Long time readers will be familiar with my mantra that governing experience is an indispensable pre-requisite for presidential leadership and success. Yet, 2016 gave the nation its first POTUS without a public sector or military background.
Despite the certainty of Trump’s base that his non-experience is just the tonic for what ails America, any businessman who has taken a political job will tell you that the skills required to govern are as different from the private sector as dentistry is from open heart surgery. And nowhere is that experience and judgement more important than foreign policy, which involve life and death decisions.
Sovereigns are not business competitors. The world is not a level playing field where everyone follows the same rules or are open to the same inducements. It is a uniquely American penchant to believe that if only the antagonists can be brought together in the same room, that all disagreements can be worked out. FDR believed it and so did Reagan and Bush 43. But the truth is some differences are irreconcilable.
The Iranian regime was specifically founded in opposition to the fragmenting world order that the US leads. A diminished Russia seeks geographical security by undermining perceived opponents through 21st century subterfuge, and perhaps more. China will use the US economic, political and security order until such time as it is no longer beneficial.
These facts do not make effective foreign policy engagement impossible, but rather inform the realities of how the US pursues national and collective interest. Understanding these nuances is crucial to navigating treacherous situations that lie ahead.
And now, 76 days into his presidency, President Trump has two.
Syria: President Trump is an emotional man. His lack of traditional presidential reserve is a wellspring of authenticity for his supporters and admirers, proof that he is human and relatable.
The pictures out of Syria after the Assad regime’s most recent chemical weapons attack – the gruesome murder of women and children – is shocking and repulsive. The president spoke for the nation in condemning the attacks. Further, he is right to blame Syria’s spiral into chaos on Obama’s “punylateralism.” Trump said the attacks and pictures changed his mind on Syria, and hinted at a change in Syria policy that could include military action. Speaking at the UN, US Ambassador Nikki Haley was more specific, saying that the U.S. could take unilateral action if the Security Council does not respond to the attack. The report said the response could include airstrikes.
This is where the hard questions need to be asked – where the rubber meets the road..
Who are we going to attack? Seven years ago, the Syrian government was on its own in a fairly conventional civil war, where US support could have been decisive. Obama choked. Today there are no lines. ISIS is based out of and controls large swaths of Syrian territory. Anti-Assad rebels hold patches of territory. Iranian fighters bolster Assad’s army while the Russian air force deploys overwhelming force on behalf of the regime.
What about the Russians? An American attack on the Syrian government or its forces greatly increases the risks of Russian reprisal. Indeed, any “punishment” attack would have to be of sufficient strength to seriously damage Assad and cause pause, which is counter to Russian interests in Syria. Will Putin just stand back and allow Assad to be attacked?
What about the Israelis? Syria’s reply to any attack is likely to be asymmetrical. Would Assad lash out at Israel, or embolden Syrian proxies in Lebanon or Gaza to attack Israel, creating an entirely new dynamic?
What does the finish line look like? The bigger question is whether a limited US reprisal strike serves any legitimate policy, particularly in light of the uncertainty of escalating action with the Russians. The pictures on TV are horrific. But does a strike do anything for US interests other than make Western officials happy that “something was done?” Does such a strike prevent future use of chemical weapons against civilians? How does this use of force impact ant-Assad rebels? Will the Russians use the US bombing of Syrian government targets as a pretext to introduce ground troops to clean up the anti-Assad resistance?
These realities must be balanced against heartbreak being shown on TV around the world.
North Korea: Kim Jung-un keeps shooting off missiles and generally shaking his fist at the US and its allies in the region. The Trump administration has been far more forward leaning in seeking to resolve the North Korean problem than any Administration before it, even discussing the possibility of a pre-emptive strike. This raises significant, life and death issues for the region.
Sanctions or Pre-emption? The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all tried carrots and sticks with the North Koreans, trading sanctions relief for suspension of North Korea’s nuclear program. All that policy achieved was a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons and missiles potentially capable of reaching US territory. As a result, northeast Asia is as destabilized today as it has been since 1950.
While US territory is theoretically at risk, the threat is all too real for the Japanese and South Koreans. Indeed, beyond the use of nuclear weapons, the North Koreans have massive firepower to unleash conventional and chemical attacks on South Korea that would kill numbers not seen since WWII.
If sanctions have failed, then what is the risk of preemption?
Is Preemption possible? There are shadows of the Cuban Missile Crisis here. When President Kennedy asked the Joint Chiefs, in October 1962, if an attack on Cuba would get all the nuclear armed, Soviet missiles, the Chiefs dryly replied that they would get all the missiles they knew about. Of course, missing one or two could have meant the nuclear destruction of Miami or New Orleans.
Do we know where the North Korean nukes are? All of them? Do we know where Kim and his leadership team and Party cadres are? Can our weapons penetrate deep bunkers built exactly to prevent this type of decapitation strike, with anything short of a nuclear weapon?
Preservation of the regime is the sole goal of the North Korean government. If it is under threat, or under attack, it is likely that they will use their nukes before they lose them. If Kim is somehow surprised, but he has managed to effectively hide one or several nuclear weapons, he will almost certainly use them against South Korea or Japan.
Imagine that. Seoul or Tokyo with mushroom clouds over them? The pressure on the US to respond in kind would unbearable.
What about the Chinese? China suffered nearly 900,000 casualties in the Korean War in order to prevent a Western aligned state from being established on its borders. Chinese foreign policy in Korea have not changed in 64 years. While there might be little love for the Kims in Beijing, China will not allow the collapse of the regime that provides a buffer state to the US and its allies. Specifically, a united Korea under the leadership of the South, aligned with the United States is unacceptable to Beijing. The China that could come to North Korea’s defense would be far more formidable than that which the US faced in 1950.
This then requires that any action on North Korea have China’s sign off or blessing.
China’s Terms? North Korea has to be a considerable liability to China. They spend billions propping it up economically and get little of value in return. If regime survival is the governing principle of the North Korean government, then withdrawing the economic prop – as the West continually demands – could cause Kim to be as big a threat to China as he is to the US and its allies.
But if China can be persuaded that the Kims had to go, it would only be permissible under certain iron-clad political conditions that could be antithetical to US values or to our allies’ long term interests.
- A Denuclearized Buffer State Remains: China might agree to regime change if there was a guarantee a post-Kim North Korea be governed by a handpicked team chosen by the Chinese, committed to a verifiable policy of denuclearization and general military downsizing. This would be completely unacceptable to the South Koreans, for whom reunification is a matter political, social and cultural policy.
- A Unified and Neutral Korea: The Chinese might be persuaded to allow reunification of post-Kim Korea, but only if Seoul ended the mutual defense treaty with the US, and required the immediate removal of all US forces on Korea. The “neutralization” of Korea would effectively have the long-term impact of bringing the entire Korean peninsula into the Chinese orbit, and potentially increase historical animosity between the Koreans and the Japanese, which serves Chinese interests.
The key here is that all the players at the table, Japan, China, South Korea and the US would have to agree in advance, with enough secrecy to ensure than any pre-emptive plan was not revealed in a manner that would trigger Kim first. That, is a very tall order.
Even with theoretical Chinese support, tacit or overt, there is still no guarantee that the regime can be neutralized before it uses weapons of mass destruction, which could immediately alter assumptions prior to attack. The idea of losing another city to nuclear weapons may simply be too much for the Japanese.
In the end, all sides might end up believing that an untenable status quo is better than the risks of action. President Trump will be central in deciding the US course of action that will be history making, one way or the other.
Elections have consequences. The abstract of a campaign based on cleaning out DC morphs into a new reality where the fate of nations is decided on imperfect data and judgement. Pray that America chose wisely.