over the past few years.
@genferei I’m not panicking either, but I’m worried. Trump seems to make a lot of statements I have real trouble understanding. I think foreign policy by tweet has some real disadvantages.
To deter Putin from invading Eastern Europe.
Why isn’t Western Europe handling that task?
Their population and economy dwarf Russia’s. This is not 1946.
The problem, Claire, is that the Western Europeans who you and John Kerry fetishize are petty, freeloading, lazy, untrustworthy, dishonest, cowardly hedonists. If, like John Kerry, I went to Saint Paul’s, I could probably throw in several more adjectives (or several fewer).
I doubt we will goto war with Russia unless there is a credible case they are crossing the Atlantic. I don’t believe you could even draft an army to fight another large scale war in Europe.
To what extent would Trump be replacing obvious lies with something credible?
A bluff is worthless if you are holding your cards backwards.
Actually, this gets back to the issue of France not being fully in under De Gaulle: free riding.
To get to France and Germany, Russia has to go through Eastern Europe.
If France and Germany know that the US will defend Eastern Europe, then they don’t have to do it themselves but still enjoy the benefit.
Thus, merely kicking them out of NATO is of no effect. They must be actively punished.
What could be more apt than occupation by a country whose economy is the size of Italy’s?
That’ll larn ’em.
Of course, that is about the only thing the President of the United States should be worried about, if you ask me.
This is a great piece, because it has a tank. Raise your hand if you’ve driven a tank on to a rail car! <raises hand>
“Two old ladies was lyin’ in bed…”
I don’t really know what to make of the apparent split between Trump and his nominees, though I’m relieved to see Mattis’ clear-eyed view of Russia. One of the reasons I didn’t support Trump was his lack of principles in many areas; on these, he’s not consistent and can change his positions suddenly. His personal admiration for Putin and his jaded attitude towards NATO and the defense of Europe were two points he has been fairly consistent on, I believe, and I wouldn’t count on him to turn right around on them.
If that’s the case, the split between Trump and Mattis, et al. over Russia could mean that Trump doesn’t care enough (or to be more generous, isn’t dogmatic enough) about Russia policy to pick men who agree with him on it. Another, related, interpretation is the Kasich anecdote. If Kasich is to be believed, and I don’t know if he is, Trump’s campaign offered him the vice presidency with control over domestic and foreign policy, while Trump would simply “make America great again.” What if that’s the case with his nominees? What if he admires and respects Mattis and Tillerson and doesn’t particularly care what policies they’d pursue, because policy isn’t his thing?
Interesting discussion. Thank you Claire for bringing it up. However, I doubt you expected the responses you got…maybe I am wrong. I agree with most here that do not see alarm in a calm approach to Russia and a slap in the back side approach to Western Europe. Trump isn’t POTUS yet and he has not received a single vote on any of his Cabinet appointments. That being said, we shall see quite soon enough how these very high calibre people blend together as a team. In the meantime, I see nothing concerning in any of Trumps statements. As @genferei showed by quoting Trump’s actual words, rather than paraphrasing with intent to misconstrue, he sounds quite sensible to me. If the Europeans wish to have themselves some vapours, well so be it.
Thank you Mike Rapkoch for the link to the book. Looks good. Put it on my wishlist on Amazon.
Because you and these other Americans believed the propaganda, and other, less partisan diplomats will take the time to see through it. Being unpredictable is usually considered advisable when dealing with adversaries, no? Can we predict what our adversaries will do?
Really, it doesn’t matter what Trump says, because if he ever said something once that certain people can misconstrue for their own purposes, then that’s what he really means or wants according to their preferred understanding. Through this irrational hostility and suspicion bordering on paranoia, these folks work themselves up into a tizzy about their pet concerns. For some it’s NATO, others it’s the LGBT&%^$ community, women rights, civil rights, ad infinitum.
Once people learn to look to Trumps actions (like his appointees?) and actual policy speeches and formal statements, then they might get a handle on what is really happening.
The first sentence quoted above proves that the author has no real grasp of the American political zeitgeist or of Trump. It also shows how badly some Republicans are at dealing with the opposition, that is, if someone can craft a hostile interpretation, then it is our fault. Then we end up with candidates who say nothing, and lose.
Jiminy, maybe I shouldn’t have accepted your friend request on Facebook. I’m kidding!! ;-)
Which NATO country has failed to send troops when called under Article V? I would argue this is a more important indication of their commitment to the alliance, than their level of spending. Many of them have even supported us when treaties did not obligated them.
Russia can’t occupy them if we are between them and Russia.
Your stats really highlight the distinction between purchasing power parity (ppp) where Russia is $3.7 trillion and Italy $2.3 and nominal where Italy is $1.9 and Russia $1.3