tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/james-mattis-35019/articlesJames Mattis – The Conversation2021-04-13T23:22:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1589352021-04-13T23:22:48Z2021-04-13T23:22:48ZUS postpones Afghanistan troop withdrawal in hopes of sustaining peace process: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394899/original/file-20210413-19-1o7lxib.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C11%2C1982%2C1416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Long time there: U.S. troops maneuver around the central part of the Baghran river valley as they search for remnants of Taliban and al-Qaida forces on Feb. 24, 2003. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AFGHANISTANUSOPERATIONVIPER/d38e6cd3d2e0da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=U.S.%20troops%20afghanistan&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3217&currentItemNo=43">Aaron Favila/Pool/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States will <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-us-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan/2021/04/13/918c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html?itid=hp-top-table-main">bring home its over 3,000 remaining soldiers in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021</a>, delaying its planned withdrawal for five months in an effort to bolster faltering peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgent group. </p>
<p>The new troop withdrawal date is symbolic, marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that within weeks led to the U.S. invasion of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. But it fails to meet former President Donald Trump administration’s planned May 1 troop withdrawal, which was negotiated with the Taliban as part of a 2020 U.S. peace accord with the group. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/13/us/biden-news-today">U.S. intelligence agencies</a> and many security analysts worried that a U.S. exit from Afghanistan on the earlier date would undermine peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government and potentially lead the Taliban to regain control of the country. </p>
<p>The war in Afghanistan has been long, complicated and deadly, and the road to peace fraught. Here are five stories explaining the history of the Afghan conflict and the faltering peace process.</p>
<h2>1. Negotiations to end a ‘forever war’</h2>
<p>First, some history on how the U.S. ended up at war with the Taliban.</p>
<p>“It was on Afghan soil that Osama bin Laden hatched the plot to attack the U.S.,” wrote Abdulkader Sinno, an Afghanistan expert at Indiana University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-come-after-a-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-111036">in a 2019 article about the possibility of the U.S. ending its war there</a>. “The Taliban, the de facto rulers of much of Afghanistan in the wake of a bloody civil war, had given bin Laden and his supporters shelter.”</p>
<p>Former U.S. President Donald Trump long signaled his intention to end America’s “forever wars” like the conflict in Afghanistan. In 2018, his secretary of defense – then James Mattis – agreed to negotiate a U.S. withdrawal directly with the Taliban, rather than in three-way talks that included the Afghan government.</p>
<p>The move acknowledged there was “little hope for an outright U.S. victory over the Taliban at this point,” wrote Sinno.</p>
<p>And for the Taliban, that was a win. They had fought “the world’s strongest military power to a stalemate,” Sinno wrote.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C4000%2C2664&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C4000%2C2664&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305944/original/file-20191209-90609-1cb5fgw.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>
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<span class="caption">A market in the Old City of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 8, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Afghanistan-Daily-Life/a9c73acd22884f5d83b007a534f699b4/9/0">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</a></span>
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<h2>2. Troop withdrawal</h2>
<p>On Nov. 17, 2019, Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw about half of its 4,500 troops from Afghanistan as part of a cease-fire agreement with the Taliban – a prelude to U.S. peace talks with the Taliban.</p>
<p>The large troop reduction was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-troop-drawdown-in-afghanistan-signals-american-weakness-and-could-send-afghan-allies-into-the-talibans-arms-150515">blow to Afghanistan’s U.S.-trained national army</a>, which had seen 45,000 troops killed from 2015 to 2019 in the conflict with the Taliban, according to scholar Brian Glyn Williams, who worked on the U.S. Army’s Information Operations team in eastern Afghanistan during the war. </p>
<p>The Afghanistan National Army relies on American troops for “essential training, equipment and other support,” wrote Williams. </p>
<p>Williams said Trump’s withdrawal schedule may also signal U.S. weakness to the ethnic Pashtun tribes of southeast Afghanistan.</p>
<p>“These 60 tribes, or clans, have for centuries maintained – and shifted – the country’s balance of military and political power. They are always calculating which of the rival factions or warring parties is in the strongest position and seeking to join that side,” wrote Williams.</p>
<h2>3. Peace deal is signed</h2>
<p>The U.S. in February 2020 signed its peace deal with the Taliban, following a weeklong truce and 18 months of stop-and-go negotiations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men, some in suits and other in traditional Pashtun clothing, stand in a hotel conference room at a distance from each other, wearing face masks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387895/original/file-20210304-17-75uw2.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>
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<span class="caption">Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other U.S. officials meet with senior Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, in November 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-meets-with-taliban-co-news-photo/1229709572">Patrick Semansky/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The four-part agreement committed the U.S. to withdrawing the rest of its soldiers from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 – the date that Biden just pushed back. </p>
<p>In exchange, the Taliban agreed to enter talks with the Afghan government, and to bar extremist groups like al-Qaida from using Afghanistan as a base to attack the U.S. and its allies.</p>
<p>“But peace in Afghanistan will take more than an accord,” wrote Elizabeth B. Hessami, a scholar of peace-building at Johns Hopkins University. In an <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-us-and-taliban-sign-accord-afghanistan-must-prepare-for-peace-132303">article published shortly after the accord was signed</a>, Hessami wrote, “History shows that economic growth and better job opportunities are necessary to rebuild stability after war.” </p>
<p>Hessami noted that insurgent groups typically recruit people who “desperately need an income.” </p>
<p>Wired magazine reported back in 2007 that the Taliban paid its soldiers far better than the Afghan government paid its military. </p>
<p>“Creating well-paid alternatives to extremist groups, then, is a critical piece in solving Afghanistan’s national security puzzle,” wrote Hessami. </p>
<h2>4. Can the Taliban be trusted?</h2>
<p>In September 2020, six months after the U.S.-Taliban accord, the Taliban entered into talks with the Afghan government in Doha, Qatar. The two sides are supposed to establish a comprehensive cease-fire and negotiate a potential power-sharing agreement. </p>
<p>But Sher Jan Ahmadzai, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha, <a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-peace-talks-begin-but-will-the-taliban-hold-up-their-end-of-the-deal-146081">questions whether the Taliban are negotiating in good faith</a>. In the months after the U.S.-Taliban accord, violence levels in Afghanistan actually increased.</p>
<p>“Some Taliban fighters have insisted they will continue their jihad ‘until an Islamic system is established,’” he wrote, “leading to concerns that the organization is not actually committed to peace.”</p>
<p>“Many question whether the Taliban can be held accountable for what they’ve promised,” wrote Ahmadzai.</p>
<p>For example, international and domestic observers of the Afghan peace process have also been unable to confirm that the Taliban have actually severed their relationship with al-Qaida. </p>
<p>Afghans also “fear losing the meaningful achievements that came out of international engagement in Afghanistan, such as women’s empowerment, increased freedom of speech and a more vibrant press,” according to Ahmadzai.</p>
<h2>5. What’s at stake</h2>
<p>Biden delayed troop withdrawal in an attempt to secure a deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government that protects such rights. If peace talks collapse, Afghan women may have the most to lose.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Veiled women and some children stand on the street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387898/original/file-20210304-24-8g7fpg.jpg?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>
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<span class="caption">Women were required to be fully veiled in public when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Kabul, 1996.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/veiled-women-stand-in-the-street-october-11-1996-in-kabul-news-photo/744044">Roger Lemoyne/Liaison</a></span>
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<p>“The Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 was the darkest time for Afghan women,” wrote the women’s rights scholars Mona Tajali and Homa Hoodfar in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-in-afghanistan-worry-peace-accord-with-taliban-extremists-could-cost-them-hard-won-rights-154149">March 5, 2021, article</a>. </p>
<p>“Assuming an austere interpretation of Islamic Sharia and Pashtun tribal practices, the group limited women’s access to education, employment and health services. Women were required to be fully veiled and have male escorts.”</p>
<p>Women have been largely excluded from the Doha negotiations. One of just four female negotiators on the Afghan government’s 21-member team, Fawzia Koofi, survived an assassination attempt, apparently by the Taliban. </p>
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The Afghanistan War now has an end date: 9/11/21. Experts explain the history of US involvement in Afghanistan, the peace process to end that conflict and how the country’s women are uniquely at risk.Catesby Holmes, International Editor | Politics Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1518152020-12-17T19:13:53Z2020-12-17T19:13:53ZWhy retired generals, like new Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, rarely lead the Pentagon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375528/original/file-20201216-17-zcbg2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5590%2C3726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin has been confirmed by the Senate as the next secretary of defense.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden/baa9e2ec4ebb4d55a9f15ec36b19ca05/photo">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By all accounts, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, just confirmed by the Senate to lead the U.S. Defense Department, is eminently qualified to be secretary of defense. A man who achieved the rank of <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/biden-introduces-gen-austin-says-moment-calls-for-waiver-for-defense-pick/2418953/">four-star general</a> and succeeded at every turn during his 40-year career, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/secretary-defense/617330/">Austin displayed valor and courage</a> while serving the country for nearly half a century. </p>
<p>Ironically, though, Austin’s lengthy military career created a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/15/esper-pentagon-diversity-white-house-414901">sticking point</a> in his confirmation process. The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/113">law requires</a> a service member to be <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-introduce-lloyd-austin-as-defense-chief-rekindling-civilian-military-debate-11607531725">out of uniform for at least seven years</a> before assuming the civilian role of secretary of defense. </p>
<p>Austin left the Army just over four years ago, which made him technically ineligible for the post. Congress waived the waiting period before confirming him, something it had previously <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/politics/austin-confirmation-challenges/index.html">done only twice since 1947</a>, most recently in 2017.</p>
<p><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-introduces-historic-defense-secretary-nominee-congress-debates/story?id=74632054">Austin’s selection is historic</a>. He is the first African American to lead the nation’s military establishment, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/military-minorities-leadership.html">step toward broadening</a> the Pentagon’s largely <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/15/esper-pentagon-diversity-white-house-414901">white male leadership ranks</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the fact that Austin’s extensive military experience briefly clouded <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/biden-will-face-uphill-battle-confirming-retired-general-lloyd-austin-as-pentagon-chief-210908873.html">his prospects</a> raises the question of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/113">why the seven-year delay exists</a> in the first place. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gen. Lloyd Austin" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375532/original/file-20201216-15-hohd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&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">Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin will serve as Joe Biden’s secretary of defense.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austin_2013_2.jpg">U.S. Central Command, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<h2>Civilian control over the military</h2>
<p>The formal legal delay dates from the end of World War II, but the concept behind it harks back to the nation’s origins and lies at the heart of the American <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/civilian-control-military-tradition-began/story?id=43927430">military tradition</a>.</p>
<p>The founders had personally experienced an empire’s use of a standing army and therefore viewed <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed08.asp">large military forces as the hallmark of authoritarianism</a> and an inherent threat to democracy. They believed that generals’ influence over <a href="https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/4/4/unpacking-civilian-control-of-the-military">how armies are used</a> must <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-why-is-the-pentagon-usually-led-by-a-civilian">always be subordinate</a> to those officials <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051026185242/http:/usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy/dmpaper12.htm">directly accountable to the people</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Henry Knox, the first U.S. secretary of war" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375548/original/file-20201216-13-55zok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&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">The nation’s first secretary of war was Henry Knox, a former bookseller turned military commander in the Revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Knox_by_Gilbert_Stuart_1806.jpeg">Gilbert Stuart, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051026185242/http:/usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy/dmpaper12.htm">Samuel Adams</a> wrote in 1768 that “even when there is a necessity of the military power, within a land, a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and jealous eye over it.” In 1776, the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/virginia-declaration-of-rights">Virginia Declaration of Rights</a> asserted that “in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, civil power.” That document became an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence and, later, a model for the Bill of Rights. </p>
<p>When it came to the Constitution, the founders <a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/american-perspectives-civil-military-relations-and-democracy">specifically prescribed</a> <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/will-civilians-control-military/">civilian control</a> over the military by assigning the president the role of commander-in-chief while giving Congress the power to set the military’s rules and budget.</p>
<p>In the wake of World War II, Congress worried that the American public had increasingly <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-why-is-the-pentagon-usually-led-by-a-civilian">fallen under the spell</a> of charismatic generals like Douglas MacArthur, buying into the argument that greater autonomy should be given to the heroic captains of battle. <a href="https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/4/4/unpacking-civilian-control-of-the-military">As MacArthur saw things</a>, the prerogative of proven warriors should not be checked by civilians who know nothing of war. </p>
<p>Congress disagreed and created the waiting period to limit career military officials’ eligibility to run the newly created Department of Defense. A 10-year gap in service – later shortened to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/113">seven years</a> – would allow a general’s “<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44725/5">star to fade</a>” to an acceptable level, reducing their influence over the public.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375534/original/file-20201216-19-1m9usxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chuck Hagel, secretary of defense under Barack Obama from 2013 to 2015, was a veteran but not a career member of the military.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Secretary_of_Defense_Chuck_Hagel._130227-A-SS368-001.jpg">Monica King, U.S. Army/Department of Defense, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many defense secretaries have been veterans but not career soldiers – like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/opinion/chuck-hagel-vietnam-brother.html">Chuck Hagel</a>, who had been a soldier in the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968, decades before he <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/why-barack-obama-picked-chuck-hagel-085822">led the Pentagon</a> for President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2015. Others have been scholars, politicians and leaders of business or industry, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-V-Forrestal">James Forrestal</a>, appointed the first defense secretary in 1947, who had worked on Wall Street before joining the government. </p>
<p>Their leadership skills and experience were developed at least as much outside the military as within it.</p>
<h2>‘A specialized society separate from civilian society’</h2>
<p>As a major in the Army National Guard, I am familiar with the mentality of career military officers. </p>
<p>During <a href="https://centerforlaw.org/dwight-bio">my nearly 20 years as a military lawyer</a>, I have never heard a senior officer tell a superior he or she couldn’t accomplish a mission. In the mind of a colonel or general, there is literally nothing that cannot be achieved with a well-disciplined group of soldiers, smart tactics and an ample supply of funding and equipment. </p>
<p>This can-do attitude is part of the career officer mentality – but so is a certain intolerance for dissenting opinions. The foundational premise of military management is a unity of command and a <a href="https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN30511-AR_600-20-002-WEB-3.pdf">single voice of authority</a>. Senior officers typically have little patience for opposing views or consensus-building. Diversity of thought is not celebrated; contrarian views are not welcome.</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>As the Supreme Court has observed, “the military is, by necessity, a <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/417/733.html">specialized society</a> separate from civilian society.” It is an institution that has “developed <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/417/733.html">laws and traditions</a> of its own during its long history,” a body where, in the end, the “<a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/137/147.html">law is that of obedience</a>.”</p>
<h2>Austin receives the third waiver</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gen. George Marshall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375529/original/file-20201216-17-11094wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&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 Marshall, the first U.S. five-star general in the 20th century, later served as secretary of defense – but only for a year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:General_George_C._Marshall,_official_military_photo,_1946.JPEG">U.S. Department of Defense, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Retired Gen. George Marshall received the first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/us/politics/biden-austin-defense-secretary.html">waiver of the waiting period</a> in 1950. Marshall made a <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44725/5">candid observation</a> during the nomination process: “As a second lieutenant, I thought we would never get anywhere in the Army unless a soldier was secretary of war. As I grew a little older and served through some of our military history … I came to the fixed conclusion that he should never be a soldier.” </p>
<p>Considered <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44725/5">uniquely qualified to oversee U.S. forces</a> in the Korean War, Marshall was eventually confirmed on the condition his tenure would be limited to one year. <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-why-is-the-pentagon-usually-led-by-a-civilian">Congress stated at the time</a> that “no additional appointments of military men to that office shall be approved.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gen. James Mattis" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375531/original/file-20201216-19-a907gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Retired Gen. James Mattis was the second career military officer to receive a waiver of a waiting period between his uniformed service and becoming the secretary of defense.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gen_James_N._Mattis.jpg">U.S. Department of Defense, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It took nearly 70 years for the second waiver to be granted, to retired Gen. <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44725/5">James Mattis</a> in 2017. <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/james-mattis-confirmation-hearing-233527">His confirmation faced early resistance</a> from senators, especially Democrats, because Mattis had left the Marines just four years earlier. In reluctantly voting to confirm Mattis, Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cautioned that “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/08/944231676/bidens-defense-pick-raises-concerns-over-civilian-control-of-the-military">waiving the law should happen no more than once a generation</a>.” </p>
<p>Austin has now become the third recipient of a waiver. He professes to have acquired a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-introduces-lloyd-austin-secretary-defense-nominee-live-stream-today-2020-12-09/">civilian mindset</a> since leaving active duty, but the rationale underlying the waiting period remains as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/09/generals-pentagon-defense-secretary-military-civilian-norm-443989">vital and relevant</a> as ever.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/137/147.html">An Army is not a deliberative body</a>,” the Supreme Court once observed. </p>
<p>Giving career members of this body the authority to decide how America’s blood and treasure are spent should be the exception, not the rule. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published Dec. 17, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Dwight Stirling is a reserve JAG officer in the California National Guard. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency.</span></em></p>President Joe Biden’s nomination of a recently retired general to lead the Pentagon required an exception to federal law.Dwight Stirling, Lecturer in Law, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1503202020-11-20T13:21:37Z2020-11-20T13:21:37ZFive reasons Trump’s challenge of the 2020 election will not lead to civil war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370185/original/file-20201118-23-15u4kbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2982%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-Trump supporters, including Infowars host Alex Jones, hold a 'Stop The Steal' protest Wednesday in Atlanta as Georgia's recount nears the end. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alex-jones-host-of-infowars-an-extreme-right-wing-program-news-photo/1229673008?adppopup=true">Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/22/disunited-states-could-a-second-civil-war--and-an-end-to-the-union--really-happen/">Some Americans fear</a> that the deep political divisions in the country and President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329054683441278977">determination to challenge the results</a> of the election <a href="https://www.qcherald.com/columnists/time-gather-together-and-fight-%E2%80%A6-not-each-other">will cause civil war</a>.</p>
<p>Those who object to Trump’s tactics argue that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/world/europe/trump-autocrats-dictators.html">he behaves like an autocrat</a>. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/enemy-people-trumps-war-press-new-mccarthyism-and-threat-american-democracy">Delegitimizing sources of information that resist his narrative</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-14/column-trumps-demonization-of-his-opponents-is-dangerous">demonizing political opponents</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/14/trump-escalates-the-signals-to-his-followers-use-lethal-violence-to-help-me-hold-power/">supporting political violence </a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/autocratic-legalism-trump.html">using courts as political tools</a> are all hallmarks of dictators.</p>
<p>Much as the South rejected President Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election with armed rebellion, will President Trump’s many supporters attempt to violently overthrow a Biden-led government? </p>
<p>I <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alexander-cohen-976110">am a political scientist</a> who studies public opinion and American politics. I believe the United States will not erupt in open rebellion. Here are five reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Georgia state trooper separates Biden supporters from Trump supporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370322/original/file-20201119-24-xp5vxh.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">A Georgia state trooper separates Biden supporters from Trump supporters at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally Wednesday outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/georgia-state-trooper-separates-biden-supporters-from-trump-news-photo/1229673829?adppopup=true">Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. The American political system remains stable, if stressed.</h2>
<p>As the lawfully elected president of the United States, President Trump must follow certain rules and laws. This rule of law has continued even while he challenges the election. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/politics/trump-election-lawsuits.html">The courts are quickly dispatching judicial challenges as meritless</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/07/were-heading-for-some-recounts-dont-expect-them-to-change-the-outcome/?sh=332646ad17e0">recounts are proceeding legally and normally</a>. Despite <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/19/election-2020-updates-georgia-release-recount-results/3775154001/">the recent invitation of Michigan GOP legislators to the White House</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/electors-vote.html">state legislatures have not signaled any desire to upend the electoral process</a>. While outcomes may frustrate the president, the legal process is being honored.</p>
<p>In contrast, before the Civil War, interpretation of the Constitution <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/69.2.327">became contentious</a>, states argued that the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-glass-negatives/articles-and-essays/time-line-of-the-civil-war/1861/">Union was dead</a> and politicians <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/field-of-blood_article-180970043/">fought in open combat in the Senate</a>. Military officers <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/g/going-south-u-s-navy-officer-resignations-dismissals-on-the-eve-of-the-civil-war.html">resigned their commissions</a> to support revolution. The current American political system has avoided such systematic conflict.</p>
<p>Of course, <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/us/10f.asp">governments can be shaken by the will of their citizens</a>. While President Trump’s supporters are vocal, they are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/09/strongman-trump-defeat-pinochet-election/">organized around a cult of personality</a> rather than any organizational structure. This limits their ability to overthrow systems of power. Compared with <a href="https://time.com/5106608/protest-1968/">organizations that resisted the Vietnam War</a> or <a href="https://www.history.com/news/sons-of-liberty-members-causes">Revolutionary War</a>, they lack discipline and hierarchy. They also lack supplies and material to combat entrenched resistance, and can hardly be seen as dangerous to military and federal law enforcement, which as of Jan. 20 will report to Joe Biden.</p>
<h2>2. Trump’s most vocal supporters enjoy little support from the powerful.</h2>
<p>The South rebelled with the full <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/why-non-slaveholding-southerners-fought">support of politicians, the plantation class and the small landholders</a>. Nearly everyone embraced rebellion. </p>
<p>Currently, however, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/business/joe-biden-wall-street.html">Wall Street does not embrace Trumpism</a> and has nothing to gain from rebellion. While many Fox News commentators have covered allegations of voter fraud – claims that have often been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2020/11/15/fox-news-host-tucker-carlson-apologizes-false-claim-voter-fraud/6303120002/">debunked</a> – the channel is hardly calling for violent revolution. President Trump actually <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fox-news-tweets/">finds them too moderate</a>. </p>
<p>Many prominent Republicans are seeking to satisfy Trump supporters while also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/12/politics/republicans-recognizing-biden-legitimacy-president-elect/index.html">quietly backing a transition of power</a>. <a href="https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-congratulates-president-elect-biden-vice-president-elect-harris?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top">Corporate America has not signaled any interest</a> in entering the fray. Powerful communications platforms are <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/11/twitter-facebook-senate-judiciary-committee-1234617061/">resisting streams of misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>The powerful do not support revolution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Text on this Civil War-era envelope is from Jefferson Davis: 'Slave states, once more let me repeat, that the only way of preserving our slave property, or what we prize more than life, our Liberty, is by a union with each other.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370330/original/file-20201119-19-1w3zx22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Text on this Civil War-era envelope is from Jefferson Davis: ‘Slave states, once more let me repeat, that the only way of preserving our slave property, or what we prize more than life, our Liberty, is by a union with each other.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/image-depicts-a-snake-labeled-with-the-names-of-the-news-photo/175319121?adppopup=true">G. W. Falen/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. The geography of pro-Trump support does not favor rebellion.</h2>
<p>In 1861, although the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469606859/border-war/">border states were heavily divided</a>, the Confederacy was unified in rebellion. Anti-war sentiment in the North <a href="https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-23-2005-04-06-voa1-83126097/124809.html">was generally sporadic</a> and mostly anti-draft rather than pro-Southern. </p>
<p>In short, the North and South were relatively unified, quite adversarial, and ideologically polarized. In the South, this made arming and preparing for insurrection easy. It also made the rebellion difficult to quell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Constitution of the Confederate States of America before the U.S. Civil War, circa March 1861." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370189/original/file-20201118-23-10lwrjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Constitution of the Confederate States of America before the U.S. Civil War, circa March 1861.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-constitution-of-the-confederate-states-of-america-prior-news-photo/99859058?adppopup=true">Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/america-divided-rural-urban/2020/11/04/8ddac854-1ebf-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html">The geography of those strenuously contesting the election</a> is far less uniform. Blue metropolitan areas dot the map throughout the country. Demonstrators do not represent the views of all Republicans. And even in a deep-red state like North Dakota, <a href="https://www.270towin.com/2020-election-results-live/state/north-dakota">almost 32% of voting residents chose Biden</a>. This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/rural-city-trump-voters/">geographical diffusion of ideology</a> makes organized rebellion extremely difficult. </p>
<h2>4. The military is loyal to the office, not the man.</h2>
<p>When governments are overthrown, <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/seizing-power">at least some elements of the military must be supportive</a>. In the U.S. Civil War, both commanders and soldiers joined the rebellion.</p>
<p>This seems implausible in the contemporary United States. Trump’s mismanagement and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/trump-mocked-us-military-troops-losers-whole-life/">disrespect toward enlisted soldiers and the generals</a> have been notable, and <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/01/04/the-clash-between-trump-and-his-generals/">he keeps firing very popular commanders</a> and replacing them with political surrogates. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598360/">Privately, many generals are eager for his presidency to end</a>, and most are unlikely to execute any unlawful orders. Some have even criticized his politicization of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/politics/esper-milley-trump/index.html">military</a>. </p>
<p>Certainly, the president can dismiss officers and appointees he believes are personally disloyal to him, such as former <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-purge-of-defense-agencies-comes-at-a-vulnerable-time-for-us-national-security-149853">Secretary of Defense Mike Esper</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-fires-head-u-s-election-cybersecurity-after-he-debunked-n1248063">Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs</a>. Yet the military at large has not demonstrated unwavering loyalty to Trump, and appears to remain loyal to the office and rule of law. </p>
<p>In extending increased protection to Joe Biden, the Secret Service has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-secret-service/2020/11/06/0057dc5e-1fd9-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html">demonstrated this</a> too.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Trump and then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370334/original/file-20201119-15-owe4lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Among the military figures who have rebuked President Trump is retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, right, who resigned as Trump’s defense secretary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-speaks-alongside-secretary-of-news-photo/887037010?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Present civil disorder is, relatively speaking, tame.</h2>
<p>Finally, the social upheaval of the present day should be placed in historical perspective. Compared with the 1860s, or even <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/6/2/21277253/george-floyd-protest-1960s-civil-rights">the 1960s</a>, civil disorder is tame at best. </p>
<p>Protests have been mostly orderly. While there has been some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/11/14/million-maga-march-dc-protests/">violence at recent demonstrations in Washington</a> and leftist-led disturbances on the West Coast, the violence is far less dramatic or widespread than in previous periods. Consider, for instance, violence at <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/">the 1968 Democratic Convention</a>, the <a href="https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy">1970 shootings at Kent State</a>, or <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/">John Brown’s bloody raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859</a>. If things were going to fall apart, city halls and statehouses would be occupied, National Guardsmen would throw down their weapons and join a revolution and violence would escalate beyond control. We simply are not there.</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>Without a doubt, the president’s attempts to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/13/trump-election-voter-fraud-claims-attack-democracy">undermine faith in the integrity of the election are dangerous to democracy</a>. Legal processes to ensure that every legal vote is counted will proceed. And, without a doubt, Trump and his surrogates will continue to focus on small details, broad generalizations and debunked theories to cast popular doubt on the legitimacy of a possible President Biden. They will try to delay vote certification, nullify state results and push the election to the House, where the president would win. </p>
<p>This is their right in a democracy. Yet, for the moment, the system appears poised to hold together. The months ahead will be turbulent, but civil war is unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Cohen 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>Much as the South rejected President Lincoln’s election with a massive armed uprising, could President Trump’s many supporters rise up and overthrow a Biden-led government?Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106852019-03-08T11:42:34Z2019-03-08T11:42:34ZVeterans are concerned about climate change, and that matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262538/original/file-20190306-100781-532fqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the Navy's largest base, is endangered by sea level rise.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:9_Flattops_at_Norfolk_naval_base,_December_20,_2012.jpg">Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>News that the Trump administration plans to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/26/climate-change-trump-panel-climate-science-slammed-dangerous/2981735002/">create a panel</a> devoted to challenging government warnings about climate change has been met with opposition from members of the U.S. military. Citing concerns about the effects of climate change on national security, more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/03/06/the-energy-202-why-ex-military-leaders-are-trying-to-stop-trump-s-panel-to-counter-climate-science/5c7f0bf61b326b2d177d5fdf/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a8d346b92672">four dozen top-ranking military officials</a> came out in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.</p>
<p>Military concern about the effects of climate change on national security is not new. Months before former Secretary James Mattis left the Defense Department in January 2019, he <a href="https://climateandsecurity.org/2018/12/21/a-statement-about-secretary-mattis-departure-and-climate-change/">acknowledged</a> that increased coastal flooding and tropical storms, resulting from <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/">rising average global temperatures</a>, pose a threat to as many as <a href="http://hill.cm/QszMRS9?fbclid=IwAR2orWiHLHvYKBO9BNz17QL1jQ7Zajbw6hSUMvCrBmnk5BWw-rgPBtGGGCw">one-third</a> of U.S. military bases.</p>
<p>In addition to its potential effect on military infrastructure, climate change could pose threats to global security. A recent IPCC report <a href="https://wg1.ipcc.ch/presentations/Sbsta_drought.pdf">predicts</a> that rising global temperatures, drought and other extreme weather patterns are likely to become more frequent and severe across the globe. This <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/why-a-veteran-worries-about-climate-change/">could create competition</a> <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/109/45/18344">and conflict</a> for increasingly scarce water and agricultural resources, particularly in the developing world <a href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/10/double-burden-climate-exposure-state-fragility/">or in fragile states.</a></p>
<p>Although climate change could pose major risks to national security, few have asked current and veteran members of the armed forces what they think about climate change and its potential effects. Our new survey research finds that most U.S. veteran members of the armed services in our sample think that the planet is warming, and many of them are concerned about what climate change means for U.S. security.</p>
<h2>Combating climate change: A call to arms?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262548/original/file-20190306-100793-1y4du4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, pictured Nov. 26, 2018 in Doral, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Florida-Change-of-Command/dbabfdda51984137b7f867fb3d9d7b4e/76/0">Brynn Anderson/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Past and present members of the military are <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-generally-supportive-of-trump/">more likely</a> to support politically conservative views than politically liberal ones. But to characterize the military as uniformly conservative misses an important element of nuance.</p>
<p>Numerous surveys of active duty service members and veterans in the early 2000s demonstrated that enlisted members of the military tended to vote in patterns <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002764206296586">similar to their civilian counterparts</a>. However, recent research has pointed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/11/11/veterans-are-voting-republican-and-thats-not-likely-to-change/?utm_term=.edd0ea5defb9">a shift</a> <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx">rightward</a> within the military and found that <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/60805/private-opinions">higher-ranking officers</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/11/recent-veterans-are-more-republican-than-older-ones-why/?utm_term=.39ce91817580">younger vets</a> are especially more likely to be conservative, identify as Republicans, and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-generally-supportive-of-trump/">support President Trump</a> than nonveterans.</p>
<p>Despite their conservative tendencies, there is reason to suspect that armed forces members are concerned about the effects of climate change – a position held most commonly by <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/">ideological liberals</a>. Service members might, for example, have <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/why-a-veteran-worries-about-climate-change/">observed the impact</a> of major storms or rising sea levels on the day-to-day functioning of military bases. Or they could have used weapons systems that run on renewable energy sources, including <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery/military-green-us-air-force-flies-on-biofuel/">aircraft</a>, <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15000/gm-thinks-its-stealthy-optionally-manned-truck-platform-could-change-the-us-army">tanks</a> and <a href="https://inhabitat.com/u-s-army-to-use-solar-backpacks-in-afghanistan/">solar energy-powered backpacks</a>. </p>
<p>The Pentagon is <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2017/09/12/pentagon-is-still-preparing-for-global-warming-even-though-trump-said-to-stop/">continuing to take steps</a> to address <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/09/20/what-the-u-s-military-is-doing-about-climate-change/">climate change</a>, despite President Trump saying such preparation should stop. U.S. military personnel are thus likely to have more experience with climate change effects, solutions to it or both.</p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>To study past and present military personnel’s attitudes about climate change, we conducted a <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/eb5a5e_6736dbda348147b1b960c39e5363875c.docx?dn=Motta%20Ralston%20Spindel%202019.docx">survey</a> between Jan. 17-21, 2019 of 293 U.S. active duty or veteran service members, recruited via the online service <a href="https://luc.id/">Lucid</a>. While this sample is not perfectly representative of the military writ large, it is both ideologically and demographically diverse. Our sample closely resembles veteran population <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-generally-supportive-of-trump/">benchmarks</a> on race, educational attainment, and, perhaps most importantly, party identification.</p>
<p>We asked two related questions. First, we asked respondents which of the following statements is closest to their view: (1) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels;” (2) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of natural patterns in the Earth’s environment; (3) "There is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer;” or (4) “not sure.” </p>
<p>If respondents answered that the Earth is getting warmer, we then asked how likely it is that “U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms” and that “Drought and famine will cause international military conflict for food and water resources.”</p>
<p>First, the survey results showed that even though veterans and active duty service members tend to be politically conservative, their levels of belief in human-caused climate change are virtually the same. In our sample, 44 percent of veterans and active duty service members expressed belief in anthropogenic climate change. This tracks closely with nationally representative estimates of anthropogenic climate change consensus in the U.S. adult population. A 2016 Pew survey that featured a question identical to ours found <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/science/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/">about 48 percent</a> believed in anthropogenic climate change (although some surveys asking other versions of this question, like <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-steady-despite-partisan-shifts.aspx">this 2018 survey</a> from Gallup, sometimes find higher levels). The results also track closely with a recent survey on the Lucid platform, used to conduct our study, which found that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3279340">about 50 percent</a> of Americans believe in human-caused climate change. </p>
<p>Second, we found that many veterans and active duty service members are concerned about the effects that climate change might have on security. More than three-quarters, 77 percent, of respondents consider it fairly or very likely that military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms as a result of climate change. Fewer veterans and active duty service members – 61 percent – consider drought and famine-driven international military conflict over food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur.</p>
<p>Third, we found that veterans and active duty service members who accept the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change are considerably more likely to be concerned about its effects on national security than those who do not. </p>
<p>To be specific, 87 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider damage to U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions due to flooding or severe storms fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 64 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change. And, 70 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider drought and famine causing international military conflict for food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 49 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262549/original/file-20190306-100799-gs8hfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&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">U.S. citizens appreciate and respect veterans. Some believe that veterans’ views on climate change could influence others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/american-soldier-uniform-civil-man-suit-370055687https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/american-soldier-uniform-civil-man-suit-370055687">fiyaazz/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Belief in climate change among past and active military personnel is noteworthy, because veterans are an important and influential voting block in American politics. Veterans comprise about <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/10/the-changing-face-of-americas-veteran-population/">7 percent</a> <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/10/the-changing-face-of-americas-veteran-population/">of the U.S. voting population</a>, and millions of dollars are spent every year trying to win their political support, and advance their policy priorities <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/toppacs.php?cycle=2018&pac=A&Type=I%20(">US$13 million in independent expenditures</a>.</p>
<p>Service members’ views could also <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/21/military-worship-hurts-us-democracy-civilian-trump/">affect the views</a> of civilians, thus also pressuring political leaders to take action. The American public is <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/03/americans-blind-faith-in-the-military-is-dangerous-civilian-oversight-deference-mcraven-trump/">deferential</a> to and has a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/212840/americans-confidence-institutions-edges.aspx">high degree</a> of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Warriors-Citizens-American-Views-Military/dp/0817919341">trust</a> in the military. If enough veterans express concern about climate change, this <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-generally-supportive-of-trump/">reliably conservative</a> voting bloc may push Republican officials to take policy action on climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Military veterans have concerns about climate change at about the same level as nonveterans, a recent study suggests. What might this mean for acceptance of climate science?Matt Motta, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Oklahoma State UniversityJennifer Spindel, Assistant Professor of International Security, University of OklahomaRobert Ralston, Doctoral candidate, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1092232019-01-07T11:40:55Z2019-01-07T11:40:55ZNo, Trump is not like Obama on Middle East policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252516/original/file-20190104-32145-gcg5gj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Iraq/99d8b761c3dd40c69de1f9190a589ce8/6/0">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 6, National Security Advisor John Bolton walked back President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-syria-turkey-troop-withdrawal.html">announcement</a> that the U.S. would quickly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, saying that such a withdrawal might actually take <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/world/middleeast/bolton-syria-pullout.html">months or years</a>.</p>
<p>Trump’s announcement came more than two weeks earlier. Soon after, <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/12/21/report-trump-eyes-major-withdrawal-of-troops-from-afghanistan/">Trump also directed the Pentagon</a> to halve the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Whatever the fate of either order, pundits and politicians are having a field day comparing Trump’s Middle East policy to that of Barack Obama.</p>
<p>“On this issue…there is more continuity between Trump and Obama than would make either administration comfortable,” Richard N. Haas, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, told The New York Times in an article headlined “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-syria-withdrawal-obama.html">A Strategy of Retreat in Syria, with Echoes of Obama</a>.” </p>
<p>The next day, The Hill repeated the sentiment in an article whose headline holds nothing back: “<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/422295-trumps-middle-east-policy-looks-a-lot-like-obamas-thats-not-a-good">Trump’s Middle East Policy looks a lot Like Obama’s – that’s not a good thing</a>.” </p>
<p>Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whose support for Trump is matched only by his disdain for Obama’s Middle East policy, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/12/19/lindsey_graham_withdrawal_from_syria_is_an_obama-like_mistake.html">called Trump’s plan</a> “an Obama-like mistake.”</p>
<p>As someone who has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-new-middle-east-what-everyone-needs-to-know-9780190653996">studied and written about the Middle East</a> for more than 30 years, this comparison immediately struck me as wrong. </p>
<p>While both presidents have advocated decreasing America’s footprint in the region, I believe their policies are comparable only on the most superficial level. Understanding why enables us to see the fundamental flaw underlying the current policy. </p>
<h2>Trump vs. Obama: Afghanistan</h2>
<p>Obama and Trump have taken contrasting approaches to the Afghanistan war, America’s longest. Both favored troop withdrawal – but with different intentions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252515/original/file-20190104-32133-lf51ch.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>
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<span class="caption">President Barack Obama, center, is briefed by Marine General Joseph Dunford, commander of the US-led International Security Assistance Force, right, and US Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, May 25, 2014, Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-Afghanistan/7653e0cd75a146dcb75729601e3bf97d/2/0">AP Photo/ Evan Vucci</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In June 2011, Obama <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/22/afghanistan.troops.drawdown/index.html">announced a multi-year timetable</a> for a withdrawal, after an initial surge. His goal was to let the Afghan government know that the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan was not open-ended. The Afghans had to get their house in order, then take over the fight before the U.S. left for good.</p>
<p>It was, in effect, an announcement of the “Afghanistanization” of the war, similar in intent to Richard Nixon’s policy of “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/this-day-in-politics-089554">Vietnamization</a>.” In 1969, Nixon proposed replacing U.S. combat troops with South Vietnamese troops in order to extricate the United States from a seemingly endless war. This was Obama’s goal in Afghanistan as well. By the end of his second term, however, circumstances there persuaded him to <a href="http://time.com/4394955/afghanistan-barack-obama-troops-pullout/">slow the withdrawal</a>. </p>
<p>When Trump announced his policy toward Afghanistan during the first year of his presidency, he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-gains-in-afghanistan-resurgent-taliban-is-in-no-rush-for-peace-talks/2018/12/03/a4a86cc0-f334-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_story.html?utm_term=.cc912bac71a8">mocked Obama’s plan</a>. According to Trump, “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on.” </p>
<p>And instead of “Afghanistanization,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/asia/trump-speech-afghanistan.html?mcubz=1&_r=0">Trump originally supported</a> increasing the use of force to compel the Taliban, whom the U.S. and its allies are fighting in Afghanistan, to come to the bargaining table. </p>
<p>The Taliban had other ideas.</p>
<p>Rather than being backed into a corner, the Taliban recently made battlefield gains and is defying U.S. efforts to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-gains-in-afghanistan-resurgent-taliban-is-in-no-rush-for-peace-talks/2018/12/03/a4a86cc0-f334-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_story.html">negotiate a settlement</a>. It was in this context that Trump decided that “conditions on the ground” were ripe for a partial U.S. withdrawal.</p>
<h2>Trump vs. Obama: The greater Middle East</h2>
<p>Obama’s Afghanistan policy was part of a broader approach his administration took toward the Middle East. </p>
<p>As I have <a href="https://www.thecairoreview.com/q-a/a-long-view-of-the-middle-east/">argued elsewhere</a>, Obama believed that the United States had expended far too much blood and treasure in the Middle East under his predecessor, George W. Bush. For Obama, the region’s deep-seated problems made it more trouble than it was worth.</p>
<p>Obama believed that an economically ascendant Asia, not the Middle East, will be the epicenter of global competition in the 21st century. His goal, then, was to get the United States out of the Middle East and “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia/">pivot to Asia</a>.” </p>
<p>Obama wanted to calm the waters in the Middle East, then shift the burden of policing it to America’s partners there, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, as the United States had done <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/08/dont-knock-offshore-balancing-youve-tried-it-obama-middle-east-realism-liberal-hegemony/">during the Cold War</a>. Hence, his policies were aimed at the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region, forging an Iran nuclear deal and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/15/a-defense-of-obamas-middle-east-balancing-act-syria-russia-iran-nsc/">restarting negotiations</a> between Israel and the Palestinians. This strategy could have enabled the United States to focus its attention on Asia.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Obama, the chaos created by the Arab uprisings of 2010-11, the resistance of U.S. partners in the region to what they believed was American disengagement and poor execution <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/">stymied his grand strategy</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike Obama, Trump does not have a Middle East strategy, grand or otherwise. He has impulses.</p>
<p>Trump’s move to withdraw troops from Syria came as a spur-of-the-moment decision during a phone call with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-syria-us-troops-pullout-turkish-president-erdogan-2018-12">Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan</a>. After Erdoğan asked Trump why the United States still had troops there, Trump reportedly replied, “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.” </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/20/trump-defends-syria-withdrawal-1070943">surprised his national security team</a>, which assumed that the United States was still committed to fighting Islamic State militants in Syria alongside the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which the United States will now abandon.</p>
<p>Does this mean that Trump is prepared to jettison the global war on terror, not to mention the Saudi-led coalition to stop the spread of Iranian influence in the region? At one time, both seemed <a href="http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/CSSAnalyse233-EN.pdf">bedrock policies</a> of the Trump administration. Now, not so much. </p>
<p>With U.S. forces gone from Syria, so is <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Saudis-publicly-oppose-US-exiting-Syria-while-Israel-objects-quietly-547648">a check on Iranian ambitions</a> to expand its military presence and political influence there – much to the horror of officials not only in the United States, but in Saudi Arabia and Israel as well. Adding insult to injury, Trump followed his “I’m leaving” statement <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/iran-can-do-what-they-want-in-syria-trump-says-1.6805949">with another</a> that was just as impulsive. In a conversation with reporters, he said: “Iran is pulling people out of Syria, but they can frankly do whatever they want there.” </p>
<p>None of this is to say that America’s open-ended commitments in Afghanistan and Syria and the global war on terror do not deserve rethinking. </p>
<p>I and numerous other observers have been calling for that for years. </p>
<p>But while we are doing that rethinking, it is important to remember <a href="https://twitter.com/centcom/status/842446796198682624">an aphorism</a> that is often repeated in military circles: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” It is a useful guide to the difference between the Obama and Trump approaches to the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109223/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L. Gelvin 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>Obama’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan had several facets and was part of a wider strategy in the Middle East.James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1092042018-12-21T15:08:13Z2018-12-21T15:08:13ZJames Mattis: what defence secretary’s resignation means for Syria, Afghanistan and NATO, as Trump leans in to Putin<p>The last adult in the Trump White House playground has gone – and the president is throwing his toys around.</p>
<p>James Mattis, as defence secretary, was one of three retired generals in the Trump administration whose hope was to contain an ill-informed, temperamental, and unpredictable president. Now they’re all gone: national security adviser HR McMaster, pushed out early this year; White House chief of staff John Kelly, giving up at the end of December; and now Mattis, who resigned after losing hope that Trump can be restrained from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-make-sense-of-trumps-foreign-policy-91446">impulsive actions</a>, defying his advisers, threatening US allies and even embracing American foes.</p>
<p>The catalyst for Mattis’s departure was Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/world/middleeast/winners-losers-syria-trumps-troops.html">abrupt decision</a> to withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria. But the list of his concerns about Trump is far longer. They include the president’s views on the American presence in Afghanistan and his hostility towards NATO allies, as well as Trump’s affinity for <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-vladimir-putin-outfoxed-donald-trump-at-helsinki-before-their-meeting-even-began-99320">Vladimir Putin</a>, even as Russia pursues an aggressive foreign policy and intervenes in US domestic affairs.</p>
<p>As Mattis put it in his resignation letter, a message of rebuke to Trump:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With Trump willing to toss aside alliances and shred international arrangements, this could be the most serious challenge to US foreign policy and American partners since 1945. But what does it mean in specific areas?</p>
<h2>Syria</h2>
<p>American policy has never been clear or decisive over Syria’s 93-month conflict. But Trump’s impulsive order for withdrawal threatens a new cycle of violence.</p>
<p>Since the autumn of 2015, Washington has worked with <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrias-kurds-have-ended-up-at-the-heart-of-middle-eastern-geopolitics-heres-why-74193">Kurdish groups</a> to push back the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria. Those groups, through the Syrian Democratic Forces, have reduced Islamic State to a pocket of territory near the Iraqi border. But Trump’s tweet that the battle against the group is “won” is simply wrong. IS could be resurgent if the opportunity presents itself.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1075528854402256896"}"></div></p>
<p>Trump is also abandoning Syria’s Kurds to the predatory ambitions of others in the region. The Assad regime, propped up by Russia, has vowed to regain the one-third of the country controlled by Kurdish factions. Turkey has pledged offensives both west and east of the Euphrates River. Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said “terrorists” – Kurdish fighters – will be erased.</p>
<p>US support for the Kurds was never a benevolent mission. Beyond the anti-IS campaign, the American presence was a buffer against the influence of Iran – a key ally of the Assad regime. Now that buffer disappears, and American policy against IS has been thrown into disarray.</p>
<h2>Afghanistan</h2>
<p>The Pentagon was already planning to pull out half the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/us-plans-to-withdraw-up-to-half-of-14000-troops-in-afghanistan-11587552">14,000 US troops</a> currently in Afghanistan, but Trump’s shift on Syria may have an even more unsettling effect.</p>
<p>Even with the full complement of American forces and international partners, defeat of the Taliban has been a mirage. The insurgents have rebuilt their influence to control almost half the fragmented country. The focus has shifted from military victory to negotiation for political resolution.</p>
<p>But Trump has complicated the tactics with his impulsive interventions – leading to his being called an “idiot” by both McMaster and Kelly, and a “<a href="http://time.com/5197365/rex-tillerson-fired-timeline/">moron</a>” by the then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson. He has angered Pakistan, an essential part of the negotiating process, by slashing US military aid, and his declarations about a full withdrawal have emboldened the Taliban rather than brought them to the table.</p>
<h2>Russia</h2>
<p>The loss of Mattis will likely deepen the split personality of the Trump administration towards Russia. Most of Trump’s advisers view Moscow with concern and favour a firm line that includes sanctions and opposition to Russian ventures in areas such as Ukraine and the Baltic States.</p>
<p>But Trump’s admiration for Putin has led to his foot-dragging over Russia and even undermining of the American position. He has held out against enforcing sanctions until a combination of Congress and US agencies forced his compliance. With Putin standing next to him at a press conference in July, Trump failed to make a statement on Russia’s annexation of Crimea and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/16/trump-putin-meeting-election-meddling-722424">sided with the Russian leader</a> over the American officials who concluded that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election.</p>
<p>Putin is already revelling in the chaos within the administration. Asked about Trump’s announcement on withdrawal from Syria, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/world/europe/putin-trump-syria.html">he said</a>: “On this, Donald is right. I agree with him.”</p>
<h2>NATO</h2>
<p>The US deployment in Afghanistan is part of a NATO-led mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces. But Trump’s threat to NATO is far more than an Afghan draw down.</p>
<p>The president has repeatedly bashed the alliance with his false insistence – the outcome of his lack of knowledge – that NATO “owes” money to the US. During his campaign, he labelled the organisation “obsolete” and at last July’s summit he was still threatening to withdraw the US from the bloc after 69 years. Meanwhile, Trump was casting insults at individual members, notably Germany.</p>
<p>Mattis was an assurance that the US institutional relationships with NATO and its members, the linchpin of the alliance, would continue despite the president. But the general’s departure, and the prospect that Trump will want a “yes man” to replace him, could renew uncertainties.</p>
<h2>Into the void</h2>
<p>The replacement for Mattis is not yet apparent. But it is a marker of the decay of US policy that the question could be close to irrelevant, be the candidate former general and Fox TV pundit <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/12/20/678959913/general-jack-keane-former-colleague-of-mattis-discusses-the-generals-resignation">Jack Keane</a> or Trump loyalist and defence hawk Senator Tom Cotton. For Trump is now beyond advice and guidance. US foreign policy rests on the whim of this man: angry and frustrated by investigations closing in on him, but bunkered in the self-confidence that he is smarter than anyone else in the room.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas 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 last adult is leaving the White House after a shock decision by the president to pull troops out of Syria.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/914462018-02-20T13:46:56Z2018-02-20T13:46:56ZWhy it’s so hard to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy<p>Under Donald Trump, trying to predict, dissect and understand the US’s attitude to the world has become almost impossible – not that plenty of observers aren’t giving it a go. Tellingly, they’re all coming to different conclusions.</p>
<p>Some see a spiral into outright chaos, citing the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40026828">strain on crucial alliances</a>, Trump’s <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/trumps-vladimir-putin-national-security-nightmare">strange embrace of Vladimir Putin</a>, and his reckless rhetoric, which sometimes gets to the point of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/trump-warns-north-korea-threats-will-be-met-with-fire-and-fury.html">implicitly threatening nuclear war</a>. </p>
<p>Other analysts claim to identify some semblance of order, but they disagree profoundly on what that order is. To some, Trump’s “America First” theme is an <a href="http://time.com/4820160/trump-america-first-global-leadership/">isolationist rallying cry</a>, with its implications of economic protectionism and rejection of international agreements; others see an administration <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/01/the-trump-presidency-ushers-in-a-new-age-of-militarism/?utm_term=.76e06dd80664">even more committed to military intervention</a> than its predecessors. And still others say that for all Trump’s sound and fury, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-foreign-and-defence-policy-trumps-us-is-more-about-continuity-than-change-76201">not much has changed</a> – that US foreign policy, for better or worse, is hewing to the same methods and objectives pursued in the Obama era.</p>
<p>So how can we cut through all this noise and really make sense of it all? In the interests of clarity (and perhaps sanity) the first thing is to recognise that there isn’t just one Trump foreign policy. There are several. They frustrate each other with various irreconcilable differences. And collectively, they add up not to a coherent US strategy, nor even an incoherent one, but instead a gaping hole where a strategy should be.</p>
<h2>The family-and-friends foreign policy</h2>
<p>One key difference from his predecessors is Trump’s promotion in certain areas of a foreign policy set and pursued on an ad hoc basis by his family and their business allies. That approach has radically altered, even dismantled, the longstanding US approach to the Middle East – and in particular to the Israel-Palestine conflict.</p>
<p>Instead of assigning someone with relevant experience to handle what may be the world’s single most intractable dispute, Trump instead tapped his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner has no grounding in Middle Eastern affairs, nor even in diplomatic negotiations more generally. Having failed to disclose his meetings with foreign officials before Trump became president, he <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-without-security-clearance-after-one-year-white-house-783965">doesn’t even have a full security clearance</a>. And yet Trump reportedly <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/1/16077600/jared-kushner-middle-east-peace-leaked-interview">told him</a>, with not a hint of irony: “If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can.”</p>
<p>The reckless cronyism doesn’t stop there. To assist Kushner, Trump chose <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-unlikely-negotiator-jason-greenblatt-is-pushing-ahead-by-listening-up/">Jason Greenblatt</a>, the executive vice-president and chief legal officer to Donald Trump and The Trump Organisation. The administration’s chosen US Ambassador to Israel, <a href="https://il.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/our-ambassador/">David Friedman</a>, was previously a member of the law firm Kasowitz, Hoff, Benson and Torres – which represents Donald Trump. Along with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-kushner/for-hardline-west-bank-settlers-jared-kushners-their-man-idUSKBN15G4W2">Kushner</a>, both have <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-what-does-trump-s-negotiator-think-about-a-two-state-solution-1.5478326">helped</a> <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/friedman-blasts-haaretz-after-writer-calls-out-settlement-donations-1.5806064">support</a> (individually or through foundations) Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while the Kushner Company continues to do business in Israel. </p>
<p>With Trump’s family and friends running the show, it seems that American influence in the Middle East writ large is no longer a sure thing. More than a year later, as Saudi Arabia still goes about its deadly business in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-yemeni-women-are-fighting-the-war-89951">Yemen</a>, and the Syrian conflict <a href="https://theconversation.com/syria-update-why-no-one-is-really-winning-the-war-89947">remains intractable</a>, this triad’s chief accomplishment has been to antagonise most of the world and endanger the peace process by having the US <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-trumps-recognition-of-jerusalem-as-the-capital-of-israel-means-for-the-middle-east-88722">recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital</a>.</p>
<h2>The Twitter foreign policy</h2>
<p>Then there are Trump’s tweets, which too often drive the global news cycle at the US’s reputational expense. His 280-character missives can recalibrate America’s foreign policy posture in an instant – whether <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/914497947517227008">contradicting his own secretary of state</a> on North Korea, <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/trump-germany-3294763-Mar2017/">denouncing fellow NATO members</a>, blowing hot and cold over <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/946416486054285314">China</a>, or souring the “special relationship” with the UK by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/04/trump-berates-london-mayor-sadiq-khan-terror-attacks">deriding the mayor of London</a> and blithely retweeting videos from the far right Islamophobic group <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-britain-first-the-far-right-group-retweeted-by-donald-trump-88407">Britain First</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"914497947517227008"}"></div></p>
<p>What matters here isn’t just the content, but that Trump actually revels in the chaos it creates. As he <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-05/trump-s-unpredictable-starting-now-foreign-policy-already-here">said</a> in his first speech on foreign policy during the campaign: “We must as a nation be more unpredictable.” </p>
<p>Trump probably did not think of his statement as a reworking of the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-madman-strategy-north-korea-nuclear-weapons/">Nixon-Kissinger “madman” ploy</a> of the 1970s. Nor is he likely to have thought through its effects. What matters, in the end, is capturing the world’s attention and settling petty scores.</p>
<h2>The alt-right foreign policy</h2>
<p>Before Trump’s ascendancy, the “alt-right” had little direct influence on policy of any kind. But with Trump elected, its leaders suddenly had their foot in the door. Led by hard right White House chief strategist <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/steve-bannon-launches-his-big-foreign-policy-crusade-22881">Steve Bannon</a>, they pushed for confrontation with China and detachment from NATO as well as protectionism and departure from international agreements such as the Paris climate agreement. Bannon put himself on a key committee of the National Security Council, along with Fox News commentator-turned-Deputy National Security Adviser <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/03/politics/kt-mcfarland-donald-trump/index.html">K T McFarland</a>.</p>
<p>As 2017 unwound, the the “firebreathers” were eventually checked by pragmatists. General H R McMaster, brought in as National Security Adviser in March, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/5/15191532/bannon-removed-nsc-mcmaster-trump">removed Bannon from the National Security Council</a> (he was later <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-bannon-back-at-breitbart-what-will-war-mean-for-the-white-house-82787">fired by Trump altogether</a>). Senior staff <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/27/derek-harvey-trump-middle-east-adviser-dismissed-241037">Derek Harvey</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/02/politics/nsc-ezra-cohen-watnick/index.html">Ezra Cohen-Watnick</a> were dismissed, as was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/09/kt-mcfarland-national-security-council-singapore-ambassador">McFarland</a>.</p>
<p>But one of the alt-right’s polyps is still at the heart of the Trump operation. <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/stephen-miller-duke-donald-trump">Stephen Miller</a>, who within two years went from e-mail spammer of Washington journalists to senior White House adviser, is not only the main architect of the crackdown on immigration but also the speechwriter behind Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly/">provocative UN General Assembly debut</a> in September 2017 – an address that railed against “a small group of rogue regimes”, threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, and called its leader Kim Jong-un “Rocket Man”. </p>
<p>As far as Miller is concerned, it seems, the more incendiary and derisory the US government’s tone, the better – whatever the diplomatic and strategic consequences.</p>
<h2>The institutional foreign policy</h2>
<p>These competing tendencies are a brutal test for the structures of US foreign policy, and the stewards of those institutions are clearly on high alert. </p>
<p>McMaster, Defence Secretary James Mattis, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are all trying to contain Trump and his inner circle. They have championed the US’s traditional alliances, taken charge of operations in areas such as Afghanistan and Syria, toned down Trump’s fire-and-fury threats to North Korea by discreetly encouraging a diplomatic path, and tried to curb some of the family’s inclinations – especially a Saudi-first approach that threatens the security of a key American military base in Qatar.</p>
<p>But it’s hard to win a fight against true chaos. Kushner and his allies can brief the media against the pragmatists. Trump’s profound impulsiveness can unsettle any plan, especially given his widely reported <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/?utm_term=.1d12a0afa593">lack</a> <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/666931/donald-trump-allknowing-knownothing">of</a> <a href="https://www.axios.com/the-wolff-lines-on-trump-that-ring-unambiguously-true-1515262293-78cf5551-daf2-4c2e-a3de-83da6971f578.html">knowledge</a>. And those who do know what they’re doing are jumping ship: Tillerson has overseen a dramatic depletion of expertise at the State Department, with <a href="http://www.govexec.com/management/2018/02/state-department-lost-12-its-foreign-affairs-specialists-trumps-first-8-months/145874/">12% of foreign service officers departing in just eight months</a>.</p>
<h2>America on the sidelines</h2>
<p>Amid all the competing philosophies and factions, the only thing that’s certain is <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-missile-test-how-trumps-unpredictability-changes-the-game-77908">unpredictability</a>. The administration has issued a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/new-national-security-strategy-new-era/">National Security Strategy</a>, but with all the chaos and policy clash the inexpert Trump constantly introduces, any “strategy” is doomed to the paper shredder.</p>
<p>And just as Trump’s agencies try to contain him, other countries try to contain the US by sidelining it. Russia has <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2017/10/syria-war-russia-dominates-astana-talks-171031162925260.html">seized the initiative in Syria</a>; Iran <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-iranian-power.html">wants it in Iraq</a>; Saudi Arabia pursues it from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29319423">Yemen</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-lebanon-faces-another-crisis-and-what-saudi-arabia-stands-to-lose-87287">Lebanon</a>; Turkey warns that it may <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-us-alliance-with-turkey-just-lunged-toward-the-breaking-point/2018/01/23/ebd8c576-008d-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html">walk away from the Americans altogether</a>, and China increasingly calls the shots in East Asia, from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-leaders-and-citizens-are-losing-patience-with-north-korea-75262">North Korean problem</a> to the <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2133864/chinas-rising-challenge-us-raises-risk-south-china-sea">South China Sea</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-new-silk-road-is-all-part-of-its-grand-strategy-for-global-influence-70862">economic development</a>. Even European partners are thinking twice about their reliance on what no longer looks like a dependable superpower.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, US-based analysts scramble to find a framework that can express what’s going on while still conveying some sense of American primacy. “Soft power”, which under Obama became “<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/06/hillary-clinton-doctrine-obama-interventionist-tough-minded-president/">smart power</a>”, is now proclaimed as “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-01-24/how-sharp-power-threatens-soft-power">sharp power</a>”. And all the while, US power – if measured in the respect for America at the centre of global affairs – plummets in the opinion polling of peoples across the planet.</p>
<p>In his UN speech in September, Trump declared, “As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else.” It remains to be seen, for all his “American First” front, how his multiple foreign policies are defending those interests.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>On February 21, Scott Lucas joined the panel for The Conversation’s joint event with the British Academy, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/trump-how-to-understand-an-unconventional-president-tickets-42320948095">Trump: How to understand an unconventional President</a>. You can watch a video of the discussion on our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConversationUK/">Facebook page</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas 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>Donald Trump doesn’t have one foreign policy – he has several, and they all clash.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/897252018-01-08T12:45:18Z2018-01-08T12:45:18ZWoodrow Wilson’s famous US speech makes a mockery of Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201129/original/file-20180108-83563-ej88x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1934)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#/media/File:President_Wilson_1919.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We have reached the centenary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s speech to Congress on January 8, 1918, outlining his <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp">Fourteen Points</a> for brokering a lasting peace in Europe after World War I. It was the famous roar of idealism from across the Atlantic that would be <a href="https://www.historyonthenet.com/world-war-one-the-treaty-of-versailles/">whittled back</a> in the name of self-interest by the victorious allies at Versailles the following year. </p>
<p>The speech would go on to shape many features of American foreign policy, however, particularly the broader points like open diplomacy, removal of economic and trade barriers, freedom of the seas and a general association of nations working together. Wilson <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/woodrow-wilson-suffers-a-stroke">would suffer</a> a stroke that would partially paralyse him in the fallout from Versailles, but his Congress speech would ensure his legacy as one of America’s most influential presidents. </p>
<p>The centenary takes place just days before the anniversary of the inauguration of Donald Trump. With the media currently full of the astonishing claims about the administration contained in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/05/michael-wolff-claims-spent-three-hours-talking-donald-trump/">Michael Wolff’s new book</a>, one wonders what the 45th president’s legacy will be. Certainly foreign policy looks more uncertain than for many years. What, then, do the Fourteen Points tell us about Donald Trump?</p>
<h2>America front and centre</h2>
<p>Wilson’s speech that day in 1918 reflected his conviction that the United States should take a central place on the world stage – securing global peace and stability while furthering American interests at the same time. His approach would be largely rejected by his countrymen during the isolationist 1920s and 1930s, before ultimately coming to define many Americans’ view of their country’s role in the world. </p>
<p>Since Trump came to power last January, it looks as if America has entered a new era. Many conservatives and rural middle Americans – the bedrock of President Trump’s support – have long been suspicious of America’s global role and complained about the ways in which the country’s foreign policy has been viewed by the rest of the world. </p>
<p>They feel that when America intervenes – as in the first Gulf War or in Afghanistan – it is accused of putting self-interest before the good of the international community. But when it doesn’t intervene – as in Bosnia or Syria – the accusations are little different. Why, they argue, should the United States be the world’s policeman? </p>
<p>This is clearly reflected in Trump’s <a href="http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-2017/">National Security Strategy</a>. Released in mid-December, it rejects many of the principles of previous American foreign policy, stating quite clearly that it must be “guided by outcomes, not ideology”. It is pure realpolitik. </p>
<p>The document promises explicitly to “put the safety, interests and well-being of our citizens first”. This includes building <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-mexico-has-nothing-to-fear-from-donald-trump-55362">the infamous wall</a> along America’s border with Mexico, withdrawing from many trade agreements which it sees as unfair, and beginning a substantial conventional and nuclear arms build up. It is America first from top to bottom – almost point by point a rejection of the ideas contained in Wilson’s Fourteen Points. </p>
<h2>The great game</h2>
<p>If this Trump strategy rejects the 20th-century concept of internationalism, it has surprising echoes of much earlier mid-19th century diplomacy. It says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition has returned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump developed this point while outlining his policy to journalists, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-new-era-global-competition-america-going-to-win/4169607.html">explaining</a>: “America is in the game, and America is going to win.” The idea that foreign policy is a great game that can be won has echoes of Victorian men’s clubs, and is one of the most worrying changes initiated by Trump’s administration. It suggests a binary explanation of the world where there are only winners and losers, where those not participating in the game can be ignored. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201136/original/file-20180108-83556-wy6yex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bird brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/america-first-presidential-inauguration-pledge-isolated-560804350?src=EV8H1eezXw3XBcsYfMYJ6A-1-58">Barry Barnes</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But perhaps the most concerning shift of all, which probably echoes Trump’s personality more than his policy advisers, is the determination to conduct foreign policy “without apology”. Not only will the US put its own interests first, in other words, it will not deeply consider the interests of its allies. </p>
<p>Two recent policy changes reflect this. Following America’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-climate-usa-paris-idUSKBN1AK2FM">withdrawal</a> from the Paris Climate Agreement, the security strategy makes no mention of climate change as one of the issues facing the world, although it repeatedly discusses “the business climate”. </p>
<p>An even clearer rejection of internationalism was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-trumps-declaration-on-jerusalem-mean-to-palestinians-88841">December 6 decision</a> to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This was apparently against the specific advice of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, both of whom feared the impact on American diplomatic influence in the Middle East. </p>
<h2>Big button diplomacy</h2>
<p>This brings us to Twitter. Rather like 19th-century diplomats, where telegrams could spark wars, Trump seems often to have resorted to “Twitter diplomacy” to shape, or more often seemingly frustrate, American foreign policy. </p>
<p>President Teddy Roosevelt famously counselled that American foreign policy should “speak softly, and carry a big stick”. Perhaps nothing sums up Trump’s contrast to his predecessors than his tweeting – most recently the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/02/politics/donald-trump-north-korea-nuclear/index.html">New Year’s Day reminder</a> to North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, in language more reminiscent of a primary school playground than international diplomats, that “I too have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his”. </p>
<p>None of this is to lionise Wilson, it should be said. America’s 28th president was no progressive <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/">on race</a>, for example, and he <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/wilson/foreign-affairs">invaded</a> Haiti and the Dominican Republic. </p>
<p>But his Fourteen Points speech remains one of the great pieces of statesmanship of the modern era. Where it fought hard for stability, President Trump’s foreign policy seems more likely to produce instability. Where it fought for openness, the Trump administration turns inwards. It is a moment to reflect on what American leadership offered the world 100 years ago, and what it might learn to offer again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ward 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>America finds itself in uncharted territory under Donald Trump – not least when it comes to climate change and Israel policy.Matthew Ward, Senior Lecturer in History, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894152018-01-04T04:33:16Z2018-01-04T04:33:16ZShould military men draft our nation’s security strategy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200764/original/file-20180104-26145-jaggi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, left, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, center.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump greeted the new year with an angry tweet about U.S. ally Pakistan. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"947802588174577664"}"></div></p>
<p>Among other things, the tweet accuses Pakistan of giving “safe haven to terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.” The Pakistani prime minister responded that the tweet was “completely incomprehensible.”</p>
<p>While the subjects of Trump’s tweets are often erratic, this one didn’t come out of nowhere. The Pakistan tweet followed just weeks after Trump unveiled his administration’s National Security Strategy – a document presidents have provided to Congress <a href="http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-2017/">since the 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>The 2017 National Security Strategy includes the statement that the “United States continues to face threats from transnational terrorists and militants operating from within Pakistan.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200765/original/file-20180104-26148-1jqitnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rally to condemn Trump’s New Year’s Day tweet in Karachi, Pakistan on Jan. 2, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Fareed Khan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, it’s possible that the president’s bellicose tweet was inspired by this document – which also happens to be the first National Security Strategy ever shaped primarily by two generals. The office of Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, coordinated the drafting of the document with the secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis. While military men have served as secretary of defense and national security adviser before, this is the first time both positions are filled by generals at the same time. </p>
<p>I’m currently researching yet another general – Maxwell Taylor – who was engaged in comparable strategy reviews during the 1960s. Taylor was a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, ambassador to South Vietnam and adviser to John F. Kennedy. </p>
<p>Thinking about Taylor’s struggles back during the <a href="http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/22115757-03201003">Cold War</a> led me to approach this year’s security document with one main question: Could two military men succeed as the nation’s primary authors of strategy?</p>
<h2>What is strategy?</h2>
<p>The 2017 National Security Strategy, largely in keeping with its predecessors, does a good job at listing problems. It enumerates geopolitical and economic challenges from Russia and China as well as threats from Iran, North Korea and Islamic fundamentalists. It also points at military and other tools for addressing these threats. </p>
<p>Despite President Trump’s dark picture of the world and his rhetorical emphasis on “<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-echoes-from-1940s-59579">America First,</a>” a campaign theme he reiterated in an unusual presidential speech <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/18/five-takeaways-from-trumps-national-security-strategy/">unveiling the document</a>, it is <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-administrations-national-security-strategy/">not an isolationist strategy</a>. It also doesn’t disavow globalism, the guiding principle of foreign policy for most of the past century. </p>
<p>Its four pillars – protecting the homeland, promoting prosperity, securing peace through strength and defending American interests – echo themes found in National Security Strategy documents of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. McMaster described the new National Security Strategy as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/mcmaster-we-need-to-act-urgently-to-stop-north-korea">a sober accounting of current threats</a>. </p>
<p>Yet in this year’s document there is a marked absence of political objectives – like spreading democracy – which had been shared by Republican and Democratic administrations all the way back to Woodrow Wilson’s vision of <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/18/trumps-national-security-strategy-has-a-values-deficit/">a new world order after World War I</a>.</p>
<p>In this respect, it replicates a flaw already apparent in past decades: The National Security Strategy does not provide actual strategy, but rather guidance on drafting policy. Sound strategy goes beyond simple problem solving. It links means to ends in order to attain a broader political objective.</p>
<p>This document also departs from predecessors in showing less pronounced faith in alliances and international agreements than what underpinned <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/politics/trump-world-diplomacy.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fmark-landler&action=%CE%A9click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection">U.S. foreign policy since 1945</a>. </p>
<h2>Soldiers and strategy</h2>
<p>While Mattis and McMaster appear to work well together, they have different views on the roles of soldiers in shaping strategy.</p>
<p>McMaster made his name as a historian with a book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vietnam/dp/0060929081">the flawed decisions that led the U.S. into the Vietnam War</a>. He concluded that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not heard, mainly because civilian leaders in the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations did not trust them. McMaster believed these military men had a better sense of how to win in Vietnam – or could have prevented the nation from getting involved in an unwinnable war effort in the first place. In a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/video/trump-agenda-1513640521/">Dec. 18 PBS interview</a>, when asked about his lessons from the Vietnam War, McMaster noted it was essential to present the president with all available options. </p>
<p>Mattis, a history major and avid reader, has come to different conclusions about soldiers and strategy. In <a href="http://www.hooverpress.org/Warriors-and-Citizens-P627.aspx">“Warriors and Citizens”</a>, his 2016 book on civil-military relations, co-edited with Kori Schake of the Hoover Institution, Mattis notes that there was a problem with generals taking the lead in defining strategy because they are likely to view threats in isolation from a wider context and end up devising a depoliticized strategy. </p>
<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who should provide a counterweight to a military-driven strategy, appears to sit on the sidelines. No other major actors on foreign policy have emerged from within the Cabinet or Congress. Even though some pundits have welcomed the steadying role played by <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/04/donald-trump-generals-mattis-mcmaster-kelly-flynn-215455">generals in a mercurial administration</a>, this influence could also be seen as representing an imbalance in civil-military relations that threatens to <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2017/09/why-no-general-should-serve-as-white-house-chief-of-staff/">pull the armed services into the partisan maelstrom</a>. </p>
<p>So how did the military men do? </p>
<p>They may have softened the president’s desire for unilateral action and kept open the door for more international cooperation. McMaster has lauded Trump’s unconventional approach that forced him to <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/366731-mcmaster-trumps-foreign-policy-approach-is-out-of-my-comfort-zone">reconsider dogma</a>. But this approach, in my opinion, threatens to destabilize a world order largely upheld by the United States, the premier military and diplomatic power since World War II, and one that boosted the American economy to unprecedented heights. </p>
<p>Strategy ought to be the process wherein policymakers and soldiers link operational plans and capabilities to policy objectives. Instead, over the past decades, soldiers have relied overly optimistically on military strength. Civilian leaders, meanwhile, have misidentified policy guidance as strategy. Neither can deter or defeat the threats facing the nation by itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingo Trauschweizer 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 National Security Strategy does a good job at listing problems and suggesting fixes. But there’s more to strategy than that.Ingo Trauschweizer, Associate Professor of History; Director, Contemporary History Institute, Ohio UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828232017-08-22T15:51:49Z2017-08-22T15:51:49ZAfghanistan is now officially James Mattis’ war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183006/original/file-20170822-21526-1ap8dv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How will U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis handle America's "Forever War'?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-foreign-policy">Donald Trump’s speech</a> on his administration’s strategy in Afghanistan – in which he announced the introduction of an unspecified number of new combat troops, without a mission and without a specified end date, in a strategy that abandoned nation building but entailed war-fighting – clearly contravened the principles of his “America First” isolationist election campaign promises. </p>
<p>But for academics like me who spend their time <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100158520">studying American strategic policy</a>, it provided few real surprises. Rather, it merely signaled the latest stage in the cycle of the longest-running war in U.S. history – what journalists and pundits have christened America’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/opinion/sunday/still-fighting-and-dying-in-the-forever-war.html?_r=0">“forever war.”</a> </p>
<h2>The beginning of the ‘forever war’</h2>
<p>The origins of the war, of course, date to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. </p>
<p>U.S. intelligence traced a link between <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5224036/ns/us_news-security/t/commission-staff-statement-no/#.WZs9za2-JGU">al-Qaida operatives</a> who had carried out the attacks and Afghanistan’s Taliban. In response, four weeks after those attacks, the United States, with NATO’s support, launched Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban and the al-Qaida fighters sheltering in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>As George W. Bush <a href="https://www.aei.org/publication/president-bush-on-winning-in-afghanistan/">ambitiously asserted</a>, even years after the war had begun,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our goal in Afghanistan is to help its people defeat the terrorists and establish a stable, moderate, and democratic state that respects the rights of its citizens, governs its territory effectively, and is a reliable ally in this war against extremists and terrorists.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183009/original/file-20170822-30529-24kx7y.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">The United States went to war in Afghanistan after 9/11. 16 years later, we’re still there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rahmat Gul</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Britain’s lesson</h2>
<p>In articulating these goals, the George W. Bush administration had obviously failed to learn the lessons of the British Empire.</p>
<p>The British may have effectively ruled most of the globe for almost three centuries. But they often <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/afghanistan-the-legacy-of-the-british-empire-a-brief-history/5327994">ineffectively wrestled</a> with controlling what is today’s Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Indeed, reflective of that periodic failure, there is a poignant scene in the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093209/">“Hope and Glory</a>,” set in London during the Second World War, where a schoolteacher points to a giant map of the world on the wall where all the countries of the British Empire are shaded. Conspicuously, to the eagle-eyed observer, in the middle of this huge mass is a small unshaded area – Afghanistan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183007/original/file-20170822-22197-td0shw.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the worst military defeats in British history took place in 1842 in Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:THE_RETREAT_FROM_AFGHANISTAN,_1842..gif">Public domain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not surprising that the Americans – supported by NATO forces – have failed to achieve Bush’s initial lofty objectives. Indeed, Trump <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/21/545044232/trump-expected-to-order-4-000-more-troops-to-afghanistan">specifically rejected them</a> in his speech when he said that America is “not nation-building again; we are killing terrorists.” </p>
<p>What Trump did not say is that America has long since abandoned Bush’s goals. </p>
<p>Like the British before them, American forces and their allies may have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html">repeatedly subjugated the Taliban</a> for extended periods, but they have never managed to destroy this hard-line Islamic fighting force. This is because, for the Taliban, this is an existential war of survival. Ultimate defeat short of death is therefore not an option.</p>
<p>Faced with an unyielding enemy, after almost 14 years of war, <a href="http://time.com/3651697/afghanistan-war-cost/">billions of dollars spent</a>, almost 2,400 American <a href="http://icasualties.org/oef/">lives lost</a> and over 17,000 wounded, Barack Obama officially abandoned the goal of nation building and of total victory. Instead, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/asia/obama-afghanistan-war.html">he sanctioned the official conclusion</a> of America’s combat mission at the end of 2014. </p>
<p>Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/world/asia/us-to-complete-afghan-pullout-by-end-of-2016-obama-to-say.html">planned to withdraw all troops</a> by 2016. Yet that plan never came to fruition. Instead, the number has fallen from a peak of nearly 100,000 in 2010 to a trough of 8,400. Those remaining <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/09/more-us-troops-afghanistan-marines-syria-commandos-iraq/">have served a number of functions</a>, including training the Afghan forces, surveillance, intelligence and logistics. </p>
<p>Still, in that new context, Americans didn’t fight, at least officially. Now, reputedly, they are returning to fight.</p>
<h2>What is new and what isn’t?</h2>
<p>Back in 2013 Donald Trump effusively tweeted, “We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan…Let’s get out!” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"403615352338128896"}"></div></p>
<p>So why has President Trump now sanctioned a return of American combat troops as a renewed American commitment? </p>
<p>There are two elements to that answer. </p>
<p>The first, large-scale one is that American national security policy has geographically shifted in the last three decades – from deterring the Soviets in Europe <a href="https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/sites/twq.elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/TWQ_Summer2017_Byman-McCants.pdf">to destroying militants and jihadists</a> located in safe havens in failed and fragile states. </p>
<p>As Trump made clear in his speech, Afghanistan symbolizes the epicenter of the struggle against terrorism when he said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qaida, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, the ending of America’s combat mission in 2014 coincided with the resurgence of the Taliban. The Afghan government’s control of territory has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/02/afghan-government-controls-just-57-percent-of-its-territory-says-u-s-watchdog/?utm_term=.c2f89b2cf9f7">consistently declining</a> since then: In early 2017 it was 57 percent of the country. </p>
<p>No American administration can afford to abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban for fear of bearing political responsibility for any large-scale attack that follows – anywhere. </p>
<p>The second element in answering the question of why Trump has recommitted to Afghanistan is far more specific. It lies in the importance and stewardship of his defense secretary, James Mattis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183028/original/file-20170822-21632-12ufdyr.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">Reports suggest James Mattis was instrumental in president Trump’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Noted as <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/james-mattis-a-warrior-in-washington">a brilliant tactician</a>, Mattis <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-idUSKBN1941Y1">acknowledged in testimony</a> before the Senate Armed Services Committee in June that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We are not winning in Afghanistan, right now, and we will correct this as soon as possible.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mattis is <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gen-james-mattis/story?id=43694921">vastly experienced</a> (including in Afghanistan). He no doubt understands that a commitment of new troops, not hounded by battlefield restrictions, without a specified timetable and with a clear mission to “kill the terrorists” will enhance America’s prospects of halting the Taliban’s advance. But he also understands that this will be insufficient to achieve a comprehensive victory. </p>
<p>Mattis also knows that efforts to co-opt Pakistan and India in the fight against the Taliban have been tried in the past. The Obama administration did so in 2009, under <a href="https://2009-2017-fpc.state.gov/120965.htm">the astute direction of Richard Holbrooke,</a> and failed. He may have publicly spoken of victory, but privately, Mattis’ more realistic hope may be that this new approach may prove enough to stanch further losses and make incremental gains with limited costs. </p>
<p>Still, trumpeting aside, Trump’s “principled realism” in Afghanistan all looks rather familiar. </p>
<p>The vague set of initiatives he described are not new, nor do they add up to a grand strategy. The U.S. has moved from large-scale troop surges to clandestine special operations; from proclamations of noble goals to more modest local counterinsurgency operations; from nation building to war fighting. Yes, commanders are being given greater autonomy in the field, but as Peter Dombrowski and I detail in our book <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100158520">“The End of Grand Strategy,</a>” that has long been an unrecognized truth in many military operations. </p>
<p>But there is at least one major difference from Obama’s policy. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/asia/trump-afghanistan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0">Press reports</a> suggest that James Mattis was central in convincing Trump to follow this path contrary, as Trump himself said, to his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/08/22/daily-202-a-dozen-key-lines-from-trump-s-afghanistan-speech/599b8cf930fb0435b8208f72/?utm_term=.f776858b1dfc">“original instinct.”</a> If true, the mantle was therefore passed. This is no longer Bush’s war or Obama’s war. It is now officially James Mattis’ war, with all the attendant risks of reward and failure. </p>
<p>Regardless, in the longer term something clearly remains the same: Now officially without an end date, Afghanistan remains America’s “forever war.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Reich 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 speech on “principled realism” in Afghanistan contained few surprises. Now, under the aegis of DOD chief Mattis it is the latest stage in America’s “forever war.”Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/740162017-03-13T19:52:39Z2017-03-13T19:52:39ZWhat’s the purpose of President Trump’s Navy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160361/original/image-20170310-19266-1baq8bj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The USS Gerald Ford in Newport News, Virginia, cost nearly $13 billion to build. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Trump visited Newport News at the beginning of March to deliver a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/donald-trump-navy-speech-virginia/">speech</a> aboard the soon-to-be commissioned USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. It provided a timely reminder of his campaign <a href="http://conservativetribune.com/what-trump-promised-navy/">pledge</a> that he would increase the size of the fleet from the current figure of 272 to 350 ships over the next three decades. This is significantly more than the Obama-era plans to increase the fleet to <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article107782747.html">308 ships.</a></p>
<p>How this decision fits with any broader grand strategy is <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-navys-great-magic-numbers-challenge-18771">unclear</a>. Critics have debated whether Trump has <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck/">one.</a> Indeed, a recent New York Times story suggested the growth of the military may simply be for the purpose of possessing raw military power rather than part of any serious <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/americas/donald-trump-us-military.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0">strategizing.</a> </p>
<p>Trump’s decision to focus on building a more powerful global Navy, however, fits with a longstanding American strategic tradition. It dates back to naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan’s classic <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Influence-History-1660-1783-Military-Weapons/dp/0486255093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488581457&sr=8-1&keywords=Alfred+Thayer+Mahan">“The Influence of Seapower on History</a>,” which was written on the cusp of America’s emergence as a global power at the end of the 19th century. In Mahan’s vision, a great Navy would promote America’s commercial interests at home and abroad. It was, and for many still <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820">is</a>, the foundation of any “grand strategy.” </p>
<p>But a key question remains: Does Trump’s specified goal of 350 ships meet the needs of the nation in the 21st century? How does this fit into a strategic vision for U.S. security? </p>
<h2>Why 350 ships?</h2>
<p>The new budget proposal reportedly calls for increasing the 2018 Defense Budget <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/trump-budget-military.html?_r=0">by US$54 billion.</a> This won’t itself pay for an ambitious expansion of the Navy. The USS Gerald R. Ford alone cost about <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-navys-new-13-billion-aircraft-carrier-will-dominate-the-seas-2016-03-09">$13 billion</a>. It will, therefore, take many years of spending to move building projects forward. But as the Trump administration’s plans, if enacted, make clear, buying more ships will mean cuts to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/trump-budget-proposal/">foreign aid, environmental protection and a series of regulatory agencies.</a> These are choices that have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/28/us/politics/ap-us-trump-diplomatic-cutbacks.html?_r=0">roundly criticized</a> by former military officials and senior policymakers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump visiting the Newport News Shipbuilding in early March to announce his plans for the Navy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, there are few civilian officials available to answer the question of what purpose the Navy’s growth serves. That is because there is currently a dearth of administrative appointments to key leadership positions in the Navy and the Department of Defense. So there is no evident strategy to justify this new target.</p>
<p>The man <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/314491-why-theres-only-one-choice-for-trumps-navy-secretary">initially anointed by the Washington rumor mill</a> as the next secretary of the Navy was ex-congressman Randy Forbes, formerly of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Arms Services Committee and a vocal supporter of American naval power. </p>
<p>Forbes was passed over in favor of Phillip Bilden, a businessmen with ties to both the Army and the Navy. Bilden, however, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navy-secretary-nominee-withdraws_us_58b36fa7e4b0a8a9b7833b52?whi9ajh5kuj6ob6gvi&">withdrew from consideration</a> when it became clear that ethics rules would require him to disentangle himself from his extensive business holdings. The vacuum remains unfilled. Now, in a strange turn of events, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-considers-two-candidates-for-navy-secretary-1488928814">Forbes is once again in the running</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the preferences of the new Secretary of Defense General Mattis and National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster regarding the size, shape and purposes of the Navy are unknown. </p>
<p>Both are well-read, broadly educated, deep thinkers on U.S. and global security. But both participated in ground wars in the Middle East. They are therefore assumed to be advocates of land forces, not naval power. In the past, they have focused on conventional wars, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, rather than maritime challenges. </p>
<h2>The Navy’s view</h2>
<p>Even in normal periods, fleet design is a complicated bureaucratic dance with budgets, internal procedures and external interventions from Congress to be negotiated. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan was a big Navy fan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ron Edmonds/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In times of crisis or great political change, the strong preferences of presidents, their advisers and the civilian leaders or the military services can play a decisive role. Most famously, <a href="http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/1990/1990%20mearsheimer.pdf">Secretary of the Navy John Lehman,</a> at the behest of President Reagan, championed a 600-ship Navy to counter the rapidly growing Soviet fleet and threats to Europe, the Far East and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Even before candidate Trump shined the spotlight on the Navy, the service was, of course, planning for the future. </p>
<p>The Navy released its latest vision statement, <a href="http://www.navy.mil/cno/docs/cno_stg.pdf">“A Design for Maritime Superiority,”</a> in January 2016. It resoundingly defended the ideal that the United States is a maritime nation and a premier naval power, specifically naming China and Russia as potential aggressors on the high seas. It didn’t specify a target fleet size although the documents could be construed as justifying the sort of overall budget growth proposed by Trump. </p>
<p>Still Congress, forcefully egged on by Representative Forbes, who felt the Obama administration and the Navy itself were <a href="https://news.usni.org/2014/10/01/randy-forbes-cno-greenert-navy-desperately-needs-strategy">neglecting</a> naval strategy, mandated three independent studies to examine the future fleet. Interestingly, when completed, none of the three alternatives proposes anything like a 350-ship fleet by 2030, despite errant reports to the contrary. </p>
<p>Recent news reports suggesting that the alternative fleet architecture proposed by the think tank <a href="https://www.mitre.org/publications">the MITRE Corp.</a> called for <a href="http://breakingdefense.com/2017/02/414-ships-no-lcs-mitres-alternative-navy/">over 400 ships</a> misinterpreted the study. In fact, the MITRE authors recommend a far smaller fleet because they explicitly recognize the costs of building up to such a large number.</p>
<p>All three studies focus on new war-fighting concepts such as <a href="https://news.usni.org/2016/09/13/navy-fleet-embracing-distributed-operations-as-a-way-to-regain-sea-control">distributed maritime operations</a>, new types of platforms including unmanned systems and new technologies including rail guns (that can repeatedly launch a projectile <a href="http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/navy-wants-fire-its-ridiculously-strong-railgun-ocean">at more than 5,000 miles per hour</a>). Capacity and fleet size are obviously not the same thing, despite the current focus on numbers of ships.</p>
<p>The point is that analysis underpinning the Navy’s own vision for the future is different from that of the new president. </p>
<p>To date, the president has concentrated on the overall number of ships while the Navy and the congressionally mandated studies focused on war-fighting capabilities and war-fighting concepts. What is missing from the president’s target of a 350-ship Navy is an underlying strategy – one that links what is proverbially called the “ways, means and ends” necessary to defend American interests on the high seas. </p>
<p>Working outward, the national security community, the public and indeed America’s allies and adversaries need to understand the logic underlying any historic naval buildup. A clear statement regarding the primary threats facing the U.S., the types of adversaries it will face and the nature of future conflict would help explain why the American taxpayer is investing so much national treasure in the military services. </p>
<p>After all, if Russia is not the enemy, and we don’t need a big Navy to defeat the Islamic State, then why spend so much? </p>
<h2>‘Military operations other than war’</h2>
<p>So far, Trump has not offered an answer for the nation to rally behind and to reassure his critics. </p>
<p>In its absence, experts have sought reassurance in the president’s fragmentary and sporadic pronouncements to support their own vision. Neo-isolationists have <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-02-24/nigel-farage-at-cpac-brexit-trump-show-isolationism-is-winning">cheered his efforts</a> to close American borders. Others have warmed to the notion that he has suggested our allies assume <a href="http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/03/europes-security-dilemma/">more responsibility</a> for their own defense. Even proponents of old-fashioned primacy have sought luster by interpreting the president’s defense buildup as <a href="http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/01/detached-primacy-musings-trump-doctrine/">a return to the unilateralist days</a> of American military prowess through intervention. </p>
<p>Our own research suggests that the truth is that none of these grand visions may apply. The Navy, and indeed the other military services, face a growing demand for their services. They are now being asked to perform an increasing number of functions that are <a href="http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Monographs/Other_Than_War.pdf">not associated with fighting wars</a>. </p>
<p>The military even has a term for it: “MOOTW” (<a href="http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/jp-doctrine/jp3_07.pdf">military operations other than war</a>). And the U.S. Navy’s MOOTW ranges from conventional war-fighting against other countries’ navies to policing the globe against pirates, drug flows and the smuggling of nuclear materials, humanitarian assistance and even fighting Ebola in Africa. These activities consume much of the Navy’s time. And their increasing demands require increased resources. Military budgets therefore often reflect the requirements entailed in providing these services as much as the need to conform to any one image.</p>
<p>Of course, congressional democrats may yet scuttle plans for an enlarged Navy. Alternatively, the president may move beyond discussing discrete missions to a more coherent grand strategy – perhaps tutored by his new senior military appointments – that justifies acquisition decisions. </p>
<p>The types of ships (and aircraft, and unmanned systems and equipment) purchased in the coming years will make sense only if they are employed in an operationally coherent manner. Only then will the American public be able to judge if the trade-offs made to fund such an enterprise were worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Reich receives funding from The Gerda Henkel Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dombrowski 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>Does the president’s specified goal of 350 ships meet the needs of the nation in the 21st century? The answer is not yet clear.Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkPeter Dombrowski, Professor, Strategic Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, US Naval War CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/704312017-02-13T07:57:42Z2017-02-13T07:57:42ZForget sanctions, reining in North Korea will need a whole new approach<p><em>North Korea’s increased nuclear sabre-rattling has the world on edge. With South Korea’s opposition party pushing for potential dialogue <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-south-korean-president-parks-political-demise-means-for-the-regions-geopolitics-74980">with the country’s authoritarian northern neighbour</a>, TC Global is resurfacing this relevant analysis, originally published in February 2017, of how to better deal with the country’s nuclear threat.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>North Korea has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-12/north-korea-fires-test-missile-in-challenge-to-donald-trump/8263560?WT.mc_id=newsmail&WT.tsrc=Newsmail">launched its first ballistic missile</a> since the start of Donald’s Trump’s presidency, just as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the US to shore up support for the alliance between the two countries. The move led to a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fa95ce76-f146-11e6-8758-6876151821a6">joint statement by the US and Japanese heads of state</a> condemning the missile test. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_In_detail.htm?No=125062&id=In">US has reportedly been reviewing</a> its policy on North Korea, and in his inaugural visit to East Asia earlier in February, US Defence Secretary James Mattis reassured allies that use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a220e68e-e900-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539">lead to an “overwhelming” response</a> from the US.</p>
<p>Clearly, all that has not deterred Pyongyang. The question now is what can be done in light of lessons from previous attempts to rein in the isolated state. </p>
<h2>How we got into this mess</h2>
<p>The UN Security Council <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-01/un-imposes-new-sanctions-on-north-korea/8081704">imposed new sanctions against North Korea</a> in late November 2016, following repeated missile and nuclear tests. But such sanctions have had little effect due to their loose execution, mainly by China. </p>
<p>The November resolution attempted to address some of the obvious loopholes in previous sanctions. Most notable was an attempt to cut North Korea’s coal exports by about half. This was an approach the international community <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/foreign-policy/iran-deal">tried with Iran</a>, with the same aim of curbing its nuclear ambitions. </p>
<p>Despite its lack of popularity in US domestic politics, the Iran deal is seen as a success case in diplomatic circles. At the very least, the international community was able to buy time before Iran became fully nuclear-armed. </p>
<p>North Korea’s situation is quite different. In the 20-plus years since the state’s nuclear ambitions became clear, very little progress has been made. North Korea is no longer attempting to create nuclear weapons – <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11813699">it has them</a>. </p>
<p>Experts have estimated that there could now be <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-warns-north-korean-nuclear-threat-is-rising-1429745706">as many as 20 nuclear weapons in Pyongyang’s arsenal</a>. North Korea performed its <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11813699">fifth nuclear test in September 2016</a>, suggesting operational sophistication. </p>
<p>North Korea has also launched numerous missile tests to demonstrate that it can deliver a nuclear warhead as far as Hawaii or perhaps even the US mainland. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-trump.html?emc=edit_ae_20170212&nl=todaysheadlines-asia&nlid=64524812&_r=0">intermediate-range ballistic missile launched on February 11</a> from near North Korea’s northwestern border with China flew <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38947451?ocid=global_bbccom_email_12022017_top+news+stories">almost 500km before falling into the sea</a>.</p>
<p>It seems that sanctions against North Korea have not worked. And all the while, the country’s impoverished people live under one of the most cruel dictators in the world. </p>
<h2>A series of compromises</h2>
<p>Fundamentally, the failed attempts to rein in Pyongyang boils to down to the inaction and compromise between the US and China. When President George W Bush made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004021075/the-axis-of-evil-speech.html">his “axis of evil” speech in 2002</a>, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea looked as if they were more or less on the same stage in terms of the nuclear threat to the US and its allies. </p>
<p>The US went to war against Iraq, and made a epic diplomatic deal with Iran. The contrast is overwhelming compared to lack of focus and resolve when it comes to North Korea. </p>
<p>For China, North Korea is a troublesome neighbour. As China’s economy grows in size and sophistication, it has little to gain from relations with Pyongyang. But playing the “North Korea card” has something of strategic value to China. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-north-korea-nuclear-test-china-a7234811.html">idea that only China can control North Korea</a>, which is perhaps true, is very convenient for the former. China shares some of the US and broader international community’s about concern North Korea, but it never goes too far to try to make Pyongyang do the right thing.</p>
<p>China clearly sees benefit from the status quo. Until the North’s nuclear threat disappears, South Korea has to ask China to control North Korea. China, while it never works very hard on containing North Korea, strongly opposes the deployment of the US anti-missile system known as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-china-idUSKBN15I0QC">THAAD in South Korea</a>.</p>
<p>And it <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-china-idUSKCN11M1H4">rightfully fears the sudden collapse of North Korea</a>, which will mean <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/what-happens-if-north-korea-collapses/">millions of refugees storming the border</a> shared by the two countries. The notion of a unified Korean peninsula that has military ties with the US is also something Beijing would do anything to avoid. </p>
<h2>Drastic moves needed</h2>
<p>Whether the latest missile test will garner a stronger response than the condemnation already meted out remains to be seen, but there are serious implications for failure to act and indecision regarding North Korea. </p>
<p>Put simply, the region faces the accumulation of security risk beyond justification. A nuclear-armed North Korea is now pressured into a corner, without any diplomatic conversation. This risk is not felt by the two most influential players in the region – the US and China – since they are the cause of this situation. But it is felt by the middle power nations of the region: Japan and South Korea. </p>
<p>This is not to say that Japan and South Korea must not carry some of the blame for the current situation. South Korea, in the mid 1990s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/what-comes-after-kim-dae_b_264902.html">clearly underestimated the risk to come</a> from inaction, and lobbied against surgical strikes.</p>
<p>And Japan has used its pacifist constitution as an excuse to not even administer effective sanctions. The Japanese left strongly opposed the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/28/world/tokyo-lawmakers-pass-bill-to-improve-military-ties-with-us.html">National Emergency Legislation</a>, which was intended to logistically support US military operation on the Korean peninsula. </p>
<p>Both of these countries put up with US indecision, because they did not have a choice under the alliance, which is not a equal relationship. They also lacked the capability and political will to take action themselves.</p>
<p>What then can work to stop North Korea?</p>
<h2>The right stuff</h2>
<p>Clearly both hawkish and dovish moves are necessary. On the hawkish side, a military buildup beyond what the US currently offers the region will probably become necessary. The ability to strike North Korean nuclear facilities and missile sites, upgraded intelligence, and perhaps even a nuclear deterrent of Japan and South Korea’s own may become necessary. </p>
<p>Developing nuclear capabilities has <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/yes-japan-could-build-nuclear-weapons-what-cost-18019">long been a taboo both in Japan and South Korea</a>, but it is steadily gathering acceptance and momentum.</p>
<p>These capabilities will be necessary to serve as deterrents on their own right. But, more importantly, they may draw out meaningful action from the US. </p>
<p>Before his election, Trump criticised the US’ Northeast Asian allies <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-03-28/those-free-rider-allies-are-paying-up">as “free riders”</a>. The introduction of more hawkish policies towards North Korea from Seoul and Tokyo may regain the confidence of the US and its public. </p>
<p>On the other side, what Pyongyang wants is assurance of its regime’s survival. In diplomatic terms, this may mean officially recognising the state. Negotiations to open diplomatic ties will probably have to include some kind of economic assistance as well. This will be critical for North Korea to start developing meaningful industry that it can use to earn foreign currency. </p>
<p>The international community, and especially East Asian nations, have suffered from the indecision about North Korea and its arms programmes. It’s time to move past false promises and programs. What’s needed now are not new sanctions but a whole new approach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lully Miura receives funding from Ministry Of Foreign Affairs of Japan as a project member of Security Studies Unit at Policy Alternatives Research Institute, the University of Tokyo .</span></em></p>Sanctions and warnings have failed to stop Pyongyang’s belligerence.Lully Miura, Lecturer at Policy Alternatives Research Institute, University of TokyoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/726362017-02-09T15:12:53Z2017-02-09T15:12:53ZFaith and money from the Middle East fuelling tensions in the Horn of Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156015/original/image-20170208-9117-1gb0cd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A squadron of UAE Mirage fighter planes such as this one at the Dubai Airshow are stationed in Eritrea for Yemeni operations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Caren Firouz </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Relations between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula go back centuries, with trade playing a key component in binding their people
together. Religion has also played a part. The expansion of <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2014/11/wahhabism-isis-how-saudi-arabia-exported-main-source-global-terrorism">Wahhabism</a> – the interpretation of Islam propagated by Saudi Arabia – has been funded by the massive oil wealth of the kingdom.</p>
<p>Mosques, Koranic schools and Imams have been provided with support over many years. Gradually this authoritarian form of Islam <a href="http://africacenter.org/publication/islamist-extremism-east-africa/">began to take hold</a> in the Horn. While some embraced it, others didn’t.</p>
<p>Somalia is an example. While most Somalis practised a moderate form of Suffi Islam, the Islamic fundamentalists of al-Shabaab didn’t. Soon after taking control of parts of central and southern Somalia in 2009 they began imposing a much more severe form of the faith. Mosques were destroyed and the shrines of revered Suffi leaders were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8077725.stm">desecrated</a>. </p>
<p>The export of faith has been followed by arms. Today the Saudis and their allies in the United Arab Emirates are exerting <a href="http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20161224-uae-discreet-yet-powerful-player-horn-africa">increasing military influence</a> in the region. </p>
<p>But Saudi Arabia and other Arabian gulf states aren’t the only Muslim countries that have sought influence in the region. Iran, for example, has also been an active player. In the case of Eritrea, a struggle for influence between Riyadh and Tehran has played out over the past few years. This has also been true in neighbouring Somaliland and the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland.</p>
<p>These are troubled times in the Horn of Africa. The instability that’s resulted from Islamic fundamentalism, of which al-Shabaab are the best known proponents, have left the region open to outside influences. The French have traditionally had a base in Djibouti, but they have now been joined by the <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-strategic-attractions-djibouti-15533">Americans</a> and the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-builds-first-overseas-military-outpost-1471622690">Chinese</a>.</p>
<p>The growing Arab military, political and religious influence is only the latest example of an external force taking hold in the region.</p>
<h2>New powerful forces in the region</h2>
<p>The Eritreans had been <a href="http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers_and_reports/yemen_african_dimension_0">close to Iran</a> and supported their Houthi allies in the Yemeni conflict. This was of deep concern to the Saudis, who are locked in conflict with Tehran. This is a battle for influence that pits Iranian Shias against Saudi Sunnis. Eritrea is just one of the fields on which it’s being played out.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10ASMARA33_a.html">US cable</a> leaked to Wikileaks put it in 2010, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Saudi ambassador to Eritrea is concerned about Iranian influence, says Iran has supplied materiel to the Eritrean navy, and recently ran into an Iranian delegation visiting Asmara. He claims Yemeni Houthi rebels were present in Eritrea in 2009 (but is not sure if they still are), and reported that the Isaias regime this week arrested six Eritrean employees of the Saudi embassy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since then Eritrea has switched sides. Eritrean President, Isaias Afwerki paid a <a href="https://www.tesfanews.net/president-isaias-pay-state-visit-to-saudi-arabia/">state visit to Saudi Arabia</a> in April 2015. Not long afterwards Eritrea signed a 30-year lease on the port of Assab with the Saudis and their allies in the Emirates. The port has become a base from which to prosecute the war in Yemen. The United Nations <a href="http://untribune.com/un-report-uae-saudi-leasing-eritean-port-using-eritrean-land-sea-airspace-and-possibly-troops-in-yemen-battle/">reported</a> that 400 Eritrean troops were now in Yemen supporting the Saudi alliance.</p>
<p>The United Arab Emirates has constructed a <a href="https://www.tesfanews.net/analysis-uae-military-base-assab-eritrea/">major base</a> in Assab – complete with tanks, helicopters and barracks. In November 2016 it was reported that a squadron of nine UAE Mirage fighter planes were <a href="http://www.defenseworld.net/news/17633/UAE_Deploys_Mirage_2000_Jets_To_Support_Yemen_Ops#.WJhh8xCKSMk">deployed to Eritrea</a> from where they could attack Houthi targets on the other side of the Red Sea. In return the Gulf states <a href="http://www.madote.com/2015/05/djibouti-uae-diplomatic-crisis-brings.html">agreed</a> to modernise Asmara International Airport, increase fuel supplies to Eritrea and provide President Isaias with further funding.</p>
<p>Since then the United Arab Emirates has announced its intention to increase its military presence in the Horn. In January it signed an agreement to manage the Somaliland port of Berbera for 30 years. It also sought permission to have a naval base, Somaliland foreign minister Sa’ad Ali Shire <a href="https://www.alleastafrica.com/2017/01/11/uae-seeks-to-open-military-base-in-somaliland/">told reporters</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s true that the United Arab Emirates has submitted a formal request seeking permission to open a military base in Somaliland</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The UAE are also <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2016/09/west-of-suez-for-the-united-arab-emirates/">active</a> in the neighbouring Puntland. They have been paying for and training anti-piracy forces for years, while also financing and training its intelligence services. </p>
<p>They are a powerful force in the region, projecting an Arab influence as far as Madagascar and the Seychelles. It’s not surprising that the United Arab Emirates was labelled <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/11/15/3-ways-the-u-a-e-is-the-sparta-of-the-modern-day-middle-east/?utm_term=.d353884f8103">“Little Sparta”</a> by General James Mattis – now President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defence.</p>
<h2>Ethiopian concerns</h2>
<p>These are worrying times for the Ethiopian foreign ministry. Once the dominant force in the region, its influence over the Horn is now in question.</p>
<p>To its north the Eritreans remain implacable foes, as they have been since the <a href="http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2492&context=faculty_publications">border war</a> of 1998-2000 that left these neighbours in a cold no-war, no-peace confrontation. </p>
<p>Addis Ababa is concerned that Eritrea’s hand has become stronger in recent years. Its mining sector is looking <a href="https://www.tesfanews.net/eritrea-approves-social-and-environmental-impact-assessment-for-colluli-potash-project/">increasingly attractive</a> with Canadian based firms now joined by Australian and Chinese companies. </p>
<p>Asmara’s role in the ongoing war in Yemen has allowed Eritrea to escape diplomatic isolation. The government in Asmara is now benefiting from funds and weapons, <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/eritrea-yemen-un-idINKBN12Z2JQ">despite UN sanctions</a> designed to prevent this from taking place. </p>
<p>To Ethiopia’s west lies Sudan, which is also now involved in the war in Yemen, <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/400-more-sudanese-troops-arrive-yemen-1210506015">providing troops</a> to the Saudi and United Arab Emirates backed government. These ties are said to have been cemented after the Saudis pumped a billion dollars into the Sudanese central bank. In return the Sudanese <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/sudan-siding-with-saudi-arabia-long-term-ally-iran">turned their backs</a> on their former Iranian allies.</p>
<p>To Ethiopia’s east the situation in Somalia is also of concern. No Ethiopian minister can forget the <a href="http://www.coldwar.org/articles/70s/SomaliaEthiopiaandTheOgadenWar1977.asp">invasion of the Ogaden</a> under President Siad Barre in 1977, when Somalia attempted to re-capture the lands lost to their neighbours during the expansionist policies of Emperor Menelik II in the nineteenth century. Siad Barre may be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/03/obituaries/somalia-s-overthrown-dictator-mohammed-siad-barre-is-dead.html">long gone</a> but Ethiopian policy since the invasion has been to keep Somalia as weak and fragmented as possible.</p>
<p>Ethiopia has intervened repeatedly in Somalia to hold al-Shabaab at bay as well as to maintain the security of its eastern region. Addis Ababa’s policy of encouraging the inherent fragmentary tendencies of the Somalis has paid dividends: the country is <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Somalia-s-regions-slowly-evolve-into-federal-states-/2558-2833956-snxq7e/index.html">now a federation</a> of states and regions. Some of these only nominally recognise the authority of the government in Mogadishu. Somaliland, in the north is close to being recognised as an independent nation. Others, like Jubaland along the Kenyan border, are under Nairobi’s influence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Plaut is affiliated to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Royal African Society</span></em></p>The growing Arab military, political and religious influence is only the latest example of an external force taking hold in the Horn of Africa.Martin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/710832017-01-22T19:10:27Z2017-01-22T19:10:27ZLoose-cannon Trump enters the tinderbox of US-Russia-China relations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153701/original/image-20170120-5234-g5yrve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Trump administration raises many questions about how America's relationships with other world powers will play out.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Lucy Nicholson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump’s inauguration speech <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-first-donald-trump-becomes-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states-70479">had one simple message</a>: “America first”. His was an inward-looking vision of the future in which America would set about regaining all that has been stolen from it.</p>
<p>His one promise was to restore America to its former wealth, power and security – to recreate a past that has long since gone. </p>
<p>But ours is an increasingly interdependent world, in which America’s relations with its arch-rivals, Russia and China, now less than cordial, are precariously poised. It is a world in which the wider economic, security and political environment is in a state of radical flux.</p>
<p>Neither Trump nor his cabinet nominees appear to grasp how far-reaching these changes are, how severely they limit America’s room for manoeuvre, and how serious are the dangers of miscalculation and overreach.</p>
<p>For all three countries, bilateral ties weigh heavily. Trade <a href="http://hkmb.hktdc.com/en/1X0A5ZV8/hktdc-research/Sino-American-Trade-Relations-in-the-Lead-up-to-the-2016-US-Presidential-Election">looms large</a> in Sino-American relations, and US sanctions against Russia are a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-sanctions-explained-measures-donald-trump-roll-back/story?id=44806301">major bone of contention</a>. But in reviewing relations between these three centres of power, we need to ask larger questions that go to the heart of regional and global security.</p>
<p>A key question is whether the US and Russia can find ways of accommodating each other’s legitimate interests without provoking European divisions and anxieties. Another is whether they can avoid the proliferation of proxy wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. Importantly, they face the task of averting a renewed nuclear arms race. </p>
<p>It also remains to be seen if China and the US are of a mind to contain, if not resolve, conflicts in East Asia. As the world’s two largest economies, they have to decide whether they will actively promote an orderly system of trade, institutions that can better guard against periodic financial crises, and a climate-change regime that is equal to the task.</p>
<p>We also wait to see whether the three most powerful members of the UN Security Council will allow the UN to play the constructive security and peace-building role assigned to it. Importantly, will they give UN reform the attention it so desperately needs?</p>
<p>Sadly, nothing on the public record suggests these challenges are uppermost in the minds of the new president or his advisers. Tellingly, on all these questions Trump’s inauguration speech maintained a deafening silence.</p>
<h2>How will a Trump administration deal with Russia?</h2>
<p>Trump is <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-sets-a-bar-for-russia-and-china-1484360380">personally inclined</a> to cultivate a better relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and to be tougher with China’s Xi Jinping.</p>
<p>But what is it that helps explain his approach? In each case, it seems his main preoccupation is to maximise business opportunities for the US corporate sector, and by extension for the US economy.</p>
<p>In decoding Trump’s chaotic use of language, we should not underestimate his ability to surprise and confound his critics. The greater risk would be to overestimate his capacity to control events, or the coherence of his anti-establishment rhetoric.</p>
<p>When it comes to Russia, we should not assume the Trump administration will speak with one voice. Nor should we assume that it will always command the support of the Republican majority in Congress, or that it will be able to disregard entrenched bureaucratic ways of thinking about Russia or the preferences of the immensely powerful US security and intelligence apparatus.</p>
<p>Several prominent Republicans are known for <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/08/mccain-graham-call-greater-sanctions-against-russia/96312806/">their hostility</a> to Putin’s policies and advocacy of even stronger sanctions against Russia. Already the Senate Intelligence Committee <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/senate-probe-into-election-hacking-to-review-possible-links-between-russia-campaigns/">has announced</a> it will conduct a review of Russian hacking in the 2016 election and examine any intelligence “regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns”.</p>
<p>Even among his cabinet nominees, anti-Russian sentiment is strong. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, James Mattis, Trump’s nominee for defence secretary, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-cabinet-nominees-keep-contradicting-him/2017/01/12/dec8cccc-d8f3-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?utm_term=.f117fe3aca3c">cited Russia</a> as a major threat to US interests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think right now the most important thing is that we recognise the reality of what we deal with [in] Mr Putin and we recognise that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With Mattis as Trump’s defence secretary, what chance a reset in Russian-American relations?</p>
<p>Even if Trump is given to periodic denunciations of NATO allies – for doing too little rather than too much – how likely is it that his administration will review NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe, or withdraw the thousands of troops that have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38592448">just arrived in Poland</a> as part of an ongoing rotational deployment?</p>
<p>In any case, Trump will sooner or later have to address the animosity he has aroused in the US intelligence community, and by extension in the American conservative establishment. </p>
<p>Recent allegations that Russian spies have <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/president-elect-donald-trump-questions-if-spies-leaked-explosive-dossier-10725322">gathered compromising material</a> on Trump’s links with Moscow will make for added caution. Accurate or not, the leaked dossier will have the effect of subjecting his relationship with Putin to the closest scrutiny.</p>
<p>In the end, Trump may be happy to settle for improved economic relations and the easing of sanctions, but little more than that. Pleasant surprises are possible, but reversing the dangerous path on which Russian-American relations are currently set remains a distant prospect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153146/original/image-20170118-21137-1mmq7al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald Trump is personally inclined to cultivate a better relationship with Vladimir Putin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Troubling stance on China</h2>
<p>Trump’s announced intention to play tough on China is even more troubling. </p>
<p>Having accused China of being a currency manipulator, of engaging in unfair trade practices, and of stealing American jobs and intellectual property, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/how-trump-s-china-trade-war-could-play-out-quicktake-q-a">he could</a> use his presidential powers to impose tariffs and other sanctions. </p>
<p>Given the large US balance of payments deficit with China, he could impose import surcharges of up to 15% for up to 150 days. He could also lodge a complaint against China at the World Trade Organisation.</p>
<p>But such measures are unlikely to produce the desired result, and each is open to costly retaliation. This may help to explain why Trump has, with characteristic clumsiness, made a point of raising two highly sensitive issues: relations with Taiwan, and the South China Sea dispute.</p>
<p>Acceptance of the One China policy has been the cornerstone of Sino-American relations for close to four decades. By threatening to review it, a Trump administration may hope to extract trade and other economic concessions from China. In return, it would agree to retain the status quo on Taiwan.</p>
<p>The same thinking may have inspired Trump’s brief post-election comment on the South China Sea, considerably amplified by Rex Tillerson, his nominee for secretary of state. Having likened China’s building of a militarised island in the Spratlys to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he issued a <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/rex-tillerson-trumps-secretary-of-state-nominee-has-a-dangerous-idea-for-the-south-china-sea/">rather extraordinary warning</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this a real threat or mere bluff? Either way, the signs are ominous. And although the official Chinese response has been measured, the Chinese media’s reaction was predictably swift and furious.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153147/original/image-20170118-21148-19xwv15.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">Donald Trump could use his presidential powers to impose tariffs and other sanctions on Xi Jinping’s China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Ruben Sprich</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do the next four years hold?</h2>
<p>Trump and his team have yet to think through the implications of their statements. Far from “making America great again”, their sloganeering will deepen mistrust of US motives and irreparably damage any prospect of co-existence, let alone a more co-operative world order.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest casualty will be the loss of anything approaching a moral compass.</p>
<p>Support for torture, disregard for the rule of law, almost complete indifference to the human rights agenda, and erection of physical and legal walls to keep the victims of war, persecution and economic hardship at bay will merely serve to encourage authoritarianism the world over, not least in Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China.</p>
<p>Assuming Trump lasts the journey, the next four years offer an unprecedented opportunity for America’s friends and allies, both the people and their governments, to exercise a newly found independence of thought and action. Collaboratively and with humility, they may need to assume the moral leadership that has become the great imperative of our time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Camilleri 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>Far from ‘making America great again’, Donald Trump’s sloganeering will deepen mistrust of US motives and irreparably damage any prospect of co-existence, let alone a more co-operative world order.Joseph Camilleri, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.