Monday, July 9, 2018

Trump: Brusque, Brutal and Right on This

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Jason Miks.

July 9, 2018

Trump: Brusque, Brutal and Right on NATO

As President Trump prepares for the NATO summit this week, European leaders should keep something in mind, suggests Matthieu Borsboom for Politico EU. His demand that they spend more money on defense "was brusque and brutal. But it was also right."

"If NATO is to mean anything, Europe and the US must be partners on an equal footing. That means Europe should respond seriously to American concerns that it is not pulling its weight — whoever delivers the message," Borsboom writes.

"When I started my career in the Dutch navy four decades ago, NATO had just 15 members, and the US accounted for 50 percent of all defense spending. Now we have 29 members, but the US spends around 72 percent of NATO's total defense budget."

Right message, wrong messenger. The United States is right to expect European allies – including Germany – to pull their weight financially. The problem is the messenger, writes Elisabeth Braw for Foreign Policy.

"Although these increases are unpopular with [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel's coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the increases were going down fine with the voters. Indeed, though Germans are often described as pacifists, they do support their troops," Braw writes. "Then came Donald Trump, whom 48 percent of Germans consider to be the world leader most dangerous to world peace…"

"By berating Merkel publicly and loudly demanding more money for the Bundeswehr, the US president has strengthened the SPD and its misguided pacifist narrative, threatening to deprive the Bundeswehr's 179,000 troops of the additional funding they desperately need despite Merkel's best intentions."

Why Team Kim Spared Trump

North Korea's blasting of US denuclearization demands as reflecting a "gangster-like" mindset have grabbed the headlines in the wake of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit. But Pyongyang "went out of its way to spare one person," writes Ken Moritsugu for the Associated Press: President Trump.

"North Korea may be betting that Trump, the real estate developer-turned-president, will be more willing than his negotiators to ease off his administration's hard-line positions to make a deal," Moritsugu suggests, especially with midterm elections looming and as the President looks for political wins.

"Some analysts think North Korea is trying to drag out talks in hopes that the US will come around to accepting it as a nuclear weapons state, perhaps in a limited form that couldn't threaten the US mainland directly."

The Trouble with Trump's "Yalta Moment"

As President Trump prepares to meet with Vladimir Putin next week, speculation is growing that he might be open to making concessions on Crimea or Syria – recognizing the annexation of the former or abandoning the latter, writes Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. He shouldn't expect anything in return.

"In neither case is it clear what the United States would get in exchange for these major concessions. One version says Putin would promise to withdraw the Russian troops whose presence he denies from eastern Ukraine. Another says Putin would promise, somehow, to contain Iran, a country with which, in Syria, he is allied," Applebaum writes.

"But all these deals, just like the original Yalta agreement, have at their heart a fatal flaw: They rely on promises from a Russian leader who has never, in Syria, Ukraine or anywhere else, kept his word. In Ukraine he has continued to bankroll the 'rebels' who continue to prosecute an illegal war in the east. In Syria he has repeatedly reneged on commitments to lift sieges, allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and deescalate conflict, yet he has paid no price."

The Real Lesson of the SCOTUS Pick Isn't About the Pick

President Trump is expected to name his nominee to the Supreme Court at 9 p.m. ET. But his ultimate choice is less meaningful than the fact that he is in a position to choose a second justice at all, writes Ezra Klein for Vox.

"With Kennedy's replacement, four out of the Supreme Court's nine justices — all of whom have lifetime tenure — will have been nominated by presidents who won the White House, at least initially, despite losing the popular vote," Klein writes.

"There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. America, for all its proud democratic rhetoric, is not actually a democracy. Until and unless the country chooses to abolish the Electoral College, it will remain not-quite-a-democracy, with all the strange outcomes that entails."

Still, "[d]emographers project American politics will become even less democratic in the coming years. By 2040, 70 percent of Americans are expected to be represented by a mere 30 senators, which means 30 percent of the population will control a 70-vote supermajority in the Senate."

What to Watch This Week

The NATO summit begins Wednesday in Belgium. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg writes in the Wall Street Journal that NATO members are already stepping up to meet Trump's spending demands. "In 2014, only three allies—the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece—met the 2% target. This year, we expect that number to rise to eight, adding Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania," he writes.

President Trump is expected to begin a visit to Britain on Thursday. He'll meet with a leader, Prime Minister Theresa May, who is facing a political crisis after the resignation of two senior members of her cabinet.

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