as time goes by

More nostalgia, for it's the 75th anniversary of the Thanksgiving weekend release of "Casablanca," a film for all people and all seasons. I saw it for the first time, the first of many in the same venue, at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, which had a Bogart festival during exam time. It was escapist; it was romantic; it was wonderful!  We all learned the lines, and looked for moments to drop them in casual conversation. And one year, when the much-repaired print failed to include Inspector Strasser's "Round up the usual suspects," we howled and complained enough that the management stopped the show until a proper print could be found.

I wonder whether younger people feel the same emotions, whether they hope Ingrid Bergman makes a different choice, whether they tear up when Madeleine LeBeau [who died only last year]
sings "La Marseillaise," whether they still laugh at Claude Raines' shock at discovering gambling at Rick's Cafe. Yes, the story was a bit silly and wartime propaganda was shoehorned into it. It's revealing, however, that most of the cast were emigres from the troubles of Europe.

The film drove me to be sure to visit modern Casablanca on my first visit to Africa. The city, of course, was nothing like the Warner Brothers lot, and never had been. But ti was still exciting to be there and to think of the allied invasion the same month as the movie's release.

I've read most of the insider stories about its filming. Can't get enough, but I know I must remember this.

news junkie

When I was in junior high school, I decided I wanted to be a journalist. I was already a news junkie -- listening to Edward R. Murrow's evening radio news report and NBC's weekend hourly news as well as reading both Denver newspapers. I became friendly with the men in the INS office, who showed me how they wrote their reports on perforated tape, then fed it into the teletype machines. After holding each day's output for a month, they let me have the discarded rolls. I took them home and pretended to write up my own news scripts [125 wpm, a journalism text prescribed].

I thought of those yellow roles, the staccato typing, and the five bells signifying a bulletin when I read Mike Allen's comments on this anniversary of the Kennedy assassination [see item 10 here] and also the AP historical report here. The Pulitzer went to UPI's reporter, who held onto the pool phone. Here's a long version of the UPI roll.

Thanks to Google, which wouldn't exist for another 35 years, I see another account of how journalists covered the tragic events that day. Myself, I was driving my freshman debaters to a tournament at the University of Vermont in Burlington. I stopped at a New Hampshire state liquor store [prices were much cheaper there] and noticed the flag at half staff. Inside, people were talking about the shooting. That's how I found out. To this day, I'm always curious to learn why flags are at half staff when it's not a holiday.

excused absence

I haven't been writing much here, have I? I still get up every morning, pour through the papers and online sites, and want to share news and ideas. But instead of  picking one point or theme, I send a bunch of links to students and former students, with limited commentary.

I still feel motivated to write about new books I've read, or lessons from history, or occasional political rants, here at Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels. But if you want to know more of what I find noteworthy each day, please follow me at the Google doc a student established for me, and named "Stevenson's army."  [But remember that I'm a civilian, and the only shots I've ever fired in anger were verbal ones.]

 To join the group "Stevenson's Army", send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You'll get an email confirming your join request. Click "Join This Group" and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).

war and diplomacy

I have an extremely low regard for Secretary of State Tillerson and anger at his destructive activities at the State Department. But a stupid and dangerous statement he made last week is a sentiment shared by all too many people, including many military officers.

In a television interview, Tillerson said that “those diplomatic efforts [with North Korea] will continue until the first bomb drops.”

I hope not. If we do get into direct combat with North Korea, I trust that we will explore every possible diplomatic channel until we find ways of ending the conflict. Diplomacy is strong when backed by the threat of force, but diplomacy is also necessary to conclude the use of force.

I won't quote Clausewitz on war's intimate connection to political goals, nor will I drag up all the other similar quotes by various military figures over the year. Just remember that a nation cannot wisely end diplomacy once fighting starts.

Trump's Iran decision

As I predicted, the president chose a kind of middle path between withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and simply certifying Iranian compliance, as other signatories and several cabinet officials preferred. The decision is an excellent example of bureaucratic politics, where differing officials have to compromise.

President Trump had strongly criticized JCPOA as a candidate and was angry that he had to report to Congress every 90 days on Iranian compliance. He said he didn't want to do that, but the facts demanded certification. His advisors looked for a way to remove that uncomfortable action while still preserving the benefits of the limits on Iran. A new report argues that UN Amb, Haley played a key role in fashioning a strong case against the agreement.

Trump's announcement was a powerful indictment of Iran's behavior over the years, but a very weak list of complaints about Iranian noncompliance. Basically he argued that Iran was violating the "spirit" of the deal since he couldn't prove violations of the terms of the deal. He was adopting a policy of linkage, saying US policy would be based on the full range of Iranian behavior even if they complied with the nuclear aspects.

What he did, however, does not seem to be part of a strategy to get Iran to change its behavior or to agree to changes in the deal. By not certifying compliance, he triggered a 60-day window for Congress to snap back the sanctions lifted under JCPOA. But he did not ask Congress to lift those sanctions. Instead, he seems to favor congressional amendments to the law requiring reports [INARA, PL 114-17] that would enable him to certify Iran was not complying with these new and additional behaviors. Senators Corker and Cotton announced a bill like that. And he threatened to withdraw completely from the deal if Congress fails to pass such amendments.

In other words, Trump is demanding that Congress amend its own law instead of ordering his secretary of state [or others] to negotiate such changes with the signatories. How is that supposed to work?

By the way, the administration also announced sanctions against Iran's Revolutionary Guards but did not put that organization on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations [FTO]. CRS and State Dept have explanations of the differences.

"Could be worse" is still not very reassuring.

truth is in details

As a political scientist who also researches and writes history, I am more comfortable with case studies and biographies than Grand Theme works that present overarching explanations of American foreign policy or the changing balance of power. I look for truth in the details of particular events -- why the United States went to war with Spain in 1898, how Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered America into the conflict with Nazi Germany, why Harry Truman agreed to the airlift during the Berlin blockade, how we narrowly avoided nuclear war in the 1962 Cuba crisis, and so forth into recent times. My studies have also found numerous times when what presidents said was at least in part in conflict with what important elements of the government were doing, so I don't believe we can look to words alone to understand policy.

Sometimes I worry, however, that I'm missing important things by this approach. I know there may be megatrends that are more significant than the periodic oscillations of U.S. policymakers. Climate change is one such trend, along with growing inequality in America. I'm discouraged by the hyperpartisanship and dysfunction in Congress, but I reassure myself by remembering when things were better, and thus hope they can improve. To add to my concerns is this report on a conference of political scientists on this very topic -- big changes like distrust of the government and even each other. These trends are ominous, and perhaps more important than the foreign policy crises I normally follow.

Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II

There's another comparison involving German leaders and the current U.S. president that doesn't violate Godwin's Law: Trump is a lot like Kaiser Wilhelm II, who took his country into Africa, started a no-win naval race with Britain, and then gave a blank check to Austria-Hungary that pulled Europe into the disaster of World War I. Harvard's Steve Walt makes the comparison at FP today. You heard it here from me last February.