| | | | Fareed: America First Leaves America Behind | | Fareed says that the Russia sanctions bill being voted on in Congress is actually a small step, designed to ensure that President Trump doesn't weaken sanctions in place against Moscow. But he argues that Europeans leaders will be closely watching how all this unfolds – and what it says about American leadership.
"I've just come back from Europe, and I was reminded there that Europeans at this point see the way the Trump administration deals with Russia as a key test of U.S. foreign policy and whether or not America has the capacity to be a leader of the Western world in the face of Russian aggression -- whether it's cyber-attacks on the French and German elections, or Russian actions in Ukraine," Fareed says.
"That sense of uncertainty is only fueled by the fact that at the weekend you had the President's new communications director reiterating that the President still isn't sure the Russians were responsible for the election hacking.
"What's striking to me is how this uncertainty has shaken things up in Europe. You have seen French President Emmanuel Macron stand up to Vladimir Putin in a way that President Trump hasn't. We have heard the German chancellor articulating a defense of Western values in a way that the American President hasn't so far done. In short, you are seeing them come to the conclusion that nobody else is going to lead the West right now, so they are going to do their best to do so.
"Some Americans might welcome this. After all, they voted for a President who promised he would put America first. But the important thing to remember about this notion of America first is that while on the surface it might sound good -- letting other countries take the lead for a change, including in Europe -- it actually undermines American interests.
"For example, when it comes time to write up new trade deals and establish whose interests are best protected, whose industries get the best access, whose concerns and issues are paramount on the agenda, it's not going to be America's if we're not leading.
"One of the things the United States has been able to do is write a framework of rules and laws in a way that really takes care of American interests. Yes, it has also in many ways been beneficial to the world. But it has usually placed America first -- these rules have reflected American power and influence."
| | Democrats Suffering From Amnesia Over Russia: Kirchick | | The sudden hawkishness of many Democrats over Russia rings a little hollow, writes James Kirchick for Politico Magazine. They appear to have forgotten just how conciliatory their own president was as his administration persisted with its misguided attempts at resetting U.S.-Russia ties.
"This helps explain why conservatives have so much trouble taking liberal outrage about Russia seriously: Most of the people lecturing them for being 'Putin's pawns' spent the better part of the past eight years blindly supporting a Democratic president, Barack Obama, whose default mode with Moscow was fecklessness," Kirchick writes.
"From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia's violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration's Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow."
| | Kim's Missile Program More Dangerous Than Thought: Report | | North Korea's nuclear weapon program is making far bigger strides than previously thought, and the country is on track to be able to "field a reliable, nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year," a new U.S. intelligence assessment finds, according to the Washington Post.
"The new assessment by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, which shaves a full two years off the consensus forecast for North Korea's ICBM program, was prompted by recent missile tests showing surprising technical advances by the country's weapons scientists, at a pace beyond which many analysts believed was possible for the isolated communist regime," the Post says.
"The U.S. projection closely mirrors revised predictions by South Korean intelligence officials, who also have watched with growing alarm as North Korea has appeared to master key technologies needed to loft a warhead toward targets thousands of miles away." - Time for hard power. "U.S. threats, rhetoric, or incomplete sanctions," haven't worked with North Korea. The truth is, a hard power threat requires a hard power approach -- and that includes better missile defenses, argues Michael Auslin for The Hill.
"The sobering truth is that we cannot defend ourselves with any level of certainty from North Korea, let alone Russian or Chinese, missiles. Given the return of a nuclear balance of terror, with rogue actors such as North Korea now added into the mix, a major effort at missile defense may become a national priority in the 2020s, if not before."
| | For years, a diplomatically and economically isolated Iran was dependent on China's support. But it appears increasingly clear that if Beijing wants its foreign policy centerpiece "One Belt, One Road" initiative to be a success, then it now needs Tehran's support, suggests Thomas Erdbrink in the New York Times.
"For millenniums, Iran has prospered as a trading hub linking East and West. Now, that role is set to expand in coming years as China unspools its 'One Belt, One Road' project, which promises more than $1 trillion in infrastructure investment -- bridges, rails, ports and energy -- in over 60 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa. Iran, historically a crossroads, is strategically at the center of those plans," Erdbrink writes.
"Like pieces of a sprawling geopolitical puzzle, components of China's infrastructure network are being put in place. In eastern Iran, Chinese workers are busily modernizing one of the country's major rail routes, standardizing gauge sizes, improving the track bed and rebuilding bridges, with the ultimate goal of connecting Tehran to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan."
| | Saudi Arabia's Big Missed Opportunity | | Saudi Arabia's new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has tried to present himself as a modernizer, writes Jane Kinninmont for Chatham House. But while his efforts at reforming the economy and loosening some social restrictions are welcome, he is taking a big risk by not seizing the opportunity to change something else: his country's politics.
"Saudi leaders will simply say Western-style political reforms -- such as introducing an elected component to the shura council -- would be inappropriate, or would empower extremists," Kinninmont says.
"But that is precisely why Mohammed bin Salman should empower Saudis to develop more indigenous ideas for political development and reform, to provide alternatives to imported models, and indeed to extremist ones. After all, the various changes he envisages point to a future where Saudi citizens are no longer guaranteed a job, and no longer certain they can depend on the U.S. for their security, while powerful clerics and princes are no longer certain of their standing. All this is bound to disrupt the country's implicit social contract, with significant political implications." | | | | | | |
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