muddling through, 1945-56

I have long believed that a defining characteristic of American foreign policy is a tendency, perhaps even a preference, for muddling through. U.S. policymakers frequently make incremental decisions and then make minor adjustments as time goes on. What they call "strategy" is rarely more than an agreement on some vague overarching goal.

I've just finished a fine book that persuasively argues that is how the United States and Britain developed their foreign policies during the first post-World War II decade. In his Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-1957 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)  Derek Leebaert says that period "was a world without any American 'grand strategy,' and one in which most every move by Washington was a desperate improvisation."

I wish I could write a book like this, deftly combining vivid personal details with big picture analyses. Leebaert has read widely, both in recent academic tomes and in archival boxes of numerous officials.  He was the first to get declassified a seminal document, NSC-75 on British Military Commitments from July 1950. He knows and explains easily what was going on in Washington and Whitehall.

Among his arguments: Secretary of State Acheson was no Anglophile.
- The British bluffed America into aiding Greece in 1948; they weren't really ready to pull out.
- Truman stumbled into the Berlin blockade, following the British innovation.
- George Kennan is highly overrated by later historians and was often sidelined by others when he was a senior official.
- One of the key players, rarely mentioned by most historians, was Trruman's Treasury Secretary John Snyder. He often presided at US-British meetings held in Acheson's office.
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff time and again opposed overseas involvements.
- US foreign policy was weakened by the influx of "emergency men" and later women, who took over from the career professionals.

Refreshingly revisionist but deeply sourced.

how many wars are we in today?

Still 19, same as reported last September. But the Administration has fleshed out its legal rationale and I wanted to share it.

Only this week [thanks to a friend's help] did I finally see the administration's twice yearly report to Congress on U.S. military operations by combat-equipped forces. It was sent to the Hill on June 8 but never posted on the White House website. The report shows that American personnel were deployed to 19 countries, the same number as in the December 2017 report. No real surprises here.

For a broader view of how this administration views it war powers, you should also note the "section 1264" report required by last year's National Defense Authorization Act. It can be found here, along with some helpful analysis on Lawfare.

In May, following U.S. air strikes on Syria,the [much-maligned] Justice Department issued a formal legal opinion by its Office of Legal Counsel [OLC] justifying those attacks. That opinion is here, again with some analysis on Lawfare.

As most of you know, I believe the Congress should be involved in approving all major military operations, and the 2001 AUMF being used to justify current operations in the Middle East has been stretched too far. A new one is needed. But Congress has proved unwilling to assert its proper war powers by sending one to the White House. That's an abdication of responsibility.

Vietnam War, recalculated

Another summer read was Ken Hughes' Fatal Politics, a UVa Press book, written by a man who spent years transcribing Nixon tapes at the Miller Center. I had long believed that the Nixon-Kissinger war strategy was driven more by domestic politics than military considerations, and I thought it was probably true that the duo was willing to accept a South Vietnamese defeat, so long as it occurred "a decent interval" after US withdrawal and could be blamed on Saigon's failings, not America's.

Hughes uses tape transcripts to document Nixon-Kissinger statements using the term or close synonyms on numerous occasions. As early as April 1971, the men expected Vietnamization to fail but wanted to be sure that event occurred only after the 1972 elections. They even told the Chinese and Russians that the US could accept the eventual defeat of Saigon.

What's also infuriating is how Nixon and Kissinger used the POW issue to maintain public support for continuing the war mainly to forestall war ending amendments in Congress.

Hughes shows that Hanoi made key concessions in the weeks before the election but that South Vietnamese President Theiu refused to agree. Nevertheless, Kissinger made his famous "peace is at hand" announcement a week before the election.

The much-touted Linebacker II bombing raids in December were not to force concessions from Hanoi but to fulfill a plan devised just before the elections. Thieu's final agreement on the peace plan came two weeks later because Kissinger had secretly persuaded hawkish Senators Goldwater and Stennis to threaten a cutoff in US aid.

Hughes also proves to my satisfaction that Nixon planned all along to blame Congress and the Democrats for the expected eventual fall of Saigon. He made comments about the stab in the back argument at various points, and then, in June 1973, a day after successfully vetoing a bill to forbid operations in Cambodia, accepted an amendment to end all US bombing on August 15. This meant that Congress would have to vote affirmatively for renewed war if he ever had to carry out his promise to help Saigon if it were threatened.  When that happened, of course, Nixon and others did blame the antiwar Congress for the defeat.

Lend-Lease Revisited

As a college student in the 1960s, learning about the coming of World War II, I readily accepted the view that Lend-Lease was a wise and significant program that enabled Britain to survive the Nazi assault until the United States formally entered the conflict after Pearl Harbor. I have remained deeply interested in the domestic politics and military planning during the prewar period. I've just read the standard work on Lend-Lease enactment, Warren F. Kimball's  fine 1969 book, The Most Unsordid Act. 

What I now see is a marvelous example of presidential strategy and legislative accommodation  -- of a kind I wish all presidents and lawmakers would emulate.

• FDR was slow to commit to aiding Britain even after his reelection, but then pushed his cabinet to develop a bill that granted him broad authority and flexibility. They expected that Congress would try to "tighten it up."
• Shortly before introduction of the bill, cabinet and congressional leaders worked out a list of amendments they would accept to build support for passage: a 5 year time limit; reports every 90 days; a requirement to consult with the military chiefs before any transfer of U.S. forces equipment; and a declaration that nothing in the bill authorized convoys of the materiel. [Sec.of War Stimson had testified that the president had that authority anyway under article II, but this sort of provision made Congress feel good -- and similar provisions have been used in recent years, too.]
• The planners worried about sending the bill through the foreign policy committees because the HFAC chairman had earlier botched floor consideration of the neutrality act and the SFRC had a near majority of isolationists, a problem solved by adding two supporters to the panel. But they decided against changes that would channel it through the military committees.
• The House parliamentarian suggested giving the House bill the number 1776 in part to help Majority Leader McCormack, the designated sponsor, who feared being hurt among his Boston Irish voters if the measure to aid Britain got labeled "McCormack's bill."
• Surprisingly, Sec. of State Hull, though supporting the policy of aid to Britain, was obstructive and unhelpful in the planning and testimony. The real leader of the effort was Treasury Sec. Morgenthau, who limited his public role because of concerns that he would be viewed as prejudiced because he was Jewish.
• Opponents offered numerous crippling amendments but even proposed outright loans as an alternative. The most damaging amendment, allowing Congress to cancel the authority by concurrent resolution, was approved in the House (148-141) because 67 Democrats were absent at a lunch. (That was changed by the SFRC to require a regular, vetoable bill.)
• Senators could have filibustered the bill -- which ultimately passed 60-31, less than the 2/3 then required for cloture -- but they didn't. That was the norm then on national security matters.
• The House agreed to the Senate amendments without further debate.
• Public Law 77-11was only an authorization bill. Congress still had to pass a $7 billion appropriations bill. That happened in two weeks, with little debate, and many members who opposed the first bill supported the spending bill -- because that was the decided policy for the country. [Sec.. Stimson noted that the only opposition in the Senate came from Senators seeking military patronage and spending in their own states.]

wise retreat

Give President Trump some credit. He found a face-saving way to retreat from his threats of "fire and fury." The world can breathe a sigh of relief that there will be no catastrophic war on the Korean peninsula ... at least for a while.

Of course, we wouldn't have been on the edge of the precipice if Trump had followed the normal pattern of building support diplomatically for even tougher sanctions and Chinese pressure on North Korea. He wanted a dramatic event and he paid the price, in preemptive concessions, in order to get it.

This morning he even tweeted "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea" -- a statement that no doubt would surprise intelligence analysts.

Now he owns that statement. He has to deliver, either by concrete actions by North Korea or by changing the definition of a nuclear threat, such as saying that limits on testing of warheads and missiles accomplishes that goal.

Now he owns the Singapore declaration. He has to perform the still-secret promises he made, and he has to tolerate ambiguities in DPRK performance. He made the deal. He has that great personal relationship with Kim. He can't blame anyone else for failure.

The sanctions regime is collapsing and cannot be revived, much less made tougher. Even if North Korea fails to perform, too many horses will have left too many barns for the current restrictions to be re-instituted.

bad faith diplomacy

Yes, at the G-7 summit in Canada there was "bad faith diplomacy," and "betrayal," and a "stab in the back." But the perpetrator was Donald Trump, not Justin Trudeau. Watch the Prime Minister's news conference and see for yourself.

Trudeau spent 12 minutes explaining and defending which Trump had agreed to sign prior to his departure. White House officials told the American press that fact. Of course Trudeau's argument was that, in spite of some differences, they agreed to the [pretty anodyne] language of the joint communique. That's what usually happens at such events.

It was only when an American reporter pressed him to respond to some of Trump's tougher language on trade that Trudeau repeated what he had told the president, that he thought the tariffs were unjustified. Trudeau repeatedly avoided the harsh language later used by Trump and his advisors and continued to say that he wanted to work with Trump on resolving trade questions.

What obviously happened is that Trump changed his mind, demonstrated bad faith diplomacy, and then betrayed his G-7 colleagues by withdrawing his support for the statement. He stabbed Trudeau who had done nothing to weaken Trump as he headed for Singapore. Outrageous!

agency and accountability

I wonder sometimes if Donald Trump realizes that he is the president of the United States. He speaks so often as an observer of himself that I suspect he may not understand that he has real agency over events. On matters where he has the power to decide, he often temporizes with "We'll see."

Most shockingly, in his letter to the North Korea leader, he said:

You talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.

 I'm glad that the president prays. I hope he also listens in case there is a response.

But God is not the commander-in-chief. God does not decide when and where to detonate America's nuclear weapons. That's the president's awful responsibility.

And if, God forbid [we need all the help we can get], American nuclear weapons are used against North Korea or Iran or anywhere else, the world should hold Donald Trump personally accountable for the disaster that follows.

in an alternate universe

President Trump's tactics in foreign policy could work. By raising the prospect of unilateral American military action against North Korea, despite the horrendous costs, he might make Kim Jong-un more willing to accept some kind of diplomatic outcome. Maybe the DPRK "peace offensive" is not just to buy more time to build warheads and missiles but maybe also to negotiate a settlement.

Maybe Trump's disparagement of NATO can serve as an added incentive for member countries to spend more on the common defense.

Maybe the prospect of a collapse of NAFTA will lead to improvements for some U.S. trading sectors.[Though it is hard to imagine Trump defending any compromises, anything less than total surrender by Canada and Mexico. He signed, but loudly criticized, the compromise spending package.]

Maybe the threat of tariffs on aluminum and steel will prompt concessions on other trade issues with friendly nations now given a few weeks to lobby and plead.

Maybe the threat of $60 billion in other tariffs to punish the Chinese for thefts of intellectual property and related trade actions will lead Beijing, which has shown amazing restraint so far, to take steps to reduce its trade deficit with America.

Maybe the threat to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal will succeed in getting the other signatories to pressure Iran for additional restraints on its missile programs and maybe modest changes to the nuclear provisions.

I can envision a world in which many of these outcomes are possible. But the world we do live in also includes a president who is unpredictable, inconsistent, and unreliable. Why should any foreign leader trust that Trump would keep any agreement he signs?  Why should even our closest partners expect Trump to follow through on commitments that become politically unpopular? The U.S. president is weakening his own leverage and undermining his own policies by his radical behaviors.

we've been warned

I've stayed more optimistic than many of my academic colleagues when assessing the future of American government, politics, and democracy. I guess because I have witnessed the triumph of good governance [Watergate], of civil rights [1964-65],  of grand budget bargains [1990], of responsible congressional oversight [Hughes-Ryan], I am willing to believe that our system can overcome anger, gridlock, and polarization. After reading the sobering analysis How Democracies Die, by Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, I am far less confident.

Their basic argument is that democracies die far more often from slow erosion than sudden coups. There are usually warning indicators: rejection of or weak commitment to democratic rules of the game; denial of the legitimacy of political opponents; toleration or encouragement of violence; and readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media. Even democratically-inclined politicians may morph into autocrats for what they see as higher goals. How easy it often is for them to "capture the referees," buy off opponents, and rewrite the rules of the game.

The key conditions for preserving democracies, the authors argue, are mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. We are losing the first because more and more voters and politicians say that their opponents are threats who must be stopped at all costs. We are also losing the second as more and more norms of political behavior are tossed aside. Abuse of the Senate filibuster is one example; the repudiation of the filibuster by questionable parliamentary tactics is another.

I used to think that hyperpartisanship and extreme party polarization could be changed only by the voters, by rejecting the rhetoric and tactics of the demagogues. Now I'm persuaded that it requires political leaders who reject the extremists early and often, excluding them from their parties even at the risk of losing an election. Those were the tactics of the few examples Levitsky and Ziblatt give of nations that avoided extremism when their neighbors were succumbing. 

books that changed my mind

I was exchanging reading recommendations with a friend and realized that there have been a few books in recent years that actually changed my mind regarding what I thought happened in history. I read a lot of disappointing books -- too shallow, too heavy, too incomplete -- but I generally enjoy revisionist historians, especially if they have a provocative thesis and ample evidence. So here's a short list:

World War I: I'm now persuaded that Russia shares much of the blame for the start of the Great War by its policies to dominate Turkey and by mobilization during the July 1914 crisis. After deep dives into long-hidden Russian archives, Sean McMeekin showed that even Barbara Tuchman got the sequence wrong by relying on the falsified memoirs of the Russian Foreign Minister. McMeekin's books on Russian diplomacy and the July crisis changed my view of German war guilt, though Austria-Hungary still deserves shared blame with Russia.

FDR's boldness: I had long admired Franklin Roosevelt's strategic bravery in maneuvering the United States in support of Britain and against Hitler, believing that he was just ahead of public opinion, skillfully pulling it along. Lynne Olson''s Those Angry Days persuaded me that, much of the time, FDR vacillated, doing less than many of his advisors urged and hoped. He still was a great leader, just not quite as bold as I had thought.

Slave Power's influence on foreign policy:  I never thought that slavery and its perpetuation had much impact on American foreign policy until I read Matthew Karp's eye-opening history. Karp details how the South dominated key foreign policy posts and consciously advocated policies to protect and even extend slavery in the decades before the War of the Rebellion. Defenders of slavery really had a "deep state."

The Revolutionary War:  I used to have a typical American high school student's view of our war for independence as a story of brave patriots, toughened at Valley Forge and led by George Washington, who finally triumphed at Yorktown. Two books have changed my understanding of that conflict. One was Andrew Jackson O'Shaunessy's study of British politics during the conflict, The Men Who Lost America. He argues that the British gave up for broader strategic reasons. Add to this Holger Hoock's Scars of Independence, which describes the local violence on both sides and the mistreatment of Loyalists during and after the war. The good guys won, but they won dirty.