what if...

It has now been 20 days, just short of 3 weeks, since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Relief and recovery efforts were slow to begin and still are far from restorating  basic human services.

Axios has some data:

• More than 19,000 federal civilian personnel and military service members, including more than 1,395 FEMA personnel, are on the ground in PR and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• Electricity: 15% of the island has power, and roughly 28% of cell towers have been restored.
• Food: Approximately 77% of grocery stores are open, up from 65% Friday.
• Gas: Roughly 78% of retail gas stations are operational.
• Transportation: Only 392 miles of Puerto Rico's 5,073 miles of roads are open. All airports and federally maintained ports are open or open with restrictions.
• Water and waste: Approximately 56.8% of Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) customers have potable water, and additional water is being provided by bottled and bulk water. 60% of waste water treatment plants are working on generator power.
• Medical care: All hospitals (67) are open and operating, but only 25 are working with electricity. The others remain on backup power systems, and most are without air conditioning. 96% of Dialysis Centers are open, but several are still running on generators.

About 3.5 million people were living on the island when the hurricane hit -- about as many people as live in Connecticut, and somewhat more than live in Iowa.

What if 85% of the people in Connecticut were still out of power; what if 93% of Iowa's roads were blocked; what if over 40% of the people of either state had no potable water? If those were the conditions in either state on day two after the storm, I believe that the Federal Government would have mobilized even more people, immediately, and wouldn't have slacked off until the job was done. I believe the media would have treated it as a human catastrophe and would have continued massive coverage of the situation. But no; Puerto Rico is an island in a big ocean, and there are tweets and controversies to capture our attention. Shame!   

Are we at war with North Korea?

The North Koreans, citing presidential tweets, say that the two countries are at war, and North Korea may shoot down U.S. aircraft. The White House press secretary says we are not.

These comments raise a bunch of legal and historical issues. First, only Congress can "declare war." But lawmakers can also authorize major military operations without calling them "war." And presidents can attack and retaliate with relative impunity.

Second, in fact, the Korean conflict was suspended by an armistice, not a peace treaty. And that agreement has numerous provisions for monitoring the cessation of hostilities and no clear provision for resuming the fighting.

62. The Articles and Paragraphs of this Armistice Agreement shall remain in effect until expressly superseded either by mutually acceptable amendments and additions or by provision in an appropriate agreement for a peaceful settlement at a political level between both sides.

Third, it's worth recalling that the last time North Korea shot down an American military aircraft, killing 31, President Nixon chose not to respond.

The main point I want to make, however, is that historically the United States has always claimed that its wars were defensive, in response to attacks by others, and that Congress was merely declaring that a war exists because of those attacks. North Korea seems to be doing the same.

Here are  some excerpts from previous declarations of war:

1812: That war be and is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories;

1846: Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States

1898: That war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and has existed since the twenty-first day of April, A.D. 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain.

1917: That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared;

1941: That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared;

Shakespeare and Trump

Is it possible that Donald Trump has read or seen Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2? In it, the dying king advises Prince Hal to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels" and thus distract the people from their domestic complaints. Readers here may note that I titled this blog with that phrase, because I want to focus on the domestic factors affecting foreign policy.

While President Trump has numerous foreign quarrels and domestic complaints to deal with, he wants to turn attention away from all of them, and toward protesting athletes.  As we sw during the 2016 campaign, Trump is the Duke of Distraction, making new outrageous statements whenever the issues he should be confronting cause him problems.

As Jim Fallows documents, no other president responded to protests by mostly black athletes. It's a shame that Trump can't bring himself to be presidential.

the Iran game

It's clear that President Trump wants to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, formerly known as JCPOA. By mid-October, he is supposed to tell Congress whether or not Iran is complying with the agreement. Despite IAEA findings of technical compliance, Trump and many in his administration view the agreement as flawed and Iranian behavior outside the nuclear provisions as unacceptable.

So what will he do? There's a good analysis of the options in a new CRS report. 
Rather than claiming violations which other countries will not agree with, I believe he will take the easier path that still preserves his options down the road. Instead of certifying anything, compliance or noncompliance, Trump may just refuse to send any report to Congress. That would allow Congress to vote to re-impose sanctions lifted as part of the deal.

In fact, Congress could easily do that, because the law negotiated with the Obama administration allows prompt floor action in both House and Senate, no amendments, and time-limited debate. Opponents in the Senate can't filibuster or force a supermajority vote. This approach shares responsibility for such a major decision. [I personally believe continued adherence to JCPOA is in our security interest, but I bet the White House takes this path.]

hole of government

The President is not just commander in chief of the armed forces; he is also the chief executive of the rest of the federal government. That whole of government has been enormously busy helping the people and communities hurt by hurricane Harvey. FEMA is there,of course, but also people from EPA and Energy and Health and Human Services and Interior and Transportation and the FCC. The Post had a rundown of the many federal agencies already on the job.

These are not lazy bureaucrats. They are public servants, many sleeping in their offices so they can work longer hours.

And how does President Donald Trump treat these dedicated employees? With a pay cut! Trump announced that, instead of the 1.9% pay hike current law provides for federal civilian workers in the coming fiscal year, he is using his authority to reduce that figure to 1.4%.  Of course, he will allow the full 2.1% boost for the military, but not for the civilians. Does he not know, or just not care?

war and food

One of the last items in my summertime recreational reading was Lizzie Collingham's book, The Taste of War.  It tells how food supplies impacted soldiers and civilians during the Second World War and offers fascinating nuggets:

• The Japanese army found so much soldier dissatisfaction serving typical Japanese food [rice, miso soup, pickles] that they changed to Chinese noodles and western style pork and chicken, which also greatly increased protein consumption.
• Britain gave equal adult rations for morale purposes, but insisted that companies with more than 250 workers create canteens so that war workers could supplement their diets.
• At the start of the draft in 1940, the US found 40% of draftees unfit for service because of problems linked to poor nutrition.
• Congress expanded a school lunch program during the war, but banned any spices other than salt in order to avoid ethnic complaints.
• Coca-Cola won an exemption from sugar rationing when supplying its drinks to military bases.
• Americans ate well, despite the war. Soldiers received on average 2/3 of a pound of red meat every day; US civilians were allowed 2.5 pounds of meat each week -- twice what the British were allowed, which itself was far more than other combatants.

Collingham's broader story is how the struggle for food supplies affected military strategy, but these details are particularly revealing to me.

Trump's secret plan for Afghanistan

Donald Trump looked presidential last night. He gave a serious speech to a national audience on an important topic. Though he looked awkward reading the teleprompters to his left and right, with his faced blocked by a too-high microphone, he avoided ad libs.

While his style was presidential, his substance raised more questions than it answered. He made clear he was not Obama [no artificial deadlines] and not George W. Bush [no nation-building or democratization]. In fact, his Afghanistan policy looks more like the counter-terrorism focus proposed by Vice President Biden in 2009. Other than promising "victory" without explaining how to achieve or measure it, he kept secret just what the administration will do. As Jim Fallows noted:

• He won’t say how many more troops he’s sending. (A stance that, with the kind of checks-and-balances Congress that a democracy depends on, or with a non-chickenhawk public exposed to the consequences of military commitments, he couldn’t get away with.)
• He won’t say what will constitute “victory” or an end point, in what he emphasized was already America’s longest war.
• Except for bromides, he won’t say why this new approach will work, when its predecessors for 16 years have failed. (The main bromide is: “We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.” This is an argument against George W. Bush’s ambitious and Wilsonian inaugural speech in 2005. It is more or less in sync with what Obama was doing.)
• He can’t say how the policy he’s proposing matches the staffing and budget he has put together. Tonight Trump said: “Another fundamental pillar of our new [sic] strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power—diplomatic, economic, and military—toward a successful outcome.” Both George W. Bush and Obama expounded exactly the same goal. The difference is that both of them backed it up with staffing plans and budgets. (Barack Obama had the redoubtable Richard Holbrooke as his Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Trump is dismantling the office, and of course most of his embassies and State Department posts stand vacant.)

Trump also hinted that we might attack safe havens in Pakistan and might side with India against its neighbor. Stay tuned.