| | | | Nunes Memo Row Reveals America the Tribal: Sullivan | | | The release Friday of the controversial memo from the GOP and Rep. Devin Nunes is merely the latest, dangerous manifestation of how America has descended into outright political tribalism, suggests Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine. The problem with that tribalism? "[I]t knows no real limiting principle." "It triggers a deep and visceral response: a defense of the tribe before all other considerations. That means, in its modern manifestation, that the tribe comes before the country as a whole, before any neutral institutions that get in its way, before reason and empiricism, and before the rule of law. It means loyalty to the tribe — and its current chief — is enforced relentlessly. And this, it seems to me, is the underlying reason why the investigation into Russian interference in the last election is now under such attack and in such trouble. In a tribalized society, there can be no legitimacy for an independent inquiry, indifferent to tribal politics. In this fray, no one is allowed to be above it," Sullivan writes. "This is a tribal scorched-earth war, underpinned by racial and gender divides, thriving regardless of the consequences for our democratic institutions, discourse, and way of life." "Trump has reportedly told friends he thinks the document — which was written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, led by California's Devin Nunes, and criticizes the FBI's conduct in the early stages of the Russia investigation — will undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, but opinion on Trump, Mueller and Russia largely falls along partisan lines, which will make it hard to move. And where it doesn't, Trump comes out the worse. So Trump should be careful about taking any action based on the memo, like firing Mueller — at least if he wants to avoid a public backlash." Fareed will host a live panel on GPS this Sunday to discuss the release of the memo and its implications. Tune in at 10 a.m. and 1 pm. ET on CNN. | | Fareed: Trump's 3 Risky Red Lines | | President Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday might have been light on foreign policy details. But this masks a dangerous reality, Fareed argues in his latest Washington Post column. On North Korea, Iran and Pakistan, the Trump administration has laid out three red lines, "without any serious strategy as to what happens when they are crossed."
"The president has specifically promised that North Korea would never be able to develop a nuclear weapon that could reach the United States. Meanwhile, CIA Director Mike Pompeo says Pyongyang is 'a handful of months' away from having this capability," Fareed writes. "So what happens when that red line is crossed? What would be the American response?"
"Trump has done something similar with Iran. He has announced that he will withdraw from the nuclear deal if Congress and the European allies don't fix it. The Europeans have made clear that they don't think the pact needs fixing and that it is working well. In about three months, we will reach D-Day, when Trump has promised to unilaterally withdraw if he can't get a tougher deal."
"Thomas Schelling, the Nobel Prize-winning scholar of strategy, once remarked that two things are very expensive in international affairs: threats when they fail, and promises when they succeed. So, he implied, be very careful about making either one. Trump seemed to understand this when his predecessor made a threat toward Syria in 2013, and Trump tweeted: 'Red line statement was a disaster for President Obama.' Well, he has just drawn three red lines of his own, and each of them is likely to be crossed."
| | What America Is Forgetting About Nuclear Weapons | | | US lawmakers and leaders appear to be increasingly detached from the horrors of even a limited use of nuclear weapons, write Richard A. Clarke and Steve Andreasen in the Washington Post. To understand what is happening, look no further than the Nuclear Posture Review, a draft version of which had already leaked before its official release Friday. "When nuclear theory or war-gaming moved from the Pentagon to the White House during the Cold War, it was more often than not met by a skeptical president and civilian leadership, who rightly recoiled from risking nuclear catastrophe. That is not the case now," they wrote ahead of Friday's release. "Raising the profile of nuclear weapons in our defense plans comes at a time when the disastrous consequences of even limited nuclear use is becoming even more apparent. Alan Robock and his colleagues at Rutgers University — using newly updated climate models and the much greater computing power now available — have concluded that even a limited nuclear exchange (50 to 100 weapons) could create a 'mini-nuclear winter' whose effects could last two to three years and create tens of millions of deaths from starvation because of the collapse of grain crops brought on by climate change." | | The NATO-Turkey Marriage Is on the Rocks. Don't Expect Divorce | | From targeting Kurdish fighters, to cozying up to Vladimir Putin to agreeing to buy Russian anti-missile systems, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is straining ties with the United States and NATO to the breaking point, The Economist suggests. But while this marriage is troubled, it likely won't end in divorce.
NATO officials point out that "Turkey is fulfilling its commitments to the alliance, for example by guarding Kabul airport and doing nothing to hinder a NATO-EU security agreement, which it could have blocked. There is sympathy, too, for Turkey's vulnerability to terrorism and praise for the refugee burden it has borne. And even if there were a mechanism for suspending or expelling Turkey from NATO, which there is not (although its tarnished democratic credentials would prevent it joining the alliance as a new member), its geopolitical importance is as great as ever," The Economist says.
"The hope is that Mr Erdogan knows that Russia is using Turkey for its own purposes, and that it is no substitute for NATO as a long-term security partner. It is possible, too, that his post-coup paranoia will abate, although there is little sign of it. But as with many unhappy marriages, the reality is that—however fraught their relationship—Turkey and NATO have little choice but to try to make it work."
| | How Europe Is Trying to Conquer the World | | Europe is trying to conquer the world again. "Only this time, its killer app isn't steel or gunpowder," write Mark Scott and Laurens Cerulus. "It's an EU legal juggernaut aimed at imposing ever tougher privacy rules on governments and companies from San Francisco to Seoul."
"When the region's regulators roll out the changes — known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR — on May 25, it will represent the biggest overhaul of the world's privacy rules in more than 20 years," they write for Politico EU.
"The new regulations offer EU citizens sweeping new powers over how their data can be collected, used and stored, presenting global leaders outside the 28-country block with a stark choice: bring their domestic laws in line with the EU's new rules, or risk being shut out of a market of 500 million well-heeled consumers."
"For many countries, the choice is a no-brainer. Breaking commercial ties with the world's largest trading bloc is unthinkable, and failing to comply brings the risk of hefty fines…" | | | | | | |
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