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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
Double-checking my recollections of the coup against Arbenz, I found this “fun” list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
If some anti-American creep – or public-school-maleducated Millennial (or GenXer, which I was and had to have an “Animal Farm” experience at one of Fidel’s receptions and an engineering education to get over) – thought such a list were a grand indictment of the USA, I’m pretty sure I could make a good case for what the USA did in each case and how even the things that went too far are no reason to commit national suicide or feel shame or even any diminished pride in the USA.
However, I mention it here to maybe poke a little pin into the “The Russians are doing things that are entirely unheard of in international relations” moralizing. Most of what they have done is rational when under existential threat. It ain’t 1963, and they aren’t driven by a mad socialist ideology to conquer the world. Thank God!
It struck me the other day that some speak of Russia how the US Left speaks to white working class – “you’re evil and you’re all going to all die soon anyway. submit.” And, then it is expected that they just accept that fate without taking actions to try to survive. In one case you get 11th hour support for historical ally Assad, a counter-coup in Ukraine, etc….. in the other President Trump.
Jim, not sure what your point is? EJ makes a very valid point.
Obama made unilateral concessions to Russia (removing missile defense from Eastern Europe). That’s naive. What has Trump done? He’s not even president yet. Sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
But why do you assume he didn’t pay them enough? Maybe they worked for less because they got a piece of the theatrical receipts. You people see perfidy in everything Trump does! ;)
That’s an interesting point. My understanding is that, historically speaking, nations typically respond to domestic balkanization and social breakdown by going to war against their neighbors. I always thought we had at least another ten years before we have to start worrying about that; do you think Trump is a sign that events are accelerating? Or is this transitory?
In the nuclear age? Let’s face it, civil war is more likely. But, hey, take a look at that election map again. The people in the blue want revolution and the people in the red own 95% of the guns. So, that should work out for them, no?
No
I don’t see any chance we’ll go to war against our neighbors, do you? It’s true that I’ve been pretty surprised by the past decade, so I’m hesitant to say, “utterly impossible,” but of all the geopolitical risks I worry about, that’s low. I do worry about domestic balkanization and low-level civil violence in the US, but I think we have demographics going for us, in that respect: We’re getting too old. Countries with a median age of nearly 40 don’t tend to descend into (that much) violence.
I have a lot of confidence in General Mattis.
I really don’t care what Putin does to his own people. His own people purportedly “elected” him. It’s what he has done to other people — mainly his southern neighbor — and the potential of what he can do to other neighbors — that is what is bothersome.
I don’t recall that assumption at all……./
Ukraine isn’t asking for troops. Ukraine is asking for help. Something more substantial than blankets. Obama’s response has frankly not been serious. We had the opportunity to push back against Putin, and we failed to take advantage.
OK. Maybe it was some people’s assumption. It’s complicated, and recent enough that we’ll never know.
(By the way, I’m trying to excuse the West, not Russia, by bringing this up.)
Haven’t read through all comments yet but I thought to add to yours. What if Trump employs these twitter techniques as a feinting move. Since there had been some opposition flak regarding General Mattis needing the waiver for confirmation, Trump could do something like this to weaken any opposing Mattis.
@claire No – his exact words imply because NATO was created so long ago its very structure is suspect.
Since NATO acts like a giant version of the UN Security Council (except each member has a veto) I could see that its structure is less than ideal.
Tell me Claire, have you ever seen what it takes for NATO to do an exercise – the planning behind it? I saw behind that curtain once – Greeks can’t be camped next to Turks. Germans have to get paid overtime for work done on Friday or Saturday or any day where the hours worked exceeds 7.
The lists of caveats, restraints, and constraints is endless. I saw that and concluded that NATO was exclusively for show – no way could they fight.
The International Security Assistance Force (NATO folks working with the Afghan Government against the Taliban) is a prime example of NATO ineptitude. Most of us who have had to deal with them prefer to use the other name their acronym resembles – I Suck At Fighting. We make jokes at the expense of our own brothers in arms that work with them, and our long suffering brethren just shake their heads.
I’ll give you one example. When the Germans were working in ISAF, their ROE allowed them to return fire from Taliban if they were fired upon – but, and this is key – if the Taliban cease fire (just stop shooting) – the Germans weren’t allowed to keep shooting at them, nor could the Germans pursue them, they had to let them go to fight another day.
At this point I am not prepared to analyze or attribute to Trump’s tweeting any deeper motives, but you could be onto something. I have heard often enough, don’t take him literally. However, with General Mattis I do not see any possibility that he wouldn’t be confirmed anyway. @bobthompson
This is a fait accompli. The waiver votes were held this week. The House passed it 268-151 and the Senate 81-17. The vote for confirmation in the Senate will likely mirror the waiver vote. At 81 “yeas” that puts the General far above any filibuster or procedural move Kristen Gillibrand wants to try.
Obama’s sending troops was the correct move, although very late and probably with wrong motives. Trump is correct in his effort to get Europe’s NATO nations to stop slacking. Russia is not likely to launch any ground based military offensive to try to take back nations formerly part of the USSR when faced with US troops present in those nations and it’s certain Russia knows the US and/or NATO is not going to invade Russia. This was not the situation in Ukraine and the Crimea, Putin saw opportunity there without risk. OTOH, I think Trump’s wise not to be too trusting of European leaders responding weakly to threats like Radical Islam, highlighted by Merkel, or any response Merkel and others would have to other softer invasion like Ukraine. I’m not sure what kind of intelligence presence supporting Putin exists in these eastern European nations, including the former East Germany, but it would not be a surprise to realize it may be significant. There is probably much corrective action needed to make NATO’s posture for this threat as it should be. Nukes and the relationship regarding Russia with Iran and ISIS are separate issues from NATO and Eastern Europe/Russia.
I didn’t know the Senate had already voted on the waiver.
How would you reform it?
The reform needed is not one that can be planned for or legislated – unless there is some extreme political upheaval, because the problem does not lie in the military themselves, but in the political leadership of the various countries, and the irrational regulations they inflict upon the various military.
Absent some outside force or threat, say a resurgent Russia without American deterrent power – they won’t. Trump and his tweeting could raise the level of uncertainty and make them start, but I doubt it.
This level of static thought needs a Blitz or a Dunkirk to shake it up.
Sorry I was oversimplifying. It’s true our elites were burned too badly by the Vietnam episode to go down that path. But then, they don’t have too; all they have to do is ramp up tensions with competing powers and wait for one of them to start a war.
I don’t mean to be conspiratorial, that’s not how this sort of thing works. It’s more a matter of incentives. Mass mobilization is a relatively simple way to fix a large number of social problems simultaneously, and that temptation can only grow as said problems get worse.
From “The Art of the Deal”:
I think a lot of what Donald Trump says is verbal battlespace preparation. He’s sending a signal to Europe that if they don’t like the deal they are soon going to be offered, America can always walk away. It doesn’t need NATO all that much, after all.
Good dealmakers understand that your opening position should not concede much ground to the other side. You don’t give Russia a reset button – you give them some missiles in Poland to think about. Then you deal.
Trump may not know much about a lot of things, but he is apparently pretty good at making deals. I think some of his behavior needs to be evaluated in that light, or at least as being potentially motivated by something more than a whim.
Yes, a thousand times yes. Our media and punditry is so self absorbed in the moment they cannot understand game theory. You use your opening statements to set the initial conditions. The media and pundits go to endgame immediately. Morons.
Thank you Claire for your excellent piece. It is very difficult to understand what Trump is up to.
This may be good-cop-bad-cop but it certainly makes us in Europe nervous. A month ago he said that
he wanted to increase the nuclear arsenal, now he wants to make a deal with Putin to reduce
nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting of sanctions. Does he mean this? Does he know that Putin
has been flouting nuclear agreements for years? This deal would suit him just fine. He will ignore the
nuclear agreement and has his sanctions lifted. These are the only restraint on him at the moment.
There is another huge military exercise planned called Zapad 2017. This may well be in preparation for
an invasion of Ukraine. Are people happy to sit idly by and let it happen? It may well involve bombing raids
on major cities on a scale of Aleppo. This kind of scenario is openly discussed on Russian television.
I do hope that General Flynn prevails.
Yes. I’m also in Europe and I’m waking up with a pit of dread in my stomach every morning. I don’t see how emboldening Putin, demoralizing our allies, and encouraging their division and fragmentation — or the rise of pro-Putin politicians — makes any sense at all. I just put up links today to Mattis’s comments about Russia and, until 2014, Trump’s own. We know what’s going on, and I think Trump knows, but he’s pretending he doesn’t. If it’s a negotiating ploy, it’s a very, very dangerous one. I’m worried that he may think that he won the presidency, and is therefore a proven “winner” who can afford to take huge risks. The risks he’s taking aren’t worth any possible payoff.
So what has Angela Merkel been doing the past decade(?) What did she do when Russia invaded Ukraine? What did she do when Russia’s client al-Assad, and later Russia itself, blew up Syria creating a million Muslim refugees, which she welcomed into Europe. She may well be the most responsible for the end of Europe as a Western civilization in years to come. Doesn’t Germany have at least as large, certainly more diverse, economy than Russia? Doesn’t Germany have considerably larger population? Isn’t Germany separated from Russia by a single small country? Doesn’t Germany renege on its financial obligations to NATO? The EU in its entirety is triple the economy and population of Russia. I don’t want to embolden Putin either, but it certainly isn’t the not yet President Trump who is or has been doing that.
This is ridiculous — and it’s also the Kremlin’s propaganda line. Merkel has been leading the European sanction effort against Russia; the rest of the EU has almost collapsed under Russian pressure. This is why she’s the object of a Russian campaign to portray her as “responsible for the end of Europe,” which is beyond absurd. Moscow has been backing far-right and pro-Putin political parties and figures in Europe for more than a decade — well before the refugee crisis began. This is why you keep hearing that Merkel is responsible for “the end of Western civilization.” It is absolute rubbish, unconnected to reality. If you fly to Europe, get off a plane, and go for a walk — even through the worst neighborhoods — you will quickly see for yourself what utter rubbish it is. It’s a lie that has been brought to you by the very institution, almost unchanged, that brought you the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s. (And is still bringing it to you: Putin sponsors the far left as well as the far right.) It’s pure Chekist agitprop and its purpose is to divide and fracture us. “Us” being Western civilization. Don’t fall for it. If you don’t believe me, come to Europe and see for yourself.
And here I thought that was my original idea. I had no concept that Putin was invading my dreams with Russian propaganda. Are those swarms of Muslim refugees a figment of my imagination as well?
Yes, they are. There are no “swarms” of Muslim refugees here. If you don’t believe me, fly over and look for yourself. That’s all I can say.
I didn’t find 2016 numbers, but I wouldn’t expect them to be less than 2015. I don’t have your brilliant vocabulary, Claire. So, in lieu of a better term, I called 2.5 to 3 million Muslim refugees a swarm. Give me a better word and I’ll stand corrected.