tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/george-w-bush-9872/articlesGeorge W Bush – The Conversation2024-03-22T12:34:10Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244972024-03-22T12:34:10Z2024-03-22T12:34:10ZJon Stewart, still a ‘tiny, neurotic man,’ back to remind Americans what’s at stake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583208/original/file-20240320-20-bd8a2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C2286%2C1076&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jon Stewart does a segment on Feb. 13, 2024, on the Biden-Trump rematch.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=jon+stewart+the+daily+show+2024&oq=jon+stewar&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDggAEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMg4IABBFGCcYOxiABBiKBTIOCAEQRRgnGDsYgAQYigUyDQgCEC4Y1AIYsQMYgAQyBggDEEUYQDIGCAQQRRg5MgYIBRBFGDwyBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRg90gEIMTc4NGowajSoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b5213699,vid:NpBPm0b9deQ,st:0">Screenshot, The Daily Show</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s an uncomfortable truth: Jon Stewart and Donald Trump both tapped the same well of latent public disaffection with politics and the media in the 2000s. Trust in <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-remains-near-record-low.aspx">media</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/">government</a> had been declining for several decades. But the symbiotic relationship between the White House and the press during the Iraq War <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-iraq-wars-damage-to-public-trust-in-experts-has-consequences-right-up-to-today-201656">highlighted the dangers of a lap dog press</a>.</p>
<p>It was against this backdrop that Stewart and Trump used their positions outside the fray to ally themselves with their audiences and draw pointed contrasts with the artifice of postmodern politics. But they did this – and continue to do this – in opposing ways. </p>
<p>Trump lashes out when politicians and journalists bring us closer to truth. Stewart criticizes them for keeping us in the dark. To Stewart, the solutions to America’s political spectacle are political accountability and increased transparency. To Trump, the solution is far simpler: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557/">He alone can fix it</a>.</p>
<p>In 2003, maybe Stewart could call himself “<a href="https://billmoyers.com/content/daily-shows-jon-stewart-transcript/">a tiny, neurotic man, standing in the back of the room throwing tomatoes at the chalkboard</a>.” But today, with his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/arts/television/jon-stewart-daily-show.html">return on Monday nights</a> to host “The Daily Show,” he is part of the school administration trying to keep the lights on and the students learning. </p>
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<h2>Criticizing Bush’s war</h2>
<p>During the George W. Bush years, Stewart perfected the art of ironic satire, playfully critiquing politicians, the press and the public, while implying something better was possible. </p>
<p>He feigned incredulity as he critiqued the Bush administration’s <a href="https://www.cc.com/video/3e83yu/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-bush-v-bush">political hypocrisy</a> and cynical invocation of <a href="https://www.cc.com/video/llc6rb/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-mess-o-potamia-wmd-search">Sept. 11</a> in its justification for the Iraq War. </p>
<p>Stewart used irony to describe failures of American policy as though they were fabulous successes. Like on July 16, 2007, when he said enthusiastically, “As you know, we are now entering our fifth year of making … very good progress in Iraq. Obviously the president defining ‘progress’ now as ‘moving forward in time.’” Stewart invited his <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600802427013">young, politically interested, liberal/moderate audience</a> to conclude the opposite: “Things should not be this way, and we deserve better.”</p>
<p>Around the same time, Trump was also criticizing Bush, but through <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/irony-and-outrage-9780197581803?cc=us&lang=en&">hyperbole and outrage rather than ironic satire</a>. In 2007, he told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/17/donald.trump.issues/index.html">CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that</a> “everything in Washington has been a lie. Weapons of mass destruction – it was a total lie. It was a way of attacking Iraq.” </p>
<p>By 2011, Trump aimed his hyperbole and outrage at a new target: President Barack Obama. Trump challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency by <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-perpetuated-birther-movement-years/story?id=42138176">spreading racist lies about Obama’s birthplace</a> and suggesting <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/index.html">that Obama was a Muslim</a>. The “Birther Lie” launched Trump’s political career. It also solidified his appeal among those whose worldview was amenable to authoritarian populism: those high in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716218811309">political distrust, racial resentment</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12270">conspiricism</a>. </p>
<h2>Authoritarianism vs. democracy</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/why-trumps-drastic-plan-to-slash-the-government-could-succeed-6828ccbe">Trump has embraced an authoritarian vision of the presidency</a> with concentrated powers in the executive branch. If reelected, he has vowed to use the Department of Justice <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/09/trump-interview-univision/">to investigate political opponents</a> and has explored ways to use the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/05/trump-revenge-second-term/">military to subdue political unrest</a> stemming from his reelection. </p>
<p>Trump’s critiques of the press echo an authoritarian perspective, too. When Trump lambastes the press as “fake news,” it is in response to negative coverage of himself <a href="https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/everything-trump-has-called-fake-news-1513303959">or fact checks of his own false statements</a>. </p>
<p>To Stewart, though, journalism’s failures are not ideological or personal, but professional. He criticizes them for not getting us closer to the truth. He has critiqued <a href="https://www.cc.com/video/tlwgqa/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-cnn-leaves-it-there">how journalists leave political spin uninterrogated</a>, give time to “both sides” and “leave the conversation there,” even when one side is demonstrably wrong. He has criticized politicians’ reliance on <a href="https://billmoyers.com/content/daily-shows-jon-stewart-transcript/">communications professionals</a> who <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/07/convention-watching.html">obfuscate the truth</a> to get more favorable coverage.</p>
<h2>Stewart’s new old role</h2>
<p>Though a political outsider two decades ago, Stewart now finds himself inside the political and media institutions whose roles include making the public aware of – and thus safeguarding them from – the antidemocratic and destabilizing forces of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cultural-backlash/3C7CB32722C7BB8B19A0FC005CAFD02B">populist authoritarians like Trump</a>. </p>
<p>Since Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show” after his 2015 departure, he has interviewed democracy expert <a href="https://www.gov.harvard.edu/directory/steven-levitsky/">Steven Levitsky</a> on ways to protect democracy, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jonathan-blitzer/page/4">journalist Jonathan Blitzer</a> about the complex forces shaping U.S. immigration policy, Middle East-focused journalists <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznD7uCEcLk">Murtaza Hussain and Yair Rosenberg</a> on Israel’s war in Gaza, and legal scholars <a href="https://crooked.com/podcast-series/strict-scrutiny/">Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw</a> on Trump’s efforts to avoid prosecution. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jon Stewart does a segment on freedom of the press, cued to Donald Trump saying he would jail certain journalists.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Through these conversations, Stewart showcases guests who espouse a pluralistic liberal vision of democracy. And through his satire, Stewart himself shows that democratic institutions and processes may be messy, but their ability to protect the will and liberty of the people makes them indispensable. </p>
<p>Or, as Stewart said in a February episode, “The difference between America’s urinal-caked chaotic subways and Russia’s candelabra’d beautiful subways is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY">the literal price of freedom</a>.” </p>
<p>Stewart explained his 2024 return to “The Daily Show” as wanting to “have some kind of place to unload thoughts <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jon-stewart-daily-show-return-what-to-expect/">as we get into this election season</a>.”</p>
<p>But having studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fWtPIV4AAAAJ&hl=en">content and effects of political satire</a> since Stewart became “The Daily Show” host in 1999, I see his return as evidence he recognizes the protective role he can play for American democracy. Because even if ironic satire isn’t great at persuading people to change their minds, research shows it does subtly shape how we think about and engage with our political world. </p>
<p>When satirists cover an issue, viewers become more likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2018.1498816">see that issue as important</a>. Satire also shapes how people think about politicians and issues. In the early 2000s, I conducted a series of studies that revealed that exposure to jokes about presidential candidates provided study participants with criteria they then used to evaluate those candidates – like Al Gore’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327825mcs0903_5">lack of charisma</a> or George W. Bush’s lack of intellect or performance on Iraq. And when study participants didn’t have a lot of political knowledge, satire helped them fill in the gaps. </p>
<p>Satire is also great at highlighting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1301517">issues that audiences haven’t thought much about</a>, such as the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2015.0361">Citizens United</a> campaign finance decision.</p>
<p>Satire encourages audiences to pay <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600802427013">attention</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2022.2138766">discuss</a> politics in new ways, motivating them to seek out other information or talk about politics with friends. And even though satirists like Stewart may be critical of journalism, their programs highlight the importance of an independent press to a democratic society, increasing viewers’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699017713002">perceptions of the importance of news</a>.</p>
<h2>There’s always a role for the satirist</h2>
<p>Because Trump’s rhetoric is so explicit and outrageous, some have suggested it may <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/magazine/trump-liberal-comedy-tv.html">rob satirists of the ability to deconstruct his messaging</a>. But despite its explicitness, there is still a lot that authoritarian populists like Trump don’t ever say. </p>
<p>This is where satirists like Stewart can help fill in the gaps: By juxtaposing populist authoritarians’ <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/rt/metadata/21783/4549">glittering generalities</a> with the ugly reality of life under authoritarianism.</p>
<p>For example, in a recent episode of “The Daily Show,” Stewart deconstructed Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Carlson’s glowing reviews of Russia’s grocery stores and sparkling subway system.</p>
<p>“Perhaps if your handlers had allowed,” Stewart says as though addressing Carlson, “you would have seen there is a hidden fee to your cheap groceries and orderly streets. Ask <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-alexei-navalny-death-opposition-leader-37da0915157576372d6493be7ad04b5c">likely assassinated opposition leader Alexei Navalny</a> or any of his supporters.”</p>
<p>In a 2021 discussion <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2021-10-17/segment/01">on CNN</a> about American democracy, Stewart lamented Democrats’ endless hand-wringing over Trump’s threat to democracy. Instead, Stewart proposed: “Action is the antithesis of anxiety.” </p>
<p>What we see in Stewart’s return is him reminding us that American democracy is never done. It takes constant action. </p>
<p>Stewart may still be “<a href="https://billmoyers.com/content/daily-shows-jon-stewart-transcript/">a tiny, neurotic man</a>,” but far from throwing tomatoes at the chalkboard, now he’s standing tall in front of the class, and school is in session.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dannagal G. Young was a production assistant on the Daily Show for 10 days during the RNC in Philadelphia in 2000.
</span></em></p>In the early 2000s, Jon Stewart perfected the art of ironic satire, playfully critiquing politicians, political institutions, the press and the public. What’s his role now?Dannagal G. Young, Professor of Communication and Political Science, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246062024-03-04T13:35:59Z2024-03-04T13:35:59ZNikki Haley, hanging on through Super Tuesday, says Trump is weak because he’s not getting as many votes as he should − she’s wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579021/original/file-20240229-28-zcbvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C33%2C5589%2C3709&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of GOP candidate Nikki Haley react as former President Donald Trump gives an acceptance speech during a primary election night party on Feb. 24, 2024, in Charleston, S.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-republican-presidential-candidate-former-u-n-news-photo/2028796747?adppopup=true">Sean Rayford/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nikki Haley has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/us/politics/haley-not-dropping-out.html">refused to drop out</a> of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination despite significant losses to Donald Trump in Iowa, New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina. Haley has tried to cast the race in an especially favorable light: As essentially an incumbent, Trump should be near-unanimously supported, but he hasn’t been – so she should keep on fighting. </p>
<p>Haley has made several versions of this argument: </p>
<p>• After finishing third behind Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Iowa caucuses, Haley saw enough hope to declare the contest a “<a href="https://thehill.com/elections/4411329-haley-iowa-two-person-race-trump-2024/">two-person race</a>” – to incredulous ears. </p>
<p>• After coming in 11 points behind Trump in New Hampshire, an <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/23/nikki-haley-trump-new-hampshire-chance">unusually hospitable</a> state to her in ideology and temperament, a Haley spokesperson characterized Trump’s win as “<a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/angry-rant-filled-with-grievances-nikki-haleys-campaign-says-of-donald-trumps-new-hampshire-primary-speech/46516280">not exactly a ringing endorsement</a> for a former president.” </p>
<p>• After getting just under 40% of the vote in her home state to Trump’s 60%, Haley again framed the result as more disappointing for Trump than for herself, stressing that “Trump as, technically, the Republican incumbent <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nikki-haley-argues-trump-40-primary-voters-clue/story?id=107561624">did not win 40%</a> of the vote.”</p>
<p>I’m a political scientist, and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hADRzMwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I have studied</a> Trump’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12414">2016 campaign</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12630">his administration</a> as well as the <a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/uno-political-scientist-discusses-impact-of-desantis-dropping-out-on-presidential-race/46480904">Haley challenge</a>. I don’t buy Haley’s rationale for holding on.</p>
<p>As the two candidates face Super Tuesday, the biggest day of primary voting across the nation, Trump is not the weak candidate Haley would like him to be.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits on a stage standing behind individual lecterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579024/original/file-20240229-20-noks1y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in a televised presidential debate during the 1976 election. Carter beat Ford and became 39th president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/james-jimmy-carter-and-gerald-ford-taking-part-in-the-first-news-photo/113494342?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>No comparison</h2>
<p>Haley’s claim that Trump’s early victories reveal some type of weakness hinges on comparing Trump with real incumbents running for reelection, who are indeed usually unopposed within their party. Think <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/democrats-replace-biden.html">the Biden reelection campaign</a> and <a href="https://www.270towin.com/2020-republican-nomination/">Trump’s own in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>But this comparison is unreasonable: Trump’s not a real incumbent and should not be compared with one.</p>
<p>To see how well Trump’s doing, an appropriate comparison pits Trump against previous one-term presidents running for a nonconsecutive second term against the incumbents who defeated them – Gerald Ford in 1980 against President Jimmy Carter, Carter in 1984 against President Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush in 1996 against President Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>See what today’s situation has in common with these precedents? </p>
<p>Nothing. They never happened. </p>
<p>And that’s because these former presidents would have had little chance of getting nominated by a party that had moved on after their loss. So they chose not to run at all.</p>
<h2>Lose, then retreat</h2>
<p>Carter never seriously entertained a presidential run in 1984 against Reagan, to whom he had lost in <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1980_Election/">a 44-state landslide</a> in 1980. Even before 1980, observers <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ziBaAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA3&dq=jimmy%20carter%201984&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q=jimmy%20carter%201984&f=false">foretold Carter’s loss of support</a> among Democrats in 1984, saying “it is very doubtful the party will give him another shot” if he lost in 1980. After he did lose, Carter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/11/us/carter-backs-mondale-for-presidency-in-1984.html">threw his support</a> behind his vice president, Walter Mondale. Against Mondale, Reagan would deliver an even bigger, <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1984_Election/">49-state landslide</a>.</p>
<p>George H.W. Bush in 1996 is a similar story. After losing to Clinton in 1992, he <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/bush/campaigns-and-elections">left office embittered</a> and would not recover politically. It was evidently <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AUcyAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA10&dq=george%20hw%20bush%201996&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q=george%20hw%20bush%201996&f=false">someone else’s turn</a> to run for president, as the party moved on to Bob Dole in 1996 and to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/04/us/republicans-overview-bush-accepting-gop-nomination-pledges-use-these-good-times.html">Bush’s own son</a>, George W. Bush, just four years later.</p>
<p>Of these might-have, could-have bids for a return to the presidency, Ford’s came closest to reality, partly owing to his <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/gerald-fords-unique-role-in-american-history">unique circumstances</a>. </p>
<p>Ford became president because of Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. That happened not long after Nixon <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/40-years-ago-gerald-ford-becomes-president-in-a-historic-first">picked Ford to replace</a> Vice President Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973. Ford had not had a chance to run on his own terms. In a sense, his 1976 defeat was less conclusive in ending his political life than those of Carter and Bush, making his revival more plausible.</p>
<p>Still, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/09/29/stumping-ford-unlikely-to-run-in-80/00b6f0c4-6e1b-415d-a615-2aa4093aa01a/">discouragement</a> from the former president’s own inner circle dampened his flirtations with a 1980 run.</p>
<h2>Wishful thinking?</h2>
<p>The big picture: Voters are generally <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/three-time-presidential-candidate-romney-stassen-115000/">unwilling to give</a> a candidate a second chance to run against someone who already defeated them once – a reason that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/one-way-trump-fighting-history-election-losers-usually-lose-rematch-rcna117883">presidential rematches are so rare</a>.</p>
<p>Trump is proving to be an exception. He lost reelection in 2020, is running again in 2024 against the same president who beat him and is comfortably marching toward nomination a third time in a row. There’s no modern precedent for this, and it attests to his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/us/politics/trump-iowa-win-voters.html">enduring and extraordinary strength</a> within his party. </p>
<p>To be fair, one thing makes Trump’s rationale for a re-run more compelling than Ford in 1980, Carter in 1984 and Bush in 1996: Many Trump supporters <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-think-2020-election-illegitimate/index.html">don’t believe he lost</a> legitimately to Biden in 2020 in the first place, making them think he is somehow deserving of another chance. But that’s precisely part of Trump’s strength.</p>
<p>So, why does Haley talk of Trump’s weakness? </p>
<p>It’s a mix of a few things. She needs to project confidence and justify soldiering on to voters, donors and herself. She’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/28/nikki-haley-dropout-republican-convention-00143746">hoping for miracles</a> in upcoming contests. She could be <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2024/02/20/nikki-haleys-long-game-00142314">ambitious for 2028</a> and beyond. </p>
<p>It’s also just wishful thinking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huchen Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nikki Haley claims Donald Trump is running as a quasi-incumbent and should be doing much better against her than he is. That’s wishful thinking, says a political scientist.Huchen Liu, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178122023-12-31T20:27:44Z2023-12-31T20:27:44ZCabinet papers 2003: Howard government sends Australia into the Iraq war<p>By far the most significant decision the Howard government made in 2003 was to support the invasion of Iraq. Journalists and historians have <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/iraq-lessons-the-cabinet-submission-that-never-was/">long maintained</a> there was no submission to full cabinet weighing the pros and cons of the Australian intervention. Cabinet papers from 2003 released today by the National Archives of Australia confirm this.</p>
<p>While the Howard government had many other important issues to manage in that year, the Iraq War consumed most attention and sparked most debate in the wider community.</p>
<h2>Entering the war</h2>
<p>Cabinet’s National Security Committee had been closely monitoring Iraq and its possible possession of weapons of mass destruction. But in March 2003, Prime Minister John Howard <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/iraq-2003-retrospective">asked the full cabinet</a> to confirm the decision to commit Australia to war. </p>
<p>Despite US urging, the UN Security Council failed to authorise the use of force. It preferred instead to exhaust all opportunities for diplomacy. </p>
<p>On March 18, Howard informed his cabinet colleagues that US President George W. Bush had given Iraqi President Saddam Hussein <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/18/iraq.usa1">an ultimatum</a>. Australia was asked to support the United States if Iraq did not fully comply with Bush’s demands. </p>
<p>In the absence of explicit Security Council authorisation, Howard relied for legal justification on a <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA108837721&sid=sitemap&v=2.1&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Eeba0625d&aty=open-web-entry">memorandum of advice</a>, signed by two officials at the level of first assistant secretary from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Attorney-General’s Department. Iraq, the memorandum argued, had not complied with earlier Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, Australian participation in military intervention would be legal.</p>
<p>Gavan Griffith, Australia’s solicitor-general from 1984-1997, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/this-war-is-illegal-howards-last-top-law-man-20030321-gdggwb.html">regarded the legal advice</a> as “untenable” and “Alice in Wonderland nonsense”. </p>
<p>The memorandum was nonetheless important for persuading public opinion. Governor-General Peter Hollingworth had earlier asked to see legal advice from the attorney-general, perhaps assuming the decision would be his, acting on advice from the government. Howard advised Hollingworth there was <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3033384">no need</a> to refer to the governor-general any decision to commit Australia to war. </p>
<p>The Howard government instead proceeded with the defence minister using his legal powers under the Defence Act as amended in 1975. This alleviated any need for the attorney-general to provide legal advice to the governor-general, as Sir John Kerr <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/kerr-fraser-conflict-a-precedent-for-gg-intervention-20220821-p5bbjl">had demanded</a> of the Fraser government in 1977 in regard to appointing the head of the Department of the Special Trade Negotiator, for which Howard was the responsible minister. </p>
<p>The cabinet minute of March 18 2003 smoothed the legal and constitutional difficulties. The attorney-general, it read, agreed with the memorandum submitted by the first assistant secretaries. The governor-general had been consulted but did not need to give his approval, and cabinet had agreed to send Australian troops to war. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-20-years-on-death-came-from-the-skies-on-march-19-2003-and-the-killing-continues-to-this-day-201988">Iraq 20 years on: death came from the skies on March 19 2003 – and the killing continues to this day</a>
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<p>Proceeding without a cabinet submission enabled Howard to <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-enduring-lessons-of-the-iraq-war/">dispense with advice</a> to cabinet on four other matters. </p>
<p>One was the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/iraq-how-we-were-duped-20050514-ge05vq.html">circumstantial nature</a> of the intelligence used to justify the invasion. </p>
<p>Another was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-20-years-on-death-came-from-the-skies-on-march-19-2003-and-the-killing-continues-to-this-day-201988">sectarian chaos</a> that could have been predicted to follow in Iraq. </p>
<p>A third was the danger of military intervention <a href="https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/iran-and-iraq-war-2003-real-victor">empowering Iran</a>. </p>
<p>A fourth was the consequences for the Australian-United States alliance. Any decision to rebuff Bush’s request would have been treated coldly by his administration. Howard <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/iraq-lessons-the-cabinet-submission-that-never-was-part-2/">was determined</a> to take advantage of the Iraq war to strengthen the alliance. </p>
<p>Another middle power and NATO ally, Canada, demonstrated its independence without incurring Washington’s enduring resentment. Prime Minister Jean Chretien <a href="https://opencanada.org/how-canadas-intelligence-agencies-helped-keep-the-country-out-of-the-2003-iraq-war/">insisted</a> Canada would not join in military action without United Nations authorisation. The leader of the Labor opposition, Simon Crean, eventually <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/simon-crean-stuck-to-his-guns-on-the-iraq-war-and-was-proven-right-20230626-p5djif.html">adopted this position</a> too. </p>
<p>Officials in the Department of Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/iraq-lessons-the-impact-of-the-howard-fib/">did not regard it as their role</a> to offer strategic advice on matters already decided by ministers. This pattern of policy-making indicated the <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/my-how-things-have-changed/">increasing subordination</a> of the public service to ministers since the 1980s. It also reflected the increasingly presidential view Howard had of the office of prime minister. </p>
<p>In 2003, public opinion <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/polls-apart-on-whether-this-is-a-conflict-worth-waging-20030401-gdgizs.html">was opposed</a> to Australian participation in the war. However, the government was aided by the <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/node/62/wrap-xhr#mtr">effusive support</a> of News Corporation papers for its position on the war. </p>
<h2>Beyond the war</h2>
<p>The release includes many other submissions and decisions. Some relate to negotiation of a free trade agreement with the United States. </p>
<p>Ten years after the agreement came into force, however, <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/the-costs-of-australias-free-trade-agreement-with-america/">analysis showed</a> it had diverted trade away from the lowest-cost sources. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was also affected. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-trade-deal-undermined-australias-pbs-32573">How the US trade deal undermined Australia's PBS</a>
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<p>Other papers relate to health policy. Howard sought to blunt an effective Labor campaign against the erosion of the rate of bulk-billing under Medicare. Accordingly, Health Minister Kay Patterson introduced a A$900 million package.</p>
<p>“A Fairer Medicare” was highly criticised, including by a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Former_Committees/medicare/fairer_medicare/index">Senate inquiry</a>. It described the package as a “decisive step away from the principle of universality that has underpinned Medicare since its inception”. </p>
<p>With the 2004 election looming, Patterson was replaced by Tony Abbott, who later announced a compromise package called <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/abbott-backs-medicare-plus-reforms-20031202-gdhwa7.html">Medicare Plus</a>. It achieved more success by including higher reimbursements for doctors and an extended Medicare safety net aimed at addressing out-of-pocket costs. </p>
<p>A decision on the environment is also noteworthy. Howard appointed a committee to devise an affordable long-term plan to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. An emissions trading scheme was recommended.</p>
<p>The plan received the backing of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, as well as that of Treasurer Peter Costello, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and Environment Minister David Kemp. In July, the strategy was taken to cabinet but later, after discussions with industry representatives, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/howard-blows-hot-and-cold-on-emissions-20061115-ge3kkq.html">Howard dumped it</a>. </p>
<p>Years later, in 2006, under pressure from the “millennium drought”, Howard changed his mind and accepted Treasury’s advice to adopt an emissions trading scheme. Howard’s Labor successors, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, implemented the scheme. In 2013, the Abbott government demolished the scheme with the enthusiastic support of business. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-too-hard-basket-a-short-history-of-australias-aborted-climate-policies-101812">The too hard basket: a short history of Australia's aborted climate policies</a>
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<h2>Resources boom – and missed opportunities</h2>
<p>In October 2003, the leaders of the United States and China both visited Australia. This offered hope Australia could maintain a constructive relationship with its closest ally as well as its major trading partner. </p>
<p>By 2003, Australia was on the cusp of one its greatest resource booms, fuelled by Chinese demand. The boom gave the government space to turn its attention to a range of reforms in areas such as defence, health, communications and education policy. </p>
<p>Three opportunities were missed in 2003. </p>
<p>One was to establish a sovereign wealth fund to invest the temporary windfall gains from the mining boom. </p>
<p>A second was to establish an emissions trading scheme. </p>
<p>A third was to advance progress on constitutional recognition of Indigenous people.
This had to wait until 2007 when Howard at last <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/the-quest-for-indigenous-recognition/john-howard#:%7E:text=I%20n%20October%202007%2C%20in,was%20to%20be%20re%2Delected.">recommended a referendum</a> to recognise the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australian history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lee is a member of Australians for War Powers Reform. </span></em></p>The 2003 Cabinet papers, released today by the National Archives of Australia, reveal the machinations over Australia’s entry into the Iraq war.David Lee, Associate Professor of History, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194492023-12-29T11:44:39Z2023-12-29T11:44:39ZWhy Russia and China have been added to Republicans’ new ‘axis of evil’<p>Former US president George W Bush’s concept of an “axis of evil”, introduced in his 2002 <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html">State of the Union</a> address, came to define the flawed foreign policy decisions of his years in power.</p>
<p>He used it to legitimise both the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/wh/6947.htm">“war on terror”</a>. Bush’s axis of evil included Iraq, Iran and North Korea. They were bound together as long-standing US adversaries, rendered as actively seeking weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and who, he argued, collectively posed a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/sou012902.htm">“grave and growing danger”</a> as antagonist regimes capable of attacking the US and its allies.</p>
<p>Rolling into 2024, with a <a href="https://fpc.org.uk/2024-us-presidential-elections-a-fork-in-the-road-for-the-future-of-american-foreign-policy/">US presidential election</a> on one side, and continuing geopolitical volatility from Ukraine to east Asia on the other, Republicans, in particular, have recently <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/29/axis-of-evil-russia-china-iran-north-korea-bush-era/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FP%20This%20Week%20-%2012052023&utm_content=B&utm_term=fp_this_week#cookie_message_anchor">revived the term</a> to explain concurrently the machinations of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.</p>
<h2>Clear and present danger?</h2>
<p>The new “axis” however, operates on different principles, and its links to US policy are more tenuous.</p>
<p>First, the distinction between original axis countries, including long-standing US adversaries North Korea and Iran, and new additions <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/05/china-beijing-biden-us-foreign-policy">China</a> and Russia. </p>
<p>During the cold war, Russia and China were of great concern to the US. But during the Bush era, neither was regarded as constituting either the remote or proximate threat of that first axis. Grouping the four suggests that some in Washington feel that both China and Russia pose a significant enough challenge to both US and global systems to add them to a renewed axis of evil, rather than categorising them separately as individual belligerents.</p>
<p>Second, the perceived threat to the US arising from associations between each of the four members is uneven. <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-persian-russian-connection">Russia’s connections with Iran</a> are long-standing and have been, mostly, tolerated by the US. </p>
<p>These links only become unpalatable, and worthy of including in an axis, when nations step over a particular line. Iran did so by helping Hamas plan <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-israel-hamas-strike-planning-bbe07b25#:%7E:text=DUBAI%E2%80%94Iranian%20security%20officials%20helped,another%20Iran%2Dbacked%20militant%20group.">the October 7 attack</a> in Israel. </p>
<p>Russia has been added to the axis list – after undertaking expansionist adventures so significant (by invading Ukraine) that it cannot be ignored. So for both Iran and Russia, magnitude of ambitions counts. </p>
<p>Neither Russia’s invasion of <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-2008-russo-georgian-war-putins-green-light/">Georgia in 2008</a> nor <a href="https://www.history.co.uk/articles/putin-s-gamble-russia-s-2014-invasion-of-crimea">Crimea</a> in 2014 saw it consigned to a newfound axis of evil. It merely consolidated its status as a potential Eurasian rogue state. </p>
<p>It appears to be the risk of concerted collaboration between two or more axis members, and the combined threat that they represent that worries Washington. For example, former governor of South Carolina and presidential candidate Nikki Haley argued that <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/29/axis-of-evil-russia-china-iran-north-korea-bush-era/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FP%20This%20Week%20-%2012052023&utm_content=B&utm_term=fp_this_week">“a win for Russia is a win for China”</a>.</p>
<p>Third, the complexities of what the four have in common with each other remain unclear. What currently binds China and Russia together is their expansionist intent. But this differs from the historic willingness to stir up regional volatility exhibited by <a href="https://geopoliticalfutures.com/predictable-volatility-iran-north-korea/">Iran and North Korea</a>. </p>
<p>China stands opposed to such sabre-rattling from North Korea, while simultaneously undertaking plenty of its own regional expansion.</p>
<p>More interesting perhaps are the immense natural resources wielded by <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/02/huge-impact-fortress-economics-russia-and-china">Russia and China</a>, and to a lesser extent Iran. Russia and China make up enormous sections of Eurasia in terms of landmass, population and trading links binding their economies. </p>
<p>Does this suggest that the size, finances and natural resources <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3754480-20-years-later-the-axis-of-evil-is-bigger-bolder-and-more-evil/">of the new axis</a> and its friends may allow it to become a semi-insulated trade and economic block? Probably not, but only while Russia’s current expansionist efforts remain at a standstill. </p>
<p>A post-conflict situation in Europe (assuming an end to the Ukraine war) will ultimately reset the sanctions regime against Russia, and – depending on Beijing’s peace-maker intentions – could facilitate warmer east-west relations.</p>
<h2>Why revive the axis?</h2>
<p>There are both drawbacks and benefits to resurrecting the idea of an “axis”. For supporters of the approach, the new axis provides policymakers with a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203073629-7/theories-truisms-tools-international-relations-kjell-goldmann">convenient who’s who of adversaries</a>. Assuming all four present a similar danger to the US, it gives a likely challenger for the presidency the chance to point at President Joe Biden’s foreign policy shortcomings.</p>
<p>While, unlike in Bush’s era, military interventions are probably not on the agenda, a more regionally targeted protectionist approach to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/29/axis-of-evil-russia-china-iran-north-korea-bush-era/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FP%20This%20Week%20-%2012052023&utm_content=B&utm_term=fp_this_week">“not try to do business with them”</a> is more probable.</p>
<p>There is little of real value for US foreign policy in taking this approach. This uneven grab basket of anti-American villainy is reductivist at best, and cartoonish at worst. It suggests equivalences of power whether there are none, imagined ideological symmetry, and coordination incapable of surviving the short-term twists of four separate foreign policies. </p>
<p>The revival of the “axis” appears to be largely coming from Republicans, currently in charge of Congress, rather than the White House. But much may change in 2024 if they take over the presidency.</p>
<p>Like the original axis, the new grouping conflates power and ambition across states, muddies domestic objectives with regional support between two or more of the members, and suggests the need for a new global fistfight to defend democracy.</p>
<p>Rather than superficial attempts at suggesting basic enmity across four disparate nations, more important for the US ought to be a concern about Russia, China, Iran and North Korea’s long-standing preference for authoritarianism, and the ominous implications for their neighbouring states and regions. Alignment and agreements come and go. Entrenched authoritarianism, however, is hell to shift.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amelia Hadfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>So far, the revival of the ‘axis’ appears to be largely coming from Republicans, rather than the White House.Amelia Hadfield, Head of Department of Politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2119872023-08-30T18:15:05Z2023-08-30T18:15:05ZWhy the United States will have to accept China’s growing influence and strength<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-the-united-states-will-have-to-accept-chinas-growing-influence-and-strength" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>After wrapping up a recent four-day trip to China, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a media briefing: “<a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1603">We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive</a>.” </p>
<p>While optimistic, Yellen’s statement is far from persuasive. It doesn’t represent the tense geopolitical landscape saturated with sanctions, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-detail-plans-restricting-some-us-investments-china-source-2023-08-09/">investment restrictions</a> and containment efforts.</p>
<p>Yellen’s was one of many visits by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/world/asia/blinken-china-xi-diplomacy.html">U.S. officials</a> to China in recent months. These overtures come on the heels of concentrated American efforts against what the U.S. perceives to be China’s increasing expansion and assertiveness in Asia. President Joe Biden’s administration has made its intentions clear about maintaining the status quo in Asia, and Beijing is responding cautiously.</p>
<p>How did relations between the U.S. and China become so antagonistic over the last decade?</p>
<h2>Conflicting policies</h2>
<p>In a news conference with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 2002, then-President George W. Bush said: “<a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020221-7.html">China’s future is for the Chinese people to decide</a>.” But the current state of relations indicates the path the Chinese chose for themselves is not sitting well with the U.S.</p>
<p>In 2009, Secretary of State <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2009a/01/115450.htm">Hillary Clinton suggested the Barack Obama administration wanted to go further than Bush had in developing the China-U.S. relationship</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We need a comprehensive dialogue with China. The strategic dialogue that was begun in the Bush administration turned into an economic dialogue.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Obama-era approach then culminated in a comprehensive pivot to <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament">the Asia-Pacific region in 2011</a> that resulted in American economic, security and diplomatic resources shifting towards the area.</p>
<p>During Donald Trump’s administration, U.S. policy priorities on China shifted back to economic relations as the trade <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-trade/trump-calls-china-trade-deficit-horrible-ahead-of-asia-visit-idINKBN1D15AM">deficit between the two nations</a> became a central point of contention. The Trump approach was no longer dialogue, but rather direct confrontation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-china-u-s-conflict-is-about-much-more-than-trade-96406">The China-U.S. conflict is about much more than trade</a>
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<p>Under Biden, China <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/12/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/">is deemed a “competitor</a>.” </p>
<p>Policy choices have included reducing economic dependence on Chinese supply chains, the creation of the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/15/joint-leaders-statement-on-aukus/">Australia, United Kingdom and United States partnership known as AUKUS</a> and <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3350297/new-edca-sites-named-in-the-philippines/">gaining U.S. access to four additional military bases in the Philippines</a>. </p>
<h2>Chinese pragmatism</h2>
<p>While America’s China policy has transformed into confrontation, China’s overall foreign policy trajectory has largely been pragmatic and linear. </p>
<p>Since the 1990s, China has been explicit in its grand objective of a <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/234074?ln=en">multi-polar world</a> in which global politics is shaped by several dominant states.</p>
<p>When Xi Jinping ascended to the presidency in 2013, this aspiration became increasingly overt and assertive. A year earlier, Vice-President Xi announced China’s “two centennial goals” — one calling for China to be “<a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277160.shtml">prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful</a>” with influence over the global world order by 2049.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in dark suits with red ties shake hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545362/original/file-20230829-16-tnyyuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hu Jintao, left, poses with his successor Xi Jinping after Xi was elected at a plenary session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To analyze Chinese-American relations, the metaphor of the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/the-thucydides-trap/">Thucydides’ trap</a> — in which a rising power challenges an existing one — may not be the most appropriate analogy. And phrases like “the rise of China” don’t do justice to China’s history. </p>
<p>China has been a great power, regionally at least, for thousands of years and was a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13010">manufacturing behemoth even in the 1750s</a>.</p>
<p>Geopolitically, the U.S. continues to retain a military and diplomatic edge over China. It has demonstrated its will and capability to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-us-forces-would-defend-taiwan-event-chinese-invasion-2022-09-18/">determine the rules of engagement in China’s own backyard</a>. </p>
<p>But even though China trails the U.S. in many areas, it doesn’t need American support as much as it used to. Astonishingly rapid development in the last two decades is probably still far from China’s most creative and innovative phase.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nato-should-tread-carefully-in-southeast-asia-where-memories-of-colonialism-linger-205261">NATO should tread carefully in Southeast Asia, where memories of colonialism linger</a>
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<h2>American limitations</h2>
<p>There are also limits to the American field of influence in the region.</p>
<p>The U.S. has failed to move beyond strengthening existing alliances and fortifying its military installations. Its geo-strategic options are also limited. If, for example, the Americans shored up Japan’s offensive capabilities or deepened their partnership with India to challenge China, they would be inadvertently creating a multi-polar world.</p>
<p>China <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/world/asia/china-us-xi-jinping.html">is not deterred</a> by American policy. It is <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/12/europe-china-policy-brussels-macron-xi-jinping-von-der-leyen-sanchez/">countering it through the art of persuasion and dialogue</a>. But it too has exhibited its limits. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/11/solomon-islands-signs-controversial-policing-pact-with-china">a few exceptions</a>, China has failed to convince even its neighbours of the sincerity of its intentions. A majority of Asian nations are either U.S. allies <a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/04/09/pm-asean-should-remain-neutral-amid--us-china-rivalry">or neutral</a>.</p>
<p>The ongoing tit-for-tat between the two nuclear and highly interdependent powers will continue to shape their relations, which is concerning for global peace and stability.</p>
<p>Will the U.S. peacefully share global influence with China? Will China abide by its <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/201407/t20140701_678184.html">Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence</a> and its <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/zggcddwjw100ggs/jszgddzg/202208/t20220826_10754228.html">claim that it will never seek world domination</a>? It’s hard to say.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1516979705932808192"}"></div></p>
<h2>Four indicators of what lies ahead</h2>
<p>Several indicators, however, point to a somewhat balanced co-existence between the two as dominant power centres in the coming decades. </p>
<p>First, the U.S. has been unsuccessful in inhibiting China’s growth and expansion, and will likely be incapable of preventing the second-biggest economy from achieving its centennial goals.</p>
<p>Second, China is already present around the globe in terms of human capital, investment, manufactured products — and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/29/across-19-countries-more-people-see-the-u-s-than-china-favorably-but-more-see-chinas-influence-growing/">world public opinion about China is changing</a>.</p>
<p>Third, to use the Taoist metaphor, <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/taoism/">China is a hub that has many spokes</a> and has the capacity and will to invent many more. The hub is united and efficient; an economic downturn will only slow the social organism, not cause it to collapse.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/">China was barred from the International Space Station after the passage of a law by U.S. Congress</a> in 2011, for example, it constructed <a href="https://www.space.com/tiangong-space-station">Tiangong, a permanent space station</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Asian woman and two Asian men in blue jumpsuits smile and wave standing in front of a large red and gold chinese flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545361/original/file-20230829-21-pufgvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">China’s astronauts wave as they arrive to meet the media at the Jiuquan satellite launch center near Jiuquan in western China in June 2013 before later boarding a spacecraft to dock with China’s Tiangong 1 space lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andy Wong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fourth, the rise of non-liberal democratic regimes and weaknesses in democracies are creating a situation where some nations are gravitating towards China while others are moving away from the U.S.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-fuelled-chaos-shows-democracy-is-in-trouble-heres-how-to-change-course-152728">Trump-fuelled chaos shows democracy is in trouble — here's how to change course</a>
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<p>That said, political reason is too often at the mercy of short-term calculations. </p>
<p>The U.S. has shown no interest in sharing world leadership, nor has China shown any interest in deviating from its global aspirations. But even though they may appear to be on a collision course, it seems likely China is going to be successful in its pursuit, and both nations will ultimately learn to co-exist and thrive. </p>
<p>Until then, one can only hope that they spare the world the chaos and ugliness of power politics and use their creative energies for the betterment of the human condition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yasar Bukan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Relations between the U.S. and China have become antagonistic over the last decade. Here’s why the relationship must change.Yasar Bukan, Lecturer in Global Politics & Political Philosophy, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077862023-07-09T12:02:11Z2023-07-09T12:02:11ZU.S. allies should rethink their allegiance to an aggressive but declining superpower<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535647/original/file-20230704-17-a7zax4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3458&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A U.S. artillery rocket system fires a missile during annual combat drills between the Philippine Marine Corps and U.S. Marine Corps in the northern Philippines in October 2022 in a region where the United States says it wants to deter China.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/us-allies-should-rethink-their-allegiance-to-an-aggressive-but-declining-superpower" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In its pursuit of permanent global domination, the United States has pushed the world towards unnecessary conflict, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/1/the-us-war-on-terror-20-years-after-mission-accomplished">especially via its two-decade “war on terror.</a>”</p>
<p>American allies could dissuade the U.S. from its tendency to take a dangerous and divisive path, but their own weaknesses and commitment to the status quo are making them complicit.</p>
<p>According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, the conflicts connected to the war on terror have killed <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures">about 4.6 million people</a> since 2001. About a million have died in direct violence but the others — disproportionately women and children — have been casualties of political, economic and social instability in numerous countries that have been the target of the war on terror.</p>
<p>That conflict defines 21st century world politics, far more than the war in Ukraine. It was driven by former U.S. president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/behind-the-iraq-war-a-story-of-influence-intelligence-and-presidential-power/2020/08/20/23b610ba-cab3-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html">George W. Bush’s messianic impulses</a> and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/iraq-war-2003-bush-neoconservative-failure-civilian-deaths-islamist-insurgencies/">neoconservative ideologues</a> <a href="https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/9249">who aspired to reshape the Middle East</a> in the American image using military force.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/us/threats-responses-vote-congress-authorizes-bush-use-force-against-iraq-creating.html">U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly</a> to support the Bush wars. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/19/2003-iraq-invasion-legacy-west-international-law-ukraine">The war in Iraq</a>, an unprovoked and illegal invasion of a sovereign state, demonstrated the danger of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/5/1/ukraine-war-did-putin-learn-from-bushs-iraq-horrors">unchecked American power and hubris</a>.</p>
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<img alt="A grey-haired man stands a podium with the U.S. presidential insignia. Behind him a sign reads Mission Accomplished." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535617/original/file-20230704-29-gwwpyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this May 2003 photo, President George W. Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq as he speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast. The war dragged on for many years after that.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</span></span>
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<h2>Ignoring international law</h2>
<p>The Watson Institute report explains why states targeted by the U.S. have reasons to fear American violence and interference. International law doesn’t necessarily constrain the U.S. — it’s often willing to abuse its power and privileges for political, economic and strategic advantage.</p>
<p>This reality <a href="https://thearabweekly.com/how-russia-war-ukraine-echoes-precedent-set-us-iraq">partly explains Russia’s reaction to the expansion of NATO</a> and its invasion of Ukraine. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-nato-gambles-that-have-played-a-big-role-in-the-horrors-of-war-in-ukraine-178815">3 NATO gambles that have played a big role in the horrors of war in Ukraine</a>
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<p>Concerns about U.S. overreach also influences China’s policies in the South China Sea, as <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2013/02/12/stranglehold-context-conduct-and-consequences-of-american-naval-blockade-of-china-pub-51135">the Chinese worry about being economically strangled by an American naval blockade</a>.</p>
<p>China has done little to the U.S. <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/pentagon-study-declares-american-empire-is-collapsing">except to grow to an economic size and a level of technological innovation that challenges American global domination</a>. </p>
<p>In response, the U.S. is <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/09/16/u.s.-china-trade-war-has-become-cold-war-pub-85352">attacking China’s economic</a> <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/19/demarais-backfire-sanctions-us-china-technology-war-semiconductors-export-controls-biden/">and technological</a> development. It is <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/quad-indo-pacific-what-know">creating economic</a> and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/aukus-explained-how-will-trilateral-pact-shape-indo-pacific-security">military alliances</a> against China. </p>
<p>American leaders apparently believe a country four times the population of the U.S. must remain forever subordinate to American power.</p>
<p>It’s true that China has threatened Taiwan and behaved aggressively in the South China Sea. Even so, compared to the U.S., Chinese foreign policy has been restrained.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nancy-pelosis-visit-to-taiwan-causes-an-ongoing-chinese-tantrum-in-the-taiwan-strait-188205">Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan causes an ongoing Chinese tantrum in the Taiwan Strait</a>
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<p>Much of the world has refused to back western sanctions against Russia because, in part, <a href="https://quincyinst.org/2022/04/11/why-non-western-countries-tend-to-see-russias-war-very-very-differently/">the West’s hypocrisy around issues of global violence and interference has undermined western credibility</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, many countries are <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/02/in-face-of-us-china-rivalry-non-alignment-is-back/">pursuing “non-alignment”</a> — choosing to avoid getting caught in the middle of any future battles between the U.S. and China.</p>
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<img alt="A short dark-haired woman shakes hands with a man in a dark suit and glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535620/original/file-20230704-21-ty8118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, right, shakes hands with her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang during a meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February 2023. Indonesia was among states that refused to back western efforts to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Adek Berry/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
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<h2>Rallying allies</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, the U.S. has rallied its established allies against China. Canada has become an <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/biden-visit-makes-it-official-canada-is-a-us-vassal-state/">American vassal</a>, meaning it’s essentially dominated by the U.S. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/23/japan-unveils-record-defence-budget-amid-regional-security-fears">Japan has increased its military spending</a>. The European Union <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/europe-takes-tougher-stance-toward-china-in-boost-to-us-policy-1.1913902">has taken a harder line on economic and technological engagement with China</a>.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/the-g7-anti-china-facade-shows-cracks-in-europe/">some indications</a> that <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/france-in-favor-of-status-quo-about-taiwan-being-us-ally-doesnt-mean-being-vassal-french-president/2870526">France</a> and Germany recognize <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/decoupling-not-on-europes-agenda-li-visit-shows/">their interests may not align with those of the U.S.</a>, but they have not confronted American officials on these issues.</p>
<p>Why do American allies refuse to discuss U.S. global violence, despite its horrific consequences and the fact that it clearly affects the world view of America’s rivals and the non-western world?</p>
<p>Why are they so tolerant of American militarism — often even <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/european-complicity-in-cia-torture-in-black-sites/">complicit in it</a> — while condemning the militarism of others? </p>
<p>It’s likely because American allies have <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/pentagon-study-declares-american-empire-is-collapsing">benefited enormously from the U.S.-backed status quo</a>, even if they’ve had to deal with the fallout of western militarism — particularly in Europe, where <a href="https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/europe/">the influx of refugees</a> has coarsened regional politics. </p>
<p>They’re accustomed to following the U.S. Many have willingly <a href="https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/freelands-speech-signals-a-dangerous-turn-in-canadian-foreign-policy/">accepted, parroted and even amplified American propaganda</a>.</p>
<h2>Politics of fear</h2>
<p>This attitude is understandable for narrowly self-interested, amoral states, but it’s short-sighted. </p>
<p>American allies are wilfully ignoring the extent of the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/trump-americas-coming-age-instability">profound social, political and economic divisions</a> within the U.S. and their implications for reliable and coherent American leadership and policy. </p>
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<p>
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<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html">Domestic political instability</a> in the U.S. may eventually motivate even more aggressive American foreign policy. The U.S. has never shied away from the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-united-states-independence-day-fear/">politics of fear</a> and the <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-united-states-specializes-in-exaggerating-the-threat">exaggeration of threat</a>. Its escalating demonization and provocation of China is especially dangerous.</p>
<p>China is a country of 1.4 billion people with an ancient culture and a massive economy. It cannot be locked in a box, as the U.S. is trying to do, without consequences.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi-org.proxy.hil.unb.ca/10.1093/cjip/pov001">China gains a great deal from the current international system</a>. It has reasons to support much of the existing economic order. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Construction workers at a construction site with a green sign with Chinese characters in front of them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535626/original/file-20230704-24595-mniw5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Construction workers work at a site in the central business district in Beijing in June 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span>
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<p>Accommodating China will require adjustments on the part of status quo states. That means abandoning the <a href="https://peacediplomacy.org/2020/09/09/why-the-blob-needs-an-enemy/">world view that so many western democracies</a> have embraced as part of western triumphalism since the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>Is preserving the privileged global position of the U.S. really so important to the rest of the world? Is maintaining such an imbalanced world order possible or, given its results, truly desirable? </p>
<p>U.S. allies need to learn the lessons of the war on terror and the 4.6 million people it’s killed. A leader needs followers. American allies could make their support of the U.S. conditional on a pledge to ease up on militarism and focus on greater global co-operation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Narine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why have U.S. allies refused to grapple with American global violence, despite its horrific consequences and the fact that it clearly affects how the non-western world responds to the country?Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081832023-06-22T12:32:46Z2023-06-22T12:32:46ZA brief history of colorful presidential relatives, from Alice Roosevelt to Hunter Biden<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533253/original/file-20230621-16-vwhm5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hunter Biden embraces his father, President Joe Biden, and his stepmother, Jill, at Biden's 2021 inauguration. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1297458688/photo/joe-biden-sworn-in-as-46th-president-of-the-united-states-at-u-s-capitol-inauguration-ceremony.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=L6V8L9WBm5riCvN0sNvEwecKJKpOJbqg9BMAPZd6gYk=">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hunter Biden, the younger son of U.S. President Joe Biden, is expected to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/hunter-biden-plea-deal">plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges</a> as part of a recently announced deal with the Justice Department that will help him avoid the federal charges for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/20/hunter-biden-reaches-plea-deal-with-feds-to-resolve-tax-issues-gun-charge-00102637">possessing a gun while using illegal drugs</a>. </p>
<p>Joe Biden has long defended his son amid his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/983385027/hunter-biden-says-his-family-never-gave-up-on-him">drug addiction</a> and other personal issues, including a paternity scandal and ongoing <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/05/01/hunter-biden-paternity-case-arkansas-judge-orders-presidents-son-to-answer-questions-about-finances/?sh=43a3d85f15ee#:%7E:text=Biden%20did%20not%20contest%20the,drug%20addiction%20at%20the%20time">court battle over child support</a>. </p>
<p>The president responded to the news of Hunter’s charges, saying on June 20, 2023, that he is <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/joe-biden-briefly-addresses-hunter-biden-plea-deal-18162124.phpe">“very proud of my son”</a>. </p>
<p>I am <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_khILTgAAAAJ&hl=en">a scholar of the American presidency</a> and have looked at how the children and other family members of presidents have been thrust into the nation’s spotlight, often unwittingly. Their shortcomings, vices and sometimes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/02/women.johnmccain">even physical appearance</a> have been fodder for gossip columns, political opponents and comedians. </p>
<p>Hunter Biden is not the first child of a president to be charged with a crime. Jenna and Barbara Bush <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/07/us/jenna-bush-fined-for-alcohol-use.html">pleaded “no contest” in 2001 </a> to misdemeanor charges of underage drinking and using a false ID. Amy Carter was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/16/us/amy-carter-is-acquitted-over-protest.html">arrested for protesting</a> in 1985, and before his father was president, Donald Trump Jr. was arrested for public <a href="https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/13/donald-trump-jr-s-arrest-records-now-public/">drunkenness in 2001.</a></p>
<p>But nearly all presidents have had incidents involving their kids and other family members that attracted public scrutiny. Some of the events fall into questionable prank category, like when Tad Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, sprayed <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-history-of-pardoning-turkeys-began-with-tad-lincoln-141137570/">dignitaries with fire hoses</a>.</p>
<p>Other incidents are less innocuous and amusing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A family photo shows a man and a woman seated, surrounded by six children ranging in age from toddler to teen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533265/original/file-20230621-23-6b3y9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A colorized portrait of former President Theodore Roosevelt’s family features his oldest daughter, Alice, in the center.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/114955342/photo/portrait-of-president-roosevelt-his-family.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=DOyHQaN_1teHutbSnYcHhZMVH0IqvVa8wDhldojAx68=">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Youthful indiscretions</h2>
<p>James Madison raised his troubled stepson, John Payne Todd, as his own. Todd regularly engaged in <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-bad-boy">gambling, drinking and womanizing</a>. Madison went deeply into debt trying to pay off Todd’s vices, including once bailing him out of <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-03-02-0659">debtor’s prison</a>. In the mid-1800s, <a href="https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/dmde/editorialnote.xqy?note=n16">Todd’s debts eventually forced</a> his widowed mother to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/dolley-madisons-life">sell the family estate, Montpelier</a>.</p>
<p>Todd even had a lawyer visit his mother on her deathbed to <a href="https://featherschwartzfoster.blog/2019/04/15/dolley-madisons-son-payne-todd-the-final-blow/">rewrite her will</a>, making himself her sole heir.</p>
<p>Alice Roosevelt, the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, also presented some complications for her father during his presidency in the early 1900s. </p>
<p>Alice had a strained relationship with her father and his second wife, Edith. When her parents <a href="https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2023/04/17/white-house-kids-series-alice-roosevelt-longworth/">suggested sending her to a boarding school,</a> Alice responded: “If you send me, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will.” </p>
<p>In a time when women were expected to be demur, Alice smoked, drank, partied and even sometimes <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/from-a-white-house-wedding-to-a-pet-snake-alice-roosevelts-escapades-captivated-america-180981139/">wore a pet snake as an accessory</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/alice-roosevelt-longworth.htm">Theodore Roosevelt once said, </a> “I can do one of two things: I can be president of the United States or I can control Alice Roosevelt. I cannot possibly do both.” </p>
<p>Alice was later banned from the Taft White House after <a href="https://historianandrew.medium.com/the-presidents-daughter-banned-from-the-white-house-because-of-the-voodoo-doll-she-hid-there-abbc38307c3c">burying a voodoo doll</a> in the likeness of the new first lady, Helen Herron Taft, on the property.</p>
<p>Neil Bush, son of George H.W. Bush and brother to George W. Bush, also has a colorful history. </p>
<p>Neil was the director of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/22/business/fdic-sues-neil-bush-and-others-at-silverado.html">large savings and loans company </a> that collapsed in 1988, after it made improper and illegal loans. This cost taxpayers more than US$1 billion at the time and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-05-30-mn-3760-story.html">resulted in an embarrassing payout to federal banking regulators</a>.</p>
<p>People also criticized Neil because of his ties to Chinese investors and his limited knowledge about industries that employed him, leading to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/">accusations of influence peddling</a>.</p>
<p>Neil Bush, like Hunter Biden, was also the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/">subject of paternity accusations</a> during his divorce.</p>
<h2>That’s my brother</h2>
<p>Presidential brothers have been another particular sore point for some presidents. </p>
<p>Lyndon Johnson’s brother, Sam Houston Johnson, was often quite talkative after he had a few drinks. The president eventually had to use the Secret Service to follow his brother to ensure he didn’t <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/WolfFiles/story?id=90138&page=1">disclose any embarrassing information to the press </a>.</p>
<p>Billy Carter, former President Jimmy Carter’s brother, reveled in his notoriety. As the president’s brother, he toured the country <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/26695/billy-beer-reason-billy-carter-quit-drinking">to make money</a> and hawk his own Billy Beer.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/09/25/Billy-Carter-the-carefree-good-old-boy-brother-of/9930591163200/">urinated on a runway</a> before the press corps while waiting for people. </p>
<p>When Carter was running for reelection in 1980, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/WolfFiles/story?id=90138&page=1">Billy took money</a> from the Libyan government and became a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0801/080150.html">foreign agent for the country</a> – while also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/01/12/white-house-disassociates-itself-from-billys-remarks/a85df119-ed28-441e-a448-af3f9766eb79/">making inflammatory and antisemitic statements</a> to justify his behavior.</p>
<p>Billy’s association with Libya ultimately led to a Senate investigation and <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/961015.pdf">complicated his brother’s failed reelection campaign</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The side profiles of two men are seen as they have their arms around each other - one is Bill Clinton and the other is a man wearing a white hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533268/original/file-20230621-21-17g7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former President Bill Clinton comforts his half-brother Roger in 1994, shortly after their mother’s death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/51607186/photo/u-s-president-bill-clinton-comforts-his-half.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=qAhkpjleuXF8jvjSlaqK6NL19d8RF15Al3Etif1G3ag=">POOL/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roger Clinton, the younger half-brother of former President Bill Clinton, also engaged in questionable activities. In the 1980s, before the Clinton presidency, Roger <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/06/millennials-meet-roger-clinton-hillarys-brother-in-law-who-just-got-arrested-once-again/">sold cocaine to an undercover officer</a>. </p>
<p>Later, during the Clinton administration, Roger’s Secret Service <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/07/secret-service-best-code-names">codename was “Headache.”</a> </p>
<p>Bill Clinton pardoned Roger for <a href="https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-william-j-clinton-1993-2001">his drug offenses</a> right before leaving office in January 2001. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, both wearing suits, stand next to each other, with their arms crossed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533269/original/file-20230621-19-hyrkwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunter Biden stands next to his father, President Joe Biden, at an event in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/520751670/photo/world-food-program-usas-2016-mcgovern-dole-leadership-award-ceremony.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=ESaHozhGT5igTG5Cz6oIUiSa8T8kMXH6y7DO4QaeMBA=">Kris Connor/WireImage</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keeping it in the family</h2>
<p>Presidents are like everyone else. They, too, have family members who do or say things that eventually become stories for the dinner table – or tales people want to push under the rug. </p>
<p>A federal judge still <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2023/0620/What-s-in-Hunter-Biden-s-plea-deal-and-what-happens-next">needs to approve Hunter Biden’s deal</a> with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prison time for paying $1 million in taxes late and possessing a gun. </p>
<p>And he is still not free of other controversies. The Republican-controlled House continues to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/charges-against-hunter-biden-what-matters/index.html">investigate his bank records,</a> as well as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/republicans-are-using-financial-records-to-investigate-hunter-biden-heres-how">lingering questions about money</a> he received from <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-shows-firm-took-11-million-2013-2018-rcna29462">foreign organizations</a>. </p>
<p>Hunter himself has said that he is accountable for his actions, and I do not think it is fair to conflate the administration with the activities of an adult son.</p>
<p>He is not the first presidential relative who has caused turmoil, and he won’t be the last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Bow O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Presidents have family drama, like all other people. Hunter Biden is simply the latest example of a family member who has brought negative attention to a president’s administration.Shannon Bow O'Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034652023-05-03T12:07:21Z2023-05-03T12:07:21ZWhat the Iraq War can teach the US about avoiding a quagmire in Ukraine – 3 key lessons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523660/original/file-20230501-14-qfd9p4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People protest outside of the United Nations headquarters in April 2023 demanding the return of Ukrainian children from Russia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1252111785/photo/dozens-protested-in-front-of-un-headquarters-in-ralph-bunche.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=lagRLJ-VP1ZDU-lkpA1lRJggc0spvQu1-NT41QJi-9M=">Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Leaked Pentagon papers showed in early April 2023 that the U.S. is allegedly following the inner workings of Russia’s intelligence operations and is also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/politics/leaked-documents-russia-ukraine-war.html">spying on Ukraine</a>, adding a new dimension to the United States’ involvement in the Ukraine war. </p>
<p>While the U.S. has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/europe/nato-is-not-at-war-with-russia-intl-cmd/index.html">not actually declared war</a> against Russia, the documents show that it continues to support Ukraine with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/us/politics/ukraine-military-intelligence.html">military intelligence</a> as well as <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/">money and weapons</a> against the Russian invasion. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65030929">no end in sight</a> to the war between Ukraine and Russia – nor to U.S. involvement. While it is far from the first time that the U.S. became a third party to war, this scenario brings the Iraq War, in particular, to mind.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wLxAZk4AAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of international relations and an expert on international conflicts</a>. A comparison with the Iraq War, I believe, offers a useful way to look at the case of Ukraine. </p>
<p>The Iraq and Ukraine wars have notable differences from a U.S. foreign policy perspective – chiefly, thousands of American soldiers died fighting in Iraq, while the U.S. does not have any ground troops in Ukraine. But assessing the Iraq War, and its long aftermath, can still help articulate concerns about the United States’ getting involved in intense violence in another faraway place. </p>
<p>Here are three key points to understand. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soldiers in beige uniforms crouch down against a beige brick wall, while a young girl peers around the corner and watches them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523661/original/file-20230501-16-yohwc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Iraqi girl watches U.S. Army troops take cover in Mosul, Iraq, in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/2187982/photo/saddam-husseins-sons-confirmed-dead-in-u-s-raid.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=j4ro-cgb1LUaxhO5tJRybqAMTPW9xfVY_OPX58TsGRg=">Scott Nelson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Intervention doesn’t guarantee success</h2>
<p>Around the time former President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would invade Iraq in 2003, Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi Arabian Islamist who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/04/the-search-for-osama">remained at large</a>. While not obviously connected, the fact that bin Laden continued to evade the U.S. contributed to a general sense of anger at hostile regimes. In particular, Saddam Hussein defied the U.S. and its allies. </p>
<p>The Iraqi dictator <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect2.html">continued to evade inspections</a> by the United Nations watchdog group the International Atomic Energy Agency, giving the impression that he had weapons of mass destruction. This proved maddening to the U.S. and its allies as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-mass-destruction">the cat and mouse game dragged on</a>.</p>
<p>Bush reportedly had intense concerns about <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/17/9-11-and-iraq-the-making-of-a-tragedy/">whether Saddam could use alleged weapons</a> of mass destruction to attack the U.S., causing even more harm than 9/11 did. </p>
<p>A U.S.-led coalition of countries that included the United Kingdom and Australia invaded Iraq in March 2003. The “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/coalition-willing">coalition of the willing</a>,” as it became known, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/coalition-willing">won a quick victory</a> and toppled Saddam’s regime. </p>
<p>Bush initially enjoyed a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx">spike in public support</a> immediately after the invasion, but his polls shortly after experienced a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9332076">downward trajectory</a> as the war dragged on.</p>
<p>However, the U.S. showed very little understanding of the politics, society and other important aspects of the country that it had taken the lead in occupying and then trying to rebuild. </p>
<p>Many decisions, most notably <a href="https://time.com/3900753/isis-iraq-syria-army-united-states-military/">disbanding of the Iraqi Army</a> in May 2003, revealed poor judgment and even outright ignorance because, with the sudden removal of Iraqi security forces, intense civil <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/world/debate-lingering-on-decision-to-dissolve-the-iraqi-military.html">disorder ensued</a>. </p>
<p>Disbanding the army caused insurgent militant forces to come out into the open. The fighting intensified among different Iraqi groups and escalated into <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-long-lasting-impact-of-the-u-s-invasion-of-iraq">a civil war</a>, which ended in 2017.</p>
<p>Today, Iraq continues to be politically unstable and is <a href="https://theconversation.com/20-years-on-george-w-bushs-promise-of-democracy-in-iraq-and-middle-east-falls-short-201998">not any closer</a> to becoming a democracy than it was before the invasion. </p>
<h2>2. Personal vendettas cannot justify a war</h2>
<p>During his 24-year regime, Saddam <a href="https://azdailysun.com/iraqis-awed-angered-at-lavish-lifestyles-of-saddams-family/article_47dd8980-dcf4-540f-947b-a39323309923.html">lived an extravagant lifestyle</a> coupled with oppression of civilians and <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">political opponents</a>. He engaged in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/4/14/hold-survivors-of-the-anfal-kurdish-genocide-long-for-closure">genocide of Kurdish people</a> in Iraq. Saddam was finally <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ten-years-since-saddam-husseins-execution/1830532.html">executed by his own people in 2006</a>, after U.S. forces captured him. </p>
<p>Putin is equally notorious and even more dangerous. He has a long track record of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/putin-russia-totalitarianism-soviet-style-oppression.html">violent oppression</a> against his people and has benefited from leading one of the world’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/05/russia-corruption-security-threat/">most corrupt governments</a>.</p>
<p>He also actually possesses weapons of mass destruction and has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-update-russias-elite-ukraine-war-major-speech-2023-02-21/#:%7E:text=Putin%2C%20who%20has%20over%20the,West%20backs%20off%20in%20Ukraine.">threatened multiple times to use them</a> on foreign countries.
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90764&page=1">Saddam</a> and Putin have also both been the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/16/biden-says-russian-leader-putin-is-a-war-criminal-for-ukraine-attacks.html">direct targets</a> of U.S. political leaders, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/biden-putin-russia-trump-obama-1683646">who displayed a fixation</a> on toppling these foreign adversaries, which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/16/iraq9">was evident long before</a> the U.S. actually became involved in the Iraq and Ukraine wars. </p>
<p>The United States’ support for Ukraine is understandable because that country is fighting a defensive war with <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/04/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-10-april-2023#:%7E:text=From%2024%20February%202022%2C%20which,8%2C490%20killed%20and%2014%2C244%20injured.">horrific civilian casualties</a>. Backing Ukraine also makes sense from the standpoint of U.S. national security – it helps push back against an expansionist Russia that increasingly <a href="https://www.cna.org/our-media/indepth/2022/10/the-china-russia-no-limits-partnership-is-still-going-strong">is aligned with China</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, I believe that it is important to keep U.S. involvement in this war within limits that reflect national interests.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People embrace in front of flowers and teddy bears, in front of a building that looks partially charred." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523665/original/file-20230501-22-swsnio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainians mourn civilians killed by Russian strikes in the town of Uman on April 30, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1252441968/photo/ukrainians-lay-flowers-to-commemorate-victims-of-russian-attack.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=QkRInsxAGTOpRxXAcUVIaxx-9rumYwBjywjIJ73BkbA=">Oleksii Chumachenko/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. It can divide the country</h2>
<p>The Iraq War resulted in a rise in intense <a href="https://theconversation.com/20-years-on-george-w-bushs-promise-of-democracy-in-iraq-and-middle-east-falls-short-201998">partisanship in the U.S. over foreign policy</a>. In addition, recent opinion polls about the Iraq War <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/03/17/polls-show-support-for-iraq-war-drop-in-20-years-post-invasion/">show that most Americans do not think that the invasion</a> made the U.S. any safer. </p>
<p>Now, the U.S. faces rising public skepticism about getting involved in the Ukraine war, another <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/01/us-cautions-ukraine-aid-public-support-slips/">expensive overseas commitment</a>. </p>
<p>Polls released in January 2023 show that the percentage of Americans who <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/31/as-russian-invasion-nears-one-year-mark-partisans-grow-further-apart-on-u-s-support-for-ukraine/">think the U.S. is providing too much aid</a> to Ukraine has grown in recent months. About 26% of American adults said in late 2022 that the U.S. is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/31/as-russian-invasion-nears-one-year-mark-partisans-grow-further-apart-on-u-s-support-for-ukraine/">giving too much</a> to the Ukraine war, according to Pew Research Group. But three-fourths of those polled still supported the U.S. engagement. </p>
<p>The average American <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/02/09/can-americans-find-ukraine-on-a-map/">knows little to nothing</a> about Iraq or Ukraine. Patience obviously can grow thin when U.S. support for foreign wars becomes ever more expensive and the threat of retaliation, even by way of tactical nuclear weapons, remains in the realm of possibility. Aid to Ukraine is likely to become embroiled in the rapidly escalating conflict in Washington over the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>On the flip side, if the U.S. does not offer sufficient support for Ukraine to fend of Russian attacks and maintain its independence, adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran may feel encouraged to be aggressive in other places. </p>
<p>I believe that the comparison between the wars in Iraq and Ukraine makes it clear that U.S. leadership should clearly identify the underlying goals of its national security to the American public while determining the amount and type of support that it will give to Ukraine. </p>
<p>While many people believe that Ukraine deserves support against Russian aggression, current policy should not ignore past experience, and the Iraq War tells a cautionary tale.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s been more than 20 years since the US invaded Iraq, but the invasion still provides a cautionary tale about getting involved in an expensive war abroad.Patrick James, Dornsife Dean’s Professor of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028582023-04-20T15:06:01Z2023-04-20T15:06:01ZZimbabwe’s ruling party vilifies the opposition as American puppets. But the party itself had strong ties to the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521045/original/file-20230414-16-97marz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa addressing a rally in Bulawayo recently. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zinyange Auntony/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), which has governed Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, is well known for denouncing the United States’ role as a superpower that polices the world. </p>
<p>In a 2007 address at the United Nations, then Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-zimbabwe-mugabe/mugabe-slams-bush-hypocrisy-on-human-rights-idUSN2627903020070926">assailed</a> his American counterpart, George W. Bush. Mugabe charged:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>his hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities. He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Confrontation with the US, a recurrent feature of Zimbabwe’s political history since <a href="https://roape.net/2020/01/17/one-who-preferred-death-to-imperialism/">the 1960s</a>, surged after Washington adopted a bipartisan <a href="https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/07/11/2019/post-mugabe-zimbabwe-retreats-western-outreach-embraces-africa">sanctions package</a> in 2001. The European Union also imposed sanctions. </p>
<p>US officials have <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1158">repeatedly stated</a> that the sanctions target specific individuals or entities that have abused human rights or undermined democracy. <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200924-zimbabwe-leader-tells-un-that-sanctions-hurt-development">Zanu-PF has responded</a> by pointing to UN reporting which notes that the sanctions have weakened the country’s economy and impeded national development.</p>
<p>I am a historian of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. My <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pan-Africanism-Versus-Partnership-Decolonisation-Rhodesian-ebook/dp/B0BSKNHMYH/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1681393772&refinements=p_n_publication_date%3A1250228011&s=books&sr=1-2">forthcoming book</a> focuses on its formative stages in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was when Mugabe first became active in politics and the US got more involved in the politics of what was then Rhodesia, a British colony. In my view, the 21st century hostility obscures a nuanced historical relationship between the US and Zanu-PF.</p>
<hr>
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<p>At first, the fledgling liberation movement valued American support. Zanu-PF <a href="https://www.africabib.org/rec.php?RID=18593742X">broke away</a> from the Soviet-aligned Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) in August 1963. Zanu-PF was originally known as Zanu, but adopted the “PF” suffix <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/zanu-pf-wins-first-free-elections-zimbabwe">ahead of elections in 1980</a>.</p>
<p>This context is relevant now because Zanu-PF efforts to consolidate both domestic and pan-African support selectively overlook more compatible aspects of its historical relations with the US.</p>
<h2>Zanu-PF’s anti-American bluster</h2>
<p>Zanu-PF has exploited sanctions to its advantage.</p>
<p>Emmerson Mnangagwa, previously Mugabe’s deputy, <a href="https://www.sardc.net/en/southern-african-news-features/sadc-mobilizes-anti-sanctions-day-25-october/">came to power</a> in a factional coup in late 2017. He has successfully mobilised pan-African support against sanctions.</p>
<p>Since 2019, the Southern African Development Community and the African Union have observed 25 October as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/26/zimbabwe-regime-sanctions-zanupf">“Anti-Sanctions Day”</a> in solidarity with the Zanu-PF leadership.</p>
<p>Zanu-PF’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/10/25/thousands-in-zimbabwe-denounce-evil-western-sanctions">anti-American rhetoric</a> is not only deployed to win friends abroad. It is also a prominent campaign tactic at home. </p>
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<p>With general elections expected <a href="https://www.eisa.org/calendar2023.php">in July</a> or August, Zanu-PF is following the strategy again. It’s discrediting its leading opponent, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change, as a <a href="https://twitter.com/TafadzwaMugwadi/status/1631150059122221056">“US pawn”</a>. </p>
<p>His predecessor, Morgan Tsvangirai, faced <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-election/mugabe-belittles-opponents-as-frog-and-puppet-idUSL2321227420080223">similar treatment</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man points ahead with his right index finger in front of banners bearing the acronym 'CCC'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521059/original/file-20230414-16-s56de3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zinyange Auntony / AFP via Getty Images)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zimbabwe’s partisan state media routinely employ such terms as <a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/us-president-exposes-puppets-in-zim/">“puppets”, “pawns” and “lackeys”</a> to describe Chamisa and his party. These jibes are intended to convince Zimbabwean voters that Chamisa would prioritise foreign interests.</p>
<p>The rhetoric conceals ZANU-PF’s own American ties.</p>
<h2>Zanu-PF’s American connections</h2>
<p>Historically, relations between the US and Zanu-PF have fluctuated. Mugabe formed a <a href="https://www.herald.co.zw/a-walk-down-memory-lane-with-andrew-young/">close bond</a> with Andrew Young, the US ambassador to the UN during <a href="https://theconversation.com/jimmy-carters-african-legacy-peacemaker-negotiator-and-defender-of-rights-200744">Jimmy Carter’s presidency</a>. Carter’s government was the <a href="https://diplomacy.state.gov/encyclopedia/u-s-embassy-harare-zimbabwe/">first to open an embassy</a> in independent Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>Solid relations continued during the early years of the Reagan administration. Harare was one of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/12/20/us-slashes-aid-to-zimbabwe-by-almost-half/e67886cf-9f52-4fde-beee-83ba1b40c3e0/">top three African recipients</a> of US aid in the early 1980s. </p>
<p>US vice-president <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/11/18/Vice-President-George-Bush-arrived-today-for-talks-with/7630406443600/">George H.W. Bush travelled to Harare</a> in 1982. In 1997, first lady Hillary Clinton made a <a href="https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/1997/03/1997-03-11-first-lady-travels-in-africa-later-this-month.html">goodwill visit</a> to Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>Ties were even deeper in the early 1960s when the US government encouraged the party’s very establishment. Historian <a href="https://www.kent.edu/history/profile/timothy-scarnecchia">Timothy Scarnecchia</a>, who has mined records in the US national archives, has <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781580463638/the-urban-roots-of-democracy-and-political-violence-in-zimbabwe/">documented the ties</a> that Zanu forged with American officials 60 years ago. </p>
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<p>The organisation’s core leadership in temporary exile in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (then Tanganyika), regularly consulted with US embassy officials in that country. Its leading representatives, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137543462_5">including Mugabe</a>, lobbied the US government for funding. (There is no evidence that the new party received any directly.) </p>
<p>Zanu’s first president, <a href="https://www.sithole.org/biography.php">Ndabaningi Sithole</a>, received theological education in the US in the late 1950s. Archival records show that on the eve of Zanu’s formation he met with State Department officials in Washington DC who connected him to private American funders. In another archived account of a meeting with the US ambassador in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in July 1963, Leopold Takawira, subsequently Zanu’s first vice-president, relayed that Sithole regarded the US as his second home.</p>
<p>Herbert Chitepo, who became Zanu’s national chair, visited the US in July 1963 and also met with American diplomats. According to a record of their conversation in the US national archives, Chitepo expressed his desire to accept US funding and defied</p>
<blockquote>
<p>anyone to call him an American stooge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The 11 July 1963 issue of Zimbabwe Today, a periodical produced by Zapu in Tanzania, declared that following Sithole’s return from the US,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the American dollar and its ugly imperialist head is clearly visible in the actions of Mr. Sithole. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zanu-PF’s assaults on Chamisa and his party’s supposed American connections is a repackaging of the very attacks Mnangagwa’s party faced from Zapu when it was formed 60 years ago. </p>
<h2>Double standards</h2>
<p>Although it has not been well documented, the US provided critical support during Zanu’s founding in 1963. It also helped the party consolidate its authority following independence in 1980. Since the US government imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2001, these ties have been overshadowed. </p>
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<p>As elections approach in Zimbabwe, the role of the US looms large. Zanu-PF overlooks historical aspects of its own relations with the US as it seeks to undermine its domestic opposition and appeal to continental allies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brooks Marmon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Zanu-PF’s anti-American rhetoric is not only deployed to win friends abroad. As elections approach, it is also a prominent campaign tactic at home.Brooks Marmon, Post-doctoral Scholar, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025842023-04-06T09:59:10Z2023-04-06T09:59:10ZGood Friday Agreement: how the US came to be a key broker in Northern Ireland’s peace deal<p>Between 1820 and 1920, four million people emigrated from Ireland to the US. Many were fleeing hunger and destitution and so brought with them an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/emigrants-and-exiles-9780195051872?cc=gb&lang=en&">“exile” nationalism</a> – a conviction that they were forced to leave by British misgovernment and exploitation of Ireland. Little wonder, then, that the Irish diaspora in the US played a crucial role in supporting, and particularly financing, the struggle for Irish independence. </p>
<p>When the Northern Ireland conflict broke out in the late 1960s, Irish America again mobilised in support of the region’s nationalist minority community. The diaspora saw the conflict in simplistic terms, as a renewal of the fight for Irish freedom from British imperial domination. </p>
<p>Events like <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm">Bloody Sunday</a> in January 1972 – when British troops shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in Derry – understandably reinforced such views. As a result, money and even arms (more easily acquired in the US) began to flow across the Atlantic and into the IRA’s hands. In this period, therefore, Irish American actions only contributed to further bloodshed in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, the diaspora was playing quite a different role, one which was crucial to the region’s peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. There were various reasons for this. Firstly, more sensible voices had emerged in Irish America. Instead of supporting the IRA, or advocating a British withdrawal and the reunification of Ireland, they pressed for radical reform that would achieve <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/43/4/671/5518859">real equality for the nationalist minority.</a></p>
<p>Secondly, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global picture had drastically changed. Previously, the White House had largely avoided commenting on Northern Ireland. The US relied on the British government to contain the communist threat in Europe and would not risk offending it for fear of losing that support. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, president Bill Clinton did not need to worry in the way that his predecessors did about damaging the Anglo-American “special relationship”. He thus listened to those in Irish America who argued that the White House should <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30001915?casa_token=Flk9hFl3FxQAAAAA%3ACyM6j0H_YqkWijWWgmc8WpdXOfx7zKDeAhSUh3DyAFBKrejG89sdgNzW7f2Ymi4OWLt5XvKdPeZaM2wVgI7tPjkGtObtjzG0YMfnGx0TfQ9aYpYHgQ">play a role in the peace process</a> then emerging in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Most controversial was Clinton’s decision in January 1994 to give Gerry Adams a US visa. This came at a time when the IRA was still bombing Britain, and the Sinn Féin leader was seen by most people as an apologist for republican violence. The British government was <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/how-britain-tried-to-stop-gerry-adams-getting-us-visa-1.3739551">outraged by Clinton’s decision</a>, and John Major refused to take his calls for some time afterwards – a undeniable rarity in US-UK relations. However, when the IRA called a ceasefire six months later, Clinton appeared to be vindicated. Giving Adams a US visa had allowed the Sinn Féin leader to demonstrate to the IRA the gains that could be made by adopting a purely political strategy.</p>
<h2>Chairing tense talks</h2>
<p>Clinton then sent a trusted confidante, the recently retired US senator, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29736367?casa_token=YvI9bryj3TAAAAAA%3AV3IhITNorIKSEsg6zKvIxCw0VpuBrnhVKuHNIDBLDD02FXStzIO94BFC5ePyCbrIu0kdSv4l_XPLMATb1S49XJD5_GwNsc4Z970q_pT3-ENq45jzKg">George Mitchell</a>, to chair peace talks in Northern Ireland. Mitchell managed to steer discussions in which some parties still refused to directly address one another, and instead communicated only through him as chair of the talks. His patience was phenomenal, and Mitchell played a major role in bringing about the Good Friday peace settlement.</p>
<p>After Clinton left office in 2001, the George W. Bush administration helped in the difficult process of implementing this accord. The IRA still refused to decommission its weapons, but pressure from the US – which, after 9/11, showed no tolerance for anything that might be seen as terrorist activity – helped force it to do so. Similarly, the Bush administration pushed Sinn Féin towards accepting reformed policing arrangements in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>In Irish America, figures like <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fresh-light-shed-on-edward-kennedy-role-in-northern-irish-peace-process-1.2372644">Ted Kennedy</a>, who had been crucial in bringing Sinn Féin into the peace process, now insisted that it accept all the rules of the new political order. Even the hardline unionist party, the DUP, was impressed, and was eventually obliged to share power with Sinn Féin.</p>
<p>Thereafter, the US played a limited role in Northern Ireland – until Brexit. The UK’s departure from the EU created significant challenges in managing the Irish border, and thus posed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/16/us-uk-trade-deal-in-danger-if-good-friday-agreement-jeopardised-democrats-warn">threat to the Good Friday Agreement</a> as it is generally considered a hard border on the island of Ireland would go against the spirit of the deal. Irish America responded by reorganising and lobbying to protect the accord. Even when running for the presidency in 2020, Joe Biden – fiercely proud of his own Irish heritage – famously tweeted a warning to the UK: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”</p>
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<p>After Biden’s election, pressure from the White House undoubtedly helped steer Boris Johnson towards a Brexit deal which prioritised peace in the region. </p>
<p>This also explains why Biden will be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65110382">visiting Northern Ireland</a> to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The US government, and Irish America, both feel that they helped create peace the region, and want to preserve and celebrate this achievement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Bill Clinton and senator George Mitchell were central in keeping the players at the table so that the historical deal could be signed in 1998.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2011182023-03-21T17:13:43Z2023-03-21T17:13:43ZIraq war 20 years on: how the role of empire and imperialism in the Middle East has been misconstrued<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515874/original/file-20230316-19-la82hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before the US-led coalition’s occupation of Iraq starting in March 2003, there was at least one subject upon which certain advocates and opponents of the war agreed: that the invasion was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20097940">imperialistic</a>. Both sides weaponised the historical role western imperialism played in the Middle East in an equally pragmatic and impressionistic fashion. But they did so through opposite interpretations of the past.</p>
<p>Fouad Ajami, a prominent historian of the Middle East who died in 2014, reportedly advised the George W. Bush administration in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20032077">favour of intervention</a>. Ajami argued that the British empire’s moment in Iraq had come after the first world war. But it was economically exhausted, and therefore failed. It was now the US’s time. Its driving motivation, he said – the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2003-01-01/iraq-and-arabs-future">“imperial burden”</a> – should be “modernising the Arab world”, above and beyond toppling Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>Three years into the war – with Hussein toppled – Ajami maintained that the war was a legitimate “imperial mission”, a <a href="https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Foreigner_s_Gift.html?id=kaFtAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">“foreigner’s gift”</a> to Iraqis. It was a “noble war” the outcome of which would “determine whether it is a noble success or a noble failure”. </p>
<h2>Benevolent empires</h2>
<p>Ajami’s discussion of benevolent empire chimed with a strand of scholarly work on imperial history that had emerged in the 1990s, some of it sympathetic towards <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315297699-29/always-top-responsibility-protect-persistence-colonialism-jessica-whyte">classical imperialism</a>. But in July 2002, the literary theorist and historian of Orientalism, Edward Said, anxiously complained that this revisionist scholarship, emphasising “the modernising advantages the empires brought” as well as “the security and <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n06/edward-said/always-on-top">order they maintained</a>” failed to answer the question of “who decides when (and if) the influence of imperialism ends”. </p>
<p>The accounts of <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n06/edward-said/always-on-top">benevolent empire</a> had to be unravelled because they were obscuring the relationship between the role western empires played in the Middle East and the ongoing disorders and violence there. Benevolent empire was being used as a dangerous instrument to validate another war in Iraq in 2003. </p>
<p>A couple of months after the war broke out and weeks before he passed away, Said <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/20/opinion/oe-said20">warned that</a> every empire would tell itself and the world that “it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate”. Empires were sustained by means of that imperial perspective – “seeing its people as subjects whose fate can be decided by what distant administrators think is best for them”. The same perspective was imposed upon the world by the US/UK coalition’s propaganda and policy apparatus with “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/20/opinion/oe-said20">woefully inadequate</a>” sources of information about the Middle East. </p>
<h2>After the war</h2>
<p>The Bush administration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/uk-advice-on-postwar-iraq-largely-ignored-chilcot-inquiry-finds">disregarded</a> detailed security and intelligence reports on the post-invasion policy of the coalition. Their eyes were trained exclusively on the campaign’s military success. Though it is said that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20752752">there was a game plan</a> for the aftermath of the invasion, its priorities were mismatched to realities on the ground. Local needs and wants were hardly taken into account. The result was a failure, which was anything but noble. </p>
<p>Three years after the war, Iraq descended into a devastating civil strife. Chaos lingered, spawning the horrors of first al-Qaida and then the Islamic State in Iraq. Since 2003, the war and the ensuing violence have claimed <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/">more than 200,000 civilian lives</a>. </p>
<p>Between 2008 and 2021, around <a href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/north-africa/iraq">5.7 million Iraqis were displaced</a>. Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, one of the pretexts for the invasion, were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/magazine/iraq-weapons-mass-destruction.html">never found</a>. </p>
<p>Prior to the war, the Iraqi government had acted as swing producer, disrupting the free flow of oil from the Gulf to the world, thus holding the strings of global oil prices and antagonising Big Oil. The 2003 invasion enabled multinational companies to once again exploit Iraqi oil and adjust its flow to world markets again, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html">ensuring western energy security</a>.</p>
<h2>History has it</h2>
<p>This is not simply to say that Ajami was profoundly mistaken or Said spot on in their respective accounts of the influence of western imperialism in the Middle East. Much of the suffering in the region – including the 2003 war and the human misery it has since prompted – was a result of global imperial and local factors. No one ought to whitewash the role of western or Ottoman imperialism nor welcome an over-simplistic attribution of guilt to western imperial powers as the only malign actors.</p>
<p>The 2003 invasion was the rule, not the exception, in nearly two centuries of western interventionism in the Middle East. Since the French invasion of Egypt in 1798, these interventions were repeatedly framed as <a href="https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198852964.pdf">a service, favour or a gift to the local inhabitants</a>, with several subsidiary objectives. </p>
<p>Time and again, in the name of humanity, civilisation and more recently “freedom” and “democracy”, empires intimidated, perpetrated violence, pillaged and partitioned a region that the imperial strategists came to call the Middle East at the turn of the 20th century. They went to great lengths to redraw its borders in the 1920s, without ever fully understanding, or respecting, the fiendishly complex realities on the ground.</p>
<p>Political and strategic considerations aside, dire economic and financial greed and anxieties surrounding the supply of commodities (grains, cotton and silk) also prompted armed interventionism in the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the first three decades of the 20th century, a handful of American, British, Dutch and French companies <a href="https://profilebooks.com/work/mr-five-per-cent/">came to control Middle Eastern oil</a>, which proved to be vital for western economic recovery after the second world war. </p>
<p>Even then, with certain exceptions, such as the current settler colonialism in Palestine, local groups have been among the prime agents of many of the problems in the region: authoritarianism, violence and instability – even genocides. There have always been pull factors, even open invitations by local elites for western armed interventions. But imperial interventions deepened existing divisions in regional social systems, more often than not escalating them and intensifying violence.</p>
<h2>That imperial burden</h2>
<p>Empires are not selfless saviours – they have never been and possibly never will be. The problem with imperial armed interventions is the prioritisation of the (rival) interests of the intervening powers, even <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2016.1159509">humanitarian aid actors</a> in certain cases, in a hierarchical world order. It is the neglect of the broad wellbeing of local populations – as has been the case in Iraq in the past 20 years. </p>
<p>It might be true that the relationship between western imperialism and the Middle East has been one of an everlasting burden. But empires have not simply carried that “imperial burden”, as Ajami claimed. History tells us that they have usually imposed it on the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ozan Ozavci does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both proponents and opponents of the war believe the invasion was an act of imperialism. But what does this mean exactly?Ozan Ozavci, Assistant Professor, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016562023-03-17T17:26:20Z2023-03-17T17:26:20ZThe Iraq war’s damage to public trust in experts has consequences right up to today<p>Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq, politicians continue to repeat the errors of the past by taking information from security briefings that they want to hear.</p>
<p>Ahead of the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation, US and UK politicians used some of the intelligence gathered by western security agencies to suggest that the local population would predominantly welcome external military powers as liberators. But it quickly became apparent <a href="https://www.leadingtowar.com/war_rosecolored.php#as6">this was a mistake</a> and that the fighting capability of those who would resist had been underestimated. A <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/iraq-without-a-plan">long and bloody insurgency</a> followed.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2022 and we saw Russian president Vladimir <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-believed-his-own-propaganda-and-fatally-underestimated-ukraine/">Putin</a> acting under the apparent belief that his conquest of Ukraine would also be simple, and meet with little resistance from a weak defence force. Western intelligence reports have since highlighted how Putin and his advisers significantly underestimated Ukraine and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-invasion-ukraine-intelligence-putin/31748594.html">made poor judgements</a> about their own intelligence information.</p>
<p>The public, however, at least in western countries, appears to have become much more sceptical of politicians armed with intelligence from experts. As well as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-20-years-on-death-came-from-the-skies-on-march-19-2003-and-the-killing-continues-to-this-day-201988">thousands of deaths</a>, trillions of dollars of expense and irreversible changes to national and international politics, this arguably remains one of the legacies of the Iraq war.</p>
<p>The conflict taught the public valuable lessons about intelligence. A review by <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61171/wmdreview.pdf">Lord Butler</a> and the <a href="https://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/">Chilcot inquiry</a> that followed the war showed that intelligence is never certain. Intelligence agencies provide “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bxwh">best truths</a>” to politicians, who then take decisions. </p>
<p>The Iraq war made secret intelligence a topic for discussion in homes across the world. A publicly accessible version of the intelligence picture was presented to the public by UK prime minister <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf">Tony Blair</a>. This was a groundbreaking decision and one that defined Blair’s career. </p>
<p>The weaknesses in the intelligence <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110614090401/http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/layout/set/print/content/view/full/100?id=10215&lng=en&ord588=grp2&ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233">dossiers</a>, once exposed, also appeared to undermine public support for the conflict. In contrast, the public continued to strongly support the armed forces and particularly those injured and killed in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0095327X13516616">action</a>.</p>
<p>In parallel a public narrative developed that experts were often wrong, and politicians could not be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00138380701771025">trusted</a>. The idea that experts are not to be trusted has become ever more repeated in recent years, through the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c">Brexit debates</a> and governmental responses to the <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/matt-hancock-isabel-oakeshott-whatsapp-leak-scandal-lockdown-files-b1064185.html">pandemic</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-been-20-years-since-the-us-invaded-iraq-long-enough-for-my-undergraduate-students-to-see-it-as-a-relic-of-the-past-199460">It's been 20 years since the US invaded Iraq – long enough for my undergraduate students to see it as a relic of the past</a>
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<p>However, the failings in the communication and use of intelligence data does not mean security services were to blame for the war.</p>
<p>True, some of the vulnerabilities in western intelligence reporting seemed farcical when exposed to public scrutiny. The information from an informant known as Curveball – an Iraqi expatriate – was used by the US in making the case for war in the UK, despite German and British reservations. Curveball’s information later emerged to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/24/AR2006062401081_pf.html">inaccurate</a>. </p>
<p>But in other areas it appears intelligence services provided nuanced information and accurate warnings. For example, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/20/chilcot-mi5-boss-iraq-war">UK intelligence chiefs</a> warned ministers that the conflict would increase the terrorist threat. </p>
<p>Others within <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmdfence/65/6506.htm">defence intelligence</a> warned that once the first phase of the conflict against regular Iraqi armed forces were complete that a long-running insurgency would follow. Commanders in the British army warned that without direct investment into the Iraqi city of Basra and surroundings that this area would become <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/06/02/basra/crime-and-insecurity-under-british-occupation">radicalised</a>.</p>
<p>Some key assumptions around Iraq’s chemical weapons programme were clearly unhelpful. But the agencies were arguably also right to feel bruised that the blame for the war landed with them, when they had no way of changing government policy.</p>
<h2>The rise of conspiracy theories</h2>
<p>The leaks and publication of intelligence related to Iraq brought with them the era of the armchair expert and the conspiracy theorist. Many academics argued that this <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02684520500268897?casa_token=p5QSeVc4Qx8AAAAA:ZflrGCpLRHBF3w4c595W8uYDHRcMpf2etc83HqSip8QsRL-R2sSV1dnPvKHcymS0ZVCtMscLGmMj">openness</a> in intelligence would produce a mature public debate. But the weaknesses in the intelligence undermined the idea that governments are a source of <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/how-iraq-war-led-legacy-public-mistrust-intelligence/">truth</a>. </p>
<p>Deep dive investigations and conspiracies have surrounded the death of biological weapons expert and UK government advisor David Kelly in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jul/16/david-kelly-death-10-years-on">2003</a>. Kelly’s untimely death has been the subject of official and unofficial investigations and spurred a cottage industry in speculation. </p>
<p>Kelly died after he was publicly revealed to be a confidential source for BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan’s assertion that part of the government’s intelligence dossier on “weapons of mass destruction” was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43828472">fabricated</a>. His death was officially ruled a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110515030509/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/huttonreport.pdf">suicide</a>. </p>
<p>This was confirmed by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/feb/06/huttonreport.davidkelly">Hutton inquiry</a> and again by a later inquiry by the attorney general. But <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/iraq-whistleblower-dr-kelly-was-murdered-to-silence-him-says-mp-6644896.html">public suspicion</a> about Kelly’s death persist with books and a <a href="https://www.channel4.com/press/news/government-inspector">TV drama </a>.</p>
<p>More broadly, Iraq resulted in a loss in public support for British involvement in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9256.12073">war</a>, which was seemingly conditional on how people viewed the purpose of the conflict and prospects of victory. </p>
<p>This view will in part be shaped by their trust in the initial intelligence and in whether they believe governments tell the truth. As debates around <a href="https://www.oecd.org/governance/trust-in-government/">the pandemic</a> have shown, once <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-reports/2020/03/17/perception-government-handling-covid-19">trust</a> has gone it is hard to get back. </p>
<p>Intelligence agencies did change the way they operate in response to criticisms over Iraq. Agencies spent more time and resource on ensuring they had more evidence for their claims and were more careful with wording claims. This was a necessary change for the intelligence community, but did not address how politicians use intelligence. Without that change, the world is still vulnerable to misread and misunderstood intelligence assessments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert M. Dover received funding from the ESRC for a series of seminars examining the role of intelligence in public policy making and from the AHRC for a project examining the lessons that could be drawn from successful intelligence operations. </span></em></p>Agencies may make more checks, but they can’t prevent politicians misusing intelligence information, says an expert.Robert M. Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019882023-03-17T13:56:52Z2023-03-17T13:56:52ZIraq 20 years on: death came from the skies on March 19 2003 – and the killing continues to this day<p>The mass killings of Iraqis started on the night of March 19 2003 with the US-led coalition’s “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad. They called it “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war">Operation Iraqi Freedom</a>”.</p>
<p>Millions around the world sat transfixed in front of their TV screens, watching as bombs and missiles exploded. The reports came with the warning that they “contained flashing images”. True enough, the sky over Baghdad flashed orange and golden – but those were bombs, not flash photography. </p>
<p>The narrative of terror which began that day was to last for years. Terror from the sky, terror on the ground, terror from the foreign soldier, terror from one’s neighbour. By the time the invasion was completed, some 7,500 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the air strikes.</p>
<p>Each death was recorded by the <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/">Iraq Body Count</a> (IBC) database, with which I have been involved for some years. Among them were <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/incidents/x025">15 adults and children who lost their lives</a> in Baghdad’s Zafaraniya area on March 30 2003:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Iraq Body Count list of deaths of people in an attack in Baghdad on March 30 2003" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515787/original/file-20230316-22-wz7abs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iraq Body Count</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the war began, the US president George W Bush vowed to “disarm Iraq and to free its people” in a live television address, shortly after explosions had rocked the Iraqi capital. US military sources <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2866109.stm">told the BBC</a> that five key members of the Iraqi regime, including its president Saddam Hussein, were targeted in these first attacks – but that it was not known whether the targets had been hit and what damage might have been caused.</p>
<p>When it came to civilian deaths, an <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/12/">IBC dossier</a> revealed the extent of the killings between 2003 and 2005. During the invasion and in the two years that followed, 24,865 civilians were reported killed – almost half in the capital Baghdad. </p>
<p>Nearly one-third of these civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before May 1 2003, when Bush made his “mission accomplished” speech from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, at the safe distance of the coast of San Diego. </p>
<p>US-led forces killed 37% of all civilian victims in the first two years. Anti-occupation forces and insurgents killed 9%, post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths, and the remainder were killed by “unknown agents”. At least a further 42,500 civilians were reported wounded. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="List pf people responsible for civilian deaths in Iraq war." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516048/original/file-20230317-2026-ffgu2a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iraq war: who did the killings? (2003-05).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iraq Body Count</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While mortuary officials and medics were the most frequently cited witnesses of these deaths, three press agencies (Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters) between them provided more than one-third of all media reports.</p>
<h2>The aftermath</h2>
<p>Thousands of civilians have been killed each year since that first night of shock and awe. At its peak, in 2006, the <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/">conflict claimed</a> 29,027 people. At its calmest, in 2022, there were 740 deaths. </p>
<p>Two decades on, the killings continue. IBC’s 2022 security report, <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/residual-war/">Iraq’s Residual War</a>, revealed that the country is still effectively at war. </p>
<p>In 2022, in addition to civilian killings, 521 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State">Islamic State</a> fighters were killed by the Iraqi military in joint operations with the US, and 506 members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party">PKK</a> (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) were killed by the Turkish military. Other conflict-related deaths included 97 Turkish and 80 Iraqi soldiers, 30 members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Mobilization_Forces">Popular Mobilization Forces</a> (paramilitaries with links to Iran), and 23 federal police. </p>
<p>Pro-Iran parties dominate Iraq’s parliament, and more than 150,000 fighters of the former Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces have been integrated into the state military. </p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/313615_IRAQ-2021-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf">UN High Commissioner for Human Rights</a> published a study that highlighted the severe and enduring injustices of the Iraqi justice system – based on 235 interviews with current or former detainees, as well as discussions with prison staff, judges, lawyers, families of the detainees and other relevant parties. As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraq-authorities-deny-prisoner-rights/2021/08/03/5f9d2c7e-f07a-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html">reported in the Washington Post</a>, the study detailed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a labyrinth of unfairness, with detainees often denied due process at every turn … Confessions frequently come through torture … [such that] detainees frequently end up signing documents admitting crimes they did not commit. Few detainees see a lawyer until they appear in court. Methods of abuse include severe beatings, some on the soles of the feet, as well as electric shocks, stress positions and suffocation. Sexual violence was also reported.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were also <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/residual-war/">1,352 arrests in Iraq in 2022</a> under the Terrorism Act. All these men face the death penalty.</p>
<h2>Traumatised country</h2>
<p>Since the 2003 invasion, Iraqis have been subjected to genocide, terrorism, the killing of protesters, poverty and the displacement of millions of people. When the war in Iraq officially ended in 2011 with then-US president Barack Obama <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_United_States_troops_from_Iraq_(2007%E2%80%932011)#:%7E:text=Full%20withdrawal%20(2011),-See%20also%3A%20U.S.&text=With%20the%20collapse%20of%20discussions,scheduled%2C%20on%2021%20October%202011.">declaring</a> the withdrawal of troops, a deeply traumatised country was left behind, with a bankrupt economy. </p>
<p>Economists say that, due to falling oil prices and the <a href="https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/children-make-majority-45-million-iraqis-risk-falling-poverty-and-deprivation-due">effects of COVID</a> on the country’s economy, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/03/961149079/in-iraqs-dire-economy-poverty-is-rising-and-so-are-fears-of-instability?t=1627992007423">Iraq’s poverty rate</a> may have shot up from 20% in 2018 to more than 30% in 2020, meaning that 12 million Iraqis were living below the poverty line. In 2019, the estimated <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/812116/youth-unemployment-rate-in-iraq/">youth unemployment rate in Iraq was 25%</a> – in a country where almost 60% of the population is <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2017/08/in-iraq-un-youth-envoy-says-young-people-are-most-valuable-force-we-have-to-shape-a-better-future/">under 25</a>.</p>
<h2>The future</h2>
<p>In July 2016, in his <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20171123122743/http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-report/">report</a> to the UK’s parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq war, Sir John Chilcot underlined the need for documenting the effects of military action on civilians. It was the government’s responsibility, he stated, to identify and understand the likely and actual effects of its military action. Referring to the war, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Greater efforts should have been made in the post-conflict period to determine the number of civilian casualties and the broader effects of military operations on civilians. More time was devoted to the question of which department should have responsibility for the issue of civilian casualties than it was to efforts to determine the actual number. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of Chilcot’s recommendations was that the UK government should be ready to work with others, in particular NGOs and academic institutions, to develop such assessments and estimates over time. The vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq remain only partially documented. A respectful and humane account of all the Iraq war’s dead remains <a href="https://twitter.com/iraqbodycount/status/1625842108404727808">an unfinished task</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lily Hamourtziadou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iraq Body Count has kept a close tally of people killed in Iraq since the invasion started in March 2003.Lily Hamourtziadou, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004242023-02-27T13:23:18Z2023-02-27T13:23:18ZAll presidents avoid reporters, but Biden may achieve a record in his press avoidance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511997/original/file-20230223-16-sysg55.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C8337%2C5541&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden has held fewer press conferences than any president in recent memory.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-walks-to-marine-one-after-speaking-to-news-photo/1245981309?phrase=Biden%20walks%20away%20from%20reporters&adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s nothing new <a href="https://www.history.com/news/presidents-relationship-with-press">about presidents avoiding the press</a>. </p>
<p>Bill Clinton was in a major scandal – based in large part on <a href="https://youtu.be/XBzHnZiSv7U">getting caught in a deception during a media interview</a> – and successfully outsourced his White House press briefings to legal counsel to avoid having his press secretary or himself <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/lanny-davis-recalls-what-its-like-to-defend-a-president-under-siege">trapped by tough media questioning</a>. </p>
<p>Barack Obama campaigned on being the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2009.01451.x">most transparent president in history</a> and then <a href="https://www.hintergrund.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/us2013-english.pdf">prosecuted reporters as criminals</a>. </p>
<p>But well into the third year of Joe Biden’s presidency, <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-news-conferences#Data%20Table">he has held fewer press conferences than any president in recent memory</a>. </p>
<p>There’s a reason that Biden – and all the other presidents – want to avoid the press: While democracy may demand such accountability from a president, press conferences definitely are risky for them. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1480559083421896709"}"></div></p>
<h2>Avoidance becomes the norm</h2>
<p>It took Biden until late March 2021 to hold his first press conference, more than two months after his inauguration – the longest a new president had gone without holding a press conference in 100 years. </p>
<p>During Biden’s first year in office, he held a total of 10 press conferences. Most of those featured him reading prepared remarks and then leaving <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/19/joe-biden-media-reporters-press-conference">without taking questions from reporters</a>. When he does take questions, he tends to call on only preselected reporters from – in his own words – “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2i2FeDw2Bc">a list I’ve been given</a>.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=50tVKogAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of political communication and public relations</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2015-0003">I have found through my research that</a> public figures such as celebrities and sports stars in the age of social media are no longer concerned with answering reporters’ questions, holding press conferences or giving interviews. </p>
<p>Why should LeBron James care about reporters when he can share his unfiltered opinions freely and instantly with his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kingjames/?hl=en">146 million Instagram followers</a> and his <a href="https://twitter.com/KingJames">53 million Twitter followers</a>? </p>
<p>Donald Trump brought this perspective to the country’s highest office, <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694755">tweeting about the presidency</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/HKzcbm2ZWCE">and ignoring</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/jtl5XK7QP38">insulting reporters to their faces</a>. </p>
<p>While Biden doesn’t trash the press the way Trump did, he hardly speaks to the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/jill-biden-joe-biden-question-reporters-classified-documents-1777060">public</a>. </p>
<p>The White House press secretary <a href="https://youtu.be/KF3x0kkWzok">routinely refuses to answer reporters’ questions</a>. Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi wrote in January 2023 that press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly responded to questions about classified documents found in Biden’s home and former office “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/02/karine-jean-pierre-biden-documents/">by essentially not responding</a>.”</p>
<p></p>
<h2>Risky business</h2>
<p>I have published studies of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1120876">presidential press conferences</a>, looking at the effects of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0261927X15600732">journalists’ asking tough questions</a>. I have explored <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1750481318766923">theories about</a> politicians’ different strategies with the press and observed the effects on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X17706960">voters</a>. </p>
<p>Critics point to various motives Biden might have for avoiding the press - and even so, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/arts/television/late-night-biden-physical.html">late-night comics appear to have plenty of fodder from him</a>. But empirical evidence and my research suggest that there are multiple reasons no president should want to give a press conference. </p>
<p>Understanding those risks does not mean I am justifying press avoidance by presidents. <a href="https://grady.uga.edu/faculty/clementson/">As a former journalist and a political campaign director for both Democrats and Republicans</a>, I believe that <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/presidential-press-conferences">public servants are derelict</a> in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F016344370202400203">duties</a> if they refuse to face the press. I’m not alone: The White House Correspondents’ Association accused Biden in 2021 of lacking “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/press-conferences-biden-administration/2021/03/12/332285e6-81e3-11eb-81db-b02f0398f49a_story.html">accountability to the public</a>.” And in June 2022, a group of White House reporters officially <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/30/white-house-press-corps-demands-end-to-biden-event-restrictions/">complained about Biden’s inaccessibility</a> , accusing him of practices “antithetical” to the “concept of a free press,” noting that “<a href="https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/07/KARINEFINALEDITED.docx.pdf">every other president before Biden (including Trump) allowed full access to the very same spaces</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="U.S. President Harry Truman at a desk in the White House, surrounded by reporters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390408/original/file-20210318-13-7jtvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Harry Truman gives his first White House press conference, on April 17, 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-truman-holding-his-first-press-conference-at-news-photo/107422994?adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dodging questions – or not</h2>
<p>The first reason to avoid a press conference is that reporters may accuse the president of dodging questions. And viewers are likely to believe the allegations – regardless of what the president actually said. The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/opinions/white-house-briefings-journalists-trump-lockhart/index.html">tendency</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02572.x">political journalists to accuse presidents</a> of deflecting questions <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2010.496712">has increased</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0261927X08322475">in recent decades</a> and has become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/016344370202400203">fairly common</a>. </p>
<p>During the 2020 campaign, Biden was <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-dodges-court-packing-questions-scotus-nomination-moves/story?id=73523933">accused of dodging questions</a> by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-politics-courts-2da741e21e49bec61f9e50a0f4ec5b45">numerous media outlets</a>. A campaign spokesperson was even <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/09/11/biden-rep-dodges-question-about-whether-his-teleprompter-use/">accused of dodging a question</a> about Biden dodging questions.</p>
<p>I ran an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz036">experiment testing the effects of a journalist’s accusing politicians</a> of evasion. </p>
<p>The voters in the study all saw the same questions and answers. For half of the voters, though, I edited the video to insert the journalist accusing the politician of dodging in an answer.</p>
<p>Voters who saw the journalist making the allegation believed the politician indeed dodged. Voters who saw the identical interview without the allegation of evasion thought the politician gave adequate answers. </p>
<p>What’s more: The politician shown in the experiment had not actually dodged. Voters seem to believe a reporter and disbelieve a politician.</p>
<h2>No good answer</h2>
<p>A second reason to avoid press conferences is that questions will tend to be unanswerable. As has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2020.1811659">documented</a> by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X8800700204">decades of data</a>, journalists frequently ask about divisive or controversial topics, and they word their questions in tricky ways.</p>
<p>There is no politically advantageous answer to such questions. Based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X15600732">my research</a>, journalists covering the White House tend to ask about topics that divide the country – such as abortion or gun control – for which any direct answer would offend some group of voters. </p>
<h2>You can’t win</h2>
<p>A third reason is that even if a question is not divisive, and the president answers it, many voters will still think the president is being deceptive. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X17744004">I ran an experiment</a> in which I filmed an interview of a politician either dodging or answering a journalist’s question. Regardless of what the politician actually said, Republican voters thought the politician was deceptive when he was a Democrat, and vice versa for Democratic voters. </p>
<p>Simply by having a party label, a president’s press conference will likely be skewed through a partisan lens no matter what he says.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President George W. Bush speaking to the press." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390412/original/file-20210318-21-bguyto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President George W. Bush got defensive during his final press conference, on Jan. 12, 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-w-bush-speaks-during-his-final-press-news-photo/84255528?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>TMI – too much information</h2>
<p>A final reason for a president to avoid giving a press conference: The more the public gets to know a president, the more they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034379">dislike him</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12299">My own research</a> has revealed why a president might become more unpresidential the more he holds press conferences. The more a politician’s words inevitably diverge from voters’ feelings and experiences, the less presidential he will seem to them.</p>
<p>Altogether, presidents probably will lose stature by holding a press conference. Journalists hold the upper hand, asking questions that pose a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X08322475">rhetorical minefield</a> and wielding the power to accuse the president of evasion. And <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz036">voters will tend to believe journalists’ criticism of the president</a> even if a president honestly answers their questions.</p>
<p>Of course, if what the president is aiming for is not strategic expediency but simply fulfilling an obligation to be held accountable in his role, then the country wins when he holds a press conference – and in that way he does, too.</p>
<p><em>This story substantially updates <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-no-president-should-want-to-give-a-press-conference-157222">a story</a> originally published on March 19, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E. Clementson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Joe Biden may be nicer to reporters than his predecessor, but he’s not actually responsive to the press. He has held fewer press conferences than any president in recent memory.David E. Clementson, Assistant Professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of GeorgiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884232022-08-08T22:26:50Z2022-08-08T22:26:50ZNew photos suggest how Trump, flush with power, may have sent official documents down the toilet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478336/original/file-20220809-9835-d9il4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C98%2C2896%2C1868&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There’s new evidence that, if confirmed, shows how former President Donald Trump flushed public documents down the toilet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-holds-a-news-photo/536038212">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Into the sewer. </p>
<p>That appears to be the intended destination of what look like torn-up presidential documents in <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/08/08/trump-toilet-photos-maggie-haberman">photographs released</a> by reporter Maggie Haberman to the news publication Axios, which published them on Aug. 8, 2022. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/668293/confidence-man-by-maggie-haberman/">Haberman has a book coming out on former President Donald Trump</a> in early October. One photo, allegedly of a White House toilet, shows a scrap of paper with <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1556581489059536896">what Haberman says is Trump’s handwriting on it</a>, sitting at the bottom of the toilet bowl. The other photo, of a different toilet allegedly used on an overseas trip, has several scraps of paper similarly situated, with the name of a Republican congresswoman written on one piece. </p>
<p>This could be the first visual documentation of Trump’s already-reported habit of flushing documents <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-documents-flushed-down-toilet-presidential-records-act-2022-2">down a White House toilet</a>. In response, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich told Axios, “You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1556581489059536896"}"></div></p>
<p>But even without having to unclog plumbing in search of missing papers, national archivists have their work cut out trying to plug potential gaps in the 45th president’s historical record.</p>
<p>On Feb. 7, 2022, it emerged that 15 boxes of documents and other items that should have been handed over to the National Archives and Record Administration had been found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.</p>
<p>Trump says <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-documents-flushed-down-toilet-presidential-records-act-2022-2">he was told that he was under “no obligation</a>” to hand over the documents, but the law suggests he may be mistaken.</p>
<p>Specifically, <a href="http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter101&edition=prelim">Section 2071 of Title 18 of U.S. Code states</a> that anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys” records or documents filed in any public office can be fined or imprisoned for up to three years.</p>
<p>It’s deemed a more serious crime if documents are classified, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/pdf/USCODE-2009-title18-partI-chap93-sec1924.pdf">where</a> a penalty of up to five years imprisonment can apply.</p>
<p>In both cases, those held responsible are disqualified from holding any office in the United States.</p>
<p>These requirements build a complete picture of events that have lasting consequences. Among the records reportedly incomplete or missing from Trump’s tenure in the White House are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/politics/trump-white-house-records/index.html">phone logs from Jan. 6, 2021</a>.</p>
<h2>Saving the records</h2>
<p>In 1957, the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/about">National Historical Publications Commission, a part of the National Archives</a>, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/help/ppp">recommended</a> developing a uniform system so all materials from presidencies could be archived. They did this to literally save presidential records from the flames: <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/harding/essays/harding-1921-firstlady">President Warren G. Harding’s wife claimed to have burned all his records</a>, and <a href="https://www.historynet.com/in-his-fathers-shadow.htm#:%7E:text=An%20intensely%20private%20man%2C%20Robert,%2C%E2%80%9D%20as%20he%20called%20it.">Robert Todd Lincoln burned all his father’s war correspondence</a>. </p>
<p>So the government collects and retains all presidential communications, including executive orders, announcements, nominations, statements and speeches, and any public, oral communications by presidents, which are also placed as public documents in <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/CPD/">the Compilation of Presidential Documents</a>. </p>
<p>These are part of the official record of any administration, published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration on a weekly basis by the White House press secretary. In most presidencies, the document or transcript is available a few days to a couple of weeks after any event. At the conclusion of an administration, these documents form the basis for the formal collections of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/publications/presidential-papers.html">Public Papers of the President</a>. </p>
<p>As a political scientist, I’m interested in <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-78136-5">where presidents give speeches</a>. What can be learned about their priorities based on their choice of location? What do these patterns tell us about administrations? </p>
<p><a href="http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/67962/1/398.pdf.pdf">Barack Obama primarily focused on large media markets</a> in states that strongly supported him. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7978826/">Trump went to supportive places as well</a>, including <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?474840-1/president-trump-delivers-remarks-mankato-minnesota">small media markets like Mankato, Minnesota</a>, where the airport was not even large enough to fly into with Air Force One.</p>
<p>Presidential speeches often give a different perception of an administration. Without all the pageantry, you can quickly get to the point of the visit in the text.</p>
<p>In speeches that President George W. Bush gave in the 2002 midterm election period, he made the same joke more than 50 times as his icebreaker. He would <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/WCPD-2002-10-28/html/WCPD-2002-10-28-Pg1827.htm">apologize that audiences had drawn the “short straw” and gotten him instead of his wife, Laura</a>. His commitment to that joke gave a glimpse of his desire to connect to an audience through self-deprecating humor. </p>
<p>I found something odd when I began to pull items from the compilation and organize my own database of locations for the Trump administration. I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I pay attention to my home state. I knew that on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59hA3lyRrc">March 20, 2017, Trump held a public rally in Louisville</a>, where in a meandering speech he touched on everything from Kentucky coal miners to the Supreme Court and “illegal immigrants” who were, he said, robbing and murdering Americans.</p>
<p>But when I looked in the online compilation in mid-2017, I couldn’t find the Louisville speech. No problem, I thought. They are just running behind, and they will put it in later. </p>
<p>A year later, the Louisville speech was still not there. Furthermore, speeches from Trump rallies were missing. By my count, 147 separate transcripts for public speaking events – just over 8% – are missing from the online compilation of Trump’s official presidential speech records. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of a man with long gray whiskers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Chester A. Arthur, whose family burned many of his presidential records. This was not uncommon for presidents’ families to do.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.67.62">Ole Peter Hansen Balling, artist; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s in, what’s out</h2>
<p><a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter22&edition=prelim">The Presidential Records Act</a>, first passed in 1978, says administrations have to retain “any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.” </p>
<p>An administration is allowed to exclude personal records that are purely private or don’t have an effect on the duties of a president. All public events are included, such as quick comments on the South Lawn, short exchanges with reporters and all public speeches, radio addresses and even public telephone calls to astronauts in space. </p>
<p>But what Trump said at his large public rallies has so far been omitted from the public record his administration supplied to the Compilation of Presidential Documents. And while historians and the public could get transcripts off of publicly available videos, that does not address the need for a complete official collection of these statements.</p>
<p><a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter22&edition=prelim">Under federal law</a>, presidents are allowed to exclude “materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of … duties of the President.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html">law has been interpreted</a> to mean <a href="https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-oip-guidance-agency-records-vs-personal-records">an administration could omit</a> notes, emails or other documentation from what it sends to the compilation. While many presidents do not provide transcripts for speeches at private party fundraising events, rallies covered by America’s press corps likely do not fall under these exclusions. </p>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>Government documents are among the primary records of who we are as a people.</p>
<p>These records speak to Americans directly; they are not what others tell us or interpret to us about our history. The government compiles and preserves these records to give an accurate accounting of the leaders the country has chosen. They provide a shared history in full. </p>
<p>Since 1981, the public has legally owned all presidential records. As soon as a president leaves office, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html#:%7E:text=Places%20the%20responsibility%20for%20the,records%20separately%20from%20Presidential%20records.">the National Archivist gets legal custody of all of them</a> Presidents are generally on their honor to be good stewards of history. There is no real penalty for noncompliance. </p>
<p>But these public documents have so far always been available to the public – and they’ve been available quickly. Internal presidential documents like memos or email have a rigorous archival procedure that lasts years before they are even accessible. I have a record of every presidential speech from 1945 to 2021 – every president since Bill Clinton has <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/cpd">all their public speeches available online</a>. Until Trump, there have been no missing public speeches in the permanent collection. By removing these speeches, Trump is creating a false perception of his presidency, making it look more serious and traditional. </p>
<p>And by the way: That 2017 Louisville speech is still missing from the records in 2022. I’m hoping it might be found among those 15 boxes.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-defying-custom-hasnt-given-the-national-archives-records-of-his-speeches-at-political-rallies-157480">an article originally published</a> on April 14, 2021. This article was updated on August 9 with a different lead photo showing Trump holding papers.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Bow O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Photos showing what appear to be torn-up documents in two different toilets may provide more evidence of the former president’s habit of destroying his presidential documents.Shannon Bow O'Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal ArtsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880402022-08-02T12:58:58Z2022-08-02T12:58:58ZIn Congress, the name of a bill may have nothing to do with what’s in it – it’s all about salesmanship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477001/original/file-20220801-84886-b3fz6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C33%2C5570%2C3682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sen. Joe Manchin speaks to reporters on Aug. 1, 2022. in Washington, D.C., about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022?assettype=image&agreements=pa%3A144323&family=editorial&phrase=Inflation%20Reduction%20Act%20of%202022&sort=best">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Quick quiz: What’s the name of the compromise climate bill that U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, last week <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/manchin-strikes-major-deal-schumer-climate-tax-health-care-rcna40350">agreed to support</a>? </p>
<p>Hint: In addition to being the most significant climate change-curbing legislation in U.S. history, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/28/23282217/climate-bill-health-care-drugs-inflation-reduction-act">the bill</a> also gives the federal government leeway to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices, solidifies an expansion of access to Obamacare and sets a 15% minimum tax on corporations that make more than a billion dollars in profits.</p>
<p>What’s that? You’re stumped? That’s not a surprise.</p>
<p>The measure is called the <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022">Inflation Reduction Act of 2022</a>. It’s a head-scratcher for those who assume that a bill name will reflect the main gist of the bill.</p>
<p>On The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inflation-reduction-act-is-anything-but-spending-power-supply-demand-imbalance-restrictions-regulation-11659289812">opinion page</a>, investment firm founder Stephen Miran called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 “an inaptly named measure.” “Senate Democrats’ latest party-line attempt to push their social agenda through Congress lifts Orwellian naming conventions to new heights,” Miran wrote.</p>
<p>Controversy over legislative bill names is hardly new. Politicians have <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/8710-lawmakers-turn-to-catchy-names-for-bills/">long used</a> bill titles as a marketing vehicle, concocting sometimes misleading and outlandish monikers to get media attention, drum up support – who can be against <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml">leaving no child behind</a>? – and frame the conversation around the bill before their opponents do. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A factory with many stacks, one of which is emitting a cloud of smoke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395040/original/file-20210414-16-14pmx0p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George W. Bush’s Clear Skies Act would have done the opposite of clearing the skies, as it weakened environmental protections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/oil-and-chemical-refinery-plants-cover-the-landscape-next-news-photo/1293055258?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stark Naked Act</h2>
<p>Sometimes the whole point of legislation is to get a conversation going and show the public that a lawmaker or a political party cares about an issue. These so-called “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2011-jun-19-la-na-0620-titles-20110620-story.html">messaging bills</a>” won’t pass, but they give lawmakers a chance to hold press conferences and hearings, and go on talk shows. </p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., in 1997 introduced a bill called the “No Private Contracts to Be Negotiated When the Patient Is Buck Naked Act,” which <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2011-jun-19-la-na-0620-titles-20110620-story.html">became known</a> as the Stark Naked Act. It was <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/2784/text">designed to highlight</a> and address the problem of doctors asking patients to pay more money when they were “in an exposed condition.” It <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/2784/all-actions?overview=closed#tabs">never got a vote</a>.</p>
<p>President George W. Bush took things a step further, introducing proposals with Orwellian names that were the opposite in substance to what their names indicated. Remember the Clear Skies Act (2002), which <a href="http://vault.sierraclub.org/ecocentro/ingles/pinocchio.asp">would have weakened</a> the Clean Air Act, and the Healthy Forests Initiative, which became law in 2003 and <a href="https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/FC_LawsPolicyRegulations/KFSP_HealthyForests.php">gave timber companies more access</a> to cut down trees in forests.</p>
<p>Other times, lawmakers try to create a clever and memorable acronym, often stretching the limits of the English language. Take, for example, the Service Act for Care and Relief Initiatives for Forces Injured in Combat Engagements of 2004 – <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-108s2516is">the SACRIFICE Act</a> – which aimed to help military families and recognize the sacrifices of the Armed Forces members injured in combat – and the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or the perennially reintroduced <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/26">REINS Act</a>, a GOP bill to, well, rein in the president’s power. </p>
<p>And let’s not forget the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, known as the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ56/PLAW-107publ56.pdf">USA PATRIOT Act</a>, which legitimized domestic spying.</p>
<p>As if coming up with these mouthfuls weren’t enough, the House Transportation Committee in 2004 was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2011-jun-19-la-na-0620-titles-20110620-story.html">charged with weaving into legislation</a> the name of the wife of then-Chairman U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, Lu. The result: the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (<a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/summary.htm">SAFETEA-LU</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of Rep. Don Young looking thoughtful." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395045/original/file-20210414-21-1tzbl9l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2004, Alaska Rep. Don Young, left, asked staff to include his wife Lu’s name in a bill. They did: the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users,or SAFETEA-LU.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-don-young-r-alaska-left-and-sen-dan-sullivan-r-alaska-news-photo/524083534?adppopup=true">Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Serious implications</h2>
<p>It’s not just a U.S. phenomenon; University of Stirling (Scotland) researcher Brian Christopher Jones determined in 2011 that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsr060">bill naming in the U.K.</a> is an important part of the legislative process and even could influence a bill’s passage.</p>
<p>It’s unclear whether a bill title can affect a congressional vote, but it can have serious implications if the law ends up before the U.S. Supreme Court, where the title can be used to infer legislative intent.</p>
<p>“The Defense of Marriage Act” was so influential a title that its <a href="https://ylpr.yale.edu/inter_alia/scotus-short-title-turmoil-time-congressional-bill-naming-authority#footnote19_j8asbza">meaning was debated</a> by Supreme Court justices in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-307">United States v. Windsor</a>, in which the court deemed the act was unconstitutional. </p>
<p>“Both the majority and minority opinions discussed the name and its implications at length, but came to differing conclusions on its importance,” wrote Jones, who was so vexed by that title’s influence on the highest court in the U.S. that he <a href="https://ylpr.yale.edu/inter_alia/scotus-short-title-turmoil-time-congressional-bill-naming-authority#footnote19_j8asbza">called for a neutral bill-naming office</a> to be created so that lawmakers could no longer be in charge of naming their legislation. </p>
<p>In fact, lawmakers can <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/relacs/manuals/2016LAHouseDraftingManual.pdf">name bills as they see fit</a>. They are fortunate that the rules of advertising don’t apply; in 2013, Jones and attorney Randal Shaheen concluded that some bill titles <a href="https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=shlj">would be deemed deceptive advertising</a> if overseen by the Federal Trade Commission.</p>
<h2>Confusion about naming</h2>
<p>So, is the compromise bill a climate bill? Or an inflation reduction bill?</p>
<p>Branding one proposal as two things violates the rules of branding, and coverage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 highlights the dangers of doing so. Bloomberg News called it the “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-31/manchin-pitches-democrats-tax-and-climate-bill-to-silent-sinema">Tax-Climate Bill</a>” in the headline and the “tax, climate and drugs bill” in the story. NPR’s headline referred to it as the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1114216967/climate-experts-experience-an-odd-sensation-after-the-manchin-budget-deal-optimi">energy and climate spending deal</a>.” The emphasis on climate makes sense, given the recent focus on how Manchin has been the holdup to the Democrats’ attempt to address the climate crisis.</p>
<p>But giving the bill a broad name like the Inflation Reduction Act gives reporters leeway to refer to the bill according to whatever aspect they want to focus on. So much for branding.</p>
<p>Would lawmakers submit to an independent bill-naming review process, as Jones suggests?</p>
<p>Unlikely. Chances are they would dub it a “No Onerous Name Surveyor to Ask Regarding Titles Endlessly Released,” or NONSTARTER.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated from <a href="https://theconversation.com/infrastructure-or-jobs-controversy-over-name-of-biden-proposal-highlights-long-tradition-in-politics-158866">the original version</a> published on April 15, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angela Bradbery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 bill in Congress may reduce inflation. Or it may not. What it will do is add to the long history of legislation names aimed at drumming up support for a bill.Angela Bradbery, Frank Karel Endowed Chair in Public Interest Communications, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856552022-06-30T12:21:44Z2022-06-30T12:21:44ZJan. 6 hearings highlight problems with certification of presidential elections and potential ways to fix them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471222/original/file-20220627-7096-3ry15.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7868%2C5206&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Vice President Mike Pence is seen presiding over the counting of the votes on Jan. 6, 2021, during a hearing of the House January 6 committee in Washington, D.C., on June 16, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-us-vice-president-mike-pence-is-seen-on-screen-news-photo/1241349126?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lack of clarity in how Congress counts presidential electoral votes <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2022/06/09/hearings-to-focus-on-jan-6-but-also-what-congress-can-do-about-it/">was highlighted in recent public hearings</a> held by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Lawmakers and witnesses in those hearings also focused on how ambiguities in existing election laws <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/16/us/jan-6-hearings">were exploited in 2020</a> in an attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/717989/election-deniers-victories-jan-6-committee-build-pressure-on-eca-reformers/?unlock=J7ACLHRCTGGRDQJL">legislators are</a> interested in reforming the federal law that governs that process, the Electoral Count Act. </p>
<p>Reforming the act, which sets the procedures for how votes for president are counted in the Electoral College, means identifying what it’s supposed to do, the areas that need reform and any other problems with it.</p>
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<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PSynZNoAAAAJ&hl=en">As a scholar of election law</a>, I recognize that presidential elections in the United States are complicated. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/08/24/how-electoral-college-works/">Voters do not directly elect the president</a>. After Election Day, and based on the popular vote, each state chooses presidential electors who formally meet and cast votes for president that are then relayed to Congress. <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-invented-the-electoral-college-147083">There are 538 electoral votes</a>, and after Congress counts them and verifies that one candidate has received a majority – at least 270 – the winner of the presidential election is declared. </p>
<p>In theory, a rule about how to count votes seems easy enough. But it’s hardly been easy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Then-Vice President Biden handing over a sheet of paper to an aide, against a backdrop of the American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441582/original/file-20220119-27-125iixv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Then-Vice President Joe Biden, on Jan. 6, 2017, presided over Congress’ certification of Donald Trump’s presidential victory despite the objections of a handful of House Democrats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ElectoralCollege/63555c3255e74eef8d2592685772c4ae/photo?Query=electoral%20college%20objection&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=178&currentItemNo=173">AP Photo/Cliff Owen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Abusing the act</h2>
<p>During <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/08/1071239044/congress-may-change-this-arcane-law-to-avoid-another-jan-6">Reconstruction</a>, the period after the Civil War, Congress faced contentious questions over whether Southern states appropriately appointed presidential electors. At other times, two sets of competing electors for different candidates were sent to Congress. </p>
<p>The Electoral Count Act was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/08/1071239044/congress-may-change-this-arcane-law-to-avoid-another-jan-6">enacted in 1887</a> to streamline rules after the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/trump-electoral-college.html">disputed presidential election of 1876</a>. </p>
<p>But in recent years, the act has revealed some weaknesses.</p>
<p>The act allows <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/15">members of Congress</a> to object to counting votes from a state. They can do that if one member of the House and one Senator write an objection. The Electoral Count Act does not list what kind of objections are proper, leaving it to Congress to decide if objections are appropriate or not. If this kind of dispute arises, Congress can debate what to do with the electoral votes. </p>
<p>The objection mechanism was used just once in the first 100 years of the act. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/politics/congress-ratifies-bush-victory-after-challenge.html">in 2005</a>, members of Congress objected to counting Ohio’s electoral votes cast for George W. Bush, alleging the results were inaccurate because of voter suppression and faulty voting machines. Congress spent two hours debating whether to count the votes. In <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/09/hawley-cruz-2024-capitol-riots-456671">2021</a>, members of Congress again objected to counting Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electoral votes for Joe Biden, alleging a variety of claims, including fraud, which forced Congress to spend more time in debate.</p>
<p>These objections have undermined confidence in the outcome of presidential elections. Members of Congress <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/02/cruz-johnson-9-other-gop-senators-say-they-will-not-vote-certify-electors-unless-audit-is-conducted/">publicly aired baseless claims that the election results were in doubt</a>. <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">There was no serious reason</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d">for Congress to doubt</a> the outcome of the 2020 election. </p>
<p>One reform might simply increase the threshold required to file an objection, from one member of each chamber to, say, one-fifth of the members. That would speed up counting and reduce opportunities for members of Congress to take grievances to the floor.</p>
<h2>Power that does not exist</h2>
<p>Another problem that has emerged relates to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/us/politics/pence-trump-jan-6.html">vice president’s role</a> in counting electoral votes.</p>
<p>An impetus for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was a mistaken belief that Vice President Mike Pence could ignore the Electoral Count Act and <a href="https://electionlawblog.org/?p=124703">unilaterally refuse</a> to count electoral votes from some states or indefinitely delay counting.</p>
<p><a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf">The Constitution mandates</a> that the President of the Senate – typically the Vice President – open the certificates of electoral votes from each state. In addition, under the current Electoral Count Act, the President of the Senate presides over the meeting, calls for objections, and generally moves the process along. </p>
<p>Pence did so, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/pence-trump-election.html">despite intense pressure from President Donald Trump to reject the Electoral College votes</a> that would formally make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president. </p>
<p>But there are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/08/1071239044/congress-may-change-this-arcane-law-to-avoid-another-jan-6">worries among some members of Congress that another vice president might be tempted to assert power that does not exist</a>. A vice president might create chaos by claiming that some votes should not count, or telling Congress what it can or cannot do, setting off a fierce debate in the middle of the count. </p>
<p>So another reform to the act might make it clear that the vice president has no role over the meeting except ministerial acts like opening the envelopes from presidential electors. That clarity reduces opportunities for mischief in the future.</p>
<p>These two concerns reflect the narrow role of Congress in counting votes and the mechanics of that meeting. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men in suits carry mahogany boxes through a hall of the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441587/original/file-20220119-13-1qpcmpw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Jan. 6, 1961, mahogany boxes containing the Electoral College votes in the presidential campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon are carried by pages to the House chamber. Kennedy won.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-mahogany-boxes-containing-the-electoral-college-votes-news-photo/515549748?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Improvement - or more complexity?</h2>
<p>There are more ambitious changes to federal law that Congress might examine, but these also raise thorny problems.</p>
<p>For instance, some Republican state legislators in 2020 – encouraged by Trump – suggested they could <a href="https://www.azleg.gov/press/house/54LEG/2R/201204STATEMENT.pdf">appoint their own electors well after Election Day</a> if they were dissatisfied with the results certified by the state’s election officials. </p>
<p>Some cited a provision in federal law that if the state “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3714294">failed to make a choice</a>” for choosing presidential electors on Election Day, the state legislature could appoint them later. But this provision was designed for states that required majority winners in presidential elections and might hold a runoff after Election Day if no candidate received a majority.</p>
<p>Congress could repeal this “failed to make a choice” provision and insist that Election Day is Election Day, with no opportunity under the statute to second-guess the results. And a new law could specify the limited circumstances in which a state could respond to a disaster or catastrophe that would require additional time for the casting of votes.</p>
<p>Other revisions might provide for expedited review of election litigation in the federal courts. Federal courts have been <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4005473">increasingly active</a> in reviewing election-related cases ever since the Supreme Court’s contentious decision in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/us/bush-prevails-single-vote-justices-end-recount-blocking-gore-after-5-week.html">Bush v. Gore</a> affecting Florida’s recount in 2000, which resulted in Bush winning the election.</p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Who_runs_elections_in_the_United_States%3F_(2020)">Elections are run by states</a>, and states already have extensive procedures in the canvass, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/automatic-recount-thresholds.aspx">recount</a> and audit of their votes. Federal judicial review should be a matter of last resort, for those situations in which the ordinary state process for resolving election disputes hasn’t worked.</p>
<p>One benefit of Electoral Count Act reform is that it lends itself toward bipartisanship. No one knows what future presidential elections will bring. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have both expressed disapproval of some states’ presidential election outcomes over the last 25 years, and it’s not clear who will be disappointed next.</p>
<p>Congress cannot prevent all mischief, but it can reduce the possibility of mischief in the future. Lawmakers can address some of the easier questions, like the threshold for objections and the role of the vice president. Congress can also have serious conversations about some of the more controversial questions. </p>
<p>It has been 135 years since Congress considered how to count electoral votes, and it seems unlikely that, once it makes reforms to the Electoral Count Act, it would revisit these rules in the near future. Whatever statute it enacts now must be drafted to endure the test of time.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-electoral-count-act-of-1887-is-showing-its-age-heres-how-to-help-congress-certify-a-presidential-election-with-more-certainty-175222">article originally published</a> on January 20, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek T. Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The attempt by Donald Trump’s supporters to reverse the 2020 presidential election results shows the need to update the nation’s landmark law for counting presidential votes.Derek T. Muller, Professor of Law, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769642022-02-11T13:34:17Z2022-02-11T13:34:17ZWhether up in smoke or down the toilet, missing presidential records are a serious concern<p>We may never get to the bottom of whether Donald Trump <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-documents-flushed-down-toilet-presidential-records-act-2022-2">flushed documents down a White House toilet</a>. “Fake story,” says the former president. “100% accurate,” retorts a reporter.</p>
<p>But even without having to unclog plumbing in search of missing papers, national archivists have their work cut out trying to plug potential gaps in the historical record of the 45th president.</p>
<p>On Feb. 7, 2022, it emerged that 15 boxes of documents and other items that should have been handed over to the National Archives and Record Administration had been found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.</p>
<p>Trump says <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-documents-flushed-down-toilet-presidential-records-act-2022-2">he was told that he was under “no obligation</a>” to hand over the documents, but the law suggests he may be mistaken here.</p>
<p>Specifically, <a href="http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter101&edition=prelim">Section 2071 of Title 18 of U.S. Code states</a> that anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys” records or documents filed in any public office can be fined or imprisoned for up to three years.</p>
<p>It’s deemed a more serious crime if documents are classified, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/pdf/USCODE-2009-title18-partI-chap93-sec1924.pdf">in which case</a> a penalty of up to five years imprisonment can apply.</p>
<p>In both cases, those held responsible are then disqualified from holding any office in the United States.</p>
<p>These requirements matter not only for posterity and the public record. They can also help build a complete picture of events that have lasting consequences. Among the records reportedly incomplete or missing from Trump’s tenure in the White House are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/politics/trump-white-house-records/index.html">phone logs from Jan. 6, 2021</a>.</p>
<h2>Saving the records</h2>
<p>In 1957, the National Historical Publications Commission, a part of the National Archives that works to “preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources … <a href="https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/about">relating to the history of the United States</a>,” <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/help/ppp">recommended</a> developing a uniform system so all materials from presidencies could be archived. They did this to literally save presidential records from the flames: <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/harding/essays/harding-1921-firstlady">President Warren G. Harding’s wife claimed to have burned all his records</a>, and <a href="https://www.historynet.com/in-his-fathers-shadow.htm#:%7E:text=An%20intensely%20private%20man%2C%20Robert,%2C%E2%80%9D%20as%20he%20called%20it.">Robert Todd Lincoln burned all his father’s war correspondence</a>. Other presidents have had their records intentionally destroyed, such as Chester A. Arthur and Martin Van Buren.</p>
<p>So the government collects and retains all presidential communications, including executive orders, announcements, nominations, statements and speeches. This includes any public verbal communications by presidents, which are also placed as public documents in <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/CPD/">the Compilation of Presidential Documents</a>. </p>
<p>These are part of the official record of any administration, published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration on a weekly basis by the White House press secretary. In most presidencies, the document or transcript is available a few days to a couple of weeks after any event. At the conclusion of an administration, these documents form the basis for the formal collections of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/publications/presidential-papers.html">Public Papers of the President</a>. </p>
<p>As a political scientist, I’m interested in <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-78136-5">where presidents give speeches</a>. What can be learned about their priorities based on their choice of location? What do these patterns tell us about administrations? </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/67962/1/398.pdf.pdf">Barack Obama primarily focused on large media markets</a> in states that strongly supported him. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7978826/">Trump went to supportive places as well</a>, including <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?474840-1/president-trump-delivers-remarks-mankato-minnesota">small media markets like Mankato, Minnesota</a>, where the airport was not even large enough to fly into with the regular Air Force One.</p>
<p>Presidential speeches often give a very different perception of an administration. Without all the pageantry, you can quickly get to the point of the visit in the text.</p>
<p>In speeches that President George W. Bush gave in the 2002 midterm election period, he made the same joke more than 50 times as his icebreaker. He would <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/WCPD-2002-10-28/html/WCPD-2002-10-28-Pg1827.htm">apologize that audiences had drawn the “short straw” and gotten him instead of Laura</a>. His commitment to that joke gave a glimpse of his desire to try to connect to an audience through self-deprecating humor. </p>
<p>I found something odd when I began to pull items from the compilation and organize my own database of locations for the Trump administration. I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and I pay attention to my home state. I knew that on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59hA3lyRrc">March 20, 2017, Trump held a public rally in Louisville</a>, where in a meandering speech he touched on everything from Kentucky coal miners to the Supreme Court, China, building a border wall and “illegal immigrants” who were, he said, robbing and murdering Americans.</p>
<p>But when I looked in the compilation in mid-2017, I couldn’t find the Louisville speech. No problem, I thought. They are just running behind, and they will put it in later. </p>
<p>A year later, I noticed the Louisville speech was still not there. Furthermore, other speeches were missing. These were not just any speeches, but Trump rallies. By my count, 147 separate transcripts for public speaking events are missing from Trump’s official presidential speech records. That’s just over 8% of his presidential speeches.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of President Chester A. Arthur, with long gray whiskers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394607/original/file-20210412-13-4d9ix9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Chester A. Arthur, whose family burned many of his presidential records. This was not uncommon for presidents’ families to do.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.67.62">Ole Peter Hansen Balling, artist; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s in, what’s out</h2>
<p><a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter22&edition=prelim">The Presidential Records Act</a>, first passed in 1978, says administrations have to retain “any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.” </p>
<p>An administration is allowed to exclude personal records that are purely private or don’t have an effect on the duties of a president. All public events are included, such as quick comments on the South Lawn, short exchanges with reporters and all public speeches, radio addresses and even public telephone calls to astronauts on the space shuttles. </p>
<p>But Trump’s large public rallies, and what he said at them, have so far been omitted from the public record his administration supplied to the Compilation of Presidential Documents. And while historians and the public could get transcripts off of publicly available videos, that still does not address the need to have a complete official collection of these statements.</p>
<p><a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter22&edition=prelim">Federal law says</a> that presidents are allowed to exclude “materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of … duties of the President.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html">law has been interpreted</a> to mean <a href="https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-oip-guidance-agency-records-vs-personal-records">an administration could omit</a> notes, emails or other documentation from what it sends to the compilation. While many presidents do not provide transcripts for speeches at private party fundraising events, rallies covered by America’s press corps likely do not fall under these exclusions. </p>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>Government documents are among the primary records of who we are as a people.</p>
<p>These primary records speak to Americans directly; they are not what others tell us or interpret to us about our history. The government compiles and preserves these records to give an accurate accounting of the leaders the country has chosen. They provide a shared history in full instead of an excerpt or quick clip shown in a news report. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Since 1981, the public has legally owned all presidential records. As soon as a president leaves office, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html#:%7E:text=Places%20the%20responsibility%20for%20the,records%20separately%20from%20Presidential%20records.">the National Archivist gets legal custody of all of them</a> Presidents are generally on their honor to be good stewards of history. There is no real penalty for noncompliance. </p>
<p>But these public documents, which I work with constantly, have so far always been available to the public – and they’ve been available quickly. Internal presidential documents like memos or email have a rigorous archival procedure that lasts years before they are even accessible. I have a record of every presidential speech from 1945 to 2021 – every president since Bill Clinton has <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/cpd">all their public speeches available online</a>. Until Trump, there have been no missing public speeches in the permanent collection. By removing these speeches, Trump is creating a false perception of his presidency, making it look more serious and traditional. </p>
<p>And by the way: That 2017 Louisville speech is still missing from the records in 2022. I’m hoping it might be found among those 15 boxes.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-defying-custom-hasnt-given-the-national-archives-records-of-his-speeches-at-political-rallies-157480">an article originally published</a> on April 14, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Bow O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All presidents must deposit transcriptions of their public statements with the National Archives. But in the case of Donald Trump, there’s something missing.Shannon Bow O'Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal ArtsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1751502022-01-18T15:14:57Z2022-01-18T15:14:57ZLindiwe Sisulu: trading on a famous South African surname has its limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441253/original/file-20220118-21-wfn2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu has sparked controversy with her attack on the country's constitution and judges.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world, for the most part, is organised on dynastic principles. Part of the rationale of capitalism is that wealth, and all that comes with it, cascades down the generations. Our laws sweep aside impediments to that succession. If your parents are rich, you’re highly unlikely to end up poor.</p>
<p>But in politics it is more complex. In democracies, the scions of the great men and women are not usually guaranteed the mantle of power, although India was a notable exception in the days of <a href="https://www.inc.in/">Congress Party</a> rule. They insisted, as they still do, that someone from the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2321023017727988">take the helm as leader</a>. </p>
<p>Even without that kind of built-in largesse, the realities of wealth and access to power are often enough to ease the way upwards. So, for example, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/george-w-bush/">George W. Bush</a> followed George H.W. Bush as US president after an eight year interregnum. When that happens we like to dip into our stock of cliches – ‘the apple never falls far from the tree’, ‘he’s a chip off the old block’ or simply ‘it’s in her blood’.</p>
<p>There lies the problem. ‘Blood’ (by which we really mean genetics) plays only a secondary role in how we turn out. </p>
<p>Which brings us to South Africa’s Tourism Minister <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/lindiwe-nonceba-sisulu/">Lindiwe Sisulu</a>, who seems to believe that the scion families such as the Mandelas and Mbekis have had their chance and it is now time for the Sisulus to lead the government. And by ‘Sisulus’, she isn’t thinking of her older brother <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/max-vuyisile-sisulu/">Max</a> – she has only one Sisulu in mind – herself.</p>
<p>Lindiwe was elected as an MP in South Africa’s first democratic parliament in 1994 and served as a deputy minister (of housing) in Mandela’s government before joining the cabinet (as defence minister) under Thabo Mbeki and she has been in the cabinet and on the National Executive Committee of the governing African National Congress (ANC) ever-since. </p>
<p>She’s been in the news recently following a controversial op-ed in which she attacked the country’s constitution, and cast aspersions on black judges, referring to them as “mentally colonised” and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/lindiwe-sisulu-hi-mzansi-have-we-seen-justice-d9b151e5-e5db-4293-aa21-dcccd52a36d3?_ga=2.65286957.249107170.1642404523-1387260856.1549361579">“house negroes”</a>. The article <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/01/13/anc-s-msimang-hits-back-at-sisulu-says-she-ll-do-anything-to-become-president">provoked outrage</a>, but she <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/lindiwe-sisulu-responds-to-criticism-of-her-opinion-piece-titled-hi-mzansi-have-we-seen-justice-4e817611-4027-4c32-8eef-1a8416e8fd67">responded</a> by firing more broadsides at her critics. </p>
<p>Her actions have been interpreted as the start of a <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2959695/lindiwe-sisulu-president-msimang-13-january-2022/">campaign for leadership</a> of the ANC, and the country.</p>
<h2>ANC political dynasties</h2>
<p>For someone with <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/fm-fox/trending/2017-07-27-analysis-what-lindiwe-sisulus-campaign-slogan-says-about-her/">political ambition</a>, like Lindiwe, it makes sense to remind others of her name and in this way to absorb some of the stardust that settled on her parents.</p>
<p>Her father <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/walter-ulyate-sisulu">Walter Sisulu</a> was Mandela’s number two on Robben Island, and his deputy president in the ANC from 1991 until his death in 1994. Her mother <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/albertina-nontsikelelo-sisulu">Albertina Sisulu</a> was one of the leaders of the ANC-allied
<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a> which coordinated internal opposition to the apartheid government in the 1980s.</p>
<p>But really, there’s no good reason why the qualities of greatness earned the hard way by her much-admired parents should settle on a daughter raised in very different circumstances. She was a young child when her father was arrested in 1962 and later jailed for sabotage against the apartheid regime and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">spending 27 years in jail</a>.</p>
<p>The fate of the children of other dynastic ANC families doesn’t offer great hope.</p>
<p>Only one of Nelson Mandela’s six children was active politically – the youngest, Zindziswa (Zindzi). She was still a toddler when her father was jailed. She was appointed as ambassador to Denmark in 2014, but her radical political views – which reflected those of her mother, Winnie Mandela – and her undiplomatic ways <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53387667">got her into hot water</a>. She died in 2020 from COVID at the age of 59.</p>
<p>What of the Mbekis? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/govan-mbeki">Govan Mbeki</a> was known on Robben Island, where black anti-apartheid activists were jailed, as a communist intellectual inclined to go his own way. While in jail he refused to speak to Mandela for more than three years <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/aug/31/guardianobituaries">on ideological grounds</a>. And when he was released in 1987 he continued to plough his own path in the Eastern Cape. </p>
<p>His eldest son, Thabo, was very different both ideologically and personally. In exile he was considered suave, urbane and charming. Back home, however, a different dimension emerged – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10153669102314713&id=38131714712">thin-skinned, easily threatened and paranoid</a>.</p>
<p>As president, this once-sure-footed politician kept miscalculating, most spectacularly in his <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mbekis-character-and-his-aids-denialism-are-intimately-linked-54766">AIDS denialism</a>. It was also under Mbeki’s watch that a massive fraud-laced arms deal was concluded although <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/cover-story/2021-07-15-sas-original-sin-the-arms-deal/">there’s no proof that he personally benefited from it</a>. </p>
<p>As an aside, it’s worth noting that while Thabo rose to the pinnacle of South African politics, Duduzane Zuma, the son of the man who unseated him, never made it beyond the shallows. He was a loyal beneficiary of Jacob Zuma’s corrupt state-capture relationship with the <a href="https://www.news24.com/Fin24/state-capture-reports-taint-guptas%20friendship-with-zuma-20160619">Gupta family</a> and backed the rioters after his father was jailed, calling on them to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/zumas-son-duduzane-appeals-to-looters-%20please-be-careful-while-looting-and-protesting%2073a88e6d-826b-411c-a324-769c721d29f9">loot
‘responsibly’</a>. </p>
<p>He’s achieved nothing in his own right, showing none of his father’s charm, persuasiveness and political nous.</p>
<h2>Lindiwe Sisulu - ‘chip off the old block’?</h2>
<p>So we return to Lindiwe and her desire to rise to the very top.
Is she in any way a ‘chip off the old block’ as she’d like us to assume?</p>
<p>Walter Sisulu was renowned for his tenacity and for his gifts as a political thinker and strategist. He was also adored for his warmth, wisdom, modesty and lack of personal ambition, qualities also ascribed to Albertina.</p>
<p>The 67-year-old Lindiwe has served in the cabinet in several jobs <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/lindiwe-nonceba-sisulu/">since 2004</a>, under Mbeki, Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa, so she’s clearly tenacious. But wisdom, modesty, altruism? </p>
<p>She has associated herself with those accused of seeking <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-17-lindiwesisulus-debased-deeply-offensive-vitriolic-campaign-start-sickens-me-to-the-core/">state capture</a> and has appointed men of dubious standing to support her, including, as her legal advisor, Paul Ngobeni <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/da-statement-by-athol-trollip-democratic-alliance-parliamentary-leader-on-paul-ngobeni-22032010-2010-03-22">disbarred from practising law in the US</a>) and Menzi Simelane (found unfit to be appointed to head the National Prosecuting Authority, his integrity <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/Simelane-appointed-special-adviser-20130428">questioned by Constitutional Court Judge Zak Yacoob</a>. </p>
<p>Her most recent campaigning grenade came in her cynical attack on the rule of law, the country’s negotiated settlement and constitution and the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-17-lindiwesisulus-debased-deeply-offensive-vitriolic-campaign-start-sickens-me-to-the-core/">‘upper echelons’ of the judiciary</a> – all achievements for which her parents devoted their lives. </p>
<p>So it would seem that most of the qualities behind Walter and Albertina’s political standing have bypassed Lindiwe.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to the question of whether a famous surname is an aid to political ambition. In some cases undoubtedly so. But do they automatically provide a leg-up to greatness or even worthiness? </p>
<p>It would seem not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The politically ambitious Sisulu’s most recent campaigning grenade came in her cynical attack on the country’s constitution and judiciary.Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1698712021-10-22T12:38:57Z2021-10-22T12:38:57ZTrump wants the National Archives to keep his papers away from investigators – post-Watergate laws and executive orders may not let him<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427634/original/file-20211020-17-jemexo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5369%2C4005&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nixon resigned after tapes he had fought making public incriminated him in the Watergate coverup.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/washington-dc-newspaper-headlines-being-read-by-tourists-in-news-photo/515451050?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The National Archives is the United States’ memory, a repository of artifacts that includes everything from half-forgotten correspondence to the paper trails that document the days of the country’s life. The National Archives contains such items as bureaucratic correspondence, patents and captured German records. <a href="https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2016/08/10/the-gems-of-record-group-242-foreign-records-seized/">It holds Eva Braun’s diary</a> and <a href="https://internsdc.com/hidden-treasures-in-the-national-archives/">photographs of child labor conditions at the turn of the 19th century</a>.</p>
<p>Most of the time, the National Archives goes on with its work with little attention. But right now it is at the center of <a href="https://www.axios.com/biden-jan-6-white-house-records-executive-privilege-e3a2c75d-5049-4943-b265-11dfa5226d6a.html">a political fight about the public’s access to the papers</a> of former President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>That battle is being fought by Trump against President Joe Biden and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The legislators want to see Trump administration records that are housed in the National Archives, Biden has said the archives should provide them – <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21087682/10-18-21-trump-v-thompson-complaint.pdf">and Trump has sued</a> the committee and the archives to stop the papers from being divulged to Congress. </p>
<p>What materials should be kept, where they should be kept and, in the case of presidents, who owns and controls them have long been a thorny question for the nation. Historian <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/about/history/sources/mccoy.pdf">John Franklin Jameson pointed out that from 1833 to 1915 the U.S. had 254 fires</a> in federal buildings – with important public records consumed by the flames. Fire, bugs, mold, water and vermin were all persistent threats that ate away at the country’s earliest materials. </p>
<p>Jameson, along with others, pushed for funding a National Archives in the early 20th century. The formal organization known today was <a href="https://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/nara-national-archives-act-l.jpg&c=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/nara-national-archives-act.caption.html">created by Congress in 1934</a>. From that time, “all archives or records belonging to the Government of the United States” were to be under “the charge and superintendence” of the national archivist. </p>
<p>Currently, <a href="https://www.archivesfoundation.org/about-the-archives/">the National Archives is home</a> to 12 billion sheets of paper, 40 million photographs, 5.3 billion electronic records, and untold miles of video and film. <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/general-info-leaflets/1-about-archives.html">Among those materials</a> are the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, military and immigration records and even the canceled check for the purchase of Alaska. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="National Archives workers push a cart of Veterans Administration records into a vacuum chamber for fumigation in June 1936." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427613/original/file-20211020-16-q3kivh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Before the establishment of the archives, many records were poorly stored. Here archives workers push a cart of Veterans Administration records into a vacuum chamber for fumigation in June 1936.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7822037">Historic Photograph File of National Archives Events and Personnel, 1935 - 1975</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>People’s papers?</h2>
<p>At the center of the current conflict between Trump and the congressional committee is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4307432">the status of presidential papers: Are they public or private?</a></p>
<p>The archives have long dealt with this question. <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washingtons-papers/">President George Washington took his papers home</a> with the intention of creating a library, but it never materialized. In fact, <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washingtons-papers/">rats ate many of Washington’s records</a>. </p>
<p>Washington had established the idea that the president’s papers were his property, since he had written or created them. Many other presidential families who didn’t like the contents of their relation’s presidential records <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/about/faqs.html">disposed of or burned them</a>, leaving only a slanted picture of the actual history. </p>
<p>The situation continued until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the <a href="https://www.fdrlibrary.org/dedication">first to assert presidential papers should be preserved for future generations</a>. He considered presidents stewards, not owners, of their materials. The wealthy Roosevelt privately built a facility and then donated the papers and collections to the National Archives. </p>
<p>Roosevelt’s library sparked public awareness of these papers, and by the late 1940s the question about what the country should do with the president’s papers came to a head. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, was hesitant to make all his records fully public property, but he also was appalled to find out how many predecessors’ records had been intentionally destroyed. </p>
<p>“Such destruction should never again be permitted,” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/23/will-trump-burn-the-evidence">said Truman</a> in 1949. “The truth behind a president’s actions can be only found in his official papers, and every presidential paper is official.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1955-act.html">The Presidential Libraries Act</a> was passed by Congress in 1955. It allowed <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/about/faqs.html">private construction of locations to house presidential papers, but those libraries would be maintained</a> by the national government. The presidential documents were still considered the private property of their chief executive, though most donated them to their libraries. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1974-act.html">1974, the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act</a> was enacted to prevent the destruction of President Richard Nixon’s materials in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html">1978, passage of the Presidential Records Act</a> settled the question of ownership over presidential records: They were the property of the American public. As soon as a president leaves office, all records move immediately to the custody of the national archivist. </p>
<p>The 1978 legislation stated that duplicate or truly nonrelevant records can be disposed of, but only after consultation with the archivist of the United States. <a href="https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2015/nr15-23.html">In 2014, this act was updated to also include electronic records</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The first page of the grand jury subpoena to President Nixon in the Watergate case." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427632/original/file-20211020-20-je02qv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nixon fought the subpoena for his Oval Office tapes, citing executive privilege. He lost in the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/grand-jury-subpoena-dues-tecum-to-richard-m-nixon-to-testify-and-bring-documents-or-objects-listed-with-attached-schedule-of-documents-or-objects-to-be-produced-by-or-on-behalf-of-richard-m-nixon">Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force0; National Archives at College Park</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shielding embarrassing information</h2>
<p>Much of my academic <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/government/faculty/sbo69">career as a political scientist</a> rests upon the availability of these documents. My dissertation and <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319781358">first book</a> both look at locations of presidential speeches. If presidents can speak anywhere, what can we learn about their priorities from these choices? Public documents made my research possible. Without them, no comprehensive accounting of presidential speeches would exist.</p>
<p>Presidential records have occasionally stirred controversy. Many presidents have sought to shield possibly embarrassing or controversial information from public view. </p>
<p>During Watergate, investigators sought potentially incriminating materials from Nixon. <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/anniversary-of-united-states-v-nixon">He claimed he had an absolute executive privilege</a> and <a href="https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/executive-privilege-subpoenaed-materials">could withhold any communication</a> from the legislative and judicial branches. </p>
<p>Executive privilege allows current presidents to provide notice to the National Archives to withhold any materials unless told to do so directly by them or court order.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court sharply disagreed with Nixon’s sweeping executive privilege claim <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1973/73-1766">in a unanimous opinion in 1974, stating</a>, “Neither the doctrine of separation of powers nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.” Nixon’s records had to be released. </p>
<p>In 2001, President George W. Bush, building on <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12667.html">efforts of President Ronald Reagan</a>, sought to create a formal process to <a href="https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/appendix/13233.html">manage claims of executive privilege</a>. Bush’s change was controversial because it allowed sitting and former presidents the ability to almost indefinitely shield information and also allowed a former president to appoint a representative to assert on their behalf even after their death. </p>
<p>Barack Obama revoked Bush’s order <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2009/01/26/E9-1712/presidential-records">the day after he was inaugurated in 2009</a>. </p>
<p>Obama’s 2009 order guides current policies. Any claims of executive privilege involve consultations with the archivist, attorney general and president’s counsel. Other executive agencies may also be involved if the information affects them. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 115,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>How the policy applies to former presidents is trickier. Those who want executive privilege to prevent disclosure of documents – as Trump does – must rely upon the current administration for the final decision. They do not have the ability as former presidents to assert blanket executive privilege. </p>
<p>For other presidents, such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, executive privilege was implemented <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/78413/modern-history-of-disclosure-of-presidential-records-on-the-boundaries-of-executive-privilege/">as a tool to stall investigations</a>. Trump’s attempt to use it may be a delaying tactic, which may benefit him in the short term. But it could also cement the limitations the Supreme Court put on a president’s power to invoke executive privilege. If, in considering the Trump case, the court reaffirms the Nixon ruling, that would be a reaffirmation that the president’s power to keep documents secret was not absolute.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Bow O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s lawsuit to stop the release to Congress of potentially embarrassing or incriminating documents puts the National Archives in the middle of an old legal conflict.Shannon Bow O'Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal ArtsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676132021-09-29T19:25:59Z2021-09-29T19:25:59ZAfghanistan shows the U.S. folly of trying to implant democratic institutions abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423901/original/file-20210929-20-1uv8sfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4690%2C3124&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks during a congressional committee hearing on the withdrawal of American troops Afghanistan. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The rapid conquest of Kabul in Afghanistan <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-talibans-conquest-of-kabul-threatens-the-lives-and-safety-of-girls-women-and-sexual-minorities-166254">and the triumphant seizure of power by the Taliban</a> triggered shock waves throughout the world. </p>
<p>Since the crumbling of the Afghan government and disintegration of its professionally trained army, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/31/defiant-biden-defends-afghanistan-withdrawal-as-criticism-mounts">a volley of scorching criticisms has been launched at U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration</a> for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan. But the collapse of the Afghan government was likely inevitable.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and continuing political instability in Iraq provide painful but valuable lessons for those who insist on implanting democracy in a sociopolitical environment that’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0305829817741267">profoundly shaped by inveterate tribal loyalty</a>, kinship and sectarian affiliation. </p>
<p>Since the triumphant arrival of Taliban forces in Kabul in August 2021, the Biden administration has been the target of harsh criticisms. In order to enhance their electoral fortune in 2022 midterms election, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-republicans-biden-2022-midterms/">congressional Republicans</a> have seized upon the chaotic situation as a golden opportunity to question Biden’s decision-making capacities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Taliban flag on the front of a motorbike." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Taliban flag is placed in the front of a motorbike in Kabul, Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Islamic groups and regimes like Iran’s have celebrated the departure of U.S. forces as a sign of the decline in American world domination.</p>
<p>Even media outlets like CNN have depicted Biden as “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/opinions/biden-afghanistan-address-third-option-stewart/index.html">the author of the mess</a>” in Afghanistan. Jim Langevin, a Democrat member of U.S. House of Representatives, has characterized the Biden administration’s decision <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-biden-congress-democrats-military-plan/">as a “catastrophe”</a> on full display for the world to see.</p>
<h2>Afghan withdrawal was years in the making</h2>
<p>It would be unfair to lay the blame for the tumultuous situation in Afghanistan solely at the feet of the Biden administration.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Biden speaks from behind a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden speaks from the White House in April 2021 about the withdrawal of the remainder of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Withdrawing U.S. forces was nothing more than a punctuation mark to end a long sentence of secret negotiations between <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/peace-talks-with-us-started-secretly-under-obama-taliban-spokesperson-120030200196_1.html">Barack Obama’s administration</a> with the Taliban. Those talks eventually culminated in the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-08-19/was-biden-handcuffed-by-trumps-taliban-deal-in-doha">signing of a peace deal between the Donald Trump administration and the Taliban in Qatar in February 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Ethnically and religiously motivated <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/asia-jan-june11-timeline-afghanistan">political rivalries have been a hallmark of Afghan politics for at least the past four decades</a>. The presence of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2001 provided an incentive for these factional groups to intensify their rivalries. </p>
<p>As long as the U.S. was willing to bear “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/16/remarks-by-president-biden-on-afghanistan/">the brunt of the fighting</a>,” there was no incentive for leaders of these factional groups to reach a lasting political settlement. </p>
<p>Despite declarations of a commitment to building democratic institutions, the western-backed Afghan government was nothing more than a corporate entity. Its shareholders were regional warlords and local officials who exercised enormous control and influence over “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/files/warlords_as_bureaucrats.pdf">the disbursement of financial resources</a>,” including international aid, and bureaucratic recruitment to public positions in both the civil service and the military.</p>
<p>The retention of “<a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5909d5f34.pdf">former warlords in positions of power</a>” cultivated a fertile ground for corruption to flourish. This was further exacerbated by the lack of effective oversight over international aids and the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Afghanistan. </p>
<h2>NGO corruption</h2>
<p>In fact, corruption, <a href="https://archive.globalpolicy.org/home/176-general/49498-criticism-grows-of-afghanistans-bloated-ngo-industry.html">profiteering and extravagant spending by NGO staff</a> fuelled resentment among local Afghans. Ordinary Afghans aware of massive international financial assistance supposedly pouring into the country saw no significant improvement in their lives, but painfully witnessed “<a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/09/afgh-s20.html">the vastly higher standards of living among NGO staff</a>” who happened to be connected to regional warlords and local officials. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A baby is fed a supplement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2019 photo, a health-care worker provides a supplement as part of a nutrition regime for a seven-month-old baby suffering from malnutrition near Kabul, Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the past two decades, numerous official reports and <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/09/afgh-s20.html">government watchdogs</a> have highlighted the rampant fraud, embezzlement and nepotism that gradually eroded the faith of Afghan people in their government, and hence sapped the strength of the Afghan state.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, U.S. military leaders who were aware of the scale of corruption chose to conceal it so they could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/14/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops">boast about the “progress”</a> they were making. But contrary to those assertions, the magnitude of corruption had not only diminished the morale of the Afghan army but had also alienated ordinary Afghans from their own government. </p>
<p>Consequently, neither the Afghan people nor its <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/taliban-take-kabul-via-path-paved-by-corruption/">security forces and army</a> were willing to put up resistance against advancing Taliban forces. </p>
<h2>Parallels to Iraq</h2>
<p>A parallel can also be drawn between the lack of morale to counter Taliban forces and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37702442">collapse of Iraqi army in Mosul in June 2014</a>. That collapse resulted in the capture of several major cities and towns in northern Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). </p>
<p>Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, ethnic and sectarian politics have dominated Iraqi politics. Like Afghanistan, Iraqi political factions have failed to establish an inclusive form of government. In conjunction with ethnic rivalry and sectarian politics, “<a href="https://www.u4.no/publications/iraq-overview-of-corruption-and-anti-corruption-2020">deeply entrenched corruption</a>” has become a major force in fostering a sense of disillusionment among ordinary Iraqi citizens. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Children play in a damaged car amid piles of rubble." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children play inside a damaged car amid heavy destruction in a neighbourhood retaken by Iraqi security forces from Islamic State militants near Mosul, Iraq, in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political corruption and sectarian appointments in fact eroded <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauliddon/2021/08/17/is-there-an-iraq-precedent-to-the-failure-of-afghanistans-military/?sh=7ab9e06b79dc">the morale of the Iraqi army</a> to withstand the ISIL onslaught.</p>
<p>This summer’s disintegration of the Afghan government and the continuation of political turmoil in Iraq provide invaluable lessons for the United States, which has imposed upon itself the duty of emancipating the world in the name of democracy. </p>
<h2>Failed ‘democratization’ missions</h2>
<p>The failure to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan is a compelling testimony of the fallacy of the project heralded by neoconservatives and put into action by George W. Bush. The former U.S. president justified these wars as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4152940.pdf">democratizing missions</a>.” </p>
<p>The abject failure of both missions shows the folly of trying to implant democratic institutions in societies where kinship, tribal loyalty and sectarian affiliation have deep roots. Sectarianism and ethnic loyalty tend to foster environments that aren’t receptive to liberal values of tolerance, respect for civil liberty and individual freedom — all of which are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20048858.pdf">essential conditions</a> to develop vibrant and successful democracies. </p>
<p>Loyalty to tribes and sectarian affiliation often impede the development of loyalty to the wider political community. This is a painful reality that must be taken into consideration by those who insist on installing democracy in countries marked by ingrained tribal and sectarian loyalty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sirvan Karimi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This summer’s disintegration of the Afghan government and continuing political turmoil in Iraq provide valuable lessons for the U.S. and its mission to impose democracy on the rest of the world.Sirvan Karimi, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668072021-09-15T12:17:14Z2021-09-15T12:17:14ZTexas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420913/original/file-20210913-27-1nyacfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1832&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the early 1960s, Barry Goldwater, a Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, called for the GOP to adopt racist principles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GOLDWATERCAMPAIGN1962/019c4c3a37e9da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo">AP Photo/Henry Burroughs</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/07/abbott-texas-voting-restrictions-signs-bill/">signed into law</a> a bill on Sept. 7, 2021, that reduces opportunities for people to vote, allows partisan poll watchers more access and creates steeper penalties for violating voting laws. </p>
<p>The Republican governor argued that the legislation would “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/07/abbott-texas-voting-restrictions-signs-bill/">easier to vote and harder to cheat</a>.” Democratic opponents of the measure, however, said Republican legislators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-texas/texas-governor-signs-republican-backed-voting-restrictions-idUSKBN2G31A1">presented no evidence</a> of widespread voter fraud during debate on the bill.</p>
<p>Civil rights organizations <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-texas/texas-governor-signs-republican-backed-voting-restrictions-idUSKBN2G31A1">immediately filed suit</a>, calling the law unconstitutional because it is intended to restrict voting among minorities, <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/09/29/stacking-the-deck-how-the-gop-works-to-suppress-minority-voting/">who overwhelmingly</a> support Democratic political candidates. </p>
<p>Across the country, Republicans have turned to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/">gerrymandering</a> and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression">voter suppression legislation</a> such as closing polling stations in minority and low-income precincts, mandating discriminatory voter ID laws and purging millions from voter rolls. In addition, GOP politicians and right-wing commentators have demanded that educators quit teaching the facts of <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">America’s racist history</a>. </p>
<p>For several decades, the GOP has depended on racism to keep white people in power and nonwhites on the outside.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5451%2C3528&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A seated man holds a document for public view, with other men sitting and standing next to him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5451%2C3528&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shows off a signed voting restrictions law criticized for disproportionately limiting the rights of nonwhite people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXVotingBillsTexas/d3fc8c95ce9e4cac864a62944a137a4a/photo">AP Photo/LM Otero</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lee Atwater and the strategy of racism</h2>
<p>In 1981, longtime GOP strategist Lee Atwater plainly declared that the Republican Party’s key strategy was racism. Atwater described how the GOP began to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">define itself as a white supremacist party</a> in response to the civil rights movement. The Nation magazine later published the full audio recording of the interview.</p>
<p>“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N—–, n—–, n—–.’”, Atwater said, using the actual racial slur.</p>
<p>“By 1968, you can’t say ‘n—–’ – that hurts, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract,” he continued. </p>
<p>“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is, Blacks get hurt worse than whites,” Atwater explained. “‘We want to cut this’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">N—–, n—–</a>.’”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X_8E3ENrKrQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An excerpt from Lee Atwater’s 1981 interview explaining racist Republican tactics.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The GOP moves from overt racist words to coded words</h2>
<p>For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/18/fact-check-democrats-republicans-and-complicated-history-race/3208378001/">The two parties switched</a> positions during the civil rights movement when the Democrats abandoned their support for segregation and Republicans sought to appeal to segregationists. </p>
<p>In the early 1960s, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a Republican, challenged the GOP’s more liberal politicians to redefine the Republican Party as what newspaper editor William Loeb called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-breitbart-there-was-the-charleston-news-and-courier-86277">the white man’s party</a>.” Republican New York Gov. Nelson B. Rockefeller responded that if the GOP embraced Goldwater, an opponent of civil rights legislation, as its presidential candidate in 1964, then it would advance a “program <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-is-happening-to-the-republicans">based on racism and sectionalism</a>.” </p>
<p>Goldwater won the GOP’s nomination but lost the presidential election <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-defeats-goldwater-for-presidency">in a landslide</a> to the Democratic incumbent, Lyndon Johnson. But even without winning the Oval Office, Goldwater and other like-minded conservative Republicans won the hearts and minds of pro-segregation Democrats, who were angry with Johnson for signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.</p>
<p>The GOP, as Atwater pointed out, learned to use coded words to court these disillusioned Democrats who became Republicans in what would become known as the “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/commentary/the-last-dixiecrat">great white switch</a>” or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Southern strategy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man reaches out to a crowd of smiling people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign included a speech supporting states’ rights near a place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RonaldReaganPresidentialCampaign1980/64de548a686945a2b95a69c23f8997e6/photo">AP Photo/Jack Thornell</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>States’ rights, welfare queens and Willie Horton</h2>
<p>Republican Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election in part by using references to states’ rights and “law and order,” rather than by making blatant appeals to white supremacy or racism. Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, noted that Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-nixon-was-wary-of-blacks-and-jews.html">whole problem is really the Blacks</a>. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to.”</p>
<p>In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, gave a presidential campaign speech at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/reagan-speech-at-neshoba/">where three civil rights workers had been murdered</a> in 1963.
Reagan declared his own support for states’ rights. Gabrielle Bruney wrote in Esquire that “by touting himself as a states’ rights candidate near the site of one of the nation’s most famous hate crimes, <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-showtime-racism-matt-tyrnauer-ian-haney-lopez-donald-trump/">Reagan offered voters a racism</a> that was both obvious and unspoken.” </p>
<p>As president, Reagan used coded rhetoric to connect race to crime, welfare and government spending. For instance, Bryce Covert wrote in The New Republic, Reagan frequently used distortion in his references to a single con artist named Linda Taylor, the so-called “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen">welfare queen</a>,” to argue that welfare was corrupt and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen">Black people were too lazy to work</a>.</p>
<p>Atwater worked as a consultant for Reagan and then as campaign manager for Vice President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988. Atwater approved a television ad blaming Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, for a furlough program in the state that released a Black first-degree murderer, Willie Horton, who then raped a white woman. Atwater famously claimed, “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder whether <a href="https://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-ad">Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate</a>.” Bush won the election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit and overcoat stands in front of a sign saying " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his election and reelection campaigns, Donald Trump used racist messages to attract support.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-arrives-to-speak-at-a-make-america-news-photo/1229379005">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Onward to Donald Trump</h2>
<p>The GOP’s hold on the South became complete in 2016 when Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/07/republican-party-is-white-southern-how-did-that-happen/">won all the former Confederate states</a> except Virginia. </p>
<p>Trump became one of the GOP’s top contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination after questioning without evidence whether Black president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Barack Obama was born in Hawaii</a>. When Obama released his birth certificate, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Trump’s candidacy fell apart</a>.</p>
<p>When Trump ran for president in 2016, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">he used racially divisive rhetoric</a>, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. and suggesting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">a judge should recuse himself</a> from a case solely because of the judge’s Mexican heritage.</p>
<p>His campaign used the slogan “Make America Great Again,” which had been widely criticized for being a <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-appeals-to-white-anxiety-are-not-dog-whistles-theyre-racism-146070">dog whistle to white people</a> who felt that minorities were encroaching on their country. Then, as president, he <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/13/16140504/trump-charlottesville-white-supremacists">pandered to white supremacists</a> by refusing to criticize them <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-history-of-support-from-white-supremacist-far-right-groups-2020-9">and by using coded words</a>. He told Americans that there are “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/08/very-fine-people-charlottesville-who-were-they-2/">fine people on both sides</a>” after a confrontation between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017.</p>
<p>When Trump ran for reelection in 2020, he renewed his birther claim by insinuating that Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, who is <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-kamala-harris-americans-yet-again-have-trouble-understanding-what-multiracial-means-145233">Black and Asian</a>, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">doesn’t meet the requirements</a>” to run for vice president. When Trump lost the election, he challenged the accuracy of voting in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-21/trump-challenge-to-election-results-hits-hardest-at-black-voters">precincts that were heavily minority</a>.</p>
<p>Now Republicans in Texas and around the nation are back to openly expressing their racism with no need for dog whistling or other forms of abstraction.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party backed Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The two parties switched.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673882021-09-10T10:47:03Z2021-09-10T10:47:03Z9/11 did not change the world – it was already on the path to decades of conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420281/original/file-20210909-27-1jala06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5614%2C3740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/9-11-1414">September 11 attacks</a> in New York and Washington were visceral in their impact. In less than three hours, the twin towers of the World Trade Center were reduced to a mountain of twisted metal and rubble, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11-anniversary-fast-facts/index.html">killing more than 2,700 people</a>, while hundreds more were killed at the Pentagon. All three were destroyed by men armed with nothing more than parcel knives hijacking fuel-laden passenger aircraft.</p>
<p>America was under attack. It came not long after after George W. Bush had formed his new administration with highly influential neoconservatives and assertive realists at the Pentagon and State Department, as well as in the White House itself. All were determined to see the vision of a “<a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/02/01/new-american-century-1997-2006-and-the-post-cold-war-neoconservative-moment/">new American century</a>” fulfilled – a neoliberal free market world rooted in US experience and guided by its post-cold war progress as the world’s sole economic and military superpower.</p>
<p>At the time, commentators <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/44242/pdf">compared the attack to Pearl Harbor</a>, but the effect of 9/11 was much greater. Pearl Harbor had been an attack by the naval forces of a state already in great tension with the United States. It was against a military base in the pre-television age and away from the continental United States. The 9/11 attack was a much greater shock, and if war with Japan was a consequence of Pearl Harbor, then there would be war after 9/11 even if the perpetrators and those behind them were scarcely known to the American public. </p>
<p>The vision of the new American century had to be secured and force of arms was the way to do it, initially against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>A few people <a href="https://files.ethz.ch/isn/22208/0109%20sept11briefing.pdf">argued against war at the time</a>, seeing it as a trap to suck the US into an Afghanistan occupation instead of treating 9/11 as an act of appalling mass criminality, but their voices did not count. </p>
<p>The first “war on terror” – against al-Qaida and the Taliban – started within a month, lasted barely two months and seemed an immediate success. It was followed by Bush’s <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html">State of the Union address</a> in January 2002 declaring an extended war against what Bush referred to as an “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/bush-axis-of-evil-2002-1127725">axis of evil</a>” of rogue states intent on supporting terror and developing weapons of mass destruction. </p>
<p>Iraq was the priority, with Iran and North Korea in the frame. The Iraq War started in March 2003 and was apparently over by May 1, when Bush gave his “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviatemin/2021/07/20/its-not-over-until-its-over-the-perils-of-declaring-victory-in-crisis-too-soon/?sh=76675210513c">mission accomplished</a>” speech from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. </p>
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<p>That was the high point of the entire US-led “war on terror”. Afghanistan was the first disaster, with the Taliban moving back into rural areas within two to three years and going on to fight the US and its allies for 20 years before taking back control last month.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-government-collapses-taliban-seize-control-5-essential-reads-166131">Afghan government collapses, Taliban seize control: 5 essential reads</a>
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<p>In Iraq, even though the insurgents appeared defeated by 2009 and the US could withdraw its forces two years later, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state">Islamic State (IS) rose</a> phoenix-like from the ashes. That led to the third conflict, the intense <a href="https://www.inherentresolve.mil/About-CJTF-OIR/">2014-18 air war</a> across northern Iraq and Syria, fought by the US, the UK, France and others, <a href="https://airwars.org/conflict/coalition-in-iraq-and-syria/">killing</a> tens of thousands of IS supporters and several thousand civilians.</p>
<p>Even after the collapse of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, IS arose once again like the proverbial phoenix, spreading its influence as far afield as the Saharan Sahel, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, southern Thailand, the Philippines, back in Iraq and Syria once more and even Afghanistan. The spread across the Sahel was aided by the collapse of security in Libya, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24585876">the 2011 NATO-led intervention</a> being the fourth of the west’s failed wars in barely 20 years.</p>
<p>In the face of these bitter failures, we have two linked questions: was 9/11 the beginning of decades of a new world disorder? And where do we go from here?</p>
<h2>9/11 in context</h2>
<p>It is natural to see the single event of 9/11 as turning traditional military postures on their heads, but that is misleading. There were already changes afoot, as two very different events in February 1993, eight years before the attacks, had shown all too well.</p>
<p>First, incoming US president, Bill Clinton, had <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/103296.pdf">appointed James Woolsey</a> as the new director of the CIA. Asked at his Senate confirmation hearing how he would characterise the end of the cold war, he replied that the US had slain the dragon (the Soviet Union) but now faced a jungle full of poisonous snakes.</p>
<p>During the 1990s, and very much in line with Woolsey’s phrase, the US military moved from a cold war posture to preparing for small wars in far-off places. There was more emphasis on long-range air strike systems, amphibious forces, carrier battle groups and special forces. By the time Bush was elected in November 2000, the US was far more prepared to tame the jungle.</p>
<p>Second, the US military and most analysts around the world missed the significance of a new phenomenon, the rapidly improving ability of the weak to take up arms against the strong. Yet the signs were already there. On February 26 1993, not long after Woolsey had talked of a jungle full of snakes, an Islamist paramilitary group attempted to <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/world-trade-center-bombing-1993">destroy the World Trade Center</a> with a massive truck bomb placed in the underground car park of the North Tower. The plan was to collapse it over the adjoining Vista Hotel and the South Tower, destroying the entire complex and killing upwards of 30,000 people.</p>
<p>The attack failed – though six people died – and the significance of the attack was largely missed even though there were many other indicators of weakness in the 1990s. In December 1994, an Algerian paramilitary group tried to <a href="https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/terrorism/air-france-flight-8969-hijacking-gign-raid/1222870300001">crash an Airbus passenger jet on Paris</a>, an attack foiled by French special forces during a refuelling stop at Marseilles. A month later a bombing by the LTTE of the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ab608.html">Central Bank in Colombo</a>, Sri Lanka devastated much of the central business district of Colombo, killing over 80 and injuring more than 1,400 people.</p>
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<p>A decade before the first World Trade Center attacks, 241 Marines <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-embassy-in-beirut-hit-by-massive-car-bomb">had been killed</a> in a single bombing in Beirut (another 58 French paratroopers were killed by a second bomb in their barrack) and between 1993 and 2001 there were attacks in the Middle East and East Africa including the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/06/21/remembering-the-khobar-towers-bombing/">Khobar Towers</a> bombing in Saudi Arabia, an attack on the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/uss-cole-bombing">USS Cole</a> in Aden Harbour and the bombing of <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embassy-bombings">US diplomatic missions</a> in Tanzania and Kenya.</p>
<p>The 9/11 attacks did not change the world. They were further steps along a well-signed path leading to two decades of conflict, four failed wars and no clear end in sight.</p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>That long path, though, has from the start had within it one fundamental flaw. If we are to make sense of wider global trends in insecurity, we have to recognise that in all the analysis around the 9/11 anniversary there lies the belief that the main security concern must be with an extreme version of Islam. It may seem a reasonable mistake, given the impact of the wars, but it still misses the point. The war on terror is better seen as one part of a global trend which goes well beyond a single religious tradition – a slow but steady move towards revolts from the margins.</p>
<p>In writing my book, <a href="https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/paul-rogers/losing-control/9780745316796?gclid=Cj0KCQjw-NaJBhDsARIsAAja6dP0sLsR_GV30zO4uOHN8A9a2H90wa9XetReSuP9H6CWsER-oJghb7EaAqbeEALw_wcB">Losing Control</a>, in the late 1990s – a couple of years before 9/11 – I put it this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What should be expected is that new social movements will develop that are essentially anti-elite in nature and will draw their support from people, especially men, on the margins. In different contexts and circumstances, they may have their roots in political ideologies, religious beliefs, ethnic, nationalist or cultural identities, or a complex combination of several of these. </p>
<p>They may be focused on individuals or groups, but the most common feature is an opposition to existing centres of power … What can be said is that, on present trends, anti-elite action will be a core feature of the next 30 years – not so much a clash of civilisations, more an age of insurgencies. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This stemmed from the view that the primary factors in global insecurity were a combination of increasing socioeconomic divisions and environmental limits to growth coupled with a security strategy rooted in preserving the status quo. Woolsey’s “jungle full of snakes” could be seen as a consequence of this, but there would be military responses available to keep the lid on problems – “<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-liddism-towards-real-global-security/">liddism</a>” in short. </p>
<p>More than two decades down the road, socioeconomic divisions have worsened, the concentration of wealth has reached levels best <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ab30d301-351b-4387-b212-12fed904324b">described as obscene</a> and has even increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, itself leading to food shortages and increased poverty.</p>
<p>Meanwhile climate change is now with us, is accelerating towards climate breakdown with, once again, the <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/10/report-inequalities-exacerbate-climate-impacts-on-poor/">greatest impact on marginalised societies</a>. It therefore makes sense to see 9/11 primarily as an early and grievous manifestation of the weak taking up arms against the strong, and that military response in the current global security environment woefully misses the point. </p>
<p>At the very least there is an urgent need to rethink what we mean by security, and time is getting short to do that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rogers is a Council member of Rethinking Security and a sponsor of the Peace and Justice Project. The fourth edition of his book, "Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century", has just been published. </span></em></p>It was the day the US realised it was fighting a different kind of war.Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668762021-09-03T14:01:10Z2021-09-03T14:01:10ZAt the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, ancient Greece and Rome can tell us a lot about the links between collective trauma and going to war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419140/original/file-20210902-14-g183ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C22%2C2964%2C1845&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">America's political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-defense-donald-rumsfeld-addresses-members-of-news-photo/1862297?adppopup=true">David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the outskirts of Grapevine, Texas, a town about 5 miles northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, there’s a <a href="https://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/listing/9-11-flight-crew-memorial/101/">memorial dedicated to the 33 airline flight crew members</a> who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. When I stumbled upon the monument several years ago with my family, I experienced contrary emotions: sadness inspired by the memorial’s stark figures, mixed with anger over how the attacks quickly became a pretext for U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>Now, as U.S. soldiers <a href="https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-costs-of-the-afghanistan-war-in-lives-dollars-and-years-164588">leave behind uncertainty and violence in Afghanistan</a>, I look back on America’s past 20 years with two sets of eyes.</p>
<p>As the first-year graduate student who stood smoking a cigarette in <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/911-faqs">Washington Square Park at 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001</a> – less than a mile from the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and where the sound of the jet engines’ final roar mixed in with a Tuesday morning’s bustle – I feel visceral sorrow and remorse. </p>
<p>Today, as a scholar of Greek literature who <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752346/the-many-minded-man/">studies narrative and memory</a>, I see how this collective trauma shaped U.S. actions and has affected Americans’ vision of their identities and shared history – a feedback loop that is reflected in the myths and histories of ancient Greece.</p>
<p>Twenty years is still recent history for many, so memories of the 9/11 attacks may still be too raw to easily reflect on and learn from. That’s why looking for parallels in ancient stories of destruction and loss can help in understanding how shared trauma can shape the stories a nation tells itself, and the decisions that get made in response.</p>
<h2>What is “collective trauma”?</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01441">Collective trauma</a> is a term that describes the shared experience of and reactions to a traumatic event by a group of people. That group may be as small as a few people or as large as a whole society.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-pain-of-9-11-still-stays-with-a-generation-64725">The 9/11 attacks shattered collective American confidence</a> in its safety and sense of place in the world. America’s collective efforts to learn to live with that trauma partly explain why there is a Sept. 11 memorial in a Texas town thousands of miles from where the attacks took place. It also demonstrates that collective tragedies can shape the world views of individuals who were not present at the event.</p>
<p>The traumatized group may go through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/brief-treatment/mhi028">shared stages of grief</a>, from disbelief to anger. The further the group gets from the traumatizing event itself, the closer it moves to <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/social_memory">social memory</a>, a concept historians use to describe how groups of people come to share a consistent story about past events. This narrative can be manipulated to reflect or enforce values in the present.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Maria Antonia Fernandez-Lopez touches an original steel beam from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center to commemorate the 14th anniversary of 9/11 at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center in Los Angeles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1020%2C717&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Americans’ collective trauma over the Sept. 11 attacks is reflected in memorials located near and far from where they took place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Sept11AnniversaryCalifornia/3645cedf0859466da483020e813a5917">Nick Ut/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My studies of ancient Greek history suggest to me that this is what happened in the U.S. after the attacks. There are myths and histories of the ancient world that describe how, in the wake of the destruction of cities, societies created cultural memories that helped them find reasons for rushing into war. These episodes have parallels to the U.S. in the early 21st century.</p>
<h2>Reshaping history via stories</h2>
<p>In the spring of 2002, I attended a New York University conference called “<a href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/departments/ancientstudies/conferences-and-colloquia0.html">Saving the City</a>,” where speakers were asked to consider such stories. One of the histories we focused on involved Athens after the Persian army invaded Greece – for a second time – in 480 B.C. and burned the temples, groves and homes of the Athenians. The attack was in part vengeance for a past military loss, and also a punishment for Athens’ meddling in Persian affairs in Asia Minor. As with New York on Sept. 11, the attackers targeted an icon: the first version of the Athenian Parthenon.</p>
<p>In the wake of this collective trauma, as the scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=38lYWBAAAAAJ&hl=en">Bernd Steinbock argues</a>, <a href="https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013.11.57/">narratives of city destruction became popular in Athenian storytelling and art</a>. In some of these stories, cities that had committed offenses against the gods then suffered at the hands of international armies that formed to set them right.</p>
<p>Athenians told one another these stories as they raised troops and a navy to harry the Persians in Asia Minor. Athenian political rhetoric was shaped by the specter of Persian invasion and the threat of re-invasion, the glory of victory and the casting of Athens as a force for freedom and justice in the world. This rhetoric justified imperial expansion, violence and eventually the murder and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4435410">enslavement of the city’s own allies.</a>.</p>
<p>That led to the <a href="https://historycooperative.org/the-peloponnesian-war-athens-vs-sparta/">Peloponnesian War</a>, a destructive 27-year conflict with Sparta that ended with Athens being conquered again in 404 B.C.</p>
<h2>Rhetoric and calls to arms</h2>
<p>In 2001, Americans were still in the early days of their collective trauma when talk pivoted to the rhetoric of war. Analogies were made to shared cultural or national stories from the past: The terrorists were “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/">evil-doers</a>,” President George W. Bush said soon after the attacks, and fighting them was “a new crusade.” September 11 was the “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/06/the-parallels-and-differences-between-pearl-harbor-and-911/">Pearl Harbor</a>” that made it OK to invade Afghanistan.</p>
<p>By early 2002, Bush was telling the nation that Iran, Iraq and North Korea – the “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/bush-axis-of-evil-2002-1127725">axis of evil</a>” – were threats to the United States, although they had not been implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks. His administration would soon use its claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction <a href="https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2003/08/weapons-of-mass-destruction-and-tonkin-gulf/">as a “Gulf of Tonkin”</a> moment to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq – a reference to the 1964 event that spurred greater American military involvement in the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>As I listened to this sort of political rhetoric at the time, the language of Greek myth and poetry helped me understand how political speech capitalizes on memory to create shared realities and justify use of violence. I spent that first year of graduate school in New York City studying the <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/80469baf9c07c3ea8dfcf70da888631d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750">language and politics</a> in Homer’s epic, the “Iliad.” The story’s “thousand ships” from different cities sailing east, with a bumbling fool at their head, to punish the Trojans seemed an awful lot like the fractious “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/11/20/prague.bush.nato/">coalition of the willing</a>” – Bush’s term for the military alliance he assembled to invade and occupy Iraq.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Collective trauma and imperialism</h2>
<p>Rome provides another example from ancient history of the relationship between collective trauma and justifications for imperial pursuits. </p>
<p>The city of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppxrv">Rome fought and won its first war</a> with the powerful city of Carthage – located in what is today Tunisia – between 264-241 B.C., and its second between 218-201 B.C. Rome then imposed a hefty war indemnity on Carthage, which helped it acquire territories that laid the foundation for a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183pb5x.6">pan-Mediterranean empire</a>. </p>
<p>These two victories ended any significant threat that Carthage may have posed, but Roman culture remained obsessed with war. According to the military leader and author <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-remains-found-by-pompeii-really-are-pliny-the-elder-new-tests-indicate-1.8439072">Pliny the Elder</a>, the statesman Cato the Elder used to shout “<a href="http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:15.20">I think Carthage must be destroyed</a>” at every meeting of the Roman Senate. Rome went on to fight a third war with Carthage, besieging and destroying the city between 149-146 B.C.</p>
<p>I can’t think of this anecdote without remembering how <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/to-start-a-war-robert-draper.html">Bush agitated for invading Iraq</a> over 10 years after his father’s invasion of the country. Or that just a handful of years after Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” speech, a presidential candidate sang “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7s5pT3Rris">bomb bomb Iran</a>” to the tune of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV873dFNQFI">a Beach Boys pop hit</a>.</p>
<p>These and other accounts from ancient Greece and Rome suggest that over history, collective trauma has often created an opportunity for leaders to use social memory – a culture’s shared stories – to create justifications for lashing out at the world, careless of any new damage it may cause.</p>
<p>As individuals and nations, we don’t act because of what we suffer, but often because of the stories we tell about it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1645882021-09-01T12:07:44Z2021-09-01T12:07:44ZCalculating the costs of the Afghanistan War in lives, dollars and years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418456/original/file-20210830-15-1wfwsc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C4493%2C2964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Heading for the exit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-afghan-police-and-us-soldiers-leave-a-school-news-photo/495500609?adppopup=true">Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to destroy al-Qaida, remove the Taliban from power and remake the nation. On Aug. 30, 2021, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/rockets-fired-kabul-airport-us-troops-race-complete-evacuation-2021-08-30/">U.S. completed a pullout of troops</a> from Afghanistan, providing an uncertain punctuation mark to two decades of conflict.</p>
<p>For the past 11 years I have closely followed the post-9/11 conflicts for the <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/">Costs of War Project</a>, an initiative that brings together more than 50 scholars, physicians and legal and human rights experts to provide an account of the human, economic, budgetary and political costs and consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.</p>
<p>Of course, by themselves figures can never give a complete picture of what happened and what it means, but they can help put this war in perspective.</p>
<p>The 20 numbers highlighted below, some drawn from figures released on Sept. 1, 2021, by the Costs of War Project, help tell the story of the Afghanistan War.</p>
<h2>From 2001 to 2021</h2>
<p>On Sept. 18, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives voted <strong><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2001/h342">420-1</a></strong> and the Senate <strong><a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00281">98-0</a></strong> to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf">authorize</a> the United States to go to war, not just in Afghanistan, but in an open-ended commitment against “those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California cast the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/08/17/barbara-lee-afghanistan-vote/">only vote opposed</a> to the war.</p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. Congress took <strong><a href="https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf">7 days</a></strong> after the 9/11 attacks to deliberate on and authorize the war.</p>
<p>At <strong><a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=10&d1=7&y1=2001&m2=08&d2=31&y2=2021">7,262 days</a></strong> from the first attack on Afghanistan to the final troop pullout, Afghanistan is said to be the U.S.’s longest war. But it isn’t – the U.S. has <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-korean-war-never-technically-ended">not officially ended the Korean War</a>. And U.S. operations in Vietnam, which began in the mid-1950s and included the declared war from 1965-1975, also rival Afghanistan in longevity.</p>
<p>U.S. President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html">George W. Bush told</a> members of Congress in a joint session on Sept. 20, 2001 that the war would be global, overt, covert and could last a very long time.</p>
<p>“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. … Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen,” <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html">he said</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President George W. Bush addressing US troops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President George W. Bush speaks to soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-w-bush-speaks-to-soliders-from-the-10th-news-photo/525617790?adppopup=true">Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The U.S. started bombing Afghanistan a few weeks later. The Taliban surrendered in Kandahar on Dec. 9, 2001. The U.S. began to fight them again in earnest in March 2002. In April 2002, President Bush promised to help bring “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/world/a-nation-challenged-the-president-bush-sets-role-for-us-in-afghan-rebuilding.html">true peace</a>” to Afghanistan: “Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army. And peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls which works.” </p>
<p>The global war on terror was not confined to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. now has counterterrorism operations in <strong><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/USCounterterrorismOperations">85 countries</a></strong>.</p>
<h2>The human cost</h2>
<p>Most Afghans alive today were not born when the U.S. war began. The median age in Afghanistan is just <strong><a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/afghanistan-population">18.4 years old</a></strong>. Including their country’s war with the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989 and civil war in the 1990s, most Afghans have lived under nearly continuous war. </p>
<p>There are, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, <strong><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.htm#cps_veterans.f.1.">980,000 U.S. Afghanistan war veterans</a></strong>. Of these men and women, <strong><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.htm#cps_veterans.f.1.">507,000 served in both Afghanistan and Iraq</a></strong>.</p>
<p>As of mid-August 2021, <strong><a href="https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf">20,722</a></strong> members of the U.S. military had been wounded in action in Afghanistan, not including the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/26/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/">18 who were injured</a> in the attack by ISIS-K outside the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.</p>
<p>Of the veterans who were injured and lost a limb in the post-9/11 wars, many lost <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23192067/">more than one</a>. According to <a href="https://www.health.mil/News/Articles/2021/08/09/Since-Gulf-War-Advanced-Prosthetic-Technology-Saves-Lives-Careers">Dr. Paul Pasquina</a> of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, of these veterans, “About 40% to 60% also sustained a brain injury. Because of some of the lessons learned and the innovations that have taken place on the battlefield … we were taking care of service members who in previous conflicts would have died.”</p>
<p>In fact, because of advances in trauma care, more than <a href="https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/july/us-military-has-improved-mortality-since-world-war-ii-but-there-have-been-some-alarming-exceptions"><strong>90%</strong></a> of all soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who were injured in the field survived. Many of the seriously injured <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2729451">survived wounds</a> that in the past might have killed them.</p>
<p>In all, <strong><a href="https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf.">2,455 U.S. service members</a></strong> were killed in the Afghanistan War. The figure includes 13 U.S. troops who were killed by ISIS-K in the Kabul airport attack on Aug. 26, 2021.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The casket of a US soldier is seen through a doorway during a full military honors burial ceremony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A burial for one of 2,455 U.S. troops who died in
Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>U.S. deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom also include 130 service members who died in other locations besides Afghanistan, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen.</p>
<p>The U.S. has paid <strong><a href="https://militarypay.defense.gov/Benefits/Death-Gratuity/#:%7E:text=The%20death%20gratuity%20program%20provides,of%20the%20cause%20of%20death.">US$100,000 in a “death gratuity</a>”</strong> to the survivors of each of the service members killed in the Afghanistan war, totaling <strong>$245.5 million</strong>. </p>
<p><strong>More than <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures">46,000 civilians have been killed</a></strong> by all sides in the Afghanistan conflict. These are the direct deaths from bombs, bullets, blasts and fire. <a href="https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports">Thousands more have been injured</a>, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>And while the number of Afghans leaving the country has increased in <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-do-afghanistans-refugees-go-166316">recent weeks</a>, more than <strong><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58283177">2.2 million displaced Afghans</a></strong> were living in Iran and Pakistan at the end of 2020. The United Nations Refugee Agency reported in late August 2021 that since the start of that year, <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/88385">more than 558,000</a> people have been internally displaced, having fled their homes to escape violence. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095922">United Nations</a>, in 2021 about a third of people remaining in Afghanistan are malnourished. <strong><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095922">About half of all children under 5 years old</a></strong> experience malnutrition.</p>
<p>The human toll also includes the hundreds of Pakistani civilians who were killed in <strong><a href="https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/americas-counterterrorism-wars/the-drone-war-in-pakistan">more than 400 U.S. drone strikes</a></strong> since 2004. Those strikes happened as the U.S. sought to kill Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who fled and sheltered there in late 2001 after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistani civilians have also been killed in crossfire during fighting between militants and the Pakistani military.</p>
<h2>The financial cost</h2>
<p>In terms of the federal budget, Congress has allocated a bit over <strong>$1 trillion</strong> to the Department of Defense for the Afghanistan War. But all told, the Afghanistan War has cost much more than that. Including the Department of Defense spending, more than <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts"><strong>$2.3 trillion</strong></a> has been spent so far, including increases to the Pentagon’s base military budget due to the fighting, State Department spending to reconstruct and democratize Afghanistan and train its military, interest on borrowing to pay for the war, and spending for veterans in the Veteran Affairs system.</p>
<p>The total costs so far for all post-9/11 war veterans’ disability and medical care costs are about <strong>$465 billion</strong> through fiscal 2022. And this doesn’t include the future costs of all the post-9/11 veterans’ medical and disability care, which <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/lbilmes/home">Harvard University scholar Linda Bilmes</a> <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/CareforVeterans">estimates</a> will likely add about $2 trillion to the overall cost of care for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars between now and 2050.</p>
<p>The war in Afghanistan, like many other wars before it, began with optimistic assessments of a quick victory and the promise to rebuild at war’s end. Despite Bush’s warning of a lengthy campaign, few thought then that would mean decades. But 20 years later, the U.S is still counting the costs. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was updated on Sept. 1, 2021 to correct the total death gratuity paid to survivors of service members killed in the Afghanistan war to $245.5 million.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neta C. Crawford receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is co-director of the Costs of War Project based at Brown University.</span></em></p>Following the completion of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Neta Crawford, the co-director of the Costs of War Project, reflects on 7,268 days of American involvement in the conflict.Neta C. Crawford, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.