Foreign Affairs ran a poll on the question. A few of us expressed skepticism about the debate itself.
Foreign Affairs ran a poll on the question. A few of us expressed skepticism about the debate itself.
Not many know that Trump was on the verge of publicly announcing U.S. withdrawal from the alliance at the 2018 summit. Congress would have prevented a formal end to U.S. membership, but Trump’s announcement itself would have caused irreparable damage. Why then did Trump change his position on NATO in 2019? And why was NATO, at least in military terms, in better state when Trump left office than when he began his term?
Over the past six months or so, I've gotten a lot of pings about NATO and the "Big 3" (UK, France, and Germany) taking on a role in Asia — and specifically a bigger military presence in the region....
Paul Musgrave has written an important piece discussing how ideas developed within academia can have profoundly negative effects when they escape into the wild of the policymaking world....
I have new online piece, co-authored with Dani Nedal, at Foreign Affairs: President Donald Trump believes that America makes terrible deals—from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Why, according to Trump, do other countries take such advantage of the United States? Because our leaders and officials are stupid and incompetent and are terrible negotiators. “Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have people that are stupid,” said Trump when he announced his decision to run for president. On immigration, he...
‘I want to ride around Moscow with an American flag in my car. If I find one. Join me! They have earned it'. If you were wondering who else was celebrating Trump’s win, it was the Editor-in-Chief of Russia Today Margarita Simonyan. Overnight, a deep-seated Russian Anti-Americanism and disbelief in American democracy was turned into almost unending love, although Russian Prime-Minister Medvedev still finds the name ‘Americano’ too unpatriotic for coffee and proposed to rename it into ‘Rusiano’. The US election results came as a big surprise in Russia as well. According to many sources, most...
Tomorrow, the NATO summit in Warsaw starts. What do we expect, other than jet-lagged Steve being more incoherent than usual? Lots of decisions to be announced, none to be made. These summits are akin to academic conferences--events that force folks to do the work. So, all of the work to come to agreements, make commitments, draft talking points has been done. Now, it is about announcing them. The big decision--a persistent presence. Two years ago, many allies were reluctant to provoke Russia with a long-lasting deployment of troops to the Baltics and Poland. The old agreement was...
This week is another NATO ministerial. What is that? Here's a handy guide to the basics and why NATO is run like an academic conference. What is the NAC? Nope, not these guys. The North Atlantic Council refers to a meeting of the representations of NATO members (not partners--those who play well with NATO but are not actually members). Ordinarily, as in all the time in Brussels, the NAC consists of senior diplomatic representatives from each member--this is a very high post for an Ambassador or Foreign Affairs official. They are called permanent representatives or PermReps. A NAC FM is...
I was on twitter talking with some folks about what Canada might promise at the Warsaw Summit, with the focus on who is going to provide the troops for the four battalions that will be based in the Baltics and Poland. The conversation went into a bunch of directions, so I had an epiphany while shopping--it is not about proximity or folks who have ties to the Baltics--it is about whose corpses would have the greatest international political relevance. The basing of NATO troops in the East (the Eastern Front is what people are calling it) is all about two things: reassuring the allies...
Russia is currently riding high on the geostrategic landscape, despite a trove of domestic economic woes that stem partly from Western sanctions. But Vladimir Putin has successfully wagged the dog and distracted Russians from this by illegally annexing Crimea by force, occupying eastern Ukraine with a proxy force upheld by Russia, and successfully keeping the Assad regime in force in Syria with a surprise intervention that has not only sent cruise missiles through an airspace with U.S. aircraft in it, but also wiped out the efforts on behalf of the anti-regime rebel forces by Western...
Syria’s civil-proxy war is on the cusp of turning into an all-out regional war, with negative repercussions for all involved in the conflict. The humanitarian disaster is at its most acute to date, with Russian forces systematically attacking the Syrian opposition and on the verge of a rout of Aleppo—and now Turkish ground forces engaging Kurdish forces across its border. With the U.S.-Russian ceasefire accord appearing unlikely to alter much on the ground, the time has come for the U.S., Europe, and the Saudi-led Gulf countries to make a decisive move to take the initiative back from...
A recent Pew poll says that they are. According to Pew, "at least half of Germans, French and Italians say their country should not use military force to defend a NATO ally if attacked by Russia." Indeed, the news is grim. The public release informs us that, "Americans and Canadians are the only publics where more than half think their country should use military action if Russia attacks a fellow NATO member (56% and 53%, respectively). Germans (58%) are the most likely to say their country should not." Clearly, Pew thinks this is a big deal. How do we know? They provided a one-click...